The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next 1)

“You are about to rouse from your sleep, Miss Next, so I shall bid you adieu. Again: I can trust in your fortitude when the time comes?”

I didn’t have time to answer or question him further. I was woken by my early morning call. I was in my clothes from the previous evening, the light and the television still on.

19.

The Very Irrev. Joffy Next

Dearest Mum,

Life here in theDELETED BY CENSORScamp is great fun. The weather is good, the food average, the company AOK. ColonelDELETED BY CENSORSis our CO; he is a cracking fellow. I see Thurs quite often & although you told me to look after her I think she can look after herself. She won the battalion ladies’ boxing tournament. We move up toDELETED BY CENSORSnext week, I will write again when I have more news.

Your son, Anton

Letter from Anton Next sent two weeks before he died

APART FROM one other person I had the breakfast room all to myself. As fate would have it, that one other person was Colonel Phelps.

“Good morning, Corporal!” he said cheerfully as he spotted me trying to hide behind a copy of The Owl.

“Colonel.”

He sat down opposite me without asking.

“Good response to my presence here so far, y’know,” he said genially, taking some toast and waving a spoon at the waiter. “You there, sir, more coffee. We’re having the talk next Sunday; you are still coming, I trust?”

“I just might be there,” I responded, quite truthfully.

“Splendid!” he gushed. “I must confess I thought you’d stumbled off the path when we spoke on the gasbag.”

“Where is it being held?”

“A bit hush-hush, old girl. Walls have ears, careless talk, all that rot. I’ll send a car for you. Seen this?”

He showed me the front page of The Mole. It was, like all the papers, almost exclusively devoted to the upcoming offensive that everyone thought was so likely there didn’t seem even the slightest hope that it wouldn’t happen. The last major battle had been in ’75 and the memories and lessons of that particular mistake didn’t seem to have sunk in.

“More coffee I said, sir!” roared Phelps to the waiter, who had given him tea by mistake. “This new plasma rifle is going to clinch it, y’know. I’ve even thought of modifying my talk to include a request for anyone wanting a new life on the peninsula to start filing claims now. I understand from the foreign secretary’s office that we will need settlers to move in as soon as the Russians are evicted for good.”

“Don’t you understand?” I asked in an exasperated tone. “There won’t be an end. Not while we have troops on Russian soil.”

“What’s that?” murmured Phelps. “Mmm? Eh?”

He fid

dled with his hearing aid and cocked his head to one side like a parakeet. I made a noncommittal noise and left as soon as I could.

It was early; the sun had risen but it was still cold. It had rained during the night and the air was heavy with water. I put the roof of the car down in an attempt to blow away the memories of the night before, the anger that had erupted when I realized that I couldn’t forgive Landen. It was the dismay that I would always feel the same rather than the dismay over the unpleasant ending to the evening which upset me most. I was thirty-six, and apart from ten months with Filbert I had been alone for the past decade, give or take a drunken tussle or two. Another five years of this and I knew that I would be destined not to share my life with anyone.

The wind tugged at my hair as I drove rapidly along the sweeping roads. There was no traffic to speak of and the car was humming sweetly. Small pockets of fog had formed as the sun rose, and I drove through them as an airship flies through cloud. My foot rolled off the throttle as I entered the small parcels of gloom, then gently pressed down again as I burst free into the morning sun once more.

The village of Wanborough was not more than ten minutes’ drive from the Finis Hotel. I parked outside the GSD temple— once a C of E church—and turned off the engine, the silence of the country a welcome break. In the distance I could hear some farm machinery but it was barely a rhythmical hum; I had never appreciated the peace of the country until I had moved to the city. I opened the gate and entered the well-kept graveyard. I paused for a moment, then ambled at a slow respectful pace past the rows of well-tended graves. I hadn’t visited Anton’s memorial since the day I left for London, but I knew that he wouldn’t have minded. Much that we had appreciated about one another had been left unsaid. In humor, in life and in love, we had understood. When I arrived in Sebastopol to join the 3rd Wessex Tank Light Armored Brigade, Landen and Anton were already good friends. Anton was attached to the brigade as signals captain; Landen was a lieutenant. Anton had introduced us; against strict orders we had fallen in love. I had felt like a schoolgirl, sneaking around the camp for forbidden trysts. In the beginning the Crimea just seemed like a whole barrel of fun.

None of the bodies came home. It was a policy decision. But many had private memorials. Anton’s was near the end of the row, underneath the protective bough of an old yew and sandwiched between two other Crimean memorials. It was well kept up, obviously weeded regularly, and fresh flowers had recently been placed there. I stood by the unsophisticated gray limestone tablet and read the inscription. Simple and neat. His name, rank and the date of the charge. There was another stone not unlike this one sixteen hundred miles away marking his grave on the peninsula. Others hadn’t fared so well. Fourteen of my colleagues on the charge that day were still “unaccounted for.” It was military jargon for “not enough bits to identify.”

Quite suddenly I felt someone slap me on the back of my head. It wasn’t hard but enough to make me jump. I turned to find the GSD priest looking at me with a silly grin on his face.

“Wotcha, Doofus!” he bellowed.

“Hello, Joffy,” I replied, only slightly bemused. “Want me to break your nose again?”