Doctor Who_ Just War - Lance Parkin [85]
All the time they had pressed themselves as close together as they could be, never wanting to lose each other. At last they had exhausted themselves mentally and physically and they fell asleep curled around one another.
They’d made a difference this morning. So much of this war had been fought at a distance. Not for centuries had generals led their troops into battle, except in stories; Reed knew that. Even in the last war, though, they had been forced to ride through the blasted wastelands and ruined towns of France. Reed had been to Granville with his family as a young man. He remembered the bullet-riddled buildings, all that levelled ground. You couldn’t see those details on aerial photographs. You couldn’t see the people picking through the wreckage. War became a comparison of casualty statistics, a list of dead men’s names.
Just one look at Wolff’s face, though, was enough to remind a soldier that they were fighting evil, hate-filled men.
Men that had to be destroyed, whatever the cost. He still didn’t agree with the Cabinet’s decision, but he understood now why it had to be made.
Reed stood straighter, becoming more formal. Roz did the same, and now they were soldiers again, not lovers.
‘Kendrick says that there’s no point us going in this morning,’
he reported. ‘There are hardly any photographs from Granville, because of the fog. Initial estimates put the dead at fifteen hundred; we know the airfield there was completely wiped out. That’s all they really need to know. It’s going to take a couple of hours to clean up Wolff’s eye. He expects us back at midday. I think he’s guilty about getting us out of bed.’
Roz raised an eyebrow. ‘He knows about us?’
‘Heavens, no. I meant that he woke us up this morning.’
Reed stepped back, releasing his hold on her. He had been caught off-guard. ‘I would never tell anyone. Your reputation is safe with me.’
She smiled. ‘George, I’m from a different civilization, one that’s more open about sex.’
He blushed at the word. ‘Well, here, we’re not. People here aren’t meant to do... what we did last night until after they’re married.’
‘Look, that wasn’t your first time, was it?’ Roz rested her hand on her hip, shifting her weight onto the other foot.
Whether she realized it or not, George found her posture more arousing than indignant.
‘N-no,’ he admitted, not wanting to think about anyone else. As Reed spoke, Roz reached into her pocket for her packet of cigarettes. She handed him one and took one for herself. Reed found his lighter and lit them.
Roz inhaled before speaking. ‘Thought not. And it wasn’t mine. We don’t need anyone else to tell us that last night was special. Some people wait until they are married, and perhaps they gain something from waiting.’ She exhaled a column of rich grey smoke. ‘I can respect that. We’ve made a different decision — I don’t regret it, I don’t think you do either. Let’s not pretend otherwise.’
‘You are right, of course. I certainly don’t regret it.’ Reed laughed nervously.
‘You’re like me, George. I can be a team player, but I guard my privacy, too. I’m not normally an intimate person.
With you, I am. I don’t know why: I usually go for older men
— or so I’ve been told — and you’re young enough to be my son. Goddess, you are almost young enough to be Cwej.
Let’s not ruin it by trying to explain why.’
‘Roz,’ Reed began, stubbing out his cigarette, ‘does this mean that I can tell Kendrick about us after all?’
Roz clearly found the prospect as daunting as he did. ‘If the subject comes up in conversation,’ she deadpanned.
George had decided. He knelt down, awkwardly. ‘Is there something wrong with your knee, George?’ Roz said. ‘It had better be your knee,’ she muttered to herself.
Reed looked up at her. She towered over him, an expression of concern on her lined face. ‘Roz, I know you told me that you would bite my nose off — after what you did to Wolff this morning, I believe that you might literally do that