D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

the Long Range Desert Group, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Guy Prendergast. The prospect both excited and frightened him, for no matter how much he professed to want it, he still wasn’t at all sure that he would pass muster.

Completing his last pushup, he sprang to his feet and resumed his position in line. The Sergeant Major gave him a curt nod. “Very good, Major Thorley, now perhaps you’ll lead this march. ALL RIGHT, you gits! Squad...right turn...by the left...Quick march!”

The march lasted for two hours, and Thorley was gasping and wheezing by the time he reached the finish line among the first group to finish. Too winded to care that he’d finally come in first instead of last, he flopped onto the ground and tried to keep from passing out. All he wanted was to lie there and let the rain wash the last vestiges of mud and sweat off his face. But the Sergeant Major had other ideas.

“Get off your bloody arses, you tarts! Do you want to puke your guts out, too? On your feet, NOW!”

Everyone groaned and rose to their feet.

Brady, a rangy Irishman with a shock of carroty hair and a crooked grin, turned to Thorley and whispered, “To know him is to love him, eh what?”

Thorley smiled. In school, Corwin Brady would have been known as the class clown, always offering the witty remark or the pithy observation that had escaped everyone’s notice.

But Thorley had to admit he admired Brady, because the man had no fear. He’d done something Thorley would never have done: come right up to Thorley on the train to Sandhurst and introduced himself.

At first, Thorley felt put off. All he’d wanted was to keep to himself. But later, after he’d listened to a few of Brady’s raunchy pub stories, he realized that the only reason he’d wanted to be alone was because he was scared of what lay ahead. Brady made him laugh that fear right out of his head. Later, once they’d settled into the routine at Sandhurst, Brady proved to be a good friend and a staunch ally against Sergeant Major Bell’s never-ending tirade.

“And I think you should be the one to tell him, Brady, maybe with a bouquet of petunias.”

“Now there’s a pretty thought,” he replied with a characteristic chuckle.

After the last stragglers stumbled to the finish line, Sergeant Major Bell ordered them all to the showers and then to mess. For the third night in a row it was bangers and mash, along with limp cabbage and tea with milk. Sugar, regrettably, had been an early casualty of the war. Thorley longed for Lillian’s deft hand in the kitchen, though Brady seemed in his element.

“Cabbage is in our blood,” he said. “It’s the Irish national flower.”

“I thought it was the Shamrock.”

Brady scowled. “That’s just for the tourists. It’s the bloody cabbage.”

“You’re round the bend, Brady,” Thorley laughed. “You’ve had too much of the national drink.”

“There is that.” Brady winked and took another mouthful of cabbage. “I’ve been meanin’ to ask you something, if I may. And you can tell me to go to hell if you like, but why’s a man like you, a major no less, sweatin’ along with us subs and lieutenants? I would’ve thought you’d have done this a long while ago. Did you tell the wrong general to piss off, now?”

Thorley felt a glimmer of panic. It was one of the reasons he’d wanted to remain aloof from the others in his squad. He decided to tell as much of the truth as he could, knowing that this would be easier to recall than an outright fabrication.

“I got tired of working behind a desk, so I volunteered.”

“Spoken like a true patriot. But you can’t fool me, Thorley, you volunteered because of them, didn’t you?”

His expression must have said it all, because Brady leaned forward, his manner becoming conspiratorial. “You know what I mean. Them.... The ones who give you the looks as if to say, ‘How dare you stay here where it’s safe. Why aren’t you in uniform?’ Sound familiar?”

This was hitting far too close to home for comfort. Thorley stared into the remains of his food.

“I thought as much,” Brady said. “Well, it was familiar to me, too, boyo. Believe me, you, I know exactly what it feels like.”

Thorley looked up, intrigued. “What were you doing before this?”

“Me? I own a pub in Dublin, called the Golden Shamrock. Where do you think I got all those stories? Surely you don’t think I spent all my time there just for pleasure, do you? Business was boomin’. But more and more as the times got rougher, fewer and fewer of me regulars were comin’ in, and soon those that were began to ask me: ‘Corwin, me boy, when are you going to fight for the Green?’ They never would have said Britain, you see. That would have been too hard on an Irishman’s pride. But with so many of us spyin’ for the Jerries, the rest of us got our dander up. It’s all right for us to piss on you Brits, but that’s ‘cause your ours. It ain’t right to have the Jerries hang you out to dry, ‘cause as sure as there’s blarney in Ireland, we’d be next. So, I decided to come over and join up. And the only reason I’m here is because I went to the University of Dublin. They must have figured if I’m that smart I must be lieutenant material. What rubbish!”

Thorley grinned through a mouthful of sausage. “I never asked you what unit you’re being assigned to.”

“The Long Range Desert Group, sir!” he said snapping off a mock salute. “Holy Mother of God,