Chapter One

Chapter One

At a quarter to six in the afternoon on a sunny day in June, I was sitting near the bar counter at Shepherds watching a man above the rim of my glass. I was certain he was going to try to pick me up. I was less certain what I was going to do about it. In looks he reminded me of Major Carter who, a few weeks ago, had embraced me while taking me home in a staff car from a regimental dance and who, upon being repulsed, had apologised: “I can’t think what came over me. And you such a nice girl, too.”

Perhaps it was his disappointment at my being “such a nice girl” which had driven him to get drunk later on that night; or perhaps he had been drunk already in the car. I had lost sight of him as soon as we had entered the vast lounge of the hotel which was our mess. But half an hour later, while sitting and talking with several of my friends, I was astonished by Major Carter’s appearance on the gallery which circled the lounge. He was naked except for underpants. Clutching the edge of the balustrade, he shouted: “I want a woman. I must have a woman!”

The two mess sergeants doing duty at the reception desk in the foyer, the mess secretary and a few other officers, among whom I saw young Dent, came running up the steps leading to the gallery and gathered round him. He was carried, struggling and shouting, to the lift.

What happened then was told me by Dent, who half an hour later joined the table where I was sitting. Dent was delighted: “We get the fellow upstairs to his room and we put him on the bed and tie his hands and feet with two lanyards. Then we keep hanging about, talking, not really looking