Another War

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Thacker would normally have flirted with the nurse. She was neat in her blue uniform, a white belt accentuating her hourglass figure. Perhaps she would have expected it of him, also in uniform, pips on his shoulder, a lean strength about him that told of experience and confidence.

Today wasn’t the moment. He felt uncomfortable and hurried. He wasn’t the sort of man to turn up at an old people’s home in an army Land Rover, complete with a squad of men with rifles. Neither was he the type to rest his hand on the butt of his pistol as he invaded the too-warm foyer and asked politely to see Miss Emily Foster.

Give her her due, the nurse the nervous receptionist called acted calmly and coolly. She didn’t allow guns inside her establishment. He apologised, but said those were his orders. She told him that telephones had been in common usage for several years. He apologised again.

Then he said it was an urgent matter of national security, and she relented.

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