My Dear Miss Smith
My Dear Miss Smith
by Atlanta Lea (c. 1986)
"My dear Miss Smith." said the Brigadier stiffly, "As long as you are in my employ, you are not going to tell Downing Street that their press release is a ‘crock’."
"But it is one!" said Sarah Jane.
It was a perfectly normal afternoon.
Warrant Officer Benton of UNIT walked into the middle of yet another heated altercation being conducted over his desk. "What's up?" he asked the orderly clerk.
"Lover's spat," the clerk replied sotto voce. "As usual."
"What did she do this time?" But he listened to the debate with quite as much interest as the rest of the office staff. One thing about having Miss Smith around, she livened up the office.
"The PM honestly can't think anyone's going to swallow that story," Sarah was saying. "You can't expect the whole country to be as blind as the Army, Brigadier."
"That is the story we have been ordered to put out and therefore, Miss Smith, we will do so..."
Nobody else could say that sort of thing to the Brig and get away with it. Benton was enjoying every word. When the Doctor had dropped Sarah Jane off all the way across town with no bus fare, she'd called HQ for a ride home, and had ended up talking herself into an official position with UNIT. In the two months she'd been working here she'd proved herself an extremely useful member of the team. She was sharp as a razor, very good at getting information and organising it; the Brig himself admitted that she was good even while he was deploring her unorthodox methods. He'd taken her to Geneva with him the last couple of times he'd had to go, and arranged a top-secret clearance for her. And she got away with murder, to the delight of the UNIT men.
"That makes the fourth person that's sighted this thing or something like it, Brigadier, and they're all telling pretty much the same story. What if it does turn out to be some sort of alien attack and no one's been warned?"
"And if it doesn't, and we've sparked a general panic?"
"Look, the public's got a right to know!"
"When you can convince the Ministry of that and we have something concrete to tell them I'll be happy to do so, but until that time..."
She'd been leading him a dance for two months. If it wasn't the plants on her desk it was the clothes she wore to work, both of which were pretty and thoroughly unmilitary. She never bothered with proper Army formality and seldom with proper channels. She played tennis with Lt Sullivan almost every weekend, and went out at lunch to practice her backhand against the south wall of HQ. A week ago she'd brought in a cake in honour of the Brig's birthday, with a candle shaped like a question mark on top of it.
"Forty-seven," the Brigadier had said with extreme precision.
"I know, but I didn't have that many candles. And you'd have yelled at me for creating a fire hazard," she'd said. "Aren't you going to make a wish?"
The funny part about that, Benton reflected, was that the Brig had blown out the candle and even consented to eat a piece of cake. When Lt Sullivan was worried about the long hours the Brig was putting in, it had been Sarah who bearded the lion and cajoled him into a proper meal and getting some rest.
"Look, if you could give me one good reason!" she was saying now.
"It's an order, Miss Smith. That's reason enough."
Looking at the set of two equally stubborn chins Benton was struck by a revelation so blinding as to be unbelievable. Couldn't possibly be, he told himself. Not those two.
"What can you do, arrest me?"
"It is within my power to do so."
"You and whose army?"
"If you will remember, Miss Smith, I have an army under my command," the Brigadier reminded dryly, and after a startled moment Sarah laughed.
"Touche," she acknowledged, and the answering smile that tugged at the Brig's moustache as he looked down at her made Benton change his mind. It might be impossible, but he was willing to bet himself a pint it was true.
Retiring to his office and resorting to a packet of antacid tablets for the third time so far today, the Brigadier reread the latest sighting report and tried not to think about what his saucy new employee had been arguing. One stomach-ache at a time was quite enough. She was right in that the rash of calls they'd gotten in the last thirty-six hours were all remarkably similar, but then most of the reports they got tended to fall into certain patterns. There were a limited number of designs for spaceships, apparently, or a limit on people's imaginations. Lights, ships, noises... he sighed and drew the map closer so he could study the data.
A little after five Sarah came in to deposit a typewritten page on his desk. "That ought to satisfy Downing Street," she said. "Only one word out of ten is true. We're going out to dinner, Harry and John and I. Do you want to come along?"
"John?"
"John Benton. Remember him? He's only worked for you for years. Come on! They'll buzz you if anything turns up, and this place has great steaks."
He let himself be persuaded, rather to his surprise. With the report handed over to Corporal Palmer for transmission to the Ministry, he changed out of his uniform and met his officers at a restaurant that proved to have very good steaks indeed, and a decent band. Sullivan's current girlfriend joined them there, a tall, gorgeous blonde named Gwen. It turned into quite a lively party: Gwen was a bubbly featherhead but a very good dancer, and Benton was displaying an amazing prowess on the dance floor. Sarah danced first with him and then with Sullivan; the Brigadier asked Gwen for the honour and was accepted. His advancing years hadn't dimmed his eyesight yet, or his academic appreciation of twenty-two-year-old bombshells. And it gave Benton a chance to catch up on his steak, because Sarah was dancing with Harry again.
For the next number Benton whisked Gwen out from under Sullivan's nose. The poor girl wasn't going to have a chance to eat at all.
"Well, what do you think of her, Sarah?" Sullivan asked, watching the dancers with proprietary pride.
"She's even sillier than the last one, and she's not a real blonde."
"She isn't?" said Sullivan, somewhat hurt. "How would you know?"
"Feminine intuition," Sarah said. "I’ll bet you a pound on it."
"Done," he said promptly. "But she's still pretty, isn't she?"
The Brigadier met Sarah's eyes: he had to struggle to keep a straight face, and she couldn't manage it at all. "Yes, she's pretty," Sarah conceded kindly. "Eat your steak, Harry. The Brig's going to dance this one with me."
It was news to the Brigadier, and he demurred a little. It probably wasn't proper to dance with someone under his command.
"You danced with Gwen! My feelings will be hurt," Sarah said.
He wound up capitulating, of course, and thereafter did his best to avoid Benton’s eye. "Poor old Harry!" she laughed when they got out of earshot. "One of these days he'll find one with enough brains to know a good thing when she sees one and marry him - but the rate he's going it'll take awhile."
"It might," the Brigadier agreed. There was nothing wrong with the CMO's eyesight, but his common sense was another matter. How on earth could the young idiot go for all that glitter when he had a real treasure under his nose? They were making him feel every bit of his age, these kids, though lord knows there couldn't be more than fifteen years between himself and Benton, not much more with Sullivan. But he felt like a grandfather watching Sarah tease Harry, and it put him right off his steak.
He ended up staying much later than he'd intended and taking Sarah home, since she'd come with the two younger officers. Harry was getting a ride with Gwen. "Not a bad evening," Sarah said as they drove toward her place. "At least nobody paged you in the middle of dinner. Maybe it was just another scare."
"We can hope so. Some peace and quiet might be nice for a change."
"Hey, we got through the whole evening without fighting," she pointed out.
"That's certainly a change from the usual," he said, and she laughed.
"It must be because you don't have your swagger stick with you," she teased. "I've hardly ever seen you in mufti. It makes a difference." She studied him critically, assessing the effect. "I like that coat. Navy blue looks better on you than khaki."
"Thank you, Sarah Jane," he said dryly. "But it's a bit late in my career to change services now."
He was getting too old for burning the midnight oil, he decided. He got into work ten minutes late the next morning and spent the remainder of it snapping heads off for no reason that he could put a finger on. But that afternoon proved an even more typical one for UNIT. The aliens landed. Within ten minutes of getting the report they were on the road.
Without the Doctor around, the Brigadier had no way of communicating with the creatures that walked out of a stiletto spaceship just like the ones they'd been hearing of - but their intentions looked all too clear. Facing a weapon beyond Earth's technology, he'd forgotten all about midnight oil and middle age. Beside him Benton was waiting for orders to pass on to the men surrounding the alien ship. Sullivan and his medical team were already busy with the men who'd been caught by the first blast, and Sarah Jane was behind him, craning her head to get a better view. He wished he'd left her safe at HQ. Snub-nosed and barrel-shaped, the aliens' cannons squatted on either side of the ship's entrance, each with an unhuman operator manning the platform. The hatch opened and a tall, arrogant figure strode out. Benton lined up his rifle sights.
"I will speak to your leader," the alien announced, his voice amplified by a device he held to his mouth, the words oddly accented. It was a translator of some sort, the Brigadier guessed. He signalled Benton to hold his fire.
"What do you want?" he yelled.
"I will speak to you face to face," the alien said.
"Is our artillery in place, Mr Benton?"
"Yes, sir, but that thing's got the range on us."
"Be ready to fire if I give the word."
"You're not going out there!" Sarah objected.
"We need to find out what we're up against."
"It might be a trick!"
"There is that possibility. Cover me, Benton."
"Brigadier!" she protested, but he couldn't permit himself to listen.
"Get back to the jeeps, Sarah Jane. That's an order."
He stood up and walked into the open space between him and the ship. He owed that much to another alien, his very old friend the Doctor, to at least try and talk first. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Why have you come here?"
"We have come to claim this planet in the name of the Denevan Empire," the being's metallic voice rang out. "I am Torulan, leader of the High Fleet. You will place yourself under my command."
So much for talking first, Doctor. "Absolutely out of the question," said the Brigadier crisply, loud enough for Benton to hear. "Good day, commander." He turned sharply on his heel and strode back towards his men.
He didn't see the weapon swinging his direction, but Sarah did. "Alastair!" she screamed, unaware that she'd used his name instead of his title. Disregarding orders, she ducked under Benton's arm and sprinted headlong across the clear space. He turned at the sound of her voice, with only enough time to grab her roughly and pull her down beside him as he dove for cover. The ray of the alien weapon crackled over their heads, but the distraction gave Benton enough time for three clear shots and he put them to good advantage. The alien gunman slumped over the controls, and UNIT's artillery opened fire at Benton's signal. The leader of the High Fleet went down and with a piercing whine the weapon exploded, setting off the other one in its turn. Sarah clapped her hands over her ears and the Brigadier flung a protective arm around her to shield her from the force of the blast. All around them the men were hitting the dirt as explosions rocked the ground, the chain reaction heading straight back to the ship. It went with a roar and a blinding wave of light. He kept Sarah's head tucked into his shoulder, turned away from the flash.
Then at last it was over and they could sit up, disentangling themselves. There was a great red mark on her cheek from the force of her landing and the hand she put up to brush her hair back was scraped raw. "How's that for Guy Fawkes' Day?" Sarah Jane asked with shaky flippancy.
She had scared him to death, and that was the crowning touch. He grabbed her arms to shake her until her teeth rattled; then stopped cold, stunned by the realisation that it wasn't what he really wanted to do. They stared at each other in shock, his hands still gripping her shoulders with bruising force, her lips parted a little and both of them breathing too fast.
"Sir!" Benton yelled, and he let go in a hurry, scrambling to his feet. There were a dozen things to be done to clear up the mess and he threw himself into the necessity almost thankfully. As long as he was busy mopping up he wouldn't have to face the thing that had just hit him in the head like a sledgehammer.
By late evening it was truly over, save for the paperwork.
He was sitting in his office again, staring blankly at the report in triplicate he was supposed to be writing, when the door opened and she slipped in. "Yes, Miss Smith?" he asked, maintaining the formal air with some difficulty.
"Somebody's got to make sure you get some rest," she said. "And everyone else is too chicken to say it. The reports can wait until tomorrow."
"I'm quite all right."
"Well, I'm not! I've never been so scared in my life. You might have been killed," Sarah said. "I would have hated that."
"You might have been as well, running in like that! They could have blasted you to pieces quite easily, and I wouldn't have cared much for that either." He caught himself up sharply and put on his stiffest manner. "Next time you will please oblige me by obeying orders, Miss Smith. As long as you are under my command..."
"Sir!" she saluted in saucy imitation of Benton and he saw with a stab of concern the bandage on her hand. He tried to glare convincingly.
"Go home and rest," he ordered.
But instead of obeying she came and sat on the edge of his desk, so close he could smell her faint, familiar perfume mingling with the smoky scent of gunpowder that hung about them all. "I'm going to have to throw myself at your head, aren't I?" Sarah Jane realised. "I hate dealing with gentlemen!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," the Brigadier said, but he had an idea.
"Don't you?" She was looking at him with a softer look in her hazel eyes than he'd ever seen there before. "We've both been stone blind, haven't we? Everyone else probably figured it out weeks ago."
"Sarah," he began, but she didn't give him a chance to regain his self-control.
"I suppose we'll drive each other mad," she said. "But it can't be helped. Mind you, I'm not going to give up my career, even if Sarah Jane Lethbridge-Stewart does sound terrible."
"My dear..." He cleared his throat helplessly, visions of paradise dancing before his eyes. But he was a gentleman, and he knew he had no choice in the matter. He had to do what was right. "I'm forty-seven years old, Sarah Jane. That's twenty years too old for you."
"Well, maybe ten," she conceded. "But if I don't care why should you?" She held out her hand and he found himself taking it, his fingers curving protectively around hers. He looked up at her, seeing the darkening bruise on her cheek and the faint shadows that the day's strain had left under her eyes, and seeing too all paradise in an unexpectedly tender smile.
"I'd thought you were going to end up with young Sullivan," he said.
"Who, Harry? Not a chance. Oh, we're friends, of course, we have been for ages, but he likes his girls tall and blonde and giggly." Sarah smiled down at him, her hand clasped warm in his. "How do you like your girls, Alastair?"
"Five-four and impudent," said the Brigadier.
Some time later Benton opened the door and then shut it again with tactful haste. "Never mind the phone," he told the orderly clerk. "Tell 'em the Brig's gone home for the day."
"Sir," the clerk obeyed automatically and wondered why the warrant officer was looking so smug.
"You can pack it up for the night, corporal. We'll finish this off later."
"But the reports?"
"They'll wait till tomorrow. Come on. I owe myself a pint and I'm going to go get it now."
by Atlanta Lea (c. 1986)
"My dear Miss Smith." said the Brigadier stiffly, "As long as you are in my employ, you are not going to tell Downing Street that their press release is a ‘crock’."
"But it is one!" said Sarah Jane.
It was a perfectly normal afternoon.
Warrant Officer Benton of UNIT walked into the middle of yet another heated altercation being conducted over his desk. "What's up?" he asked the orderly clerk.
"Lover's spat," the clerk replied sotto voce. "As usual."
"What did she do this time?" But he listened to the debate with quite as much interest as the rest of the office staff. One thing about having Miss Smith around, she livened up the office.
"The PM honestly can't think anyone's going to swallow that story," Sarah was saying. "You can't expect the whole country to be as blind as the Army, Brigadier."
"That is the story we have been ordered to put out and therefore, Miss Smith, we will do so..."
Nobody else could say that sort of thing to the Brig and get away with it. Benton was enjoying every word. When the Doctor had dropped Sarah Jane off all the way across town with no bus fare, she'd called HQ for a ride home, and had ended up talking herself into an official position with UNIT. In the two months she'd been working here she'd proved herself an extremely useful member of the team. She was sharp as a razor, very good at getting information and organising it; the Brig himself admitted that she was good even while he was deploring her unorthodox methods. He'd taken her to Geneva with him the last couple of times he'd had to go, and arranged a top-secret clearance for her. And she got away with murder, to the delight of the UNIT men.
"That makes the fourth person that's sighted this thing or something like it, Brigadier, and they're all telling pretty much the same story. What if it does turn out to be some sort of alien attack and no one's been warned?"
"And if it doesn't, and we've sparked a general panic?"
"Look, the public's got a right to know!"
"When you can convince the Ministry of that and we have something concrete to tell them I'll be happy to do so, but until that time..."
She'd been leading him a dance for two months. If it wasn't the plants on her desk it was the clothes she wore to work, both of which were pretty and thoroughly unmilitary. She never bothered with proper Army formality and seldom with proper channels. She played tennis with Lt Sullivan almost every weekend, and went out at lunch to practice her backhand against the south wall of HQ. A week ago she'd brought in a cake in honour of the Brig's birthday, with a candle shaped like a question mark on top of it.
"Forty-seven," the Brigadier had said with extreme precision.
"I know, but I didn't have that many candles. And you'd have yelled at me for creating a fire hazard," she'd said. "Aren't you going to make a wish?"
The funny part about that, Benton reflected, was that the Brig had blown out the candle and even consented to eat a piece of cake. When Lt Sullivan was worried about the long hours the Brig was putting in, it had been Sarah who bearded the lion and cajoled him into a proper meal and getting some rest.
"Look, if you could give me one good reason!" she was saying now.
"It's an order, Miss Smith. That's reason enough."
Looking at the set of two equally stubborn chins Benton was struck by a revelation so blinding as to be unbelievable. Couldn't possibly be, he told himself. Not those two.
"What can you do, arrest me?"
"It is within my power to do so."
"You and whose army?"
"If you will remember, Miss Smith, I have an army under my command," the Brigadier reminded dryly, and after a startled moment Sarah laughed.
"Touche," she acknowledged, and the answering smile that tugged at the Brig's moustache as he looked down at her made Benton change his mind. It might be impossible, but he was willing to bet himself a pint it was true.
Retiring to his office and resorting to a packet of antacid tablets for the third time so far today, the Brigadier reread the latest sighting report and tried not to think about what his saucy new employee had been arguing. One stomach-ache at a time was quite enough. She was right in that the rash of calls they'd gotten in the last thirty-six hours were all remarkably similar, but then most of the reports they got tended to fall into certain patterns. There were a limited number of designs for spaceships, apparently, or a limit on people's imaginations. Lights, ships, noises... he sighed and drew the map closer so he could study the data.
A little after five Sarah came in to deposit a typewritten page on his desk. "That ought to satisfy Downing Street," she said. "Only one word out of ten is true. We're going out to dinner, Harry and John and I. Do you want to come along?"
"John?"
"John Benton. Remember him? He's only worked for you for years. Come on! They'll buzz you if anything turns up, and this place has great steaks."
He let himself be persuaded, rather to his surprise. With the report handed over to Corporal Palmer for transmission to the Ministry, he changed out of his uniform and met his officers at a restaurant that proved to have very good steaks indeed, and a decent band. Sullivan's current girlfriend joined them there, a tall, gorgeous blonde named Gwen. It turned into quite a lively party: Gwen was a bubbly featherhead but a very good dancer, and Benton was displaying an amazing prowess on the dance floor. Sarah danced first with him and then with Sullivan; the Brigadier asked Gwen for the honour and was accepted. His advancing years hadn't dimmed his eyesight yet, or his academic appreciation of twenty-two-year-old bombshells. And it gave Benton a chance to catch up on his steak, because Sarah was dancing with Harry again.
For the next number Benton whisked Gwen out from under Sullivan's nose. The poor girl wasn't going to have a chance to eat at all.
"Well, what do you think of her, Sarah?" Sullivan asked, watching the dancers with proprietary pride.
"She's even sillier than the last one, and she's not a real blonde."
"She isn't?" said Sullivan, somewhat hurt. "How would you know?"
"Feminine intuition," Sarah said. "I’ll bet you a pound on it."
"Done," he said promptly. "But she's still pretty, isn't she?"
The Brigadier met Sarah's eyes: he had to struggle to keep a straight face, and she couldn't manage it at all. "Yes, she's pretty," Sarah conceded kindly. "Eat your steak, Harry. The Brig's going to dance this one with me."
It was news to the Brigadier, and he demurred a little. It probably wasn't proper to dance with someone under his command.
"You danced with Gwen! My feelings will be hurt," Sarah said.
He wound up capitulating, of course, and thereafter did his best to avoid Benton’s eye. "Poor old Harry!" she laughed when they got out of earshot. "One of these days he'll find one with enough brains to know a good thing when she sees one and marry him - but the rate he's going it'll take awhile."
"It might," the Brigadier agreed. There was nothing wrong with the CMO's eyesight, but his common sense was another matter. How on earth could the young idiot go for all that glitter when he had a real treasure under his nose? They were making him feel every bit of his age, these kids, though lord knows there couldn't be more than fifteen years between himself and Benton, not much more with Sullivan. But he felt like a grandfather watching Sarah tease Harry, and it put him right off his steak.
He ended up staying much later than he'd intended and taking Sarah home, since she'd come with the two younger officers. Harry was getting a ride with Gwen. "Not a bad evening," Sarah said as they drove toward her place. "At least nobody paged you in the middle of dinner. Maybe it was just another scare."
"We can hope so. Some peace and quiet might be nice for a change."
"Hey, we got through the whole evening without fighting," she pointed out.
"That's certainly a change from the usual," he said, and she laughed.
"It must be because you don't have your swagger stick with you," she teased. "I've hardly ever seen you in mufti. It makes a difference." She studied him critically, assessing the effect. "I like that coat. Navy blue looks better on you than khaki."
"Thank you, Sarah Jane," he said dryly. "But it's a bit late in my career to change services now."
He was getting too old for burning the midnight oil, he decided. He got into work ten minutes late the next morning and spent the remainder of it snapping heads off for no reason that he could put a finger on. But that afternoon proved an even more typical one for UNIT. The aliens landed. Within ten minutes of getting the report they were on the road.
Without the Doctor around, the Brigadier had no way of communicating with the creatures that walked out of a stiletto spaceship just like the ones they'd been hearing of - but their intentions looked all too clear. Facing a weapon beyond Earth's technology, he'd forgotten all about midnight oil and middle age. Beside him Benton was waiting for orders to pass on to the men surrounding the alien ship. Sullivan and his medical team were already busy with the men who'd been caught by the first blast, and Sarah Jane was behind him, craning her head to get a better view. He wished he'd left her safe at HQ. Snub-nosed and barrel-shaped, the aliens' cannons squatted on either side of the ship's entrance, each with an unhuman operator manning the platform. The hatch opened and a tall, arrogant figure strode out. Benton lined up his rifle sights.
"I will speak to your leader," the alien announced, his voice amplified by a device he held to his mouth, the words oddly accented. It was a translator of some sort, the Brigadier guessed. He signalled Benton to hold his fire.
"What do you want?" he yelled.
"I will speak to you face to face," the alien said.
"Is our artillery in place, Mr Benton?"
"Yes, sir, but that thing's got the range on us."
"Be ready to fire if I give the word."
"You're not going out there!" Sarah objected.
"We need to find out what we're up against."
"It might be a trick!"
"There is that possibility. Cover me, Benton."
"Brigadier!" she protested, but he couldn't permit himself to listen.
"Get back to the jeeps, Sarah Jane. That's an order."
He stood up and walked into the open space between him and the ship. He owed that much to another alien, his very old friend the Doctor, to at least try and talk first. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Why have you come here?"
"We have come to claim this planet in the name of the Denevan Empire," the being's metallic voice rang out. "I am Torulan, leader of the High Fleet. You will place yourself under my command."
So much for talking first, Doctor. "Absolutely out of the question," said the Brigadier crisply, loud enough for Benton to hear. "Good day, commander." He turned sharply on his heel and strode back towards his men.
He didn't see the weapon swinging his direction, but Sarah did. "Alastair!" she screamed, unaware that she'd used his name instead of his title. Disregarding orders, she ducked under Benton's arm and sprinted headlong across the clear space. He turned at the sound of her voice, with only enough time to grab her roughly and pull her down beside him as he dove for cover. The ray of the alien weapon crackled over their heads, but the distraction gave Benton enough time for three clear shots and he put them to good advantage. The alien gunman slumped over the controls, and UNIT's artillery opened fire at Benton's signal. The leader of the High Fleet went down and with a piercing whine the weapon exploded, setting off the other one in its turn. Sarah clapped her hands over her ears and the Brigadier flung a protective arm around her to shield her from the force of the blast. All around them the men were hitting the dirt as explosions rocked the ground, the chain reaction heading straight back to the ship. It went with a roar and a blinding wave of light. He kept Sarah's head tucked into his shoulder, turned away from the flash.
Then at last it was over and they could sit up, disentangling themselves. There was a great red mark on her cheek from the force of her landing and the hand she put up to brush her hair back was scraped raw. "How's that for Guy Fawkes' Day?" Sarah Jane asked with shaky flippancy.
She had scared him to death, and that was the crowning touch. He grabbed her arms to shake her until her teeth rattled; then stopped cold, stunned by the realisation that it wasn't what he really wanted to do. They stared at each other in shock, his hands still gripping her shoulders with bruising force, her lips parted a little and both of them breathing too fast.
"Sir!" Benton yelled, and he let go in a hurry, scrambling to his feet. There were a dozen things to be done to clear up the mess and he threw himself into the necessity almost thankfully. As long as he was busy mopping up he wouldn't have to face the thing that had just hit him in the head like a sledgehammer.
By late evening it was truly over, save for the paperwork.
He was sitting in his office again, staring blankly at the report in triplicate he was supposed to be writing, when the door opened and she slipped in. "Yes, Miss Smith?" he asked, maintaining the formal air with some difficulty.
"Somebody's got to make sure you get some rest," she said. "And everyone else is too chicken to say it. The reports can wait until tomorrow."
"I'm quite all right."
"Well, I'm not! I've never been so scared in my life. You might have been killed," Sarah said. "I would have hated that."
"You might have been as well, running in like that! They could have blasted you to pieces quite easily, and I wouldn't have cared much for that either." He caught himself up sharply and put on his stiffest manner. "Next time you will please oblige me by obeying orders, Miss Smith. As long as you are under my command..."
"Sir!" she saluted in saucy imitation of Benton and he saw with a stab of concern the bandage on her hand. He tried to glare convincingly.
"Go home and rest," he ordered.
But instead of obeying she came and sat on the edge of his desk, so close he could smell her faint, familiar perfume mingling with the smoky scent of gunpowder that hung about them all. "I'm going to have to throw myself at your head, aren't I?" Sarah Jane realised. "I hate dealing with gentlemen!"
"I don't know what you're talking about," the Brigadier said, but he had an idea.
"Don't you?" She was looking at him with a softer look in her hazel eyes than he'd ever seen there before. "We've both been stone blind, haven't we? Everyone else probably figured it out weeks ago."
"Sarah," he began, but she didn't give him a chance to regain his self-control.
"I suppose we'll drive each other mad," she said. "But it can't be helped. Mind you, I'm not going to give up my career, even if Sarah Jane Lethbridge-Stewart does sound terrible."
"My dear..." He cleared his throat helplessly, visions of paradise dancing before his eyes. But he was a gentleman, and he knew he had no choice in the matter. He had to do what was right. "I'm forty-seven years old, Sarah Jane. That's twenty years too old for you."
"Well, maybe ten," she conceded. "But if I don't care why should you?" She held out her hand and he found himself taking it, his fingers curving protectively around hers. He looked up at her, seeing the darkening bruise on her cheek and the faint shadows that the day's strain had left under her eyes, and seeing too all paradise in an unexpectedly tender smile.
"I'd thought you were going to end up with young Sullivan," he said.
"Who, Harry? Not a chance. Oh, we're friends, of course, we have been for ages, but he likes his girls tall and blonde and giggly." Sarah smiled down at him, her hand clasped warm in his. "How do you like your girls, Alastair?"
"Five-four and impudent," said the Brigadier.
Some time later Benton opened the door and then shut it again with tactful haste. "Never mind the phone," he told the orderly clerk. "Tell 'em the Brig's gone home for the day."
"Sir," the clerk obeyed automatically and wondered why the warrant officer was looking so smug.
"You can pack it up for the night, corporal. We'll finish this off later."
"But the reports?"
"They'll wait till tomorrow. Come on. I owe myself a pint and I'm going to go get it now."