The Last Houseparty by Peter Dickinson Read Free Book Online Page A

a wicked stepmother, threw her bare arm round his neck and kissed him vehemently. He pulled free and rose, laughing too but without great conviction. His natural flush, combined with the slight struggle, made it hard to say whether he was redder than usual. As he climbed the main stairway at the opposite end from the gallery his figure came and went, framed in the series of lancet arches that partially screened it from the body of the Great Hall. Before he had vanished out of the last one Mrs Dubigny came back, her smiling lips moving slightly as she rehearsed the syllables of the name she had been sent to learn.

III
    B y late March the desert noon already foretold the appalling heat of summer. It seemed worse in the shade of the camouflage, but that was an illusion produced by the stifling dusk, the sheer clarity of the light beyond the awnings seeming to imply more tolerable conditions. Indeed, for a few seconds after one stepped from the darkness the illusion was sustained as the sweat scorched off the skin and boosted the body’s natural refrigeration, but those who had fought through the campaigns of 1940 had learnt that the relief was not worth while.
    The two Lysanders were parked in echelon, so that their wings could overlap and reduce the camouflage area. The effect was to produce a cave of additional darkness between the fuselages, perhaps faintly cooler because of the double layer of roofing, but containing an air almost unbreathably thick with paint smell and petrol smell and sweat—or more likely urine, where an aircraftman had risked a piss in situ rather than make the theoretically compulsory trip to the reeking latrines.
    â€œSmells like the monkey house at the zoo,” drawled the taller of the two officers who had come into the edge of the shade and now stood silhouetted there, features and badges of rank quite invisible against the glare.
    â€œBeen here too long,” said the other man. “We’ll be glad to move on, sir. Look for a nice spot for us—palm trees, water to swim in, houris.”
    â€œI don’t think you get houris so far west.”
    â€œThe men will be disappointed, sir. How are you doing, Mason?”
    There was a difference between their voices, slight but definite. The senior officer spoke casually, with a near drawl. The junior used almost the same accent, but with less confidence, as though he had only recently mastered it. His question was answered by a thud and scraping from the darkness, followed by a heavy, uninterpretable grunt.
    â€œWe’re having to make do with one mechanic, sir,” said the junior officer. “My A/c Airframes got the sand-squitters. Lost a stone in eight hours. But Mason’s a first-class chap—I’d rely on him for anything. Only it takes him longer to get round. Be ready by fourteen hundred, d’you think, Mason?”
    Again the grunt came, this time probably affirmative. Peering into the cavern it was just possible to see the hindquarters of a man who was leaning into the cabin of the right-hand aircraft.
    â€œCome out of there, man, and make a proper report,” snapped the junior officer. “Good God! What have you done with your face?”
    The last words were spoken as the mechanic, after backing ponderously from the cabin, drew himself up and faced them. His head seemed to have disappeared. Only his teeth and the whites of his eyes glimmered in the dimness.
    â€œWent and tried to wipe the sweat off of my face with my oil rag,” he said hoarsely.
    â€œYou all right, Mason? I’ll be up the creek if you go sick on me too.”
    â€œSorry, sir. Just swallowed one of these bleeding flies. Stuck in my throat. Got an hour and a bit more work on her, sir.”
    â€œReady by fourteen hundred, then?”
    â€œâ€™Less I find something needs attention, sir.”
    â€œReport to me at once in the mess tent if you do.”
    â€œSir.”
    â€œCarry on then.”
    The