November 2067
Alan Stephens was used
to considering the Christmas and New Year festivities as something that didn’t
really involve him. Since he had lost his parents, and his sister and her family
had moved from Cornwall to Bradford with her husband’s job, he’d made a habit of
spending the time alone in the familiar countryside and streets of Truro.
This year would be different though. As a founder member of the newly
formed Spectrum organisation, he’d be spending Christmas on their floating HQ –
Cloudbase – surrounded by the other men and women who were beginning to settle
in and form a companionable workforce. It
was becoming second nature to think of them by their codenames and – in fact –
to consider his own name as Captain Brown.
Although he still felt
something of an outsider in a company that consisted mostly of fighter pilots,
soldiers and secret agents – most of whom were younger than him – he tried hard
to fit in and was gratified when he’d been invited to become a member of the
consortium formed by the other colour captains to buy Christmas presents for the
five beautiful Angel pilots. He had
realised this invitation wasn’t an automatic inclusion when he’d witnessed his
field partner, Captain Scarlet, almost squabbling with his great friend, Captain
Blue, over Blue’s insistence that the invitation be extended to his field partner, the dour Captain
Black, and it was a great relief to be assured by the two younger men that no
one had had any doubts about including him.
The other captains were
a friendly bunch, on the whole.
There was still a sense of rivalry between some of them – friendly, but serious
in its intensity. The worst example
of it was between Captain Scarlet – not a man to tolerate coming second – and
Captain Black – the eldest and, in his own estimation at least, senior of the
captains.
Alan sighed as he
reflected that he had known Black the longest – ever since they had both been
recruited into Spectrum when Cloudbase was being constructed – and they’d worked
together on equipment and training for the other, later recruits. Conrad Turner was not an easy man to get
to know, but once he had realised that Alan had useful expertise, he had treated
Brown with polite respect and was careful to defer to him over matters that were
his speciality.
I recognize that’s the best I’m likely to get from
Conrad, who really only seems to thaw into anything approaching friendliness
with his American field partner,
Alan mused.
The others were mostly
Americans. Only Black and Scarlet were English like him, although Doctor Fawn
was Australian. He liked Fawn and
they often spent what leisure time the doctor permitted himself in each other’s
company. Other than that, he would
play chess with Colonel White – the remaining Englishman in the senior ranks –
or spend time working on the intricate mechanisms of the antique clocks he loved
to repair.
On duty he was Captain
Scarlet’s partner. Scarlet was a
career soldier – and a very good one at that.
He had graduated from West Point, where he’d trained as part of the World Army
Air Force’s fast-track officer scheme, as top of his year; in fact, there was a
trophy in his quarters to show that he had been voted the ‘Supreme Soldier’ of
his class.
That‘s why the colonel made us partners, of course, Brown mused.
His own experience was
in the technical side of the World Army Air Force and his expertise lay in the
field of surveillance and equipment rather than field craft. Scarlet was, in effect, his ‘mentor’,
there to show him the ropes. However
galling he might have expected that to be, Scarlet never treated him as anything
less than an equal, and his advice was always given with surprising tact, for
such an impulsive and occasionally rash young man.
He closed the door of
his quarters and strolled along to the Officers’ Lounge.
He and Scarlet were due on duty in 30 minutes or so and he knew the
chances were that he’d find his partner in the Lounge with the other captains. He nodded affable acknowledgments to the
lieutenants and technicians he passed as he moved through the marvellous
airborne craft that was now his home.
Cloudbase was a technological marvel and he felt justifiably proud of his
work on the infrastructure.
The Officers’ Lounge
was more crowded than he’d expected.
Not only were most of the senior officers there, but the two off-duty Angel
Pilots as well. Scarlet saw him and beckoned him over to
where he and Blue were in conversation with Melody Angel.
“Hi, Alan,” Scarlet
said. “I tried to call you earlier, did you get
my message?”
Brown shook his head. He had noticed that the message alarm on
his intercom was activated, but as the last messages he’d received had been
about nothing more exciting than the forthcoming menus in the canteen, he hadn’t
bothered to check it. He made a
mental note to always do so in future.
“Well, you’re here, so
I don’t suppose it matters,” Scarlet continued.
“The colonel’s asked to speak to us all.”
“Something happened?”
Brown asked.
Scarlet shrugged.
“I hope so,” Melody
chimed in excitedly. “Otherwise all this work we’ve done in
anticipation of seeing some action will lead to nothing but a great
anti-climax.”
Blue gave her one of
his brilliant smiles. “My, but
you’re a blood-thirsty little lady,” he teased.
“And you’re a
patronising hulk!” she retorted, glaring up at him for what she saw as a put
down. Blue was a good foot taller than her and
would easily make two of her widthways.
He looked down at her
in alarm. “Hey, it was a joke,” he assured her.
Melody stared at him
appraisingly for a moment and then placed a slender hand on his arm. “Sorry, Captain,” she said. “I grew up with a handful of older brothers,
who all thought nothing of trying to make me feel inferior. I tend to over-react when a guy says
something like that to me – it’s instinctive.”
“Message received and
understood,” Blue said genially. “If
and when the balloon goes up, Melody, I want you on my team.”
She grinned and punched
him gently, harmony restored.
Conversation in the
Lounge ceased as the colonel entered with Captain Black beside him.
“Good afternoon, ladies
and gentlemen,” White said, glancing round.
“I am delighted to see so many of you here. Before I start, I ought to make it clear
that this isn’t an official meeting – at least, as far as operational matters
are concerned. However, I feel it is
something that will reflect well on Spectrum and I hope I will have your
support.”
“Sure you will,
Colonel,” Captain Ochre interjected, “when we know what it is you want from us,
that is,” he added, sotto voce.
“Thank you, Captain
Ochre. I will get to the point.” White moved to the wall of the Lounge,
where the deep-set portholes gave a view of the clear, blue sky and the carpet
of sun-bright, white clouds below them.
His officers settled themselves to listen to their commander; their curiosity
piqued by his opening words.
“Spectrum is a new
organisation, largely unknown by the populace of the world and destined to
remain a shadowy presence. Our remit
against international terrorism means that we must protect our individual
identities, but I want Spectrum to be recognised and trusted by the people we
seek to protect. Therefore, I have
sought permission from the World President for Spectrum to create a Charitable
Fund. This will make donations and
grants to charitable and humanitarian projects around the world.”
He glanced at his
audience and saw an almost universal nod of approval from them.
With a feeling of satisfaction, he continued:
“However, the World
President is concerned that the money should not come from the official budget –
and I agree with him. Spectrum costs
the World Government a vast amount of money and it is not for us to distribute
that resource to outside organisations, even in a good cause. Therefore, I propose to set you all a
challenge: I want you – the men and
women of the crew of Cloudbase – to raise that money. How you do it, is the challenge, but you
may not ‘moonlight’ – by which I mean work for any other organisation to earn
money – nor,” he said, with a glance at the wealthy Captain Blue and the few
other well-to-do officers, “should you merely dip into your own pockets to
contribute. I am aware that some of you would have the capacity to do
that,” he added, as he saw Ochre open his mouth to comment.
Ochre closed his mouth
and scoured the assembly from beneath his brows for any guilty-looking rich
folk.
Destiny Angel called
out a question: “How long do we have to make this fund, Colonel?”
“I thought we’d make
the first donations around Christmas time,” White replied. “So you’d better get your thinking caps
on…”
Everyone set to with a
will to find ways of raising money. There was an unspoken competition
amongst the various services and teams to raise the most. The Catering staff sold off specially
made food items and raffled off cakes, sweets and a VIP meal for two.
Two teams of
technicians started a sweepstake to see which team could strip down and rebuild
a jet engine the fastest.
“I hope the engines
they use never end up in one my planes,” Scarlet remarked to Brown, as he handed
over his stake money and took his ‘timed’ tickets from the smiling technician.
The Angels were
arranging an auction. They were
going around asking for donations of items they could sell, and Brown gave them
the reconditioned carriage clock he had just finished working on.
Captain Ochre gave them a beautifully detailed model of an Angel
Interceptor jet that he had made himself, and Captain Magenta donated one of his
small, yet powerful, pocket-sized
computers. Rather to everyone’s
surprise, Captain Black gave them a piece of moon-rock mounted on a granite
plinth, which he had collected himself when he’d been in the World Space Patrol.
All-in-all it promised to be a great success.
The colour captains
were somewhat at a loss for an idea.
They were all experts in their fields, but their fields were wide and varied.
“I can’t see anyone
wanting to win a tutorial on the shooting range with me,” Scarlet complained, as
they sat in the Lounge trying to come up with an idea.
“Or a flying lesson from you, Blue.”
“Oh, I think there’d be
enough young ladies on the base who’d take a ticket for that,” Captain Grey
remarked, with a smile.
“If it comes to that,
we could all raffle ourselves as dinner dates,” Blue agreed, with a broad grin.
“If I won the VIP meal
for two raffle, I’d be able to afford to pay for the meal, as well,” Ochre said,
mournfully.
“What do you do with
your money?” Black asked, with a shake of his head.
“You and Symphony Angel are as bad as each other; she’s always
complaining that she’s broke.”
“And how would you know that?” Ochre
demanded. “Ah, I suppose a little
blue-bird told you…” He glanced at Captain Blue and was pleased to see a flush
colour his cheeks.
“Well,” said Captain
Grey confidently, “I am going to do a sponsored swim. You guys are all going to sponsor me for
large amounts of money per length of the pool.”
“No I’m not,” Ochre
protested. “You can swim for days at a time without
stopping.”
“Ochre!” Scarlet
interjected. “You can’t refuse to participate in
everything.”
“Well, you sponsor me
and I’ll give the money to Grey…”
“What do you want
sponsoring to do?” Brown asked. It
was hard to tell when Ochre was teasing sometimes, but they were all getting
used to the mid-westerner’s abrasive humour.
Ochre shrugged.
“How about keeping your
mouth shut for the foreseeable future?” Blue suggested in an amiable tone that
contradicted his words.
“I’d
sponsor him for that,” Magenta agreed quickly.
Ochre spluttered his
outrage and everyone laughed.
The idea of being
sponsored to do something – or even not to do something – quickly took root and
the senior officers started to come up with variations on the theme. These varied considerably from Captain
Scarlet, who decided to do sponsored press-ups for an hour, to Symphony Angel
who forswore chocolate and pledged herself to lose weight. Captain Brown
thought that was rather a shame, as she had a very pleasing figure, in his
opinion, not like some of the ultra-skinny women you saw these days. He
had a strong suspicion he was not alone in his opinion either.
“What are you going to
do, Al?” Blue asked, as they sat in the canteen having lunch a few days after
the colonel’s challenge.
“I can’t think of
anything,” Brown admitted, with a rueful glance.
He placed his knife and fork neatly on his plate and sat back in his chair.
Doctor Fawn, who was
with them, looked up from his plate of spaghetti and said, “I’d have thought you
had the most obvious challenge,” he said.
“I
do?” Brown’s hand moved
automatically to his tunic pocket and he unzipped it to draw out the silver
cigarette case he kept there.
Blue ginned at Fawn. “S’obvious really,” he agreed.
Brown gave a sigh of
realisation as he saw their glances locked onto his cigarette case. “Smoking,”
he said.
“Yes,” Fawn said. “This is a perfect opportunity to give it
up.”
“I’ve tried before… it
doesn’t work.” Brown explained and he put the case back, as if to close the
topic.
“You’d have the perfect
motivation this time,” Blue said encouragingly.
“Everyone would sponsor you – even Ebenezer Ochre Scrooge – and you’d
make more than anyone, I betcha.”
“I don’t know, Adam. I have tried and couldn’t do it.”
“You know it counts
against you in your medical assessments,” Fawn said seriously. “I’ve given you formal warning that you have to
cut back and preferably stop all together.
There aren’t many smokers on the base and you’d be a great example to
them if you kicked the habit.” He paused dramatically and added, “Before you
kick the bucket.”
“What have you got to
lose?” Blue added.
Brown continued to look
doubtful and the American said, “I’ll sponsor you for… twenty a day – twenty
crisp onesers for every day you don’t smoke at all.”
“Strewth, Blue,” Fawn
muttered.
“That ought to make it
worth your while trying,” Blue urged Brown.
“Whaddya say?”
“Well… I…”
“You say, ‘it’s a deal,
Yank’,” Fawn interjected. “And to
add some scale to that monumental offer, I will sponsor you for five a day.”
Blue called Captain
Scarlet and Destiny Angel over to the table.
They had just come in together to get some lunch and they listened as Blue
explained what Brown was going to do.
“And I know you’ll both
want to sponsor him too, won’t you?” he concluded.
“Mais
oui,” Destiny exclaimed. “C’est un idée merveilleux! I
shall be happy to sponsor you,
mon cher capitaine.”
“Me too!” Scarlet said.
“Now, think how many
people you’ll be letting down if you don’t give it your best shot, Alan,” Fawn
said. “I’ll send an all-user email round,
telling people you are open to sponsorship, if you like.”
“Then everyone will
know…if I don’t make it,” Brown murmured, overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of his
companions.
“You’ll make it – we’ll
see to that,” Scarlet assured him.
Without realising it
Brown had drawn his cigarette case out of his tunic pocket.
“Good idea; give me
that,” Scarlet said. “You won’t be
needing it from now on.” He reached down and took it from Brown’s grasp.
“I wasn’t going to
start right now!”
“Yes, you are,” Blue
said, and laid a twenty note on the table.
“We’ll ignore whether you’ve had a cigarette up to now and I will give you
today’s sponsor money in advance.”
“Will you sponsor me
for that amount?” Scarlet asked, staring at the money.
“Of course not – you’re
only doing press ups and that won’t require much effort on your part.”
“Then perhaps you can
give him what you are sponsoring Symphony with?” suggested Destiny, smiling
innocently.
“Oh, I don’t think I’d
want any of that…” Scarlet said, and threw back his
head to laugh at his friend’s discomfiture.
For the rest of the day
Captain Brown was the centre of attention.
He was genuinely touched by the eagerness of his colleagues to sponsor him to
quit smoking and before long the list of committed sponsors, and the amount he
stood to make for the charity fund, was very impressive. Although he found himself missing the
sensation of having a cigarette, he was able to ride the craving, surrounded as
he was by enthusiastic supporters. But that had to stop and when he finally went
back to his quarters, the real craving set in.
He was tired and wanted
to sleep, but so restless he couldn’t settle.
He started to cough and felt the throb of a nagging headache. He finally got out of bed and went
walking through the quiet corridors to the canteen.
There, he ordered a cup
of tea and a small selection of biscuits and took them over to a table by the
wall. He sat alone, trying to conquer the
feelings of self pity that were telling him he should be allowed to smoke if he
wanted to, and that no one had the right to tell him what he should do, when
Captain Black came into the canteen.
Black saw him, and once
he had his own drink, wandered over to him.
“May I join you?” he
asked in his deep voice.
“Sure, although I’m not
going to be the best of company,” Brown growled.
Undeterred, Black sat
opposite him and stirred his tea.
After taking a long sip he said, “I heard about your sponsorship deal; I’m
impressed.”
Brown looked up,
prepared to see the cynical expression that was almost habitual on Black’s
less-than-expressive face. But, to
his surprise, he saw something akin to sympathy.
“I’m not very
impressive right now,” Brown said, alarmed to hear how whiney his voice sounded.
“It’s not easy to quit
smoking,” Black assured him. “I
think it was Mark Twain who said ‘quitting smoking is easy, I’ve done it dozens
of times’. There was a man with first-hand
knowledge, it seems to me.”
“How would you know?”
snapped Brown.
“I used to smoke.”
“You?”
Black nodded. “I still class myself as a smoker who
doesn’t smoke and not as a non-smoker and that’s after… almost a decade.”
“That’s not very
encouraging.”
“I started smoking as a
kid. I lived with relatives in the wilds of
Lancashire – there was nothing else to do.
I spent the meagre amount they gave me for the chores I did around the
place on a packet of fags and I used to walk into the countryside and smoke them
– one a day. At the time it felt like a serious act of rebellion.”
“I started in the
WAAF,” Brown confessed. He was
rather surprised that Black was prepared to share personal experiences; it
wasn’t something he did often or with any enthusiasm.
“Yes, the WAAF was
responsible for turning me from a casual smoker to a hardened one,” Black
replied. “I smoked like the proverbial chimney.”
“What made you stop?”
“I was blown up in an
airplane accident.”
“Oh.”
“I spent several months
comatose in hospitals and had numerous operations and skin grafts. It cured me of smoking.” There was a
rare glint of humour in Black’s dark eyes as he took another sip of his tea.
“It’s a bit drastic
though,” Brown replied.
“I certainly wouldn’t
recommend it.”
“I don’t want to let
people down,” Brown confessed. “But
I’d kill for a ciggie. All this was sprung on me rather unexpectedly. I didn’t have time to psyche myself up
for it.”
“No, you never do. I lay there in hospital dreaming of
taking a long drag on a fag – even now it’s hard sometimes when I smell the
smoke on you not to cadge one off you.”
“Scarlet took my ciggie
case, or I’d give you one.”
“I wouldn’t thank you
for it,” Black said coldly. “What
happened to the others you have?”
“Oh, Fawn came round to
my quarters and took them away. They
were relentless.”
“They mean well.”
“You’ll be telling me
it’s for my own good in a minute!”
“I don’t need to – you
know it is.”
“I’m going to get some
more biscuits…”
Brown stood and marched
across to the counter.
Captain Black finished
his tea and took his cup to the service hatch.
“Goodnight, Alan, and … good luck.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Brown
muttered dismissively, his mouth full of chocolate digestive biscuit.
On Doctor Fawn’s advice
everyone was very patient and cut Captain Brown a lot of slack for the next
couple of weeks. The normally genial
Alan Stephens turned into a temperamental, irritable and self-pitying stranger. Captain Scarlet, not a man to suffer
fools gladly, had to bite his tongue several times and walk away from potential
flash points, but day by day, things improved.
Every evening Captain Blue handed over another twenty note and following
his example many other people did the same, giving Brown’s confidence a boost
and the motivation to carry on.
His battle against the
Demon Nicotine became the number one topic of conversation.
Brown was simultaneously pleased and alarmed by this, but as Scarlet said
one morning over his first, and Brown’s fifth or sixth, cup of strong coffee,
“The more people who know, the less likely you are to backslide.” He grinned at
an old memory. “Someone I used to
know at university was all but stopping strangers in the street to tell them she
was giving up smoking. She said that
she was shaming herself into succeeding.
Come on, Alan, it won’t take long!”
“Easy for you to say,”
Brown grumbled, but allowed himself to be convinced.
The worst times were
after meals, and especially after the first coffee of the day.
That’s when the craving was at its height, and he desperately missed the
feel of a cigarette between his fingers, and the taste of the smoke in his
mouth. The quartermaster ordered
nicotine chewing gum and a dummy cigarette for him, but as he told Scarlet:
“It’s just not the same… it doesn’t feel the same, it doesn’t taste the same,
and I hate chewing gum. Filthy
habit.”
Recognising the onset
of another bout of short-tempered self-pity, Scarlet wisely said nothing.
“And I’m constantly
losing the bloody things.” Brown put
a hand into his pocket to find the dummy cigarette or the gum; finding neither,
he borrowed Scarlet’s biro and started twiddling it between his fingers.
He was plagued by
splitting headaches, and rather more alarmingly from his point of view, periodic
heavy pressure in his chest.
“Largely
psychosomatic,” Fawn assured him.
“Don’t forget you’ve been pouring pollutants into your lungs for years.
It’s not surprising that you’re going to feel some kind of reaction
there. Now, breathe in as far as you
can…”
The doctor measured
Brown’s chest expansion, then handed him a tube with a mouthpiece on the end. Brown eyed it dubiously. It looked like something the cleaners
would use as a vacuum cleaner attachment.
“What’s this for?”
“It’s for measuring
your lung capacity. We’ll test you
once a week, and I’ll keep a chart showing your progress.
Now, take the deepest breath you can, and blow as hard and as long as you
can into the mouthpiece. Empty your
lungs completely.”
Brown did as he was
told, blowing down the tube until he saw stars and broke into a wheezing cough. Fawn gave him a few minutes to recover,
and then made him do it again. Brown
appreciated everything that was being done to help him, he genuinely did, but he
did wonder if it was going to be worth it.
Nevertheless, he soldiered on, from
mini-crisis to mini-crisis, tormented by insomnia and a hacking cough, stomach
cramps and weight gains. Scarlet
took him down the gym every day to exercise and Grey would challenge him to
races in the pool. Even
Ochre, usually the least sympathetic of the captains to anything that smacked of
personal weakness, engaged him in conversations about the mechanism of clocks
and the pleasure to be gained from working on something and seeing it restored
to perfection, or seeing something develop from nothing thanks to one’s own
handiwork.
What couldn’t be helped
by his companions was Brown’s lack of
ability to concentrate and the resulting clumsiness that not only prevented him
from working on his clocks but had resulted in one of his favourite projects
being ruined when he dropped it.
Yet still he stuck to
his commitment.
The day before
Christmas Eve, the Angels held their charity auction and even though Captain
Brown had the pleasure of seeing his contribution bought by the colonel for a
princely sum, their total failed to knock him off the top spot on the fund
donation chart. This was
largely due to Captain Blue’s generous sponsorship, of course, but even so, Alan
felt pride in his achievement.
Once the final item had
been sold, Colonel White addressed the crowd at the auction.
“Ladies and gentlemen
of Spectrum Cloudbase, this is the final event of the charity fundraising
calendar. I am hopeful that we will have a sizeable
pot when we announce our awards to the press tomorrow. Six international charities have been
chosen by you from the list you suggested and the fund will be split equally
between them. I am happy to be
able to announce that the World President has informed me that he will match
coin for coin the amount we have raised.”
There was a hearty
cheer at this news. Once it subsided
the colonel continued:
“I would like to thank
you all for your enthusiasm and commitment to raising this money. I hope you consider it to have been a
success and that you will wish to do the same next year. I have already received several
suggestions for events that could be held during the year to raise money for the
fund, and I am giving them all due consideration.
Tomorrow, there will be a number of small gatherings throughout
Cloudbase, to celebrate Christmas. I
know that not all of us here are Christians, but all of us are part of humanity,
and whatever our own beliefs, I hope we can all participate in this festival as
a token of our unity and our commitment to ensure that there is goodwill to all mankind across this beautiful and precious planet.”
“Hear, hear!”
“S.I.G, Colonel!”
“Merry Christmas!”
More cheers followed
this speech and the crowd broke up, happy and excited at the prospect of the
reduced hours and duties that had been announced for the next day.
The senior officers
were having their party in the Amber Room, as it was essential that Angel One
remained manned. The Angels had
acquired a real tree and the room was decorated with what was probably several
miles of bunting and garlands.
The most popular decoration was undoubtedly the mistletoe and there was much
cheerful squealing and laughter as each Captain claimed his Christmas kiss from
each Angel.
Captain Brown was
starting to enjoy himself and for the first time in several weeks he wasn’t
thinking about having a cigarette.
He had a conversation with Melody, Black and Grey about cars until Rhapsody,
wearing Captain Scarlet’s radio cap, dragged Black away ‘to dance’.
There was a scuffle
when Scarlet came back from the control room with Captain Blue – who had covered
for the colonel so that the Commander-in-Chief could attend the first part of
the party – and rescued his radio cap from the young woman’s head, and when he
turned round, Melody had strolled off to inveigle Captain Blue onto the dance
floor.
Brown went to get a
drink and he was still standing there when Rhapsody came alongside to speak to
him.
“Isn’t this a great
party?” she asked, smiling up at him.
“It was so nice of the colonel to agree that we could have one. I hope it remains as much of a tradition
as the charity fund is likely to be.”
“Yes, that would be
nice,” he agreed.
Rhapsody chattered on
and it was only when he turned to smile at her that he saw that she was
inserting a cigarette into a long, black holder.
“I didn’t know you
smoked, Rhapsody,” he said in surprise.
She flushed and tried
to hide the holder. “Oh, I don’t
really,” she gasped. “Well, just the
very odd one at parties and so forth. I don’t really smoke.”
“I thought I was the
only sinner amongst the senior officers; now I discover that Black is an
ex-smoker and you still smoke!”
"I don’t! Look, let me explain, Alan. When I first started in espionage, I was
trained by a formidable lady agent – you may have heard of her? Lady Penelope Creighton Ward? She ran her own agency for a while and
when she retired, I ran it for a spell too.
Lady Penelope taught me all she knew and she gave me an invaluable tip –
a cigarette in a holder hides many things – recording devices, cameras...
tracers, even. Problem is, you have
to smoke the cigarette otherwise it looks suspicious. Now, somehow, I don't feel dressed for a
party without one..." She removed the cigarette and threw it in the bin,
slipping the holder back into her pocket.
“Please, don’t give up now – you’ve done the hard part.”
Brown sighed and
was about to answer her when Scarlet joined them.
“Alan, I meant to
give you this back earlier.” He
handed Brown his cigarette case. “I
didn’t mean to keep it for so long, but I’m afraid I forgot I had it.”
“It’s all right,
Paul; although I am glad to get it back.
It was my grandfather’s and he gave it to my father, who gave it to me. A sort of heirloom.”
Scarlet
smiled. “Well, you’ll be pleased to have it safe
again, then. Now, young lady, you
owe me a dance or two to make up for your naughtiness earlier. Pinching a captain’s official uniform is
probably a court-martial offence…”
“I found it where
you’d left it!” she exclaimed, laughing.
“And I bet you can’t remember where you left it…”
They went away
together, still talking.
Brown watched them
go. The room was emptying as people went to
get some sleep before the next duty rotas started.
He glanced down at the silver cigarette case and slid his thumb over the
smooth metal. He had missed it.
He was about to
slip it into his uniform pocket when he fumbled and it slipped to the floor. The catch opened and he saw the seven
cigarettes still inside.
He gasped and
decided to throw them into the bin with Rhapsody’s unsmoked cigarette. He picked the case up and looked up
to see Harmony Angel smiling at him.
“Happy Christmas,
Captain Brown,” she said.
“Happy Christmas,
Harmony.”
Encouraged, she
came across to talk to him and the case went back into his tunic with the
cigarettes still inside.
The week after
Christmas, things had returned to normal, and as everyone’s workloads increased,
Captain Brown felt the change keenly.
The euphoria he’d felt at having everyone’s encouragement and praise for giving
up smoking evaporated, and his friends, busy with their own problems, became
less openly supportive. They didn’t mean to be, of course, and
when he mentioned how he was doing they all looked interested enough, but it
wasn’t the same, somehow.
A few days after the
New Year, he spent a frustrating day trying to trace the hideout of a suspected
terrorist cell through the aerial surveillance and CCTV footage from the area. By the time his shift ended, he felt an
expert on every crack in the pavement and every net curtain that twitched
whenever a car drove past. He had studied the faces of the tired,
middle-aged women who carried shopping into the apartment blocks, and the young,
unemployed men lounging on the street corners ogling the young women who
sashayed past them with haughty provocation.
Now he had nothing to
do; he knew Scarlet was taking Destiny out to dinner tonight; Captains Black and
Blue - ‘the Bruise Brothers’ as Ochre had nicknamed them - were away from base
on an assignment, while the colonel was on duty and Fawn was too busy to take a
break, so he was at a real loose end.
Stiff, hungry and
depressed, he strolled through Cloudbase and out of habit, found himself at the
entrance of the rather grim ‘room’ designated for the use of the
smokers on base. Cloudbase had
not been designed to accommodate people who smoked, but he had, quite early on
in the fitting out, petitioned Colonel White into providing a ‘Smokers’ Lounge’
for those poor die-hard addicts who couldn’t stop.
White had agreed to his request, but in doing so, he had managed to make
it quite clear that he disapproved of the whole activity. The room was buried deep in the bowels of
the base, close to the outer walls and as far away from comfort as it was
possible to be. It had hard,
non-combustible benches around the walls and powerful ventilation ducts to
remove the smoke from the atmosphere.
Brown slowed as he
approached the familiar door and peered through the thick glass observation
porthole into the unappealing room.
There were, as always, one or two men in there, puffing away for dear life on
their cigarettes. As he walked away he saw his old smoking buddy, Technician Ray
Carter, approaching from the other corridor.
“Hi, Alan, happy New
Year!” Ray called. He had been
groundside for the past three months, installing security cameras at Spectrum
bases. “I wondered where you’d got to. Did you
have a good Christmas?”
“Happy New Year to you,
Ray. Yes, it was a good one up here with
everyone,” Brown said, sounding rather wistful.
“Yeah, I heard tell
there were some pretty good parties.
Trust me to miss the fun.”
Ray pushed the door to
the room open and the smell of tobacco wafted out of the Smokers’ Lounge. “Coming in for a fag? Actually, I have some new Turkish ones
I’d like your opinion on, so I hope you’ve got a light… my damned lighter’s on
the blink again. Still, you can
usually find some friendly pariah who’ll light you up.”
He paused and looked
back over his shoulder, expecting Captain Brown to take the door and follow him
in.
Brown hesitated and
then stepped forward to take the door from Ray.
“Yes, I think I have my lighter in my pocket, although I’m short of cigarettes.
I only have six or seven.”
“That’s okay, you can
share mine.”
Brown smiled and
followed Ray inside.
After all, I can always give up smoking next year, he thought as the door swung closed behind
him.
The End
Author’s notes:
‘Marizel’ is the nom de plume of two authors whose
work is already on the Spectrum HQ website, but the idea for this story
developed from a three-way conversation, and so Marizel would like to thank
Caroline Smith for her input and for beta-reading the finished text, and –
occasionally – for holding the coats of the joint authors when it came to
fisticuffs… only kidding, Colonel Chris!
We, at Marizel, wish all of you out there in
‘Anderland’ a Happy New Year; especially Chris Bishop (our revered colonel) for
whom 2011 holds the additional excitement of the website’s 10th
anniversary.
Marizel
January 2011.
"CHRISTMAS FAN FIC CHALLENGE" PAGE
Any comments? Send an E-MAIL to the SPECTRUM HEADQUARTERS site