Garrison sat at his desk and tiredly ran his fingers through his hair. It was clearly not the first time he'd repeated the motion - his normally neatly groomed blond hair was already sticking up in places in a hedgehog-like manner. The pile of paperwork in front of him didn't seem to have declined despite having worked at it since dinner, 3 hours earlier.
The occasional creak of a floorboard in the common room upstairs and the noise of heavy boots told him that his men had decided to stay in for the night. He didn't blame them, they were still in the midst of a typical British winter, 41 Fahrenheit, grey and damp.
It had been four days since they'd returned from Belgium, a longer gap than was normal, but maybe even their bosses had realised the impossibility of conducting sabotage missions in the height of winter.
Things would be quieter around the Mansion from now on. Heavily pregnant and devastated by her American RAF husband being shot down and taken prisoner over Germany, Sapphire had returned home to Shropshire to live with her mother and elder sister. It seemed likely they would be losing her twin sister Emerald as well.
Em and Saffie... although both girls had been part of the Land Girl contingent on the Home Farm, because their aunt, Molly, was in control of the kitchen at the Mansion, the twins were as often to be found hanging around the house chatting with his men as being back in their own quarters.
He still didn't know how Actor had managed to set up an interview for Em with the Invasion Planning team. He'd been out of the country when the hush-hush meeting of big wigs had taken place down the road. Trust his conman to pick up the one woman that could make something like this happen. Not that Craig begrudged Emerald getting the chance. He hadn't got to know her well over the last couple of months, but if Actor rated her then she was probably worth taking note of. The fact that the Italian had used the opportunity of chaperoning Em to her interview to his advantage hadn't come as any surprise either, but with no mission imminent the Lieutenant had had no real reason to decline the 'suggestion'.
At least the twins' younger sister Amber seemed to be staying, the attractions of work in the nearby base hospital outweighing the needs of family. On the other hand it could have been that she wasn't ready to give up the attentions of his young tracker, Chief. Although the two tried to keep their relationship from him, Craig was well aware that Amber was sharing Chief's bed when he was away from the Mansion.
Garrison lit another cigarette and looked wryly at the pile of butts already stacked in the ashtray. He knew he was smoking way too much and that Jan would have had words with him if she'd known. He glanced at his watch, but it was probably too late to call her now. Instead he opened the next dossier and started to read.