5
"We've got to do something about those two!" Johnny Walker said emphatically as he and Julia Martinez, walked across from the female accommodation towards the NAAFI bar.
"You mean our two Captains?" Julia asked for confirmation.
"Yes, if we don't we are not going to enjoy the next two days..." Johnny thought for a moment, "And I just don't get it. I mean I know she's unhappy at having to be your man's host officer, but I've seen her cope with unwelcome duties before, and this just isn't like her... it's like she's had a sense of humour by-pass..."
"H'mm... almost the same with Captain Rabb, except that I don't know him that well. He's only been in post for just coming on six weeks, and he's still reading himself in. I do know that he doesn't like outside interference, so a direct intervention isn't going to go down well! What I don't understand is why the top brass are sending a Navy attorney to an army firepower demonstration!"
"Who knows how the brass hats think!?" Johnny contributed.
"That's a great help!" Julia said tartly and then, "Oh, I'm sorry, I shouldn't be taking it out on you, I'm just a bit worried about the Captain!"
Johnny gave her a sideways glance, "H'mm, you say you've only worked with him since he's been here in the UK, and that's only been a couple of weeks?"
"Yeah, that's right, why?"
"Well, if you're that worried about him in such a short space of time, he must be one hell of a boss!"
Julia grinned, "Yeah, he is..."
"But I didn't ask you to come for a drink so we could ramble on about our Captains two, but so I could listen to you talk about yourself!" Johnny replied.
"Oh..." Julia said, surprised into silence and thankful for the dusk which hid her reddened cheeks.
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Gill checked her reflection in the mirror, and frowned. Not that there was anything wrong with her appearance, in fact the source of her frown was the feeling of impatience she had with herself. The dress she wore, while sleeveless was modestly cut, with a slight scooped neckline front and back, definitely alluring without being overly provocative, with a flowing skirt that fell to mid calf. It was one of her favourite dresses, of bottle green shot silk, that shone a bronze green as she moved, and felt superbly feminine after a day in Lightweight Trouser and OG Shirt. The colour suited her down to a T, bringing out the auburn in her hair, and emphasising the hint of green of her eyes. It was a dress that she normally loved wearing.
But why had she chosen it tonight, she wasn't, most definitely wasn't, on the prowl, and while she was compelled by mess form to sit next to the Yank, she didn't even like him, and the dress, and its effect would probably be lost on him, as he seemed so hostile to her too. Her hand went to the zip at the back of her neck, as she decided to change into something else, maybe the black...
"Hell, no!" she thought savagely, "I put this on to cheer me up after a crappy day, and no damn sailor is going to make me settle for second best. No matter what he thinks!"
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Gill was sitting in her favourite chair in the ante-room, her gin and tonic untouched on the end table next to her when Colonel Mike approached her. She rose to her feet, automatically inclined her head slightly and said "Good evening Colonel."
"Good evening, Gill," and then looked pointedly sat his watch, "Your American chappie's a bit late?" the rising inflection as well as the cock of an eyebrow invited her to supply an answer as to why her guest should be late.
Gill glanced at her watch, "Yes, he is, I'm sorry Colonel, perhaps I should have walked him down, but we, I mean I, said for us to meet here."
"I'm sure you had reasons for being so unconventional, Gill, but yes... it might not have been a bad idea... make that little extra effort for a guest, don't you think?" Colonel Mike said softly
Softly spoken the words might have been but it was still a rebuke and Gill flushed under its lash, "Yes, Colonel, I should have made the effort. I have no excuse."
"Good," The Colonel smiled gently, "Recognition of a fault is halfway to correcting it. Now why don't you run along and see if you can find our guest, before the dinner gong."
"Yes, of course, Colonel."
"Oh and drop in on Tony Latham at some stage on Monday morning, Gill, I'm sure he shares my sentiments."
"Yes, Colonel," Gill said, resigned now to at least a week of extra Regimental Field Officer duty as punishment for her lapse.
Gill didn't have to look far or long for the missing visitor, Harm was only a few steps short of the ante-room, having being rescued from his wanderings about the corridors by a mess orderly, who smiled at the sight of Gill, "Evening, Ma'am, I discovered this American gentleman, he looked a bit lost..."
"Never lost," Harm grinned, "just temporarily spatially disoriented, although I will say this place is a bit bigger on the inside than it looks from the outside!"
Gill couldn't help the hastily stifled gurgle of laughter that escaped her, the Captain's grin and the whimsical nature of his words touched a chord within her, and his appearance didn't hurt either. He was wearing an immaculately tailored mid-grey two piece suit with a white shirt and a dark blue tie covered with tiny gold emblems that looked for all the world like pilots' wings. 'Of course they are!' she told herself, 'The man is a pilot, as well as a lawyer!'
Gill turned to the orderly and smiled in turn, "Thank you Groombridge, I'll look after the Captain from here!"
With a murmured, "Yes, ma'am." Gunner Groombridge faded into the background before he turned and left Gill and Harm on their own.
"Captain Rabb, I am so sorry. I should have minded my manners and arranged to call for you and walk you down. I'm afraid that we tend to forget just how much of a labyrinth this place can be for visitors."
Harm blinked, his first impressions hadn't misled him, Gill Shephard was a very attractive woman, especially in that dress. It certainly had style, and looked as if it was made of silk, it hinted at rather than exposed her figure, and the colour suited her, contrasting nicely with her hair and emphasising the colour of her eyes. Her voice was much more... musical, he supposed was the right term, now that she wasn't being so curt, so clipped, so Hollywood British and she had a rather wonderful smile, which at the moment was turned towards him.
He gave himself a mental shake, as the smile started to fade to be replaced by a questioning look. "Uh... I'm sorry," he said, feeling just slightly tongue-tied. "I do try not to be late, but I could have done with an Ariadne to help me out here."
"Yes, that should have been me. My apologies, Captain."
"Yeah... we seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot, Captain Shephard, and neither of us seem to have wanted to spend time in the other's company. It's going to be a difficult two days if all we do is snap and snarl at each other, so what say we try to make a fresh start?"
Gill looked him in the eyes, there was a faint smile on his face and... yes... almost a pleading look in his eyes, and before she could think about it, she felt her own smile spread across her face, "Yes, it will be difficult if we can't be civil. My apologies Captain Rabb, I was unreasonably hostile to you when we met, so I must take the blame for our breakdown in communication."
"Well, I guess I could have been a little less touchy?" Harm offered as his piece of the olive branch.
"You don't seriously expect me to answer that, do you?" Gill smiled.
"Sure, go ahead, after all, what are few bruised feelings among friends?"
"Are we friends?" Gill asked incredulously.
"I think we're going to be," Harm smiled.
"Yes, I think I'd like that." Gill replied, "But I also think we'd better go in, before Colonel Mike sends out a search party for both of us!"
"Colonel Mike?" Harm queried as he opened the door through which Gill had come and stood back to allow her to precede him.
"Our CO, he's dining in tonight." Gill told him.
"Tonight? He doesn't dine in every night?"
"No, of course not, he's married, so most nights he has dinner with his family." Gill looked around the ante-room, "he's over here, I'll introduce him to you."
Gill waited until the was pause in the conversation between her CO and the Quartermaster before she spoke, "Colonel?"
Colonel Mike turned, and his hawk like face split into a brief smile, "Ah Gill, good you found him!"
"Yes, Colonel," Gill mumbled, as the red rose into her cheeks, and then recovered, "Captain Harmon Rabb, may I introduce to you, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Harrington, our CO and Major Harry Tucker, Quartermaster."
Both regimental officers drew themselves up, but without going into a rigid brace, "Good evening, sir," they chorused and Colonel Mike continued, "Welcome to the Mess, and indeed to the Regiment!"
Harm returned the greeting, "Good evening Colonel, Major, thank you. I'm looking forward to enjoying my visit, and learning a bit more about your army."
"Oh, don't think you'll manage that, sir!" Colonel Mike grinned, "We Gunners like to think of ourselves as being a bit different from the common herd! Mind you" he added with his easy smile, "so does every other regiment in the army!"
Harm grinned in return at what he saw as a joke being played on a visitor. Not that he was upset, as jokes went it was very mild, and certainly not malicious. "Well, I'll do the best I can, then Colonel!"
"Good man!" Colonel Mike exclaimed, "But this is appalling, Gillian, the Captain hasn't got a drink! Get him sorted out will you, please!"
"Of course, Colonel!" Gill smiled, "Captain?" and indicated that he should walk with her.
As he accompanied her towards the bar, Harm said, "Well that was a bit formal!"
"Oh?" Gill looked up at him in surprise.
"Colonel, this and Colonel, that," he commented.
"Oh, that's just because he's the CO. He is always addressed as Colonel, whether in the Mess or in the Orderly Room. Everyone else in the Mess is usually addressed by their first names, but the Colonel is always the Colonel, and never 'sir'. You won't find that written down in QRs anywhere, it's a custom that has evolved over the years, and not all regiments, not even all Gunner regiments, have the same custom!"
"QRs?" Harm queried.
Gill gave a little gurgle of laughter, "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. Queen's Regulations For The Army," she intoned with false gravity. "The rock upon which all military discipline is founded, our sacred cow and bible all rolled into one! Now, what can I get you to drink?" she asked as they arrived at the bar.
"Oh, no allow me," Harm protested.
"Uh, I'm afraid you can't, sir," Gill said quietly and apologetically, "You're not a member of the Mess, you see."
"Oh," for a second Harm was stunned. He didn't like the idea of a woman buying him a drink, but then he reflected, 'when in Rome, speak Latin', and managed a half-smile and said to the bar tender, Gunner Miller, "Do you have a bourbon?"
"Only Jack Daniels, sir" Miller replied and waited for the tall officer's decision.
Harm nodded, it wasn't his favourite, but... "Yes, thank you. On the rocks please."
"With ice, sir?" Miller asked, the American term being wholly foreign to him.
"Uh... yes... that would be great, thank you!"
"And a G and T, slice and ice, for me please Miller."
"Yes ma'am, and ma'am have you checked the seating plan for tonight?"
"There's a seating plan?" Gill raised her eyebrows in surprise. A seating plan was not something that generally made an appearance on informal nights.
"Yes ma'am, and it might be a good idea if you gave it a butcher's"
Gill nodded, "Thank you, Miller! Captain, shall we?"
"Butcher's?" Harm asked bemusedly.
Gill smiled, "Rhyming slang, Butcher's is a Butcher's Hook – a look. In other words Miller was recommending that I check the seating plan, probably because whatever caught his eye affects me, and probably you too."
"Me? Why?"
"Because you're my guest, and we should be seated next to each other..."
By this time they had reached the easel by the doors to the dining room, on which rested a green baize covered cork board, to which was pinned the seating plan.
Gill gave it a swift perusal and pursed he lips in a soundless whistle. "Well, it certainly does affect us! You're up at the top of the table on the Colonel's right, and I'm one down on your right!"
"Is that unusual?" Harm asked.
"Umm... well... yes. It's a little difficult to explain. If you were here as a guest of the mess, then it would be natural for you to be at the Colonel's right, but I would be down somewhere towards the other end, below the salt as it were. But you're here as my guest and would normally sit with me, but because you out-rank everyone in the regiment, you have to be at the top of the table, and I as your host have to be seated with you. Does that make any sense?" she ended hopefully.
Harm smiled, and it was the first full-blown smile since he'd driven into the barracks, Gill's heart was nearly stopped by its brilliance, and she hardly heard his answer as she at last realised what Sue Marshal had been quick to see from his photograph.
"Yeah it does, kinda," Harm replied, but almost totally at sea and swamped by the intricacies of Mess etiquette.
Fortunately for them both the dining room doors opened at that moment, and a Mess waiter appeared with a hand-held, heavily engraved brass gong, which when struck with its padded beater sent a sonorous note rolling through the bar and ante-room.
"That's our signal to go in to dinner," Gill murmured as other Mess members strolled in their direction, nobody, or so it seemed to Harm making any great exertion.
"I'll just take that," Gill said removing his half consumed drink from Harm's unresisting fingers and placing both their drinks on a side table, turned back to him and said brightly, "Shall we go in?"
"No drinks at the table?" Harm asked in surprise, as some instinct prompted him to offer Gill his arm.
"No bar drinks," Gill corrected him gently, laying her hand on his forearm and smiling up at him as the entered the dining room.
Marie Westwood who had hoped for a chance to talk to the tall, good-looking American officer had her plans thwarted by his late arrival in the ante-room and then by his company being monopolised by the CO and now by that plain little mouse Shephard. She snorted in disgust when she saw them enter the dining room and muttered to herself, "What a tart!"
"Really, Marie, you shouldn't judge other people by your own low standards" an icy voice hissed in her ear.
Startled, the curvaceous brunette turned to find herself looking into the contemptuous face of Sue Marshall, who gave her the merest hint of a smile and swept on ahead, her now smiling face turned to Lieutenant Peter Micklewood, on whose arm her own hand rested.
Still reeling from the shock of having 'Barbie Doll' Marshall accost her, Marie was only rescued from her daze by the voice of Mark Underwood, one of 98 Battery's Troop Commanders, "Never mind, Mata Hari, I still love you!"
Shooting him a glance filled with loathing and dislike, Marie stalked into the dining room, leaving Underwood with a grin on his face as he watched the unpopular Lieutenant walk away.
Gill conducted Harm to his place and stood behind her chair, obviously waiting, so Harm stood too, his head turned towards her, and an eyebrow cocked inquiringly.
"We wait for everyone to take their place," she said in an undertone, "and then the Mess President – that's the Colonel tonight – will sit and that's the signal for us all to take our seats. Oh, then there'll be..." she looked around, "a short grace before the first course is served."
Almost before she had finished speaking, the Colonel arrived at the head of the table and stood for a moment until he was satisfied that everyone was present, and then he gave a nod and drew out his chair as a Mess Waiter closed the door to the dining room.
Gill prepared to sit and was pleasantly surprised when she found that Harm was holding her chair for her, sliding it under her as she sat. She thanked him with a smile, which he returned, both of them thinking that they might just have badly misjudged the other at their initial meeting.
Silence fell on the table once everyone was seated, until Colonel Mike have double checked that neither of the Chaplains were present, tapped twice with his knife on his wine glass, and lowered his head. Harm noted that all present followed his example, and then after a short pause, the Colonel said, "Almighty God, from whom all blessings flow, we, your servants, humbly thank you this day for your bounty." Finishing with an "Amen" which was chorused from all around the table.
There were advantages and disadvantages to being at the head of the table as Harm discovered, sure, they were the first to be served, but also had the longest to wait before eating as a quick glance down the table showed that it was customary to wait for all to be served before starting to eat.
This custom was obviously taken into account for by whoever was responsible for setting the menu, as the first course proved to be a watermelon and cucumber gazpacho, which was as welcome to Harm as it was unexpected. Taken slightly by surprise he leaned slightly towards Gill and asked in an undertone, "Is this a regular soup, or specially for my vegetarian prejudices?"
"Not at all," she smiled, "it's Sergeant McGowan's trademark soup for summer dinners. He serves it up at least three times a month during the summer – that is when we have a summer!" she finished with a grin.
"H'mmm... I'm guessing then that the last three weeks have been unusual?"
"Absolutely, we're just waiting for the bubble to burst!" Gill confirmed, and then picking up on his comment about three weeks, she asked, "I think from something I read that you haven't been in the UK very long?"
"No, just six weeks or so," Harm admitted, "so I'm still trying to find my feet, and" he grinned ruefully, "I was put to shame by my driver's knowledge of the UK, it's driving laws and of the British Army!"
"Oh?" Gill said, inviting him to continue.
"Well I've been so work oriented that I haven't had time to get out and about and see anything of the country apart from the road between Northolt and London," Harm confessed, "and I really must get out a bit and explore, otherwise I'm likely to end up in the dog house!"
"I'm surprised you're not already!"
"Oh?" Harm asked.
"Yes, I mean, if you're working so hard that you haven't got time to get out and about, then your family must be upset with you, at least a little bit..."
"No, no family." Harm said flatly and Gill picked up a note in his voice that told her this was not a subject of conversation in which he would indulge.
"Oh... But is your work so demanding that you really don't have time to get out and explore or just relax and enjoy yourself? Oh... I'm sorry, it's bad form to talk shop in the Mess!" Gill apologised with a further blush as she caught Colonel Mike's disapproving eye.
"Oh... well, that's going to make it kind of hard to have a conversation, as all I ever seem to do is work!" Harm grinned, "Not that I'm complaining, but it does kind of put a damper on a social evening. Which just goes to prove that I do need to get out and about more!"
"No, surely you must have some other topics of conversation than just work!" Gill protested, "How about back in the USA? Where did you live? Where did you grow up, what's it like? Have you got no family there. At all?" Gill said with unabashed curiosity.
"Well I'm a SoCal – Southern California – boy by birth and upbringing, my Mom and Step-dad live at La Jolla..."
"That's near San Diego, isn't it?" Colonel Mike interjected.
"Indeed it is, Colonel," Harm said with a note of surprise in his voice, "Do you know the area?"
"I served a couple of tours with two nine regiment, they're the Gunners who support Three Commando Brigade, and we paid a courtesy call to San Diego in the Bulwark in … oh... it must have been seventy or seventy-one. I don't remember much of the city, but where we were of course, it was choc a bloc with sailors and swarming with Marines! But a couple of us did manage to rent a car and get out of the city for a couple of days, and do a bit of exploring. If I remember correctly we spent a day on the beach at La Jolla." He pronounced it in typically British fashion, exactly as it was spelled, somehow making the area sound much less attractive than it was.
Harm grinned, "It hasn't changed that much since your day, Colonel, except that there are fewer Marines around than there used to be. A lot of them are deployed in the sandbox these days," he ended on a sombre note.
"Yes, a bad business all round, that," Colonel Mike replied enigmatically, "But go on, you were saying about growing up in California?"
"Yeah, I guess I was pretty lucky. Frank, my Step-Dad had a good enough job so that we were never hard up, the house is almost on the beach, so I was swimming and surfing almost before I could walk. Of course we don't have the diversity of weather that you have here in England, so its pretty warm all the year round but without the humidity that you sometimes get on the east coast. In fact," he chuckled, "I didn't really appreciate temperature variations until my first winter at Annapolis!"
"That's your Navy academy isn't it?" Gill asked.
"Yes... it's just about the best university in the states!" Harm bragged.
"Better than Yale or Harvard?" Gill asked with a glint of amusement in her eye.
"Damn straight!" Harm announced emphatically, bringing several pairs of eyes to bear on himself, some amused others vaguely disapproving.
"Better than West Point, too?" Gill asked just innocently enough for Harm, to realise that he was being ever so gently teased.
"Oh, West Point does well enough for soldiers..." Harm began and then remembered where he was and realised what he had been about to say, and stumbled to a halt as more pairs of eyes swivelled in his direction and the colour began to mount in his cheeks.
His blushes, however, were spared as Colonel Mike gave a crack of laughter, and threw his head back, "That's one in the eye for you young Gill!" he laughed, "Well done that man!" he smiled at Harm.
Harm felt an overwhelming sense of relief and silently vowed that he would not only thank the Colonel for his intervention, but would also apologise for his lapse in manners.
The general buzz of conversation rose again as the diners laid aside their soup spoons and Gill turned towards Harm and said, "Sir, I am so sorry... that was all my fault. If I hadn't tried to wind you up..."
"Captain Shephard, I am quite proud of my ability to make a fool out of myself, so I don't need you trying to steal any of the credit!" Harm said and then grinned disarmingly.
"Thank you sir, that's more than generous," Gill said fervently.
The rest of dinner passed without incident, both Gill and Harm making a conscious effort to steer the conversation away from contentious subjects, Gill going so far as to ask Harm to explain the intricacies of American Football, as she called it, and in return trying to explain how cricket was played.
As she had a far from perfect knowledge of the game herself, she brought forth frequent interruptions to fill in her gaps of knowledge from both the Colonel and Captain Tom Pierce, sat to her right.
Eventually Harm shook his head in dismayed confusion, "And you mean to tell me that after five days play, from eleven in the morning to about seven in the evening, they can still end up with a tie?"
"Ah, that's the trouble with you youngsters," Colonel Mike said sadly, completely forgetting for the moment that Harm outranked him, and wasn't all that much younger anyway, "You all want an instant decision, now!"
Gill was betrayed into a peal of laughter at her CO's gaffe, which drew one his 'proud eagle' glares, as she called them, in her direction, but he was quick enough to realise the absurdity of what he had just said, and graceful enough to laugh at himself for being "So damn' pretentious," as he apologised, "You must understand sir, that I'm from Yorkshire, and up there we don't really consider cricket to be a game, it's more of a religion!"
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Gill had just unzipped her dress and was preparing to step out of it when there came a familiar knock at her door, "One moment!" she called out, and hung her dress on a hangar before shrugging into her crimson silk kimono, a present from her brother David when he'd returned from his recent Far East deployment.
"OK, you can come in now," she called, and as she had expected the door opened to allow Sue Marshall to slip into her room.
"Ooh!" the blonde said mischievously as she sat on the end of Gill's bed, her feet tucked up beneath her and took in Gill's oriental splendour, "Are we expecting someone?"
"No, we are not!" Gill said with an air of resignation.
"No, of course not," Sue said mournfully and shook her head in mock despair, "Sometimes I think I'll just have to give up on you! Although I was wondering if you'd be here when I knocked, and to be honest I was half hoping you weren't!"
Gill looked at Sue with a puzzled expression on her face, "What on earth...? Where else would I be at this time of night?"
"Well, after you and that gorgeous hunk of a sailor..." Sue looked at Gill's expression, "Oh come on Gill, he is totally gorgeous!"
"Alright, he's not totally repulsive, I'll grant you that," Gill conceded.
"OK... I can just about live with that," Sue replied and then continued, "Anyway, after you and he sneaked out of the Mess, I thought you might have gone for a stroll around the gardens, or maybe were having a little nightcap in his room. After all," she looked around Gill's room rather disparagingly, "It's got to be better than this dump!"
Gill looked at her friend in exasperation, "Firstly we did not 'sneak' out of the Mess, we made our proper goodnights to the Colonel, and then I walked Captain Rabb back to his room..." she glared at Sue as the blonde raised an ironic eyebrow, "The poor man got lost on his way to the ante-room before dinner, and I had to go and find him!"
"Ah... so that's why you stuck to him like glue, all evening, was it? Nothing to do with not letting any of us other girls anywhere near him?"
"No it wasn't!" Gill snapped, and then drew a breath, "Secondly I would not go for a midnight stroll with a man I've only just met, and neither would I go to his room for a little nightcap or anything else! And thirdly, this room is not a dump! It is exactly the same as yours, except that it is a damn sight tidier!"
"Now that is just about the only truthful thing you've said to me all evening, Gillian Anne Shephard!" Sue accused her.
"Sue Marshall! You are skating on very thin ice!" Gill told her.
"But, dahling, I always skate on thin ice. If I skate on thick ice, then there's no chance of falling through and then being rescued by the man of my dreams!" Sue drawled in her parody of a Drury Lane diva's voice.
"Which man and which dream?" Gill asked acerbically.
"Oh that doesn't matter in the slightest," Sue said waving a hand in airy dismissal of irrelevant details, "As long as it's one of them!"
Gill shook her head in fond disbelief, "Honestly, Sue, if anyone who didn't know you heard the way you talk they'd think you were a raving nymphomaniac!"
"Well, maybe I am!" Sue declared roundly.
"I don't think so..." Gill chanted, "I happen to know that unless you got it together with Hamish..."
"Alexander," Sue corrected her.
"Whatever!" Gill continued, "Unless you got it together with him on Burns Night, I happen to know that you've been celibate since the Halloween party!"
"Who told you that?" Sue exploded indignantly.
"You did," Gill replied dryly.
"Oh... I was afraid of that," Sue said theatrically crestfallen, and then perked up again, "OK, back to the subject at hand... so give me the dirt, what's he like, is he still single, or married, maybe divorced?"
"Well... he said he no family to complain about all the overtime he's put in..." Gill began.
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
They had walked side by side back from the NAAFI bar to the accommodation, not holding hands, but close enough for them to occasionally bump shoulders, and stopped just outside the female barrack block, just outside the pool of light emanating from the lamp over the door, "Thanks Julia, it was a nice evening," Johnny said
"Yeah, I enjoyed it too," Julia replied, "I liked your friends too. Well, some of them anyway!"
"Yep, they're not a bad bunch of lads, and I reckon that you made more than one or two conquests there this evening!"
"What, just 'cos I beat them at pool?"
"Yeah, well about the only version we play this side of the pond is 'slop', playing nomination pool for points is pretty foreign to us."
"Well... maybe... But the next time, we could try to get on the snooker table and then they could show me just how it's done?"
"Is there going to be a next time?" Johnny queried slightly breathlessly.
"I hope so..." Julia murmured.
Johnny stood for am moment racked with indecision, "You'd better go in, " he told her, "We've an early start tomorrow. Combat kit, don't forget, and I'll pick you up for breakfast at oh six hundred."
Julia nodded, "Yeah, I guess. Goodnight, Johnny."
"Goodnight Julia," Johnny replied and stood watching until the door swung shut behind her.