18
Unseen by Harm, Gill raised an eyebrow in mild surprise, but decided to say or do nothing to discourage him, when he unconsciously placed his hand in the small of her back, guiding her through the maze of small tables as they followed the waiter to their reserved table next to the dance floor and near the band stand. Not so near, however, that the music would drown out any conversation they might hold, but near enough for Gill to suspect that Harm had either brought some subtle pressure to bear, or, and more likely in her opinion, had been compelled to pay a hefty premium on the reservation.
On reaching the table, Harm side-stepped and drew out her chair for her, "Allow me..."! he murmured, taking her wrap and draping it over his forearm while he slid the chair under her while she sat.
Gill looked up and back over her shoulder, "Thank you," she smiled.
Harm smiled back and nodded in acknowledgement of her thanks before walking around the table to take his own seat, and once more to her mild surprise at ninety degrees to her, not opposite as she had almost automatically assumed he would.
This time Harm caught her expression, "Less confrontational and a little more... intimate... without the barrier of the table between us," he explained.
Gill felt the blood rise to her cheeks, had she really been that transparent? "Of course," she replied, "I did know that... but... somehow it never occurred to me... that you... umm... that you would..."
"You never thought that a Yank could be so subtle, or so civilised?" he asked, his eyes gleaming with amusement.
"Yes... Oh! No... I didn't mean to imply... Oh! You're doing it again!" she laughingly complained as she recognised the start of Harm's grin.
"Just a little gentle payback for the 'barbarian' cracks," Harm admitted as he allowed his full smile to spread across his features.
Gill stared at him and her breath caught in her throat for a second and she gave thanks that she was already sitting; she was sure that if she had been standing, her knees would have given way. That smile! It was completely unfair, and it ought to be illegal. In fact, she mused, it probably was illegal, especially the way he was using it, as a weapon of mass distraction! Then she blushed even harder as she realised that she was staring at Harm, and that he had caught her, if the inquiring lift of his eyebrow was any indication.
With a mumbled "Oops, sorry!" Gill dropped her eyes and gratefully grabbed the menu.
Harm continued to look at her for a few seconds more. What was wrong with Gill tonight? He wondered. She seemed to be drifting away somewhere else from time to time, and her apology seemed to indicate that she was conscious of it too! With a gentle shake of his head, and hoping that she would soon recover from her fit of abstraction, he followed her example and picked up his menu.
It was evident though as they started their meal that Gill was feeling ill-at-ease, and Harm assuming that somehow or other that he was at fault did his best to make her comfortable again. Gill for her part, knowing that it was her own fault that she had made a fool of herself forced down her feeling of discomfort and responded as bet as she could to Harm's attempts to lighten the mood.
Their joint efforts had such an effect that the slightly strained atmosphere that had developed before they ordered dissipated during dinner, and by the the time they had finished eating they were back on terms that allowed them to laugh easily at each others jokes, and the more humorous aspects of the anecdotes they swapped concerning their military experiences. One result of these tales was the hardening of Harm's long-held conviction that despite different uniforms, different protocols and different ideologies even, that essentially all militaries were the same. A further result was that once their empty plates had been cleared away at the end of the meal and they had spent a further few minutes in talking, Harm took advantage of a natural break in the flow of the conversation to say, "I think I mentioned dancing, when I set this date up."
"I believe you did!" Gill agreed with a smile, "Although I'm not quite sure how to dance to this..."
'This' was a medley of soft jazz tunes from the repertoires of Dan Barrett, Wynston Marsalis, Al Jarreau and, of course, Grover Washington Junior.
Harm smiled as he stood and extended a hand to Gill, "Just follow my lead?" he suggested.
Gill smiled. "Well, it couldn't hurt, I suppose..." laid her hand in his and allowed him to lead her to the dance floor.
Their first few steps together were awkward, not out of rhythm, but not quite in sync with each other. Both however enjoyed dancing and were accustomed to dancing with different partners, Gill perhaps more so than Harm, so in less than a minute they were moving comfortably to the soft romantic music, allowing them to submerge themselves in its rhythm and melody. They started out dancing quite formally, Harm with one hand holding Gill's while his other hand rested on her waist and Gill's free hand rested lightly on his upper arm.
And what an arm, she thought. He'd told her he was now an attorney, a lawyer, that he now flew a desk instead of a Tomcat, but she could felt the muscles of his upper arm, even through his jacket and shirt. Desk-jockey he might be now, but he must still work out regularly, she told herself, not realising that muscle she felt was the legacy of a fighting fit man, able to cope with the bodily stresses and strains inflicted by nine-G turns and strong enough to be able to physically fly combat manoeuvres in a high speed aircraft that fully loaded weighed nearly thirty tons.
Harm, for his part was pleasantly surprised by the firmness of the muscles under his hands. He had seen that Gill had a figure that could be described as athletic, and of course as a military officer she kept herself fit, but the muscles that glided beneath her skin as they danced betrayed not an ounce of fat covering them.
All too soon it seemed to Harm that the band leader was announcing the last number of the evening. Harm roused himself from the comfortable cocoon in which he had submerged himself and blinked, exclaiming, "What? Already?" only to have Gill smile up at him.
"I don't whether that's a compliment or if I should feel insulted!" she said. "We've been dancing for well over an hour! Didn't you realise?"
"No... no I didn't..." Harm confessed as he stood back from Gill, but still holding her hands, "But why should you feel insulted?"
"Because," she grinned, relishing the opportunity to pay him back for his pre-dinner teasing, "It was quite obvious that while we were dancing – and very good you are at it too – you were somewhere else!"
As he led Gill back to their table Harm shook his head in dismay that she could have felt that. True he had lost all sense of time while they were on the dance-floor, but he had been intensely conscious of her body in his arms and her closeness, particularly as during the dance their hold had become much less formal. Gill's hands had slipped up his arms until they were almost resting on Ham's shoulders and both his hands had come to rest on her waist, slowly drawing them closer until their bodies were almost touching. And he had also been supremely conscious that it was Gill, and not anyone else with whom he was dancing, and whom he was holding so closely.
"Ah... not so..." he defended himself against Gill's accusation, "I admit, I was a little lost in the music and I lost track of the time – I'm good at doing that!" he grinned self-consciously, " but I knew where I was, and most importantly I knew with whom I was!"
"Oh... well, if that's the case, you're forgiven!" Gill smiled as she turned her back to Harm who, her wrap held in his hands, was waiting for her to do just that.
As she turned the light fell fully on her face and Harm saw once again the laughter in her eyes, and knew that he had fallen for one of her teases – again! But somehow he didn't mind.
A summer evening it might have been, but the contrast between the warmth of the club and the night air was enough to make Gill give a little shiver, and with an apologetic, "You don't mind do you?" she slipped under Harm's arm and snuggled in close to him.
"Mind?" Harm echoed when he realised what she was doing, "Not a bit! But are you sure you don't want to borrow my jacket?"
"Not if we can get a cab in the few minutes!" Gill laughed. This was Oxford Street after all, and a Friday evening and there seemed to be a non-stop flow of the famous London Taxis streaming past. The trick was, Harm was beginning to realise, was to spot one with its 'For Hire' sign lit up.
Fortunately for the visitor to London, the city's cabbies have sharp eyes, and no sooner had Harm signalled than one taxi pulled out of the stream and drew up at the kerb.
"Where to?" the driver asked.
"RAF Northolt via Ordnance Hill, Saint John's Wood!" Harm said.
The cabby sucked his teeth for a second before he nodded, "Alright, squire, get in!"
Harm lifted his eyebrows and silently mouthed 'Squire?' at Gill, but nevertheless he and Gill climbed gratefully into the back of the cab and Harm settled back against the squabs, but Gill to his surprise lifted his arm and draped it over her shoulder again, almost burrowing into his side as she rested her head in the hollow of his shoulder. Nothing loath, Harm let her arrange matters to her satisfaction and sat back with a smug smile on his face.
The ten minute drive to Ordnance Hill passed almost too quickly for Harm's liking, and he nearly grunted in annoyance when the taxi pulled up outside the anonymous building that housed The King's Troop Officers' Mess. "We're here," he said softly to Gill, who seemed to have fallen into a light doze.
"Ohhh..." Gill sighed and disentangling herself she sat upright, "Then thank you, Harm for a delightful evening... It' been a long time since I danced with anyone who didn't macerate my toes!"
"I'll have to try harder, next time!" Harm quipped.
"Oh... you think I might go out on a date with you again?" Gill smiled.
This time Harm wasn't about to let himself be taken in. "If you really knew what I'm thinking right now, you wouldn't dare come out with me again! He told her in mock ferocious accents, "but as I have no intention of telling you, I'm hoping you will!"
Gill chuckled again and opened the cab door, "Alright, I'll consider it... what are you doing?" she asked as Harm also got out of the taxi.
"Seeing you to your door, of course!" Harm answered in surprise.
They walked the few steps to the door and Harm waited while Gill salvaged her keys from the bottom of her handbag, "Uh... about that next date..." he said tentatively.
"Yes?" Gill asked cautiously, she already had a healthy respect for Harm's sense of humour.
"Would Sunday be too soon?" he asked.
"I don't know..." Gill said doubtfully, "It's a work night. And I like to get an early night..."
"Oh, no, I was thinking of a lunch date," Harm interjected.
Gill tilted her head to one side, "Oh, where?"
"Well my driver cum yeoman keeps putting me to shame with her knowledge of the country, but she assures me that a walk along the river at Oxford will lead to some traditional pubs where a Sunday lunch can be had."
"That's true!" Gill remarked, "How do you propose we get there?"
"Ah... leave that to me!" Harm assured her. "What say I pick you up at eleven hundred? I understand it's about an hour's drive to Oxford."
"OK, eleven on Sunday," once again Gill's face creased in a grin, "It's a date!" and with that she stood on tip toe, and placing her hand on Harm's shoulder for balance, she leaned in and kissed him gently, just to the side of his mouth, and then before he could react, she said a cheerful, "Goodnight, Harm!" and whisked away into the darkness of the doorway.
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Julia looked doubtfully at the detached red-brick house that stood behind a waist-high box hedge. The path leading from the wrought iron gate to the font door was bordered by neatly tended flower beds, now ablaze with the summer's flowers and behind them was neatly mown lawn. It didn't seem to match Johnny's description of a ramshackle sort of place out in the sticks. Well, out in the sticks was almost right, if by that he meant the country, the house was on the outskirts of the village, but it was definitely not ramshackle. Still the address was right and the gold Trooper was parked a couple of yards down the street from the gate.
Julia climbed out of the car, another rental. But a Vauxhall Corsa this time. Her choice of rental vehicles was primarily dictated by the health of her bank balance; the smaller the car, the less the rental cost. But she was also beginning to develop a fondness for these small cars, sub-compacts they'd be called back home. Rescuing her sea-bag from the back seat, she looped it over her shoulder and opening the gate, she walked up the path towards the door which was thrown open before she reached it.
"Oh Julia, Hi! You made it!" Zoe Walker cried cheerfully as she stepped out into the evening, "here give me that and come on in! Tim's not here yet, but he called to let us know he was on the way"
Julia let out a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding, "This is the ramshackle sort of place that Johnny told me about?" she queried.
"Oh! He would! But for the Lord's sake, don't ever tell Ma he said that!" Zoe chuckled as she ushered Julia into the hall.
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Harm nearly gave the Duty Petty Officer a heart attack when he strolled unheralded and in a casual button down shirt and light grey slacks into the bull pen mid-way through Saturday morning, catching the unfortunate young woman at her desk with her nose buried in some sort of glossy celebrity gossip magazine and a mug of coffee steaming gently by her elbow.
The coffee nearly went flying when she lifted her head to see who had opened the door and she leaped to her feet, her face a picture of confusion. "Sir!" she gasped.
"At ease, Legalman Three!" Harm commanded, "All quiet?"
"Yes, sir!"
Harm nodded approvingly, "Good. Who's Duty Attorney for the day?"
"Lieutenant Markham, sir!" Legalman Three Sammi Dixon replied.
"And you've got his on-call number, just in case?"
"Yes, sir!" It sounded as if there was an unspoken 'of course' on the end of the phrase and Harm smothered a temptation to grin.
There had only been one case so far on a weekend that had had to be fielded by the Duty Petty Officer and handed over to the Duty Attorney, but both duties had a comprehensive set of orders, heavily based on the orders pertaining to Falls Church, laying down strictly to be followed instructions in case of need. One of those instructions was that the Duty Attorney kept the Duty Petty Officer informed of his or her location at all times.
"Good," Harm repeated, "Now... I've got a couple of things to attend to in my office, so... if there's another mug of coffee on the pot, I'd appreciate it, otherwise forget I'm here."
"Sir, yes, sir!"
Harm disappeared into his office, pausing at Martinez' desk on his way through the outer office to retrieve the Yellow Pages from its place of concealment in the bottom drawer.
Five minutes later, after a cautious knock at the door heralded Dixon's arrival with his coffee, he found the number he was looking for.
"Good morning, my name's Harmon Rabb. I rented a car from you last weekend... well, I'd like to rent another today until Monday morning. A Ford Mondeo, the same as I had last week, if possible?"
Harm listened to the crisp business-like reply from the young woman on the other end of the line. "Yeah, you should have all my details and a copy of my licence, my admin assistant faxed them to you last week? You have? Good. And I'd like to make the same arrangements for delivery and collection of the vehicle. Yes, I realise there's a premium to pay on the rental."
Once again he paused to listen to the reply.
"Yes, that's fine, any time after fourteen hundred to... uh... two pee em this afternoon, and collect any time on Monday morning from the guard room at RAF Northolt. Right, my card details are..."
Harm put the phone back on the cradle a satisfied smile on his face. 'Admin assistants, huh, who needs 'em?' he asked himself and then answered back, 'Not on a Saturday morning perhaps, but definitely during duty hours; could you imagine spending that much time on a personal matter in the middle of a busy day...? and speaking of the time he'd taken, Julia Martinez could probably have accomplished the job in half the time, and Jen would have done it without batting an eyelid. Well, she would have back in Falls Church, and she will do here, once she's got properly settled!' he decided.
'And what's more,' he chided himself, 'the job was still only half-done.' Leaning down, he fired up his PC and waited for the screen to spring into life, he started the internet and typed 'Riverside Pubs Oxford' into the search engine.
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Harm hadn't been the only member of his staff to use a computer this morning. Frustrated by the lack of a DSL in the her quarters, Jen has asked at the Guard Room if there were any internet café's in the area, to be told by a smiling young RAF SP Corporal that there were computers available free to the public in the the town's library.
"It about a fifteen minute walk into the town centre," he'd said, "and there's little green and black signs on posts that direct you to the various places. The library's bound to be on those, and if not, I'm pretty sure anybody will be able to direct you!"
Now, nearly three hours later, her research having paid off, Jen sat sipping a cup of surprisingly good coffee in a little coffee shop in the centre of Stanmore. She had looked up properties to rent in the area, and armed with her notebook she had caught the bus from Northolt into London and then the tube from Bond Street Station out to Stanmore. The bus had taken a little under an hour, but she guessed that in peak traffic times the journey would be substantially longer, less pleasant and far more crowded than on a Saturday mid-morning. The tube out to Stanmore had also been almost empty and had taken just over half an hour. Jen had followed her nose from the tube station and found that it was less than half a mile from the centre of the town. And the four properties she had highlighted were all clustered within a few minutes walk of the the town centre which surprised her with the facilities and services available: a large superstore, local shops, banks, dry cleaners, restaurants, coffee shops, a laundromat, coffee shops, pubs and take-aways even a Subway Sandwiches bar. And all within a five minute walk of her number one choice of properties, a two-bedroom flat in a purpose-built three storey block on Church Road.
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
Harm's journey into London and back had been by tube and had taken nearly an hour each way, including the ten minute walk at each end of the journey between the RAF station and the tube, and between Bond Street station and the embassy, and of course the mirror of that journey for his return.
He stopped at the Guard Room to inform the SPs that he was expecting a rental to be delivered and gave them his cell number, and satisfied that he had done all he could for the day, he strolled back to his house – he couldn't quite get used to the idea of it being a home, yet – and the long postponed domestic chores that awaited him.
Once the chores were completed and the 'phone call from the Guard Room had told him that the rental car had arrived, Saturday afternoon and evening had never seemed so slow for Harm, until idly flicking through the TV channels. (he'd justified the purchase of the flat-screen set on the grounds that Mattie would need it when she came across from the States, and it was on special offer when he bought it, so it would have been dumb to wait until Mattie arrived and then have to pay full price for a set), he found that there was a re-run of 'Top Gun' being shown.
Although not one of his favourite films, he derived a great deal of enjoyment from watching it and anticipating the various technical screw ups that had been made in the interests of the story, so with the help of a plate of cheese sandwiches and a couple bottles of beer it eventually became late enough for Harm to be able to justify heading for bathroom and then bedroom. The remains of his supper cleared away, it was a scant twenty minutes later that he turned the light out and settled himself for sleep.
xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
By zero nine-thirty hours on Sunday, Harm was up, and had showered and then shaved with extreme care and had applied just a touch of his favourite light cologne and had dressed in a pair of jeans with a white T-shirt over which he wore an opened blue denim shirt and a pair of well worn and comfortable, stout leather shoes. He'd hastily breakfasted off a couple of slices of toast and a pot of coffee, grinning as he thought of what Mattie would have to say about that. The teenager always seemed to throw herself into her chair at the meal table with a cry of "I'm starving!" and then proceed to demolish anything and everything that came within the gravitational pull of her plate. Especially if there were pancakes, maple syrup, eggs and bacon anywhere within reach. She had more than once, despite his disapproval of her talking with her mouth full, explained while devouring the contents of her plate that breakfast was the most important meal of the day and shouldn't be skimped. A growing teenager she declared needed as much breakfast as she could get, and a couple of slices of toast or a bowl of oatmeal just didn't cut it!
Or, at least, she used to when they lived in the old converted warehouse, before the crash, and she would, he told himself fiercely be doing exactly the same here in England, in the not too distant future, and without that damned wheelchair, too!
Harm kept an eye on the clock and promptly at ten fifteen hours he locked the front door behind him and walked the few steps to the kerb where the Mondeo was waiting for him. Carefully adjusting mirrors and seat for maximum comfort and safety he finally turned the key in the ignition and selected first gear and still somewhat tentatively moved off in the direction of the main gate.
Five minutes later and on the main road to London, Harm felt himself relax as he adjusted once more to driving a stick shift car on the wrong side of the road, and so it was with increasing confidence.
He followed the SatNav instructions to the letter and forty two minutes later guided the Ford to a stop at the kerbside a few yards from the Mess door.
He climbed the steps and was just about to press the bell, when a cheerful voice from behind him said, "Hello, can we help you?"
Harm turned to fond himself the subject of scrutiny by two pairs of eyes both belonging to younger men in their mid-to-late twenties with short cut hair, dressed in sweatshirts, jogging pants and sneakers, both with a towel draped around their necks, both carrying squash racquets and both still sweating after their game.
"Uh... Harmon Rabb," he kept the introduction simple, "I'm here for Gill Shephard..."
"Ah.. you must be Gill's Ya... er... American sailor! Peter Dawson, sir, and this is Mike Charteris. Pleased to meet you sir!"
"Gentlemen," Harm nodded recognition of their informal introduction, but a crease between his brows indicated that he wasn't too happy of the description by which he was apparently becoming known. But tact and diplomacy dictated that he be civil, "Ah, Gill's mentioned me, has she?"
"Oh, no sir!" Peter Dawson replied, halfway between shock and amusement, "Trying to get information out of Gill is worse, far worse, than trying to get blood out of a stone! And I'm sorry if I gave you that impression. No, the leak is Sue Marshall, I'm afraid. We were together at Sandhurst and then on our YOs' course!"
"Ah... yes... Sue... I think I will kill her, after all!" Harm muttered, "or turn her over to Gill!" he added as an afterthought.
The two British officers grinned at his patently insincere threat, and Dawson said, "Step inside, sir, while we get someone to dig Gill out of her bunker. I'm afraid that wearing jeans you can't use any of the public rooms in the Mess, but I'm sure no-one will mind you waiting in the library. After all, we can't just leave you standing on the doorstep!"
Once again Harm was conducted into the book-lined room and after he had declined the offer of a cup of coffee, he was left alone while his escorts disappeared presumably in search of Gill or for someone to alert her to his arrival. He hadn't quite decided whether to resume his interrupted perusal of the hunting scenes that decorated the wall when the door opened behind him, turning he found himself facing a smiling pair of eyes that belonged to a Gill dressed in a pair of light khaki chinos and a white blouse, carrying a dark blue sweater over on forearm.
"You are being tiresomely punctual!" she grumbled with a mock pout, but then grinned and swiftly closing the gap between them, she once more used a hand on his shoulder for balance as she raised herself on tip-toe and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
"Good morning to you too!" he grinned, and had the gratification of seeing her blush lightly.
"Oh... I suppose I should have said that first!" she confessed, "Am I forgiven?"
"I'll think about," he promised, as he held the door for her, "Shall we go?"
"Only if I'm forgiven!" she teased.
"That's a deal breaker is it?" Harm grinned, "Oh... OK, then... you're forgiven!"
"Good! Shall we go then, I'm starving already!"
Harm shook his head, his grin becoming rather forced as he fought down bitter-sweet memories. 'Damn it, this is Gill – not Mac!"
"What's all this tiresomely punctual bit, anyway?" he asked as he settled back behind the wheel. I said I'd be here at eleven hundred, and I was!"
"It's just that you were at great pains to explain that you were always late for everything, and I figured I had another ten minutes or so to fix my make-up properly, but then you turned up on time, and I had to do a rush job!"
"You're wearing make-up?" Harm asked in surprised tones.
"Flatterer!" Gill gave a crow of laughter, "Believe me, you don't know me well enough yet to see me without my war paint!"
They both fell into almost silent laughter as Harm piloted the car around the one-way system, back onto the roads that led to the main road to Oxford, which incidentally took them back past RAF Northolt.
"That's where I live." Harm said as they passed the wire-fenced expanse of the airfield itself, which was about all that could be seen from the main road.
"Oh... If I'd realised we would have to pass here, I'd have driven out and met you here!" Gill protested, "Instead of making you double back on yourself!"
"No you wouldn't," Harm explained patiently, "I wouldn't have let you!"
"Dinosaur!" Gill snorted.
"Hey! I'm not that old!" Harm defended himself.
"No... no, you're not," Gill said as she gave him a ruminative look, "So where are we going? I know you said a pub lunch by the river in Oxford, but where exactly?"
"Ah... a slight change of plan," Harm told her, "I did some checking, and none of the pubs in the city itself came up with unambiguously good reviews, so I widened the search a bit, and hit on a place called the King's Arms at Sandford on Thames..."
"Oh! Yes, I know it. It is a nice pub, and right on the river!"
"Oh... we could try to find somewhere else, maybe where you haven't been before?" a slightly crestfallen Harm suggested.
"Not at all!" Gill declared firmly, "I like the place!"
"Well, if you're sure...?"
"Sure, I'm sure!" Gill laughed.
Both now wearing smiles, they settled back in their seats, Harm to concentrate on his driving, and Gill to admire his skill in handling of a strange car in what was, she was sure was still a strange environment.
"This isn't it!" Gill exclaimed when forty-five minutes later Harm pulled into a car park overlooking the river.
"No... but I have done my homework," Harm grinned as he unclipped his seat belt, "See over there...?" he indicated a pedestrian gate in the wooden fence at the corner of the car park, "That leads onto a trail that takes us down on the river bank, and then it's a couple of easy miles along the riverside to the pub! I did say it would be a stroll along the river!"
"Or a walk in the park!" Gill laughed. "Oh well, if you're sure?"
"I'm sure!" Harm affirmed with smile, "Now, madam shall we walk?"
"Indeed, sir! We shall!" Gill laughed, placing her hand in the crook of the elbow Harm offered her.