26

Julia threw her sea-bag into the boot of the Ford Focus, the only rental left available when she'd phoned, and with a grin of anticipation slid into the driver's seat, and adjusted seat and mirrors until she was happy. Turning the key in the ignition, she smoothly engaged gear and let out the clutch, allowing a ride to roll away from the curbside. Moving up through the gears, she navigated the narrow streets until she emerged onto the main road, heading south to join the A40 road which fed on to the M40, and eventually via the M25 to the A303 and so on to the depths of darkest Hampshire and Wiltshire, where once again she had booked a room at the George Hotel, in Amesbury.

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Jen's "Umph!" of relief as she dropped the stuffed black, plastic, transfer bag onto the lounge space floor wasn't quite echoed by Victor as he placed a large cardboard box of kitchen appliances on the kitchen-cum-dining table.

Victor looked around the small apartment's main room, four or five framed photographs leaned against one wall, while a similar sized stack of small photographs peered over the edge of a second cardboard box that sat in one of the armchairs.

Jen blew a vagrant strand of hair out of her eyes, and with every sign of satisfaction looked approvingly at the clutter around her. "I really, really owe you for this, Victor," she announced bestowing a brilliant smile upon him, "if you wouldn't have helped me yesterday and today, I probably wouldn't have been this far ahead by Sunday! I really don't know how to say thank you, enough."

Victor smiled, the slow, almost reluctant smile of a man who hadn't had much to smile about recently. He tapped the brand-new electric kettle, still in its packaging, that stuck out of the top of the box he had carried up from the pool car outside, "You could always try to see how effective a coffee might be." he suggested.

Jen looked at him in some surprise, "Offer instant coffee to a Marine?" she laughed, "I know better than that and I don't have a death wish!"

"I kinda think that you'd be pretty safe, Jen. But you do have a point… and didn't I see a coffee shop just around the corner? So how would it be if I went and got us a coffee while you make a start on some of this…" he made a vague gesture indicating the various bags, boxes and suitcases scattered around the room.

"Oh… Thanks, thanks a lot, but I don't want to keep you hanging around too long this evening, it's Friday, you must have something better to do!"

Victor pursed his lips as if considering his options for the evening, eventually to shake his head and say, "Okay... let's see... I could spend a couple of hours here, helping you unpack, or, I could head back to base, and either lie on my rack trying to read, or at my desk working on the next weeks duty rosters, or I could walk across to the Sergeants Mess, which will be nearly deserted on a Friday night, except for a couple of the older guys, leaning on the bar and complaining about the air force until it's time for their separation. H'mm... So, a couple of hours spent in the company attractive young woman, or the same couple of hours spent in the company of a couple of overweight, half drunk, Brit Zoomies… it's a difficult choice."

Jen was slightly surprised, she'd been told often enough that men found her attractive, and mostly she had turned off such compliments with a shrug, a laugh and a joke. After all most men when they said it could hardly tear their eyes away from her bust, and the far from intended effect of such compliments was usually an awakening of a sense of irritation. But this time, it was different, Victor didn't seem to be handing out spurious compliments in the hope of weakening her resistance, but seemed to be merely stating the facts as he saw them, and his possible choices of entertainment for the evening. And this time far from feeling irritation, Jen felt a warm glow at his words.

"Well, when you put it like that, it is kinda comforting to know that you prefer my company, just, to that of a couple of old men!" she said dryly.

"Good, that's settled, then," Victor said happily, "Now, how do you take your coffee?"

"At this time of day? Best make mine a cappuccino, with a sprinkling of chocolate on the top but no sugar. But I'll bet yours is black, with… a triple shot of espresso!"

Victor grinned, "At least!"

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Harm took an almost nervous glance at his watch, and then gave the lounge a sweeping, visual, once over, checking that all was in order; through the door to the dining room, he could see the table, already set, but as for a family type dinner, a clean tablecloth and with table mats, flatware and glasses already set out. He had decided against candles or flowers on the table – at least for tonight – not wanting to even hint that he might be entertaining thoughts of seduction.

The living room, or lounge, was subtly, but he hoped not romantically, softly lit by two traditional, wooden standard lamps in diagonally opposite corners. The Hi-Fi unit had been preloaded with five CDs of soft jazz, and the volume set to a comfortable level to provide background without making it necessary for whoever was speaking to raise his or her voice above the conversational level.

He had alerted the RAF SP's at the guardroom that he was expecting a visitor, and had furnished them not only with her name but with the car license plate details. The coffee machine was primed and only needed switching on, the salad was crisping in the fridge and the first course of the dinner, a vegetable terrine, was already plated, and was, covered by cling wrap, also waiting in the fridge, as was the dessert, a fresh fruit salad, while the main course, Harm's own variation of a vegetarian moussaka, made with lentils, was browning in the oven.

Another glance at his watch told him that it was only two minutes since he last checked the time, but that also meant it was a further two minutes closer to Gill's ETA. 'For God's sakes, get a grip on yourself, Rabb!' he castigated himself as he slumped into one of the armchairs. 'This isn't a first date, you and Gill get on fine, this is just going to be a quiet, friendly, dinner, followed by a little conversation between friends…'

'Yeah, right… First off, this is just a quiet friendly, dinner; this is the first time you invited Gill to your home, and she's going to be staying overnight… possibly tomorrow night too. Secondly, this is not going to be a little conversation between friends, this is going to be where and when you explain how and why you're so screwed up.'

Harm fidgeted uncomfortably in the chair for a few more seconds before he hauled himself to his feet, deciding that he needed to check, for one more time, the bedroom he had prepared for Gill. However, before he'd taken more than three steps towards the stairs he spun on his heel even as his heart skipped a beat as the door bell sounded.

Crossing to the door, he halted in front of it, took a deep breath, and finally swung it open, to reveal Gill standing on the doorstep, a smile on her face, and a duffel slung over her shoulder.

"Hi," they said almost in unison, and both grinned broadly at the coincidence that led them to use the same greeting at the same time.

Harm leaned in and gave her a soft kiss on the cheek before he stepped back and said, "Come on in, and let me take that!" He exclaimed reaching for the duffel's strap.

With a murmured thanks, Gill slid the strap off her arm, allowing Harm to relieve her of the double even as she stepped through the door, her fingers going to the zipper of her cream blouson-style jacket.

Harm smiled "Why don't I show you your bedroom, a and you can hang your jacket in the closet, and settle in…"

"I hope this is okay?" Harm asked as he opened the door to the room he had prepared for Gill, "I'm sorry but the house only has the one bathroom, but it does have a bolt on the door…" He gestured vaguely out of the door and across the hall "it's not quite what I would have wanted, but it is government housing, what I can gather the UK and the USA have slightly different ideas about what makes a home…"

"That's true enough," Gill agreed, "going by what I've seen on TV and on film, and by what you've already told me… But this is fine, honestly."

"If you're sure…" Harm added doubtfully, "I'll leave you to get settled, and come on down whenever you're ready, in the meantime, I'll pour us a glass of wine…"

"I'm sure," Gill smiled, "you go on ahead, I'll be down in a couple of minutes."

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Gill was as good as her word, appearing in the living room doorway less than five minutes later, dressed in a sage-green blouse and a pair of tan, boot cut slacks, she wore a single strand of pearls around her neck, just visible through the open, neck of her blouse, and had taken advantage of the opportunity to check her make-up. As she stood in the doorway she took the opportunity to look around her. The room was clean and tidy; too tidy, she thought. The cushions on the armchairs and on the couch were arranged square on, with military precision, there were no pictures on the walls, not even photographs of friends or family. The fireplace overmantel was equally innocent of photographs or knick-knacks, as were the side tables against the walls, and the roll-top desk against the far wall. In fact the only signs of habitation were a bottle of wine and two glasses on one of the side tables, and the laptop computer sitting on top of the roll-top desk. It was a house, she decided, but it was an unloved house, and certainly not a home.

Harm stood as she entered the room, and stepped towards her, taking one of her hands in his, and with a gentle finger raised her face for his kiss.

Gill, when they broke the kiss, swayed forwards, her hands coming to rest on Harm's upper arms, her face still tilted up, as she smiled and said, "And very good evening to you too, sailor!"

Gill felt the rumble deep in Harm's chest as he chuckled, "it's been a long time, since last Sunday, and you look good enough to eat!"

Gill nodded wisely "Ah... That's what you were trying to do… I was just expecting a kiss…"

"Well, if that wasn't up to your demanding standards Madam, should we try again?" Harm smiled.

"Oh, I thought you'd never ask!" Gill chuckled.

This time when they broke the kiss Harm lifted his hands from the upper curve of Gill's hips as she somewhat reluctantly unlaced her fingers from the nape of Harm's neck. And then as Gill, still marvelling at the muscles on Harm's biceps allowed her fingers to trail down the length of his forearms, he captured one of her hands in his and led her towards the couch. He let her sit before saying, somewhat shamefacedly, "I opened the wine, but then figured I had maybe a been a bit presumptuous in assuming that you would want wine before dinner, so I haven't poured anything yet, because I can offer you the wine, a dry fino sherry, or I seem to recall you drinking vodka and tonic in the mess…?"

Gill smiled up at him, "The wine sounds good to me, thank you."

Harm nodded, and turned briefly away towards the side table, returning to Gill with two Grand Vin glasses each holding a generous measure of wine.

Gill took her glass, and raising a teasing eyebrow at Harm and with a laugh in her eyes and voice, asked, "Are you trying to get me drunk, sailor?"

Harm took his seat at the end of the couch, leaving about a foot space between them. He raised his glass in a silent salute and shook his head "No, not this time… But I make no promises for future occasions!" He added with a wicked smile.

"Oh, there are going to be future occasions, then?" Gill challenged him, as she took the most minute sip of her wine, barely wetting her lips.

Harm put his glass down on the coffee table, and looked directly at Gill, "I want there to be," he said honestly, "but that decision is also yours. Yes, a decision to turn an acquaintance, or friend, into a lover must be a shared decision, the contrary, opposite decision is a unilateral decision. I have already made my decision, where, given my druthers I want us to go, you have to share in that decision. It's the reason that I said I want to have a deep conversation with you, I don't want you to be under any false illusions, so I'm setting my stall out…"

Gill nodded soberly, "When you want to do this? Oh, I know you mean this evening," she made a vague gesture with one hand, "would you want to do it before or after we eat?"

Harm nodded, "After we eat, I think. I put a fair amount of work into this dinner, and I'm afraid my story might spoil your appetite." He added, hoping to lift the mood, which had become slightly too introspective and too heavy for this early in the evening.

Gill responded in kind, "As long as the anticipation doesn't spoil my appetite, I'm with you… And to be quite honest, I was beginning to worry that you weren't going to feed me! I've been looking forward to this since my lunchtime sandwich, and I'm starving!"

Harm smiled and stood, extending a hand to help Gill to her feet, "Are you sure you're not a Marine?" he asked.

Gill turned a slight frown towards him, "You keep asking me that, and I am getting to the stage where I really want to know why. Is it too much to hope for that I might get an answer to that question this evening?"

Harm picked up the two nearly full wine glasses, and gestured towards the door that led to the dining room, "Unlike the mess, here, one is not only allowed to bring one's drink to the table, but one is positively encouraged to do so."

Gill chuckled, "That is possibly the worst attempt at an upper-class English accent I have ever heard; I strongly suggest that while you are here in the UK, you restrict your attempts at foreign accents strictly to Ol' Alabamy, or generic Dixie! And while that was a nice try, don't think I didn't notice that you still haven't answered my question!"

Harm placed the glasses on the coasters waiting for them, and pulled out Gill's chair. "Yes, I fully intend to make a complete clean breast of my somewhat murky past. But, for the moment, let's just try to enjoy dinner.

"Yes, I rather like that idea!" Gill agreed.

And although the gorilla had been let out of its cage, and was squatting silently in a corner of the room, Gill and Harm did enjoy their meal, and the fairly light-hearted conversation that went with it. Harm regaled Gill with the more humorous aspects of goings-on in the JAG office, delighting in her musical laugh as he told her of the break-room and broom closet crack he had made to Theresa Sullivan.

Gill was forced to use a delicate fingertip to blot the tears of laughter from her eyes as he finished the story, "That poor Lieutenant! To have her stiff, stern, rigidly unbending commanding officer, with all the power and dignity of a captain, to suddenly turn around and tease her like that! It really wasn't fair of you, Harm, but oh, I wish I could have seen her face!"

Harm chuckled, "Her expression was nothing, you should have seen the way Lieutenant Tierney kept looking at me later!"

At length, Gill scraped the last of the crème fraîche from the bottom of her dessert dish. "That, was a superb meal," she enthused, "if anybody had told me, before tonight, that it was possible to enjoy a dinner, quite so much, without it containing meat, I would not have believed them!"

"Thank you!" A slightly startled Harm replied. Due to Gill's unfailing good manners and attention to etiquette he had prepared himself for her thanks, but he hadn't expected them to be quite so full and enthusiastic.

"How did you become such an accomplished chef, and how did you manage to survive shipboard rations as a vegetarian? Even today, David tells me that even the wardroom's rations can get a little… monotonous… towards the end of a long cruise."

Harm stood up, and snagged the still half-full bottle of wine from the table, and swiftly sidestepped around the table to pull Gill's chair back as she stood in her turn. "Now, we are treading on ground that is best addressed in the confessional, so…" He indicated the door leading back to the living room.

He let Gill lead the way, but as she was about to take up her old seat on the couch, Harm said, "not everything I've got to tell you is very pretty and there are certain times when I won't be shown in the best light, and you could end up hating me. So, if you prefer, please feel free to sit anywhere."

"Anywhere?" Gill asked disingenuously.

"Anywhere you like," Harm agreed gravely.

"In that case, I prefer to sit here, with you. I have a sneaky suspicion, that this isn't going to be easy for you, and I want to be with you, to support you, if you like…"

Harm looked down into her eyes, "Thank you," he said quietly and simply.

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Victor drained the last of his bottle of soda, and grinned at Jen. The living area of the apartment now looked quite liveable. Most of the boxes had been unpacked and their contents stowed away. The stowing away of Jen's belongings had started in a half-hearted sort of way while she was waiting for him to return from the coffee shop. With Victor's return, their efforts had redoubled and in a surprisingly short space of time chaos was reduced to order.

A surprisingly short space of time it might have been, but it was late enough for Jen to realise that Victor had undoubtedly missed his dinner in the mess. A short altercation followed, but ended in victory for the Navy, as Jen threw on a jeans jacket, and ran down to the local Chinese takeaway.

Now the table was cluttered with the plastic, lidded containers that were favoured by the UK takeaway vendors. Victor had remarked on the apparent profligacy in using plastic containers rather than cardboard containers which could just be crumpled up and thrown in the recycling.

Jen, however, looked appraisingly at the containers. "I don't know," she mused, "they're pretty much like Tupperware," she giggled at Victor's puzzled expression, "or didn't Lieutenant Simms bring her and Lieutenant Roberts' lunch in and stow them in the galley fridge, back in the day?"

Victor nodded, his slow grin stealing across his face, as he understood what Jen was getting at, "Yeah, I guess so…"

Jen nodded in satisfaction. "Well, we're both stuffed to the gills, and there's plenty left over, so what's left can be consolidated, go into the freezer, and I've got my Monday dinner! The other containers can be washed up, and put to one side for future use. In fact, I could even use one to pack my lunchtime sandwiches in for Monday!"

"True," Victor acknowledged "my mom and my elder sisters would agree with you one hundred per cent although whether Valerie has as matured that much I very much doubt!" Then a thought occurred to him, "You seem to know Lieutenant Roberts and his family pretty well, did you ever meet his brother? My shameless youngest sister took pretty thorough advantage of him at one stage."

"Mikey?" Jen asked in surprise, then instead of waiting for an answer she continued, "Sure I know him, he got accepted into the Academy, he's a midshipman now… And doing very well, so we hear, if he sticks it out, he'll be an Ensign when he graduates next May!"

"Good grief," Victor groaned, "that means the next time I meet him, I'll have to salute him! My God, what is the Navy coming to!"

Jen cocked her head on one side consideringly, "I never thought of that… But I'm pretty sure that Mikey wouldn't insist on all that military protocol."

"He might not have, before he went to Annapolis," Victor grumbled, "the service academies do pretty well in removing the sense of humour from midshipman and cadets!"

Jen shook her head and chuckled, "you're becoming very cynical," she scolded him gently.

"Not cynical, realistic," Victor grinned, "and speaking realistically, it's time I was going. So, zero nine thirty tomorrow? That'll give us time to get the rest of your stuff up from base, so that we can finish in time for me to buy you lunch."

"There's no need for you to do that!" Jen protested, "You have saved me so much time, and trouble a Chinese takeaway and a light lunch, are hardly a fitting reward!"

"Whatever," Victor said standing up and patting his pockets to make sure he had the car keys.

"Not whatever," Jen contradicted him as she stood to walk him to the door.

Victor opened the door paused and half turned, "Good night, Jen," he bid her.

Jen felt herself beginning to leaning towards Victor, and with a slight blush, she stilled, and managed a murmured, "Good night," of her own.

Victor headed towards the stairwell, not dissatisfied with the way the evening turned out, although he did wonder at Jen's sudden blush as they parted company.

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Harm waited until Gill had settled herself in the couch and then took of his own seat, and notwithstanding Gill's words, he carefully left a gap between them. He handed her a glass of wine, and took a meditative sip of his own drink. "Where to begin… I told you about my dad, and how that left mom and me on our own. For a while, well for me anyway, apart from missing dad it wasn't too bad in some ways, I stayed at the same school, I had the same friends… So there was some sense of continuity… Of course, people kept telling me I had to be brave for my mom, that I was a big boy, and big boys don't cry, and I was the man of the house now. Of course, I took it all in, I believed what they said, after all I might be the man of the house, but was still a little kid, and they were grown-ups, so they must know what they were talking about. And then some nights, when perhaps I couldn't sleep for some reason or other, I could hear mom crying in her bedroom, and I knew that the grown-ups were right, I had to be brave for her, make her think I was alright, so she'd have one less thing to cry about…" His voice trailed off into silence, and he took a rather more generous sip of his wine before he continued.

He took a deep breath, "Anyway mom and I carried on, each pretending to the other we weren't hurting, she looked after me, she looked after me well; she's always had very strong opinions about food, about what was good and what was not, the meals she gave me were always nutritious, plentiful, and very tasty. Then later, a few years later, she met Frank. I hated him. I hated him for years. He encouraged mom to step outside the house to become something more than a single mom. He even loaned her the seed money so she could start her own business. And for a while it was tough again, but the business made money all of a sudden we weren't scratching around for a living any more, and there was enough money to hire Rosa."

"Rosa is an enormous Mexican woman, damn near as wide as she is tall, who cooks and cleans for mom. All these years, and she's still working her magic in the kitchen. She's more a member of the family now than she is a servant, she was like a combination babysitter, nanny, confidante, maybe even more like an aunt to me, she spoiled me, she swatted me when I needed it – and boy, at that stage I needed it pretty much, and pretty often. And she taught me to cook, well, she taught me the basics, anyway. Poor Rosa, it broke her heart just as much as it broke mom's when I ran away…"

Harm took another mouthful of wine. "But I'm getting ahead of myself, I must have been pretty impossible after mom started seeing Frank. And I guess the long summer vacation was just too much for mom to face with me acting out, glowering and scowling every time Frank called, so, she packed me off to Gram's farm in Pennsylvania for the summer… Grams just about finished my culinary education, she also knocked hell of a lot of sense into me, sometimes with the back of her hand, sometimes with the aid of the length of two by two, but most often with a hazel switch! In fact I can't think of a week I spent at Grams that we didn't butt heads. Then when dad wasn't among the POWs sent home at the end of the war mom had him declared legally dead. It felt like I'd lost him all over again. By now the very sight of Frank made me feel physically sick, then when mom said that she and Frank were going to get married, I was thirteen at the time, I sneered, shrugged my shoulders, and said for her to go right ahead, but if she did marry Frank not to expect me at the wedding."

Gill had sat in silence up to this point, but now she exclaimed, "Harm, no!"

Harm grinned sourly, "I told you, a full confession, warts and all, and that it wasn't all going to be pretty, and there were some bits of the story that didn't show me in a particularly good light."

"Yes, yes, you did warn me. I'm sorry for interrupting, please, go on."

Harm lifted an eyebrow, "Are you sure?" And receiving Gill's nod, he took another sip of wine, "Okay, but remember you asked for this… The next three years I was a total son of a bitch to Frank, not much better to mom. But I had already set my heart on the Academy, and I kept my rebellion confined to home. I studied hard, I worked hard, I kept out of trouble at school, I didn't go to parties, and I got a reputation for being aloof. Anyway the summer I was sixteen, I took my savings, and I stole a couple of thousand of dollars from Frank, got hold of my passport, and without saying a word to anyone, I bought a ticket to Vietnam, where I tracked down a guy I had read about, a former Colonel of the Marines, who was searching for traces of prisoners still being held illegally by the Vietnamese…"

Harm's voice, and his eyes, took on a faraway quality as he recounted the weeks he spent traipsing through the jungles of yet now Cambodia and Laos, and AK-47 in hand and a Colt 45 pistol on his belt. His eyes misted over as once again he retold the agony of Gym's death at the hands trigger-happy Laotian border guards. Then came his discovery by Chuck De Palma and after his photograph had appeared in national newspapers, the swift descent of State Department officials who bundled him out of the country, onto a plane and back to USA.

He recounted his mother's fury, and the punishment details she set him for the rest of the summer, so that he was glad to get back to school and back to football practice for a rest. But it hadn't been the same, before the vacation girls had started to notice him, and, he told Gill with a half-grin, he kind of noticed the girls too, but after his return to school, there was something about him that seemed to frighten them.

"Next year, I graduated, and thanks, as I found out years later, to Frank my mother signed my application for the Academy, and off I went to Plebe Summer. That kinda put the brakes on any sort of love life for the next six years. Midshipmen are strictly forbidden to date each other, and a concealed relationship is deemed dishonourable and a breach of the honour code, so when discovered, as they invariably are, both parties are dismissed from the Academy. That's about the equivalent of a dishonourable discharge."

"After the Academy, I went on to flight school, qualified as a pilot on F-14s. I had a few fairly meaningless and random encounters at Pensacola, mostly with aviation groupies. They're a strange breed of woman, who seemed to get their kicks from a never-ending succession of short term and very physical relationships with each batch of student aviators and RIOs that make it through flight training."

"Then came operational conversion training at Oceana, and then a posting to a squadron, in my case on the Seahawk. I thought I was good, in fact I thought I was more than good, I thought I was the hottest pilot ever to strap on an airplane. And I guess I was pretty good; they sent me to Miramar, to the Navy fighter pilot school, Top Gun. If I was a pain in the ass before I went there I was insufferable when I graduated Top Gun at the top of my class."

Harm now took what could only be described as a gulp wine, and topped up his glass. "Then, well then, I screwed the pooch. I made a bad landing, in fact it was a ramp strike, that's… Navy speak for a crash onto the deck of an aircraft carrier. My RIO punched us out too late and too low, I slammed into the deck before my main chute was fully deployed, Mace my RIO wasn't so lucky. I'm told that a freak of thermodynamics took hold of his chute and sucked him into the middle of the fireball our Tomcat had turned into."

Gill gasped at the vivid image Harm had drawn, but otherwise remained silent as Harm continued his story in a voice that had become a flat monotone.

"I spent months in rehab, learning to walk again, I did a pretty thorough job smashing everything below my waistline: pelvis, legs, all held together now by screws, pins and plates. Most of my rehab and hospital leave was spent at Grams farm up in Belleville in Pennsylvania, and when Diane heard the scuttlebutt, she reserved her commission, and came up to help me through the bad times. And there were some very bad times."

"Who was Diane?" Gill prompted.

Harm looked vaguely surprised, but he took the opportunity to add a little more wine to Gill's glass while he put his thoughts in order. "Didn't I tell you? Diane was a member of the four Musketeers, as we like to call ourselves, but apparently other midshipmen at the Academy prefer to think of us as the gang of four. There was Diane, Jack Keeter, Sturgis Turner, and me, and a sort of satellite, Luke Pendry. We were all friends, but the four of us…" Harm shook his head in a fond memory.

"That's some friendship, to reserve a commission to help out an injured friend," Gill interjected in some admiration.

"Yeah, but to be honest, by that stage, Diane and I were moving past the friendship thing. We been forced to remain friends at the Academy, neither of us wanted to be dismissed, particularly as we were so young that we weren't even sure if we were going to be in a relationship, let alone becoming a serious one. But she came up to Gram's farm, and she teased me, scolded me, and even shamed me into completing my rehab, and even nagged me into restoring my dad's old Stearman biplane. The rehab and the physical therapy got me back on my feet, and even through the medical review board, who allowed to stay in the Navy, which was not a bad result for a guy who a few months earlier had doubted whether he'd ever be able to walk again. But it was rebuilding the Stearman, that was my occupational therapy, and settled me down mentally. So when I appeared in front of the flight investigation board, I was able to hear with a fair degree of equanimity that due to an eye infection, which had led to night blindness and was the cause of my ramp strike, that my flying days were over."

Gill looked at him with troubled eyes, Harm had promised her a full confession and it certainly sounded like that was what she was getting, but she was getting worried too, as Harm's voice became flatter, more monotone, even deader, she felt was the right description.

"But that wasn't the end of your career, obviously," she interjected, "So, how come you transferred from being a top gun pilot to becoming a top gun lawyer?"

Harm grinned, somewhat mirthlessly, "Yes, that's the next chapter in the life and times of Harmon Rabb, but if we are to turn the page, then we will need more wine! I'm not really sure I can tell you this while I'm sober, and I'm not really sure you would want to hear it while you're sober!"