Foster said, "I thought Bill was going to have a coronary…"

Carthew said, "No one in their right mind actually wants to go..

Foster said, "Trouble with Charles is that he's got the private means cushion to fall back on. I think if he were posted he'd quit. Be a waste if we pushed him too hard."

Carthew said, "Ulster's hardly the place for a pressed man…"

Foster said, "The only other one that I could think of was Archie.

Quite simply, he declined. I suppose it's because he's taken on that place in the country. The problem is, Ernest, that no one who has a halfway normal life to lead is going to be ambitious for a posting in that dreadful country."

Carthew said, "Brennard's particularly well-suited…"

Objectively, of course, it was not satisfactory to put in a raw young man, but it was temporary. Foster would check out the position on Ferdie Penn, when he could be recovered from the training programme he was running down in Nairobi. Might be a month, might be two…

Brennard wouldn't need to be told that it was just a temporary thing because that would be demotivating.

They chewed at their sandwiches. Wilkins mused, "It's a life that none of us older men were trained for. Alright, we have our Watchers, and we do that well, but for the most part we are a collating agency. All of this frigging around in ditches, carrying sidearms, running sources, it's a new science… You don't think Brennard will let us down?"

Foster said, "Be working under Parker, won't he?"

Carthew said, "With Parker in charge, you could send a babe in arms."