For the whole of the first morning in the outer office attached to the ambassador's, Miss Davenport watched him Large owl eyes, and her attention distracted sufficientlt for her to make more typing errors in 140 minutes than she would normally have managed in a month. Holt had looked once at her, wondered if she was in the running for a set of Lady Armitage's tights, and discarded the thought as cheap.
She brought him three cups of coffee as he unravelled the file for the visit to Yalta. If his predecessor had stayed the course then Holt would have been glad of a gentle run in to his duties. But it was a mess, had only been taken so far, had missed two necessary weeks of knocking into shape. Holt reckoned the file could have been part of the aptitude test they'd given him at FCO after the entrance exam. He attacked the problem, and wished Miss Davenport didn't smoke. Holt was a smoker and trying to kick it and the Camel fumes were rich temptation.
He wrestled the Crimea programme into shape, so that he could dominate it. First flight to Simferopol.
Helicopter transfer to Yalta, check in at the hotel, hire car booked with Intourist. Lunch at the City Authority with the chairman and the deputy chairman, and then back to the hotel for an hour's break before meeting the local newspaper editors. Dinner at the hotel, the British hosting, and the guest list including the same chairman and deputy chairman and the legion of freebooters they would have in tow. That was day one… day two in Sevastopol, day three in Feodosija, and the ambassador had said that if he was coming all that way he was damned if he was going to be prevented from walking the length of the Light Brigade's charge – his predecessor's note on that was underlined twice.