being a young soldier, had yet to grasp that the more insignificant an organization is, the more impressive are its identity cards.
This one was hellishly impressive. His lips moved as he read it again, all the way from “The Lord Protector of the Common Wealth of Britain charges and demands,” through the bit about commandeering all kindling, rope, and igniferous oils, right down to the signature of the WA’s first Lord Adjutant, Praise-him-all-Ye-works-of-the-Lord-and-Flye-Fornication Smith. Newt kept his thumb over the bit about Nine Pence Per Witch and tried to look like James Bond.
Finally the guard’s probing intellect found a word he thought he recognized.
“What’s this here,” he said suspiciously, “about us got to give you faggots?”
“Oh, we have to have them,” said Newt. “We burn them.”
“Say what?”
“We burn them.”
The guard’s face broadened into a grin. And they’d told him England was soft. “Right on!” he said.
Something pressed into the small of his back.
“Drop your gun,” said Anathema, behind him, “or I shall regret what I shall have to do next.”
Well, it’s true, she thought as she saw the man stiffen in terror. If he doesn’t drop the gun he’ll find out this is a stick, and I shall really regret having to be shot.
AT THE MAIN GATE, Sgt. Thomas A. Deisenburger was also having problems. A little man in a dirty mack kept pointing a finger at him and muttering, while a lady who looked slightly like his mother talked to him in urgent tones and kept interrupting herself in a different voice.
“It really is vitally important that we are allowed to speak to whoever is in charge,” said Aziraphale. “I really must ask that he’s right, you know, I’d be able to tell if he was lying yes, thank you, I think we’d really achieve something if you kindly allowed me to carry on all right thank you I was only trying to put in a good word Yes! Er. You were asking him to yes, all right … now—”
“D’yer see my finger?” shouted Shadwell, whose sanity was still attached to him but only on the end of a long and rather frayed string. “D’yer see it? This finger, laddie, could send ye to meet yer Maker!”
Sgt. Deisenburger stared at the black and purple nail a few inches from his face. As an offensive weapon it rated quite highly, especially if it was ever used in the preparation of food.
The telephone gave him nothing but static. He’d been told not to leave his post. His wound from Nam was starting to play up.54 He wondered how much trouble he could get into for shooting non-American civilians.
THE FOUR BICYCLES pulled up a little way from the base. Tire marks in the dust, and a patch of oil, indicated that other travelers had briefly rested there.
“What’re we stopping for?” said Pepper.
“I’m thinking,” said Adam.
It was hard. The bit of his mind that he knew as himself was still there, but it was trying to stay afloat on a fountain of tumultuous darkness. What he was aware of, though, was that his three companions were one hundred percent human. He’d got them into trouble before, in the way of torn clothes, docked pocket money, and so on, but this one was almost certainly going to involve a lot more than being confined to the house and made to tidy up your room.
On the other hand, there wasn’t anyone else.
“All right,” he said. “We need some stuff, I think. We need a sword, a crown, and some scales.”
They stared at him.
“What, just here?” said Brian. “There’s nothin’ like that here.”
“I dunno,” said Adam. “When you think about the games and that, you know, we’ve played … ”
JUST TO MAKE SGT. DEISENBURGER’S day, a car pulled up and it was floating several inches off the ground because it had no tires. Or paintwork. What it did have was a trail of blue smoke, and when it stopped it made the pinging noises made by metal cooling down from a very high temperature.
It looked as if it had smoked glass windows, although this was just an effect caused by it having ordinary glass windows but a smoke-filled interior.
The driver’s door opened, and a cloud of choking fumes got out. Then Crowley followed it.
He waved the smoke away from his face, blinked, and then turned the gesture into a friendly wave.
“Hi,” he said. “How’s it going? Has the world ended yet?”
“He won’t let us in, Crowley,” said Madame Tracy.
“Aziraphale? Is that you? Nice dress,” said Crowley