November 2067
Alan Stephens was used to considering
the Christmas and New Year festivities as something that didn’t really involve
him. Since he had lost his parents, and his sister and her family had moved
from Cornwall to Bradford with her husband’s job, he’d made a habit of spending
the time alone in the familiar countryside and streets of Truro. This
year would be different though. As a founder member of the newly formed
Spectrum organisation, he’d be spending Christmas on their floating HQ – Cloudbase
– surrounded by the other men and women who were beginning to settle in and
form a companionable workforce. It
was becoming second nature to think of them by their codenames and – in fact –
to consider his own name as Captain Brown.
Although he still felt something of
an outsider in a company that consisted mostly of fighter pilots, soldiers and
secret agents – most of whom were younger than him – he tried hard to fit in
and was gratified when he’d been invited to become a member of the consortium
formed by the other colour captains to buy Christmas presents for the five
beautiful Angel pilots. He had realised
this invitation wasn’t an automatic inclusion when he’d witnessed his field
partner, Captain Scarlet, almost squabbling with his great friend, Captain
Blue, over Blue’s insistence that the invitation be extended to his field partner, the dour Captain
Black, and it was a great relief to be assured by the two younger men that no
one had had any doubts about including him.
The other captains were a friendly
bunch, on the whole. There was still a
sense of rivalry between some of them – friendly, but serious in its
intensity. The worst example of it was
between Captain Scarlet – not a man to tolerate coming second – and Captain
Black – the eldest and, in his own estimation at least, senior of the
captains.
Alan sighed as he reflected that he
had known Black the longest – ever since they had both been recruited into
Spectrum when Cloudbase was being constructed – and they’d worked together on
equipment and training for the other, later recruits. Conrad Turner was not an easy man to get to
know, but once he had realised that Alan had useful expertise, he had treated
Brown with polite respect and was careful to defer to him over matters that were
his speciality.
I recognize that’s the best I’m likely to get from Conrad, who
really only seems to thaw into anything approaching friendliness with his
American field partner, Alan
mused.
The others were mostly Americans.
Only Black and Scarlet were English like him, although Doctor Fawn was
Australian. He liked Fawn and they often
spent what leisure time the doctor permitted himself in each other’s
company. Other than that, he would play
chess with Colonel White – the remaining Englishman in the senior ranks – or
spend time working on the intricate mechanisms of the antique clocks he loved
to repair.
On duty he was Captain Scarlet’s
partner. Scarlet was a career soldier –
and a very good one at that. He had
graduated from West Point, where he’d trained as part of the World Army Air
Force’s fast-track officer scheme, as top of his year; in fact, there was a
trophy in his quarters to show that he had been voted the ‘Supreme Soldier’ of
his class.
That‘s why the colonel made us partners, of course, Brown mused.
His own experience was in the
technical side of the World Army Air Force and his expertise lay in the field
of surveillance and equipment rather than field craft. Scarlet was, in effect, his ‘mentor’, there
to show him the ropes. However galling
he might have expected that to be, Scarlet never treated him as anything less
than an equal, and his advice was always given with surprising tact, for such
an impulsive and occasionally rash young man.
He closed the door of his quarters and
strolled along to the Officers’ Lounge.
He and Scarlet were due on duty in 30 minutes or so and he knew the
chances were that he’d find his partner in the Lounge with the other captains. He nodded affable acknowledgments to the
lieutenants and technicians he passed as he moved through the marvellous
airborne craft that was now his home.
Cloudbase was a technological marvel and he felt justifiably proud of
his work on the infrastructure.
The Officers’ Lounge was more crowded
than he’d expected. Not only were most
of the senior officers there, but the two off-duty Angel Pilots as well. Scarlet saw him and beckoned him over to
where he and Blue were in conversation with Melody Angel.
“Hi, Alan,” Scarlet said. “I tried to call you earlier, did you get my
message?”
Brown shook his head. He had noticed that the message alarm on his
intercom was activated, but as the last messages he’d received had been about
nothing more exciting than the forthcoming menus in the canteen, he hadn’t
bothered to check it. He made a mental
note to always do so in future.
“Well, you’re here, so I don’t
suppose it matters,” Scarlet continued.
“The colonel’s asked to speak to us all.”
“Something happened?” Brown asked.
Scarlet shrugged.
“I hope so,” Melody chimed in excitedly. “Otherwise all this work we’ve done in
anticipation of seeing some action will lead to nothing but a great
anti-climax.”
Blue gave her one of his brilliant
smiles. “My, but you’re a blood-thirsty
little lady,” he teased.
“And you’re a patronising hulk!” she
retorted, glaring up at him for what she saw as a put down. Blue was a good foot taller than her and
would easily make two of her widthways.
He looked down at her in alarm. “Hey, it was a joke,” he assured her.
Melody stared at him appraisingly for
a moment and then placed a slender hand on his arm. “Sorry, Captain,” she said. “I grew up with a handful of older brothers,
who all thought nothing of trying to make me feel inferior. I tend to over-react when a guy says
something like that to me – it’s instinctive.”
“Message received and understood,”
Blue said genially. “If and when the
balloon goes up, Melody, I want you on my team.”
She grinned and punched him gently,
harmony restored.
Conversation in the Lounge ceased as
the colonel entered with Captain Black beside him.
“Good afternoon, ladies and
gentlemen,” White said, glancing round.
“I am delighted to see so many of you here. Before I start, I ought to make it clear that
this isn’t an official meeting – at least, as far as operational matters are
concerned. However, I feel it is
something that will reflect well on Spectrum and I hope I will have your
support.”
“Sure you will, Colonel,” Captain
Ochre interjected, “when we know what it is you want from us, that is,” he
added, sotto voce.
“Thank you, Captain Ochre. I will get to the point.” White moved to the wall of the Lounge, where
the deep-set portholes gave a view of the clear, blue sky and the carpet of sun-bright,
white clouds below them. His officers
settled themselves to listen to their commander; their curiosity piqued by his
opening words.
“Spectrum is a new organisation,
largely unknown by the populace of the world and destined to remain a shadowy
presence. Our remit against
international terrorism means that we must protect our individual identities,
but I want Spectrum to be recognised and trusted by the people we seek to
protect. Therefore, I have sought
permission from the World President for Spectrum to create a Charitable
Fund. This will make donations and
grants to charitable and humanitarian projects around the world.”
He glanced at his audience and saw an
almost universal nod of approval from them.
With a feeling of satisfaction, he continued:
“However, the World President is
concerned that the money should not come from the official budget – and I agree
with him. Spectrum costs the World
Government a vast amount of money and it is not for us to distribute that
resource to outside organisations, even in a good cause. Therefore, I propose to set you all a
challenge: I want you – the men and
women of the crew of Cloudbase – to raise that money. How you do it, is the challenge, but you may
not ‘moonlight’ – by which I mean work for any other organisation to earn money
– nor,” he said, with a glance at the wealthy Captain Blue and the few other
well-to-do officers, “should you merely dip into your own pockets to
contribute. I am aware that some of you would have the capacity to
do that,” he added, as he saw Ochre open his mouth to comment.
Ochre closed his mouth and scoured
the assembly from beneath his brows for any guilty-looking rich folk.
Destiny Angel called out a question:
“How long do we have to make this fund, Colonel?”
“I thought we’d make the first
donations around Christmas time,” White replied. “So you’d better get your thinking caps on…”
Everyone set to with a will to find
ways of raising money. There was an unspoken competition amongst
the various services and teams to raise the most. The Catering staff sold off specially made food
items and raffled off cakes, sweets and a VIP meal for two.
Two teams of technicians started a
sweepstake to see which team could strip down and rebuild a jet engine the
fastest.
“I hope the engines they use never
end up in one my planes,” Scarlet remarked to Brown, as he handed over his
stake money and took his ‘timed’ tickets from the smiling technician.
The Angels were arranging an
auction. They were going around asking
for donations of items they could sell, and Brown gave them the reconditioned
carriage clock he had just finished working on.
Captain Ochre gave them a beautifully detailed model of an Angel
Interceptor jet that he had made himself, and Captain Magenta donated one of
his small, yet powerful, pocket-sized
computers. Rather to everyone’s
surprise, Captain Black gave them a piece of moon-rock mounted on a granite
plinth, which he had collected himself when he’d been in the World Space
Patrol. All-in-all it promised to be a
great success.
The colour captains were somewhat at
a loss for an idea. They were all
experts in their fields, but their fields were wide and varied.
“I can’t see anyone wanting to win a
tutorial on the shooting range with me,” Scarlet complained, as they sat in the
Lounge trying to come up with an idea.
“Or a flying lesson from you, Blue.”
“Oh, I think there’d be enough young
ladies on the base who’d take a ticket for that,” Captain Grey remarked, with a
smile.
“If it comes to that, we could all
raffle ourselves as dinner dates,” Blue agreed, with a broad grin.
“If I won the VIP meal for two
raffle, I’d be able to afford to pay for the meal, as well,” Ochre said,
mournfully.
“What do you do with your money?”
Black asked, with a shake of his head.
“You and Symphony Angel are as bad as each other; she’s always
complaining that she’s broke.”
“And how would you know that?” Ochre
demanded. “Ah, I suppose a little
blue-bird told you…” He glanced at Captain Blue and was pleased to see a flush
colour his cheeks.
“Well,” said Captain Grey
confidently, “I am going to do a sponsored swim. You guys are all going to sponsor me for
large amounts of money per length of the pool.”
“No I’m not,” Ochre protested. “You can swim for days at a time without
stopping.”
“Ochre!” Scarlet interjected. “You can’t refuse to participate in
everything.”
“Well, you sponsor me and I’ll give
the money to Grey…”
“What do you want sponsoring to do?”
Brown asked. It was hard to tell when
Ochre was teasing sometimes, but they were all getting used to the
mid-westerner’s abrasive humour.
Ochre shrugged.
“How about keeping your mouth shut
for the foreseeable future?” Blue suggested in an amiable tone that
contradicted his words.
“I’d sponsor him for that,” Magenta agreed
quickly.
Ochre spluttered his outrage and
everyone laughed.
The idea of being sponsored to do
something – or even not to do something – quickly took root and the senior
officers started to come up with variations on the theme. These varied considerably from Captain
Scarlet, who decided to do sponsored press-ups for an hour, to Symphony Angel
who forswore chocolate and pledged herself to lose weight. Captain
Brown thought that was rather a shame, as she had a very pleasing figure, in
his opinion, not like some of the ultra-skinny women you saw these days.
He had a strong suspicion he was not alone in his opinion either.
“What are you going to do, Al?”
Blue asked, as they sat in the canteen having lunch a few days after the
colonel’s challenge.
“I can’t think of anything,” Brown
admitted, with a rueful glance. He
placed his knife and fork neatly on his plate and sat back in his chair.
Doctor Fawn, who was with them,
looked up from his plate of spaghetti and said, “I’d have thought you had the
most obvious challenge,” he said.
“I
do?” Brown’s hand moved automatically to
his tunic pocket and he unzipped it to draw out the silver cigarette case he
kept there.
Blue ginned at Fawn. “S’obvious really,” he agreed.
Brown gave a sigh of realisation as
he saw their glances locked onto his cigarette case. “Smoking,” he said.
“Yes,” Fawn said. “This is a perfect opportunity to give it
up.”
“I’ve tried before… it doesn’t work.”
Brown explained and he put the case back, as if to close the topic.
“You’d have the perfect motivation
this time,” Blue said encouragingly.
“Everyone would sponsor you – even Ebenezer Ochre Scrooge – and you’d
make more than anyone, I betcha.”
“I don’t know, Adam. I have tried and couldn’t do it.”
“You know it counts against you in
your medical assessments,” Fawn said seriously. “I’ve given you formal warning that you have
to cut back and preferably stop all together.
There aren’t many smokers on the base and you’d be a great example to
them if you kicked the habit.” He paused dramatically and added, “Before you
kick the bucket.”
“What have you got to lose?” Blue
added.
Brown continued to look doubtful and
the American said, “I’ll sponsor you for… twenty a day – twenty crisp onesers
for every day you don’t smoke at all.”
“Strewth, Blue,” Fawn muttered.
“That ought to make it worth your
while trying,” Blue urged Brown.
“Whaddya say?”
“Well… I…”
“You say, ‘it’s a deal, Yank’,” Fawn
interjected. “And to add some scale to
that monumental offer, I will sponsor you for five a day.”
Blue called Captain Scarlet and
Destiny Angel over to the table. They
had just come in together to get some lunch and they listened as Blue explained
what Brown was going to do.
“And I know you’ll both want to
sponsor him too, won’t you?” he concluded.
“Mais
oui,” Destiny exclaimed. “C’est un idée merveilleux! I shall be
happy to sponsor you, mon cher capitaine.”
“Me too!” Scarlet said.
“Now, think how many people you’ll be
letting down if you don’t give it your best shot, Alan,” Fawn said. “I’ll send an all-user email round, telling
people you are open to sponsorship, if you like.”
“Then everyone will know…if I don’t
make it,” Brown murmured, overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of his companions.
“You’ll make it – we’ll see to that,”
Scarlet assured him.
Without realising it Brown had drawn
his cigarette case out of his tunic pocket.
“Good idea; give me that,” Scarlet
said. “You won’t be needing it from now
on.” He reached down and took it from Brown’s grasp.
“I wasn’t going to start right now!”
“Yes, you are,” Blue said, and laid a
twenty note on the table. “We’ll ignore
whether you’ve had a cigarette up to now and I will give you today’s sponsor
money in advance.”
“Will you sponsor me for that
amount?” Scarlet asked, staring at the money.
“Of course not – you’re only doing
press ups and that won’t require much effort on your part.”
“Then perhaps you can give him what
you are sponsoring Symphony with?” suggested Destiny, smiling innocently.
“Oh, I don’t think I’d want any of that…” Scarlet said, and threw back his
head to laugh at his friend’s discomfiture.
For the rest of the day Captain Brown
was the centre of attention. He was
genuinely touched by the eagerness of his colleagues to sponsor him to quit
smoking and before long the list of committed sponsors, and the amount he stood
to make for the charity fund, was very impressive. Although he found himself missing the
sensation of having a cigarette, he was able to ride the craving, surrounded as
he was by enthusiastic supporters. But that had to stop and when he finally
went back to his quarters, the real craving set in.
He was tired and wanted to sleep, but
so restless he couldn’t settle. He
started to cough and felt the throb of a nagging headache. He finally got out of bed and went walking through
the quiet corridors to the canteen.
There, he ordered a cup of tea and a
small selection of biscuits and took them over to a table by the wall. He sat alone, trying to conquer the feelings
of self pity that were telling him he should be allowed to smoke if he wanted
to, and that no one had the right to tell him what he should do, when Captain
Black came into the canteen.
Black saw him, and once he had his
own drink, wandered over to him.
“May I join you?” he asked in his
deep voice.
“Sure, although I’m not going to be
the best of company,” Brown growled.
Undeterred, Black sat opposite him
and stirred his tea. After taking a long
sip he said, “I heard about your sponsorship deal; I’m impressed.”
Brown looked up, prepared to see the
cynical expression that was almost habitual on Black’s less-than-expressive
face. But, to his surprise, he saw
something akin to sympathy.
“I’m not very impressive right now,”
Brown said, alarmed to hear how whiney his voice sounded.
“It’s not easy to quit smoking,”
Black assured him. “I think it was Mark
Twain who said ‘quitting smoking is easy, I’ve done it dozens of times’. There was a man with first-hand knowledge, it
seems to me.”
“How would you know?” snapped Brown.
“I used to smoke.”
“You?”
Black nodded. “I still class myself as a smoker who doesn’t
smoke and not as a non-smoker and that’s after… almost a decade.”
“That’s not very encouraging.”
“I started smoking as a kid. I lived with relatives in the wilds of
Lancashire – there was nothing else to do.
I spent the meagre amount they gave me for the chores I did around the
place on a packet of fags and I used to walk into the countryside and smoke
them – one a day. At the time it felt like a serious act of rebellion.”
“I started in the WAAF,” Brown
confessed. He was rather surprised that
Black was prepared to share personal experiences; it wasn’t something he did
often or with any enthusiasm.
“Yes, the WAAF was responsible for
turning me from a casual smoker to a hardened one,” Black replied. “I smoked like the proverbial chimney.”
“What made you stop?”
“I was blown up in an airplane
accident.”
“Oh.”
“I spent several months comatose in
hospitals and had numerous operations and skin grafts. It
cured me of smoking.” There was a rare glint of humour in Black’s dark eyes as
he took another sip of his tea.
“It’s a bit drastic though,” Brown
replied.
“I certainly wouldn’t recommend it.”
“I don’t want to let people down,”
Brown confessed. “But I’d kill for a
ciggie. All this was sprung on me rather unexpectedly. I didn’t have time to psyche myself up for
it.”
“No, you never do. I lay there in hospital dreaming of taking a
long drag on a fag – even now it’s hard sometimes when I smell the smoke on you
not to cadge one off you.”
“Scarlet took my ciggie case, or I’d
give you one.”
“I wouldn’t thank you for it,” Black
said coldly. “What happened to the
others you have?”
“Oh, Fawn came round to my quarters
and took them away. They were
relentless.”
“They mean well.”
“You’ll be telling me it’s for my own
good in a minute!”
“I don’t need to – you know it is.”
“I’m going to get some more
biscuits…”
Brown stood and marched across to the
counter.
Captain Black finished his tea and
took his cup to the service hatch.
“Goodnight, Alan, and … good luck.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Brown muttered
dismissively, his mouth full of chocolate digestive biscuit.
On Doctor Fawn’s advice everyone was
very patient and cut Captain Brown a lot of slack for the next couple of
weeks. The normally genial Alan Stephens
turned into a temperamental, irritable and self-pitying stranger. Captain Scarlet, not a man to suffer fools
gladly, had to bite his tongue several times and walk away from potential flash
points, but day by day, things improved.
Every evening Captain Blue handed over another twenty note and following
his example many other people did the same, giving Brown’s confidence a boost
and the motivation to carry on.
His battle against the Demon Nicotine
became the number one topic of conversation.
Brown was simultaneously pleased and alarmed by this, but as Scarlet
said one morning over his first, and Brown’s fifth or sixth, cup of strong
coffee, “The more people who know, the less likely you are to backslide.” He
grinned at an old memory. “Someone I
used to know at university was all but stopping strangers in the street to tell
them she was giving up smoking. She said
that she was shaming herself into succeeding.
Come on, Alan, it won’t take long!”
“Easy for you to say,” Brown
grumbled, but allowed himself to be convinced.
The worst times were after meals, and
especially after the first coffee of the day.
That’s when the craving was at its height, and he desperately missed the
feel of a cigarette between his fingers, and the taste of the smoke in his
mouth. The quartermaster ordered
nicotine chewing gum and a dummy cigarette for him, but as he told Scarlet:
“It’s just not the same… it doesn’t feel the same, it doesn’t taste the same,
and I hate chewing gum. Filthy
habit.”
Recognising the onset of another bout
of short-tempered self-pity, Scarlet wisely said nothing.
“And I’m constantly losing the bloody
things.” Brown put a hand into his
pocket to find the dummy cigarette or the gum; finding neither, he borrowed
Scarlet’s biro and started twiddling it between his fingers.
He was plagued by splitting headaches,
and rather more alarmingly from his point of view, periodic heavy pressure in
his chest.
“Largely psychosomatic,” Fawn assured
him. “Don’t forget you’ve been pouring
pollutants into your lungs for years.
It’s not surprising that you’re going to feel some kind of reaction
there. Now, breathe in as far as you
can…”
The doctor measured Brown’s chest
expansion, then handed him a tube with a mouthpiece on the end. Brown eyed it dubiously. It looked like something the cleaners would
use as a vacuum cleaner attachment.
“What’s this for?”
“It’s for measuring your lung
capacity. We’ll test you once a week,
and I’ll keep a chart showing your progress.
Now, take the deepest breath you can, and blow as hard and as long as
you can into the mouthpiece. Empty your
lungs completely.”
Brown did as he was told, blowing
down the tube until he saw stars and broke into a wheezing cough. Fawn gave him a few minutes to recover, and
then made him do it again. Brown
appreciated everything that was being done to help him, he genuinely did, but
he did wonder if it was going to be worth it.
Nevertheless, he soldiered on, from mini-crisis
to mini-crisis, tormented by insomnia and a hacking cough, stomach cramps and
weight gains. Scarlet took him down the
gym every day to exercise and Grey would challenge him to races in the
pool. Even Ochre, usually the least sympathetic of
the captains to anything that smacked of personal weakness, engaged him in
conversations about the mechanism of clocks and the pleasure to be gained from
working on something and seeing it restored to perfection, or seeing something
develop from nothing thanks to one’s own handiwork.
What couldn’t be helped by his
companions was Brown’s lack of ability
to concentrate and the resulting clumsiness that not only prevented him from
working on his clocks but had resulted in one of his favourite projects being
ruined when he dropped it.
Yet still he stuck to his
commitment.
The day before Christmas Eve, the
Angels held their charity auction and even though Captain Brown had the
pleasure of seeing his contribution bought by the colonel for a princely sum,
their total failed to knock him off the top spot on the fund donation
chart. This was largely due to Captain
Blue’s generous sponsorship, of course, but even so, Alan felt pride in his
achievement.
Once the final item had been sold,
Colonel White addressed the crowd at the auction.
“Ladies and gentlemen of Spectrum
Cloudbase, this is the final event of the charity fundraising calendar. I am hopeful that we will have a sizeable pot
when we announce our awards to the press tomorrow. Six international charities have been chosen by
you from the list you suggested and the fund will be split equally between
them. I am happy to be able to announce
that the World President has informed me that he will match coin for coin the
amount we have raised.”
There was a hearty cheer at this
news. Once it subsided the colonel
continued:
“I would like to thank you all for
your enthusiasm and commitment to raising this money. I hope you consider it to have been a success
and that you will wish to do the same next year. I have already received several suggestions
for events that could be held during the year to raise money for the fund, and
I am giving them all due consideration.
Tomorrow, there will be a number of small gatherings throughout
Cloudbase, to celebrate Christmas. I
know that not all of us here are Christians, but all of us are part of humanity,
and whatever our own beliefs, I hope we can all participate in this festival as
a token of our unity and our commitment to ensure that there is goodwill to all mankind across this beautiful and precious planet.”
“Hear, hear!”
“S.I.G, Colonel!”
“Merry Christmas!”
More cheers followed this speech and
the crowd broke up, happy and excited at the prospect of the reduced hours and
duties that had been announced for the next day.
The senior officers were having their
party in the Amber Room, as it was essential that Angel One remained
manned. The Angels had acquired a real
tree and the room was decorated with what was probably several miles of bunting
and garlands. The most popular
decoration was undoubtedly the mistletoe and there was much cheerful squealing
and laughter as each Captain claimed his Christmas kiss from each Angel.
Captain Brown was starting to enjoy
himself and for the first time in several weeks he wasn’t thinking about having
a cigarette. He had a conversation with
Melody, Black and Grey about cars until Rhapsody, wearing Captain Scarlet’s
radio cap, dragged Black away ‘to dance’.
There was a scuffle when Scarlet came
back from the control room with Captain Blue – who had covered for the colonel
so that the Commander-in-Chief could attend the first part of the party – and
rescued his radio cap from the young woman’s head, and when he turned round,
Melody had strolled off to inveigle Captain Blue onto the dance floor.
Brown went to get a drink and he was
still standing there when Rhapsody came alongside to speak to him.
“Isn’t this a great party?” she
asked, smiling up at him. “It was so
nice of the colonel to agree that we could have one. I hope it remains as much of a tradition as
the charity fund is likely to be.”
“Yes, that would be nice,” he
agreed.
Rhapsody chattered on and it was only
when he turned to smile at her that he saw that she was inserting a cigarette
into a long, black holder.
“I didn’t know you smoked, Rhapsody,”
he said in surprise.
She flushed and tried to hide the
holder. “Oh, I don’t really,” she
gasped. “Well, just the very odd one at
parties and so forth. I don’t really smoke.”
“I thought I was the only sinner
amongst the senior officers; now I discover that Black is an ex-smoker and you
still smoke!”
"I don’t! Look, let me explain, Alan. When I first started in espionage, I was
trained by a formidable lady agent – you may have heard of her? Lady Penelope Creighton Ward? She ran her own agency for a while and when
she retired, I ran it for a spell too.
Lady Penelope taught me all she knew and she gave me an invaluable tip –
a cigarette in a holder hides many things – recording devices, cameras...
tracers, even. Problem is, you have to
smoke the cigarette otherwise it looks suspicious. Now, somehow, I don't feel dressed for a
party without one..." She removed the cigarette and threw it in the bin,
slipping the holder back into her pocket.
“Please, don’t give up now – you’ve done the hard part.”
Brown sighed and was about to
answer her when Scarlet joined them.
“Alan, I meant to give you this
back earlier.” He handed Brown his
cigarette case. “I didn’t mean to keep
it for so long, but I’m afraid I forgot I had it.”
“It’s all right, Paul; although
I am glad to get it back. It was my
grandfather’s and he gave it to my father, who gave it to me. A sort of heirloom.”
Scarlet smiled. “Well, you’ll be pleased to have it safe
again, then. Now, young lady, you owe me
a dance or two to make up for your naughtiness earlier. Pinching a captain’s official uniform is
probably a court-martial offence…”
“I found it where you’d left
it!” she exclaimed, laughing. “And I bet
you can’t remember where you left it…”
They went away together, still
talking.
Brown watched them go. The room was emptying as people went to get
some sleep before the next duty rotas started.
He glanced down at the silver cigarette case and slid his thumb over the
smooth metal. He had missed it.
He was about to slip it into his
uniform pocket when he fumbled and it slipped to the floor. The catch opened and he saw the seven cigarettes
still inside.
He gasped and decided to throw
them into the bin with Rhapsody’s unsmoked cigarette. He picked the case up and looked up to see
Harmony Angel smiling at him.
“Happy Christmas, Captain
Brown,” she said.
“Happy Christmas, Harmony.”
Encouraged, she came across to
talk to him and the case went back into his tunic with the cigarettes still
inside.
The week after Christmas, things had returned
to normal, and as everyone’s workloads increased, Captain Brown felt the change
keenly. The euphoria he’d felt at having
everyone’s encouragement and praise for giving up smoking evaporated, and his
friends, busy with their own problems, became less openly supportive. They didn’t mean to be, of course, and when
he mentioned how he was doing they all looked interested enough, but it wasn’t
the same, somehow.
A few days after the New Year, he
spent a frustrating day trying to trace the hideout of a suspected terrorist
cell through the aerial surveillance and CCTV footage from the area. By the
time his shift ended, he felt an expert on every crack in the pavement and
every net curtain that twitched whenever a car drove past. He had studied the faces of the tired, middle-aged
women who carried shopping into the apartment blocks, and the young, unemployed
men lounging on the street corners ogling the young women who sashayed past
them with haughty provocation.
Now he had nothing to do; he knew
Scarlet was taking Destiny out to dinner tonight; Captains Black and Blue -
‘the Bruise Brothers’ as Ochre had nicknamed them - were away from base on an
assignment, while the colonel was on duty and Fawn was too busy to take a
break, so he was at a real loose end.
Stiff, hungry and depressed, he
strolled through Cloudbase and out of habit, found himself at the entrance of
the rather grim ‘room’ designated for the use of the smokers on
base. Cloudbase had not been designed to
accommodate people who smoked, but he had, quite early on in the fitting out,
petitioned Colonel White into providing a ‘Smokers’ Lounge’ for those poor
die-hard addicts who couldn’t stop.
White had agreed to his request, but in doing so, he had managed to make
it quite clear that he disapproved of the whole activity. The room was buried deep in the bowels of the
base, close to the outer walls and as far away from comfort as it was possible
to be. It had hard, non-combustible
benches around the walls and powerful ventilation ducts to remove the smoke
from the atmosphere.
Brown slowed as he approached the
familiar door and peered through the thick glass observation porthole into the
unappealing room. There were, as
always, one or two men in there, puffing away for dear life on their
cigarettes. As he walked away he saw his old smoking buddy, Technician Ray
Carter, approaching from the other corridor.
“Hi, Alan, happy New Year!” Ray
called. He had been groundside for the
past three months, installing security cameras at Spectrum bases. “I wondered where you’d got to. Did you have
a good Christmas?”
“Happy New Year to you, Ray. Yes, it was a good one up here with
everyone,” Brown said, sounding rather wistful.
“Yeah, I heard tell there were some pretty
good parties. Trust me to miss the fun.”
Ray pushed the door to the room open
and the smell of tobacco wafted out of the Smokers’ Lounge. “Coming in for a fag? Actually, I have some new Turkish ones I’d
like your opinion on, so I hope you’ve got a light… my damned lighter’s on the
blink again. Still, you can usually find
some friendly pariah who’ll light you up.”
He paused and looked back over his
shoulder, expecting Captain Brown to take the door and follow him in.
Brown hesitated and then stepped
forward to take the door from Ray. “Yes,
I think I have my lighter in my pocket, although I’m short of cigarettes. I
only have six or seven.”
“That’s okay, you can share mine.”
Brown smiled and followed Ray
inside.
After all, I can always give up smoking next year, he thought as the door swung closed behind him.
The End
Author’s notes:
‘Marizel’ is the nom de plume of two authors whose work is
already on the Spectrum HQ website, but the idea for this story developed from
a three-way conversation, and so Marizel would like to thank Caroline Smith for
her input and for beta-reading the finished text, and – occasionally – for holding
the coats of the joint authors when it came to fisticuffs… only kidding,
Colonel Chris!
We, at Marizel, wish all of you out there in ‘Anderland’ a Happy
New Year; especially Chris Bishop (our revered colonel) for whom 2011 holds the
additional excitement of the website’s 10th anniversary.
Marizel
January 2011.
"CHRISTMAS FAN FIC CHALLENGE"
PAGE
Any comments? Send an E-MAIL to the SPECTRUM HEADQUARTERS site