Timeline: The South Pacific: December 1942

"’Afternoon, Sister!" Bounding up the steps to the island's tiny wooden hospital building and sweeping off his uniform cap automatically, Lieutenant Tucker would have shoulder-charged right through the white-robed nun if she had not stepped aside quickly.

Sister Virtue smiled serenely, ignoring his puppylike combination of clumsiness and eagerness to please. "Good afternoon, Lieutenant. Ensign Mayweather is much better today. You'll find him on the lanai."

"Thanks." He turned back and winked at her, mischievously aware that here was one of the few women on Queen Charlotte Island who was completely impervious to his considerable charm.

Virtue nodded politely before turning away and resuming her duties. In sole charge of the hospital during the frequent absences of Dr Fox, she had already had the place running as smoothly as a sewing-machine a decade before the war came to this part of the south Pacific. The only difference these days was that instead of the usual agricultural accidents and difficult confinements her patients tended to be otherwise healthy young men with horrendous injuries inflicted by enemy action, yet for Virtue that meant only that the treatment was different; everyone who passed through her hands was her personal responsibility, and she cared and prayed equally for them all. What was more, she knew a great deal more about most of them than they ever gave her credit for. They saw the white habit and the rosary, heard the quiet voice, and thought they were dealing with someone who had been sheltered from the worst of the world's excesses, but Virtue had travelled a hard road - so much so, in fact, that she viewed the prospect of a Japanese attack without significant alarm. Although they did not precisely recognise her as such, Sister Virtue was the one solid institution the Queen Charlotte islanders, whether permanent or merely temporary, knew they could always rely on. It would take more than an invasion to disturb her equanimity and tear her away from the blessed reassurance of routine.

Tucker strode through the ward, nodding to a couple of men he knew from the command. "How're you, Beamish?" he called out to the recovering malaria patient in the far corner, receiving an incoherent reply. Passing between the louvered doors and out onto the deep lanai with its view over the bay, he encountered the object of his search. Ensign Travis Mayweather was propped up in a wheelchair with his pinned right leg in a full-length plaster cast resting on a footstool, engaging in a game of checkers with the little half-Polynesian nurse who had taken such an extravagant fancy to him. Tucker grinned at them both.

"Ensign. Nurse Sato, how you doin'?"

The girl got to her feet in a fluster. "Lieutenant. Excuse me." Her Japanese accent made the word sound like 'rootenant'.

"No need to go, Hoshi," Travis told her, alarmed.

"I'll be back," she promised. "Excuse me." Again the half-embarrassed apology, as though she had been caught doing something disgraceful, and then she scuttled off back to the ward and a moment later could be heard talking to Sister Virtue.

"She's cute," Tucker said, sitting down in the wicker chair the nurse had vacated.

"Sure is," Travis admitted, wistfully. "You think I could take her home with me after the war, Skip?"

Tucker rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Honestly? I think you'd be a lot happier if you could find a way to stay here. What were you doin' before you joined the Navy, Travis?"

The younger man shrugged. "I was a bellhop in the Dearborn Hotel in Chicago," he said.

"And you think you could take a sweet half-Japanese kid like her back home to live on that kind of wage? You know she'd never get a nursing job in the States, don't you? And what about your kids?" he added. "They'd be half-Negro and one quarter Jap. What kind of life d'you think they'd have?"

"I know." Travis sighed. "But what could I do here? Learn to catch fish and grow corn?"

"There are worse ways to make a living," the senior officer laughed. "Hey, you don't have to decide now, anyway. Listen, I just came by to say I've got to go away for a coupla days. The Sneak flew in this morning; Archer's got some British officer with him and they're talking about establishing a coast watch on one of the northern islands. I'm supposed to go along, at least until they get everything set up. Should be no more than a week if everything goes well. If not … " He shrugged. "Mrs Fox and Porthos will be in every day to keep an eye on you, and you've got Hoshi and Beamish for company. Commander Harbison's going to drop by to supervise our repairs, so he may look in too; if he doesn't, get Sister Virtue to contact him for anything you need."

Travis made a face. His opinion of Bill Harbison and Tucker's coincided; a pleasant enough guy to your face, he could stab you between the shoulder-blades if you gave him even half a chance. For the last few weeks he had been too busy cooking up song and dance routines with the nurses on his own snug little island to give much thought either to the war or to the well-being of a solitary PT boat crew, nominally under his command, stranded due to engine repairs on a small slab of rock more than five hours away by launch. He had been quick to have most of the crew transferred out of there, leaving only PT 401's commander, Lieutenant Tucker, and his injured radio operator, Mayweather, to cool their heels on a tropical island filled with more temptations than either of them knew how to deal with. Injured and far from home, it hadn't taken Travis long to fall in love with Hoshi. Tucker, by contrast, had been running after most of the women on the island since he first put foot on shore - but so far none of them seemed to have caught up to him.

"Can't see you working with some spit-and-polish Britisher, Skip," Travis told him, one eyebrow raised in amused enquiry. "What's he like?"

"Don't know. Just on my way to meet him. Don't worry, I'll soon show him how we do things in our Navy. May even teach him to speak decent English, if we get time. Archer says he's okay, though," he added, doubtfully.

Travis laughed. "Can't trust him," he said. "All those pilots are mad as badgers. Comes from drinking that torpedo juice they make up on Vanicoro."

Skip looked pained. "You have to be certifiably insane to fly a PBY anyhow," he replied, cheerfully. "Nobody in their right mind would want to do it." He looked at his watch. "Hey, I've gotta be going, Travis. Anything you need me to send you before I leave the island?"

"I'd like to get some kind of present for Hoshi," Travis told him, lowering his voice. "You think you could get hold of some perfume or something?"

"Perfume? Sure, no sooner said than done. Leave it with me." Getting up, he slapped Travis on the shoulder with his uniform cap. "See you in a week or so," he said, grinning widely. "Take care of that leg; soon as the engine's fixed, I'm going to need my radio operator back."

"Sure, Skip. Give my regards to the British Navy."

"So long Travis." Tucker didn't turn around as he took his leave, but raised a hand above his head in a token wave. Travis listened to the sound of his footsteps as they receded through the ward, heard him calling out a cheery 'Goodbye' to Sister Virtue, and a moment later a jeep's engine coughed into life on the road outside.

Travis Mayweather blinked as he looked out across the cobalt waters of the Pacific - a fine, calm sight on a peaceful day - and thought how surreal it was that anything so sordid as war could threaten a place as beautiful as this, and wondered if he would ever see his friend again.

Dr and Mrs Fox had established themselves in the former colonial administrator's villa on a breezy headland overlooking the bay. Having plenty of space and a large establishment of servants, they had been in an ideal position to offer rooms to any officers who found themselves needing to stay in D'Entrecasteaux, the principal settlement of Queen Charlotte Island, and Tucker had been living very comfortably in one of their airy ground floor guest rooms for the past four weeks. 'Bus' Archer, the pilot of a PBY Catalina known as the Quarterback Sneak which made a regular run from Nouméa through to Vanicoro bringing mail and essential supplies, stopped overnight at least once a fortnight; Mrs Fox kept a room for him permanently. It was just as well she did; the other accommodation on the island was limited to insect-haunted Quonsets and, in the dry season, a handful of tents dotted along the shore. A few native islanders lived in their own villages, and the remnants of some colonial families had put together small wooden bungalows and what passed for a trading post at the other end of the island, but only the grandly-named Government House was considered fit for US officers.

Tucker rolled the jeep to a halt by the front door, dropped his cap unceremoniously into the back seat, and headed for the table and chairs that had been set up under the palms just where the best view of the northern ocean was to be had.

Bus Archer was already there. A tall, sandy-haired man at least ten years older than Tucker, he looked as if he was contemplating a round of golf; his ensemble comprised uniform trousers, Hawaiian shirt in shades of fuchsia and lime, and a black baseball cap. He had his hands in his pockets and was talking and laughing animatedly with a second man who got to his feet courteously as Skip approached.

Tucker's first sight of the British officer he was to escort to Enfant Perdu Island was not encouraging. For a moment he almost burst out giggling as he wondered what in the seven hells the Brits thought they were doing sending their people out dressed like kindergarteners - white short-sleeved shirt, white shorts, white knee socks, even a lanyard for chrissakes. It looked a cool enough outfit for socialising on the lawn, but sure didn't seem practical to fight a war in.

"Sorry I'm late, guys," he called out cheerily as he approached. "My radio man's down in the hospital breakin' his heart over that little Japanese nurse. I just stopped by to make sure he's all right."

"You must be Lieutenant Tucker," the Brit said, civilly, holding out a hand in greeting. "Lieutenant Malcolm Reed, Royal Navy."

"Charlie Tucker," Skip said, shaking the hand. "Or y'can call me Skip, suit yourself. How they hangin', Bus?"

"Low and slow, buddy." Archer clapped him on the shoulder. "We're drinking gin."

"Sounds good to me."

"It was a present from Mrs Fox," Reed said, sitting down again. His uniform cap and a roll of papers lay on the table, alongside the remnants of a snack meal he and Archer had obviously just shared. Archer poured a glass for Tucker, pushed it to him across the rattan table-top, and slumped back down into his chair.

"Nice folks, the Foxes," Tucker commented blandly. "The Doc's good company when he stays off the sauce, and Elizabeth's a really fine woman. Shame they don't have any kids."

"She's not too old," Reed said. "Perhaps they will after the war."

"Yeah, maybe," Tucker conceded. "Long as he's still capable, I guess. So, you want me to escort you to Enfant Perdu?"

Reed and Archer exchanged looks, and the temperature dropped a notch.

"Not exactly, Lieutenant." Again, the cool and slightly arrogant British pronunciation of the word grated on Tucker's nerves. "Bus?"

Archer leaned forward. "The situation's kinda complicated, Skip," he explained. "Basically, Malcolm here is the only guy in the sector who knows his way around that island. The Japs took the last half dozen residents off there back in August and we haven't been able to find out where they put them. They occupied the place for a few weeks, then we took it back - only they'd left it booby trapped. We lost four men on the first reconnaissance, so command decided not to land anybody else until they could get an expert in to look the place over. It just took them a little while to locate Malcolm, that's all. Coast watch on Nubani is pretty certain there's been no activity there since we pulled out. You should find everything just as the Japs left it. "

"I was serving in the Med.," Reed explained, as though it followed. "In frigates. I've had a lot of demolition experience."

"Hell, we've got demolition people nearer than that," Tucker protested. "Me, for example. Why'd they need you enough to bring you all that way?"

"Because I lived on Enfant Perdu for four years and incidentally I both speak and read Japanese fluently," was the devastatingly simple reply. "I'm the only suitably qualified person for the job."

"Uh-huh. And I just bet you're a one-man killin' machine, too, aren't you?" Tucker flashed a look of barely concealed contempt at the Brit; he'd already pigeon-holed him as pompous, patronising and about as much use as a straw parachute. Holding this guy's hand through even a couple of days of jungle warfare wasn't going to be anything like the simple job he'd outlined to Travis.

Reed didn't bother to answer, just shrugging one eloquent shoulder.

"So maybe the question," Tucker went on, "should be 'Why do they need me?'"

Archer grimaced. "Commander Harbison volunteered you," he said. "I take it there's no love lost there? He tells me your fuel pump won't even get as far as Nouméa for another three weeks, so instead of cooling your heels here waiting for it you might as well be doing something useful."

"Anythin' to relieve the monotony," Skip drawled, swigging deeper from his gin.

"This isn't going to be a pleasure cruise, Lieutenant," Reed told him acerbically.

"Did I say it was?"

"High tide's at two a.m. tomorrow morning," Archer put in quickly. "Be on the beach at two thirty and I can get you up to Enfant Perdu at first light. Malcolm, have you checked your supplies?"

"Yes, thank you. Everything's in order. I'll be ready on time."

"You make sure you are," Tucker told him. "An' I hope you're not plannin' to wear that outfit? There's no Chinese laundry on Enfant Perdu, you know. Damn, you look as if you're headin' for a fancy dress ball."

"Oh, no," Reed assured him. "I have something much more appropriate in mind. I thought I'd wear a sarong and a lei."

That night, as he was trying to squeeze in a few hours' sleep ahead of the alarm clock's shrill, Tucker had difficulty shaking the idea of Lieutenant Reed in sarong and lei out of his mind. That wiry form would look pretty good stripped of the archaic British tropical number one uniform, and with those high cheekbones and glacial blue eyes Reed could carry off any sort of exotic costume with aplomb. Not that he thought it particularly likely that any stuffy Britisher could unwind to that extent; it took a certain type of mad American not to care how bizarre he looked. Rumour had it that in the recent base show on Vanicoro one of the Seabees had dressed up in grass skirt, make-up, the works, and done a little dance for the guys. He'd drawn more applause even than some of the genuine females in the show. Tucker suspected, however, that such feminine accomplishments as makeup and dancing were a little out of Lieutenant Reed's line.

Shame.

He'd never know what he was missing, and unfortunately Lieutenant Tucker would be robbed of a sight he was convinced would be well worth seeing.

It was still dark when the two officers and their luggage assembled on the beach. A young native boy with a rowing boat was waiting to row them out to the Sneak, anchored just where the surf flattened into tranquil ripples and the shore shelved steeply. A small pinpoint of torch-light in the seaplane's cockpit showed them where Archer was busy checking instruments and going over his charts, but the only other movement within their range of vision came from the palm branches overhead which whispered softly back and forth in the light breeze.

"Got everything?" Tucker asked cynically, as Reed loaded a large backpack and a bundle of equipment into the boat. He looked as if he was planning a fortnight's holiday in a beach resort, but at least he had found something more appropriate to wear than all that white. Tucker couldn't make out quite what it was; something nondescript with long trousers and shoulder tabs which he didn't think the Royal Navy would recognise.

"I think so, thank you." If Reed understood the edge in Tucker's tone, he chose to ignore it. "Have you?"

"Sure. I didn't have room for the ice bucket, though, so I'm afraid we'll have to make do with warm champagne."

The quality of Reed's silence was deafening. "May I take it," he said at length, "that you're not exactly charmed by the idea of spending time with me cut off from civilisation on an island potentially infested with Japanese soldiers?"

"You may take it any way you can get it, Lieutenant," Tucker advised him, roughly. "You may also take it that two thirty in the god-damned a.m. is a better time for goin' to bed than it is for getting' up."

"Perhaps you can sleep in the plane," Reed told him. "I'm sure you need your beauty rest, Mr Tucker. It might make you a little more amenable."

"Amenable? I'm perfectly amenable, you Limey bastard. You just haven't learned t'appreciate me yet."

"I look forward to the experience," Reed told him, coolly, taking his seat in the boat and waiting for Tucker to do the same.

The flight north-westward through the islands, with a brief detour to signal their friendly intent as they passed over Vanicoro, was nothing but rattling darkness enlivened only by the occasional shouted comment from Archer. Skip tried to sleep, a soft-brimmed hat pulled down over his eyes to shield him from the more obvious distractions, whilst Reed slotted himself into the co-pilot's seat and took a keen interest in every detail of the proceedings. In the waist of the plane Archer's radio man monitored traffic from Japanese positions on the lip of the horizon, but reported nothing alarming. Night flights up through this corridor were admittedly rare, but as long as they kept their transmissions to Vanicoro brief and oblique there was no reason to expect their purpose to be detected.

A little after four-fifteen, with the indigo sky showing the first faint flushes of pink at the hem, Archer lined up the PBY across the direction of the surf.

"That's the reef," he yelled in Reed's ear. "There's a break at the southern end. I'll land north-south and taxi as close to it as I can, but you're on your own after that."

"And you'll be back at Vanicoro for breakfast?" Reed asked, with a grin.

"You know it. Better get in back, Malcolm, I'm about ready to bring her down."

The British officer unwound from the front seat and shouldered Tucker out of the way, squeezing through the gap into the aft compartment. Moments later the engine note changed as the nose lifted, and gradually the Catalina's speed dropped as Archer lowered it carefully and expertly onto the gently rolling surf. As he taxied through the waves towards the southern end of the reef, pandemonium broke out behind him; the door was thrown open, the rubber boat lowered and made fast, and items of luggage began to be transferred, to be swiftly followed by Reed. Tucker remained behind long enough to slap Archer on the shoulder and receive a thumbs-up in exchange, and then the radio operator was flat on his stomach with his hands on the lashings of the boat and they were all waiting for the word from the pilot.

"Now!" Archer said, abruptly, as a steeper wave rolled by beneath the floats and left a trough of relative calm in its wake. "Good luck, boys."

Reed had grabbed a paddle and he waved with it in response to Archer's thumbs-up signal. Tucker, still on his knees, turned towards the pilot and roared something that ended in the word 'perfume'. There was no indication as to whether Archer had heard or not, but he waved again. A moment later the door in the side of the plane had closed and Archer was turning it into the surf, preparatory to taking off again towards the north. The first Japanese patrols would already be in the air; he was going to have to get the best speed he could out of the seaplane in order to get back to the relative safety of Vanicoro before they could catch up to him.

Reed thrust a paddle into Tucker's hands.

"I take it you know how to row?" he asked, archly.

"Hey, I'm a Navy man," Tucker growled.

"Yes. A PT boat skipper, I understand? You must do a lot of rowing, then?" The seaplane had finished taxi-ing and the roar of the engine was increasing, but Reed did not raise his voice. Tucker had already noticed that it had the penetrating quality of a steel blade and could cut through any chaos.

"I know how to row." Tucker grabbed the paddle in annoyance.

"Then row," Reed told him, "and there's an even chance we might actually get somewhere."

"Keep your eyes on the shore," Reed said shortly as they slipped past the reef minutes later. "Any sign of activity?"

"No. But you wouldn't see anything anyway; one Jap with a decent pair of binoculars up in a tree could keep this whole coastline under observation."

"So we can take it that if there are any Japs, they know we're here," Reed concluded. "Comforting thought."

"Well," Tucker drawled, "assuming we survive the next hour or so, do we have a plan?"

"Make a thorough recce of the island and find out whether there is anyone here that shouldn't be," Reed informed him. "Disable as many of the booby traps as we need to for our own safety. We'll leave the rest, just in case we have visitors."

Tucker nodded. "Fine. Then?"

"Establish a base in a cave I know of. It's defensible and it has a supply of fresh water."

"And a good view of the shore?" Tucker speculated, putting his whole weight into his rowing. The boat wasn't heavy, even with two of them in it, and once he had got used to the swell of the sea he soon found a rhythm that worked. Reed and he were pulling together naturally without ever having discussed it.

"No. It's inland. Right in the middle of the island."

"Uh-huh. You wanna tell me how come we're coast watching from a cave without a sea view?"

"Coast watching?" Reed laughed. "I suppose that comes from the same spurious source as the notion that you're here to escort me? I can't think where you get these ideas of yours, Loo-tenant Tucker."

That did it. The sarcastic parody of his American pronunciation, as if he was some kind of inbred throwback from a dirt-road shanty in the back of nowhere, grated so vilely on Tucker's sensibilities that he was all for pushing Reed overboard and praying for a friendly shark to come along and gobble up the evidence.

"Now see here, Lord Fauntleroy," he said, a little breathlessly, "you c'n treat me with disdain if you like, but that's not the way to get my co-operation. If that island has so much as a single Jap livin' on it the chances are you'll need me to save your sorry ass sooner or later, so I think I'd be a bit nicer to me in your place. Why the hell d'you have to walk around as if I was some kinda bad smell under your nose the whole time?"

"Mr Tucker, you don't know the first thing about me," Reed told him icily. "Almost as little, in fact, as you seem to know about our present mission - which I can only put down to your having annoyed Commander Harbison as much as you're annoying me. One thing we need to get straight, however, is this: I'm in command here. If you're not happy with that there are a variety of options open to you, many of which will land you in prison or in front of a firing squad. We only have to tolerate each other for a few days. I'm well aware that the attention span of an American is slightly less than that of the average gnat, but if you try and concentrate I'm sure you'll find the time passing quite rapidly. Bus Archer speaks rather well of you, as a matter of fact," he added, his tone lightening to a surprising degree as if to illustrate that his tirade should not be taken entirely personally. "He seemed to think you'd be ideal for this little expedition."

"Yeah, well." Tucker had stopped rowing, and now ran a hand across the back of his head in a perplexed gesture. "Maybe I'd agree with him if I knew what we were doing."

"Let's get ashore first," Reed suggested. "If we're shot before we set foot on the beach, I don't want to have wasted my last few breaths doing Bill Harbison's job for him. One thing at a time, Lieutenant."

"Yessir, Admiral," Tucker told him, with a facetious salute, before bending his strength to the oars again.

They drew the boat up under the tree-line on a beach innocent of footprints. The eastern horizon was beginning to glow as the sun hauled itself from the depths of the ocean, high clouds in shades of coral, lilac and silver hanging above the island's summit. At this latitude the sun would spring up quickly and pass around them to the north; the distant drone of Zeroes, like mosquitoes on a hot summer day, told them that the early patrol out of Bougainville was already off the ground and heading south over the disputed area of the Santa Cruz Basin.

The light was strong enough now for Tucker to perceive that Reed was fully armed. Almost before they had stopped rowing a pistol was in the Englishman's hand, and a few moments later he had unzipped the hold-all he had brought with him and taken two SMGs from an oilskin-wrapped package, one of which he pushed into Tucker's hands.

"Grenades?" he asked, shortly, as though offering fruit at a party.

"British or American?"

"British."

"Sure."

Tucker took two and jammed them into his pockets. Reed hoisted the now much lighter hold-all onto his shoulder, leaving his personal backpack and Tucker's behind with the boat. With the side of his foot he edged both packs under low vegetation at the fringe of the beach as a sop to the notion of camouflage, although in all conscience it was not much of a hide.

"Gently," he breathed, by way of caution. "There's a path here up to the top of the hill."

Indeed, 'the hill' seemed to occupy most of the island. Enfant Perdu was a little over seven hundred feet wide and rose to a height of more than four hundred feet; from a distance it had the appearance of a large, flat-topped pudding in a dish, with a scoop taken out of one side as though someone had begun to eat it and then changed his mind. Volcanic activity hundreds of thousands of years in the past had formed its distinctive shape, but its contours had been softened by the gradual appearance of jungle which now poured like a rich sauce over its sloping sides.

"Ready?"

Tucker nodded. "Let's do it," he whispered.

Reed clapped him on the shoulder, a brief comradely touch, then bent his head and with silently scurrying feet set off into the jungle, leaving Tucker to follow at the best pace he could.

For most of the morning they tiptoed about, swift and calm, working in tandem as if they had known one another considerably longer than the eighteen or so rather irritating hours of their previous acquaintance. Three times they paused at tripwires across their path while Reed dealt efficiently with hand grenades rigged to explode at the lightest touch. He did not add the grenades to his own armoury, however; he buried them individually a few steps from the path. Twice they skirted pits dug in their way; old-fashioned jungle warfare pit traps with sharpened stakes in the bottom, they were covered with vegetation that had been green when it was placed there but had since dried out and lost its colour. Any Japanese still on the island would surely have maintained the camouflage on the pit traps in rather better condition than this, but that could scarcely be considered conclusive proof that they were alone.

Tucker soon began to realise that he understood how Reed would approach a new objective; occasional whispered conversations explained where they were heading and what they were looking for. Old campfire sites were raked over but yielded nothing that seemed to have been there less than three months. Old latrine pits were inspected; they were noisome but dry, with little insect activity. A small wooden building, which had at one time been the colonial administrative centre and the headquarters of Enfant Perdu’s agricultural enterprise, stood in a clearing at the side of a former banana plantation; Reed approached it obliquely and spent a long time looking at it through binoculars from the cover of the trees.

"What d'you think?" Tucker asked, hunkering down near him.

Reed turned to pass him the binoculars.

"I'm not keen," he confessed. "If they had time before they left, they could have rigged the door, the window or the ground around the hut. Looks as if they didn't have much to do while they were here but set traps; maybe the island commander just had that kind of mind."

"Devious bastard, right?" Tucker mused. "Is that another tripwire a couple of yards this side of the hut?"

"Not sure, but it's in the right place. I wouldn't touch that building with a barge-pole. I hope we don't have to."

"What's the writing say?" A couple of kanji in fresh black paint stood out on the door.

Reed shrugged. "Kinjiro. Private. Keep out. Literally 'forbidden', I suppose. This would have been the Japs' administrative headquarters, and probably where their commander lived."

"You're good at this, aren't you?"

The Englishman's head turned right around and almost for the first time he looked Tucker directly in the eye. Standing, there was half a head difference in their heights; crouching, Reed seemed almost taller and certainly more intense. His dark hair had flopped across his forehead and there were scratches on his face from pushing through thickets of vegetation rather than taking the more obviously beaten track.

"Very good," he said, without false modesty. "And you're a fast learner."

"I find it pays," Tucker agreed. "What's next?"

"The house. It's above us, about a hundred feet up, right on the north-facing end of the hill. It's got a great view over the whole Solomon Archipelago; with a good telescope you could just about read the call letters of anything coming out of Guadalcanal."

"That's four hundred miles!"

Reed ignored Tucker’s objection. "My father used to sit there for hours, gazing out to sea," he said. "I always wondered what he was looking at."

"That was your house?"

"I lived there for four years," Reed confirmed. "I left in 1926 to go to school and I've only been back twice, but my father was still on the island when the Japanese arrived."

"Oh. What happened to him?"

"Nobody knows. He could … he could still be in the house."

For a moment Tucker imagined the scene; the old man's body swinging gently from a rafter as they opened the door, or eviscerated in the middle of the marriage bed, four months dead and left to rot. The slight falter in Reed's voice had been nothing compared to the horror he could imagine if he himself was facing the same situation.

"You're a tough cookie, Malcolm," he said, approvingly, gripping the man's arm in brief reassurance.

"Thanks. You're no powder-puff yourself, Skip."

Their eyes locked, too briefly, and then Reed looked away sharply.

"Let's move before we rust," he suggested.

Tucker fell into step behind him as he moved off, carefully, towards the house.

The house was a neat little bungalow with a lanai on all four sides; at least, that was how it had been, complete with red-painted front door. There was no glass in the windows; metal storm shutters stood open, and to judge by the sounds that emanated from within a local seabird colony had taken up residence in this convenient shelter. It was probably ankle-deep in guano inside, like the shelves on the steep cliff face the birds had made their own.

Reed seemed to steel himself as they approached. Although they were by now fairly certain they were alone on the island, he still took every sensible precaution and observed for a long time before he was bold enough to creep closer and look in through a window. The chaos inside was unbelievable. Everything small and lootable had gone, presumably with the departing Japanese; what remained behind had been despoiled and treated with contempt. It would have been painful, had he been more certain that British or American troops could have restrained themselves if the situation had been reversed. A framed picture of the Prince of Wales - briefly Edward VIII and now the Duke of Windsor - hung drunkenly on one wall. It had been slashed with a sword, and flapped lazily in four pennant-shaped sections.

"We goin' in?"

Reed paused to assess the situation before answering Tucker's question.

"No," he said. "They've wrecked the place. There’s not a stick of furniture left intact - and no sign of my father."

"So we've seen all we need to see?"

"Not quite. I want to walk around the outside and check the place more thoroughly. I'll be faster if I go alone. Stay here."

Tucker nodded nervously. The idea of being separated from his only companion on this godforsaken rock on the Emperor's doorstep didn't appeal much, but as Reed had reminded him he was in command.

"Be careful, Malcolm."

"I will." Again, that acute glance that seemed to look through him. This time Tucker stood still under it, let eyes the colour of a winter sky wander across his face and into his heart.

"Do you think … ?" Tucker began, then halted uncomfortably, startled by the complete incongruity of what he had been about to say.

"Later," Reed whispered. "We'll talk later."

Tucker nodded, but held Reed's gaze. When it was finally torn away from him he felt the separation almost as a physical pain. He'd seen eyes looking at him like that before; women's eyes, most often, but men's as well. That look usually presaged something else - a hand that reached across the gap between them, an offer whispered so that only he could hear. It was a look he only ever saw in the eyes of someone who was about to become his lover.

What had Travis called him? A spit-and-polish Britisher? But Archer had sold Reed to him as 'a very capable guy who won't let you down' - and Archer's opinion, torpedo juice or no torpedo juice, weighed with Skip Tucker.

Archer knew that Skip sometimes liked it rough; visiting the Green Light House in Nouméa together, Archer had raised an eyebrow but made no other comment when Skip's choice had fallen on a slim, high-cheekboned Polynesian boy - but some time during the night, in a bed plenty big enough for the four of them, Skip had become aware that Archer's partner for the evening bore more than a passing resemblance to a certain nun of their mutual acquaintance. At that point the bargain had been struck, without a word ever being spoken. Archer would ignore Skip's occasional forays with the male sex, and Skip would forget that his buddy was eating his heart out over the majestic Sister Virtue. You couldn't help who you fell in love with, and that was the truth.

Had there been something more than a little mischievous, then, about Archer's finagling to get him to accept this mission alongside Reed? They'd apparently known one another for some time, and he doubted Reed's stay in Nouméa had been any less eventful than his own. Had Archer taken him to the same house? Had Reed selected the same boy?

A shudder ran through him. Someone had walked over his grave, and he hoped the someone had not been Malcolm Reed.

It was several minutes before Reed returned to him, and then it was all Tucker could do not to pull him in and hug the life from him. Instead he allowed gratitude and welcome to show in his eyes.

"Easy," Malcolm whispered, as one quiets a frightened horse, letting a hand briefly make contact with Skip's shoulder.

"Find anything?"

"No."

"Good. C'n we leave? This place gives me the creeps."

"Suits me," Reed acknowledged. "We'll go up to the cave now; as long as it's clear, we can move in and get organised. Actually, I'm hoping the Japs won't have found it at all; it's pretty tucked away and you'd need to know what you were looking for. As soon as it's dark," he went on, "we can have a fire inside the cave and get a decent meal. Are you hungry, Skip?" The kindness in his voice was something new, as though he had ceased fencing with the American and was prepared to allow him to take a step closer.

"Stomach thinks my throat's been cut," Tucker admitted. "You?"

"Much the same," Reed grinned, and the grin was a revelation. "Not far now. Keep your wits about you, though; this would be a good place for more booby traps."

A shallow declivity at the top of the hill - where the ‘bite’ had been taken from the island - revealed a clear pool in what had formerly been a volcanic crater. Fed by a turbulent little spring that forced its way through rocks some fifty feet above, and debouching into a watercourse that was channelled towards the house and thence down through the jungle to meet the Pacific, the pool was some thirty feet wide and less than five deep and to judge by the smooth-worn rocks and imported tree trunks that lined its shore it had been used as a swimming hole by the local population for several generations. The ashes of many long-dead fires were to be seen scattered among the rocks, one still retaining a rather elderly and insanitary billy-can which lay on its side amid the debris of a long-ago picnic.

Still wary, Reed and Tucker made a slow circuit of the pool, Reed stopping every so often to inspect items that took his attention. Two further tripwires came to light amid the rocks and were dealt with, the wires being left in place whilst the explosives were disarmed. In the end he relaxed, holstered his pistol, and smiled tiredly across at his companion.

"I think the place is clean," he said. "It doesn’t feel as if anyone’s been here for months."

Tucker wiped a hand across his forehead. The sun was high now, and he had been perspiring freely since they started in from the beach. He was acutely aware of the energy-draining effects of the local climate, and of his own lack of preparedness for this mission. Fortunately he was a reasonably fit young man, but as a Navy officer he was rarely called upon to undertake this kind of work.

"So," he sighed, "we eat?"

"Not just yet, I’m afraid," Reed told him. "We need to uncover the cave, and bring the packs up from the shoreline. If you don’t feel like slogging down all that way again, I can go for the packs and hide the boat a bit more thoroughly at the same time. That leaves you hauling rocks, though, I’m afraid. Or we can both do both."

Tucker thought about it a moment. "Is this water drinkable?" he asked.

"More or less, unless anything’s died in there recently." Reed cast an eye over the pool. "Looks okay," he opined. "But you might be better drinking direct from the spring; that comes up through a bed of volcanic shale and it’s very pure. You’re going to stay with the water, are you?"

"Guess so," Tucker shrugged. He had unfolded his soft-brimmed hat, which he’d kept rolled through his right shoulder tab, and now dunked it in the pool and jammed it on his head. Cool water dripped down the back of his neck and immediately began to bring his temperature down. "Show me where to dig," he said.

An hour later, having - albeit with several breaks - removed a very large quantity of stone from a narrow cleft in the rock wall, Tucker was pausing for breath again when he heard a sound in the jungle and went, instinctively, for the pistol at his hip. Something large and heavy was moving slowly towards him, and for a moment all the hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Then a newly familiar voice said; "Skip, it’s me."

"Malcolm, for heaven’s sake! You scared the shit outta me."

"Sorry." Emerging along one of the worn paths out of the forest, Reed eased down the two backpacks he had been carrying. "I’m glad you left out the ice bucket," he teased, "but did you have to pack the grand piano?"

"Thought I might be short of entertainment," Tucker smiled. "How wrong I was!"

"How are you getting on?"

With a wave of the hand, Tucker indicated progress. He’d cleared a gap some fifteen inches wide and eighteen high, on the other side of which only cool darkness could be detected. "I haven’t been inside," he said. "Thought I’d wait for you."

"Right." Unbuckling one of the packs, Reed produced an electric torch. "Let’s see what they’ve left us, then." He leaned in through the entrance to the cave, torch in hand, and spent a few moments turning from side to side. "I don’t think it’s been touched," he said. "Everything’s just as we left it, and there are no new footprints. I’ll go first; you can pass in the backpacks and then follow me."

Tucker obeyed his orders, and shortly thereafter found himself jumping down four feet or so to the irregular floor of a narrow cavern some twelve feet in length which, according to Reed’s torch, appeared to contain several large boxes and packages.

"My father and I brought all this up from the house on my last leave," Reed said. "He was sure there would be an invasion, but he refused to be evacuated to Australia when the families went. Instead he packed up all our valuables - papers, silver, my mother’s jewellery - and brought it all up here. The other families on the island did the same. Then the men sat down and waited for the Japanese."

"And the Japs didn’t find it and nobody gave it away? That’s incredible."

"There can’t have been more than six or seven people left by the time they got here," Reed told him. "The population’s never been much above thirty; there were eleven people on the island when we arrived in 1922. After my mother had the twins the entire population numbered sixteen, and that was the highest it had been since the end of the Great War. A month later it was back to thirteen. Mum and the boys," he added, quietly.

"Oh. And they’re ... ?"

"Up by the house. On the slope overlooking the Solomons. If anything comes down the Bottleneck, they’ll see it before the rest of us," he went on with a wry twist of his mouth. "You’re walking through my childhood, here, Skip. That’s a very rare privilege."

"Great place to grow up," Tucker smiled. "You must have hated to leave."

"I needed an education, unfortunately. Running wild on Enfant Perdu doesn’t exactly fit one for a Naval career, and that’s what I was always intended for. My father served, you see, and so did my grandfather - and his grandfather. There was a Reed at the Battle of Trafalgar, although I think he made rather a fool of himself by pointing his guns in the wrong direction. The Reed men don’t get a choice. If the boys had lived, they would have gone into the Navy too."

Tucker rested a hand on the Englishman’s shoulder, this time not moving it away as quickly as he would have done hitherto. Reed seemed to acquiesce to the touch but did not acknowledge it openly, and after a longish moment he shrugged it off without comment.

"Want to tell me why we’re here, then, since Bill Harbison so conveniently forgot?" the American asked breezily from across the cave. One step had sufficed to put emotional as well as physical distance between the men.

Reed turned and sat down on top of one of the boxes. He had switched off the torch and the light coming in through the entrance was not quite enough to show them one another’s faces unless they leaned forward. Skip propped himself against the wall and prepared to listen.

"Nothing exciting, I’m afraid," Reed said dismissively. "Apparently ComSoPac wants to put an airstrip somewhere among the northern islands, for PBYs and long range bombers to hit the Japanese on Guadalcanal before they have a chance to hit us. You." The correction was revealing. The south Pacific wasn’t really a British theatre of war; the Americans had made it almost entirely their own, although the Australian contribution could not be ignored. "We’ve been sent to collect soil samples - quite large ones, apparently - so that your experts at headquarters can work out whether there’s enough coral here to make a suitable foundation."

Tucker ruminated on these words for what seemed the longest time, and then said slowly; "You’re bullshitting me, Malcolm. The US Navy isn’t so short of guys they’d want to pull in a Brit just to dig a few holes on an island. We’ve got enlisted men from Peoria and Grand Rapids to do stuff like that. We don’t need you people helping us out."

"My father was - is, I mean - an amateur geologist," Reed offered, tiredly. "I know where to dig."

"Crap," Tucker complained. "Just how dumb d’you figure I am?"

"It’s all I can tell you, Skip." The voice was infinitely weary, and without seeing it Tucker could detect the slump of Reed’s shoulders. "Look, we’re here, we’re safe, and as soon as night falls we can have a fire and a decent meal. Couldn’t we both just relax for a little while?"

Tucker’s gaze pierced the gloom to where Reed sat in the shadows, so indistinct as to be almost disembodied.

"You’re asking me to trust you," he said at last. "I hardly know you, but you’re asking me to trust you."

"Yes."

"Then answer me two questions and answer them honestly," Tucker growled through the darkness. "They’re not about the mission."

"If I can," Reed conceded.

"Did you go to that house in Nouméa with Bus Archer, Malcolm?" His aggressive tone challenged Reed to evade answering.

Useless to ask ‘what house?’, Reed supposed with a sigh. "Yes, I did," he said shortly.

"Did you fuck Abu? The boy?"

Only the very slightest of hesitations and then, defensively, the Englishman answered. "Yes. Did you?"

"Yes," Tucker breathed, a long, sibilant and defeated sound.

"And does knowing we’re both queer mean that you’re prepared to trust me?" In the darkness Reed’s tone had become shaky and defiant, as though he was having the most extreme difficulty mastering his own emotions.

"I don’t know, Malcolm," Tucker told him, unable to keep bitter bemusement out of his voice. "Do you think it should?"

It was some considerable time, after that acid remark, before either one of them could think of anything sensible, or intelligent, or even painless, to say.

When the emotional temperature in the cave had cooled off a little, the two officers took the time to rearrange its contents and pile all the islanders’ belongings towards the back, leaving in its original position only the Reed family’s tin trunk which was not only heavy but also had an accommodating flat surface and was promptly designated the kitchen. Tucker returned to the outside world long enough to fill a canvas water bag from the spring, whilst Reed delved into the rucksacks and the hold-all for a spirit stove and a set of mess tins. He also produced a comprehensive selection of rations and necessaries which included a razor and a couple of slivers of soap.

"Man, you don’t like to rough it, do you?" Tucker teased, unpacking his own meagre bedroll and bringing out a change of underwear and socks.

"Not unless I have to," Reed shrugged. "I find a good wash and brush up does wonders for the morale. You’d be welcome to share," he added, by way of an olive branch.

"Thanks. Listen, what I said ... "

"I‘m getting used to you, Mr Tucker." Reed cut him off in mid-apology. If it had been intended as an apology, that was. "What you say and what you do are not always the same thing. What you do is more important to me."

"D’you mind?"

"About being queer? Or about you knowing?"

"Either."

Reed considered. "I can’t say it’s been convenient, over the years," he mused. "And if my father ever finds out, it’ll break his heart. He’ll probably feel he’s lost all three of his sons. But on the whole, no, I don’t think I mind too much. You certainly get to meet some interesting people."

"I’ll say. And about me knowing?"

A longer pause. Reed’s back was turned, and he made no attempt to face Tucker as he considered his reply. In the end, voice extremely small, he asked; "Who better?"

There was an extended silence between them before Tucker, clearing his throat, said; "You think Archer’s got an ulterior motive?"

"Dammit, Skip, how would I know? You’ve known him longer than I have. I like the man, we went whoring together, he flew me up to the islands. Beyond that I don’t know anything about him. Not even his real first name," he added, in a less aggressive tone. "I don’t suppose his parents named him ‘Bus’."

"A lot of transport pilots get called that," Tucker said. "Real name’s John. Not that it matters."

"No. But his motives, whatever they are, are a mystery to me."

"Okay. You mind if I sleep on this side of the cave? There’s kind of a shelf here at the base of the wall."

Reed nodded. "I used to sleep there when I camped out in this cave," he said. "Once or twice a year I’d to get permission to come up and sleep here by myself. You’ll find it’s almost as comfortable as a real bed. Or at least," he added, "I thought so at the time. I haven’t tried it for fifteen years."

"How about you?"

"Over here, I think. Between you and the food," he added, with a limp attempt at humour. "I imagine you’ve got a healthy appetite."

"Very."

The day had begun to lose its furnace heat by the time the two men emerged again from the cave. Reed had brought with him the razor, a tin mug and a small piece of soap and without preamble he set up a tiny mirror on a convenient rock, filled the mug with water and began to dispose of his day’s growth of reddish-brown beard stubble. Tucker found a place in the shade at the base of a tree and sat, drawn pistol close to his side, keeping an eye on their immediate horizon and on Reed alternately. There was something almost hypnotic about the way the man moved; languid, with not a movement to spare, yet somehow elegant. Even doing something as simple as shaving he managed to convey an amazing complexity, as though his mind was simultaneously occupied with some great overarching question of human existence.

He wondered whether Reed had been like that with Abu - unable to relax, forever cogitating some plan he was not yet prepared to divulge. Had the boy noticed anything amiss? Damn, he’d have given anything for the sight of the cool Brit all fired up with passion, wrapping himself around some cute boy’s butt. Maybe when they knew each other a little better he’d have a chance to ask what they’d done together, but for now he was far too concerned with thinking about some of the things he himself would like to do with Reed. Most of all, he thought he wanted Malcolm underneath him, whispering his name, clutching at the sheets, crying out as he was entered - but there was also a massive curiosity about the reverse of the experience, a dark part of his psyche that wanted to surrender completely and just let Malcolm Reed use him however he chose. It wasn’t often he felt that way about a man; you had to trust the guy to let him into your body. Trusting Reed had been astonishingly simple; he’d gone way beyond mere trust now, and was already doing battle with desire.

Reed, feeling Tucker’s hot eyes on him, stopped what he was doing and turned his head.

"What?" he asked.

"Just thinkin’."

"Anything I should know about?"

"Nothing you’d want to know about," Tucker amended. "Believe me."

"How long’ve we known each other, Skip?" Reed asked, an ironic tone entering his voice. He knew precisely how long it had been.

"Oh, I dunno, must be all of twenty four hours by now."

"Right. So I know when you’re keeping things from me."

"’snothing important. Idle thoughts."

"Right. You’re thinking about sex, then. When soldiers won’t discuss what they’re thinking, it’s usually sex."

"Well, since most of us don’t get a lot that’s probably a pretty safe bet," Tucker retorted.

Reed finished shaving, wiped his face on a small square of towel, and said briskly; "Well, you may want to leave the room, Lieutenant, because I’m about to take my clothes off and have a quick bath."

"That’s okay, Malcolm, your honour’s safe with me," Tucker told him with a grimace.

"Is it?" Reed asked, rhetorically. "D’you know, I’m beginning to wonder."

Without further preamble Reed unfastened his uniform shirt and draped it over a branch of the tree under which Tucker was sitting; a moment later his boots were propped upside-down on sticks secured between stones and his uniform trousers and underwear had been discarded and he stood there slender and brown and naked as the day he was born. Tucker merely sat and gawped, noticing - to try and stop himself noticing anything else, perhaps - that there was no break in the even tan on the younger man's body; naked was obviously the way he liked to be. There was a mysterious dark line that ran around a little below his waist, flowing like a loosely-worn belt; on closer inspection it appeared to be a tattoo of Maori or Polynesian origin that ran across Reed's lower back and over both hip-bones and affected to be fastened with a tattooed knot to the left of his navel.

He swallowed awkwardly. He could not quite believe what he was seeing, and knew that he was sitting with his head on one side like an uncomprehending pet dog trying to make sense of differential calculus. The Reed he had met at Government House on Queen Charlotte Island had been all regular service, a figure right off a recruitment poster; this man, however, was something else. Even the revelations about his personal life had not prepared Tucker for this; out of uniform there was something wild about the man, something Skip Tucker barely understood but knew he had to make his own or die in the attempt. Other considerations aside, this strangely magnetic British officer was probably the loveliest and definitely the most desirable creature he had set eyes on in his entire miserable life.

Reed side-stepped neatly over the rocks and had slid into the water before Tucker could frame a comment. He hesitated for one awe-struck second, then wrestled his boots off in the most chaotic manner he could contrive and, without undressing further, followed Reed over the edge and into the pool. Missing his footing on submerged rocks he hit the surface like a Catalina belly-flopping off her floats, sank quickly, and emerged with hair and eyes full of water. Reed was only one long pace away from him as he rose, but his back was turned. Tucker reached out and wrapped both arms around the Englishman's slim waist, pulling Reed back against him with a softly possessive growl as one hand slid down to capture his groin. It was scarcely a subtle approach, carrying with it a massive burden of risk, but Tucker was reaching the end of his tether more rapidly than he would ever have thought possible. He felt the surprise that ran through Reed's body and lasted no more than a second, and then the man turned slowly and fluidly in his arms.

"I thought my honour was safe with you, Mr Tucker?" he asked, hands sliding sensuously up to the back of Tucker’s sunburned neck. His body moulded itself to Tucker's, slick nakedness pressed everywhere against Skip's confining prison of a uniform.

Tucker smiled; a wolf’s smile, a conqueror’s smile. He had never really expected it to be this easy. Grinning, he moved in for the kill, adoring the way Reed seemed to yield almost without being touched. When his mouth met Reed’s lips he felt them part as the man opened himself up like a flower to the sun. It was the sweetest, headiest experience he had ever known in his life when Reed, the hard-edged career soldier, sudden death in all directions, liquid and accepting, kissed him back.

"You … want me, Mr Tucker?" Malcolm asked him, breathlessly, as they finally managed to tear their mouths apart. His heart was thundering so hard against Skip's ribcage that it seemed likely to break through at any moment.

"You know I do." He was going to take Reed right here, up to their waists in water with the entrancing sounds of the jungle ringing around them. The guy had him so hard and desperate he would burst if he didn't get relief soon; his balls were drawn up tight and full and he was on fire with lust to sink himself into some part of Malcolm Reed's slim and accommodating body. Reed's hands on him were as expressive as a Balinese temple dancer's; graceful and seductive, they heightened his anticipation of the moment.

Then Reed stepped away, his expression changing in a heartbeat, his eyes becoming cold like the sudden switching off of an electric light. "Then you'd better damn' well do something to earn me," he said, savagely. "Hadn't you?"

"What?" Uncomprehending Tucker took a step forward, but the other man's arm shot out and held him away; he noticed the muscles in the strong shoulder and biceps and the implacable shape of the fist that bunched in his shirt front. Reed, aroused and lustful as he was himself, was moving him to arm's length and denying them both what they so obviously both desired.

"This is not a picnic party, we've got work to do, and every moment we're here increases our chances of being detected. Much as I would like to be ravished by you, Lieutenant, I doubt if we can spare the time just yet. And," he added, more kindly, "would you really want to be that vulnerable in enemy territory? I don't know about you, but I don't fancy being caught by the Japs with our pants down and our peckers up just because we couldn't control ourselves for a few hours. I want you, too, Skip, I won’t deny it - but I'm not willing to risk my life for it. Or yours."

Tucker groaned, his face contorting into a grimace of frustration.

"Damn!" he almost shouted. "Why d'you have to be so god-damn right all the mother-fuckin' time? Can't you relax, even for a minute?"

Reed withdrew his hand, his shoulders taking on a slope of disappointment. "If you knew what we're really doing here," he said, softly, "you wouldn't ask me that."

"Then tell me what we're doing!" Tucker yelped.

"Not yet. But I'll tell you something else, Skip."

"What's that?"

Reed's mouth twisted wryly. "The next decent bed we come to, doesn’t matter where it is, I'll require you to fuck me into the middle of next week. After you're finished with me I don’t expect to be able to walk straight for a month. Whatever you most want to do, I want you to do it with me. Clear?"

"Clear. Only, Malcolm … ?"

"Skip?"

"Put some clothes back on, willya? I can't stand to see what I know I'm not gonna get. You have no idea how difficult it is not to throw myself at you and rape you where you stand."

"Oh, I know precisely how difficult it is, believe me." Reed turned, wading for the rocky side of the pool. "Why don't you stay here and … think about what I've said?" he invited, more guardedly. "Maybe the … problem … will go away by itself."

"Or maybe I'll need to use my hands?" Tucker completed, feeling spurned and rejected but desperately trying to understand what lay behind Reed's words.

"Would that be so bad?"

"I'll do whatever I can," Tucker groaned, "but it's no substitute, believe me."

"I'm sorry," Reed whispered, his head turning away with finality. "Just at the moment, it's the best I can offer."

When Tucker emerged from the water some time later, he collected up his boots and stripped off his sodden uniform and spread it on the rocks to dry. He climbed into the clean khaki undershorts and tee-shirt he had earlier taken from his pack, put his boots back on, and headed off up the little path Reed had taken. He found the man sitting on the very summit of the island, perched on a pile of rocks, looking out over a limitless sea. Just where the horizon line began to blur there appeared to be a series of long, grey shadows gliding through a gauzy veil of azure mist.

"Ours or theirs?" he asked without preamble, sitting down on the nearest comfortable-looking stone. Like them all, it was warm beneath him.

"Theirs. A patrol convoy coming down from Bougainville." Reed put aside the binoculars he was holding and turned to squint a smile in Tucker’s direction. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah. I just figure I need t’apologise for what happened. I shoulda made more of an effort, but you didn’t have to get naked right in front of me either. I know you warned me, and I figured I could take it – but I was wrong. I’m sorry, Malcolm."

Reed shook his head. "You know, I really didn’t think it would be a problem," he confessed. "Nevertheless it was appallingly unprofessional of me, and I should apologise to you. I just wasn’t thinking; I used to run around naked most of the time when I lived here. Hence the tattoo," he went on, "which you may have noticed."

"Kinda," Skip admitted with a sheepish smile.

"My father has the same thing; you get it when you’re formally adopted by the Aola – if you’re male, at least."

"Aola? That’s the local tribe?"

"Not really a tribe," Reed told him. "More of a clan, without any formal tribal structure. What they call in these parts a ‘wantok’. That just means people who all speak the same language," he smiled. "Like you and me."

"That mean I get to join the tribe too?" Skip joked, feeling the tension between them dissolve.

"Probably." Vaguely, Reed returned his attention to the Japanese convoy at the very limits of perception on the distant skyline. "I don’t have the time to tattoo you, though."

"Much as you’d love to?"

"Hmm. Not so sure," Reed teased. "You might be a dreadful cry-baby and bring disgrace on your clan brothers. Did I mention it’s done with a bone needle?"

"Ouch!"

"You can probably have it done more hygienically in Nouméa if you’re that interested."

"Yeah, fine. Figure the tribe’d approve?" Tucker asked idly.

Reed lowered his binoculars and turned back, a puzzled look on his face. "I don’t think you understand, Skip. To all intents and purposes at the moment and for the foreseeable future, I am the Aola. I’m the only adult male not currently in Japanese hands who knows the legends and traditions of this island. It’s one of the reasons I’m uniquely qualified for this particular job. And for the record," he added, more softly, "I think you’d make a fine addition to our clan."

The belated dinner of corned-beef hash out of mess tins, followed by fresh fruit collected by Reed from the neglected plantation below his parents’ house and washed down with Tucker’s contribution of industrial-strength coffee made to his own exacting standards, tasted better than any meal either of them remembered for a long time. The conversation had been neither about war, nor about their personal situation; it had ranged over books and movies they had in common, sports they followed, people they had met on their travels – although there had been gaps in Malcolm’s account of his journeys, and certain subjects fenced and marked with ‘Keep Out’ signs like the little administration building at the side of the plantation. Afterwards, with the skies above the island now the purple dark of the Southern Hemisphere and the cacophony from roosting birds in the island’s forest dulled to an occasional somnolent cheep, Tucker squirmed back into his baked-dry uniform and rolled himself into the thin blanket he had brought with him.

"Damn, I’m exhausted," he groaned. Then; "You’re a good cook, Malcolm."

"Survival skills," Reed smiled. "If we’re here long enough, maybe I’ll have time to catch some fish and cook them the traditional island way – in a mud oven. I ought to be able to find a few sweet potatoes as well," he mused.

"When you figurin’ to leave?"

"Day after tomorrow, I hope. I’ve got an arrangement with Bus Archer to come and pick us up. We could be back on Queen Charlotte by Friday, if we’re lucky."

Despite himself, Tucker yawned. "Shit," he muttered.

"Get your beauty rest, Mr Tucker," Malcolm told him, kindly. "You need it far more than I do. I’ll wake you when it’s your turn to watch."

"Watch? Watch what?"

"The coast, of course. Wasn’t that what we came here for? To coast-watch?"

"Why?" Tucker asked, in an aggrieved and sleepily stupid tone. "You afraid someone’s gonna steal it?"

"Go to sleep, Skip," was the sage and tolerant advice. "I’ll call you if I need you."

"Yeah, well just don’t make it too soon," Tucker warned, rolling over into his blanket and falling asleep instantly, between one thought and the next.

When he was shaken awake later there was already a suspicion of daylight flickering around the eastern horizon. Exhaustion had driven Tucker so deeply into the chasm of sleep that he had difficulty hauling himself out again, but Reed’s urgent grip on his shoulder brought him up the last few scrambled steps until he was facing the man’s pale and alarmed face in muted torch-light. Small pale moths fluttered close, attracted by the beam.

"Okay, I’m here. What?"

"I fell asleep," Reed said, in mortification.

"What? So Mr Perfect ain’t so perfect after all?"

"All right, all right, we haven’t got time for recriminations. A vessel seems to have broken off from the convoy and it’s heading this way. It’s too far away to tell but it could be a frigate or something of that size."

"Could just be a fishin’ boat," Tucker mumbled.

"Not the speed it’s moving. Are you listening, Skip?"

"Yeah. Go ahead."

"We need to hide all traces of our presence here. Close up the cave, get rid of the boat."

"Get rid of … ?"

"It’s too big to hide as it is. I’ll have to deflate it, and we’ve got no way of reinflating it. We’ll have to swim out to the Sneak when it comes. You start putting all our gear away in the cave – everything but the weapons and the K rations – and rebuilding the entrance. I’ll go down and take care of the boat and re-set the booby traps. I reckon we’ve got about two hours. I’ll come up here and help you with the rebuilding as soon as I can. There’s a skull shrine down near the beach; if we hide in there we should be safe enough and we might even get to hear some of what the Japanese are saying. It’s probably just a routine patrol, so they shouldn’t be here more than a few hours. We just have to keep quiet and they’ll go away again. Don’t forget to fill the water bottles," he added, as he got to his feet. Then: "Skip? Are you sure you’re awake?"

"Cave, K rations, weapons, water bottles," Tucker repeated. "Go."

"I’ve already gone," Reed told him, moving away swiftly and silently into the jungle and taking the small yellow gleam of the torch-light with him.

It was an hour later that Reed came struggling up the path through the forest with the torn remnant of the rubber boat bundled under his arm. He stuffed it through the aperture into the cave and then joined his sweating partner in reinstating the rocks at the cave’s entrance and scattering dust and sand to cover their footprints. Malcolm scrambled up to the peak of the island again and squinted across the ocean.

"They’ve dropped anchor outside the reef," he confirmed. "Looks as if they’ll be putting a party ashore all right. They’re lowering a launch."

"Bastards," Tucker groaned, breathless. "What do you reckon they want here?"

"Probably just checking that none of the local people have come back. Or looking for coast watchers. I hope that French bloke on Nubani’s got his wits about him."

"Forget him!" Tucker yelped. "What about us?"

"The skull shrine," Reed said. "The Japs won’t look in there. They’re as big on ancestor worship as the Aola. Believe me, it’s probably the safest place on the island."

"Good. Then what say we get down there before our guests arrive?"

"All right. Only I hope you don’t mind spiders, Mr Tucker."

"Shit, you can be irritating, Mr Reed."

"And I haven’t even mentioned the rats yet," Reed said, mildly, making sure they left no trace of themselves as they passed down the path from the summit and made their way back through the jungle.

The skull shrine lay at the base of a sheer outcrop of rock some twelve feet in height, low down on the side of the island with a clear view of the landing beach. A semi-circular area had been marked out with a line of bleached skulls defining the periphery of the sacred site, their empty eye-sockets all pointing outwards as though to warn trespassers of their wrath should they be disturbed. Piled high against the cliff face, in a series of irregular pyramids, were further skulls, obviously the abode of a particular territorial species of spider which had stranded webs among and around several generations of deceased islanders.

With a muttered apology, the last of the Aola stepped over the outer ring of ancestors and began removing skulls from one of the smaller pyramids. Behind it was a dark space some two feet square, cool and clean-smelling, apparently cut from the rock with hand tools at some unimaginably distant date in the past.

"It's a loculus," Reed explained. "Goes back about nine feet. When anybody dies, the Aola put them in here to dry out. Then they separate the head from the body, add the skull to the shrine and throw the rest into the sea. I’m afraid Christianity never quite made it this far - probably because the people on one of the neighbouring islands ate the bishop."

"Nice. Is there anybody in there now?"

"Only us. Get in the tomb, Skip. Make yourself as comfortable as you can, but leave room for me. We could be here a long time. Oh – feet first. There isn’t room to turn around."

Obediently Tucker wriggled into the space, bringing the small pack containing the water and K rations with him. Reed handed in the weapons, and then he, too, insinuated himself feet first into the tiny space, bringing the skulls behind him, and used them to rebuild the pyramid effectively blocking the entrance to the loculus. He draped what he could of the disturbed spider web across from the tomb wall to the skulls, and those hardy spiders who had not been sent scurrying made instant preparations to restore their homes, exploring the sun-warmed surfaces of the skulls with enthusiasm. Only a small amount of light from the outside now filtered in through the eyes and mouths of the Aola ancestors who protected the lair in which the two officers lay on their sides, belly to belly in the darkness.

"Shit, Malcolm!" Tucker whispered, agitated. "These are real people!"

"They’re real dead people, Skip," Reed reminded him sharply. "And I’m pretty sure that if you asked them, they’d be only too happy to do whatever they could to defend their island – even in death. Wouldn’t you do the same thing if it was your home that was being invaded?"

"I guess." Shaken, Tucker pressed back against the cool rock wall, but there was no way of becoming comfortable that did not involve accepting their physical closeness and adjusting to it. Eventually he snaked an arm around Reed’s neck and Reed moved in closer so that his head fell naturally onto Tucker’s shoulder. The position enabled Skip to turn almost onto his back and Malcolm to wrap himself around him as though in some narrow bunk. Malcolm edged closer still, one knee slipping between Skip’s legs, one hand coming to rest on Skip’s chest. It felt very easy and very right; so easy and so right that it could have been distracting if they had not been so focused on the whereabouts of the Japanese.

"They’re close," Malcolm breathed. "They were coming through the surf as I put the skulls back. They’ll be ashore in a couple of minutes."

"How many?"

"Eight or nine, I think. Enough for a thorough patrol. I'm pretty sure that’s the frigate Sugiyama out of Vella Lavella. We’ve met before. Where are the food and water?"

"Down by my feet. Got the pack strap looped around my ankle."

In the semi-darkness Reed grinned. "You’re not the dumb blond you look, are you, Mr Tucker? Thank goodness."

"Dumb enough to be sharing a coffin on a hunk of rock in the middle of nowhere with a mad Brit and a hundred carnivorous spiders," Tucker complained, tightening his grip on Reed’s slender body.

"Hush," the mad Brit told him, placing a quieting finger against the American’s lips. "They’re beaching their boat, so unless you want eight or nine Japanese soldiers in here in the next few minutes, Skip, I suggest you keep that … mouth of yours … shut." But the harshness of the words was tempered by the tenderness with which Reed’s hard-skinned fingertip glided hypnotically back and forth across Tucker’s lower lip, and the utter preoccupation of the British officer with the movements of the Japanese which highlighted the purely unconscious nature of the caress and made it, for giver and receiver, a moment of extraordinary and unexpected unity.

"Nine," Reed breathed, a few moments later, his lips close to Tucker’s ear. "They’re unloading some kind of equipment … oh!"

"What?" A feeble attempt to wriggle around, but there was no room. Tucker gave it up as a bad job and resigned himself to getting his information second-hand.

"It looks like … a crate of beer. They’re all officers …two enlisted men to handle the boat ...Skip, I think they’re a banyan party!"

"A … what?"

"Picnic. A picnic party."

"Japs? Are you kiddin’? Do they even have picnics?"

"I suppose they have days off from time to time," Reed whispered reasonably. "And they need to eat, the same as the rest of us."

"So, what now? They sit around all day drinkin’ beer while we wait for them to get tired and go away?"

"Relax," Reed told him. "Go to sleep, if you like – only don’t snore. There’s nothing we can do for the time being."

"Yeah? We’ll be in trouble if they decide to sleep on the island," Tucker reminded him.

"They won’t leave the Sugiyama anchored outside the reef for long - she’s too vulnerable there. You know I think her Captain’s probably just showing off – trying to prove he’s got bigger balls than some other Captain. He was like that at Savo, too, taking silly risks and being dramatic."

"You were at Savo? Damn, Malcolm, I missed it; we were over in the Gilberts. Lost a lot of friends there, though."

"Me too. Most of the Australians on the Coonawarra."

"She still down there in Iron Bottom Bay?"

"Together with a dozen others - yes, I'm afraid so."

"I’d like to feed that bastard his balls," Skip growled, brushing an unconsciously affectionate hand through the Englishman’s dust-caked hair. "Lightly grilled, with fresh garden peas and a twist of lemon." The thought seemed to give him considerable pleasure, as his mouth writhed in a parody of a smile.

"Not this time, Skip. We can't let them see us. But you’ll get another chance, I promise."

"I’m counting on it," was the American’s heartfelt reply.

As the Japanese unloaded their boat and distributed their possessions around the beach, Reed gave a soft running commentary that detailed the preparations for a meal presumably to be cooked by the two enlisted men. The officers, all armed, scattered from the beach in all directions, and Reed kept a quieting hand over Tucker's mouth as the nearest of them clattered by a dozen feet away on the path.

"Checking out the island while the meal's cooking," he whispered. A barely perceptible nod of Tucker's head was the only attempt at acknowledgement, and then Reed's head lowered slowly onto the man's shoulder and they settled themselves down to wait it out in silence until the Japanese returned.

It was impossible to see what the Japs were cooking, down there on the beach, but it seemed to involve a considerable quantity of rice and palm wine along with something that had a decidedly fishy smell to it. The fumes of the cooking were tantalising to men who had not breakfasted; last night's corned-beef hash was now well into the past, and as the sun climbed across the sky and the quality of the dappled shadows outside their concealment changed both watchers became uncomfortably aware of their own hunger. Unwilling to risk wrestling with the pack when the slightest sound could have given them away, they had opted to wait until they could at least see every member of the shore party and knew that they were not close enough to overhear stealthy movement. This left them with no more than occasional sips from the water bottle by way of nourishment, and given the close proximity of their confinement neither wanted to risk an over-full bladder. The prospect of having to try and pee whilst to all intents and purposes locked in each other's arms did not appeal to either; besides, Tucker had the uncomfortable conviction that to do so in a skull shrine would probably be sacrilegious.

Hell, if I get desperate, I'll just have to piss in my damn' canteen, he thought, determining not to get desperate. He could hold on just as long as any damn' soft Brit could - except of course that Malcolm Reed was far from being a soft Brit in any sense of the word. His body was firm and supple as whipcord, although his skin and particularly his lips were lush and yielded delicately to his touch. In their enforced closeness it was as if a barrier had broken down between them; he and Reed held each other close and exchanged occasional unthinking caresses as though the arrival of the Japanese had turned over two pages of their relationship at once and a crucial tentative stage in its development had been bypassed.

Forty-eight hours. I haven't known him forty-eight hours! he was thinking, as Reed's mouth closed urgently on his without preliminary. Yet his whole acquaintance with Abu had of been less than six hours' duration and he had let Abu lick him in places he'd never really imagined any two people would want to lick each other - and had come twice in the boy's willing throat. In eight times that long he'd reached nothing like the same level of intimacy with Malcolm Reed, but the pictures racing through his mind gave him a preview of how it could - would - be; nothing one-sided, everything equal, taker and taken exchanging roles without a thought. He'd be as happy to yield to Reed's wiry strength as he would be to roll him over and slide into his body. No half-measures. No last-minute defections. No haggling over the price. He didn't know when he'd wanted anything - anyone - this much.

Reed's kiss was deep and searching and stole every morsel of breath from his lungs, his mouth as juicy and delicious and refreshing as a sweet peach on a dry day. Skip lay still, kissing back only as much as he needed to, letting Malcolm make all the running, feeling thoroughly dominated and wanted. That was when he heard the footsteps and tried to break away, but Malcolm's mouth would not let him - and he understood somewhat belatedly that Malcolm had heard them long before and had chosen this most effective way of keeping him quiet. He acquiesced to it the moment the thought occurred, and let the Englishman close his mouth with his own tongue as he in turn slid encouraging fingers silently between Malcolm's parted legs. Straining hardness leaped to his hand and Skip engulfed it in his palm, tightening his grip through fabric and feeling Reed's mouth bear down all the harder on his own until he felt that his lips would be raw and bleeding from the ravages of Reed's strong teeth. The effort of not emitting a sound was almost too much when Reed's hand traced a path similar to his own and fluttering touches began to move back and forth over his arousal. He thought briefly of the stupidity of coming into Reed's hand only a few feet away from a Jap officer who would certainly kill them in the most entertaining way he could devise if he ever suspected they were there, making out, fucking one another's hands, almost under his nose. Defiance - of danger, of convention, of the world's taboos - made him more ardent still; his free hand pressed at the back of Reed's head, keeping the man's mouth locked to his even when breath became short and hypoxia threatened; then he released him just enough to trade the one long, deep, extravagant kiss for a mosaic of smaller yet still passionate kisses exchanged in the most intense silence between mouths that suddenly could not leave one another alone.

Eventually the footsteps moved away, voices on the path exchanging comments in guttural Japanese, and Reed squirmed out of the kiss and allowed his hand's movements to still, resting it comfortably over flesh that ached towards it while he tracked the movements of the returning patrol and made sure they were all accounted for. Reed's breathing was uneven, painful, his heart thudding perilously against Tucker's ribcage; the American's grip on the back of his head lessened and became instead a soft stroking of his hair.

"Malcolm?" the palest thread of sound.

"Bastard pissed on the ancestors," Reed told him, unromantically. "I hope they sink his bloody ship." At the very least, Tucker thought, that answered his unspoken question. "Captain Tanaguchi Yukio," the Brit pronounced. "If ever you have him in your sights, Skip, don't miss."

"Hey, I'm Aola now. He desecrated our skull shrine. If I don't get him the ancestors will - right?"

"Right." Reed's eyes lowered from the beach scene to the shadow-shrouded figure beside him in the shrine. "You know I want you, Skip," he whispered.

"I know." Tucker's hand tightened on the hard flesh he held; Reed's desire for him was beyond doubt.

"I want more than this, though."

"I know that, too. But if this is all there is, Malcolm, I'll take it and be grateful."

A puzzled expression tautened Reed's brow. "What?"

Tucker's free hand left Reed's hair and stroked tenderly across his cheek. "You asked me if I could row, lover," he reminded him softly. "You never asked me if I could swim."

"And you can't?"

"Not that well."

"Oh god. And I destroyed the boat!"

"Hush." Crooking his neck, Tucker managed to lift his head just far enough to kiss the man's mouth. "D'you think I care?" he asked, lightly. "Got another twelve hours before we even need to think about it, and there's old Sukiyaki over there to get past first. Here and now, Malcolm, you and me. It's all that matters."

"I've got to get off this island, Skip. Much as I wish I could stay here with you for the rest of my life I came here to do a job - and it's not over until I get back to Vanicoro."

Tucker's body lost some of its tension and he rested his head back down on the rock floor of the shrine.

"I guess this would be the part where you tell me you're with British Naval Intelligence, would it?" he asked tiredly.

"I suppose so, although you obviously don’t need telling."

"Just a tad slow to catch on, that’s all."

"My father was nominally District Officer for the Eastern Outer Islands, but he was retained on the Naval establishment. If he's still alive somewhere, he still is."

"In other words," Tucker said, "a spy."

"Yes. I’m here to pick up some notebooks of his and make them available to ComSoPac through Commander Harbison."

"God bless his venal soul. So where are the notebooks? In the cave?"

"No. They'll stay hidden until just before we’re ready to leave."

"What? Don’t trust me? What the hell use would your dad’s notebooks be to me?"

"None whatever," Reed admitted. "But the Japs obviously don’t know they exist or they'd be looking for them rather than having a barbecue on the beach. I don't want to run any stupid risks."

"And this isn't a stupid risk? You and me foolin' around with one of Tojo's finest virtually in the bed with us?"

"Of course it is. It's the fucking stupidest thing I've done in my life, if you want to know."

"Yeah."

"It's also the damn' sexiest, believe me."

"Yeah?" Tucker's grin was like sunshine in their cloistered darkness. "Want to finish it properly? You never know when there's gonna be another chance."

"Are you absolutely sure? You know it's bloody dangerous."

"Life's dangerous," Tucker reminded him. "Anyway, I'll bet you can find a way to stop me makin' any noise, can't you? Guess I could maybe just … suck on your fingers?"

"They'll be busy," Reed whispered as his grip on Tucker's groin reasserted itself.

"Oh yeah. Well, you may have to gag me, stud."

"Wish I could," Reed told him, relishing the prospect. "Another time, Mr Tucker. Rain check?"

"Hey, I knew I could teach you to speak American eventually."

The solid affection beneath the teasing tone was enough to sway the balance. This was not what Reed wanted, nor how he wanted it, but he was not the only one here with wants to be considered; Tucker's ardour could certainly not be gainsaid - and he was right, dammit, there might never be another opportunity.

Ruthlessly, Reed quelled the ancestral voices chiding him for dereliction of his duty in the face of the enemy. There wasn't a single one in that long line of duty-obsessed Reed males who would have rejected the chance to spend a little time with someone he loved, whatever the circumstances; it was time they all just shut up and let him get on with it.

"All right, Skip, there's only one thing for it. Are you with me?"

"Your servant, Mr Reed."

A silent shudder ran through Reed's body as he supported his weight on Tucker's chest and leaned down so that his hair flopped almost into Tucker's eyes. A momentary upheaval, a massive adjustment of cramped limbs in their narrow space, and he was on top of the American, his back pressed against the roof of their tomb, his lower body nestled between Tucker's parted thighs. One dextrous hand was already on the American's fly, unfastening buttons and parting the opening of his shorts.

"Now," he said, performing the same operation on himself and bringing flesh into contact with willing flesh, his hand wrapped firmly around them both as they lay length to length, "imagine we're in your bedroom and your mother and father are the other side of that wall. I'm your boyfriend and I've climbed in through the window to spend the night. One whisper, one creak of the bedsprings, and it's all over between us for ever and ever. Quiet, now, baby, and let me in," he whispered, in a fair imitation of Tucker's accent, his mouth closing down briefly over the other man's.

Tucker was quick to catch on. "Y'know they call this statutory rape, don't you?" His arms slid seductively around the Englishman's neck and his whisper was in a much higher and younger-sounding register. "Technically I'm under age an' all." He managed to sound almost like a high school cheerleader with no thought in her head but to lose her virginity as quickly as possible.

"Hey, I said not a word," her boyfriend growled, biting at her mouth. "Not a sound. You want your folks to hear us?"

"Keep me quiet, then, stud. Give me somethin' else to do with my mouth."

"Your mouth? Oh god, your mouth … " Breaking character, Reed tore at the American's pouting lips, the entertaining fantasy abandoned already as his arousal grew and multiplied. Tucker's hands slid down inside his lover's trousers, over his smooth backside, and his subtle fingers toyed with the dark, hidden place between Reed's cheeks. The other man's reaction was eloquent; he was obviously quite used to being taken as the muscle relaxed against Tucker's fingertips and his whole body seemed to buck and groan into the touch. Then Reed's vicelike grip on their twinned erections tightened further still and he began playing with them both, rhythmically pulling and stroking as if they were one, and his, and he was pleasuring himself alone. Tucker tried to wrap himself around Reed and bring him in, striving to include him within himself, wanting to yield and to thrust all in the same moment and at a loss for a way to combine the two instincts. Instead he abandoned himself utterly to Reed's direction, hearing Archer's words again in the distracted rhythm of the British officer's breathing: He's a good guy, won't let you down; good guy, won't let you down …

A warning "Skip!" as Reed's body thrashed violently once in Tucker's arms and then a long, long pause while the world trembled on the edge of a leaf - and at last the darkness imploded into the sweet wet chaos of a frantic orgasm so close and so powerful neither could tell who had been the first. Their bodies pulsed together, throbbing, emptying onto one another's skin and clothing, the strong scent of their coupling almost overwhelming in their enclosed space. Eventually Reed's trembling limbs could support him no more and subsided, bringing him down to lie at last enwrapped in Tucker's protecting arms with the sensation that he was slipping beneath a cloak of invisibility and that nothing evil could touch him while they lay thus together. Something unfinished in each life, it seemed, had found resolution in the other; it was as if two parallel lines had finally merged.

"Hush, darlin', hush," Tucker was saying, stroking the head against his shoulder. Until that moment Reed had not realised that his eyes were wet and that he was sobbing silently into the fabric of Tucker's uniform shirt - but when that realisation came he did nothing about it, just let Tucker soothe the demons away. He would not have known why he was crying, if he had been asked; Skip made no attempt to ask, just accepted that some overwhelming emotion needed release and tacitly offered it a home. In the end it subsided as mysteriously as it had appeared and Reed lay perfectly still with his brow against Tucker's lips. When he found the courage to lift his head and look into the man's eyes at last, he saw a sparkling blue warmth like the sea on a clear day - sea into which he could plunge from a great height and lose himself forever. He wanted so much to disappear into the ocean of Tucker's eyes, but always at the back of his mind was the pull of an obligation that dated back far longer than their brief and dramatic acquaintance; duty called, and he knew he must follow. Yet perhaps there was a way to make it less painful than Reed was afraid it must be.

"Don't fall in love with me," he begged. "You know we can't stay together."

"Too late for that," was the cheerful response. "Way, way too late." Then, more sympathetically; "Stop thinking about tomorrow, Malcolm. Stop worrying about the world. I'm just grateful we had this. Thank god for the Imperial Japanese Navy, that's what I say; even they have their uses."

Reed levered himself up to look towards the beach. They were all still there, and they had started on the crate of beer. He caught snatches of an obscene anecdote being told by an officer with a very penetrating voice - something about a man who covered his Jade Stem with honey and persuaded a courtesan to lick it off - a story that was at least two hundred years old to his certain knowledge. So the Japanese thought about food and booze and sex as much as the average American; it was scarcely a revelation, and would be little comfort to the Australians on the Coonawarra at the bottom of the Bay.

"If I had a way to kill hundreds of the bastards at a time, Skip," he asked, almost wistfully, "would you want to help me?"

"Of course, darlin'. Just tell me what to do."

"Help me get my dad's notebooks back to Bill Harbison." There was a long pause, during which the final barrier between them was laboriously dismantled piece by piece, and then Reed went on; "There was never a proper geological survey of the Solomons before my father came along; the oil companies didn't want to invest any money surveying the Pacific while there were such rich pickings in North Africa, and no-one else was interested. But Dad had been watching Japan since 1917, and he was convinced these islands would be strategically important if ever there was another war. He spent years studying every island in the area - Choiseul, the Shortlands, New Georgia, Bougainville, New Guinea, Guadalcanal, Malaita, everything down as far as Espiritu Santo. It made sense to him to find out exactly what was under the ground and whether it was anything either side would be likely to want."

"And it was?"

"In a lot of places, yes. There's gold on some of the islands, although not in commercial quantities, but there's something else too - petroleum. Rather a lot of it, in fact."

"No kiddin'? And the Japs don't know it's there?"

"Not a clue. The really interesting part is that in at least two areas it runs under Japanese bases - the one on North Bougainville, and the seaplane base on Santa Ysabel. Either one of those bases is a potential Pearl Harbour, and either one could be blown to smithereens with no more explosive than one man can carry in a rucksack."

"That man, presumably, being you?" Tucker speculated.

"It was my idea," Reed confessed against his throat. "I put it up to my superiors when the Japanese took Guadalcanal; it took a while to convince them, but eventually I was sent down here with orders to Harbison and I met up with Bus in Nouméa. Harbison wanted an American along to keep an eye on me; I think it was Bus who persuaded him to send you."

"And pretended it was all Harbison's idea. Bastard."

"True. But it couldn't have worked out better, Skip. Could it?"

"He's still a bastard."

"I agree." Silence fell for a long moment, and then; "I meant what I said, Skip. You and me and a bed somewhere. I really want that."

"So do I, darlin', if we both get out of this alive. You promised me a sarong and a lei, I seem to remember."

"God, so I did. Fancy you remembering that! Oh, I'll do it, Skip, don't worry about that. Some day, somewhere."

"Thinkin' about tomorrow again, Malcolm?"

"Can't help it, Skip," the Brit admitted, with a new lightness to his tone. "Here with you like this, I've started to believe there might actually be a tomorrow after all."

By the time evening began to close in, the Japanese were all roaring drunk on the beer and sake they'd brought with them and their anecdotes had become less general and more personal; tales of incompetent recruits, senile admirals and obliging young waitresses - sometimes all in the same story - fell over one another in seven variously toned voices. Tanaguchi's was the deepest, his laugh grating and boastful; his stories were all of military dash and courage and the inferiority of a certain Captain Yoshihara of the frigate Giri - a vessel in Tanaguchi's opinion so rusting and unseaworthy as to be a disgrace to the Empire. That his senior officers agreed within him went without saying; Reed relayed their toadying reinforcement of their captain's braggadocio only intermittently - it became extremely tedious after the first two or three hours, and he allowed himself to cat-nap against Tucker's accommodating shoulder once the party on the beach seemed sufficiently established. Indeed, he had to be woken when the Japanese seemed to be making a move to return to their ship; Skip had heard the sounds of items being reloaded into the boat and it seemed to him that the voices had become fainter, so he shook his companion gently and whispered his suspicions in an urgent tone.

"Malcolm? I think they're leavin'."

Reed lifted his head wearily, eyes failing at first to focus in the half-gloom. Out beyond the reef the frigate still rode at anchor, carrying only two shrouded lights fore and aft. The sun had tilted low over the westward horizon; somewhere beneath its curve waited all the dubious attractions of the Japanese vessel's home port.

"You're right. They're packing up. Carrying stuff to the boat. They must be planning to rendezvous with the convoy again on the way back."

"So they get an armed escort here and back just to cremate a few shrimps on the beach?"

"I think Tanaguchi's won some kind of bet for his admiral," Reed told him. "Assuming they all get back safely to Vella Lavella."

"Well, with any luck our boys'll find them and bomb the livin' shit out of them," Tucker speculated. "I'll bet your friend Bus Archer'd like a piece of that action."

"No doubt he would, but I'm hoping he's safely asleep somewhere further down the chain," was the reply. "I'm expecting him to pick us up in the morning." A long silence, and then; "I don't believe it, Skip; I think they've really gone."

"All nine of them?"

"All nine. They've left their fire burning and a stack of empty beer bottles on the beach, but I really think they've gone."

"Good." Tucker made an attempt to move, but Reed held him firmly in place.

"Stay where you are. I'm not going to risk leaving here until that ship's well out to sea. They could still change their minds and come back."

"Yeah, well, I hope they hurry," Tucker told him, intolerantly. "My back died hours ago and I need to piss - and if I don't eat something soon I'm gonna be too faint to crawl out of here. You'll just have to keep my skull and throw the rest of me off the cliff."

"Don't joke," Reed advised sharply, and Tucker regretted his flippancy immediately.

"Okay, buddy, I'm sorry," he conceded, "but I'm not anxious to spend any more time in here than I need to." Out of habit they were both talking in half-whispers, and from necessity they were still welded together from shoulder to knee like a pair of Siamese twins.

Reed leaned down again and kissed him sleepily, almost absent-mindedly.

"I don’t want this to end," he said, "but it will. It must. After tomorrow I don't know if we'll see each other again, and I was starting to want … " He stopped suddenly, biting his lip as though to stop further words escaping.

"What?" Tucker asked. "As if I didn't know."

A long, speaking silence while Reed watched the Japanese frigate making preparations to depart. Then, when it seemed that he was doing his best to ignore the question completely, he finally let the answer fall.

"Everything. You. Forever."

The Sugiyama was a grey memory on the western horizon by the time they finally crawled out of the skull shrine an hour later; dusk was falling in a series of brilliant gold-edged silk curtains that swirled around the island and isolated it from the world; in the far sky there were pinpoints of light already, although whether they were those of Japanese fighters patrolling down through the Bottleneck or whether they were higher and further off than that neither cold, exhausted man knew - and cared still less.

Malcolm demolished his protective wall of ancestors and wriggled between them, stretching his whole body out in the outer precincts of the shrine and looking up at the sky. He did not know whether his legs could be relied upon to carry his weight; his feet were heavy as lumps of wood and every nerve in his lower body seemed to have become trapped, effectively crippling him.

"Hey, buddy?"

Behind him still in the tomb, Tucker was in worse condition yet. He was making some feeble attempt to pull himself out of the shelter using only his hands; when Reed's arms slid around him and supported his weight he broke free suddenly and rolled onto his left side, kicking feebly as he dragged his legs behind him. It was several minutes before either could think of standing up, and then it was a slow and uncomfortable process as blood returned to their cramped limbs. In the end they stood, leaning against one another, in front of the skull shrine; they were dirty and unshaven, their clothes and bodies stale and their hair awry.

"What now, Lieutenant?" Tucker asked. "And the answer better have something to do with food."

"Yes, I suppose we should eat," Reed conceded. "Only K rations, though, unless the Japs have left anything worth having. Everything else is in the cave."

"Suits me. I'm so hungry, I'd eat you if you weren't so skinny."

"I think you tried to. And I'm not 'skinny', thank you; I'm just not as beefy as some people."

"Hey, who're you callin' 'beefy'?" An attempt at outrage, but they were both much too tired to continue the game. "Let's see what the bastards left behind."

The picnic site on the beach was a scene of devastation with the embers of the fire only just warm, and an obscene quantity of beer bottles scattered about. Automatically Reed gathered them and stacked them among the rocks above high water mark as he foraged along the shore, but it was his companion who came up with the goods.

"Half a sack o'rice," he called out. "An' a tin of something."

Stepping over, Reed inspected the find. "Fish sauce," he said, approvingly. "Give me a few minutes and I should be able to scare us up some shellfish to go with this; can you get the fire going again?"

"Sure. We sleeping on the beach?"

"Might as well. We need to get away the minute the Sneak stops moving, and I reckon it'll take a good half hour to swim out to the reef so we'll have to be in the water by about three. We won't be able to take much with us, Skip - not even our boots. Just my dad's notes and a couple of flares. Tell me honestly, how bad a swimmer are you?"

Tucker winced. "We'll find out tomorrow," he said, evasively. "Go scare shellfish, Malcolm, willya? I don't want to think about tomorrow morning at all until I have to."

That morning was not long in coming, however; cooking and eating the meal took longer than either had envisaged, so by the time they had extinguished the fire and settled down side by side on the still-warm sand it was almost midnight. In other circumstances this would have been an idyllic romantic setting; palm trees sighed above their heads, a troubled Pacific moon wove in and out between indigo clouds, the sea lapped serenely at soft golden sand. The two men lay in a loose embrace; nothing intentional about it, merely the way their bodies had fallen together out of new habit or simple inclination, and there was a certain happiness just in being together and being - albeit temporarily - safe. But sleep came in fits and starts; several times Malcolm staggered awake at the sound of a Japanese launch coming through the gap in the reef; several times Skip tried to roll away from the sinister descending shapes of Japanese black silk parachutes gliding down like flying foxes between the trees. As if this was not bad enough, night also brought a much more varied selection of the island's wildlife population out of concealment; spiders and crabs seemed to resent the human intrusion into their domain, and by the time a rat ran over their ankles on its way to the remains of the rice it scarcely merited a comment as Malcolm's head dropped back onto Skip's shoulder, even though it was the size of a domestic cat.

"Rat."

"Uh-huh."

A little after two in the morning, Reed reluctantly detached himself from Tucker's hold and laced his boots. He rummaged in the back-pack and produced his small electric torch and pen-knife. The sounds he was making lifted his companion to another level of wakefulness.

"Huh?"

"I'm going for the notebooks," Malcolm told him.

"Where?"

"Up by the house. If you want to come, watch your feet. I don't think they planted any new booby traps while they were here, but it wouldn't surprise me. At least, I don't want it to!"

Mechanically Tucker made ready and followed him up through the forest, each step taken with the utmost caution. They emerged at last onto an open plain beneath the house, looking up towards the building. This was the side of the bungalow Tucker had not previously seen; that which overlooked the sea and, a long way distant, Guadalcanal. Part of the area had been fenced off with even white pebbles; Reed made directly for this, shining the weak glow of the torch onto the angled board at the head of the plot.

"Ellen Reed, wife of Duncan Reed, January 14, 1925," Tucker read out slowly. "Miles Reed, December 20, 1924. Marshall Reed, December 29, 1924."

"Miles was three days old," Malcolm explained. "Marshall lived nearly a fortnight. Mum was very weak, and it was so hot that year … " He had opened the blade of the pen-knife and was using it to cut through the turf over the grave.

"What … what're you doin'?" Vaguely appalled, Tucker took half a step backwards. He could not imagine what kind of desecration his partner had in mind. "You're not gonna … y'know, disturb them?"

"Even in death we're still Aola," Reed reminded him. "We defend our home." He had dug down about a foot in one particular place, and his hand went into the hole and cast about. A further few blows with the knife and he brought forth an oilskin-wrapped package which he hastened to stuff inside his shirt. Then he took a few minutes to restore the earth to the grave and flatten the turf back into place. It was not a neat job, but at a distance it would pass muster.

"Your mom's grave," Tucker repeated, innocently shocked. "The stuff was hidden in your mom's grave!"

"She'd've approved, Skip. She'd've volunteered."

"I guess she would. You Reeds are a tough bunch. Or do I mean you Aola?"

"Comes to the same thing. And you're Aola yourself now. You slept in the skull shrine. Besides, as pro-tem clan chief, I've adopted you."

"Uh-huh. That's what you were doin', down there in the shrine? Adopting me?""

"You didn't think I just loved you for your body, did you?"

"Perish the thought." A wry chuckle as Tucker let go of some of his old prejudices, and then a silence that could have endured forever had either party been prepared to wait that long. It was a reflective, rather than an uncomfortable, silence; it stood in for a lot of things they both felt they should be saying, but knew that they could not.

"We'd better get down to the beach, Skip. Archer'll be in the air by now; I'd hate him to leave without us. Our fallback is another forty-eight hours, and if Tanaguchi's taken to dropping in for lunch on the beach I don't particularly want to be here when he gets back." Reed stood up, moved to the foot of the grave. "I've got to go, mum," he said. "I'll be back one day if I can. If not ... maybe we'll meet somewhere. 'Night, boys," he added, cheerfully. "Skip?" He'd already turned and headed off down the path before Tucker's brain caught up with his lightning change of direction. The American lingered by the grave a moment longer.

"I'll keep him alive if I can, Mrs Reed," he said, as unsentimentally as if she had been standing there in front of him. "I've sorta got a vested interest. See y'around, boys." He was scarcely a pace behind Reed when the jungle closed around them again, but neither of them spoke another word after that until they were back at the beach.

"There are no sharks inside the reef at this time of year," Reed said, briskly, shucking his boots. "Keep your socks on and roll your sleeves down; the water can be cold and there are some jellyfish with very nasty habits - not to mention the stone fish." He had a couple of flares in a waterproof bag, and the package he had taken from the grave was securely fastened inside his shirt. He had made no attempt to open it.

"What about the guns?"

"They'll be no use out there. If anything goes wrong and we have to come back to the island, this is where we'll need them. We'll stuff everything into the shrine and leave the ancestors on guard. The only people likely to open it up are Aola."

Skip stood up and brushed himself down. "Guess I'm ready, then."

"Right."

Swiftly Reed concealed their remaining belongings and restored the skulls across the mouth of the tomb. He hung the cord of the waterproof bag around his neck and glanced quickly at his watch.

"02.55," he said. "We'll tread water inside the reef until we hear the PBY."

He had turned towards the sea when Tucker caught his arm fiercely and stopped him moving away.

"Skip? We haven't got time for this."

"Sure we have," Tucker said, evenly. He tilted his head, supremely relaxed, and took the Englishman's lips beneath his own into a soft, encompassing kiss. One hand took up a possessive position on Reed's jaw, holding his head firmly in place, while the other cradled the back of his head.

Reed's hesitant hands moved to Tucker's waist, and some of the tautness left the Brit's tense frame. There was something so subversive, so challenging, about standing there in the open on the beach kissing one another passionately that Reed made no attempt to draw away. The kiss was everything that had attracted him to Tucker in the first place - danger, sensuality, the thrill of a sudden passion discovered in an unexpected place, and most of all in this man's embrace the temporary but complete abandonment of the war and all it stood for. He had never lost sight of his duty, but it seemed to him that all the time he had been fighting for other people's freedom, other people's future, never his own; one bloody-minded American naval officer had changed all that, and a lot more besides. They were no longer just temporary wartime allies with a mission to complete - if they ever had been. Their time on Enfant Perdu had already welded them together irretrievably.

Tucker was breathing unsteadily as he ended the kiss. Reed leaned against him, not wanting to break away until he absolutely must, and he heard gentle words whispered against his hair.

"Don't forget me, Malcolm."

"As if I could!" he chided, affectionately, not thinking for a moment that anything more than a reluctance to tear himself away could be behind Tucker's words.

"I mean it. Sister Virtue on Queen Charlotte's got my home address. Go see my mom for me some time."

A pause, during which Reed considered the request more deeply. Then; "Of course, if you like. But I'd really rather we saw her together, Skip. How d'you think you'll introduce me? 'Mom, this is my boyfriend'?"

"Think I wouldn't?"

"I think I'd like to see that." Briskly Reed kissed him back, then snaked an arm around his waist and led him to the water's edge. "I won't let anything bad happen. Trust me?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be beside you. I won't let you down." Or it could have been 'I won't let you drown'; Tucker wasn't hearing anything any more except the voice of his own fear. He heard it, and it filled his ears and almost overwhelmed his senses, and yet he let Malcolm Reed lead him down to the water - and when Malcolm Reed told him to swim he swam and swam to the limits of his ability, and even when he was too exhausted to swim another stroke he went on and on swimming simply because Malcolm Reed told him that was what he had to do.

Malcolm's voice in his head was the only constant; it blocked out all other sounds and sensations; it guided him when he had no other focus. So intent was Tucker on the sound of the voice that was keeping him vaguely in contact with the rest of the universe that somehow he did not hear the shriek of the flare as it skimmed the surface of the ocean, nor the engine note of the Quarterback Sneak coming slowly out of the south as it looped around their position and gently dropped down towards the surf to meet them.

"Hey, Sleepin' Beauty!" Travis Mayweather's warm tones greeted Tucker's first tentative opening of eyelids that had been baked closed over eyes rolled in sharp sand. Barred sunlight through louvered shutters striped the interior of a large room; cool white bedlinen, dark green foliage, pale wood and bamboo décor and the unmistakable smell of antiseptic all served to identify the Queen Charlotte Island Hospital, which Tucker recognised with a complete absence of surprise.

Of course. None of it had happened. None of it could have happened; an island, a British officer, a Japanese frigate, a love affair … such an improbable combination could only have come together in one of his more bizarre dreams.

"Hey, Travis," he replied, with a despondent twist of his mouth.

Mayweather's white-clad figure swung closer into his field of vision. He was manipulating his crutches as though he had practised for it all his life, grinning from ear to ear. "Doc, he's back with us!" he yelled back down the ward. Then, in response to the Irishman's interrogative look; "Skip. He's awake."

"Indeed?" Fox had been in conversation with Sister Virtue at the far end of the room, but at Mayweather's call they both turned and made their way towards him. "Lieutenant Tucker, how are you feeling?"

"I don't know. I don't seem to have much idea what happened."

"Ah." Fox sat down on the side of the bed, ignoring the disapproving expression of the nun at his shoulder. "Hardly surprising," he conceded. "The PBY came under fire returning to Vanicoro. The fuselage was holed, and both Lieutenant Archer and his radio operator were wounded. I understand you were already unconscious before the attack, but received a further blow to the head during the battle."

"I don't remember being in any PBY," Tucker confessed. "Let alone any battle. Just being in the water somewhere. Were we torpedoed?" he asked, looking at Mayweather.

"Nah, Skip, you an' that English guy were off on Enfant Perdu hiding from Tiger Tanaguchi. You both had to swim out to the Sneak, but you passed out. Sounds like Lieutenant Reed saved your life. I thought you were supposed to be looking after him," Mayweather teased, mercilessly.

"He was real?" Tucker made no effort to conceal his astonishment; anyone as improbable as a British naval officer who considered himself chief of a Melanesian tribe could surely only have been a figment of his fevered imagination, and the scenes that had taken place in the swimming hole, on the beach and most particularly in the skull shrine could hardly have been more than wishful thinking. "I thought I'd dreamed all that."

"As real as any of us, Lieutenant," Fox told him kindly. "And Ensign Mayweather is right about him saving your life. He trod water with you unconscious in his arms for at least fifteen minutes, and it could have been considerably more. I think we can safely say that if he hadn't held your head above water you would have drowned. As it was, you swallowed rather a large quantity of the Pacific Ocean together with attendant micro-organisms, but I'm told you vomited it all back in the PBY."

Tucker was shaking his head in bewilderment. "Nope. Don't remember any of that. Swimming, yes; then nothing else."

"You were fortunate in your choice of companion," the doctor observed. "Lieutenant Reed is a most charming and resourceful man. Quite obsessive, too; it was very difficult to persuade him to leave your bedside, even long enough to have something to eat. He'd have been here now, but Elizabeth positively insisted on taking him home and feeding him up. You know how she is for stray puppies and kittens, Lieutenant; takes them in, gives them names, finds them homes. She's the patron saint of lost causes, God bless her."

"The lieutenant has been here most of the day," Sister Virtue informed him, calmly. "He was hoping you would wake up before he had to leave Queen Charlotte. I believe his orders specify tomorrow morning," she added, one eyebrow lifting in a comment that was eloquence itself.

"Leaving the island?" Tucker repeated numbly. "What do you mean, leaving the island?"

"Ah." Fox tilted his head and exchanged looks with Sister Virtue. "I'm afraid Lieutenant Reed has been ordered to return to his ship immediately. I don't imagine he's particularly enthusiastic about leaving, but he must go in the morning. Elizabeth's fixing him up with a better room for tonight. If ever a man deserved a good night's sleep … "

At his side, Virtue coughed abruptly. "I'll telephone Government House and let him know you are awake, Lieutenant. I think he will be most anxious to see you." She bustled off towards the office, and moments later they heard her vigorously cranking the handle to wind up the field telephone.

While Virtue was away, Fox shooed Travis from Tucker's bedside and hitched a screen partially around them. He made a cursory examination of his patient, smiling in obvious satisfaction at his progress.

"So what's the matter with me, doc?" the officer asked eventually as Fox let the sheet fall again. "Anythin' serious?"

"Not remotely," Fox conceded. "Ironically, you are slightly dehydrated, so I shall expect you to drink plenty of water and fruit juice for the next seventy-two hours. Apart from that you've been concussed and you have a black eye, but I don't see anything sufficiently worrying to keep you in hospital. However, Lieutenant, if I discharge you tonight, I will require you to return for a further examination tomorrow afternoon - and you will not leave Queen Charlotte until you have done so."

"Discharge me? You mean I can go?"

"As soon as Lieutenant Reed arrives to collect you, certainly. I would imagine he'll have to transport my wife somewhere on the way - probably down to the Bullers' in D'Entrecasteaux. She spends a lot of time with Sophie Buller; I simply can't imagine what they find to talk about on an island the size of this one."

"You'd be amazed, doc," Tucker responded with a shrug. "It ain't the size of the island that counts, so much as what you do with it."

"Indeed? I must have you elaborate on that remark at some future date, Lieutenant, but for now I think you should concentrate on getting dressed. Will you require any assistance? Young Mayweather is still hanging about."

Indignantly Tucker pushed the bedclothes aside. "Hey, I don't need Travis's help to pull my pants on," he asserted. He was wearing only a very elderly pair of faded pyjama trousers with the letters QCH stitched in neat red letters into the waistband; Virtue had been hoarding and redistributing used clothing as long as anyone could remember, taking seriously her Christian duty to clothe the naked. "Do I actually have any pants?"

"You have underwear, trousers and a shirt, Lieutenant," the nun's voice came from the other side of the flimsy cloth screen. A white-clad arm, like that of the Lady of the Lake, reached around the end of the screen and presented them to him. "You do not appear to have any footwear; perhaps you can borrow something from Ensign Mayweather."

"Thanks, Sister."

"You will also require a comb, and there is a razor in the bathroom. Lieutenant Reed will be here in less than twenty minutes, but there will be plenty of time for a shower should you wish."

A shower? Few things he could imagine sounded more attractive than that, just at the moment.

"I'll do that," Tucker said, rolling up the bundle of clothing and stuffing it under his arm. He glanced across at Fox. "Does she ever miss a trick?"

"Not in my experience, Lieutenant. You'd better get into the bathroom quickly; I should imagine your escort will be in rather a hurry when he gets here. Not a particularly patient man, our Lieutenant Reed."

"Malcolm? Not patient?" This sat so ill with Skip's recollection of the man who had lurked in a mousehole for a clear hour after the cat had left the premises that his eyebrows rose in astonishment. "The man's made of stone; he'd sit an' wait until hell froze over!"

"Perhaps not on every occasion," Fox amended. "Perhaps not when his time is so severely limited. However I suppose he might be willing to make an exception in your case."

"You mean I'm worth waitin' for?" Tucker asked, with a grin.

"Possibly. But I am hardly in a position to comment, Lieutenant, now, am I?" the doctor asked amiably as Tucker made his departure in the direction of the bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later he emerged clean and dressed in someone's old formal dark pants and a much laundered blue and white checked shirt, his damp hair combed back from his forehead and the skin around one eye glowing a most attractive shade of twilight purple. He found a small group gathered in the ward; Mayweather, Hoshi, and a very relaxed and affable-looking Reed, immaculate in a bandbox-fresh uniform, sitting on the foot of Mayweather's bed and swinging one foot back and forth lazily.

"Hey, Malcolm," he said, coolly, keeping a firm hold on all the emotions that boiled to the surface at the sight of the man looking so clean and sparkling and downright desirable.

"Skip." An equally reserved response, but for the twinkle in the man's eye which Tucker resolutely ignored.

"Malcolm was just tellin' us the one about the courtesan and the honey," Mayweather chimed in, cheerfully. "A Japanese joke!" he added, incredulous.

"This is a very old story," Hoshi protested, discomfited by open and raucous discussion of Jade Stems and other such pillowing matters. Western culture still held many mysteries for her, but she was determined to over-ride her natural shyness and make an effort to blend in with American ways wherever she could. The Americans were the future; that much was obvious even from the isolation of Queen Charlotte Island, and those who still adhered to the traditions of older societies would have to learn to reach an accommodation with the world that was coming. She wondered how many of her late father's countrymen would have to die before those who remained understood that.

"Well, the old ones are the best," Reed chuckled. "Are you ready to leave, Skip?"

"Soon's I find some shoes," was the reply. "Travis, you got anything you can lend me?"

"There's a pair of straw sandals under the bed," Mayweather grinned. "I won't be wearin' them until I get this plaster off my leg. Doc says day after tomorrow," he added.

Obligingly Hoshi bent down and retrieved the sandals for him. Tucker stuffed his feet into them and flip-flopped about experimentally. "Good," he said. Then; "I look like a beach bum. Don't I?"

Reed and Mayweather exchanged glances. "Yes," they both said, without a hint of disapproval.

"Uh-huh. Are we leavin' Malcolm?"

"If you're ready, yes." The British officer stood up. "Goodbye Travis, Hoshi. I hope everything goes well for you. If I'm ever back this way I'll look you up."

"Sure, Malcolm, always pleased to see you," Travis told him. "And thanks for the perfume."

"Welcome."

As they moved away, Tucker hissed; "Perfume?"

"Soir de Paris. Archer sent it from Vanicoro."

"He's not with you?"

"Broken collarbone," Reed said economically. "He's not allowed to fly for at least six weeks - and anyway the Quarterback Sneak is laid up for repairs. On the other hand there are two Zeroes down in the Santa Cruz Basin in worse condition even than that. After I'd dropped off the notebooks with Harbison and seen Archer in the base hospital I came over with the replacement pilot; all the personality of a wet fortnight in Margate," he finished, with a dismissive shrug.

"Where?"

"Doesn't matter."

Outside on the lanai, they paused and looked into one another's eyes. The temptation to reel one another in and kiss as they had kissed before leaving Enfant Perdu was almost overpowering; indeed, Tucker made a half-move forward, but Reed countered with a similar step back and a cautioning expression on his face.

"Skip," the Englishman breathed, importing into the word a wealth of warning such as one small syllable had never held before.

"Yeah, dammit, I know. 'Not here, not now.'" Then, dredging around painfully for a change of subject; "Fox told me you saved my life. Thank you, Malcolm."

"Any time. You didn't seriously think I'd let you go, did you? I've got far too much time and effort invested in you for that, Mr Tucker. Besides, I just might have an ulterior motive."

"I know. Next decent bed we come to, right?" Tucker paused. "You mean to say you've got somethin' fixed up?" he asked, incredulously.

Reed took his arm and escorted him away from the lanai, down the steps and out onto the lawn. "Archer's on Vanicoro," he said, confidentially. "Fox is doing a night shift he doesn't need to do, and Elizabeth and the dog are in D'Entrecasteaux with the Bullers for the night. They've left us the entire house, complete with servants and a cold buffet on the lanai. What's more, she insisted I move into a double room. She couldn't have been more accommodating, Skip."

"What're you sayin'? They know? They guessed? What?" The implication of Mrs Fox's generosity was not lost on Tucker.

Reed shrugged. "I don't know how," he conceded, "except that living on a small island does give you an instinct about people. Anyway, they know and apparently they don't seem to mind." He gripped the bicep he still held, a gesture which at a distance would have seemed merely reassurance and support, but his thumb stroked back and forth in a meditative motion and woke nerve endings Tucker never knew he possessed. It was the most territorial of touches.

"Travis and Hoshi? They know too?"

"I wouldn't be surprised, but I have no evidence either way. Would you care?"

"I guess not. They like you."

"I like them."

A few steps further, and then Tucker said suddenly; "Hey, does this elaborate seduction scenario of yours include a sarong and a lei?"

Reed's eyebrows rose. "It might. Then again, it might not. You'll just have to wait and find out."

"Oh really? Well, I hope you brought transport, Mr Reed, 'cos if I have to walk all the way up that god-damned hill you're gonna find me seriously under strength for the execution of my duties."

"Of course. I knew that age and infirmity would take their toll on you, which is why I borrowed a wheelbarrow." He led Skip down the slope to where a jeep was parked in the shade of a tree. "Jump in, I'll push you up the hill."

"Dumb bastard," Skip grinned.

"You too, with knobs on." A comfortable silence fell while Reed settled himself into the driver's seat and prepared to start the jeep. Then he said; "Travis tells me that as soon as the Sneak is in the air again he's going down to Nouméa to buy Hoshi an engagement ring."

Tucker looked at him sideways. "You think that's a good idea?"

"I don't know. But it's making them happy, Skip; who are we to criticise?"

"Especially us." Tucker reached out one hand, covered Reed's where it rested on the wheel. He had made no serious effort to start the engine but was staring ahead of him, through the space where the windshield should have been, contemplating a formless future. "I think maybe I'll go to Nouméa with Travis when he goes," Skip said, almost casually, stroking the back of Reed's hand in reassurance.

"Save your money; I don't need an engagement ring," was the arch response. "Or maybe you were thinking of going whoring at the Green Light House again?"

"Neither, as a matter of fact. Actually I thought I'd go get a tattoo - then I c'n be a proper Aola like my clan brother. Who'd'a ever thought I'd end up hitched to the 'King of the Cannibal Islands'?" he added, with a wicked smile.

Reed turned to look at him. He did not move his hands from the wheel, nor make any move closer to Tucker, but a sincerity leaped between them; it was an earnest of something more.

"Mr Tucker," he said, "I'm in serious danger of kissing you - and I fear we've got an audience."

"Mr Reed," was the response, "the kiss I want, the audience I don't. How about we find some place a little more private?"

Malcolm turned away, coughed awkwardly, fumbled with the ignition. The jeep roared to life, swamping any further possibility of intimate conversation.

"Do you know," he said, at the top of his voice, "I thought you'd never ask."

With a scream of protest from a transmission shot to hell on island roads, Reed let in the clutch and the vehicle lurched forward. He spun it in its own length, crunching limestone under its fat tyres, and aimed it at the road like a deadly weapon. The jeep racketed off up the road, leaving in its wake a cloud of blue exhaust smoke in which were suspended particles of stone dust which swirled around and around maniacally, and settled back only slowly onto the surface of the track.

Sister Virtue, on the lanai, watched the vehicle depart. The two handsome young men aboard were choosing a path through life that had just as many potholes as the neglected track up to Government House, and their progress along it would be far from smooth. It was not open to her to approve, or even to condone, any sexual arrangements they may choose to share; however she could perhaps ignore that aspect of their friendship and focus instead on the affection that had brought them both safely home from Enfant Perdu. Loyalty and devotion were virtues no good Catholic woman would choose to ignore, even if she could. In time of war, particularly, they were commodities in short supply, and must be encouraged wherever they were found.

She thought of Mayweather and Hoshi and of their own difficult choice; everything she could do to protect the young couple, she would do - for their own sake, and also for the sake of another couple for whom she could not do as much.

There was, however, one option open to her, one resource that had never been known to fail; in the end, it was probably the only influence she could exert on their behalf.

As Reed and Tucker headed off up the rocky road towards an uncertain future, Sister Virtue repaired to the serenity of her own room, dropped to her knees, and prayed her most fervent prayer for the continued well-being of their outcast heathen souls.

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