Heil Harris!

from his eyes. “You don’t understand the theory of eternal ice. The principle on which civilisation is based is that each step forward arises out of destruction. Civilisation as we know it may be destroyed and the human race may be slaughtered, but then the super-man will emerge. There can be no surrender, and no mercy. We shall either win, or we shall precipitate such destruction that nothing will ever be the same again. That way progress is made. Look at Greece, Rome, all the ancient civilisations. They moved forward until they were destroyed, and out of their ruins arose the next civilisation. I am quite ready to destroy this world. It will be for the sake of history.”
    Emma still tried to reason with the man. “Surely we haven’t the power to destroy—”
    “Power is illusion!” he shouted. “In 1939 Germany didn’t have the power to fight France, but luckily France surrendered. In 1938 we couldn’t have beaten Czechoslovakia, but the British wouldn’t allow Czechoslovakia to fight. The important thing is to surprise our enemies and to attack with supreme confidence. That way we are invincible. We attack on Saturday at nine o’clock.”
    “Does Colonel Hayburn agree to this?”
    Harris laughed. He had a sense of humour after all. “He thinks it is his idea. The man Steed has enough evidence against Hayburn to have him gaoled for life.” An even better joke occurred to him. “And I understand there is a personal issue. Hayburn killed the man’s girl friend, so now he is terrified that he will be killed in revenge. Ha ha ha. You see, what has Colonel Hayburn to lose? He is finished. But if our revolution is successful he may become nearly as powerful as Goering was. Nearly as powerful. One doesn’t make the same mistake twice.”
    Emma went back to Throgmorton Hall feeling slightly confused. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in England. It happens nearly every other month in places like Indonesia and China, Egypt or Jordan. Even in Rhodesia. But in England — no, she couldn’t imagine it. So few people in England could imagine a bloody revolution that such a thing was unimaginable.
    She drove through the narrow country lanes and passed a herd of cows on their way to milking. It was so peaceful. Among all this order she could no more imagine change than she could imagine dying. But people die every day. Nothing lasts for ever except the desire to think that life is eternal. But no, it had to be a nightmare.
    When she reached Throgmorton Hall she found three soldiers posted in the grounds. They saluted her as she sped past them. Which was disconcerting. There was another man sitting in the entrance hall, and when Emma came in he sprang to attention.
    “What the hell are you doing here?”
    “I’m your personal bodyguard, Mrs. Peel.”
    Cynthia was thrilled to bits because her father had a personal bodyguard as well. “The house is absolutely vibrating with virile young soldiers,” she explained delightedly. “Apparently there’s going to be some kind of civil war. Isn’t it exciting?”
    “Wildly,” said Emma.
     

“Get it out of your system”
     
    Steed stopped off in London for the evening on his way back to Wiltshire. He was feeling hungover and depressed, and there was only one cure for a condition like that. He looked up his old friend Archie Newman. A bachelor till the day he died and a man who drank only in moderation; he went on regular cures whenever he ran out of money. Archie Newman had been a close friend of Steed’s since they had both been sentenced to death in Jerusalem.
    “I mean, I’m not affected personally by her death,” said Steed.
    “Good lord no.”
    “But, you know, philosophically I was a bit saddened. All that beauty going to waste. Do you know what I mean?”
    “Absolutely.” He waved to the waiter and asked for another bottle of brandy. “I feel exactly the same way when I walk down the King’s Road. All those marvellous little dollies going to waste, and their palpitating little hearts will never know that it was me they were searching for. Do you know, Steed, there are thousands of women searching for love, and thousands more in jobs that they hate. They all wander about saying that they’re looking for something in life. And it’s me. I’m here all the time, waiting to give their lives meaning. But they won’t be told. Women are funny things.”
    Steed knocked back his seventh brandy. “You’re a thick, insensitive type.”
    “My