‘Perfectly simple,’ George said impatiently, ‘Sonia gives a bridge party, invites Johanna, couple of extra men, no one leaves until we return.’

I gaped, horror-stricken. I knew not what to say; I could only shoot a piteous glance at Sam.

‘What is uppermost in Charlie’s mind, I fancy,’ said Sam, ‘is that Johanna is really rather in the international league at Bridge – she has partnered Omar Sharif – while Sonia, although she plays with gusto and brio, has this trifling inability to remember what are trumps, and, worse for some reason known only to bridge-players, persists in recanting.’

‘Revoking,’ I said.

‘I dare say you’re right, Charlie.’

George assumed his brigadier-voice; just like Matthew Arnold donning his singing-robe.

‘Look here, Mortdecai, I’d hate to think that you were making difficulties for the fun of it but I must say you’re not being exactly constructive in your criticism.’

I cringed a bit; I felt that I had failed the Staff Course at Camberley. Mortdecai would never wear the coveted red tabs on his khaki. ‘RTU’ (Returned to Unit) would follow his name for ever – never ‘psc’ (passed staff-college).

‘Ah, shit!’ I thought, as better men have, I’m sure, thought before me, at similar crises in their lives.

‘Well,’ I said aloud, ‘no doubt some other sort of party could be arranged; it’s not something to fuss about, is it?’

‘That’s better.’ George was prepared to give the weedy subaltern another chance. ‘Of course there are other kinds of party: there are whist-drives, are there not, and beetle-drives and canasta-evenings; all sorts of things. One can deal with that sort of detail at, ah, the time.’ (Once again, I heard him, almost, say ‘at platoon level’. ‘After all,’ he seemed to be saying ‘what are sergeants for?’)

‘Yes, George,’ I said, restraining my impulse to call him ‘Sir’. ‘But my last objection is one that I have raised before. The question of firearms. You simply cannot go popping off at people just because they’re rapists.’

‘I can,’ said Sam.

‘So can I,’ said George.

‘Well, I can’t. My .455 has to live chained up in the Pistol Club Armoury; my Banker’s Special and Johanna’s little Savage .28 have to be locked up in bed-side table drawers when we are in and in the safe when we’re out. I’d risk flourishing a pistol at a miscreant out-of-doors, I suppose, but if I shot someone, except in clear self-defence against an armed miscreant, I’d be in line for a long prison sentence. You men would, probably, be in a slightly better position because you’ve actually suffered from this chap and you’d get the benefit of the “no-jury-would-convict” convention, but I’d look pretty feeble up against a smart barrister explaining that I’d killed a chap because I’d thought he was a chap who’d ravished the wife of a chap I knew, wouldn’t I?’