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“Aye, no doubt you’re right, sir,” Sergeant Jack McDowell answered. “And if they aren’t stepping on their own toes, then they will step on the Nazis’.”
“That breaks my heart,” Goldfarb said. The sergeant chuckled; no, he didn’t hold Goldfarb’s being a Jew against him. If only the same held true for Goldfarb’s superiors, he would have been a happier man. With Britain ever more closely aligned to the Reich, though, that wasn’t in the cards. At least he hadn’t been booted out of the RAF and into a concentration camp.
“They’ll be low over German territory before they land, too,” he said with a certain sardonic satisfaction. “Here’s hoping Heinrich Himmler’s hiding under the bed.”
McDowell nodded. He wasn’t too far from Goldfarb’s age: old enough to remember the Blitz, to remember the days when the Nazis were the worst enemies the British Empire had. To new recruits, the Greater German Reich might always have been the big, strong brother on the Continent. They had no sense of the past, or of what a nasty fellow the big, strong brother still was.
Of course, a fair number of the new recruits were as taken with the Lizards as they were with the Germans. Goldfarb let out a sigh. It hadn’t been that way when he was a kid joining the RAF. He sighed again. For how many generations had people been complaining about the younger set? Enough for formidable antiquity even by Lizard standards, no doubt.
McDowell said, “They’re right where they ought to be, right where they said they’d be. The Germans haven’t any excuse for throwing a rocket at them.”
“Except bloody-mindedness,” Goldfarb said. “Never forget about sheer bloody-mindedness, especially when you’re dealing with Germans.”
“They’ll pay dear if they get gay this time,” McDowell said. The Lizards had made that very plain to the Reich, the USSR, and the USA: any attack on the ships of the colonization fleet as they landed would start up the fighting that had lain dormant for eighteen years. Goldfarb didn’t think they were bluffing. His opinion counted for little. By all the signs, though, Himmler and Molotov and Warren agreed with him.
The Lizards hadn’t bothered publicly warning either Britain or Japan to leave their colonization fleet alone. They didn’t formally treat with either island nation as an equal, even if they had got their snouts bloodied when they invaded England.
Goldfarb followed the track of the ships from the colonization fleet till the curve of the Earth hid them from the prying eye of his radar. “Doesn’t look like the Reich will give this lot any trouble,” he said.
“Good, sir. That’s good,” McDowell said. “If the fighting starts up again, there won’t be anything left of any of us when it’s over.”
“Truth,” Goldfarb said in the Lizards’ language. McDowell nodded; he understood those hisses and pops and coughs. For him, as for Goldfarb, learning them meant being able to do his job better. A lot of people half their age liked the Lizards’ language for its own sake. No accounting for taste, Goldfarb thought.
After the alert caused by the descent of the detachment from the colonization fleet, the rest of Goldfarb’s tour at the radar screen was uneventful. He preferred days like that; he’d had enough excitement when he was younger to last him a lifetime. He made his report to the flight lieutenant who replaced him at the radar, then escaped with a sigh of relief.
A cigarette in the pale sunlight outside took the edge off his tension. A pint of bitter, he knew, would do an even better job, or maybe Guinness from the Irish Republic. He was heading for his bicycle so he could let a specialist administer the proper dose-and perhaps even repeat it-when a shout made him whip his head around: “Goldfarb!”
He stared in surprise. A good many years had gone by since he’d seen that handsome, ruddy face, but the only change in it he could see was that the handlebar mustache adorning the upper lip was streaked with gray. He stiffened to attention and saluted. “Yes, sir!” he said loudly.
“Oh, in the bloody name of heaven, as you were,” Basil Roundbush said, returning the salute. “I want to buy you a bloody pint, not put you on report.”
“Thank you, sir,” Goldfarb said, and extended his hand. Roundbush shook it; he still had a grip like a bear trap. Goldfarb eyed the four stripes on each sleeve of his gray-blue uniform. “Thank you very much, Group Captain.”
Roundbush waved airily, as if the rank-the RAF’s equivalent to colonel-meant nothing to him. Maybe it did mean nothing to him. He had the right accent; he’d gone to the right public school and the right university-Goldfarb couldn’t recall if it was Oxford or Cambridge, but which hardly mattered. And, smiling his film-star smile, he said, “You’ve done rather smashingly well yourself, Flight Lieutenant.” He didn’t add, For a Jew from the East End of London, as he might have done. He didn’t even look as if he thought it, which was rather remarkable. Instead, he went on, “That’s why I came over here to chat you up.”
Goldfarb’s eyes widened again. “You came to Belfast to… see me, sir?” he said slowly, wondering if he’d heard straight.
“I did indeed,” Roundbush answered, for all the world as if traveling to Northern Ireland to talk with a Jewish junior officer were the most normal thing in the world. “Now-I’ve got a motorcar laid on, and you know this town, which I bloody well don’t. Go fling your bicycle in the boot, and then tell me where we can get a pint.”
“Protestant pub or Catholic?” Goldfarb asked. “It doesn’t matter much to me, but…” He let his voice trail away. Maybe, after so long, Roundbush needed reminding about his faith.
He didn’t. “I know what you are,” he said. “If you weren’t, you’d not have caught that lovely lady of yours. I might have caught her myself, as a matter of fact.” He’d always had phenomenal luck with women. Goldfarb glanced at his left hand. He still wore no wedding band. Maybe that didn’t signify, but maybe it did, too: could a tomcat change his stripes? He grinned at Goldfarb. “I’m not fussy. Whichever you think is the best place.”
“There’s the Crown Liquor Saloon on Great Victoria, sir, not far from the university, or Robinsons next door. Robinsons has the finest Guinness in town, I think.”
“Robinsons it is, then.” Roundbush spoke with decision befitting a senior officer. “Guinness comes close to justifying the existence of Ireland, and I can’t think of many other things that do. Come on, old man.”
Once ensconced in a snug with a pint of stout in front of him, Goldfarb asked what he knew was the obvious question: “And now, sir, what’s all this in aid of?”
“Twisting the Lizards’ nasty little tails-what else?” Roundbush answered, sucking foam out of that perfectly waxed mustache. “One of the things we do on the sly, you know, is encourage them to stick their tongues in the ginger jar. A drugged Lizard is a long way from being a Lizard at his best.”
“No, I don’t suppose he would be,” Goldfarb agreed, “but-is it cricket?”
“Fine old tradition,” Basil Roundbush said. “Goes back to the Opium Wars, you might say. It worked then, and it’s working now. Oh, it’s not working perfectly; we’ve had a spot of trouble with someone over in the States, but I do think that’s being fixed. And we have hopes of getting some of our own back from Grand High Panjandrum Atvar and his scaly chums.”
Goldfarb didn’t say anything at all to that. As far as he was concerned, Britain’s survival was miracle enough. Dreams of resurrecting the old British Empire could only be just that: dreams. He did ask, “How do I fit into this, sir?” If he sounded cautious, it was because he felt cautious.
“You’ve got connections in Poland, and you’ve got connections in Palestine, too,” Roundbush replied. “We’ve had a couple of shipments go awry lately-this is apart from that business in the USA, mind you. Anything you can do to find out why would serve Queen and country, and might line your pockets quite nicely, too.” He made money-counting motions and then, as if suddenly noticing his glass was empty, signaled to the barmaid.
“Right away, dearie,” she said, and put something extra into he
r walk. Goldfarb shook his head in bemused amusement; whatever the group captain had had, he still retained it.
But that was beside the point. “Is this RAF business, sir, or is it private business?” he asked. “I’ve been happy enough here-more than happy enough. I’m not dead keen on turning my life upside down and inside out.”
“Of course you’re not, old man,” Roundbush said soothingly. “Of course you’re not. That’s why there’d be a little something special-or maybe more than a little something special-in it for you if you’d look into the matter for us. We do take care of our own; you needn’t fret about that.”
The barmaid brought back fresh pints. Goldfarb paid her; Roundbush had bought the first round. Goldfarb always tipped generously-he couldn’t afford a reputation for meanness. But despite scooping up his coins, the barmaid had eyes only for his companion.
“Cheers,” Roundbush said after she finally swayed away, and raised the new pint to his lips.
“Cheers,” Goldfarb echoed. He stared across the cramped little snug at the senior officer. “Who exactly is ‘we,’ sir?”
“My colleagues,” Roundbush said: an answer that was not an answer. “My notion was, a chap in your situation can use all the help”-he made that money-counting motion again-“and all the friends he can find.”
