For Kingdom and Country by I.D. Roberts Page A

his feetagain. Glass scrunched under the soles of his boots. A glancing blow stung his cheek and he dodged to the left, raised his right arm in defence and thrust upwards with his left fist, hammering the air from the gut of whichever officer happened to be in front of him. The man doubled up and Lock brought his knee up sharply to crack against the man’s jaw.
    Lock staggered back, breathing heavily, leaning against the alcove wall, wiping a slick of salty blood from his lip with the back of his hand. To his surprise he wasn’t being ganged up on, as he had initially thought. It seemed that Bingham-Smith’s party was a tinderbox ready to explode and that Lock making the first move, throwing the first punch, was all that the other officers needed to set them off. The fight had spilt out of the annex into the wider field of the foyer and those who could still stand were now brawling amongst themselves. The girls were taking the opportunity to scamper for cover and were being herded to safety by the huge whimpering form of Jalal Al-din Bahar. Glasses and chairs and plant pots and jugs and plates of both china and brass were being flung all over the place like so much shrapnel. The sound of ripping cloth, of splintering wood and body blows was swirling about Lock’s head all underlined, much to his amusement, by the continuous melodic and unwavering accompaniment of the lone unseen oudist.
    Lock began to laugh at the farce of it all.
    Just at that moment a shrill whistle sounded and a group of provosts burst in the front door, all NCOs sporting SD caps with red tops and black cloth armbands bearing the letters ‘MP’ in red. They were wielding batons and had no hesitation about laying into the melee, clubbing the drunken officers and pulling them apart from one another. The lieutenant who had been sat at Bingham-Smith’s table, the one referred to as ‘Hazza’, staggered up to Lock glaring, his fists raised.
    ‘You bloody colonial runt,’ he said, spittle flying over a cut, swollen lip. He threw a punch, but Lock easily deflected it.
    Before Lock could hit back, three burly red caps stormed towards the alcove and pinned both he and Lieutenant ‘Hazza’ up against the wall.
    ‘Get your hands orf me, Corporal! Do you know who I am? I am Lieutenant Harrington-Brown, your superior officer!’ His voice was shrill and a vein throbbed at the side of his now very red temple.
    The provost corporal didn’t react at all and just held his baton hard against Harrington-Brown’s throat.
    ‘You men are all under arrest.’
    Lock struggled to free himself from the tight grip of the two other red caps, but relaxed when he heard the familiar voice calling out the order. It was Major Ross.
    There was a crash of a chair tumbling and Lock glanced over his shoulder to see Bingham-Smith, hand pressed to his bloodied nose, stumbling out of the annex.
    ‘Major Ross, look! Look at what that thug of yours has done!’ Bingham-Smith staggered, waving his hand about at the foyer as if it was all Lock’s handiwork.
    Ross stepped aside as two more red caps entered the alcove and seized Bingham-Smith by the upper arms.
    ‘I protest! I protest! Major! I am the assistant provost marshal. You cannot arrest me! These are my bloody men!’
    ‘Shut up, Bingham-Smith,’ Ross said. ‘Take him away.’
    The two provosts dragged the struggling and fuming Bingham-Smith out. Ross turned to follow.
    ‘Sir?’ Lock said.
    The major paused, but didn’t turn around. ‘Bring them,’ he said, ‘bring them all, including those upstairs.’
    Lock and Harrington-Brown were manhandled away from the alcove and frogmarched through the remains of Cennet ’s foyer and out of the front door.
    Outside, the street was lit up from the headlights of two AEC Y-type 3-ton trucks, which were parked about ten yards from the entrance. The provosts were pushing and prodding the drunken officers up into the backs of the trucks, shouting at them to get a move on and to