“Hooky"s not telling us everything,” Elliot said over a whisky and water in the Officer"s Mess later that day. “He knows more than he"s saying.”
“Aye, he"s not sending us to India to look pretty,” Jack agreed. “He thinks there is something brewing, or he would not have told us about Lytton, Sher Ali and the Russians.”
“Well, the Royal Malverns are off tomorrow,” Elliot said.
“So I believe,” Jack said. “Malta isn"t it?”
“The seat of operations, my boy, they"re away to Malta to counter the threat of the great Russian bear while we"ll be in India catching cholera and facing the Ghazis.”
“I"m not on duty tomorrow,” Watters said. “I"ll take Mary and wave the Royals goodbye.”
Elliot nodded. “I thought you would.” He poured himself a generous tot of whisky, surveyed his glass and added more
