Schreiner glanced at Morris quickly, then back at Mosby. “It really is impossible?”
“Nothing’s impossible—at least, according to General Ellsworth.”
“Your base commander at Wodden?” “That’s the one and only.” Mosby nodded towards Finsterwald. “You know the Holy of Holies?” “Huh?”
“Harry, Harry—the General’s reception office. Where he keeps his flags and his model planes—and the desk you could land a B-52 on.”
Finsterwald returned the nod unwillingly, as though he’d been too busy smartening his salute in Ellsworth’s presence to notice whether the General had a desk or a brass bedstead.
“Well, there’s a plaque on the wall right behind his chair—an oak plaque with gold lettering, remember?”
The flicker in Finsterwald’s eyes indicated that the plaque had registered. Which figured, because it was fixed just six inches above the General’s head, and that was where Finsterwald would have looked. Finsterwald and most everyone else, to be fair; so it was probably the way the General intended.
“ No Mission is Impossible —remember?”
“Sure, I remember.” The nod was more confident. “Matter of fact I go along with the idea.”
“Great.”
“A man says a thing can’t be done he usually means he can’t do it.”
“Is that a fact? Well, maybe you should be looking for Badon Hill, not Audley.” Mosby turned back to Schreiner. “Let’s settle for improbable, then.”
“But there is such a place—that’s definite?”
“There was .” Mosby ran his eye over the table, and from there to the pile of books beside Shirley’s chair. “By your foot, honey—the little dark blue book.”
The pages fell open obediently at the marked passage. “This is the earliest thing there is— On the Destruction of Britain . Written by a monk named Gildas in the middle of the sixth century. ‘Gildas the Wise’ they called him, but he’s really rather a pain in the ass.”
“A history book?” asked Shirley.
“The hell it is! It’s about as much a proper history of Britain as the collected Washington Post editorials on Richard Nixon are to a history of the United States. Gildas wasn’t interested in history—he was in the business of denouncing the rulers of Britain as a bunch of rat-finks who were letting the country go to the dogs. They’d won the war against the Saxons and now they were losing the peace—the old story.”
“So where does Badon come in?”
“Ah—it comes in sort of incidentally when he’s preaching about the good old days of Ambrosius Aurelianus, ‘the last of the Romans’—a sort of George Washington who started the war of liberation against the Saxons. It’s like he’s reminiscing on the side…” He scanned the page for his pencil mark. “Here it is:
…nowadays his descendants in our time have declined from the integrity of their ancestors…
—that’s typical Gildas—
…From then on the citizens and the enemy were by turns victorious, so that God might test in this people, the modern Israel, whether it loves Him or not; until the year of the seige of Badon Hill, almost the last and not the least slaughter of those bandits, which was forty-four years and one month ago, as I should know for it was also the year of my birth…
He was a Badon baby, and he never forgot it.”
“So when was he born?” asked Shirley.
“That’s the trouble, honey—and it’s also absolutely typical of the whole subject: nobody’s quite sure. But round about A.D. 500, give or take ten or fifteen years.”
“So the Britons had beaten the Saxons—the Anglo-Saxons?” said Schreiner. “I thought it was the other way round.”
“So it was—in the end. Gildas was writing in about 550, maybe a year or two earlier. At that time the Britons had been on top for the best part of half a century, since the battle of Badon. The Saxons just had toe-holds on the coast in a few places. But the next really reliable account of what happened dates
“Nothing’s impossible—at least, according to General Ellsworth.”
“Your base commander at Wodden?” “That’s the one and only.” Mosby nodded towards Finsterwald. “You know the Holy of Holies?” “Huh?”
“Harry, Harry—the General’s reception office. Where he keeps his flags and his model planes—and the desk you could land a B-52 on.”
Finsterwald returned the nod unwillingly, as though he’d been too busy smartening his salute in Ellsworth’s presence to notice whether the General had a desk or a brass bedstead.
“Well, there’s a plaque on the wall right behind his chair—an oak plaque with gold lettering, remember?”
The flicker in Finsterwald’s eyes indicated that the plaque had registered. Which figured, because it was fixed just six inches above the General’s head, and that was where Finsterwald would have looked. Finsterwald and most everyone else, to be fair; so it was probably the way the General intended.
“ No Mission is Impossible —remember?”
“Sure, I remember.” The nod was more confident. “Matter of fact I go along with the idea.”
“Great.”
“A man says a thing can’t be done he usually means he can’t do it.”
“Is that a fact? Well, maybe you should be looking for Badon Hill, not Audley.” Mosby turned back to Schreiner. “Let’s settle for improbable, then.”
“But there is such a place—that’s definite?”
“There was .” Mosby ran his eye over the table, and from there to the pile of books beside Shirley’s chair. “By your foot, honey—the little dark blue book.”
The pages fell open obediently at the marked passage. “This is the earliest thing there is— On the Destruction of Britain . Written by a monk named Gildas in the middle of the sixth century. ‘Gildas the Wise’ they called him, but he’s really rather a pain in the ass.”
“A history book?” asked Shirley.
“The hell it is! It’s about as much a proper history of Britain as the collected Washington Post editorials on Richard Nixon are to a history of the United States. Gildas wasn’t interested in history—he was in the business of denouncing the rulers of Britain as a bunch of rat-finks who were letting the country go to the dogs. They’d won the war against the Saxons and now they were losing the peace—the old story.”
“So where does Badon come in?”
“Ah—it comes in sort of incidentally when he’s preaching about the good old days of Ambrosius Aurelianus, ‘the last of the Romans’—a sort of George Washington who started the war of liberation against the Saxons. It’s like he’s reminiscing on the side…” He scanned the page for his pencil mark. “Here it is:
…nowadays his descendants in our time have declined from the integrity of their ancestors…
—that’s typical Gildas—
…From then on the citizens and the enemy were by turns victorious, so that God might test in this people, the modern Israel, whether it loves Him or not; until the year of the seige of Badon Hill, almost the last and not the least slaughter of those bandits, which was forty-four years and one month ago, as I should know for it was also the year of my birth…
He was a Badon baby, and he never forgot it.”
“So when was he born?” asked Shirley.
“That’s the trouble, honey—and it’s also absolutely typical of the whole subject: nobody’s quite sure. But round about A.D. 500, give or take ten or fifteen years.”
“So the Britons had beaten the Saxons—the Anglo-Saxons?” said Schreiner. “I thought it was the other way round.”
“So it was—in the end. Gildas was writing in about 550, maybe a year or two earlier. At that time the Britons had been on top for the best part of half a century, since the battle of Badon. The Saxons just had toe-holds on the coast in a few places. But the next really reliable account of what happened dates
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