Chapter 2
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WHEN THE Virgin passed West Point, we were lying round on deck, sipping liquors and coffee, and feeling pretty comfortable. Mick O’Rourke was sprawled near me, on a half-dozen cushions. Most of the others had deck chairs. Carla turned her saucer eyes toward gray, stern buldings, clear in the light of a crescent moon, and sighed heavily. She broke a momentary silence.
“He was an honor man, and little Carla was very, very young,” she said. “He’d been studying too hard— tactics, I think. I made a sweet retreat.”
Torry said grimly, arms flung over his head:
“In disorder, Carla?”
Rita Velda laughed in her thinnish way. “Was this before the war, dear?” she asked nastily.
Carla made a grimace. “Even my first campaign doesn’t date back that far,” she said. “It was at
