‘I don’t know what’s happening,’ said the man. ‘You started off so well. But we can only make special arms with these latest ones.’
‘You’re still going to pay me?’ said Colin, worried.
He should have been taking home seventy doublezoons with ten doublezoons bonus. He had been doing his very best, but the barrel inspections had shown several anomalies.
‘See for yourself,’ said the man.
He picked up one of the barrels and showed Colin the funnel-shaped end.
‘I can’t understand it,’ said Colin. ‘The first ones were perfectly cylindrical.’
‘Of course we can make blunderbusses out of them,’ said the man, ‘but we gave up using them five wars ago and we’ve already got a large surplus stock. It’s all very annoying.’
‘I’m doing my best,’ said Colin.
‘Of course you are,’ said the man. ‘You’ll get your eighty doublezoons.’
He took a sealed envelope from his desk drawer.
‘I had it brought here to save you going to the pay office,’ he said. ‘Sometimes it takes months to get your money – and you seem to need it quickly.’
‘Thanks very much,’ said Colin.
‘I haven’t gone through the ones you made yesterday yet,’ said the man. ‘They’ll bring them in presently. Would you mind waiting for a moment?’
His rasping, croaking voice hurt Colin’s ears as it went in.
‘You see,’ said the man, ‘we’re forced to pay very strict attention to these details because one rifle must be exactly the same as another, even if we haven’t got any cartridges …’
‘Yes …’ said Colin.
‘We don’t often have any cartridges,’ said the man. ‘They’re behind on the cartridge schedules. We’ve got large stocks for a model we don’t make any more, but we haven’t been told to make any for the new rifles, so we can’t use them. Anyway, it doesn’t matter much. What’s the good of a rifle against a fodder cannon? The enemies make one fodder cannon for every two of our rifles. So at least we have superiority of numbers. But a fodder cannon isn’t going to be scared by a couple of rifles, especially if they’ve got no ammunition …’
‘Don’t we make fodder cannons here?’ asked Colin.
‘We do,’ said the man, ‘but we’ve only just completed our programme for the last war. So of course they don’t work very well and have to be scrapped. As they’re very strongly made it’s taking us quite a time.’
There was a knock on the door and the quartermaster appeared, pushing a white sterilized trolley. Under a white cloth there was a slight bulge. This wouldn’t have happened with strictly cylindrical barrels and Colin felt very worried. The quartermaster went out and closed the door.
‘Ah! …’ said the man. ‘It still doesn’t look as if they’re right.’
He lifted the cloth. There were twelve cold blue steel barrels – and, at the end of each, a beautiful white rose was in full bloom, with drops of dew and beige shadows in the curves of its velvety petals.
‘Oh! …’ gasped Colin. ‘Aren’t they lovely! …’
The man said nothing. But he coughed twice.
‘There’ll be no point in you coming back tomorrow,’ he said after a moment’s hesitation.
His fingers touched the end of the trolley nervously.
‘Can I take them for Chloe?’ said Colin.
‘They’ll die,’ said the man, ‘if you pluck them from the steel. They’re made of steel too, you know …’
‘They can’t be …’ said Colin.
He delicately touched one of the roses and tried to snap its stem. His finger slipped and one of the petals made a cut several inches long in his hand. His hand began to bleed and he put it to his mouth to stick the dark blood that began to pulse out. He looked at the red curve on the white petal. The man tapped him on the shoulder and gently showed him the door.