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The hardest part was coming home to the lads. The days were long past when Zeus and Apollo had chased Magnum with all the zeal of their loyalty to their master, but he had become almost as great a fixture in their lives as Higgins himself, and they could not help but note his absence, nor the heaviness with which Higgins carried himself into the house. The tilt of their heads as they looked up at him, eyes large and sad, was just the last of the day's weights.
The blinking red light on the answering machine told him of more messages, no doubt more inquiries as to Magnum's status. He still had to return calls to Luther Gillis and the novelist from Maine, not to mention the call from Robin Masters himself.
Higgins glanced at his watch. It was just coming on early evening in London. Rumors to the contrary, Robin Masters spent the majority of his evenings quietly at home, and now would be the most likely time to reach him.
The number he called, as instructed in Mr. Master's message, was a direct line to which perhaps only a dozen people in the whole world had access. Under normal circumstances, Higgins would report through a private secretary, and then possibly be passed through to Mr. Masters as events (or the man's whim) warranted, but he'd been clear on wanting to hear any news concerning Magnum directly.
By the third ring, he was almost hoping to get a machine and avoid the actual discussion, but instead... "Robin Masters."
"Mr. Masters. Jonathan Higgins, returning your call. I'm afraid there's no new news, sir." Succinct, to the point. Utterly meaningless.
"No change in his condition?"
"No, sir. The doctors say that it is up to him at this point."
Actually, what the doctor had said was, "At this point, he has to decide whether to live or die." As if that meant anything. Oh, Higgins had seen men die in North Africa when they should not have, when their wounds were less serious than the defeat of their souls; he had seen men live in New Guinea when they should have died from the malaria. He'd spoken stirringly of the power of will, of a man's character. He'd even believed it.
What a lot of rubbish.
"Well, I appreciate the call. Please keep me informed, and I know I don't have to tell you to extend the full use of the estate and any other amenities to his family."
"Of course, sir. Good evening to you."
"Take care of yourself, Higgins."
"Indeed, sir. Good evening."
Higgins set the phone back in its cradle, relieved to have that duty dispatched. And if Higgins suspected Mr. Master's call had been more an inquiry into Higgins' own well-being than Magnum's, it was nonetheless intended kindly, and deserved a response.
Not, mind you, that Mr. Masters wasn't fond of Magnum in his own way. But it was a distant fondness, a momentary amusement that had long ago passed, and in no way explained Magnum's continued presence on the estate, whatever Higgins' insistant protests that he himself wanted Magnum gone.
"If he irritates you so much, I'd be happy to ask him to leave," Mr. Masters had said when Higgins complained of the latest of the tussles with Magnum over rights to the tennis court or the wine cellar or some other trivial thing. Whatever Magnum's illusions to the contrary, Robin Masters valued Higgins' service enough that he would not expect him to deal with a constant source of irritation. Intermittent, perhaps, but not constant. "If you need me to make the phone call..."
"No, no," Higgins interrupted. "Minor inconvenience, really."
There followed a long pause, during which he'd heard the clink of what was no doubt a very expensive bottle of brandy hitting the rim of a glass.
"You enjoy it, don't you?" Mr. Masters asked. "You enjoy these skirmishes."
Higgins had been unable to stop the slight smile from twisting his mouth. "It does pass the time," he said.
Because, of course, he had enjoyed it. A retirement spent running a small estate was hardly enough to satisfy a man whose career had been spent protecting the Empire, and if his battles with Magnum were hardly on the same scale, they provided a minor diversion. He might have continued quite happily in them for years had the man not had the gall to turn out a decent human being.
"I need you to help me find my wife."
He'd known, of course, that Magnum had been a soldier, and had in fact served in a war. The Yanks would insist that Magnum's war had been different, a war unique in modern history, but Higgins only ever saw the same stories as any other war, a fact evidenced by Magnum's simple, heartfelt, and utterly astounding request for help. Astounding not just because Magnum hardly seemed like the marrying type (perhaps the type to become engaged once or twice, and accept the calling off by the woman in question with no small relief), but because it was the first of so many reminders that Magnum was, in his own way, a member of the regiment. There had been that business with Trusseau, of course, a fellow in arms who failed his men. But a local wife, loved and lost to the cruelties of war... Any man of the regiment would have done his part to help.
Shaking himself out of his memories, Higgins deleted the new messages from the machine. One was from Agatha, only calling to make certain he found the meal she'd left in the kitchen for him. Like so many others, she was sublimating her worry for Magnum into care for Higgins, although he did not, of course, discount her genuine affection for him. The box of plastic containers contained more food than he could eat in a week, but much of it was cold sandwiches and other things he could take to the hospital to share with Magnum's mother. Rick and TC were doing their best to look after her, but were ill-equipped to handle the practical realities of Magnum's condition.
They were brave men, for all their irritating habits, and loyal friends, members of Magnum's own regiment. Loyal enough to venture into Little Saigon after him, to search the ocean on little more than a hunch, to engage in mad scheme after mad scheme, no matter how much they might complain.
Something cold and wet touched his hand, and Higgins looked down to see Zeus nuzzling him, an unusual gesture of affection from an animal trained to be a good soldier. Higgins rubbed his ears, saying quietly, "I know, boy."
"Who does she look like, Higgins?"
A little girl with dark wavy hair and wide dark eyes, as if any thinking man could not see her parentage in an instant.
He'd seen so many looks on so many faces in similar situations. Carmody, so hopeful and pleased and rambling through his whisky about sending his new Malaysian wife, her pregnancy just beginning to show, to his family, the despairing knowledge of what was certain to be their reaction showing only in his eyes. Northcott, equally drunk as he begged for the loan of a fiver to send his Burmese mistress to the local midwife to end the matter before it could really begin. And Billington. Tall, handsome Billington, who spoke blithely of the money he'd left for his offspring's care, money he saw as the end of his responsibility in the matter. That had been the end of his friendship with Billington, which the painful clarity of hindsight revealed to be little more than a one-sided infatuation. A man who would carelessly abandon offspring around the globe like so much refuse was not a man he could call friend.
One could not choose one's parents, but friends were another matter.
If he'd had any doubts of Magnum's worthiness of that label, they were erased by the look on his face as he regarded this small child whose words he could only comprehend through another. That mix of hope and despair, the desperate longing and tragic knowledge of what he could never have, in the simple frown...
Damn the man for being more than a pleasant diversion, more than the odd entertaining daydream on a slow afternoon.
For being everything he could ever want, and nothing he could ever have.
"She says her father is a very brave man. I'm inclined to agree."
No fool like an old fool.
Higgins settled behind his desk, looking at the piles of paper that needed attending to. The business of the estate did not cease simply because one of its residents was in a coma, and the work was not going to do itself.
And he could use the diversion, at least until it was again his turn to sit watch.