But now Pvt. Hibben was back again before the sentry box. He, a guardsman, was protecting his queen! He thought of more serious threats to the colorful duty. Danger? Yes, in a sense he'd had a taste of that too! There was the day a lorry had gone out of control and reared up onto the pavement directly toward him. How proud he had felt-a pride that superseded relief when the juggernaut had braked only inches away. He had not turned head or blinked an eye. Training. . . it was training did it.

He gave himself an imperceptible stiffening of back and shoulders for toward him now came Brigadier Wells and the Regimental Sergeant-Major. His thoughts returned to danger.

Danger! He wondered if that guardsman in his box at St. James Palace the night it poured down flak and worse, had yielded to nature and turned his eyes skyward when worse did come down. Death had come with hellish warning scream to bring disintegration, complete dissolution. "Nobody'd ever know,' he mused, "Poor bloke! Not even a button left where he'd stood."

The Brigadier and Sergeant-Major were now but a few steps away. He hoped they'd take notice of his superior bearing. Suddenly their resplendent

D

ངན་

X

dress-uniforms were blotted out. Two other figures were crossing the pavement between them and himself. Within arm's length they passedone, blurred in the act of passing, but the other—the one in American style “blue jeans" had half turned. A smile and a word, that was all. It was a one syllable word stretched into two and uttered within the single pace that took him into Hibben's eye range and out again. "Cute"-but he had pronounced it “keey-yoot!”

Then—then it had happened! The guardsman glare that must never desert the true straight line relaxed -the glance wavered. His headwilling accomplice-turned-turned after those passing figures. Not even the count of a second could have spanned that involuntary movement and the instantaneous snapping back to stiff "attention." But in that fractional flick of time there had been a gasp from the crowd of sightseersthe ominous punctuation of Sergeant-Major's stride suddenly arrested.

The brigadier had stomped on but Hibben could visualize him, seething, his neck a beet-red, a furious red, matching his brilliant collar tabs.

one

22