From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 144)

The bloody nerve of my so-called superiors. I didn’t check in immediately after I’d finished a mission, and everyone got very upset. I’ve a damn good track record, and I’d been working back-to-back missions for months. I’m aware there’s a war on, but even the troops at the front (poor sods) get relief rotation every couple of weeks. Obviously, my kind of work is nowhere near as challenging as coming under fire from ordinance day and night and living in rat-infested trenches. What they undergo is horrific (I know, I’ve visited the front lines more than once). Nevertheless, constantly risking your life is wearing, even in my field.

I won’t get to hear shells closing in on my position, or catch glimpses of enemy soldiers, briefly illuminated by an overhead flare, as they approach across No Man’s Land. No, death will likely take me swiftly and I won’t hear or see it coming. I’ll be here one minute and gone the next.

I’m not afraid of the end, never have been, but even I have my limits. Having to be on one’s guard twenty-four hours a day, coming up with fiendish tricks and cunning strategies to outwit and outplay my enemy counterparts is just plain tiring.

That’s why, after several months’ worth of relentless missions, and following a rather large success, I choose to take forty-eight hours out in the arms of a charming brunette of dubious moral standing, but startling imagination and agility.

Now that I’m back, I can sit down and relax by my fireside with my snoring dog at my feet. I don’t get to do it often, but it’s a requirement to keep a mind even as robust as mine sane.

How should I refer to it? Recreation and rest? That’s what’s required before heading back into the thick of it, and it’s about time those bounders at the department realise that forty-eight hours is not AWOL, it’s a most necessary period of recuperation.

Although, truth be told, I could do with another day off just to recover from the brunette. She was delightfully exhausting.