As regular readers will know, Mills and Bang are publishers of military romances that appeal to BOTH sexes, stories that give women readers all the love they want and men all the violent action. Kissing with killing, loving with looting . . . What more could you want ? Here are three more new volumes from the ever-reliable stable.
"You've been sent to me so that I can turn you into soldiers," said Sergeant-Major Dunglass, staring furiously at the rows of youngsters in front of him, "so let me din into you the basics of Proper Soldiering. Proper Soldiering depends on the three S's. That's Silence, Stealth and Sickening Violence. You, lad, what are the three S's ?"
The youth thus addressed replied, quite unabashed, "I'm not a lad, Sergeant-Major. I'm a female. Private Fatima Rodley at your service."
"I'm in charge here, and you'll bloody be whatever gender I decide I want you to be !" roared S-M Dunglass. "Now, what are the three S's ?"
"Could they be sex, sin and sultry music, sir ?"
Dunglass decided against outright fury and went for icy calm.
"Not quite the three S's I told you about, are they, Private ?"
"No, sir. But I didn't want your information to fall into the hands of the enemy, so I decided to turn them into code for you. Sir."
As Sergeant-Major Dunglass stared at the impudent youngster, whose will he clearly now had to break, he could hardly guess that his campaign to subdue her irrepressible cheek was doomed to end in his helpless enslavement to her.
Equipped for Passion by Rosie Parade Colonel "Sandy" Foreshaw stood stiffly to attention, awaiting the Minister from London. It was hot, it was dusty and Colonel Foreshaw was sick of this war in the Middle East. They had beaten their enemy. Now they were being asked to help run the country's traffic and sort out the running water. That wasn't what he had joined the Army for. And now this blasted Minister was coming out from London to be photographed for free publicity. Well, he would tell him a thing or two. . . .
"Penny for your thoughts, Colonel ?"
He looked up. An extremely handsome middle-aged woman was smiling at him mischievously. He was just about to order her to be arrested and taken away when a sixth sense warned him it might be a mistake.
"Minister ?" he said.
"The very same," she said. "I have come to congratulate you on your work against the enemy."
"Our enemy ?" said Colonel Foreshaw. "Oh, our enemy are not who you think they are. Our enemy are not the soldiers on the other side or even the terrorists. Our real enemy are the MoD back in London who have given my men such shoddy and inefficient equipment and endangered all their lives. Our enemy is your government department."
There then followed a conversation which, considering the baking heat, was very frosty indeed.
"I gather you are due back in London very soon, Colonel," she said. "When you are there, perhaps you might come and see me and explain all this more fully."
And next time he was in London he did go to see her and they did discuss many things, but not all of them were military by any stretch of the imagination.
Holding the Fort
by Veronica Skirmish When Tom Butler was invalided out of the forces ( damned stray bullet in the Gulf ) he was given the job of running a military museum. Not one of the big ones, but the National Hand Grenade Museum. Not many people know it exists, and not many people visited it.
"Nothing very sexy about a hand grenade, you see," explained Tom to his deputy, Miss Sheila Gifford. "People love guns, even when inactive, because they're sharp and threatening and pointed. Grenades are just round and cosy."
"And not very phallic ?" said Sheila.
"Yes, I suppose so," said Tom Butler, feeling slightly uncomfortable as he did whenever Sheila said things like that. But not as uncomfortable as he felt when a peace campaigner called Tina handcuffed herself to the cabinet of modern ( live ) grenades and threatened to blow herself up unless the museum was closed. How Tom came under the spell of her bravery and Sheila found herself fighting Tina for Tom's love and what happened when the whole museum was closed down for lack of funds so that Tina could finally unhandcuff herself, forms the backbone of this mesmeric war saga set in an unfashionable part of Walsall.
Independent Dec 11th 2003