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Francis Cottam
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WERE not actually invited into the Underground W stations,' Babcock said. 'But I don't suppose there were enough rifles left in London to stop us once we decided to invite ourselves.' He frowned at the top of his step-ladder and twisted his screwdriver between dextrous hands, 'If you give it proper thought, mind, there probably were enough rifles.'
'But nobody wanted to fire them,' Finlay said. He was seated on his cot, shining the buttons on his new tunic with Brasso. His uniform belt lay stretched out on the cot beside the tunic, its buckle dull with polish that he would shortly buff to a brilliant sheen with the cloth he was using on the brass, embossed buttons.
'It was not a matter of ethics,' Babcock said. 'It came down not to conscience, but to expediency.'
'Bad for morale, you mean. Londoner mowing down fellow Londoner.'
'They didn't want to waste the ammunition,' Babcock said, climbing down to the floor. 'They couldn't afford to squander the bullets on a handful of militant civilians.'
Finlay stopped polishing.
'You said there were hundreds of you.'
'Thousands, Finlay. There were thousands of us.' Babcock examined his work from the bottom of the step-ladder, sinking the length of his screwdriver into a narrow sheath riveted along the leg of his overalls. 'It was a scene reminiscent of the storming of the Winter Palace.'
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