A New Kind of War

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A New Kind Of War

Anthony Price

Copyright © Anthony Price 1987

PART ONE

Eve of Scobiemas

Greece, February 2, 1945

The eagle continued its effortless wheeling and gliding far above them, like a spotter-plane safely out of range, as the last echoes of gunfire finished knocking from peak to peak below it. Obviously, the bloody bird had heard a machine-gun before, and possibly from the same godforsaken hillside. In fact, it was probably just biding its time, waiting for its supper.

‘Do eagles eat dead bodies?’ As Fred watched, another eagle swept into view. So that meant they bloody did, for sure, and years of war had taught them to steer towards the sound of the guns, with the prospect of succulent glazed eyeballs for an hors d’oeuvre.

‘Eh?’ Kyriakos had been busy studying the tree-line on the crest of dummy4

the ridge above the path. ‘What was that?’

‘I said “So much for your bloody truce”, Captain Michaelides.’

Fred was conscious of his own as yet unglazed eyeballs as he stared reproachfully at Kyriakos.

‘You didn’t say that.’ The Greek transferred his attention to the track below them. ‘But . . . not my truce, old boy – your bloody truce.’

The track was empty, and the mountains were as silent as they had been before that sudden burst of machine-gun fire had startled them. And even allowing for acoustic tricks the sound had come from over the ridge, certainly; and from far away, hopefully; and possibly even accidentally? Some peasant lad shooting his foot off? Or impressing his girl-friend?

‘Not my bloody truce.’ A tiny green shoot of hope poked through the arid crust of Fred’s experience: when things were not as bad as they seemed that was usually because they were preparing to be worse. But this returning silence was encouraging. ‘I’m just a tourist passing through – remember?’

Kyriakos chuckled, and then coughed his smoker’s cough. ‘A tourist?’

‘You were going to show me Delphi, as I recall.’ As Kyriakos himself began to relax, Fred’s miraculous green shoot flowered.

Back in Athens they had said that there’d be eagles over Delphi, so maybe it was just a welcoming party up there. ‘That makes me a tourist.’

‘If that’s what you wish to be . . .’ The Greek shrugged. ‘But I was dummy4

actually going to introduce you to Mother as one of our liberators.

Just like Lord Byron, I would have told her –

Fill high the cup with Samian wine!

Our virgins dance beneath the shade

– although I can’t guarantee any virgins locally, after having been away so long. But I do know that Father bricked up some good wine at the far end of the old cellar in the winter of ‘40. He knew what was coming, by God!’

‘I’ll settle for the wine.’ And this blissful silence! ‘What do you think it was, Kyri? A feu de joie?’

‘What for?’ Ever cautious, Kyriakos was scanning the ridge again.

‘Christmas Eve?’ To his shame Fred found the prospect of the temple of Apollo at Delphi insignificant compared with that of good wine and a soft bed, with or without an attendant virgin. But then almost anything would be an improvement on his Levadhia billet.

‘Christmas Eve? On February the second?’ Suddenly there was something not quite right in the Greek’s voice. ‘No – don’t look!

Keep talking, old man – just keep talking – look at me!’

‘Yes?’ It hurt his neck not to look up the hillside. ‘What did you see?’

‘Perhaps nothing. I am not sure. But it is better that we do not both stare, I think. So ... you were saying?’

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Fear crawled up Fred’s back like a centipede. “There’s an outcrop of rock about twenty yards ahead, Kyri. We’d be a lot safer behind it.‘

‘Yes – I know. But we’re having a conversation, and we haven’t seen anything yet.’ Kyriakos brushed his moustache with heavily nicotine-stained fingers. Fred remembered that when he’d first seen that moustache in Italy it had been a well-groomed Ronald Colman growth, along the road beyond Tombe di Pesaro, on the Canadian Corps boundary. But now it had bushed out and run riot, perhaps symbolizing its owner’s own reversion to the traditional banditry of his native land.

‘It was a Spandau that fired just now.’ When he didn’t speak Kyriakos occupied his silence. ‘That’s an andarte weapon. And if they’ve got another one up there trained on us we wouldn’t get ten yards – if they think we’ve seen them. So ... talk to me – wag your finger at me ... as though you had all the time in the world – okay?’

‘Yes.’ But words failed Fred, even as he raised a ridiculous finger.

Christmas Eve! he thought desperately. It wasn’t Christmas Eve –

it was February the second, not December the twenty-fourth: February the second, Anno Domini 1945, not December the twenty-fourth 1944! ‘Yes.’

‘Go on – go on!’ Kyriakos waved an equally ridiculous hand at him, as though to disagree with the ridiculous finger. ‘ Talk to me.’

‘Yes.’ But, on the other hand, it was Christmas Eve, thought Fred.

Because General Scobie had abolished Christmas Day, 1944, for the British Army in Athens: it just wouldn’t have sounded right for dummy4

the British Army – the Liberators – to have carolled ‘Peace on Earth, and Good Will to All Men’ when they’d been busy killing their erstwhile Communist allies, with their 25-pounders firing over the Parthenon, and the cruisers and destroyers in the bay stonking targets along the Piraeus road, and the Spitfires wheeling like eagles overhead! ‘It’s the eve of Scobiemas, I mean, Kyriakos.’

‘Ah! Of course – I had forgotten! Scobiemas is tomorrow, of course! But we Greeks do not keep Scobiemas. Or Christmas, either – remember?’

Dead right! Fred remembered. And General Scobie had been dead right too, because the Commies had launched a midnight attack on the Rouf Barracks garrison, Christmas Day-Boxing Day, on the otherwise reasonable assumption that the British would be pissed out of their minds by then; whereas in fact, thanks to General Scobie, they’d been stone-cold sober and ready – and bloody-minded with it . . . also thanks to General Scobie, by God! But he had to talk –

‘I went to a party on Christmas Day, actually.’

‘You did?’ Kyriakos took a step towards him, turning slightly and draping a friendly arm across his shoulders. ‘I thought that all the parties were forbidden then – ?’ He glanced sidelong, uphill.

‘It was for Greeks, too.’ Fred let the friendly arm propel him forwards along the path. ‘What do you see?’

‘Nothing . . . slowly now ... for Greeks, you say?’

‘Greek children. Some 4th Div gunners gave it.’ Fred let himself be pushed towards the rocky outcrop. ‘I saw one little kid gobble dummy4

up four days’ M and V rations all by himself.’ It seemed a very long twenty yards to the outcrop, at this friendly snail’s-pace. ‘And a couple of platefuls of peaches after that, plus a pile of biscuits.’

‘Yes. I heard about that.’ The arm restrained him. ‘But it wasn’t a gunners’ party – it was 28 – Brigade RASC, Fred.’

‘Well, it was a gunner who took me along.’ They were getting closer, step by step. ‘But you’re probably right: trust the RASC to have the peaches!’ Fred shivered –slightly at the memory of the bitter wind which had chilled him before and after the party, as he’d helped the gunners find a position in suburban Athens free of electricity cables (which they had not been allowed to pull down; and there was the added problem of the Parthenon, high up and dead ahead, which had worried one classically-educated subaltern mightily) . . . but mostly it was the last three agonizing yards, shuffled step by slow step, which frightened him.

‘There now!’ Kyriakos released him at last, under the safety of the rock. ‘Home and dry – eh?’

Fred watched, wordless and fascinated, as the Greek slid a stiletto from his jack-boot and began to excavate a hole in the detritus beneath the rock.

‘There now!’ As he repeated the words Kyriakos fumbled inside his battle-dress blouse to produce a succession of documents –

paybook, letters and military identification – which he then buried in the hole, smoothing the surface above them. And then, finally, he fished another collection of even more dog-eared papers from his other boot, which went back into the empty battle-dress pocket.

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The power of speech returned to Fred. ‘What the hell are you doing, Kyri?’

Kyriakos grimaced at him. ‘Not Kyri or Kyriakos –“Alexander” –

or “Alex”, for short . . . shit!’

‘Sh – ?’ Fred failed to complete the obscenity as Kyriakos reached beneath his leather jerkin, first on one side and then on the other, to unbutton his epaulets, so that they each hung down over his arms.

Then he flipped the stiletto and offered it to Fred.

‘Cut them off!’ he commanded.

‘What?’ Fred had already admired the smart khaki-green Canadian battle-dress which Kyriakos had acquired during his service with the British Columbia Dragoons in Italy: to rip that uniform, never mind the badges of rank, seemed a blasphemy. ‘Why?’

‘Cut them off – hurry up! Don’t argue, there’s a good chap.’

Fred hacked at the straps left-handed, clumsily at first, and then with greater success as the sharp steel divided the stitching.

‘Pull the threads out – go on – make a proper job of it, then.’

Kyriakos admonished him casually, yet the very gentleness of the admonition somehow urged its importance.

Fred finished the job as best he could, and he watched the Greek pick out every last shred of evidence. ‘You did see something –

just now – didn’t you!’

‘Thank you.’ Kyriakos took the epaulets and the knife from him, hefting the epaulets for a moment as though weighing their rank.

Then he bent down and opened the hole again with the stiletto, to add his badges of rank to his identity. ‘Our best intelligence is that dummy4

this area is clear, all the way to Mesolongion. And we’ve got the gulf patrolled now.’ He started refilling the hole again. ‘The word was that the Communists were pulling back into the mountains north and south of it – they don’t want to be caught with their backs to the sea, come spring. Or whenever.’ He replanted a straggling little piece of desiccated greenery on top of his handiwork, and then bent down to blow away the tell-tale regularities left by his fingers. ‘But . . .’

‘But?’ The Greek’s casual certainty that his civil war would resume its murderous course depressed Fred, for all that it hardly surprised him: the British had imposed the truce by overwhelming force of arms, but there had been too much blood-letting in those first dark December days, with too many scores left unsettled, for any compromise settlement to last – that was what all his better informed elders said. ‘But what?’

Kyriakos sprinkled a final handful of dust on the hiding place.

Then he looked back at Fred. ‘But I think I want to be careful, just in case.’

‘In case of what?’ Fred resisted the temptation to answer his own question.

‘In case our best intelligence is wrong.’ Kyriakos showed his teeth below his moustache. ‘My friend, perhaps I imagined something . . . But if I did not, then they will most certainly have observed us. And now they will know that we are behind this rock.

So – ’

The Spandau on the other side of the ridge cut Kyriakos off with its characteristic tearing-knocking racket, only to be suddenly cut off dummy4

itself by prolonged bursts of fire from first one, and then another LMG.

‘Ah!’ Kyriakos breathed out slowly as the knock-knock-knock of the answering machine-gun died away. ‘So now we know!’

So now they knew, thought Fred tightly. It was a familiar enough scenario, re-enacted endlessly in no different and equally hated Italian mountains these last two years: the rearguard or outpost machine-gunner getting in his first murderous burst, but then (if he was so unwise as to remain in his position) being outflanked or bracketed by the vengeful comrades of the first victims.

‘Brens, the second time.’ Kyriakos unbuttoned his webbing holster and examined his revolver. ‘So that must be our people, I would think – okay?’

Fred stared at him, conscious equally of the weight of his own side-arm and of his left-handed inadequacy. ‘Not our people, Kyri.’

‘No.’ Kyriakos replaced the revolver in its holster. ‘Not your people – our people. But that at least gives us a chance.’ He removed his beret, grinning at Fred as he did so. ‘Lucky I didn’t wear my proper hat. So maybe I’m lucky today.’

Fred watched the Greek raise his head slowly over the top of the rock, trying to equate luck with headgear. Unlike his fellow officers, who wore bus conductors’ SD hats, wired and uncrumpled and quite different from his own, Kyri often wore a black Canadian Dragoons’ beret, complete with their cap badge. But then Kyri was an eccentric, everyone agreed.

‘Nothing.’ Always the professional, Kyriakos lowered his head as dummy4

slowly as he had raised it. ‘I think I am still lucky, perhaps.’

‘Bugger your luck!’ A further burst of firing, punctuated now by the addition of single rifle shots, snapped Fred’s nerve. ‘What about mine? This is supposed to be my Christmas Eve – I’m your bloody guest, Kyriakos!’

‘Ah . . . but you must understand that your odds are a lot better than mine, old boy.’ Kyriakos grinned at him.

‘They are?’ Somehow the assurance wasn’t reassuring. ‘Are they?’

‘Oh yes.’ The grin was fixed unnaturally under the moustache, the eyes were not a-smiling. ‘If our side runs away – your pardon! If my side withdraws strategically to regroup ... If that happens, then the Andartes will outflank us here – ’ Kyriakos gestured left and right, dismissively ‘ – or take us from below, without difficulty, I’m afraid.’

Fred followed the gestures. There was dead ground not far along the track ahead, and more of it behind them. And they were in full view of the track below.

‘I know this country – this place.’ The Greek nodded at him.

There’s a little ruined monastery over the ridge, which the Turks destroyed long ago. I have walked this path before, with my father, in the old days: it is the secret back door to the village which is below the monastery. So ... I am very much afraid that our people have made a mistake – the same mistake the Turks once made: they have come up from the sea, to attack the monastery ... if that is where the andartes are . . . when they should have come out of the mountains, over this ridge – up this path, even – to take it in the dummy4

rear, and push them down to the sea . . . That will be some foolish, stiff-necked Athenian staff officer, who thinks he knows everything, as the Athenians always do.‘

The firing started again, this time punctuated by the distinctive crump of mortar shells – a murderous, continuous shower of them.

Kyriakos swore in his native tongue, unintelligibly but eloquently, and Fred frowned at him. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Those are three-inch – they’ll be ours. So our people are well-equipped.’

That didn’t make sense. ‘So they’ll win – ?’

‘Too bloody right!’ Kyriakos swore again.

‘So what’s wrong with that?’

‘I told you.’ Kyriakos was hardly listening to him. He was studying the landscape again. ‘I know this place.’

‘Yes.’ The eagles were still on patrol, wheeling and dipping and soaring over the highest peak, out of which the ridge itself issued in a great jumble of boulders piled beneath its vertical cliff. ‘So what?’

Kyriakos looked at him at last. ‘This is the path the villagers took when the Turks came. Over this ridge – this path – is the only line of retreat. If our side is too strong . . . we’re rather in the way, old boy.’

The Greek shrugged philosophically, but Fred remembered from Tombe di Pesaro days that the worse things were, the more philosophic Captain Michaelides became. Then hadn’t we better find another spot in which to cower, Kyri?‘ He tried to match the dummy4

casual tone.

‘Yes, I was thinking about that.’ Kyriakos turned his attention to the hillside below them. But it was unhelpfully open all the way down to the track along which they should have driven an hour earlier, happy and unworried – only an hour, or a lifetime thought Fred. And that further reminded him of the Michaelides Philosophy: being in the Wrong Place ... or there at the Wrong Time . . . that was ‘ No fun at all, old boy!’ And now they appeared to have achieved the unfunny double, by Christ! But the unfunniness, and the patient eagles, concentrated his mind. ‘If you did see someone up there, Kyri . . . couldn’t he just possibly be one of yours – ours?’ He threw in his lot finally with the Royal Hellenic Army and the bloodthirsty National Guard.

‘Ye-ess . . .’ Kyriakos shifted to another position behind the outcrop. ‘I was thinking about that, too.’

Fred watched him raise himself – never show yourself in the same place twice, of course; and the poor bastard had had a lot longer in which to learn that simplest of lessons, ever since the Italians had chanced their luck out of Albania, back in the winter of ‘40. But then he remembered his own manners.

‘My turn, Kyri.’ He raised himself – too quickly, too quickly – but too late, now! And he wanted to see the crest of that damned ridge for himself, anyway –

The surface of the rock midway between them burst into fragments in the same instant that the machine-gun rattled down at them, with the bullets ricocheting away into infinity behind them.

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This time the echoes – their own echoes, much louder than those of the fire-fight over the ridge – took longer to lose themselves, as he breathed out his own mixture of terror and relief.

(“Missed again!‘ That was what Sergeant Procter, ever-cheerful, ever-efficient, always said, when he himself had been shaking with fear, back in Italy. ’ If they can’t hit us now, sir, then the buggers don’t deserve to win the war –do they!‘)

‘That was deuced stupid of you, old boy.’ Somewhere along the line of his long multi-national service since Albania in 1940

Kyriakos had picked up deuced, probably from some blue-blooded British unit, which he used like too bloody right, a ripe Australianism, in other ‘No-fun’ situations.

‘I’m sorry.’ The ridge had been thickly forested on the crest, with encircling horns of trees to the left and right; so the machine-gunner’s friends would have no problem flanking this outcrop, thought Fred miserably. And Kyriakos had certainly observed all that already. ‘A moment of weakness, Kyri – I’m sorry.’

‘But not altogether useless.’ With typical good manners Kyriakos hastened to take the sting from his criticism. ‘That was a Browning

– a “B-A-R”, as our American friends would say ... a nice little weapon.’

‘Yes?’ Fred let himself be soothed, knowing that Kyri was using his hobby to soothe him, deliberately. ‘I bow to your experience, Captain Michaelides. But what does that mean?’

‘Not a lot, to be honest. It goes back a long way, does the BAR ...

We had some of them in 1940 – Belgian FN variants . . . But, then dummy4

so did the Poles. And the Germans and the Russians inherited them, as well as ours, of course . . . But, so far as I’m aware, you never used them, old boy.’

Lying back and looking upwards Fred caught sight of one of the eagles making a wider circuit. Or maybe the bloody bird had pinpointed his dinner now. ‘So those aren’t our friends, up there?’

Kyriakos thought for a moment. ‘Ah . . . now, I don’t think we have any friends at the moment, either way.’ Another moment’s thought. ‘Because we’re not part of the action: we’re an inconvenience, you might say.’

The fire-fight continued sporadically over the crest. By now the commanding officers on each side would be estimating casualties and discretion against the remaining hours of daylight and their very difficult objectives. And suddenly an overwhelming bitterness suffused Fred. Because the bloody Germans were one thing, and bad enough. But the bloody Greeks were another – and this really wasn’t the war he had volunteered for. Even, until now, it wasn’t a war which he had been able to take seriously: it was Kyri’s bloody war, not the British army’s bloody war – and especially not his!

All of which made him think of the unthinkable, which nestled in his pocket, where he had put it this morning, freshly laundered.

‘How about surrendering – for the time being?’

‘Yes.’ Kyriakos nodded. ‘I had been thinking about that, also.’

The lightness of the Greek’s voice alerted him. The truce talks ...

we could claim flag of truce – couldn’t we?‘

‘We could.’ The Greek had his own large white handkerchief.

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‘But ... if you don’t mind ... we will claim it my way – ’ He shook the handkerchief out. ‘ – okay?’

Suddenly Fred felt the breath of a colder wind within him than one he had already felt on his cheeks. ‘Kyri – ’

‘No! You are quite right, old boy!’ Kyriakos shook his handkerchief. ‘We wouldn’t get ten yards . . . This way . . . there’s a chance, I agree – ’

‘No-’

‘Yes!’ The Greek nodded. ‘I am “Alex” – ’ He patted his battledress pocket‘ – and you wanted to visit Delphi . . . you can bullshit them about your classical education, and how you are a British socialist – tell them that you don’t like Winston Churchill, if you get the chance . . . But say that Spiros in Levadhia – Spiros the baker – he recommended me. Okay?’

‘Spiros, the baker.’ Fred echoed the order. ‘In Levadhia – ?’

‘That’s all. Let me do the talking, old boy.’ Kyriakos drew a breath, and then grinned at him. ‘If they’re in doubt they won’t shoot you – they can always trade you: you’re worth more alive than dead at the moment – don’t argue – ’ He raised his hand quickly to preclude the argument‘ – I know what to say, if we can only get them to talk. And since this is their only line of retreat I think they’ll talk – at least, to start with.’ He qualified the grin with a shrug. ‘After that, it will be as God always intended.’

Fred bridled, already bitterly regretting his suggestion. ‘I don’t know, Kyri.’ The truth, which he had quite failed to grasp in half-grasping, was that it was this man’s own bloody war, truce or no dummy4

truce. And that meant. . . that if it was true that a British officer had some value as a prisoner, it was even more true that a Greek royalist officer was certain to be shot out of hand if caught in the Wrong Place at the Wrong Time. In fact, Kyri himself had said as much – and he had replied with cowardly stupidity, claiming guest-rights on Scobiemas Eve – I’m your bloody guest, Kyri! ‘I don’t think so.’

The Greek frowned. ‘Don’t think what, old boy?’

Fred shivered inwardly, aware that he could never explain his shame – that would make it worse. ‘I don’t think I care to take the chance. I think I’d rather shoot it out here – ’ He clawed at his holster with his right hand, only to find that the damn claw was as useless as ever –more useless even, in its very first real emergency

‘ –damn it!’ Damn it to hell! Now he had to reach across with his fumbling left hand! ‘What I mean is ... we can just slow them up, and wait for our chaps to come up behind them, Kyri.’ The bloody thing wouldn’t come out – it was snagged somehow – damn it to hell and back!

‘Too late, old boy,’ the Greek murmured, almost conversationally, raising himself, and then raising and waving his arm with the handkerchief on the end of it. ‘There! Never done that before . . .

but there’s always a first time for everything, they say . . . And I’m told it always worked a treat with the Germans – with their ordinary fellows, anyway . . . eh?’

‘Oh . . . fuck!’ Fred almost wept with frustration as his left hand joined the claw’s mutiny. ‘ Fuck!’

‘Such language!’ Kyriakos tut-tutted at him. ‘We made a pact –

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remember, old boy?’

That was also true, thought Fred as he gagged on other and fouler expletives, in giving up the struggle: only hours – or maybe only minutes – before they had discussed the degeneration of their everyday language under the influence and pressure of army life, in the light of their imminent meeting with Madame Michaelides (who countenanced no such words) and Fred’s eventual return to the bosom of his family (who would certainly be equally shocked); and while his own persuasion had been that it would be no problem

– that some automatic safety-valve would activate – Kyri had not been so confident, and unashamedly more frightened at the prospect than he seemed to be now, at another prospect, as he waved his large white handkerchief.

‘Don’t you forget, now – eh?’ The Greek also waved his finger, admonishing him for all the world as though they were about to meet his mother, instead of more likely God Almighty, Whose intentions they were now supposed to be anticipating. ‘I am Alex, the friend of Spiros – okay?’

It was also, and finally, true . . . what Sergeant Procter always said: that you could like a man and hate him at the same time.

Kyriakos smiled again, turning the knife in the wound.

‘So now we wait!’

‘What for?’ The mixture of unpleasant noises from the other side of the ridge had become increasingly sporadic while they had been arguing. But now it seemed to have died away altogether, so maybe that was a silly question. ‘Not for long, though?’

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‘They’ll flank us.’ Kyri gave the handkerchief a final vigorous wave and then pointed first left, then right. ‘Where those gulleys from the top peter out – “peter out”, is that right?’

‘Yes.’ Five years of English education, followed by another five of military alliance, had rendered the Greek almost perfectly bi-lingual. But, more than that, Fred at last understood how Kyriakos had seen their position through an infantryman’s eye: while their refuge could easily be flanked from those treacherous gulleys, it also had to be eliminated because they in turn had a clear view of the lower slopes and the track below. ‘I understand, Kyri.’

‘Good. Then you watch the left and I will watch the right.’ He paused. ‘And understand this also, old boy: the moment you see anything, you put your hands up – and I mean up – up high, my friend . . . Because we’ll only have that one moment, maybe.

Understood?’

‘Understood.’ He didn’t want to add to the man’s burdens. ‘And then you’re my guide, Alex . . . recommended to me by Spiros the baker.’ He wondered for a moment about Spiros the baker: was he one of Captain Michaelides’ ELAS suspects? Or one of the Captain’s double agents? But then, other than sharing the general British Army distaste for the mutual barbarities of the Greeks’

December bloodbath, he had never really attempted to understand their politics: the distinction between Captain Kyriakos Michaelides, of the Royal Hellenic Army, and Kyriakos Michaelides, the son of Father’s old friend, was not one he had even thought of seriously until now. ‘But I don’t speak halfways decent Greek’s, remember – okay?’

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‘Don’t worry about that.’ Kyri threw the words over his shoulder, forcing him to concentrate on his own gulley. ‘I’ll do the talking.

Just you be an outraged British ally to start with, old boy — and be angry with me for getting you into trouble. And – ’ He stopped suddenly.

‘And what?’ He fought the urge to turn towards the sudden silence.

‘Have you spotted something?’

‘And . . . nod . . . nod and smile when I mention Spiros – okay?’

The Greek spoke with unnatural slowness. ‘Ye-ess . . . I think maybe I have . . . so get ready!’

Fred still couldn’t see anything. But the muscles all the way down his arms wanted to get his hands up even before his brain transmitted its own instructions. ‘Nothing this side –’

‘YOU THERE! STAND UP!’

The shout came from his side, out of nowhere –

‘ Get up!’ Kyriakos snarled at him from behind.

Fred and his arms shot up simultaneously, his boots digging into the scree beneath them so urgently that he almost over-balanced; and it was only when he’d rebalanced himself that the reason for his failure to react instantly came to him –

“DON’T SHOOT!‘ He hadn’t imagined in advance how he was supposed to obey an order given in a foreign language. But there was suddenly no problem about how to reply to an order in the plainest King’s English. ’ BRITISH! ‘

Kyri shouted something, also. But Fred was too busy staring at the figure which had risen out of the dead ground of the gulley no dummy4

more than thirty yards away from him.

‘KEEP ’EM UP! DON’T YOU DARE MOVE A FUCKING INCH!‘

Fred was suddenly impaled on the prongs of disbelief and relief, any last doubts about the identity of his captor dissolved by that beloved obscenity, which sounded sweeter in his ear than all the music of heaven – which could never be foul and harsh again, it was so beautiful.

The welcome figure advanced cautiously towards him, cradling a gangster’s Thompson machine-pistol in its hands, until it had halved the distance between them.

‘KEEP ’EM UP!‘

Relief had started to lower his arms. But as they instantly went up again, disbelief still clogged his tongue.

‘Say something, old boy!’ Kyri no longer snarled, but his voice was nonetheless urgent. ‘ Say something!’

‘Yes.’ As Fred’s tongue unclogged he felt himself leap from cowardly gratitude to outraged dignity with one five-league stride.

‘What the hell are you up to – ’ The man was so close now that he could see the chevrons on his arm ‘ – sergeant?’

‘What?’ Now it was the sergeant’s turn. ‘What – ?’

‘Why did you fire at us?’ The unmoving Thompson kept his arms at full stretch, but his sense of outrage began to stretch beyond them.

The sergeant stared at him for a full second. ‘Who the fu – ’ But a sudden caution gagged the word, and he restrained himself. ‘Who are you?’

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Anger took hold of Fred. ‘I am Captain Fattorini –Brigade RE, 4th Div, sergeant. Who are you?’

The sergeant assimilated that information slowly. But then, after having turned it over in his mind, he switched momentarily to Kyriakos before coming back to Fred himself.

‘Identification – ’ What the sergeant had seen plainly hadn’t reassured him, because the muzzle of the Thompson jerked slightly, but didn’t leave Fred’s stomach area ‘ – slowly, now –

identification!’

Fred reached inside his tunic . . . slowly, because the sergeant had the gun. But there were limits. ‘ Sir – you call me, sergeant.’

‘What?’ The sergeant frowned. ‘ Sir – ?’

He could understand the sergeant’s doubt. But with that reliable weapon pointing at his guts he needed to resolve that doubt as soon as possible. ‘Aren’t officers “sir” in your unit, sergeant?’

The sergeant stared at him again. But then something seemed to tighten within him. ‘Put it down on the ground . . . and then take three steps back . . . and keep your hands up – put them on the back of your neck – right?’

Something deep inside Fred tightened also. This wasn’t how it ought to be. But then, this wasn’t a situation he had ever encountered before. And this, also, was a new variety of sergeant –

“Do what he says, old boy,‘ said Kyriakos from behind him.

He had quite forgotten about Kyri –

‘ BERT! ’ The sergeant shouted past him, and past Kyri. ‘ WATCH

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THEM! ’ So they were flanked from the other gulley too then, thought Fred: a careful man, this sergeant.

He took his ordered steps back, until he sensed Kyriakos behind him, and watched the sergeant retrieve his identification.

But enough was enough. ‘Just what is going on, sergeant?’

The sergeant took his time with the identification, giving Fred a long moment’s scrutiny against his four-year-old photograph held up shoulder high for easier comparison. And even at the end of this examination his suspicions were by no means allayed, judging by the stony expression he maintained as his attention shifted to Kyriakos. ‘And who might he be ... sir?’ He pronounced the last word grudgingly.

‘Can I lower my arms now?’ He had been half-expecting the question, but half-expectation hadn’t helped him choose the right answer. Because if the sergeant was still suspicious of his identity, how much more so might he not be with an evident Greek if that evident Greek admitted to two identities, one in his pocket and the other artistically concealed a yard away?

‘No!’ The Thompson, held one-handed, jerked menacingly. ‘ No-sir.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ Fred had hoped that Kyri would decide for him, but for once he seemed cowed in silence. ‘How long do you intend to keep this bloody charade up, sergeant?’

‘Sir?’ The sergeant weakened for a fraction of a second under his onslaught, but then his chin lifted. ‘For as long as I say so ... sir.’

The moment of weakness passed. ‘Who is this person, sir?’

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‘Please – thank you!’ Kyri leapt into the breach at last. ‘ Riris, sir –

Alexander Riris – driver and guide. And good friend to British officers, sir.’ He laid heavy emphasis on officers. ‘Speaking English well – and with copious personal documentation, please –

thank you!’

‘Oh yes?’ The sergeant sounded as though he had heard similar protestations of friendship all the way from the Suez Canal, and was long past believing them. ‘Well, let’s have a shuftee, then –

STOP!’ The weary disbelief vanished instantly, and Fred’s identification fell to the ground, as the sergeant caught up the Thompson with both hands. ‘What’s that under your jerkin, Johnnie? Lift it up – slowly . . . the jerkin, I mean, you silly bugger! Watch it!’

Fred stood like a statue – if there had ever been a statue of surrender – aware that the sergeant had seen the bulge of Kyri’s holster.

‘He has a side-arm, sergeant.’ As Fred intervened, the reason for Kyri’s earlier emphasis came to him belatedly. ‘With my permission.’ The sergeant was scared, perhaps. But he was also a well-trained soldier, almost certainly Field Security, although he wore no badge or flash, only his stripes. ‘Where’s your officer?

You get him – I demand to speak to him, sergeant.’ Well trained –

and cautious and observant: a good sergeant, for his dirty job, just as Sergeant Procter was a good sergeant for his dangerous and unrewarding one. And . . . somehow that was reassuring. ‘Then I think we can resolve this situation – right?’

The sergeant didn’t relax. Even, Fred’s shift from that peremptory dummy4

demand to a more reasonable statement increased his wariness.

‘ Jacko!’ The shout came from behind, from the other gulley – that must be Bert with the Browning.‘

Still no relaxation. ‘ Yes?’

‘Tiny’s down below – with Hughie and the lads, Jacko.’

Sergeant Jacko gave ‘down below’ one lightning-quick glance.

‘Well . . . you’re in luck, sir.’ But even now he didn’t relax: that was the difference between the men and the boys. All he did was to raise an eyebrow. ‘You wanted an officer. So here is one . . . sir.’

Fred took that as an invitation, and looked down into the valley.

There were two vehicles on the track, a jeep and a 15-hundredweight, each with twin Vickers-Berthiers mounted on them which were manned and trained on the ridge while the other occupants fanned out on each side, sinking behind what little cover there was.

‘Give ’em a wave, Bert,‘ ordered Sergeant Jacko.

Three figures rose on Bert’s wave and started uphill, the rest remaining under cover. The most diminutive of them (presumably

‘Tiny’) struggled under the weight of a back-packed wireless. As for the other two, one carried a rifle and the third and largest (Hughie?) appeared to be armed only with a walking-stick. So Hughie would be the officer, thought Fred with an inner sigh. But from his Italian experience he disliked officers who carried sticks: majors or above, they were usually outrageously brave, and often arrogant with it, and given to chivvying the poor devils of sappers required to build their bridges and clear their minefields under fire.

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‘May I lower my arms now, sergeant?’ It would probably be a most uncomfortable interview, because the intrepid major wouldn’t thank them for disrupting his operations, however accidentally and innocently. And he would probably be rude to Kyri, who was most likely on a short fuse now, after having been shot at and held up by his allies in his own country. But at least they were safe now.

‘What?’ Sergeant Jacko paused. ‘No – keep ’em up . . . sir – and you, Johnnie – up – that’s it ... Until I say you can put ‘em down, you keep ’em up, sir. Right?‘

Fred fumed in silence as he watched the figures approach. The large major was well in the lead now, unencumbered either by caution, like his rifleman, or by equipment, like the little wireless-man, who was falling further and further behind. Yet, even as he fumed – the sergeant’s caution really went beyond the bounds of prejudice – he identified a tingle of excited curiosity. That the Greeks on both sides might be indulging any opportunity to settle up during the truce really came as no surprise: their private scores dated from long before the war, so it seemed from Kyri’s chance remarks, which were all the more blood-curdling because by Greek standards he was an unusually unbloodthirsty and liberal royalist, thirsting for peace and wine and women after five years of war, but apparently resigned to achieving only the last two for the foreseeable future. But this was quite obviously a British operation, regardless of the truce –

The intrepid major was a very young major, as well as a very big one, he observed as the major closed the distance with immense upwards strides. And young majors, role-playing in their elders’

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image, were always the worst ones –

But ... if it was a British operation, what the hell was the British Army doing, breaking their own truce so deliberately – ?

A very young major –

‘Sergeant Devenish! What the blazes are you up to?’ The young major heaved himself over a larger obstacle in the scree below them.

‘Sir!’ Sergeant Jacko – Sergeant Devenish – kept his eyes on both of them as he started to reply. ‘We spotted these coming up behind us, and – ’

Then why the b-blazes didn’t you c-c-call in?‘ The young major stuttered with anger as he cut the sergeant off while slithering and stamping up the scree over the last few yards.

‘The set’s on the blink, sir. We couldn’t raise you.’ The sergeant sounded not so much over-awed by rank as weary of his fault-finding majors.

‘W-what d’you mean “on the blink”?’ The young major anchored himself on his stick for a moment, but took a closer look at Fred and Kyri for the first time, scowling horribly as he did so. ‘You mean some bloody fool dropped it – ’ He stopped as he shifted his scowl back to Fred from Kyriakos.

‘The set was not dropped, Mr Audley.’ Sergeant Devenish answered the young major with quiet authority, still without taking his eyes off them. ‘It’s the one we’ve had trouble with before. It’s a duff set, is what it is.’

Mister Audley? The young major’s sheepskin jerkin concealed his dummy4

badges of rank and Fred couldn’t identify the impossible heraldic quadruped on his cap-badge. But at this close range the man’s extreme, almost beardless, youth was simultaneously as apparent as his considerable ugliness (and he hadn’t been so much scowling as perhaps frowning nervously?). And then the full significance of the sergeant’s ‘ Mister Audley’ and his slight disdain clinched the matter.

‘What the devil d’you mean by shooting at me?’ he snapped at the youth, even while keeping his hands close to the back of his neck with the sergeant’s eye still on him. ‘And who the devil are you?’

‘W-what?’ The scowl-frown returned. ‘Sergeant – who is this?

‘Captain Fat – ’ The sergeant paused momentarily ‘ –Fat-O’Rhiney, sir.’

‘O-what?’ The youth blinked.

‘O’Rhiney – Captain Fat-O’Rhiney, Mr Audley, sir,’ repeated the sergeant before Fred could correct him. ‘Royal Engineers.’

The youth raised his eyebrow at Fred. ‘What jolly bad luck! F-fat –

F-fatto . . . what?’

Fred clenched his teeth. ‘Fattorini. Brigade Royal Engineers. Who are you, may I ask?’

The youth frowned again, this time staring at Fred with peculiar concentration. ‘ Fattorini– ?’

Kyriakos cleared his throat, but mercifully didn’t spit. ‘Captain Frederick Armstrong Fattorini, Royal Engineers, GSO Three, Brigade Staff,’ he said, with deliberate public school King’s English clarity.

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The youth shifted his frowning stare to Kyriakos. ‘And may one ask who the hell you are?’ he inquired politely.

Kyri drew himself up. ‘Michaelides, Staff Captain, Rimini Brigade, Royal Hellenic Army . . . And may I ask whom I have the doubtful honour of addressing on the eve of Scobiemas?’

The youth’s ugly face broke up. ‘Scobiemas! Of course!’

Sergeant Devenish coughed. ‘Said his name was Alexander –

Alexander – something, sir. And he said he had papers to prove it.’

‘My identity card is buried nearby,’ snapped Kyri. ‘When we heard the firing we thought you might be andartes – do you understand?’

The youth grinned. ‘All too well, I do – very sensible!’ Then he stopped grinning. ‘Would you be so good as to dig it up for me, then?’

Kyriakos nodded. ‘Of course – ’

They’re both armed, sir,‘ said Sergeant Devenish quickly. ’And I haven’t had a chance to disarm them.‘

‘Yes?’ The youth was staring at Fred again. ‘Well, in these parts that would also be very sensible . . . And that’s why you’re still

“reaching for the sky” as they say –is it?’ He nodded. ‘But I think we can dispense with the precaution now, Sergeant Devenish.’

‘Sir – ?’ The doubt in Sergeant Devenish’s voice kept Fred’s arms up.

‘It’s all right, sergeant.’ Another nod. ‘You were quite right to be careful – they do look a dodgy pair, I agree.’

‘We spotted them on the hillside. And I think they spotted us, too.’

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That was careless of you! So – ?‘

They were lurking behind this rock, sir – ‘ Doubt and anger filled the sergeant’s voice.

‘We weren’t “lurking”,’ said Kyriakos. ‘We were just taking the short-cut to the village. And then we heard the firing. So we took cover.’

‘Ah!’ Another nod. ‘But may one ask why you were going to the village, Captain Michaelides?’

Fred had been waiting for his chance. ‘Captain Michaelides was taking me to see Delphi. But our jeep broke down two or three miles back –’ Not knowing the youth’s name and rank inhibited him ‘ – you are ... who?’

‘Audley – David Audley, West Sussex Dragoons.’ The youth grinned. ‘Lieutenant – strictly expendable cannon-fodder . . .

Hughie.’

‘Mr Audley, sir?’ It was the little wireless operator who answered.

‘Hughie – be a good fellow and tell Sunray that everything’s okay here . . . Tell him that Charlie Three was defective. But also tell him that we’re bringing in two innocent bystanders for him to meet

– got that?’

‘Right-o, Mr Audley.’ The little man shambled away, uncomplaining although the sweat shone on his face. ‘ Hullo, Sunray – hullo Sunray! Charlie One to Sunray –’

‘Do please lower your arms, gentlemen . . . And Captain Michaelides – ’ Lieutenant Audley nodded at Kyriakos, and then carried the nod to Sergeant Devenish. ‘It’s all right, sergeant, I can dummy4

vouch for Captain Fattorini personally – don’t worry!’

Kyriakos looked questioningly at Fred. ‘You’ve met before – ?’ As he observed Fred’s incomprehension he stopped, and transferred the question back to the ugly Dragoon.

‘No. But the face is familiar.’ Audley grinned once more at Fred, hugging his secret knowledge to himself as warmly as his sheepskin jacket. ‘Right, Captain Frederick Armstrong Fattorini?

Border Armstrong – which side, Captain Fattorini?’

Who the hell was he? ‘Scottish – of course.’ Who the hell was he?

‘Could have been either. But in your case – Scottish.’ Audley nodded his delight at Kyriakos. ‘Border family –English and Scottish, but all brigands of the worst sort ... No surprise meeting one here – all brigands here – right, Captain Michaelides?’

Kyriakos stared at him for a moment, and then knelt down to retrieve his buried identity while Fred frowned at the Dragoon, trying to place him at one remove from actual acquaintance.

Kyri stood up again, with his papers and his torn-off epaulets in his hand. ‘Do you wish to see – ’ But then the expression of idiotic pleasure on the youth’s face stopped him even before the youth waved his offering away.

‘Good Lord, no!’ The pleasure almost transformed the Dragoon’s ugliness into beauty as he continued to grin at Fred. ‘ Thought I knew that face – no bloody mistaking it, even without the name – ’

He stopped suddenly, as he remembered his sergeant, who was still holding the owner of the face at unmoving gunpoint. ‘It’s okay, Sar’ Devenish – you can relax – I can vouch for this officer, even dummy4

though I’ve never met him in my life – right?‘

The Thompson remained pointing at them. ‘Sir – ?’ The Dragoon’s happiness tortured the question from his careful sergeant.

‘It’s all right.’ The youth nodded positively at Sergeant Devenish.

‘I’ve played rugger with this officer’s brother, Sar’ Devenish –

same name . . . not a lot of Fattorinis in the British Army . . . but also same face.‘ He took the nod to Fred. ’I’ve seen blood pour out of a Roman nose just like that one – Matthew Fattorini’s blood, from his nose – a family nose, that is, Sar‘ Devenish: three peas from the same pod – Matthew, Mark and Fred . . . God knows what happened to “Luke” and “John”, if they were baptizing ’em out of the New Testament!‘ Another grin. ’Lower your arms, Captain Fat-O’Rhiney!‘

The Thompson still didn’t move. ‘And the Greek . . . officer, sir?’

The sergeant’s voice was still doubtful.

‘Captain Michaelides,’ said Fred. ‘And, as it happens, my father’s name was John. And I have an uncle named Luke.’

‘Yes?’ The Dragoon looked from Fred to the sergeant, and then back again. ‘Well, I’m sure Captain Michaelides is ... whoever he says he is, in Captain Fattorini’s company.’ He spoke lightly, quite unaware that he was unnecessarily humiliating a good NCO. ‘How are things on the ridge, then?’

‘Everything’s under control.’ The sergeant breathed in through his nostrils as he lowered his gun. ‘No one has tried to come up the path after we put a burst over their heads ... as ordered.’

‘Well, thank God something went according to plan!’ The Dragoon dummy4

nodded at the sergeant. ‘So you came over this side because there seemed to be a problem here – is that it?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The sergeant clenched his jaw. ‘I left Corporal Weekes in charge.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Another casual nod. ‘Well, you just trot on back there –

there’s no problem here now. And you can take Hughie with you.

His set’s not on the blink. Hughie.’

‘I ’eard, Mr Audley, I ‘eard!’ The little man groaned audibly.

‘Fuckin’ mountains! Up yer go – down yer go ... up yer go – down yer go!‘ He trudged off in the sergeant’s wake, mumbling and cursing repetitively under his breath.

Audley watched him go. ‘The trouble with Driver Hewitt . . . apart from the fact that he’s a perfectly d-d-d- – awful driver ... or one of the many troubles with him ... is that he comes from East Anglia, where everything is p-p-pancake flat!’

The little man swung round, almost unbalancing under the weight of the set on his back. ‘I ’eard that, Mr Audley –‘

‘Go on, Hughie, go on! The unwonted exercise will strengthen your legs!’ Audley turned back to Fred. ‘Now, let’s go back and explain ourselves, shall we?’

Kyriakos rolled his eyes at Fred as Audley set off downhill. ‘Who is this eccentric friend of yours, old man?’

Fred blinked. ‘No friend of mine, Captain Michaelides. But it would seem he’s acquainted with my little brother Matthew –

luckily for us.’ He stared at the large departing figure, whose long legs had already taken him far down the slope. ‘But Matt’s with the dummy4

Guards, on the German frontier by now.’

‘And he’s from an armoured unit – that badge I do not recognize . . . But I wouldn’t have thought you have a tank large enough for him.’ Kyriakos stared in the same direction, at Lieutenant Audley’s back.

‘Must be some obscure yeomanry regiment.’ Fred accepted his own Royal Engineers’ disdain for the rest of the British Army, from Matt’s snooty Guards to Audley’s mindless ex-horseman from the local hunt. But that reminded him unbearably of how young Matt was, with Mark still missing over Northern Italy. ‘If he played rugger with Matt he must have been at school with him.’ He tried to put Northern Italy and the RAF out of his mind. ‘That’s probably it.’

‘But you never met him?’

‘No. But we each went to different schools – it was one of Father’s conceits . . . That way, we didn’t compete with each other’s reputation – Mark and Matt were much cleverer than I was . . . And Matt was a better sportsman than Mark . . . And ... I rather suspect Father reckoned we’d make three different sets of influential friends, to help business along in the future.’ He turned to smile at Kyriakos, but then he saw that the expression on the Greek’s face was not one of polite curiosity. ‘Why do you ask? What’s the matter, Kyri?’

Kyriakos pointed. ‘We must go! See – he is summoning us–’

Fred caught the Greek’s arm. ‘You bloody answer me, Kyri! Why?’

‘Why?’ Kyriakos shrugged. ‘I have a feeling about him, that’s all.’

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He pulled at Fred’s grip. ‘We must go – ’

‘A feeling?’ Fred looked down towards the track again, where the big dragoon subaltern was even now chivvying his drivers into attempting to turn their vehicles round in what was quite obviously an inadequate space for the 15-hundredweight, if not the jeep.

‘He’s a baby, Kyri. And he isn’t too smart when dealing with NCOs who know more about his business than he does, even if they can’t pronounce my name. I’ve seen a hundred like him – a thousand ... all babes-in-arms – all cannon-fodder –’ He stopped suddenly, as he remembered that that was Audley’s own description of himself.

‘His business – yes!’ The tone in Kyriakos’s voice drew his attention away from the balls-up on the track, where the jeep had been turned successfully, only to be blocked by the broadside truck. ‘But what business is that, would you guess? What business has your army, breaking the truce here?’

‘God knows!’ Fred’s eye was drawn irresistibly back to the confusion on the track, where Audley now had his men trying to lift the truck bodily, after its own turning-circle had baffled him. ‘I doubt whether he knows, whatever it is, anyway.’

That may be. But I wouldn’t stake my life on it.‘ Kyriakos was also watching the truck. ’A baby he may be . . . But I recall fighting German babies in Italy who were not so childish when it came to killing. And ... as you say, that sergeant of his knew his business.

And he was a very cautious man, I think – not a trusting man, would you say?‘ The Greek pulled up at his grip again. ’I have seen his breed before. But not in the British army – no, not before dummy4

in your army, Captain Fattorini . . .‘

What Fred saw was that they were actually turning the truck, with brute force triumphing over ignorance, in the best British Army tradition when there were not Royal Engineers present. But what he thought as he watched was that Captain Michaelides’

experience of different armies went back a long way – all the way from the triumph of 1940 to the 1941 debacle, and from victory through defeat and escape to the long, hard slog up Italy, which they had shared ... So, compared with Captain Michealides, he was a baby too, maybe. ‘What breed would that be, Kyri? And what business?’

Kyriakos didn’t reply immediately, even though Fred released his grip. ‘Who knows?’ They were letting the truck do its own work now. ‘We Greeks have our business to settle, here in Greece.’ He didn’t move. ‘For which we need you bloody British, most regrettably ... At least, until we can involve the Americans in it, I am thinking.’

The Yanks?‘ Fred heard the incredulity in his voice. ’What have they got to do with it?‘

‘Nothing yet.’ Kyriakos didn’t look at him. ‘I think we had better move, old man. Because your brother’s old school-fellow will be remembering us again very soon. And . . . and I would not have him mistrust us, after having trusted us so foolishly – even though he had us in his sights all the time, as he very well knew – eh?’

Fred looked down at the road and understood; because young Mr What’s-his-name – young Mr David Audley, the big baby dragoon

– had spoken to his two machine-gunners on the vehicles, and they dummy4

had kept their guns trained up the hillside, by God!

‘What you want to think about, old man, is – ’ Kyri waved deliberately at Audley without looking at Fred ‘ –is ... why did your great Mr Winston Churchill come all the way to Greece on Christmas Day – not Scobiemas Day tomorrow, but your real Christmas Day, when we were both so busy – eh?’

And it was so bloody cold! remembered Fred irrelevantly: his Greek baptism had been that bitter wind cutting him to the bone. In fact ... in fact, he hadn’t registered Christmas Day at all – that gunners’ party for the children hadn’t actually been on Christmas Day, he remembered now: it had been after Boxing Day actually.

Because all the bloody days had been just bloody days, one after another –

‘He came here because he had business here.’ Kyri waved again.

‘So when you think about this business, maybe you’d better think of Mister Winston Churchill’s business – okay?’

‘Yes – okay!’ Fred checked for an instant, and then jumped past the Greek knowing that he really hadn’t the faintest idea what the man was talking about, but also that he didn’t like it: this was all bloody politics, and no one in his right mind trusted politicians –

the bloody politicians fucked things up, everyone was agreed on that: the bloody politicians had never heard an S-Mine go click underfoot on the roadside verge, beside a blown bridge, in that single careless moment – or felt all the bones in a good right hand go crunch between unyielding metal –

But Audley was waving and beckoning at them. And the real dummy4

mercy now was that Audley’s business was none of his business, even if Kyri wanted him to think about it.

He waved back, suddenly light-hearted. Because the real mercy, now that he thought about it, was that Audley’s business hadn’t been the accidental death of them back there on the hillside. ‘Hullo there!’

He jumped down on to the track, quickly composing his happy lack of responsibility into a straight serious face. Young Mr Audley’s problems (no doubt relating to his ‘business’, whatever it was) rated a little sympathy, but no more than that. Every junior officer had his problems – so what? ‘Ready to go?’

‘You took your time, Captain Fat-O’Rhiney.’ Audley looked past him.

Cheeky! ‘You seemed rather busy. I didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘What was all the conversation about?’

But observant as well as cheeky. So it might be as well to approach the question truthfully. ‘Captain Michaelides was interrogating me about you – how you knew who I was . . . Or, at least, how you were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt because you know Matthew, anyway.’

‘Oh yes?’ The look was still directed past him, as Kyriakos arrived in the midst of a small avalanche. ‘I was rather trusting, wasn’t I?’

Audley opened his mouth. ‘C-Captain . . . M-M – ’

‘Kyri, my friends call me, David Audley.’ Kyriakos came to the young man’s rescue quickly. ‘And you definitely qualify as a friend, I think.’

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‘Kyri-Kyriakos – that’s not very friendly!’ Each time Audley stumbled the words came out on the double. That’s as bad as M-M-Michaelides, damn it!‘ He took the third M with a supreme effort.

’But . . . g-get into the jeep anyway. Otherwise, my commanding officer will have my g-guts for ... garters – right?‘

It was pathetic how the stutter seemed to feed on itself, as the young man’s nervousness increased with each failure. But, once again, Fred found his sympathy strictly limited.

‘Go!’ Audley addressed his driver peremptorily. ‘Get in – get in!’

Then he saw the Vickers-Berthier gunner, who was still in the jeep.

‘Get out, Len! G-go and get in the front, there’s a g-good chap –

right?’

The machine-gunner’s face was a perfect picture, although perfectly expressionless, as he conceded his place to Captain Michaelides.

‘“Garters” . . . “David”, is it?’ Kyriakos was suddenly his most charming self. “ ‘Kyri” – ?’

‘“Kyri”?’ Audley took the abbreviation almost with surprise and then blinked at Fred. ‘You know, I don’t really stutter. It’s a purely t-temporary thing, which will go away eventually . . . like a head-cold, or a sprained ankle. I have that on the very best authority – a specialist who s-s-sp-sp . . . specializes in s-s-s impediments of s-s-s – shit!’ He sniffed. ‘He says it’ll go away when I’m no longer scared out of my wits, anyway.’ Another sniff. ‘Which is probably true, because I acquired it that way, one sunny afternoon. And it comes and goes quite without rhyme or reason.’ He nodded at Fred. ‘My c-commanding officer . . . will no doubt be waiting in dummy4

eager anticipation to see what I have found . . . even though he’ll not be in the best of tempers.’ Audley spoke carefully as the jeep bucked over a succession of pot-holes. ‘See how I didn’t stutter, Fred? Fred-Fred-Fred – Fred.’ Shrug. ‘Like I s-s – told you: no rhyme or r-reason, it just comes and goes . . . Not like a chap I knew at school, who developed his s-s-s-impediment solely to hide his inadequacy in Latin word-endings, to give him extra time.’

Grin. ‘Like, “Quieta G-G-Gallia, C-C-Caesar, ut c-c-con-s-s-stit-ttit-tit . . .” – Used to drive the masters crazy, I tell you!’ Wider grin. ‘Must confess I do use the same w-wheeze on my betters on occasion, when I’m up against it ... like now, eh?’ The grin was transferred through the next succession of bumps, to Kyriakos, but vanished in that instant. ‘So what were you really doing on that path, Captain M-M – I beg your pardon – Kyriakos?’

‘I told you – ’ Fred started to cut in hotly, but then remembered what Kyriakos had said about the lieutenant, and controlled his irritation. ‘But I told you . . . “David”, is it? We were going to the village, David.’

Audley grimaced at him. ‘The broken-down jeep, and all that?’

‘Yes.’ Kyriakos’s insight continued to warn Fred, against his inclination. ‘The broken-down jeep and all that. Osios Konstandinos is the closest place to where we broke down. Captain Michaelides was hoping to commandeer transport there. And if you care to send one of your storm-troopers to the main road, our jeep should still be there ... if the locals haven’t found it.’ Anger, once it started to cool, froze quickly. ‘And even if they have, ’ then you’ll still find the heavier bits of it, maybe.‘

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‘Of course – of course!’ Audley rallied. ‘W-what I meant was ... by that route – that particular one, I mean.’ He managed the travesty of a politely-inquiring smile.

‘Ah – yes of course!’ Kyriakos moved smoothly into the next moment’s silence, turning towards Fred as he did so. ‘What David means is that the path is not very evidently a promising route to Osios Konstandinos, old boy.’ He shook his head encouragingly.

‘You remember where we left the track, up the steep incline?

“Where are we going?” you said. And I replied, “By the shortest route – and on the other side it is even shorter: it is down a cliff, with steps cut into it” – do you remember?’

Fred nodded. ‘Yes – ’ All Kyriakos had said was ‘ This way!’ And he hadn’t waited for an answer. But no matter. ‘Yes?’

‘This is my country – my “neck of the woods” yes?’

Kyriakos switched back to Audley, his voice all casual friendliness. ‘You see, my family has a house by the sea, beyond Itea – by Galaxdhion, where my grandmother was born . . . After Delphi we were going on there, to celebrate Scobiemas Day, David.’ He rolled with the potholes, while waving his finger at Audley. ‘But . . . but what I would like to know ... is ... is how you know the secret back-path from Osios Konstandinos, up the steps in the cliff – ?’ The finger and the voice flattered Audley simultaneously. ‘Do you speak our language? Or our ancient language, perhaps?’

‘No.’ Audley was falling for it, flattered by the implied admiration.

‘I’m not a classicist. “A little Latin – and no Greek” is me, I’m dummy4

ashamed to admit. Or ... not ashamed ... But –’

‘Wouldn’t have done you any good, old boy!’ Kyriakos shook his head, sure of his man now. ‘No one in Osios Konstandinos would have told a stranger about that path –not a khaki stranger any more than a field-grey Jerry: Winston Churchill or Adolf Hitler – or Archbishop Damaskinos himself ... my wet-nurse was a girl from Osios Konstandinos, that is how I know . . .’ The black eye-brows furrowed, perfecting the flattery with incomprehension. ‘So how do you know?’

‘Oh . . . that’s easy – that’s . . . nothing at all, actually.’ The young man was at once smugly pleased and disarmed by such implicit praise. ‘It’s all in the history books, don’t you know ... I mean.’

‘In the what?’ Something in the Greek’s voice tore Fred’s attention away from Audley.

‘In the history books ... or book, actually – Pember-ton’s History of the Greek War of Independence – ’ A pothole caught Audley unaware as he was trying to be properly modest ‘ – I looked up

“Osios Konstandinos” in the British Library in Athens when I learnt where we were going. And ... I was rather hoping there’d be something here from the thirteenth century. But there wasn’t – ’

The jeep swerved, presenting Fred himself with a momentary glimpse of the Gulf of Corinth, purple flecked with red in the sunset, before a bank of pine-trees cut it off ‘ – not a mention.’

‘The thirteenth century?’ Kyri’s tone was incredulous.

‘Yes.’ Audley missed the change in tone. ‘After the Fourth Crusade, when this was all Frankish territory –lots of jolly little dummy4

feudal principalities, and duchies and counties.’ He nodded enthusiastically at Fred. ‘There really was a “Duke of Athens”

then, like in Shakespeare, d’you know? There’s a couple of pages on it in Pemberton’s introductory chapter. And there are still quite a few Frankish castles . . . mostly pretty ruined. But they say there’s an absolutely super one at Chlemoutsi, built by Geoffrey de Villehardouin. If I can screw some leave out of the adjutant I’m going to make a study of them. Being here is a chance absolutely not to be missed.’

‘Yes?’ Fred was aware that he shared Kyri’s incredulity now, and not least because he too had appreciated the Greek chance he had been given at His Majesty’s expense. Only here was this beardless youth, with all the glory of ancient Greece within his grasp, from the Parthenon to Delphi, and from Olympia to Agamemnon’s Mycenae, enthusing over the crude work of some gang of medieval bandits. ‘Yes?’

‘Of course! Yes, indeed!’ Kyriakos echoed the youth’s enthusiasm, serious and straight-faced. ‘And there is the Frankish cathedral in Athens – that is most interesting.’

‘Is it?’ Audley frowned. “I haven’t seen that. Where is it?‘

‘Oh ... it is much damaged by artillery fire.’ The Greek’s face was suddenly expressionless.

‘Not our guns, I hope?’ The thought of British 25-pounders hammering Frankish thirteenth-century work scandalized Audley.

‘I know that Ibrahim Pasha knocked a hugh breach in the castle at Chlemoutsi in 1825 – damn the Turks!’

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‘You are an historian?’ Kyriakos gave the youth his widest grin.

‘That is obvious, of course.’

‘Well . . . not yet, actually.’ The youth squirmed. ‘But I’ve got a place at Cambridge . . . That is, if God and the army don’t mess things up between them, don’t you know?’ He returned the grin.

‘Your English is jolly good, I must say, Captain – Kyriakos, I mean.’ Then he blinked. ‘I mean . . . “an” historian – ’ Then suddenly he seemed to remember where he was, flashing a quick bright glance at Fred. ‘How did you two come to meet each other, exactly?’

‘Ah! That would be telling!’ Kyriakos rolled a warning eye at Fred before he came back to Audley. ‘But you were just about to tell us how you knew about the secret path – the back door to Osios Konstandinos – eh?’

‘Oh – yes! It’s all in Pemberton, you see.’ Audley was quite disarmed now. ‘The Turks razed the village in the Greek War of Independence – 1824, that was . . . Reshid Pasha had got wind that Markos Botsaris was there, apparently.’ The youth’s grin twisted.

‘It’s like history repeating itself, you might say – ’ He caught his tongue, and the grin became a grimace as he realized what he had said. ‘But with us as the Turks, you see.’

‘Ah – Reshid Pasha!’ Kyriakos glossed over Audley’s indiscretion quickly. ‘He was moving against Missolonghi hereabouts in 1824, wasn’t he? And against your Lord Byron – he was there at the time, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes.’ Audley seized Lord Byron eagerly. ‘It was Byron and Markos Botsaris who were g-g-galvanizing the Missolonghi dummy4

defenders in ’24. And Reshid aimed to trap Botsaris in Osios Konstandinos, by coming in from the sea – ‘ He swung round in his seat, as Osios Konstandinos surrounded them.

It was just another Greek village, which looked as though it had been sacked and rebuilt at regular intervals, all the way from the Peleponnesian War through a hundred other wars, including Audley’s Franks and Turks, and Kyriakos’s Turks and Germans, so that it was now a jumble of infinitely re-used stone, half a dusty ruin and half a triumph of man over man’s inhumanity.

‘Here at last, by God!’ Audley pointed ahead for the benefit of his driver, of whom he had not taken the slightest notice since commanding him to get going, five uncomfortable miles back. ‘Go on past the square, as far as you can, there’s a good fellow.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The driver sounded weary enough to have served in all those ancient wars. ‘I know where to go, sir.’

‘You were saying – ?’ Kyriakos encouraged the youth. ‘Botsaris

– ?’

‘Yes.’ He gave Kyriakos a quick frown, as though he had at last realized that he’d been manoeuvred into answering most of the questions, instead of asking them. ‘But you know the story. So why am I telling it?’

‘Captain Fattorini doesn’t know it though.’ The Greek was ready for him.

‘Well, you tell him, then.’ The youth’s suspicions were clearly roused at last. ‘After you’ve answered my last question, that is.’

‘Your last question?’ Kyriakos echoed the words innocently.

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‘What was it?’

The squalid houses on each side of them all seemed to be empty, staring at them with blank eyes. But, of course, they weren’t empty. And they reminded Fred depressingly of Italy. And yet, Italy, at least, was where the real war was: in Italy, at least, a man knew which side he was on.

‘You wanted to know how we had met.’ He felt his patience snap.

‘I don’t see what the devil that has to do with you, though.’

As Audley started to stutter a reply they came out of the narrow street into what must be the village square. One half of it had been comprehensively demolished, and the other half was full of British military vehicles. A line of sullen-looking prisoners, some in the ragged remains of British battle-dress, was backed up against the wall of another of those tiny Byzantine-Greek churches, which looked as though it had been built for a race of midgets. At each end of the line a bored British soldier covered the prisoners with his Sten.

‘Go on – go on!’ Audley pointed ahead, towards the only unblocked exit, the sudden harshness of his voice hinting that he found this tableau of Liberated Greece no less depressing.

The jeep accelerated, jerking them all this way and that as it bumped over the ruined road-surface. Fred caught a glimpse of a group of soldiers between two of the lorries, one in the act of trying to light a dog-end without burning his nose, another urinating on the rear wheel of his lorry. The urinator had full corporal’s stripes on his arm.

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Discipline was going to hell! thought Fred: those, for a guess, were Royal Mendips of 12 Brigade, who had been notably reliable in Italy. But now they looked sullen and mutinous.

He turned on Audley savagely. ‘I’ve told you why we were up there, on that bloody path of yours – but what the devil is happening here?’

‘ Doucement, doucement!’ murmured Kyriakos, touching his arm above the elbow. ‘ Doucement, mon vieux – eh?’

‘It’s not my bloody f-f-fault!’ protested Audley, his voice lifting.

‘I’ve got to explain you both to the Brigadier himself – damn!’ The jeep lurched over fallen stone from another ruined building which half-blocked the road. ‘He’ll want to know ... I know how his mind works . . . And if you don’t want to go all the way back to Athens with us, while he checks your story – I’m trying to help you, damn it!’

‘Of course, of course!’ Kyriakos soothed them both. ‘It is all my fault –’ He squeezed Fred’s arm ‘ – my fault, old boy.’

The jeep stopped abruptly, having climbed steeply out of Osios Konstandinos, up an apology for a track which only a jeep could have attempted, short of a tracked vehicle. Certainly nothing with either wheels or tracks could ever have penetrated further than this point, where huge boulders blocked the way, leaving only a narrow path hardly fit for mules . . . although there were buildings of some sort higher up, just visible through a scatter of pines under an uprearing cliff high above them.

‘Your fault?’ The buildings ahead were roofless and ruined. Half dummy4

the bloody world was roofless and ruined, thought Fred savagely.

Or half of the poor, innocent, impoverished villages of Greece and Italy seemed to be ruined, anyway, as the price of their resistance and liberation, no matter how inaccessible. And as this was Kyri’s country that thought suffused him with guilt – guilt all the more irredeemable because he was here because the Greek had invited him home as his guest, for wine and a soft bed if not for some dark-eyed virgin. ‘It isn’t your fault, Kyriakos.’

‘Oh, but it is, old boy.’ Kyriakos began to climb out of the jeep.

‘An Englishman teaching me about Markos Botsaris – in Osios Konstandinos!’ He straightened up, and then pointed. ‘Look there!

Do you see – ?’

‘What?’ Audley followed Kyriakos’s instruction first.

‘Yes, I do! By God – eagles!’ He pointed. ‘Do you see them – ?

They said in Athens that there’d be eagles here!’

Fred looked upwards, and saw that the bloody birds were still circling above the cliff, knife and fork in claw, and napkins knotted ready.

Kyriakos cleared his throat. ‘I meant the cliff – the path goes up that gulley – and then across, to where that tree sticks out, under the overhang . . .’

‘Yes.’ Fred couldn’t see. But what he could see was that, whatever happened in 1824, one burst from Sergeant Devenish’s machine-gunners would have turned Osios Konstandinos into a surrender-or-die trap. Except . . . except ... if the sergeant’s own position had itself been taken in the rear, by someone coming up that path dummy4

behind him, on the other side of the impossible cliff . . . then that would have ruined the trap, of course.

‘They are eagles, aren’t they?’ Audley had retrieved a fine pair of German binoculars from the jeep, and was struggling to adjust them.

‘You are a bird-watcher too?’ Kyri’s voice was hollow with disbelief, as it had been with the thirteenth century. ‘As well as an historian?’

‘No’. Audley lowered the binoculars quickly. ‘It’s just . . .

everybody keeps asking me whether I’ve seen them, and I’m tired of telling lies, that’s all.’ He grinned at the Greek.. ‘It was the same with the 88s in Normandy – I never could see the bloody things, when everyone else could, don’t you know . . . But that was Botsaris’ cliff –was it? Or ... is it?’

‘You were in Normandy?’ The Greek frowned as though one so young could not have been allowed to participate in a real war.

‘Yes.’ Audley’s mouth opened, and then closed again, wordlessly.

‘It was very unc-c-c – unpleasant, I can tell you . . . Greece is infinitely more p-p-p – agreeable.’ He grinned unashamedly. ‘No G-Germans – no 88s – eh?’ The grin became disarming. ‘That’s the monastery up there, is it? The one the Turks burnt in ’24?‘

‘Yes.’ But now Kyriakos was dead-serious. ‘You haven’t been here before, then?’ He blinked. ‘Somebody told you about the path, did they?’

Audley blinked back at him. ‘Actually . . . no . . . But it’s all in Pemberton about the path, and Markos Botsaris. There was a map dummy4

too – ’ The half grin became a frown ‘ –why d’you want to know?

Are you an historian?’

‘No. I am merely a Greek.’ Kyriakos glanced at Fred. ‘And once I was also a banker.’ Someone was shouting at them, through the trees. ‘A ... what– ?’ Audley struggled with this intelligence, against the shout. ‘A ... banker– ?’

‘Merchant banker,’ elaborated Kyriakos. But then not even he could ignore the figure which was approaching them, its hobnailed boots cracking on the stony track like caps in a child’s pistol. Audley quailed. ‘What is it, Mr Levin?’

‘ Sar!’ The RSM somehow contrived to look immaculate, even under a fine coating of dust. ‘The Brigadier and the Colonel have both been asking for you, Mr Audley – sar! He addressed Audley from beneath a quivering Guards’ salute, totally ignoring Fred and Kyriakos. ’They wish to hear about your prisoners – sar!‘

‘Ah! . . .’ Audley managed something between a wave and a clenched fist gesture, which he rendered even more equivocal by ending up scratching the back of his neck ‘. . . well, they’re not exactly . . . prisoners, Mr Levin. But never mind . . .’ he trailed off humbly.

‘As you wish, Mr Audley – sar!’ The RSM pronounced the words like a formula dissolving all but the inescapable links between himself and the author of that parody-of-a-salute. ‘If-you-will-permit-me-to-return-to-my-duties-then – sar!’

‘Why . . . yes, of course, Mr Levin. Do carry on, please.’

‘ Sar!’ The RSM swept past them down the track. And as sure as dummy4

God made little apples he would see where the Mendip corporal had pissed on the rear wheel of that lorry, thought Fred. So there were two stripes gone for a Burton.

‘Well . . . that was Mr Levin!’ murmured Audley, to no one in particular. ‘We just don’t seem to hit it off ... I had a much better relationship with my old troop sar-major in the Wesdragons. But, of course, Mr Levin was a peace-time soldier before the war . . .

and my old sar-major ran our local garage at Steeple Horley.’ He shook his head sadly, as though in another world. ‘But he’s dead, of course . . . and now he’s really dead.’ He stared at Fred suddenly. ‘Funny to think of that – isn’t it? Becoming really dead?’

The question caught Fred by surprise. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘He means . . . now that your war is nearly finished, then the dead can become properly dead,’ snapped Kyriakos harshly. ‘And the survivors can become properly alive at last.’

Fred was shocked by the Greek’s intensity. ‘Our . . . war?’

Kyriakos nodded at Audley. ‘Your war is almost finished – no Germans here – not in Greece any more. And now, if the truce holds ... if you are both lucky, then your war is finished. So you will go home – ’ He switched to Fred ‘ – to your merchant banking

– ’ Back to Audley again ‘ – and you to ... Cambridge, was it?

Girls in punts, and the odd lecture?’ He showed his teeth in a wolfish grin. ‘I was up at Cambridge in ’39. My father called me home in October – we thought it was just your war.‘ The grin became unnaturally fixed. ’We thought the Balkan Mercantile Bank and the Aegean Mutual Trust stood to make a lot of money out of you British, one way or another. And now my father is dead, dummy4

and my two brothers are dead . . . But my war is not finished –

perhaps it is only just beginning. So that makes a difference – yes?‘

‘Yes.’ Audley nodded stupidly, like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

‘You’ve b-b-b . . . bloody got it: they’re not d-d- dead yet, quite?

Because you can still join them – right?’ He stopped nodding.

‘You’re the first one I’ve met who knows what I’m talking about –

would you believe that?’ Fred felt anger stir, beyond shock and unreality and incomprehension, as they both blocked him out with their private joke, which was no joke at all. But pride refused to let him show how he felt: they each understood too well what the other was saying for him to admit that he didn’t measure up to their insight, whatever it was they shared. So he couldn’t say anything.

The Balkan Mutual Trust?‘ Audley found another joke. ’I w-wouldn’t have thought that there was m-much m-mutual . . .

trust . . . anywhere in the b-b-bloody Balkans?‘

Kyriakos raised his chin arrogantly. ‘ Aegean Mutual Trust –

Balkan Mercantile Bank, Mr Audley, – sar!’ He grinned at Audley, under the arrogance. ‘How about letting us both return-to-our-duties, eh? Like . . . you could talk a jeep out of your adjutant, to take us to Itea, maybe?’ He carefully didn’t look at Fred. ‘How about that, then?’

Audley looked at Fred, nevertheless. ‘You know each other because your families are both in merchant banking – ? The Fattorini Brothers – the Mutually Trusting Balkans? But how did you both end up ... back there, on the path – “lurking”, was it?’

Kyriakos tossed his head. ‘As you said – “Fattorini” isn’t a dummy4

common name in the British Army.’ He gave Fred a quick glance.

‘I was with the Canadians last year, and we were stalled on this river, over which your engineers were throwing this Bailey bridge.

And I heard someone shout for “Captain Fattorini” . . . and my family’s bank has acted for the Fattorini bank in Greece ever since the First World War.’

Fred nodded. ‘That’s right – ever since his father met my uncle –

Uncle Luke – in Salonika, in the Military Hospital, in 1918. They were two young bankers in adjoining beds, each with Bulgarian bullets in them. So they exchanged addresses.’

‘And then they did business. Out of which came the first Aegean Mutual Trust.’ The Greek took his cue. ‘And last year I saw this appalling mud-covered apparition. But I thought . . . “Fattorini”

isn’t a common name in the British Army. So I gave it an address in Athens, where I intended to be.’

‘Coincidence,’ agreed Fred. ‘Just like you swanning up in your jeep back there, Dave Audley – and thinking that “Fattorini” isn’t a common name in the British Army. So when I finally reached Athens – ’

‘Okay! Okay!’ Audley surrendered. That’ll do fine. In fact, it couldn’t be better ... And I’ll get you transport –Itea, was it?‘

The youth’s sudden confidence pricked Fred’s curiosity. ‘What’s so fine about it?’

‘Oh ... it was fine all along, actually.’ Audley grinned disarmingly.

‘It was?’ Fred’s curiosity overweighed his irritation.

‘Why?’

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The Brigadier will like you, even if my Colonel doesn’t.‘ The grin twisted. The Brigadier may not go much on coincidences, but he does love rich men. And bankers – merchant bankers . . . one merchant banker –good . . . two merchant bankers – you’ll brighten up a bad day for him, I shouldn’t wonder, by golly!’ He pointed through the trees. ‘Come on! You’re just what I need!’ He stepped out ahead of them. ‘ Two bloody bankers – !’ Kyriakos raised his shoulders eloquently, and rolled his eyes at Fred. But then he moved quickly after Audley. ‘But why – why does he like rich men?’

Fred accelerated after them. Five wasted years – three of boredom, one-and-a-half of discomfort and terror, plus an aggregation of odd months of other experiences, including disillusion and, during the last hour, more terror – those years ought to have inured him to anything the army could imagine for his further education. But Lieutenant Audley and his Brigadier were something beyond the ordinary lunacies.

‘Rich – men.’ panted Kyriakos, in Audley’s wake. Through the last scatter of trees Fred saw the ruins more clearly, and remembered what Kyriakos had said a lifetime earlier: this was the little monastery the Turks had smashed up, presumably in revenge for Markos Botsaris’ escape up that cliff just behind it. ‘Bankers – ?’

Kyriakos tried again, breathlessly. This was the sharp end of the operation, the sounds of which they had heard on the other side of that cliff, Fred saw at a glance. Not only were the soldiers here alert, and very different from the smokers and pissers down below, but there was a line of groundsheeted corpses, with their protruding dummy4

feet indicating their origin: three good pairs of army-issue boots, and then a dozen anonymous pairs, scuffed and pathetic – no . . .

there were two feet at the end, encased in jack-boots, or something like –

‘Bankers?’ Audley finally registered the question, but then dismissed it as a figure ducked out from a narrow monastic doorway. ‘ Amos! Is the Brigadier in there?’

‘He is, dear boy.’ The figure straightened up, and became a captain in a Very Famous Regiment who gazed past Audley at Fred and Kyriakos with mild astonishment. ‘Are these your prisoners? But, dear boy, they can’t be –they positively can’t be!’ The gaze, with one eyebrow delicately raised, flicked from Fred to Kyriakos, finally coming back to Fred. ‘He’s expecting a couple of desperadoes . . . But you’ve got a Sapper there . . . and I know that Sappers are notoriously eccentric . . . But this is preposterous –

quite preposterous!’ He returned to Audley, shaking his head.

‘He’s not at all pleased, I warn you, David, dear boy. I should run away if I were you –that’s what I’d do.’ His voice was quite conversational as he returned to Fred. ‘I admit that you look like one of ours . . . But are you?’

Before Fred could answer, or even open his mouth, Audley jumped in. ‘Of course he is! And you’re quite wrong, Amos: I’m just about to become quite p-p-p-pop-pop-pop –’

‘Pop-popular?’ The man’s eyes didn’t leave Fred. ‘I doubt it very much. But who am I to keep you from a posting to Burma?’ The eyes pinned Fred for another second, and then the languid captain smiled ruefully.

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‘It is evident that Mr Audley is not going to introduce us, captain.

So ... I am Amos de Souza, formerly of the Guards but now fallen upon hard times. But nonetheless at your service, captain.’

The man’s smile was as infectious as his good manners were comforting after the horrors of the last hour. ‘Fattorini – Brigade RE, Captain de Souza. Also fallen on hard times, apparently.’ He grinned at de Souza. ‘I wish I knew what was going on. Perhaps you can enlighten me?’

‘My dear fellow – I wish I could!’ The rueful smile twisted. Then de Souza frowned slightly and cocked his head. ‘Fattorini . . . not the banking Fattorinis, by any chance?’

Fred felt that he ought to be able to place the Guards de Souza, who had plainly been as anglicized over so many generations as the banking Fattorinis, and with blood that was even more blue.

But to his shame he couldn’t. ‘Yes, Captain de Souza.’

‘Ah!’ Captain de Souza didn’t bother to explain his own secret.

Instead he switched to Kyriakos. ‘And this gentleman?’

‘Michaelides – Captain.’ Kyriakos stopped there.

‘Yes?’ De Souza waited until he was sure nothing more was coming. ‘Regular Greek Army? Or National Guard?’ Suddenly Fred was aware of the seconds ticking away, as the Greek failed to rise to what was clearly intended as a provocation. Somewhere nearby Lieutenant Audley’s Brigadier must be fuming. And down the rocky path the RSM would be approaching those lorries and the slovenly Mendips like the wrath of God. And, without looking up, he knew those bloody birds would still be circling, waiting in vain dummy4

for the meal under those groundsheets which would now be denied them.

‘Neither, actually, old boy.’ Kyriakos drawled, packing all his years of British education into his accent. ‘Banking too, actually.’

‘Ah!’ Captain de Souza permitted himself a well-bred snigger.

‘Now I understand!’ He wagged a finger at Audley. ‘What a sly fellow you are – bagging a brace of bankers for the Brigadier! I really must stop underestimating you, David: you have the precious gift of luck which Napoloen Bonaparte admired so much, in preference to vulgar cleverness.’ He jerked his head towards the little arched doorway. ‘Go on, dear boy – go and take your gifts to him without delay. If you cheer him up we shall all be better off –

go on!’ He turned from Audley, favouring Fred and Kyriakos with the slightest of bows as he began moving towards the bodies. ‘And leave me to my ghoulish tasks . . . gentlemen, I confide that we may meet again in happier circumstances . . .’

Fred was torn between following de Souza and watching Audley bend almost double to enter the ruins. But then he remembered Kyriakos.

‘Are they all m – ?’ He bit off the word as the Greek shook his head, and followed the direction of his friend’s gaze instead.

Captain de Souza had thrown back the groundsheet from the body with the jackboots and was stripping it methodically.

‘ Mad?’ he whispered.

‘No!’ Kyriakos whispered back without looking at him. ‘Not mad.’

The languid captain from the Very Famous Regiment was dummy4

examining the corpse’s jacket with all the distaste of a man who knew from bitter experience that all andartes were flee-ridden and lousy. But his examination was nonetheless careful, pocket by pocket, seam by seam.

‘Not mad?’ He watched de Souza cast the jacket aside, and apply himself to one of the boots.

‘No!’ Kyriakos repeated the word out of the side of his mouth as de Souza unwound a piece of rag and then let the foot fall back to earth while he felt inside the boot.

Yuk – urch! Fred imagined the sweaty-clamminess of the inside of that boot. ‘What’s he doing?’

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ murmured Kyriakos, almost contemptuously.

Captain de Souza added the boot to the jacket and pulled at the second boot, and went through the same process, letting the second dirty white foot fall back, jarring the corpse with a false shudder of life.

‘Good boots, those.’ The Greek turned to Fred suddenly. ‘Do you remember where we last saw boots like that? And a rag instead of socks?’

‘No.’ He watched the careful examination of the second boot before it joined its comrade. But as the slender, fastidious fingers began to unbutton the corpse’s fly-buttons he decided that he had had enough of de Souza’s duty, and could more usefully pick over the contents of Kyriakos’s brains. And that concentrated his memory. ‘Yes. That Russian officer – the liaison fellow we had to put to bed – ?’

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That’s right.‘ Kyriakos returned his attention to the corpse-stripping as he replied. ’So ... now you know, eh?‘ Something almost approaching a smile, albeit a terrible one, lifted half the Greek’s mouth, under his moustache. ’It’s actually very comforting, old boy.‘

‘Comforting – ?’ Against his will and better judgement, Fred’s attention was drawn back to de Souza’s duty. And, although he instantly regretted the impulse, he was hypnotically held by the image which comforted Kyriakos, of Captain de Souza emptying the trouser pockets first –scrutinizing their pathetic contents, and then throwing them on the already checked pile . . . clasp-knife, coins, filthy handkerchief – and then ripping at the lining savagely.

That was a skill his Guards regiment had never taught him, and those hairy white legs, and the raised shirt above them exposing the dark bush of pubic hair and genitals, had never been included in his Army Training Instructions. ‘Comforting?’

‘Uh-huh.’ Kyriakos was hardly listening to him: his fascination was absolute as the trousers joined the pile. Instead he murmured something in Greek, which Fred wouldn’t have understood even if he heard it.

‘What’s that – ?’ He couldn’t not look now, even if he hadn’t wanted to look, as de Souza straddled the body, and turned it over, face in the dirt, arms flopping obscenely as gravity shifted their dead weight. ‘What was that you said – ?’

‘I said . . . “Go on – do it properly!”’ Kyriakos paused, as de Souza began to do something so revolting that Fred couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘ Ah – that’s right!’

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‘God Almighty!’ What was almost more revolting than what de Souza was doing was Kyriakos’s approbation of the unnatural act.

‘Nothing?’ Kyriakos exhaled slowly. ‘Bad luck! But. . . well done, de Souza!’ He came back to Fred at last. ‘You were saying – ?’

‘I wasn’t saying anything. I was feeling sick, that’s all.’

Then . . . the more fool, you!‘ The Greek’s eyes were hard. That’s where they hide things, when they have to, old boy.’

For the next foul moment, Fred found himself looking at de Souza again: he was stripping off the corpse’s shirt now, leaving the whole naked body leprous white, except for its brown hands and arms and ruined, bloody face.

‘But . . . but why, Kyriakos?’ He abandoned the final tableau of Captain de Souza doing his duty. ‘For God’s sake!’

Kyriakos bit his lip, under his moustache. ‘My poor Fred!’ He let go his lip. ‘These are professionals – they know what they want . . .

Which is not killing their enemies, any more. They have progressed beyond that –they are not mere soldiers . . . like you and me – do you understand?’ The lip drooped, one-sidedly. They are not crude – ?‘

‘ Crude!’ That was a joke he couldn’t laugh at.

‘Don’t be deceived by appearances.’

‘Appearances?’ The repeated word suddenly sounded foolish as he realized that he had been deceived: he had taken de Souza for a civilized man and the large young dragoon for a major, and then for a typical subaltern. But neither of them was what he had at first seemed.

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‘Actually, I really feel quite comforted.’ Kyriakos stared at him. ‘I am comforted . . . comforted and surprised – or, comforted and much reassured, anyway.’

‘Reassured?’ After six weeks in Greece, never mind all those months in Italy, Fred regarded himself as a veteran, and an expert on war’s idiocies. It irritated him to be treated like an innocent.

‘This has reassured you, has it? About what?’

That you British are beginning to know your business.‘ Kyriakos gestured to stop him replying. ’Oh yes – I know you came to Greece – ‘ he nodded ’ – and that proves someone knew his business . . . which would be your Mr Churchill of course. But you did not really anticipate events, did you?‘

‘I didn’t?’ Whenever the Greek talked high politics he always addressed Fred as though he was personally responsible for War Cabinet decisions. But then, as he controlled the temptation to adapt his answer accordingly, he saw the truth of the question: in early December the brigade – indeed, the whole division – had been under orders for Palestine, and had actually had to re-possess all the equipment it had surrendered on the eve of embarkation. So Greece had plainly been an unforeseen emergency. ‘No, we didn’t.

But – ’ As he spoke, Kyriakos nodded past him, in de Souza’s direction again.

‘See there, old man.’

Much against his will, and fortified only by the thought that de Souza couldn’t be doing anything nastier than what he had already done, Fred obeyed the injunction –and instantly regretted his dummy4

decision.

‘Ah . . .’ The Greek caught his arm. ‘He has something – yes – he has something, indeed!’

Captain de Souza had been taking a dentist’s view of the shattered head, probing inside the gaping mouth with a sliver of bright metal.

And, until the Greek spoke, all Fred had been thinking was . . . at least he’s not just using his finger now!

‘Yes!’ Kyri’s fingers tightened, then relaxed as de Souza examined what he had found. ‘So now we know!’

Fred swallowed. ‘What do we know, Kyri?’ But in that instant, as he asked his question, he realized that he did indeed know something now, even if it had nothing to do with the beastliness he had been witnessing. Or, not directly, anyway. ‘What do we know?’

Kyriakos caught the change in his voice. ‘Are you shocked?’

‘Not by that.’ Comparatively, that was the truth.

‘You know what he’s found then?’ Kyriakos misunderstood him.

Fred faced a bitter truth. There had once been a Captain Michaelides he had known, who had been a Greek soldier much beloved by the Canadians with whom he was liaising, who didn’t love fools and cowards. And that had been his own Captain Michaelides, devoted to war and wine and women in whichever order the immediate circumstances allowed.

‘You lied to me, Kyri.’ He thought about the new Captain Michaelides, with whom he had made happy contact in Athens, who had seemed exactly the same as the first one, except for the moustache . . . and a slight tendency to talk politics, which had dummy4

seemed fair enough now that he was in his homeland.

Kyriakos frowned. ‘I lied to you?’

‘Yes.’ As always, thinking for himself paid dividends . . . even though this pay-out sickened him as he remembered how very interested Kyriakos had been in the morale of General Scobie’s troops, and their feelings about what they were doing in Greece; and although he had never thought about it until now, he didn’t know what Captain Michaelides had been doing . . . except that he always knew what was going on, and where (until this last hour or two) the safety line could be drawn.

‘Yes?’ To his credit, the second Captain Michaelides didn’t try to add to his deceptions. ‘When?’

‘Just now.’ Even as Fred knew he was right, he knew also that he had no right to judge the man in his own poor bloodthirsty, blood-stained and ruined country. ‘You said you and I were different from this lot – just another pair of simple soldiers, eh?’ He watched the Greek narrowly. ‘But you know exactly what is happening here

– don’t you?’

Kyriakos stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. ‘Not . . .

not exactly!’ Then he smiled. ‘If I knew that, then we wouldn’t be here.’ The smile vanished. ‘But you’re right, of course – I know what these men are, if not who they are, shall we say?’

This was the moment to ask questions, Fred sensed. ‘What did Captain de Souza find? Or would you rather let me guess?’

The Greek shrugged, aware that he had lost a friend, but also that his hospitality-invitation to an ally still obligated him. ‘A happy dummy4

pill.’ He let the memory of the shrug do its work. ‘When you don’t want to talk, but you think you may, then you crunch it ... and then you don’t talk ever again.’

‘Oh . . .’ He didn’t really know what he would have guessed. But he wouldn’t have guessed that. ‘And that’s happiness, is it?’

‘Compared with being tortured by experts – yes it is.’

That was nasty. And, more than nasty, it was libellous. ‘But we don’t torture our prisoners, Kyri.’ He could recall having leaned quite heavily on the rare German rearguard prisoner he’d been given, who might be expected to know where the booby-traps were. But that had been in the nature of give-and-take, and it really only stretched the Geneva Convention somewhat, falling infinitely short of torture. And then an alternative possibility presented itself.

‘Could be he was expecting to be captured by your lot though –

eh?’

‘Could be.’ Kyriakos accepted the insult without taking offence.

‘Except, old man, he didn’t crunch the pill, did he – eh?’

Fred resisted the renewed temptation to see what Captain de Souza was doing now. ‘Obviously, no – if that was what Captain de Souza found.’ Thinking about the stripped white-hairy-defiled body was bad enough: it didn’t need a double check. Indeed, he had no desire either to think about it or discuss it. Nor, come to that, was he particularly keen to face up to the implications of Captain Michaelides’ too-professional interest and expertise in such matters. But since they could not be ignored he could hardly leave those matters unresolved. ‘Didn’t do him any good though, did it!’

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‘No –’

‘No. His name was on a bullet, not a pill.’ Fred was simultaneously pleased and ashamed of passing himself off as a hardened veteran.

‘So what?’

‘Ah!’ Kyriakos pounced on him. ‘But you have missed the point, old man – missed it by a mile – ’ As he spoke, David Audley ducked out from the little doorway again‘ –by a mile!’ He repeated the distance for Audley’s benefit. ‘Would you not agree, Mr Audley, David?’

‘How’s that again – by a mile?’ David blinked at him. ‘Missed ...

the point? What point?’

‘Your Russian friend, old man.’ Kyriakos gestured towards the line of corpses without disengaging his attention from Audley.

Audley followed the gesture and grimaced, his natural ugliness contorted by whatever Captain de Souza was now doing. But then, as he came back to them, his face composed itself into tell-tale innocence. ‘Russian? Well –that’s news to me, Captain Michaelides. But . . . friend – whoever he was, he was no friend of mine, so far as I am aware.’ Much too late, the false innocence became polite enquiry. ‘What point would that be, which Captain Fattorini – or Fat-O’Rhiney – has missed by a mile?’

Kyriakos’s white teeth showed below his moustache. ‘You didn’t shoot him. Friend or enemy, you didn’t shoot him.’

‘No?’ The innocence increased. ‘Yes – well, you’re right. Because I certainly didn’t shoot him, Captain Michaelides. But then I am notoriously incapable of shooting people. Given a large enough dummy4

gun, in a tank, I can sometimes hit buildings, though. In fact, I once demolished an entire church, you know.’

‘I didn’t mean you, old man.’ Kyriakos gestured dismissively.

‘No?’ Audley came back quickly, with an edge to his voice.

‘But . . . well, I can tell you, captain, that our chaps are damn good, even if I’m not.’ He nodded at the corpse line, and then frowned at the Greek. ‘The bastards got three good men with their first burst.

But that’s because they must have got wind of us. And that’s all they got – all the rest were ours. And our chaps deserve the credit for it, I’d say.’

Fred started to warm to the young man, but then remembered the Greek’s warning and that falsely innocent expression. So all Audley was doing was drawing Kyriakos out in his own way, most likely.

‘No. Not all.’ Suddenly Kyriakos spoke mildly, without emphasis.

‘Your chaps didn’t shoot your Russian friend. Not unless they shoot other . . . chaps ... in the back of the neck.’ He paused.

‘Which I’m sure they don’t – being decent chaps.’ Mild still. ‘And certainly not on this occasion.’ Cold, hard voice, suddenly: the voice of Captain Michaelides Mark II. ‘Because your Russian –

friendly or unfriendly to you, old man . . . he was shot by his own side, from behind.’ If possible, the voice became harder and colder.

‘These last few weeks I’ve seen quite a lot of wounds like that, courtesy of Hellenikos Laikos Apelefteroikos Stratos . . . and some understandable reprisals by the men I have the honour of trying to command, I’m sorry to say.’ The voice was ultimately frozen now.

‘So I know what a man’s face looks like when he’s been shot in the dummy4

back of the neck while lying down. So do not argue with me, lieutenant.’

Fred stared at Kyriakos. He had started off watching the young dragoon, to see how he reacted to the Greek’s mild disagreement.

But then Captain Michaelides Mark II had taken over. And finally, at the last, it hadn’t been Captain Michaelides Mark II either: it had been a complete stranger.

For a moment Audley didn’t reply, which drew Fred back to him to observe what he felt might well be a mirror-image of his own expression, although on a very different face.

‘I w-w-wouldn’t dream of arguing with you, Captain M-Mmm – ’

Audley shook his head and scowled as his impediment got the better of him. ‘You can g-g . . . go and argue with the B-B-B – ’

‘I will do just that, yes.’ The Greek drew himself up.

‘In there – ’ Audley pointed towards the low doorway in the ruins ‘

– he’s w-waiting to mmm-meet you both.’ He tore his attention from the Greek to Fred, and instantly relaxed. ‘I’ve told him all about you, and he’s jolly keen to make your acquaintance, he says.

And – ’ The boy just managed to avoid looking at Kyriakos again ‘

– and the good news is that I’m to find you some transport, if possible – ’

‘No,’ said Kyriakos.

They both looked at him.

‘I shall go and see the Brigadier by myself first.’ Kyriakos ignored Audley. ‘Im sorry, old boy. But that’s the way it is. Because this happens to be my country.’

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He gave Fred a nod, and then ducked into the doorway without another word.

‘And he’s b-b-bloody welcome to it, if you ask me,’ murmured Audley. Then he looked inquiringly at Fred. ‘Bloody Greek Secret Police!’ Then he frowned. ‘And he’s a friend of yours – ?’

‘Yes.’ It was true. Or it had been true.

‘And you really did break down – and all that?’

The innocent look was back. And if Kyriakos hadn’t warned him he would have believed it. But now he didn’t believe either of them. ‘Yes.’

Audley breathed in deeply. ‘Well . . . you’ve got some funny friends, then. So you’d better watch out, if you ask me – if you’re stuck here.’ He breathed out slowly. Thank God we’re posted elsewhere after this, to where the real war is! Not that we’ll see much of it, more’s the pity!‘ He grinned at Fred. ’I never thought I’d ever say that, you know!‘

Was he being led on? Fred wondered. ‘What d’you mean – “the real war”?’ If he was, then he’d be safer among questions than answers.

Audley glanced nervously at the doorway. ‘Well . . . this isn’t the real war, is it?’ The glance came back to Fred, but then went past him, towards whatever Captain de Souza might be doing now, if he was still at work among the bodies behind them; but whether he was or wasn’t, Fred wasn’t tempted to find out. Yet he felt the presence of the dead at his back nevertheless.

This isn’t war – ?‘ He almost felt that he was putting the question dummy4

on behalf of those nearby who could no longer ask it.

Audley shrugged. ‘If it is, then it’s a different kind of war. And don’t ask me what kind.’ Then he looked past Fred again. ‘An “in-the-back-of-the-neck” war? A most unkind war, I’d call that – eh?’

PART TWO

The Unkind War

On the Roman Frontier,

Germany, August 6, 1945

I

The moment he set eyes on the driver, Fred was sure that he’d seen him before somewhere, sometime. But then, in the next moment, he knew that it couldn’t be so. And it wasn’t just one of those tricks which the very anonymity of uniform perversely played on occasion: it was a simple case of wish-fulfilment brought on by intense loneliness. For nothing, not even changing boarding-schools (and certainly not leaving home itself), was more inner-desolation making than being torn untimely from the bosom of one’s own unit, and from long-time friends and comrades. He had started to feel it in the very second that the adjutant had shown him the order, this loneliness. And he had felt himself as utterly forlorn and abandoned as Alexander Selkirk on his desert island among dummy4

these crowds of noisy, gum-chewing, cigarette-smoking Americans in the leaking, badly-repaired airfield building –forlorn and abandoned even after the altogether surprising American Air Force major beside him had plucked him out of the scrum like a long-lost buddy.

‘See there – over there!’ The American addressed him cheerfully over the butt of his cigar. There’s your man –and there’s your transport. And . . . now that is some transport, by Gahd!‘

It was also the uniform, of course, thought Fred: the crowds of Yanks de-bussing from their huge lorries were no different from all those he had seen in Italy – more than half a year ago now, but it seemed more like a lifetime; except (and it was a bloody big difference, on second thoughts) these Yanks were happily loaded down with what looked like loot, and presumably destined for home . . . whereas the Yanks he remembered had been unhappy, and loaded with weaponry and combat gear, and destined for the meat-grinder of generals quite notoriously unconcerned with casualty lists, unlike their British opposite numbers –

But . . . it was the uniform, of course: one little British soldier, albeit in surprisingly well-pressed and well-fitting battle-dress, stood out from among them like a rough-haired terrier among a pack of sleek fox-hounds with their tails up after feeding time.

‘Yes?’ It was the uniform, of course. He felt the forlornness dilute slightly, if not the bewilderment; if anything, the bewilderment increased from the high point it had reached when the major had hailed him by name out of the line of disembarked Dakota passengers while they were still appreciating the feel of solid dummy4

ground underfoot after that hair-raising landing, and more simply glad to be alive than to be where they wanted to be. ‘Yes – I see him, major.’

For a moment he lost sight of his man and his transport, as a phalanx of huge Americans, more or less in disciplined ranks, cut them off from their objective, en route to flight departure and God’s Own Country and Betty Grable. And Fred wasn’t outraged by their bulldozing interruption, even though he could hear the Air Force major swearing at them beside him. Because . . . one day that’ll be me – me en route to Mother, Julia, and Uncle Luke, and tea in the Savoy, and a World fit for Heroes inside Armstrong, Fattorini Brothers – by God!

The thought warmed him even as the soldiers slowed and concertinaed from a more-or-less ordered column into a jostling crowd, and the major continued to blaspheme impotently – one day, in God’s good time, this will be me . . . but, in the meantime, even if this was dark, ruined Germany, and not his own dear sunny Greece, at least it wasn’t an embarkation depot en route to a crowded troopship and the dreaded Far Eastern posting of everyone’s nightmares. At least he was safe from that now!

‘It’s all right, major.’ He felt that he had to say something, if only by way of common civility, to his rescuer. ‘I’m in no hurry.’

‘No?’ The major looked at his watch. ‘Well, I sure as hell am! Goddamn army!’

‘Well, if you have other duties, I beg you not to wait for me.’ What Fred would dearly have loved to have asked was how the major had come to be waiting for one God-damn Limey officer – and a dummy4

junior one at that – off one particular transport plane, the very arrival of which must have been problematical, what with the bad weather and the re-routing. But, against the possibility that Colonel Colbourne (whoever the hell Colonel Colbourne might be) wielded such huge influence (enough to transmute base junior officer metal into VIP gold), there still lurked the suspicion that he might be the beneficiary of some case of Anglo-American mistaken identity. ‘I saw where my transport was. It’s not going to leave without me.’

The major looked at him, and then studied the press of GIs, as though estimating their chances of ever getting through it unscathed and without a fight. ‘You reckon – ? But . . . hell! I promised Gus I’d see you safely on your way–’

‘It’s quite all right, major.’ Who ‘Gus’ might be was beside the point, but ’on your way‘ wasn’t, Fred decided. All that mattered was that there was a staff car and a driver out there, beyond this near-mutinous half of the United States Army. And whether or not it was intended for Captain Fattorini, Captain Fattorini intended to have that car. But he stood a better chance of keeping it if the major wasn’t in attendance when he commandeered it. ’I’ll tell Gus you put me on my way – I’ll make a point of it.‘

‘You will? Great!’ The major beamed at him. ‘Okay, then . . . And, say . . . while you’re about it, tell him “thanks” – for the pig . . .

Okay?’

‘“Thanks” – ’ Fred steadied his voice ‘ – for ... the Pig?’

‘ Dee-licious!’ The major made a circle with his thumb and forefinger. ‘Tell Gus any time – okay?’ A faint thunder of aircraft dummy4

engines penetrated the hubbub. ‘Tell him, if he’s got the pigs, then I’ve got the planes – tell him that, huh?’

Fred returned the nod, and watched the major stride away towards whatever pressing matter had recalled him to his duties. Then, a loud cheer distracted him, turning him back to the United States Army: the concertina was expanding at last, as whatever obstacle ahead that compressed it gave way, and all the incurious eyes which had been taking him in (as though they’d never seen a British uniform, but if he’d been stark naked it wouldn’t have mattered, because he wasn’t in their way) – all the eyes dismissed him as the cheering crowd surged forward again.

It must be mistaken identity, but if it wasn’t then he had been traded in return for a pig, it seemed.

The column expanded, and accelerated, affording him an adequate glimpse of what lay beyond it, as he thought of pigs.

Pigs –

The car was still there. And so was the driver –

Pork, rather – pork had been conspicuous by its absence in both Italy and Greece. There had been some ration bacon, of a sort . . .

and there had latterly been endless Spam, which had allegedly been pig-related. But he hadn’t seen a good piece of smoked ham, let alone a real slice of pork with the crackling still attached to it, since 1942.

The American Army vanished as suddenly as it had arrived, just as he was vividly recalling Uncle Luke carving a vast leg of pork on the last day of his embarkation leave: ‘ Give thanks to God for this, dummy4

young Fred, first. And then to a certain farmer of my acquaintance, who supplied it. And last, but not least to your great-greatgrandfather, whose apostasy from the Jewish faith enables us to indulge ourselves as devout Anglicans – ’

‘Major!’

Across the suddenly opened space, the driver was saluting him. He was a little ratty RASC man of indeterminate age – a very typical RASC driver, except for the smartness of his battle-dress. And that was really why he looked so familiar, of course. But, much more to the point, he was also compounding the American’s mistake, that was certain. But with his inferior rank safe under his trench-coat, Fred held to his objective, returning the salute and dumping his valise at the little man’s feet.

‘Right! Let’s go, then.’

The driver ignored the valise, opening the rear door of the car instead.

Fred had intended to get in the front, but the important thing was to get going. So he accepted the offer without demur, and sank back into the luxury within – real leather, softly padded and sprung –

while the little man banged around, stowing the valise and then bestowing himself just in time as the first spatter of rain, which had followed the Dakota all the way from Austria, pitter-pattered the windscreen.

The big car moved forward, as smoothly and effortlessly as a Rolls

– or as a well-driven Sherman, thought Fred, with a pang of sadness, remembering Allan Koran’s boast from his last evening dummy4

swim at Vouliagmeni, three days and most of Europe away from where he was now, in the rain alongside a line of huge American lorries.

The car checked slightly, and the rain blurred the window, and he felt the loss of Allan and his friends, and of the poet’s wine-dark sea and the ineffably blue sky, which was even greater than the mild hunger-and-thirst he had felt for several hours –

(‘Since Scobiemas I have become an effete peacetime soldier,’

Allan had said, that last time. ‘ Steward! Bring me a beer – two beers!’ And then to Fred: ‘ He’ll slop them . . . And there was a time when I could put two beers on my Sherman, and drive it down here without wasting a drop! We’ve all become demoralized by peace, Fred –“Peace in Europe – and God help those poor devils in the Far East” – there’s a toast for you! “God help them . . . but, dear God, don’t ask us to help them!” Steward! Where are those beers – ?’)

But no beers now. And he mustn’t doze off, either –

‘Sorry I didn’t come for you, major . . . sir.’ The driver half-twisted towards him. ‘But . . . the American gentleman said not to. ’E said I was to stay where I was, an‘ ’e’d bring you, ‘e said, ’e did.‘

Fred perked up. If the little man was talkative, then he might let slip their present destination; and then, when they had gone far enough, he could be browbeaten elsewhere. ‘He did?’

‘Ah – ’ They passed the last of the trucks, and then swerved too late to avoid a crudely-filled crater across half the road ‘ – but I wouldn’t ’ave gorn, even if ‘e’d arsked me ... not with all these dummy4

Yanks around, see?’

All Fred saw was that most of the American drivers were negroes.

‘Yes?’

‘They’d ’ave ‘ad the car, one of ’em would – sure as God made little apples.‘ The little man spoke without rancour.

‘Of course.’ It had been foolish of him to forget for a second that anything left unguarded for more than five seconds was at risk.

Soldiers or civilians, it was all the same, they were all thieves; and what they couldn’t steal they stripped – like that Bailey Bridge transporter in Italy, which had been found the day after minus every removable part, engine, wheels, nuts and bolts, and Bailey Bridge. And there was no reason why Germany should be different. But he wanted the little man to go on talking. ‘They’ll steal anything, will they?’

‘Lord no, sir!’ The little man chuckled throatily. ‘The Yanks is choosey now. The Jerries, you’ve got to watch . . . speshly the little kids – they’re not scared, see. An’ the DPs is worst – they’ll ‘ave the shirt orf yer back if they takes a fancy to it ... But the Yanks – ’

He tapped the steering wheel. ‘ – this is a good vee-hicle, this is.

Wot they call a “collector’s piece”, this is.’

Fred lifted himself slightly, the better to see ahead through the two arcs cleared by the windscreen wipers. The road was empty, and flanked by seemingly endless ruins on both sides. But that was more or less what he had expected: the industrial outskirts of the city, which were also adjacent to what would certainly have been a major Luftwaffe airfield, would have been heavily bombed many times. ‘A collector’s piece?’ Cars didn’t interest him, but as he dummy4

observed the length of the bonnet and the array of dials on the dashboard, adding them to the luxuriousness of the rear seats and the relatively smooth ride over the much-repaired road surface, he also remembered the Air Force major’s admiration.

‘Ah, that it is.’ The little man massaged the wheel approvingly, even though he drove perilously close to a huge pile of ruins – a pack of slanted concrete floors – which narrowed the road.

‘French, this is ... wot was owned by a famous film star before the war – before Jerry pinched it. Built like a tank, it is – weighs nearer three ton than two . . . more like a tank than your proper Froggie tanks, wot they made out uv cardboard an’ ticky-tack, wot I remember of ‘em – huh!’

‘Yes?’ That the little man could remember French tanks, however libellously, for purposes of comparison, confirmed Fred’s estimation of him. There was nothing unusual about his evident contempt for the French, which was common among all those who knew nothing of the incomparable performance of Juin’s Corps Expeditionnaire Français in the Italian mountains, and almost universal among British soldiers, outside the 8th Army. But this wasn’t the moment to put him right. ‘Is that so?’

‘Ah.’ The little man let the big car demonstrate its excellence over a series of former bomb craters, while Fred began to marvel at the extent of the city’s ruins. ‘Only trouble is ... it’s got a terrible lot of electrics –gearbox an’ all. So it needs a proper REME mechanic to keep it on the road.‘ Another throaty chuckle. ’But Major M’Crocodile’s got hisself a proper REME mechanic, to look after it, see – Corporal Briggs, that is – this is the major’s speshul car, dummy4

this is – Corporal Briggs!‘ The repeated chuckle was like a death-rattle in the little man’s throat.

‘Corporal Briggs – ?’ Obviously there was a story to Corporal Briggs which the little man was bursting to tell. And the more talkative he became, the better.

‘Got ’im out of a court-martial, to get ‘im for the major, the Colonel did – got ’im orf an‘ then got ’im posted to us, see?‘ The little man turned towards him, ignoring the endless rain-blurred vista of bombed-out ruins through which they were driving.

’Proper artful, ‘e is – ’

‘Watch the road, man!’ Fred commanded quickly as a pile of rubble came dangerously close. But then, as the driver snapped back to his duty, he moved quickly to rebuild the bridge between them. ‘Corporal Briggs is artful – ?’

‘Naow, sir, major – not ’ im – ‘ The little man sounded the car’s mellifluous two-tone horn as they came to an intersection, and then accelerated across it ’ – though ‘e is a good mechanic, I’ll say that for ’im ... an‘ ’e was court-martialled for doin‘ up Jerry cars an’

then floggin‘ ’em back to the Jerries, see . . . But naow – it’s Colonel Colbourne wot’s artful . . . But, then, o‘ course he was a lawyer before the war, gettin’ murderers orf from bein‘ ’anged, wot was guilty, an‘ all that – see?’

‘ Colonel – ’ Fred steadied his voice ‘ – Colbourne?’ Relief blotted out surprise. ‘How far is it to Kaiserburg ... and TRR-2, driver?’

‘The Kaiser’s Burg?’ The little man confirmed the name in correcting it to his own liking. ‘Not far. If it wasn’t pissin’ down dummy4

we could maybe see it from ‘ere, almost.’ He pointed into the murk ahead. ‘Right up on top of the Town-us, it is – ’igh up, in the woods.‘

Taunus, Fred remembered, from the only map he had been able to find in Athens. But there had been no Kaiserburg on the map.

‘Yes?’ But at least they were agreed that that was where they were going! he thought. ‘I couldn’t find it on the map.’

‘No . . . well, you wouldn’t now, would you?’ The little man agreed readily. “Cause it ain’t anywhere – is it? The bleedin‘

Kaiser’s Burg!’

Fred saw an opening. ‘It’s a bad billet, is it?’

The rain slashed across the windscreen, and the car bucked in well-bred protest over another crater – down . . . bump-bump-bump . . .

up – and then ran smoothly again, still flanked by ruins.

‘I’ve known worse.’ Uncharacteristically, the little man looked on the bright side, in the midst of unseasonable summer weather likely to render even adequate billets depressing.

A hideous thought offered itself to Fred. ‘We’re not under canvas?’

He had taken it for granted that the occupying forces would have looked after themselves properly in this desolation. But they were well to the south of the zone earmarked for British military occupation, and the teeming Americans had had plenty of time to move into the best of what had been left standing.

‘Under – ?’ They had reached another crossroads in the ruins, but this time the little man had his nose against the windscreen as he peered up at a signpost festooned with information, most of it in dummy4

Military American, but some pathetically civilian, indicating streets which existed only in memory. ‘What was that, sir – ?’

Fred felt his depression returning, even though ruins were the same the world over, and he knew that he’d seen enough of them to take these for granted (these just here were fire-bombed empty shells, still substantial, but floor-less from the top to their ground-level pile of blackened rubbish within): he had seen Plymouth burn, and taken his men into Bristol the day after its heaviest raid, to aid the civil power; and his brief bomb-disposal service, before Italy, was best-forgotten . . . although, when he thought about it, Italy – and Greece too – had on occasion been even worse, when he’d come upon some out-of-the-way village, as inaccessible as it was inoffensive, yet which had been nonetheless comprehensively flattened, sometimes by design, sometimes quite unnecessarily, by accident. But even though this was Germany, which had started it all ... the truth was, he was sick of ruins.

The little man came to a decision (which was of necessity all his own, since the rain-swept wilderness appeared to be uninhabited), and they were moving again. ‘What was that, sir – ?’

For a moment, Fred didn’t reply. And then the moment lengthened, as they continued to drive through the ruins. And there seemed no end to them, and he realized that he was passing through not

‘ruins’, but the ruin of a once-great city, which might never rise again – or not in his lifetime, anyway.

‘Under canvas?’ His unnaturally prolonged silence animated the little man’s memory. ‘ Naow, major, sir – we’re snug enough – for the time bein’, like – eh?‘

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Fred closed his eyes and sat back in comfort, trying to blot out the dead city. Or ... alive or dead . . . it was finished, here – that was what he must think! Or ... he was tired and hungry . . . and the terrible inadequacy of memory was that, while he could recall the exact picture of a leg of roast pork, with golden crackling on it, he could not recall the smell and the taste – the taste of crackling –

There was a bump, and he opened his eyes again as the big car surged forward. And suddenly, they were in open country –

country soaked and dripping, but mercifully untouched by war, after all they had been through. And that was like a blessing, after the anathema of the city: all the worst that the war could do had its limits, leaving the rest quite untouched, outside Plymouth, and Bristol, and Cassino – leaving places which hadn’t had their names on the bombs untouched, as though there had never been a war.

‘Where are we?’

‘Wot?’ Now that he was free of the responsibility of threading his way through the ruins of the city, and had his right passenger in the back of the car, the little man was free of all responsibility. So it didn’t matter what the original question had been, never mind his answer to it.

‘Where are we going?’ All the more important questions which he wanted to ask — ‘ Who the hell is Colonel Colbourne?’ and ‘ What the hell is “TRR-2 Kaiserburg” ?’ in the unembattled British Army order-of-battle in Occupied Germany – were out of order, first because they were too humiliating to be asked . . . and second because the little man probably couldn’t answer them usefully anyway.

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‘Wot?’ After that stretch of peaceful, umbombed Germany they were passing through a peaceful, utterly unbombed little village –

or, not quite peaceful . . . because there was a group of American army vehicles in the centre of it now – a big white-starred staff car, and a jeep with its rain-hood up, and a 15-cwt . . . and a large American NCO, with chevrons half the way down his arm, chewing his cigar regardless of the rain.

The sight of the American cautioned Fred to acclimatize himself to Occupied Germany, in the American zone: no British NCO, required to wait in the rain for his officer, would have dared to smoke a cigarette so openly, let alone a cigar. But the Americans, for all their readiness to accept appalling combat casualties, were civilians at heart even more steadfastly than the rank and file of British. And now that the war in Europe was well and truly over he must expect an even more pronounced decline in military discipline than he had observed among his own countrymen, with which Colonel Michaelides so often taxed him.

‘Not far now.’ The little man humoured him, like a father with a tired child in the back.

‘To Kaiserburg?’ Fred felt the big car stretch itself uphill, under the dripping forested slopes of the Taunus Hills.

The Kaiser’s Burg – yus.‘ Sniff. ’An‘ a nasty, dirty night it’s goin’

to be – like it always is when we’ve got a job on.‘ Another sniff.

’Bloody rain!‘ He twisted towards Fred. ’Not like where you’ve been, eh.‘

‘No!’ He answered automatically, as the memory of the crystal dummy4

clarity of the evening light and the inviting waters of the bay of Marathon tugged him momentarily away from when we’ve got a job on–! ‘What job?’

‘The Kaiser’s Burg – huh!’ The little man appeared not to have heard him. ‘It’s only temp’ry billet, mind you . . . ’Cause . . . we’ve bin movin‘ around down ’ere, amongst the Yanks, like . . . An‘ the Colonel – it suits ’im, bein‘ wot it is ... an’ ‘im bein’ wot ‘e is –

suits ’im down to the bleedin‘ ground!’ Bigger sniff. ‘No bleedin’

electrics . . . an‘ we only got water because it’s bin pissin’ down, so the cisterns is all full.‘ He twisted towards Fred again. ’We were in shirt-sleeves up North, in May – would you believe it? An‘ in June, it was a treat . . . On’y good thing, bein’ ‘ere now, maybe we won’t ’ave to come back again . . . ‘Cause it’ll be perishin’ up here, come winter, wot with the wind and the snow . . . Mr David sez it’ll be comin‘ all the way from Russia, ’cause there’s nothin‘ in the way to stop it.’ The head shook reassuringly suddenly. ‘But we’ll be all right, come winter, if only we’re still up in the Swartzenburg – with them thick walls, an’ all the trees roundabout, to keep the ‘ome fires burnin’ . . . We’ll be snug as a bug while the Jerries is freezin‘ – serve ’em right!‘

‘What job?’ Fred plunged straight in as the little man drew breath.

‘Ah – ’ The little man fiddled maddeningly among the controls, switching switches on and off quickly, until a feeble yellow glow finally illuminated the trees ahead, totally useless in the half-light and the rain ‘ – ah! I did that once, an’ all the electrics fused up ...

Yes – but you could be lucky, sir – arrivin‘ late, like . . . ’cause it wouldn’t be fair to send you out . . . always supposin‘ we ever gets dummy4

there – ’ he pushed his face up against the rain-smeared windscreen again, peering into the gathering murk ‘ – all these little roads looks the same to me, this time uv day . . . An’ most uv ‘em don’t go anywhere, anyway –’

Fred’s heart sank as he identified the familiar whine of the totally useless and incompetent driver, who was accustomed to following the tail-lights of the lorry in front, and believed that maps were for officers only.

‘No! I tell a lie!’ The little man sat bolt upright as he looked directly into the muzzle of an 88-millimetre gun, his voice joyful with recognition as the car crunched past the enormous tank on which the gun was mounted. ‘Not far now!’

Fred swivelled in his seat, to peer back at the abandoned monster through the rear window, his irrational fear dissolving slowly.

‘That’s wot we call “our signpost” – proper useful it is,’ confided the little man as the tank disappeared in the rain and the overcast behind them, like a dead dinosaur sinking into its primeval swamp.

‘Gawd knows ’ow ‘e got ’ere, up the top. Prob’ly just lost ‘is way, like I thought we ’ad. But Mr David sez ‘e was most likely just goin’ ‘ome through the forest as the crow flies, an’ this was where

‘is tank run dry. But ’e’s a yarner, is Mr David.‘

‘A ... yarner?’ Something stirred in Fred’s memory. ‘Mr David?’

“ ‘E tells yarns – makes up stories. Wot ’e sez is that everythin’s got a story behind it, to account for where it ends up. An‘ it’s the same with people – like for you an’ me, sir: we ain’t ‘ere by accident, is wot ’e means, ‘e sez . . . We’re ’ere because of wot we dummy4

are, or wot we done – ‘ The death-rattle was repeated, but happily now because the little man knew where he was at last’ – which in our case must’ve bin somethin‘ wicked, ’e sez ... So . . . ‘ave you done somethin’ wicked then, sir?‘ This time the chuckle degenerated into a smoker’s cough which racked the man, and swerved the car dangerously between ranks of dripping trees on each side of the road.

‘Not that I’m aware of, no.’ Fred searched for something in the cobwebby attic of the past which still eluded him because it was hidden under more recent rubbish. ‘Mr David?’

‘Yes. Captain –’ The yellow headlights caught the loom of something substantial through a thinning screen of trees up ahead. ‘

– there we are! Wot did I tell you. “Not far” – didn’t I say it?’

Through the driving rain and the trees the substantial something became long pale yellow-brown stone walls –crenellated walls, almost medieval, except that they were too low for the siege-warfare of those days and far too untime-worn to be anything older than nineteenth-century work.

‘Yes.’ It was a barracks, of course: now he could even see the two low towers, with their distinctively unmedieval low-pitched tile-roofs, on each side of a double gateway, as the car swung off the road and transfixed them momentarily in its headlights – up here, in the middle of nowhere, what else, of course? ‘It’s a barracks, is it?’

‘Yes – ’ The wheel spun as the car turned again, and then spun once more as the driver lined up the car on one of the gateways, between the wooden struts of a bridge crossing the barracks-ditch ‘

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– yes, you could say that – a barricks: that’s wot it is – a bleedin’

barricks, is what it is!‘

As the car began to accelerate again (and something too fast for Fred’s peace of mind, given the narrowness of the arched gateway, which he could now see even more clearly in the brief intervals after each sweep of the windscreen-wipers swept the rain from the glass) –

‘ ’Ere we go, then!‘ Like so many RASC drivers, the little man evidently belonged to what Fred’s first company commander had always called ’the school of empirical verification‘: if a vehicle got through a gap, or crossed a suspect stretch of ground, then that gap was wide enough for it, or that ground was free of mines, as the case might be. ’ ‘Old tight!’

There was a rumble under them as the big car advanced across a plank-bridge over a double-ditch, and he caught a glimpse of an equestrian statue between the double doorways: it looked more like a Roman emperor than a German Kaiser – in fact it looked exactly like a statue of Marcus Aurelius he had admired in Rome last year, during his leave in that memorable time-out-of-war before the battle of the Gothic Line – so perhaps it was a Kaiser dressed as a Caesar, maybe?

But then the statue was gone, and they were squeezing through the gateway, with more familiar sights in the glare of the headlights: canvas-hooded jeeps and 15-cwt trucks lined up, with even more familiar soldiers, caped against the downpour, attending to their unloading –TRR-2 at last!

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But . . . Christ! Because there was a man – a British soldier –

standing bold as brass and unashamed under an umbrella! Christ Almighty!

‘Right, there you are, then!’ The driver swung the car round the umbrella-carrying soldier, braking so fiercely that Fred’s chest thumped sharply against the front seat. ‘End uv the line, this is, sir.’ He peered at the car’s switches, before flicking them off one by one; and then swivelled towards Fred, grinning familiarly as though they were equals who had shared some testing experience.

‘I’ll see to your bag, sir – your servant’s Trooper Lucy, shared with Mr David, so you’ll not ’ave anythin‘ to worry about there – ’avin‘

Trooper Lucy is like ’avin‘ a good lady’s maid.’

Between Marcus Aurelius, and the umbrella-soldier, and Trooper Lucy, and the fact that he couldn’t find the door handle, Fred cursed impotently under his breath.

‘Wot you wanta do is to find the adjutant. An ’e’ll be in ‘is office, which is in the prinny-kipyer, first on your left as you go through the door right in front, an’ round under the little roof wot keeps the rain orf – which is that way –see?‘

Fred couldn’t quarrel with any of that, which was the last word in old-fashioned courtesy itself, compared with what he had so often been used to. Except, he didn’t understand any of it.

‘The . . . prinny – prinny-kip . . . year?’ That wasn’t quite right.

‘ Kipyer?’

‘That’s right.’ Nod. ‘Wot the Colonel calls it – prinny-kipyer . . .

Just on the left, through the door.’ Nod.

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He had found the door handle. ‘Well . . . thank you –what’s your name?’

‘Hughie, sir.’ The little man came quickly to his rescue. ‘Knock twice, an’ ask for Hughie, is what they say.‘ The little man stared at him in the gloom. ’You’re a Sapper, sir – Major Fattorini, sir ...

Would that be reg’lar army or ‘ostilities only?’

‘Territorial.’ He found himself answering automatically, as a distant but warning bell sounded in his memory. ‘March, 1939.’

‘Is that a fact?’ The date seemed to meet with the man’s approval.

Terriers is orl right, most of ‘em. The Colonel –’e’s a terrier.‘ He nodded. ’You’ll be orl right wiv‘ ’im then, I reckon.‘

‘Indeed? Fred tightened his grip on the door handle. ’Haven’t I met you before somewhere? Was it in – ?‘ Before he could finish, a movement at the front of the car took his attention: the soldier with the umbrella appeared to be examining the offside wing intently.

‘ ’Scuse me – ‘ The little man caught his change-of-attention, turned towards its direction, and was out of the car like a ferret out of a bag ’ – that wasn’t me! That was there ‘fore I sets orf, that was

– someone else done that!’ The sound of his voice, raised to a protesting whine, entered the car with a wind-driven spatter of rain.

The umbrella-carrying soldier straightened up to his full height, the wind catching his umbrella and almost pulling it out of his hand.

‘Hughie, you’re an absolute and in-invvv – inveterate – liar. I checked the whole b-bloody car myself before you set out. And there wasn’t a mark on it. So now the Croc-Crocodile will have both our g-guts for. . . garters.’

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Oh God! thought Fred, the mists of half a year’s memory clearing instantly in the same instant as the umbrella soldier turned towards him. Then he knew that he must pull himself together, and confirm the hideous certainty which confronted him in the headlights.

The full force of the wind-and-rain hit him as he stepped out of the car. ‘Hullo there!’ Even as he spoke, he saw that things were as bad as they seemed. ‘David Audley, is it?’

‘It was them Yanks, Mister David – it must uv been them,’ whined the little man. ‘I ’ad to leave the major’s car, for a minnit – ‘

‘It is. Or what’s left of him.’ Audley struggled with his umbrella.

‘Captain Fat-O’Rhiney, well met!’ He gave the little man a quick sidelong glance. ‘Hughie, I told you most particularly not to leave the car – remember?’ He came back to Fred. ‘Bad trip, was it?’ He gave Fred a friendly grin. ‘We’ve been expecting you these last three hours ... At least, the CO has been.’

‘I ’ad to meet the major – I couldn’t let ‘im carry ’is bag now, could I?‘ The little man rolled an eye at Fred, hope and fear mixed in it equally.

‘It was a bumpy one.’ Faced with the truth, Fred temporized. ‘It’s not good flying weather. We went round three or four times before landing.’

Strangely, as he felt the rain on his face – or perhaps not strangely, as he observed Audley’s relative dryness –the need for truth evaporated. ‘But I’ve no complaints about my reception. And we certainly didn’t hit anything coming up here. Not even that bloody-great tank of yours, back there.’

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Audley’s face contorted, from friendliness to its natural ugliness.

‘Not mine – yrrch!’ He drew a deep breath through his nose. ‘King Tigers . . . them I don’t need reminding of!’

The little man bobbed his head at Fred, and then at Audley. ‘I’d best take the major’s bag now, ’adn’t I, sir – so as Trooper Lucy can settle ‘im in, like?’ He wiped the rain from his face. ‘An’ the major is gettin‘ rather wet, sir . . . ’im bein‘ out in the open, like

– ?’

‘What?’ Audley looked from one to the other of them quickly.

‘Oh . . . very well, Hughie – ’ He ended up looking at Fred ‘ – you do that . . . and I will extemporize great lies about the Americans for the benefit of Major McCorquodale, if I must. And Major Fattorini will confirm them – right?’ He fixed his glance on Fred.

‘Shall we go in, out of the rain, Major Fattorini?’ He gestured towards the doors in the building directly ahead of them, which Driver Hughie – Hewitt, Fred remembered now –had indicated earlier. ‘Shall we go – ?’

Fred followed him, and as Audley deflated his umbrella and opened one of the doors he caught sight of the three pips on the young man’s shoulders. ‘Congratulations . . . Captain Audley.’

Audley swung the door open, gesturing him through it.

Temporary ... but paid, thank God!‘ He grinned at Fred. ’Twenty-three shillings a day, plus sundry allowances – riches beyond the dreams of avarice, which are supposed to sunder us from all other temptations in Occupied Germany in A-U-C 2-6-9-8 – two thousand, six hundred and ninety-eight, God help us!‘

‘What?’ Inside the doorway it was darker, and he couldn’t see dummy4

Audley so clearly now. ‘A-U-C – ?’

‘ “Ab Urbe Condita” – “From the Founding of the City of Rome”

– ?’ Audley shook the rain from his furled umbrella on to the stone-flagged floor ‘ – he put us all up in rank in Germany, to help us on our way, did Colonel Caesar Augustus Tiberius Germanicus Colbourne: lieutenant to captain, in my case – ’ he looked up, from the umbrella to Fred ‘ – and captain to major, in your case.’ He grinned. ‘If you ask your friend, Driver Hewitt . . . who is unpromotable, actually . . . Driver Hewitt will say: “Take the money, and run . . . sir!” ’ The grin twisted. That is, if he remembered to say “sir” . . . because Hughie takes a somewhat jaundiced view of officers. Although, as you have already lied so nobly for him, he may treat you differently, of course.‘

They had moved across the stone flags as Audley had been speaking out of deeper darkness, faintly yellowed by a hurricane lamp hanging from a bracket, into the grey-ness of an inner courtyard with pillared arcades on all four sides, like a monastic cloister in the middle of which the rain still deluged from above, catching the faint light of other lamps at its other corners.

‘That way – ’ Audley pointed to the left, towards an open doorway, moving as he did so ‘ – Amos? Are you in there?’ He peered into the doorway.

‘David?’ The voice from inside was sharper, just as the light was brighter. ‘What do you want?’

‘Major Fat-O’Rhiney has arrived, Amos.’ Audley gestured to Fred.

‘Oh . . . Christ!’ A chair scraped on stone. ‘I’d given him up for dummy4

lost, damn it! Where is he?’

‘I’m here.’ Memory reanimated him as he took up Audley’s invitation: beyond Driver Hewitt, and Audley himself, there was a nastier memory of de Souza being busy. ‘Captain de Souza – ?’

‘ Major de Souza, Major Fattorini.’ Audley hissed the inflated rank in his ear as Fred advanced past him. ‘Go on – go on!’ He pushed Fred forwards.

From within, the little room didn’t seem so bright as it had done from outside, in spite of its two pressure-lamps; and its typical temporary military furniture – two folding tables on thin metal legs, and two collapsible canvas chairs – somehow made it even emptier. One of the tables was furnished with a large typewriter and all the paraphernalia of its absent clerk – in-tray, out-tray, and a pile of files. And there were more files on the other table, which was set below the room’s single window – a curiously shaped opening, heavily latticed and set well above eye-level. But judging by this quantity of paperwork neither the adjutant nor his clerk would have much time for looking out of any window, thought Fred –certainly not if this was the load Colonel Colbourne’s band of brothers carried with it in the field, in a temporary billet.

‘Fattorini, my dear fellow – ’ Major de Souza came out of the shadows on his right, round the room’s only other piece of furniture, which Fred had missed at first glance ‘ –glad you could join us. Good of you to come.’

‘Sir.’ A trick of upwards-thrown light from one of the lamps distorted de Souza’s features unnaturally, almost diabolically. And Fred still couldn’t shake off the memory of what he had seen the dummy4

man doing the last and only time they had met. And ... a filing cabinet, for God’s sake! he thought, as he fumbled inside his tunic for his documentation.

‘Oh – never mind that! We can do the paperwork later.’

In the midst of all his paperwork, de Souza scorned the formalities, holding out his hand in friendship. ‘“Frederick” – ? David there says I should address you as “Fred”. But I can’t possibly do that.

Because . . . apart from the fact that I once had a cocker spaniel who answered to that name – albeit a most intelligent and affectionate beast . . . because, apart from that, we are accustomed to refer to our sovereign lord and master, the Brigadier, as

“Fred” ... so that would only be to confuse matters quite unbearably.’ He smiled devilishly. ‘So henceforth you are

“Freddie” – is that acceptable?’

He had to accept the hand, even though he knew what that hand had done once, and therefore must have done many times. And he also had to answer the man coolly and confidently, if he wasn’t to be despised. ‘Anything, so long as it isn’t “Fatty”, which I had to answer to all the way through prep school – perfectly acceptable, sir.’

‘“Amos”, Freddie. We’re all equals here.’ De Souza’s grip was firm and dry and strong – the best sort of handshake. ‘All, that is, except this young whippersnapper, temporary Captain Audley.’

The hand relaxed its grip. ‘Talking of whom . . . have you dealt with those transport problems, young David? Are the drivers properly briefed?’

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‘All except Hughie, Amos.’ Audley was quite unabashed. ‘Yes.’

‘Well, go and attend to him.’ Beneath the lazy drawl there was a sharp reef of concern. ‘I want no mistakes tonight – no unfortunate accidents, like last time: Apart from which ... I have a strong suspicion that our Fred himself may very well materialize out of the darkness up on the limes romanorum tonight. So we wouldn’t want anything less than maximum effort, would we, now? Eh, Captain Audley?’

There was a fractional pause before Audley replied. ‘It w-wasn’t my fault last time. It was the Croc who fucked things up, if you ask me, Amos – ’

‘But I’m not asking you, David. I am just making sure that you do not ... as you put it so delicately . . . “fuck things up” this time.

Right?’

Audley rocked slightly on his heels. ‘Yes, Amos.’

‘Thank you, David.’ Amos de Souza acknowledged the boy’s surrender quite deliberately, without mercy. ‘Now . . . Freddie . . .

we’re due in the mess in fifteen minutes, and Colonel Colbourne is a stickler for punctuality. But he expected you here earlier, so I’d better wheel you in to him right away, without more ado – right?’

He turned back to his desk for a moment, and a tiny beam of lamplight glinted on the rosette on his Military Cross ribbon: MC

and bar and the desert ribbon established Major de Souza as a sharp-end soldier in the past, whatever malignant fate had condemned him to do in Greece in the more recent past, and whatever he was doing in Germany now. Then he looked sideways, without straightening up, towards Audley. ‘I thought you dummy4

were going back to your horse-lines, dear boy – what’s keeping you?’

Audley stood his ground. ‘I w-w-w-was . . . j-j- just thinking, Amos –’

‘J-just thinking?’ De Souza straightened up. ‘Now, that’s half your trouble, young David: “j-just thinking” –eh?’ Then he shook his head. ‘All right! What have you been j-just thinking, then? Share the wisdom of the ages with us – go on!’

Audley opened his mouth, and then closed it as though he was nerving himself to control his stutter.

Major de Souza turned back to his desk, selecting a thin file from a pile of thicker ones before returning to Audley. ‘But now you’ve thought better of it? Which is probably j-just as well. Go – to the horse-lines, dear boy. You’ll be much safer doing your duty there.’

The young man drew a deep breath, which seemed to make him even bigger than he was. ‘You should tell him about the Colonel, Amos.’

‘Tell him what?’

Another breath. ‘That he’s a looney.’

Major de Souza looked at Audley for a long moment, and as the moment lengthened and with bitter experience of his own adjutants taking their job seriously, Fred braced himself for an explosion.

But the young man stood his ground, to the credit of his courage if not his intelligence, or his obstinacy if not his courage.

Then de Souza smiled, and shook his head, and finally laughed softly. ‘David, David, David . . . How many times do I have to tell dummy4

you, dear boy . . . that we’re all loonies here. If we weren’t loonies, we wouldn’t be here.’ He favoured Fred with a cynical twist of the lip. ‘So you go back to your horse-lines, David . . . and make sure all our transport is ready to move on H-Hour, like a good dragoon.

Because we don’t want any slip-ups this time. So ... move, Captain Audley.’

Audley moved. And Fred thought, as the hobnails on the young man’s boots scraped and skittered on the stone floor, that he would also have moved after that order from the adjutant. Particularly this adjutant.

‘Now then Freddie – ’ Major de Souza indicated the open doorway, out of which Audley had vanished ‘ – shall we go then?’

Fred let himself be shepherded out of the office, into the gathering gloom of the cloister.

‘To your left.’ But then de Souza closed the door behind him, and locked it carefully, turning a key-on-a-chain in a heavy padlock as Fred waited for him. And, as he waited, he drew into his nose a faint savoury cooking smell, which must have drifted from somewhere round the colonnaded square, because the steady downpour still glinted in the open space in its centre, and that would have damped down such smells.

‘He’s a good boy, is David.’ De Souza pointed their direction.

‘Very bright ... if he lives, he’ll go far, as they say . . . but quite out of his depth, I’m afraid.’

‘Yes?’ For a man who was supposed to know what he was about, Fred still felt nonplussed.

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‘Too young – far too young.’ De Souza led the way. ‘Fred – Fred, our lord and master ... he should never have lumbered us with him.

And Colonel Colbourne shouldn’t have accepted him.’ He stopped abruptly outside another door, and rapped his knuckles on it. This is men’s work. And boys aren’t up to it, no matter how bright they are – ‘

‘ Come!’ A high voice, almost querulous, invited them from the other side of the door.

‘A great pity, really.’ De Souza ignored the voice, staring at Fred in the light of a hurricane lamp hanging on a bracket on one of the pillars of the colonnade. This’ll spoil him. Because he can’t really understand what he’s doing. He’s got a scholarship waiting up at Cambridge. So ... he’s done his regimental bit, in Normandy ... so they should have let go of him.‘ He grasped the doorhandle. ’A pity – a great pity – ‘

‘Wait!’ There were so many questions which Fred couldn’t ask now that he didn’t know what to ask. He only knew that he didn’t want to go straight into that room.

‘What?’ De Souza stared at him.

‘ Come!’ The invitation was repeated.

A useless question surfaced. ‘What is this place?’

‘Huh! It’s a Roman fort.’ De Souza didn’t seem surprised. ‘A Roman auxiliary fort on the limes, in the Taunus, rebuilt by a rich German in the nineteenth century. The last unit to occupy this place, before us, was Cohors IV Britannorum Equitata, in the second century after the birth of Christ. Which makes us the dummy4

second British contingent up here, on the Taunus. Which is probably why we’re here now, actually – ’ The doorhandle rattled, and de Souza let go of it, and the door began to open.

‘Who’s that?’ The voice came out of the gap, still high-pitched, but irritated now.

‘It’s Amos, sir.’ De Souza stood back from the door. ‘Major Fattorini has just arrived. I’ve got him with me.’

The door opened wide, and de Souza sprang to attention and saluted as it did so. So Fred did the same, but not so smartly, because the Colonel was stark naked.

‘Whisper-whisper-whisper – huh!’ The Colonel waved a large sponge at them with his saluting hand, dripping water all round him. ‘What were you whispering about, Amos?’

‘I wasn’t whispering, sir.’ De Souza addressed his naked CO with cool deference. ‘I was merely explaining to Major Fattorini that this is a Roman fort.’

‘Yes?’ Colonel Colbourne lowered his sponge and peered at Fred.

‘Doesn’t he know a Roman fort when he sees one, then?’

‘I was explaining that the last British unit to be billeted here was Cohors IV Equitata.’ De Souza avoided answering this lunatic question with what Fred suspected was well-oiled adroitness.

The Colonel dropped Fred in preference for de Souza, raising his left arm and sponging his armpit as he did so. ‘There’s too much whispering going on, Amos. Whenever I come round a corner there are other ranks and NCOs whispering as though they’re bargaining with each other –as though they’re selling things . . .

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which they probably are. And I don’t like it. And I won’t have it. Is that understood?’

‘Yes, sir.’ De Souza paused. ‘I’ll tell them to speak up.’ He paused again. ‘So that we can hear what they’re selling. Right, sir.’

‘Good.’ The Colonel dropped de Souza this time. ‘Major Fattorini

– I know your aunt’s sister . . . Aunt-by-marriage, that would be?’

He began to sponge the lower part of his body absently. ‘An Armstrong – your aunt?’

Major de Souza kicked Fred’s leg quite painfully under cover of the shadows.

‘Yes, sir.’ The pain concentrated his mind. ‘My mother is an Armstrong.’

‘That’s right.’ Colonel Colbourne turned back to de Souza, shifting his weight so that he could sponge between his legs. ‘I know full well what they’re up to. And I know there’s precious little we can do about it – corrupt, and corrupted, they are – it’s the same with all armies of occupation – even though Mr Levin and I have hand picked them. And it’ll get worse before it gets better – if it ever does get better. But at least we can fire a shot over their heads ...

So you can post Sergeant Devenish, for a start. And see that it’s a Far East posting, too. That’ll frighten ’em, by God!‘

‘No sir.’ De Souza stood his ground. ‘Devenish is a good man.’

‘Tcha! I know he’s a good man – I chose him. But he’s also a whisperer. And Alec McCorquodale has complained about him.’

‘He also speaks tolerable German, sir. We need him.’

‘Huh! It’s because he speaks German that he’s up to no good!’

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Colbourne waved the sponge ‘ – Oh, all right –post someone else.

They’re all corrupt, so anyone will do.’ He looked at Fred suddenly. ‘Lydia Ferguson nee Armstrong – your mother’s sister?’

He sniffed. ‘A decent, respectable woman . . . but married to a wastrel husband. I handled her divorce. A dirty business, divorce always is. Give me a good murder any day.’ He invited Fred into his room with his sponge. ‘Come in, Freddie, come in!’

Fred thought: Audley was bloody-right!

And then he thought: If I have Audley to thank for this posting ... or whoever it may be . . . then Colonel Colbourne may soon have another murderer to defend before long, by Christ!

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‘Now then, Freddie – ’ The Colonel turned his back on them as he spoke, and stepped into a battered hip-bath ‘ –if you’ll allow me to complete my ablutions, eh?’ He bent down to dunk his sponge in the water.

‘Yes, sir.’ Faced with his commanding officer’s white buttocks, Fred chose to study the room instead, although there was little enough to study: it was much the same as the adjutant’s office, with its single unnaturally high-up latticed window, and apart from the hip-bath its sole contents consisted of a camp-bed with the Colonel’s clothing neatly laid out on it, and a battered metal trunk on which a pressure-lamp hissed away softly. So the Colonel dummy4

clearly wasn’t a believer in creature comforts, he thought disconsolately.

‘So you’re a friend of young Audley’s – is that the case?’ The Colonel gyrated under a cascade of water squeezed from his sponge.

‘No, sir.’ That was not the case in more senses than one at this precise moment. ‘He was at school with my younger brother, I believe.’

‘Mmmm. But you are acquainted with him, are you not?’ The Colonel stepped out of the hip-bath on to the cold stone floor without a hint of hesitation, into a large puddle which he must have left when he’d gone to investigate the whisperers outside his door.

‘I have met him once.’ The atmosphere in the room was cold and dank, to match its musty, unoccupied smell. And Fred suspected that it was a cold bath which the Colonel was enjoying so inhumanly.

‘Just once?’ The Colonel pointed to the camp-bed. ‘Would you be so good as to hand me that towel?’

‘Yes.’ The towel was rough as sandpaper.

‘In Greece? Thank you.’ The Colonel began to towel himself vigorously. ‘In Greece?’

‘Yes.’ If, as Driver Hewitt and the Colonel himself had suggested, Colonel Colbourne had practised law before the war, then this was a cross-examination, he began to suspect. But why?

‘Good.’ The Colonel nodded in de Souza’s direction. ‘Any friend of young Audley’s might be one too many for us – eh, Amos?’

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For a moment de Souza didn’t answer. ‘Sir?’ He paused for a second, almost as though he hadn’t heard the question. ‘Captain Audley does his job well, sir. He’s just somewhat younger than the rest of us, that’s all.’

‘Huh!’ Colbourne folded his towel carefully and placed it on the edge of his hip-bath. ‘But you are a friend of Colonel Michaelides, are you not?’

The question came out of the gloom unexpectedly, just as Fred was watching the towel slide down the side of the bath into the water.

‘Sir – ? Yes ... I am a friend of Colonel Michaelides.’ It was a cross-examination. But the cross-examiner knew too-damn-many answers to his questions already. So it was time to have all his wits around him. And his wits’ first requirement was that he must counter-question. ‘Are you a friend of Colonel Michaelides, sir?’

‘Eh?’ The question took the Colonel off-balance.

‘I said . . . are you a friend of Colonel Michaelides, sir?’ It was easier to study his naked commanding officer now that he was neither standing in the ill-lit doorway nor presenting his arse and twisting under his sponge: the upwards-directed light distorted his features, but he had a good, well-muscled hairy body – light-heavyweight . . . with the familiar distribution of tanned and untanned skin which Fred had observed among his own men in Italy and Greece, before they had had time to sunbathe peacefully.

So that meant the Colonel had put in six years of open-air living, but hadn’t enjoyed any Mediterranean service in recent months, to spread that sunburn uniformly.

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Major de Souza gave a little dry cough. ‘They’ll be waiting for us in the mess, sir ... quite soon.’

‘Yes.’ The Colonel continued to stare at Fred. ‘Ah . . . you go on, Amos.’

‘Sir?’

‘I said . . .’ The continued stare began to worry Fred, as it occurred to him that he had unwisely crossed swords with an expert ‘. . . you heard me, Amos. Go on!’

‘Yes.’ But de Souza didn’t move. ‘I was going to introduce . . .

Freddie ... to the rest of them. That’s all.’

Fred suddenly knew perfectly what was happening. Adjutants were usually creatures of colonels, quite properly. But adjutants weren’t usually majors, and this wasn’t any sort of usual unit, so Major de Souza wasn’t a usual adjutant: he was a rescuer of junior officers in adversity, from whatever fate-worse-than-death awaited them –

whether their name was Audley or Fattorini. . . And that might be because it was peacetime, at least here in Germany, and he didn’t give a damn; or it might be because he disliked Colonel Colbourne, and still didn’t give a damn – for colonels, or Germans, or ELAS

andartes, or anyone. Because that was Amos de Souza’s pleasure.

‘We’ve got one of your pigs tonight, sir.’ De Souza’s most casual voice was stretched to breaking point, it was so thin. ‘And that ham of Otto’s too.’

‘Thank you, Amos.’ The Colonel’s quick reply was polite on the surface, but equally stretched beneath. So he also knew what was happening. ‘And we have work to do tonight. I had not forgotten.’

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‘No. Of course not, sir.’ Like a good soldier who had fought to his last round, de Souza surrendered quickly to save his life. ‘With your permission, I’ll withdraw, then.’

‘You do that.’ The Colonel sounded only partially mollified.

Thank you, sir.‘ De Souza turned away. ’I’ll see you in the mess shortly then, Freddie. It’s just up the colonnade – ‘

‘ Thank you, Major de Souza.’ This time the Colonel imposed his will as nakedly as his person. “That will be all for now.‘

As de Souza withdrew, Fred reviewed his position. The adjutant had bought him time with his obstinacy, but he didn’t quite know how to spend it because he had only the haziest idea of the internal politics of this unhappy unit, with its mad commanding officer who was evidently at odds with his own adjutant, never mind young Audley; and in itself that was confusing, because every commanding officer he had ever served under had soon got rid of those officers whose faces and attitudes didn’t fit. But then . . . but then if this was somehow the same bunch he’d fallen in with, by sheer bad luck, that day long ago in Greece ... if it was . . . then he had to start thinking hard and fast, not about them but about himself.

‘ Not good honest soldiers, like we were in Italy,’ Kyri had reiterated afterwards, carefully glossing over his own change-of-role. ‘ Those were hunters, old boy – a new breed. And if you’ll take my advice, you stay well clear of them, Captain Fattorini, my friend.’

‘Well now, Major Fattorini – ’ While Fred had been thinking, dummy4

Colonel Colbourne had put on his socks, which made him look ridiculous, as he had never quite looked when he was stark bollock naked and unashamed ‘ –“Freddie”, is it? Or “Fred”? I thought it was “Fred”.’

There was something worrying there, too. Because that special knowledge of ‘Fred’ fed his suspicion that the Colonel might know much more about him than was enshrined in the routine military record-of-service, fitness reports and details of next-of-kin he must have received. And because that irritated him, as well as worrying him, Fred felt bloody-minded resistance stir within him, against all common sense and experience and better judgement.

‘ “Freddie”, will do, sir.’ Until de Souza had arbitrarily re-named him a few minutes ago he had never been called ‘Freddie’ in his whole life. But if Colonel Colbourne thought he was better-informed, then maybe this was the moment to unsettle his reliance on his sources. ‘It’s of no consequence to me.’

‘Is that a fact?’ The Colonel shook out his shirt, and began to unbutton it. ‘Young Audley says you’re more commonly “Fred”.

And although his behaviour is somewhat unreliable, his historical facts are usually to be relied upon.’

It seemed extraordinary to Fred that he had come through his years of war in order to argue the diminutive of his Christian name with a madman in a Roman fort in Germany. But then he remembered the madman’s civilian background. And, if he was right about that, then he must allow the madman some latitude in cross-examination of the facts . . . especially as the madman was right, and he himself was lying through his teeth.

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But meanwhile he was saved for a moment, while the Colonel struggled himself into his shirt. Which, like his own, was American-army issue, of the most luxurious and desirable sort.

Audley, of course, had been the source of ‘Fred’, damn it! And damn David Audley too, if he had David Audley to thank for this posting! But that American shirt suddenly became a gift, offering him a line of counter-attack. ‘I have a message for you, sir ...

actually,’ he addressed the hooded figure, which was still naked from the waist to the socks.

‘What’s that – ?’ The statement caught the Colonel in mid-struggle, with one arm raised vertically and his head poking out of the collar because he hadn’t bothered to unbutton his shirt all the way down, but had treated it like a British army garment ‘ – a message?’

‘I am to thank you for the pig.’ Ever since de Souza had mentioned pigs – ‘ one of your pigs’, indeed – the pig had been squealing in the background of his mind, he realized now. Only, he had been slow to listen to it. ‘There was this American officer who met me on the airfield, sir. I’m afraid I didn’t get his name.’ Fred adjusted his voice to his situation: he must seem deferential, but ever-so-slightly embarrassed. ‘He was most helpful ... in getting me through the formalities.’ That was enough. ‘But he said ... he said, I was to thank you for the pig. And . . . whatever you wanted, if you’d got more pigs, then he’s got more aircraft . . . sir.’

‘Hah . . . hmmm!’ The Colonel pulled down his shirt. ‘Thank you, Freddie.’

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‘Yes, sir.’ said Fred.

‘Pigs!’ The Colonel lilfted his chin in order to button-up his shirt.

‘It wasn’t a pig – that’s damned slander.’

‘Yes, sir?’ Whatever the animal was, it had given him an edge, Fred thought exultantly. ‘It wasn’t a pig – ?’

‘ Fattorini – eh?’ The Colonel’s eye had fixed on him now.

‘Merchant bankers, right?’ Without unfixing his eye he snatched a tie from his bed. ‘ “Armstrong Fattorini Brothers”?’

‘Yes, sir.’ This had always been where the cross-examination had been going. But if Colonel Colbourne had conducted Aunt Lydia’s divorce he would undoubtedly know all about Armstrong Fattorini ... if only to adjust the size of his fee. So what else did he want?

‘Armstrong.’ The Colonel examined his underpants critically. ‘An old Scottish border family of brigands and bandits, turned merchant bankers when the old ways became unprofitable – a natural enough progression. Who was it said “better to found a bank than rob one”?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Fred decided that he wouldn’t let the plain truth ruffle him.

‘And Fattorini.’ The underpants passed their test. So now it was the turn of the trousers. ‘Anglo-Italian. Late 18th century vintage – not to be confused with the distinguished watch-making family of the same name.’ Colonel Colbourne balanced himself on one hairy leg without looking at Fred. ‘ Your Fattorinis . . . smugglers, weren’t they? “Brandy for the parson, letters for a spy”, eh?’

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That was interesting: the Colonel had evidently done his homework on the family’s history as well as on its modern creditworthiness. ‘I gather we were much the same as the Armstrongs, sir. Bandits, then bankers. And lawyers.’

Colbourne looked up at him, one leg trousered. ‘Luke Fattorini – or Sir Luke, as I should call him now . . . your uncle, he would be, I take it?’

‘Yes, sir.’ The man knew damn well. But somehow the mention of Uncle Luke strengthened his confidence. In times of adversity, ever since Father’s death, Uncle Luke had always been a powerful and wise ally.

‘Clever man.’ Colbourne sniffed as be began to put on his glittering brown boots. ‘Influential, too . . . Dealt with that wastrel Ferguson – Captain the Honourable whatever-he-was – your aunt’s husband – he thought he had influence in high places . . . and so he did. But your Uncle Luke had more influence in higher places.

And he knew how to use it too. So we took Captain the Honourable for a settlement that made his eyeballs pop, between us . . .’ The Colonel straightened up, and reached for his battledress blouse. ‘Clever man – yes!’

There was a DSO among the Colonel’s ribbons. But that didn’t equal de Souza’s double-MC: it could have come up with the rations in the Judge Advocate’s department, even when teamed with the desert medal of the 8th Army – there had been more than a few undeserved DSOs wandering around Cairo and Alexandria in the bad old days before Monty, so it was said.

‘Yes.’ The Colonel tightened the belt of his blouse. ‘And you were dummy4

in Italy, before Greece?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Now he was on safe ground. ‘4th Division.’

‘A very good division, too.’ Colbourne looked down suddenly.

‘How’s that hand of yours? Crushed under one of those bridges of yours, was it – ?’

‘It’s much better, sir.’ Praise of the 4th Div had momentarily weakened Fred’s critical faculty. But now caution reasserted itself.

‘I was lucky.’

‘You were?’ The Colonel’s lack of further interest showed that he didn’t know much about the hazards of Bailey bridging. ‘Did you see many Roman bridges in Italy?’

Fred felt his mouth open. ‘Roman – ?’

‘Bridges. They built damn good bridges.’ Colbourne’s eyes glittered in the lamplight. ‘Good military bridges, too – don’t you recall Caesar’s bridge across the Rhine? Don’t you sappers know your history?’ The man’s face creased into what the lamplight made into a diabolical frown. ‘And you were up at Oxford before the war, so you must know your Gallic War, for heaven’s sake!’

‘But I read – mathematics, sir.’ Fred began by snapping back, tired of saying, ‘Yes, sir’. But then that fanatical glint warned him, like the glint of metal on a roadside verge which betrayed the mine beneath it. ‘I did know a chap in Italy, though ... he was an expert on ... Roman remains.’

‘Yes?’ Suddenly, and for the first time, he had all Colonel Colbourne’s attention. ‘Who was that, then?’

Fred had to search for the name. ‘Bradford, sir.’

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‘Bradford – ?’ Frown. ‘What regiment?’

‘No regiment.’ Now he knew he was on a winner. ‘He was RAF

photographic reconnaissance and interpretation.’

“Ahhh!‘ Colbourne beamed at him. ’ That Bradford – of course!

How stupid of me! John Bradford – Flight Lieutenant . . . Roman centuration and Etruscan tombs – met him last year. Disciple of O.

G.S. Crawford’s – next generation of aerial archaeology. Another clever fellow – yes?

‘Yes, sir.’ All Fred could recall (and then only vaguely) was the young RAF man’s 50-50 enthusiasm for German defensive activity at the mouth of the Tiber and incidental photographs he had acquired which also betrayed the town plan of the abandoned old Roman city of Ostia. ‘He had some very interesting pictures, I believe.’

‘Yes. Quite remarkable, his pictures – very fine. Never seen such eloquent testimony of the way the Roman field-systems continued.’ The Colonel’s voice was animated by something of the RAF intelligence officer’s enthusiasm. ‘Bit too taken up with the Etruscans, for my taste – a rum lot, the Etruscans. Like the damned Greeks.’ He frowned at Fred suddenly. ‘I wonder what he’s doing now.’

‘Sir?’ For a moment Fred thought that the latest frown was directed at him, and closed his open mouth smartly. But then he saw that the question was self-directed, and the Colonel wasn’t really looking at him at all. ‘You mean Flight-Lieutenant Bradford – ?’

‘Ye-ess ... I wonder whether we could get him up here, come dummy4

autumn, when the leaves are off the trees.’

The frown went clear through Fred. ‘No problem with the equipment – the Yanks can take care of that, even if the RAF can’t.

It might not produce anything . . . probably wouldn’t.’ The intensity of the pale eyes was most disconcerting. ‘But if Varus did build a marching camp – just one marching camp, mind you – just one . . . somewhere on the middle Weser or the upper Lippe.’ Nod.

‘In fact, we could draw an arc from Moguntiacum to Castra Vetera, coming back through Detmold, and try that for a start . . . And Bradford would be the very man to spot the slightest sign of one –

he’d know a Roman marching camp from an iron age enclosure at a glance – at a glance!’ The eyes focused on Fred, with a fierce yellow lamp-light glint in them. ‘Good man, Major Fattorini –

Freddie! I hadn’t thought of that – stupid of me, but I hadn’t! Air photography, by God! Should have thought of that, by God!’ He smacked his fist decisively into his other palm. ‘Yes. I suppose I could ask the RAF – in fact, they’ve probably got a million pictures of the whole area, full of bomb craters miles from the target . . . Detmold was quite well-bombed, as I recall – Luftwaffe station not too far away, I think . . . But it would be easier to borrow a pilot and a plane from the Yanks. They’ve got the planes and the pilots–yes.’

And you’ve got the pigs, thought Fred, utterly disorientated by this new and irrational turn of an interview which had never made much sense. But then, if the Colonel wanted to give him credit for a chance remark he might as well claim it while he could. ‘Flight-Lieutenant Bradford was an extremely competent interpreter, as I dummy4

recall, sir.’

‘Yes, you’re absolutely right, Freddie.’ The Colonel seemed to have forgotten that he’d said as much himself, in his enthusiasm.

‘Good man!’ He nodded. ‘You’ll do –you’ll do, by God!’

Fred saw his chance at last, in a flash. ‘Do what, sir?’

‘What?’ Colbourne was still staring down from a great height inside his brain, at – what was it? Marching camps – ? Somewhere on the middle of the Weser or the upper Lippe – ‘What?’

‘Do what, sir?’ The Weser was a German river. In fact, it was the German river into which the Pied Piper of Hamelin had piped all the rats, before he’d piped away all the children. So the Lippe was probably another German river – another Rhine tributary. But what the bloody hell was a marching camp! ‘You said ... I’d do.’ He mustn’t lose his temper. Not with his new commanding officer. ‘I was merely wondering why you wanted an officer of engineers, Colonel Colbourne. My posting orders were not precise on the point.’

Colbourne blinked at him, as though at a fool. ‘They weren’t – ?

No . . . well, of course, they wouldn’t have been – would they.’ He gestured towards the door. ‘But we’re late, so let’s go ... You ask Amos – Major de Souza, whom you’ve met. . . Come on, come on

– ’

Fred started to move, but then stopped automatically, to give his Commanding Officer precedence. Colbourne also started to move, but then stopped, and faced him. ‘Or you could ask young Audley

– he’ll tell you if you ask him, later tonight. Can’t talk shop in the dummy4

mess . . . but you’ll be with him tonight afterwards, and you’ll have plenty of time then, I don’t doubt – go on, man, go on!’

Fred gave up, and went ahead, out into the feeble glow of the hanging lantern, not knowing where he was going and almost without hope, but remembering the ORs’ favourite litany as he did so: ‘ Roll on death – demob’s bound to be a failure!’

‘Left, left – towards the light there – ’ Colonel Colbourne pointed down the pillared cloister ‘ – but don’t believe all he says, eh?’

The pillars were unreal: only the utter darkness beyond them – a darkness emphasized by the flashed reflection of the occasional raindrop out of the millions which were falling in the open square outside the pillars – only that darkness was real: Colbourne wasn’t real either, and Audley was a nightmare from the past . . . and the allegation that this was a Roman fortress set the seal on them both.

‘All my officers are mad, quite mad,’ Colbourne confided, from just behind him.

Kaiserburg, he had been thinking. But now Colonel Colbourne and Captain Audley were in total agreement –

‘Quite mad.’ Colbourne agreed with himself. ‘In any sort of military sense . . . almost unemployable, in fact.’

The Kaiser’s Burg, Fred applied himself to his original thought, unwilling to let Colbourne and Audley agree with each other. But perhaps that wasn’t Kaiser Wilhelm’s Castle: perhaps it was Castra Caesaris . . . or would it be ‘Castrum’ Caesaris – ?

‘But as a sapper you’ll have no trouble with them – ’ Colbourne touched his arm ‘ – round the corner, then on your left there.’

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He was exhausted, and filthy, and he wanted a pee. But if that was the officers’ mess, he needed a drink, and a strong one, and a large one even more urgently.

‘And then . . . the Brigadier wouldn’t have asked for you if he didn’t think you were suitable – mmm?’ The Colonel rumbled question-and-answer in the back of his throat. ‘In fact, he said – Ah Amos! There you are!’

Major de Souza appeared in the wide double-doorway. ‘Gus!

You’re damned late for dinner. Your pig has been crying out for you – and so has Otto, actually.’

‘I’m sorry, old boy – I really am.’ The Colonel would have pushed past if Fred hadn’t already been trying to get out of the way. ‘But look here – I want you to get on to the RAF – try Wing Commander Fraser first, at Minden, he’ll know who to get on to ...

You remember him?’

‘I remember him.’ De Souza winced slightly. ‘But what do you want, Gus?’ He rolled an eye at Fred, sympathetically. ‘Can’t it wait?’

‘Air photography, Amos – what about that, eh – ?’

‘Air photography?’ De Souza abandoned Fred, expressionless now.

‘What about air photography?’

‘It’s the answer to all our problems.’ Colbourne lifted a tumbler off a silver tray which had materialized out of the darkness at his elbow, held by a white-gloved hand on the end of a disembodied white-coated arm, without taking his eyes off Amos. ‘Got it off Freddie here – he’s a friend of John Bradford’s. Very clever young dummy4

man.’

‘I never doubted it.’ Amos misunderstood the reference suavely.

‘But I haven’t got any problems, that I am aware of. Except in the matter of demobilization, that is. And who the hell is John Bradford?’ he looked sideways quickly. ‘Otto! Where is Major Fattorini’s drink?’

‘Herr Major!’ The disembodied arm acquired a substantial body –

an immaculately white-coated body topped by a beaming red-brick face slashed diagonally by a line holding a black eye-patch in place. ‘Herr Major! My most profound apologies! What is your pleasure?’

‘I didn’t mean Freddie, Amos,’ snapped Colbourne.

‘He’s not a clever fellow?’ Amos simulated surprise. ‘I rather thought he was. Oxford degree, and all that – and a better one than yours, Gus, actually . . . Mathematics was it, Freddie? Are you a musician too? They say music goes with maths, don’t they?’

Fred was caught once again with his mouth open, midway between the piratical Otto and the baffling proximity of his Commanding Officer, and Amos de Souza’s transformed behaviour, and all the questions which had suddenly been directed at him.

‘Good God, Amos! Let the poor man order his drink, damn it! First things first – eh, Freddie?’ Colbourne seemed oblivious of Amos’s scorn. ‘You order your drink – and you come away with me, Amos, and I’ll tell you all about young Bradford . . .’ As he trailed off, the Colonel raised his head and stared into the encircling lamp-lit gloom in a series of jerky movements, as though he was dummy4

searching for something. ‘Where is young David? He’s never there when I want him . . . where the devil is he–?’

De Souza turned slightly, ‘ David!’

A huge presence loomed from behind the one-eyed Otto. ‘You c-called, Amos?’

‘Look after your friend.’ De Souza returned his attention to the Colonel as he spoke. ‘Get him a drink and introduce him to everyone . . . Now, Gus . . . you just tell me all about this John Bradford of yours . . . and about air photography – right?’ He pointed into the gloom.

‘Herr Major – ’ One-eyed Otto tried desperately to catch Amos’s attention.

‘Gently, Otto, gently! Your pig will just have to keep . . . Gus – ?’

De Souza’s hand shrugged off Otto and directed his Commanding Officer in a flowing double-gesture. ‘Just give us a few minutes.’

Mess rules, Fred decided belatedly: outside wherever the mess happened to be Colonel Colbourne was God Almighty; but one inch over the threshold of the mess he was primus inter pares –

just another officer, who talked military shop at his peril. And since he made the rules, those were the goddamn rules.

‘Don’t w-worry, Otto!’ Audley wound a great arm round the white-coated pirate familiarly. ‘Your pig won’t run away squealing. More like, his crackling will c-c-crackle even better!’

‘Ach! He will crackle all right – he will crackle all through, is what he will do! But where will all his good juices go? Up the fucking chimney, I tell you, Captain David – up the fucking chimney!’ One-dummy4

eyed Otto rounded on Audley angrily.

‘Well I like my meat overdone. Better a burnt sacrifice than one bloody offering, any day.’

‘So?’ Otto almost accepted this reassurance, but then rejected it.

‘But you are a child – you know no better.’ He shook his head at Audley. ‘The war has ruined you: you think you have won . . . but the truth is, you have lost.’ The shake continued for a moment, and then became a shrug. ‘We have all lost – that is the truth!’

‘No.’ Audley shook his head back at the man. ‘ You have lost – and the Yanks and the Russians have won –remember?’

Otto brought both hands – white-gloved hands – in front of him, chest high and clenched. ‘But they don’t have my pig.’

‘But the Colonel won’t blame you, Otto – he won’t know, will he?’

Audley matched Otto’s gesture, except that his big hands were unclenched and placatory, as though he was trying to sell the over-cooked pig.

‘Fuck the Colonel! It is my pig – and I know!’ Otto looked up at Audley. ‘And he was a good one – he deserves better, Captain David.’

Audley nodded seriously. ‘Fuck the Colonel – I quite agree: a very p-p-p-proper sentiment. But – ’ Suddenly he became aware of Fred, and clapped his hand to his mouth, looking from Otto to Fred, and then back again ‘ – b-but, hadn’t you better offer Herr Major Fattorini a drink, like you were ordered to – ?’

‘Ach, du lieber Gott!’ Otto faced Fred, open-mouthed. ‘Sir?’

‘What would you like?’ Audley moved into the instant of silence.

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It took Fred another second to gather his wits. ‘What have you got?’

Audley grinned. ‘You name it – we’ve got it. Except ... if you’ve acquired a taste for that dreadful Greek retsina . . . and we’re not actually very good on Italian wines, either.’ He paused. ‘Bordeaux and Burgundy . . . we have some unconsidered trifles, which are almost settled down now. But we shall be offering them with Otto’s pig. And I would personally recommend the Haul Brion, rather than the lighter clarets. But, then, I am not a Burgundy man

– Otto thinks that is a sign of callow youth, but it’s still my opinion

– right, Otto?’

Otto spread his hands. ‘The Haul Brion is superb.’

‘Ex-Luftwaffe Haut Brion.’ Audley nodded. ‘But we’ve also got some delectable Hocks and Moselles – very refreshing and invigorating. And you can still have the Haut Brion with the pig – ’

He looked towards Otto ‘ – and with the deer ham before, maybe?

Would that be okay, Otto?’

But Otto was staring at Fred. ‘I think the Herr Major may be thinking of something stronger at this moment.’

Christ! The Herr Major was thinking of anything! thought Fred, despairingly.

‘Well ... if it’s a sherry, we have it.’ Another Audley nod. “The most delicate dry sherry – also courtesy of the Luftwaffe . . . and presumably, General Franco – ‘

‘We have whisky.’ Otto knew his man better. ‘Ration Red Label and VAT 69. Black Label. Single Malt – and an Islay Malt, which dummy4

is good. And good gin, Booth’s and Gordon’s – ’ He stopped suddenly. ‘And we have also Tennessee whiskey, of Jack Daniel.

And several other American whiskies. And rum from Puerto Rico and Cuba, as well as Jamaica. But only a little Trinidad rum, I regret.’

‘Yes. That’s because the Crocodile likes it. So you’d better lay off that,’ agreed Audley hastily. ‘But brandy, of course. And a whole lot of Russian vodkas, of varying toxicity . . . which I wouldn’t actually recommend. And a whole lot of other things – just try us, and see – okay?’

Curiosity was great. But thirst was greater. ‘I’ll have a large Black Label – as soon as possible, please.’ Fred looked around. There were other officers in the gloom, but as Audley wasn’t trying to introduce them he’d better let that go. ‘You don’t travel light then?

Alcoholically speaking.’

‘No, we don’t.’ Audley grinned happily. ‘We inherited all the contents of the Schwartzenburg cellars, and it was a Luftwaffe headquarters. And we’re a very small unit, you see ... So the aim is to drink the place dry by New Year’s Day, 1946.’

Fred started to think Audley wasn’t stuttering. But then Otto materialized at his elbow, with his silver tray again, and a glass on it.

‘Thank you.’ The glass was large and heavy, and there was a lot in it.

‘We have no ice. But you would not have wanted that.’ Otto bowed slightly. ‘If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen – ?’

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‘Go on, Otto, go on.’ Audley waved at the man. ‘Just make sure you keep the Crocodile’s glass full, that’s all –I want him in a benign mood this evening.’

‘Because of the injury to his car?’ Otto checked, and nodded.

‘Yes?’

‘Oh, you know, do you? But of course you do!’ Audley leaned towards Fred. ‘All is known to Otto – Otto knows everything. Otto can get you anything – isn’t that true, Otto?’

‘Have no fear.’ Otto raised a white-gloved hand. ‘The master has been well-attended.’ He bowed to Audley and backed away into the gloom again.

‘Yes, I don’t doubt.’ Audley watched the white coat disappear before turning back to Fred. ‘Otto likes Hughie – they’re thick as thieves. Which, of course, is what they both are. So they recognize the other’s worth . . . Amazing, really, when you think about it.’

‘Amazing?’ Somehow, Fred didn’t think Audley was referring to the Otto-Hughie entente, from the way he spoke. ‘What is?’