A New Kind of War

Because he hasn’t had a proper kip since he left the isles of Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sang

–’ He swung back towards Hewitt as he spoke ‘ –

right?’

dummy4

‘Sir!’ Driver Hewitt’s wizened monkey-face remained impassive, but he infused the acknowledgement with the weariness of the old soldier long-accustomed to being patronized and talked-down-to by young officers who didn’t know any better, but who were nonetheless useful to him.

‘Good.’ Such implicit wisdom was lost on Audley.

‘Well, Fred ... I suppose I must go to receive my wigging from the headmaster. And you’d better wish me something better than the best of British luck now.

Because I expect Busy-Izzy has sneaked to him about us both by now ... So I expect it’s the 14th Army for me – Burma, here I come – !’

They both watched the young dragoon depart, slouched for the first few steps – however had he fitted all those long bones into a tank? wondered Fred; but at least he wasn’t still carrying his umbrella to judgement! – and then suddenly straighten up as though he felt their eyes on him – shoulders back! Swing those arms! Go take your medicine, David Audley!

Driver Hewitt chuckled throatily beside him, below him. And then checked the chuckle, turning it into a controlled cough, and swallowed the sound and the phlegm together.

‘What was that, Hewitt?’ In any sort of conventional unit, Driver Hewitt’s considered opinions wouldn’t have mattered. But this was not any sort of dummy4

conventional unit, and it was quite outside his military experience. For a start, it seemed to have more chiefs than Indians . . .or, as a private soldier of the Royal Army Service Corps, Driver Hewitt was an exception to the rule which had promoted both Audley and himself, anyway. ‘What was that you said – ?’

Driver Hewitt swallowed again, suggesting to Fred that in the absence of Major Fattorini he would have cleared his throat and spat. ‘Nothing – sir!’

The little man’s sudden diplomacy, in contradiction to his chuckle and when taken with his lack of promotion, convinced Fred that he needed Driver Hewitt on his side, if not Colonel Colbourne and RSM Levin, if he was ever to discover what was happening: but also (what he had on his side, which he surely didn’t have with the Colonel and the RSM) he had a moment’s choice – whether to pull rank (because presumably, he could make Hewitt’s life hell now), or ingratiate himself (as he had never done before with an Other Rank; but he had never been in this peculiar situation before) –

‘He’s a caution – Mr Audley is! Or . . . Captain Audley, as I should say now . . . sir.’ Hewitt confided in him suddenly.

‘A caution!’ Fred took Driver Hewitt’s gift of confidence in him as an Understanding Officer as his cue, breaking all the established rules. ‘Come on, dummy4

Hughie –how is he “a caution”, eh?’

The Hewitt eye rolled at him again, but this time appraising him much more shrewdly for a moment, and then blanking out. ‘You ’ad some trouble last night, after I put you orf in the middle of nowhere – yes, sir?‘

Men like Hewitt always knew everything, so there was no harm in admitting the truth. ‘We took a prisoner, though.’

‘So you did! An’ I saw Jacko Devenish wiv ‘im, wiv a blanket over ’is ‘ead – fair enough!’ Hewitt agreed quickly. ‘But I also ’eard tell there was a man shot down right in front uv you – ain’t that the truth – so you lost one of ‘em again?’

Not quite everything, then. ‘Again?’

‘Aye! Jus’ like the last time!’ Hewitt looked up at him unblinkingly. ‘An’ Mr Audley got a rollicking for that, too . . . Though it weren’t ‘is fault, as I can testify.

’Cause I were there that time, sir.‘

There was one hell of a lot he didn’t know about Colonel Colbourne’s operations, thought Fred bitterly.

But then he remembered Greece, and the indirect road to Delphi. ‘Do you mean ... in Greece, Hughie?’

‘In Greece – ?’ Driver Hewitt looked around shiftily, as though he had momentarily forgotten where he was.

‘Yes – in Greece, that would be – like you said.’ When the look reached Fred again it had become one of dummy4

pristine innocence. ‘But we ought to be goin’ now – if you want to get your ‘ead down, like Mr Audley an’

the adjutant wants you to, eh?‘

This wasn’t the moment to push his luck, Fred decided

– not only because Driver Hewitt wasn’t quite ready to be pushed, but also because there were engines revving up along the double line of transport which had gathered here, coming both from the hunting lodge and the Roman fort: Colonel Colbourne’s command was now united and in retreat, out of the American Zone and into somewhere safer, that engine-noise indicated.

‘Of course!’ He stretched his shoulders and yawned theatrically. But then, as he did so, he also saw his opening instinctively: either from self-interest or inclination, Driver Hewitt was David Audley’s man, so that was his way in. ‘But . . . you’re sure there’s nothing we can do to help Captain Audley – ?’

‘Captain Audley?’ Driver Hewitt glanced down the line. ‘Cor! You don’t need to worry about ’em! ‘E’s as artful as a cartload uv monkeys when ’e’s up against it . . . an‘ . . . ’ e’s also a friend uv the Brigadier’s –

Brigadier Clinton hisself!‘ Driver Hewitt accompanied that last confidence with a shameless theatrical wink as he started to follow his own finger. “E was born to be

’anged – not posted!‘

Well . . . there was the truth, pure and unvarnished as only an RASC driver could impart it, thought Fred: the dummy4

anomaly of young Audley’s presence here, among his elders and betters, could be explained as simply as that: he had influence!

‘Come on, then!’ Driver Hewitt gestured urgently, and disappeared in a gap between two of the vehicles.

Fred skipped after him smartly into the gap as he observed the reason for the little man’s urgency aproaching in the distance: Colonel Colbourne was waving a finger at Captain Audley (who for once seemed to be keeping his mouth shut), with the RSM

just behind them. And he felt a slight pang of conscience as he did so, but then allowed himself to be consoled by Driver Hewitt’s judgement of the young man’s ability to defend himself, added to the boy’s special relationship with Brigadier Clinton. And besides, as a new boy himself, what could he do, anyway?

More engines started up – and Hewitt was beckoning him into another gap – and there, sure enough, was another argument in progress: he glimpsed Major McCorquodale addressing an imperturbable Amos de Souza while (so it seemed) shaking his fist at Otto Schild, at the adjutant’s shoulder, and a Schild now British from the waist down, in battle-dress trousers, boots and gaiters, and German from the waist up, in a badgeless Wehrmacht jacket and forage cap. Better to avoid that encounter, too– !

dummy4

On the furthest side of the two lines of vehicles, under the dripping branches (and, presumably, discreetly avoiding both those disagreements), there were several other officers, whom he vaguely remembered from the night before, and two or three NCOs beside their transport.

‘Mornin’ Freddie – ‘ and ’Hullo there, Freddie – ‘ –

they seemed to know him better than he knew them; and the NCOs straightened up as he passed them; and the smartness of everyone’s turn-out made him feel crumpled and shabby: what was not least tantalizing about this unit was its mixture of extreme eccentricity and positively regimental smartness – even little Hewitt was marching stiff and straight ahead of him now, as though on a parade-ground – and that, with an RASC old sweat, was a commentary on Mr Levin’s standards which aroused admiration and incredulity equally.

‘ ’Ere we are!‘ Hewitt presented Captain Audley’s vehicle without a hint of apology. ’It don’t look much.

But it’s what they call in the motor trade “a nice little runner”.‘

What struck Fred first was the question of how Captain Audley ever fitted himself into such a small car; although, to be fair, the fact that it was parked in long summer grass which almost came up to its windows, and between two monstrous ten-tonners which dummy4

diminished it further, belittled it cruelly.

‘It’s what Jerry called “The People’s Car”.’ Driver Hewitt patted the little car’s sloping bonnet through the grass. ‘Before the war Hitler promised ’em they’d all

‘ave one like this – an’ took their money. But uv course

‘e didn’t divvy up – ’e just took their money an‘

scarpered wiv it. An’ what you’ve probably seen is the army version, what they called a “kooblewaggon”, wiv no top to it – ‘ He looked up at Fred ’ – like, it was their Jeep, wot the Yanks give us – ‘ He returned to the car, patting its sloping roof affectionately ’ – but this is the real thing, like a proper car. An‘ Major M’Crocodile sez this is one uv the very first wot they built, the Jerries did – ’ Pat-pat ‘ – wiv a lovely little air-cooled engine in the back, ’orizontally-opposed, what starts up a treat, no matter ‘ow ’ot or ‘ow cold it is ... A little bloody marvel, is what this is ... If you can get inside it, that is: we ’ave to take a shoe-‘orn to get Mister David in it, if there’s anyone in the back there –

wiv ’is knees up under ‘is chin. But ’e likes it, all the same, ‘e does.’

Fred bent down to look inside. ‘He does – ?’

‘But we ain’t takin’ anyone in the back,‘ Driver Hewitt reassured him quickly. That’s Mister David’s – Captain Audley’s – kit in there. An’ yours too – all cleaned an‘

pressed by Trooper Lucy last night, while you were busy –don’t you worry, sir!’ Now he looked Fred up dummy4

and down critically. ‘An’ if we get time, along the road, we can maybe change you up before – ‘ He blinked, the wizened features contorting suddenly ’ –

before we gets to the Schwartzenburg for dinner, like, tonight . . .‘ He looked away, up and down the lines, along which the men who had greeted them earlier were now mounting up, high above them ’– ‘cause we’ve got a long drive ahead uv us, round about... if they ’aven’t repaired that bridge what’s fallen down, by the viaduct at Munchen-what’s-it, on the river there

– ?‘ He came back to Fred. ’If you’d get in then –

right?‘ He opened the car door, pulling it against the tall grass.

There was a curious odour inside the tiny vehicle, like nothing he could put an origin to, which made him sniff interrogatively as he searched for its source.

‘You don’t want to worry about that smell.’ Driver Hewitt got in much more easily behind the wheel.

‘That was from last night, when Otto was making ’is deliveries in it ... I think ‘e may ’ave ‘ad something that was startin’ to go orf a bit, maybe.‘ Hewitt sniffed himself. ’But, then a lot of ‘is meat, it ain’t right until it’s been ’ung a few days – like pheasants an‘ rabbits, an’ such: they ‘ave to be goin’ orf before they’re just right – here we go!‘

The engine whirred somewhere behind them, and fired immediately against the roar of the lorries’ engines, dummy4

and the blue clouds ahead of them.

‘There! What did I say – ?’ Hewitt squirmed in his seat. ‘You little beauty, you!’ He turned to Fred. ‘Got enough room, then – ?’

It was all too much: too much after yesterday, too much after yesterday evening . . . and far, far too much after last night – and even too much after what had been left of last night, running into this morning . . .

which was also too much. ‘Yes.’ Somebody banged on the roof, half an inch from his head. Driver Hewitt shouted unintelligibly in answer, and Fred glimpsed a figure passing on up the line beyond them.

‘Aarrgh!’ Driver Hewitt turned to him again. ‘Good to be movin’ again – that’s what I like! An ‘specially now!’

‘Why especially now!’ The little man’s relief invited the question.

‘We bin up to somethink dodgey – dontcha know?’

Hewitt’s hand rotated the gear-lever in anticipation.

‘Dontcha know – ?’

What Fred knew was that Driver Hewitt knew a lot more than he did, even now. And what he didn’t know he was well-placed to guess at. But he needed leading on, all the same. ‘We’re still in the American Zone, are we?’

‘Too bloody right!’ The lorry ahead shuddered for a dummy4

moment, and then lurched forward. ‘Come on, you bugger – come on!’

That confrmed his suspicions. ‘You’ve been down here before, have you?’

‘Too bloody right!’ Driver Hewitt advanced the little car in the wake of the lorry. ‘We’ve bin all over – up an’ down, in an‘ out – we’ve bin there! Arsk no questions –an’ I’ll tell you no lies . . . that’s where we bin – ‘ A half-grown bush sprang up behind the lorry, and Hewitt swung the wheel to avoid it. ’But now we’re runnin‘ – an’ it’ll be back roads, wiv no questions arsked at road blocks by soddin‘ great Yank MPs swingin’ their truncheons likes they own the place. I ‘ ates them . . . almost as much as I ’ates the Redcaps, what never done an honest day’s work in their lives, let alone a day’s soldierin‘ . . . But the Major – Major Amos – ’e knows ‘ow to deal wiv the Redcaps. They don’t bother ’ im none.‘ The little man pronounced this accolade with relish. Only then he shook his head. ’But the Yanks is different, I tell you.‘

Another shake. ’Wouldn’t want them pokin‘ around.’

‘Poking around . . . where?’

Hewitt nodded towards the ten-tonner which bumped up and down over the ruined road surface ahead of them. ‘Inside there, for a start – inside that ’ippo.‘

‘Ippo?’ Hewitt might, or might not, know all about

‘Corporal Keys’. But Fred hadn’t seen the German get dummy4

into the lorry.

‘Leyland ’ippo – one uv the new ones they was bringin‘ over last year, the Mark 2. For long-distance

’eavy work, like.‘ Driver Hewitt lapsed suddenly into uncharacteristic professionalism. ’The Mark I ‘ad an open cab. So you got boiled or froze in it – or drownded. But that’s a Mark 2 –’fact, it’s a 2A – see them dual tyres on the back? Six-inline soddin‘ diesel, what I never liked. But we’ve got some proper mechanics, thank Gawd! Not to mention Major Kenworthy, ’oo’s a bloody marvel wiv any sort of engine . . . An‘ it’s ’im as filled it up this time, I shouldn’t wonder – see ‘ow ’eavy it’s loaded . . .

‘Cause ’e was out the night before last wiv some ‘eavy liftin’ gear, too. So ‘e’s got somethink dodgey in there, too.’

Fred sorted Major Kenworthy out from the dozen or so officers to whom he had been finally and briefly introduced after dinner. The hunting and fishing major had been . . . Carver-Hart – Johnnie Carver-Hart? And there had been a thin-faced, dark-haired KRRC

major . . . but he had been Liddell – ? And then a roly-poly-faced one –but he had been Ingrams, with an oak-leaf mention on his European ribbon.

‘Major Kenworthy?’ Everything Audley had let slip suggested that Colonel Colbourne’s Band of Brothers were collectors of men, even before last night’s raid.

dummy4

But one didn’t need a Leyland Hippo Mark 2A to transport human cargo.

‘Wiv the spectacles,’ explained Hewitt simply.

‘Now . . . can I arsk you somethink – if I may?’

‘Ah!’ Small, bespectacled and donnish-looking – and with no regimental or corps identification: Major Kenworthy! ‘What – ? Yes, of course.’ He looked at Hewitt expectantly. ‘Ask away, Hewitt.’

‘Ah . . .’ The little engine in the back whirred as Hewitt changed down, as the lorry ahead of them laboured up a slight incline in the midst of another tract of birches.

‘What’s “reciprocal”? An’ ‘oo’s Sappho – Sappho was it? The one that loves an’ sings, anyway – ?‘

A wave of tiredness engulfed Fred momentarily. But he mustn’t sleep yet. ‘“Reciprocal” means . . . “equal”

–“equal in return”, you might say – ’ He struggled for another moment to find a better definition, but then decided against it. ‘And Sappho is ... or was ... a Greek poet, Hewitt. A female one.’

‘A lady poet – a girl, is that?’ The little man persisted.

‘Yes.’ The problem of defining Sappho further sorely taxed him. ‘At least . . . she was a girl a long time ago –

two or three thousand years ago. And she preferred women to men then, actually, Hewitt.’

‘Aarrgh! I knew it!’ The little man breathed out in relief.

dummy4

‘Knew what?’ The lorry reared up dangerously ahead.

‘Steady, man!’

‘I knew ’e didn’t know no girls in Greece – Mister David didn’t.‘ Hewitt braked sharply. “E didn’t ’ave no time, see – I didn’t think.‘

‘No?’

‘ Naow! An’ ‘e wouldn’t ’ave known what to do, anyway - ‘e don’t know nothink about girls, except in

’is books ... so ‘e’s shy wiv ’em, see – ‘ Hewitt screwed up his face sideways at Fred ’ – we ‘ad some Queen Alexandra’s nurses come to the Schwartzenburg one night, what ’ad lost their way. So they was in for dinner, an‘ one uv ’em was sittin‘ next to ’im – a real cracker . . . see, I was waiterin‘ that night, ’cause Otto was short-‘anded . . . An’ ‘e ’adn’t a word to say for hisself – would you believe it– not a word!‘

‘No – ?’ The idea of David Audley wordless in any circumstances was hard to accept. But there was more to this surprising confidence than that. ‘Indeed?’ He nodded encouragingly.

‘Aarrgh! But that don’t mean ’e don’t need watchin‘ –

no!’ Hewitt warmed to his subject without needing any stimulus. ‘More like, ’e needs more watching –

‘specially now, see.’

“Specially now – ‘ Fred echoed him automatically ’ –

is that so?‘

dummy4

‘Oh yes.’ Hewitt nodded back. ‘You bin in Greece. But there’s still men in Greece. Not like ’ere – ‘ere all the men’s PoWs now. We got millions of ’em. An‘ the Yanks got millions. An’ the Russians ‘as got millions of ’em, Gawd ‘elp ’em!‘ He grinned

unsympathetically. ’ An‘ we’ve got all the girls?’

Fred felt a frown was required. ‘But ... I thought there were strict regulations against fraternization, Hewitt?

In fact, there are – ’

‘Reg’lations!’ The little man chuckled. ‘Cor! I ain’t never ’eard of any reg’lation that ‘ud keep soldiers orf uv women – ’specially when the women are ‘ungry . . .

an’ ‘ungry for food, as well as for men – an’ for soap –

an‘ for fags, wot they can buy food wiv.’ This time the repeated chuckle was mirthless. ‘You want to talk to Otto, Major Fattorini, sir: a bar of soap, an’ a packet of Players, or Luckies ... an‘ a nice bar uv chocolate or an

’ershey bar ... an‘ you can take yer pick. An’ this is only the beginnin‘, too: we ’aven’t bin ‘ere but a few months –they ain’t bin really ’ungry an‘ cold yet. But that’ll come, you see – that’ll come!’

He had seen it already in Italy of course, thought Fred.

But that had at least been under pressure of war, and battle and murder and sudden death, which was a pretty bloody-good excuse as well as an explanation. But . . .

but now he was being naive and childish – and something more (or worse) than that after his own dummy4

Athenian experience, courtesy of Colonel Kyriakos Michaelides.

‘Well! But –’

‘Aarrgh! I can ’ear what you’re thinkin‘!’ Driver Hewitt caught him cruelly. ‘ ’E’s an orrficer – an‘ a captain, too! An’ a gentleman – an‘ a scholar, maybe?’

‘No.’ Hewitt had picked up that phrase from Audley himself most likely, if not from Amos de Souza. ‘I wasn’t thinking that at all, actually – ’

‘No?’ Newly-promoted majors of engineers answering stiffly didn’t disconcert Driver Hewitt one bit. ‘Well, I bet a pound to a pinch uv – a pinch uv snuff . . . that you wasn’t thinking uv old Greek lady poets, sir – right on?’

‘No ... no, I wasn’t, Hughie.’ Fred decided simultaneously that he would lie to Driver Hewitt while ingratiating himself with that diminutive. ‘I was just thinking that everything David Audley has told me about you is true, actually. And he’s a gentleman and a scholar, as you say.’

‘Oh yes?’ Hewitt liked that, quite evidently. Because, of course, it signalled that he had another officer-and-gentleman in the bag. And yet also that didn’t perhaps do Driver Hewitt absolute justice, either. ‘ ’E’s a caution, is wot I knows.‘

‘Yes.’ The problem was, they were on delicate ground dummy4

now. Or ... not on ground at all ... but very thin ice, over deep cold water. ‘You’ve been with Captain Audley long, have you?’

‘Since last year, sir.’ The ice creaked with that warningly-repeated ‘sir’. ‘Just about this time, it was –

August.’

August was Normandy, near enough. ‘In France, that would be – ?’

This time Hewitt didn’t reply instantly. ‘Beg pardon, sir – ?’

In Normandy, August 1944, Audley would have been how old – nineteen? With maybe two years’ military service, and a qualified tank commander . . . and maybe never kissed a girl, other than his mother (who wasn’t a girl) and his sister (if he had a sister; but who still didn’t qualify, anyway); and now he was in Germany, Anno Domini 1945 (or AUC whatever-it-was), where girls were to be had from Otto Schild for a bar of soap, and a packet of Players Medium Navy Cut, and a bar of ration-chocolate (all three together? Or individually? He wasn’t sure of the rate-of-exchange yet, anyway) –

‘Fraternization reg’lations don’t apply to us, sir.’

Hewitt changed the subject quite out of the blue.

‘Or . . . not to the orfficers of this unit: they ’ave the right to ... to interrogate former enemy persons, oosoever an‘ where- soever – ’ The precision as well as dummy4

the emphasis of the wording indicated its official source – ‘ – as may be necessary in the course uv their duties – their duties – ’ The little man’s memory betrayed him for a second ‘ –’avin‘ the appropriate orders an’ authority thereto, all signed an‘ sealed, like

– ’ Hewitt gave up the unequal struggle there, aware that he was obviously extemporizing the incantation now, and that Major Fattorini must know he was, and changed gear and accelerated.

So he wasn’t going to get any more about Audley, Fred understood: even, he had already got more than he had any right to expect. But then . . .

‘I think I’ll try and get some sleep now – ’ He stretched his legs as best he could, knowing that there was too much in the back of the little car to permit any more room; but at least he wasn’t right next to that whirring engine! ‘ –wake me up when we get to ... wherever it is ... okay?’

‘Right!’ Hewitt settled back comfortably himself, like the old soldier he was.

Out of the corner of his eye, Fred saw the trees –

delicately-leafed birch branches and dark, uncompromising evergreens, rocket-stiff – swim past, against a grey sky.

One last try, perhaps –

‘What’s Major Kenworthy got in the Hippo then, d’you dummy4

think?’ He tried to sound sleepy and not-very-interested.

Once again, no instant reply. ‘I’m sure I can’t say, sir.’

Pause. ‘Major Kenworthy . . .’e likes gadgets, an‘ bits-an’-bobs of machinery – ‘eavy stuff.’

Heavy stuff –

People were light stuff: you didn’t need a Hippo to carry off people.

Although . . . that poor devil, last night, when he was dead . . . he’s seemed heavy, even though there was nothing to him really: but then the dead were always heavy – heavy and awkward, as though they objected to going, and were set on causing as much trouble as they could to the living, if it was the last thing they did . . . Which of course it was –

Kenworthy: that was his ten-tonner – his Leyland Hippo Mark 2A, making heavy weather of every dip and undulation, with the weight of its contents . . .

Kenworthy, Liddell, Ingrams, Carver-Hart, Simpson –

Simpkins? – Simpkins . . . M’Crocodile –

McCorquodale, damn it! And Then Macallister – not Macalligator: mustn’t say that! – and then Colbourne, de Souza and Audley (that was easy, like learning the dummy4

dates of the Kings and Queens of England, which mathematicians always had trouble with, by some perverse illogic: 1066-1087 –1087-1100 – 1100-1135 ... the Normans were easy, and the Stuarts and Hanoverians too, later . . . 1714-1727 –1727-1760 –

“George the Third remarked with a smile/ There are seventeen-sixty yards in a mile” – but the Plantagenets and the Wars-of-the-Roses lot were confusing . . . not like Colbourne, de Souza and Audley!) Mustn’t dream again: must just go out like a light and sleep, with no silly nightmares: must remember that the war’s almost over – almost over – almost over-and-over-and-over – over-here, if not out-there . . . and I’m over-here, and not out-there – ignoble thought!

Ignoble-sensible thought – sensible-ignoble thought –

sensible-sensible thought –

Huge, amorphous nightmare: yawning great lorry, heavy-loaded with inadequately-secured Bailey bridge components, bouncing up-and-down and shifting, because the silly-bloody driver was exceeding the speed restriction –must slow down, get off the road –

get off the road – !

Fred shook himself awake, with his mouth full of foul, dummy4

leathery tongue and empty-stomach taste, quite absurdly sorry for himself, and yet also ashamed of his over-imagined horrors. Because this wasn’t Italy, the home of all Bailey bridges . . . this was Germany, of course!

And it was doubly Germany, because there were trees everywhere – tall, trees, rising up on every side – and ahead, as they swung round a hairpin corner, with the engine whirring at his back –

And no bloody-great lorry, either: as they whirred round the bend he saw the open road ahead, rising steeply – just a foul dream –

What–?

He sat bolt upright, and hit his head on the roof of the car–ouch!

‘How long have I been asleep – ?’ He addressed the driver thickly, only realizing gratefully in the next second it was still Driver Hewitt in broad daylight, and not some grinning stranger whom he’d never met and couldn’t remember.

‘You’ve ’ad a right good sleep – quiet as a baby.‘

Hewitt grinned at him encouragingly. ’Your ‘ead did knock against the side a bit ... but it didn’t seem to worry you none – ’ They came to the end of the straight stretch and Hewitt spun the wheel again, twisting the little car round another hairpin ‘ – so I dummy4

didn’t think to wake you.’

Fred squinted ahead, at another stretch of trees heavy with summer, and an open road still climbing ahead.

And then turned quickly to peer out of the divided rear-window behind them.

They drew away from the corner, and the road behind was as empty as the road in front. ‘Where’s the convoy?’ His voice was still thick with sleep: he could hear it outside himself, beyond the eternal whirring of the engine, but without any other sound.

‘Oh, we lost that – about ten miles back, before Detmold,’ replied Hewitt cheerfully. ‘I laid back for a bit, round Paderborn – the proper road’s no good there jus’ now ... I think they’re repairin’ a bridge what’s fallen down . . . An‘ then I went like the clappers, an’ I took the wrong turnin‘ . . . But you don’t need to worry none.’

‘I – what – ?’ Words failed him.

‘They knows the way.’ Hewitt agreed with himself.

‘They drove it enough times, so they oughta know it.

An’ we–we’re spot on, like.‘

‘Spot on?’ He had control of his tongue and his senses at last. ‘Spot on where?’

Driver Hewitt spun the wheel again, with the same maddening nonchalance. ‘Up on top of the Two-toe-burger- void – as they likes to call it: the Two-toe . . .

dummy4

burg . . . Woods, is what you-and-I’d say, though – ’

The little man pointed ‘ – see there – ?’

Something had flashed past Hewitt, outside the car just beyond the edge of the road in the trees, as he spoke, diverting Fred’s attention: it was a sculptured bust on a shaft of stone, it looked like. But it was gone before he could be sure.

‘What the hell – ?’ He turned in the direction the little man had indicated, and the question stifled itself. But the trees were in the way. And there was another long tree-lined avenue ahead of them, but this time it wasn’t empty: the rising avenue was blocked at its highest point by an immense monument, pillared and domed, and then surmounted by the gigantic statue of a warrior brandishing his sword far above the tree-tops.

‘Hewitt – ’ The monument rose up higher and higher as they approached it ‘ – what the hell is that?’ It wasn’t actually the question he started to ask, but the thing was so enormous that it crowded out his original intention.

‘Don’t rightly know – dontcha know, then?’ For his part, the little man seemed to be quite unimpressed by the view, some of which was already disappearing above them through the restriction of the windscreen.

Rather, he seemed to be looking for somewhere to park in the wide empty circle round the monument’s base.

‘One of the Colonel’s old Romans, would it be – ?’

dummy4

Fred rubbed his eyes as the car came to a stop. He wasn’t still dreaming, but he wished he was. And his mouth tasted of old unwashed socks.

‘Ah! There ’e is!‘ Hewitt relaxed suddenly. Then he turned to Fred. ’Orf you go then – look lively, now!

The Brigadier – ‘e don’t like to be kept waitin’, y‘

know –

2

Brigadier Clinton looked down on him from the top of a flight of steps leading up to a doorway in the monument, as from a great height.

‘You look a bit rough, major,’ he observed, unkindly but accurately.

Fred looked up at the Brigadier. ‘Yes, sir – ’

This, he thought, is where I came in, continued from the Eve of Scobiemas last February, when we last met: nothing much has changed since then, because I was looking pretty rough then — and I didn’t know what the hell was happening then either, come to think of it!

‘As a matter of fact, I feel a bit rough, too.’ He brought down his saluting hand, which had at least done its job more smartly than his legs had performed on the way from the car, one foot having gone to sleep to inflict dummy4

agonizing pins-and-needles on him, while the muscles behind the opposite knee had contracted with some form of partial paralysis during the journey –

Then the thought expanded: Rough I may be – but I never asked to be a rough major in this God-forsaken place! So you must want Major Frederick Fattorini –

must need him – far more than Captain Frederick Fattorini ever wanted or needed (or even expected) to exchange three perfectly-respectable pips for this questionable crown –

He found himself glancing down sideways at his shoulder-strap and rubbing his chin simultaneously. He not only hadn’t had time to have that questionable crown replace those honest pips, but he also hadn’t had time to shave, the rasp of stubble under his hand reminded him.

And, further down, if there had ever been decent creases in this uniform, last night’s rain and today’s journey had obliterated them; and there was a muddy patch on the half-paralysed knee, to remind him of how he had knelt beside a dying man – a man who had died for this man Clinton?

He looked up at the Brigadier again. ‘It was a fairly rough night, actually, sir. One way or another.’

‘Yes. So I gather.’ The pale-blue eyes fixed on his intently. ‘But also a successful one.’

dummy4

What was wrong with that voice? Fred now found himself absurdly rethinking the same nagging question which had quite uselessly weakened his concentration six months before, in the ruined monastery of Osios Konstandinos. The man’s setting had changed (although the war had reached this unlikely place: the stone-work above was pitted and pock-marked with bullets or shell-splinters, and the steps were littered with fragments), but that voice was the same – the same and somehow wrong . . . but how–?

Absurd! ‘Yes, sir?’ He heard Jacko Devenish’s far more accurate and embittered formula “If you say so, sir – I’m sure I don’t know!‘ inside his head. But majors couldn’t say that to brigadiers on such short acquaintance, if ever, he decided.

The Brigadier smiled an unsmiling smile at him, which his thin lips were ideally designed to do. ‘You don’t really know what is happening, do you, major?’ He began to descend the steps, his boots crunching noisily on the stone fragments. ‘Or do you?’ He stopped suddenly, still above Fred. ‘What do you think – and how much do you know? Tell me, eh?’

Fred envied Jacko Devenish, whose certain reply to such a dirty question would have been that neither had he joined up to think, nor did his rank entitle him to do so. But those escapes were not open to officers of field rank. ‘Come on, major!’ The Brigadier crunched down dummy4

the last few steps. ‘Don’t disappoint me.’

Close up, he was surprisingly young – at least, for a brigadier: mid-thirties, at a guess, no more. But much more than that – much more, thought Fred with a cold inward certainty – he was a damned, bloody-dangerous character, who’d shop his mother without a second thought, and then buy drinks in the mess afterwards to celebrate.

‘I was just thinking, sir – ’ Oddly enough, that certainty steadied him. But, then again, not oddly at all: it was uncertainty that was unsteadying. The only thing that was odd was that he hadn’t been more frightened at Osios Konstandinos. But then he had had Kyri with him, of course. And he had only been an innocent bystander, too –

‘That’s what I want you to do – go on!’ What was wrong with the voice was that it had no origins. It wasn’t public school and Sandhurst (as he had a right to expect), or Oxbridge, or BBC, or Home Counties or Scottish or soft Irish (Welsh was not to be expected) –

it was from nowhere, by God!

‘I didn’t mean that.’ He mustn’t think any more about that voice: it would only unsettle him again. ‘I was thinking about what a friend of mine once said – not so long ago, actually.’ As he smiled at the Brigadier he felt his unwashed, unshaven face crinkle with the effort. ‘He advised me against getting mixed up with dummy4

units like this one. He said I should stick to bridge-building . . . and mine-clearance and bomb-disposal.

Because that would be healthier for me, he said.’

The Brigadier looked at him expressionlessly for a long moment. Then quite unexpectedly the eyes disengaged, staring past him. ‘ YOU THERE-!’

The sound of the People’s Car-door opening was quickly succeeded by a boot-stamping sound: Driver Hewitt must be actually standing to attention, that sound suggested, unlikely as it seemed.

‘ SIR?’ The little man’s reply came as a falsetto pig-squeal. ‘ ME, SIR? –’

The Brigadier drew a breath. ‘ CAN YOU SEE

ANYONE ELSE HERE, DRIVER HEWITT?’

‘ SIR!’ The boots stamped again.

‘Now . . .’ The Brigadier smiled his smile at Fred again, stepping forward as he did so until he was alongside him, and then draping a friendly arm across his shoulders ‘. . . we shall walk a little way, and – and kindly don’t pull away from me, major ... I have no contagious or infectious disease, I do assure you –

relax, if you please –’

‘No, sir – ’ If the Brigadier had struck him Fred would have been less astonished, so that it took a considerable effort of will to simulate even partial relaxation ‘ – yes, sir –’

dummy4

‘“Freddie” is how my intimates address me – ’ The Brigadier steered Fred with an iron hand ‘ – and that is what you will call me in the mess tonight, when we meet again – do you understand, major?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Fred had the impression that he wasn’t being steered back towards the car, but obliquely to it.

‘But . . . that will maybe be a bit confusing.’

‘Confusing?’ The Brigadier’s head came closer. ‘How so?’

Fred swallowed. ‘There’s a move ... to call me

“Freddie”, sir.’

There is?‘ The pale eyes were terrifying at close quarters. ’But your diminutive is “Fred”. So whose idea was that, eh? One of Colbourne’s little jokes, I suppose –eh?‘

‘I . . .’ Words failed him.

‘Don’t worry. We’ll correct that.’ The iron hand actually patted him. ‘In fact . . . we’ll make a joke of it ourselves. And you can practise laughing right now –

so laugh!’

It was so unarguably an order that Fred instinctively tried to obey – the more so as Brigadier Clinton was himself obeying the order.

Another pat. ‘That is, without doubt, the poorest parody of laughter I have ever seen, Major Fattorini.

Do you always obey orders so inadequately?’

dummy4

Fred tried again, but stopped as he saw not laughter, but hysteria grinning at him from out of the trees ahead. ‘I was laughing inside actually, sir – Freddie – ?’

That’s better!‘ The Brigadier dropped his arm suddenly, and swung round. ’ WHAT ARE YOU

DOING, STANDING THERE LIKE AN IDIOT, HEWITT?‘

‘ Sir–?’ Pause. ‘ SIR!’

The Brigadier took several steps towards the rigid little man. ‘You were told to bring Major Fattorini here, and then proceed to Schwartzenburg Castle. Can’t you obey a simple order, man?’

Silence.

‘Well?’

‘Sir ... I – ’ Another pause. ‘Yes, sir!’

‘Well then – what are you waiting for? GET MOVING!’

‘ SIR.’‘ Pause (salute!) – stamp (about turn!): Driver Hewitt was now actually attempting to get into the People’s Car while at attention, which was not physically possible. But he was doing his best, certainly.

The engine whirred instantly, and the little car jerked nervously several times, before turning in a wide circle round the monument and disappearing behind it in a cloud of blue exhaust fumes.

The Brigadier’s eyes returned to Fred. ‘I think we’ll dummy4

share another joke now, major – just to see Driver Hewitt on his way properly, eh?’

A joke at attention – or at ease? wondered Fred as he laughed obediently. But somehow that made it easier anyway, as the People’s Car appeared again, at a speed which only just enabled it to straighten out in time to retreat down the avenue.

‘So!’ Brigadier Clinton waited until the avenue was clear. ‘Driver Hewitt is insatiably inquisitive, and garrulous with it ... So that is one job well done, at least.’ He looked up at the monument. ‘Do I need to explain?’

There was a long Latin inscription carved into the stonework between two of the square pillars, Fred saw.

‘No, not really.’

Clinton himself seemed to be more interested in the carved inscription than in his reply, which goaded Fred towards a smart and undiplomatic answer. ‘I assume he’ll tell everyone from Otto Schild upwards that you’ve recruited another spy inside TRR-2.’

‘Another spy?’ The Brigadier still appeared to be fascinated by the inscription.

‘He said Audley was a special friend of yours. Not that it’s done the boy any good with the Colonel and the RSM. But I suppose I can live with that.’

‘You can? No ... it wouldn’t, I suppose . . .’ Then the dummy4

Brigadier’s lips moved soundlessly. So perhaps he was attempting to translate the Latin, but was finding it rather too difficult, Fred thought nastily.

‘Is he your spy? Unlike me.’ Nastiness encouraged cheekiness.

‘No ... at least, not yet, anyway.’ The Brigadier paused.

‘Now . . . “florentissimum imperium” – that’s rather good, that superlative . . .’

It was time to join the Latin lesson, Fred decided.

‘ “Arminius – ”’ he began to read the inscription aloud.

‘“ – liberator haud dubie Germaniae – ”’ The meaning registered suddenly. ‘Of course! How stupid of me!

This is Hermann’s monument, isn’t it – ’ He stepped back to look up at the colossus ‘ – the German who defeated the Romans – Varus in the Teutoburg Forest, and all that!’

‘Yes. That’s right.’ The Brigadier looked up too, nodding as he did so. ‘The Germans themselves killed him in the end, of course – a successful 20th July Plot, you might say ... But you’re right: this is “Arminius liberator” – Hermann, without doubt the liberator of Germany ... who ...“ – lacessierit” is a bit difficult . . .

“provoked” isn’t right. Although he certainly was provoking. What it ought to mean is “resisted”, even more than “hurt”. So let’s say “resisted” – “resisted the Roman people, not in their early days, like other kings and leaders, but at the very height of their power” –

dummy4

“florentissimum imperium” : I like that! – “at the very height of their power, with mixed fortune in battle, but in war undefeated”!’ The Brigadier nodded again.

‘Hmmm . . . not bad. Tacitus, of course – from his Annals. In fact, quite graceful, really.’ He looked at Fred. ‘The German translation’s underneath – “Armin, ohne Zweifel Deutschlands Befreier” – or am I insulting a properly educated mathematician twice over now? I suppose I am, at that!’

Thank you, Hermann! thought Fred gratefully. ‘No. My Latin’s damned rusty.’ Somehow the Brigadier had reduced himself to a human dimension. ‘And ... so this is the Teutoburg Forest, of course – where the battle took place, by God!’

‘Yes. And no.’ The Brigadier agreed and disagreed.

‘This is the “Hermannsdenkmal” – and this is the Teuto-burgerwald, haud dubie as Tacitus would say.

But whether this is the site of the Hermannsschlacht –

or the Varusschlacht . . . nobody knows. There are dozens of other possible sites, and the German scholars have been arguing over them for years. Not that it’s of the slightest historical importance – the site. As opposed to the fact.’

Fred saw his opening. ‘It is to Colonel Colbourne, I rather got the idea.’ Even, he was tempted irresistibly to presume on his “friendship”. ‘In fact, I think he’s going to organize the RAF – or the USAF – to conduct dummy4

a photographic reconnaissance for him in the near future.’ He grinned hopefully. ‘And isn’t this why – ’

He felt the grin freeze on his lips as he saw the Brigadier’s face and instantly amended what he had been about to say ‘ –actually, it isn’t a half bad idea.

Because air photography’s going to revolutionize archaeology, these next few years, so I’m told . . .’ The spreading cold reached his heart, and he trailed off, bitterly aware that he’d made the same mistake as the Liberator of Germany above him in pushing his luck –

proeliis-bloody-ambiguus – like a fool, only in his case, by talking too much, like David Audley.

‘You take Colonel Colbourne for a clown, do you, major?’

‘No, sir.’ Ordinarily he would have stopped there. But with this man, it was no good trying to say nothing: now, because he had already talked too much, he had to talk more. ‘Or, at least ... so far as the battle of the Teutoburg Forest is concerned . . . yes, I do.’ Instinct reinforced reason. ‘But successful barristers aren’t clowns . . . unless they want people to think they are – ’

that was an insight which hadn’t even occurred to him until this instant ‘ – and – ’ another insight hit him between the eyes, even more belatedly: a man like this wasn’t going to employ clowns to do his work. But he couldn’t say that – least of all when he still didn’t know what the work really was.

dummy4

‘And?’

Fred rejected ‘ and he has a DSO’, because a DSO

could mean everything or nothing very much. And the Brigadier himself had a DSO among his ribbons, anyway. But the Brigadier would never let him get away now. ‘Not after what I saw last night.’

‘Hmm – ’ The Brigadier didn’t move a muscle. ‘And just what did you see last night, major?’

Those last half-dozen words had been a mistake. But, once a man felt impelled to talk, then he inevitably made mistakes, even when he told the simple truth. In fact, even more so when he told the truth. So the Brigadier had caught him with an old trick – so to hell with the Brigadier!

‘I saw a man killed – an innocent man.’ Sod Brigadier Clinton – and all the rest of them! ‘I watched him die, actually.’

‘Innocent?’ The Brigadier’s head moved very slightly.

‘You knew him then?’

‘I never saw him before in my life.’ Steady! ‘But I believe he was chosen at random. Unlike “Corporal Keys”.’

‘Then he was killed at random. And you must have seen a good many men killed at random, major.’

‘In the war – yes. But – ’

This is war – ‘ The Brigadier caught his reply mid-air.

dummy4

’But I’m not going to argue philosophy with you. What else did you see?‘

The man was right. And he was also making the rules, anyway. ‘I thought I was in the middle of an over-elaborate, unnecessary, bodged-up . . . nonsense. But now I’m not so sure.’ Actually, they were back to original point-of-contact, before the Brigadier had become ‘friendly’. But he knew better now. ‘Do you want first thoughts, or second thoughts?’

‘I want the truth.’

Fred almost laughed. But then stopped an inch – or was it a mile? – short of it. Because he had had his ration of mistakes. ‘We went to take a man, from the American zone – out from under their noses. And a man they probably wanted too ... I don’t know ... but probably.’

He stopped there, not quite sure of himself. ‘No – not probably. They helped us, and they were going to double-cross us. Only we double-crossed them. Right?’

‘That pleases you?’

‘Yes. Rather to my surprise, it does, actually.’

‘Because your Greek friends have been double-crossing you, in Greece?’ There was the very smallest nuance of surprise in the Brigadier’s expression.

‘Notably your friend, Colonel Michaelides?’

That was mean – no matter how accurate. But at least it cleared the way for what Brigadier Clinton really dummy4

wanted in that ‘truth’ of his. ‘Partly that, I suppose . . .

but also partly because it’s comforting to be part of a double-cross which is itself double-crossed, but which still has a fail-safe extra built into it.’ Suddenly he knew what he wanted to say. ‘It’s rather like what happened to us in Italy once, along one particular stretch of road where we kept losing men – from booby traps.’

Brigadier Clinton stared at him. ‘Go on, major.’

Good men, Fred remembered. ‘But at least that had been the name of the game. There was this German –

German sapper officer . . . And their sappers were good, you know –’

‘I know.’ Clinton stopped him sharply. ‘They were all good, damn it! Don’t teach me to suck eggs, Major Fattorini: I’ve been sucking German eggs for eight years now. So I know the taste of them better than you do. Go on.’

‘Yes, sir –’ Eight years? But that was . . .1937–?

‘There was this German sapper . . . who was good with booby-traps – you were telling me – ?’ Clinton spaced each word from the other carefully.

‘Yes, sir.’ He would think about 1937 later. ‘At least, I think it was just this one man. Because when he set his booby-trap he always booby-trapped the actual trap.

But he knew we’d tumble to that, so he used to rig an dummy4

extra time-fuse under the first trap, which was quite independent of the second one, which he set not-too-obviously, so that a good trained sapper would spot that one first. And then, of course, our chap would lift them in reverse order, and . . . bang!’ He shrugged. ‘He was quite a character, I should think.’

The Brigadier’s pale blue eyes were intent. ‘You don’t hate him, though?’

‘Hate him?’ Silly question – strangely silly question!

‘Christ – yes! I hated his guts! If I’d caught him I’d have made him walk back along the other side of the road, along the verge we hadn’t cleared!’ Silly question

– ? ‘Then he stopped playing games with us – maybe he was trying something new, and his hand slipped ...

is what I’ve always hoped . . . But we were fair game: it was him against us, with the extra traps – the riflemen who set off the first traps were your random victims, Brigadier. It was us he was after – ’ He blinked suddenly, aware that he had almost lost the thread of his own anecdote ‘ – what I mean is ... it’s a nice change to be setting the trap, not having to defuse the bloody thing. We never got a chance to do that in Italy.’ Now he was aware that his mouth was twitching, too. ‘And fortunately . . . very fortunately . . . I moved to Bailey bridges before his successor arrived. Because I might have been caught by the next particular variation.’

dummy4

‘Yes.’ The intentness misted up suddenly. ‘But it was a bridge that got you in the end, wasn’t it? The Volturno bridge was it – the eighth wonder of the world?’

Fred was conscious of his hand for the first time that day. ‘You know a lot about me.’ He amended the question to a statement as he spoke.

‘I know everything about you, major. Except how your hand is today – how is it?’

‘It’s okay. Almost as good as new.’ Thinking about the damn thing always made it ache. ‘It does most things adequately.’

‘You’ve learnt to point with your left hand?’

The bastard really did know everything, right down to that one particular crooked index finger. ‘I use my right hand to point round corners, actually. It does that very well.’

‘Good.’ Clinton accepted the tart reply without offence. ‘I have an acquaintance in the gunners who maintains that all sapper officers are mad: Would you agree with that?’

It sounded like an exam question. ‘I have an acquaintance – no, a friend . . . who says that gunners are people who have just enough maths to pass School Certificate –just enough. If they were cleverer they’d have become sappers. But they aren’t – ’ Damn! he thought suddenly, as he realized that he’d missed the dummy4

correct answer – the required answer? Was there time –

‘Actually, he didn’t say “mad” – he said “stark staring mad”.’ Clinton smiled his terrible thin-lipped smile again.

But that was obliging of him, thought Fred: it offered that second chance on a plate. ‘Then I have the necessary qualification for joining this unit, obviously.

Apart from my banking connection, that is ...

Everyone’s been telling me, ever since I arrived, that everyone else is stark staring mad – or stark raving mad . . . everyone from Colonel Colbourne himself downwards . . .’ He had gone too far – ?

‘Downwards to young Audley? Your fellow spy?’

Something inhibited Fred from shopping young Audley, whose own big mouth caused him enough trouble as it was. ‘Captain Audley is an exception to the rule, I rather think.’

‘ “In more ways than one”?’ Clinton quoted the young man’s words cruelly. ‘He’s certainly poor, I grant you.

But that comes of having a father addicted to fast women and slow horses before the war, which has mortgaged him to the hilt. Although we can’t blame him for that, poor boy. Any more than we can praise you for your great expectations, major.’

For the first time Fred crossed the man’s stare with one of his own with a sense of steel sliding against steel, dummy4

even though he knew it was anger and not courage which animated him. ‘Oh no?’

‘Oh yes, major – I also know all about Captain Audley.

And all about Colonel Augustus Colbourne. And all his other officers. Which I should know, because each one of them has been hand-picked by me – each one, including you, major.’ He paused. ‘Or perhaps not quite all. And there’s the rub.’

The coldness of those final words utterly extinguished Fred’s anger: from fancying himself as a duellist he saw himself for the rabbit he was.

‘Now – straight questions and short answers, major.

You’ve talked to young Audley. And you’ve travelled with Driver Hewitt. And neither of them possesses the gift of silence . . . though Audley’s still young enough to learn, I hope. But between them they must have told you what they think TRR-2 is doing, eh?’

Kyriakos had given him the answer to that one, long ago and long before Audley or Hewitt had talked. ‘You are man-hunters.’

‘Don’t say “you” – say “we”. What sort of men do we hunt?’

‘Germans.’ But then what the devil were they doing in Greece on the Eve of Scobiemas? So that answer wasn’t quite adequate. And then he remembered the group picture Audley had shown him – and, much dummy4

more vividly, ‘Corporal Keys’ inability with a simple uniform. ’Civilians – scientists – ?‘ But then he remembered the heavily-laden lorry. ’But also machinery, too – equipment.‘ But then he thought also of what Audley had said. ’But that may be a cover. Is it?‘

‘Partially. But not wholly. And, in fact, our chief cover has been Colonel Colbourne’s celebrated obsession with him – ’ Clinton pointed upwards ‘ – and with the final resting place of General Quinctilius Varus and the men of the XVIIth, XVIIIth and XIXth Roman Legions . . . whose bones are most likely scattered over many square miles of the Teutoburgerwald.’

‘And they – the Americans – actually believed that?’

‘For a time, perhaps. They, the Americans. And also they, the French. And they, the Russians, major.

Because it happens to be a real obsession of Colbourne’s – an obsession in an otherwise extremely clever and well-balanced man. And one shared by a great many otherwise clever and well-balanced German professors and scholars down the years, also.

But there’s nothing strange in obsessions, major – a lot of us have them. And at least Colbourne’s is an innocent one, which doesn’t hurt anyone.’

Coming from such a cold fish, that was a surprisingly warm defence. Or maybe there was more to Brigadier Clinton than met the eye? ‘It just makes them – us – a dummy4

laughing-stock – ? But that was what you wanted, of course!’

‘Yes.’ Clinton looked up at Hermann for a moment, who was safely frozen in stone, before coming back to Fred. ‘Except that it didn’t require Augustus Colbourne’s private obsession to make a laughing-stock of us. Us, the British. Because we were that already, in this particular field of operations.’

Lucky Hermann! ‘We were – ?’

‘And not just among our loyal allies. Among the Germans, too – perhaps among them, above all ... our defeated enemies, major. The only difference is that their laughter must be bitter as well as incredulous, watching us make such fools of ourselves.’

That was what the Crocodile had said. But he hadn’t really understood it then, and he didn’t now. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Yes – of course.’ Clinton cocked an eye at him.

‘You’ve been too busy disporting yourself happily at Vouliagmeni beach with Colonel Michaelides’ cast-off mistresses.’ The eye became knowing. ‘I know all about you, major’, it reminded him. ‘Well, we haven’t had much time for that in Germany. Because we’ve been discovering just how clever the Germans really were, major, you see.’

‘I never thought they weren’t clever, sir – ’

dummy4

‘I don’t mean German sappers.’ Clinton paused.

‘Although they did have some new plastic explosive which might have surprised you unpleasantly . . . But then they were way ahead of us in so many fields –

synthetics, and optics, and radar and rocketry, and aircraft design – I’m told that even their aircraft-testing technology was years ahead of ours ... In fact, I don’t think some of our chaps really understand what they’re looking at half the time –like a bunch of savages trying to make sense of a screwdriver. And that isn’t the end of it – and don’t, pray don’t, say to me now, as one very senior officer did quite recently, “By George, Freddie! If half you say is true, then we ought to have lost the jolly old war! But we didn’t now, did we.’

‘I wasn’t about to say such a thing, sir.’ Fred hastily amended his thoughts. ‘I was going to say . . . but we are here anyway.’ He remembered the lorry again.

‘Huh!’ For the first time Brigadier Clinton emitted something like the sort of explosive sound brigadiers usually made in Fred’s experience of them. ‘That is the other half of it, Major Fattorini: too late and too little, as well as too incompetently, is our story. I can’t call it a “policy” – it would be bad enough if it was an actual policy . . . But there isn’t any policy, so far as I can discover. So we’re actually ten times worse than even the Americans, at picking up German technology and the men who can explain it to us. And they’re slower dummy4

than the Russians, and Americans are . . . because the Yanks have some Jewish officers, and some Jews in their State Department, who are at least decently concerned about shaking hands with Nazis who haven’t yet even had time to wash the blood off theirs

– that is at least understandable . . . Or, it would be if the Russians weren’t making deals with everyone they can lay their hands on – which is easy enough for them, because their deal is “Work for us, and we’ll look after you, and your family, and no questions asked ... or we’ll shoot the lot of you . . . except your daughter, who is pretty.” In which case, it isn’t too difficult to reach a sensible decision . . . And the French – they have an even better sales story: “Come and live in France, where it is warmer, and much more civilized . . . and serve your time with us, like a soldier in La Legion etrangere, also with no questions asked, but with better pay and better food, and finally become a Frenchman like us!” And who would refuse that offer, in Germany in 1945? Would you, major – if you were hungry, and had a Nazi record as long as my arm?’

After that ‘huh’ . . . that was the longest and most uncharacteristic speech Fred had heard from any senior officer, anywhere, in all his years in uniform. But then this brigadier’s experience of Germans went back longer than most, he remembered: he had been sucking dummy4

German eggs since . . . 1937 – ?

So he could afford to jump the obvious answer. ‘So what are we doing then, sir?’

‘You may well ask, major – you may well ask!’

Clinton stared at Hermann’s inscription this time:

‘ Arminius liberator haud dubie Germaniae – ’ So Fred waited patiently to be liberated in his turn.

‘We started out . . . trying to pick up certain of the pieces, much too late . . . amongst other things. But now we’re living on borrowed time, I fear – even after last night’s famous victory.’ Clinton continued to study the inscription.

Fred waited again, until his patience exhausted itself.

‘How so, sir?’

Clinton turned quickly, to his surprise. ‘Don’t be downcast, major. Last night did go according to plan . . . except for your poor devil.’

Fred thought for a moment. ‘And he was set up as a target?’

‘Not a target, as such.’ Clinton shook his head. ‘But there was a risk, I cannot deny that. But in this instance I did not expect it. And . . . there was always the chance that they would miss.’

Fred didn’t know quite how much of that to believe.

‘Who would miss?’

‘The Russians, major.’ Clinton nodded, as though this dummy4

had been the expected answer. “The Americans didn’t need to, because they had the men on the spot to take what they wanted. And, to be fair, their well-developed sense of self-interest ... or patriotism, as it used to be called ... is not yet so ruthless. Even though I seem to recall that it was an American who first said ”Our country, right or wrong“ . . . yes, it was. But not here, not now, and not yet, I think. And the French ... they are undoubtedly capable of anything, since the very mention of ”France“ obviates the need for moral debate . . . But in this instance they are safely out of the picture – they’re much too busy pursuing their own very successful enterprises.‘ He nodded, at first almost to himself but finally at Fred. ’You see, major, there have been a great many people – and interests . . . and commercial interests as well as national, too –

concerned with acquiring the details of German technical and industrial and scientific development.

And with getting their hands on it before anyone else.

Which you can call ”loot“ if you like ... or ”spoils of war“. But strictly speaking it’s ”reparations“. And it’s really the only worthwhile reparation that’s to be had here – knowledge.‘ He paused deliberately, as though to let the word sink in. ’Oh ... I know the Russians are carrying off whole factories. And you can’t really blame them for that. And, in spite of what the bomber fellows say, because they claim to have destroyed everything, there’s still a lot to carry off. In fact, dummy4

there’ll still be a lot after they’ve had their pick ... So there is equipment. But it’s the research that really matters. And some of it’s so damned far in advance of anything we’ve done that we need the researchers themselves to go with it, to explain it. Do you see?‘

‘The savages need help with the screwdrivers?’

‘Huh!’ Clinton repeated his brigadierial growl. ‘The trouble is, some of our savages don’t believe in the existence of the screwdriver: they think it’s some sort of blunt chisel. And some of our chiefs don’t want to know. Or they can’t bring themselves to talk to the screwdriver-makers, anyway, either because of their stupidity, or because of their tender consciences.’

‘Because the screwdriver-makers are Nazis?’ The unplesant truth beneath the imagery made Fred uneasy in spite of the Brigadier’s earlier honest recognition of it. ‘Is that so wicked – not to want to do business with Nazis?’

Clinton’s coldest stare returned. ‘Are you about to lecture me on the nature of Fascism, major? And what our attitude should be?’

‘No, sir. But – ’

‘I should hope not. Because I’ve forgotten more about that subject than you are ever likely to know.’ The stare continued. ‘So what were you going to say?’

Fred felt himself backed into a corner. The wide circle dummy4

round the Hermann monument was silent and empty behind him, and the forest was silent and empty behind that – empty even of birds, judging by its silence. And the whole of Germany might be ruined and empty behind the forest. But he was nevertheless in a corner.

And the bugger of it was that he hadn’t even had the chance of taking Kyri’s good advice, he had simply had the soldier’s choice of no choice at all. And Devenish had summed that up for him.

The thought of Kyri reminded him of Audley’s words in Greece. ‘It’s a new kind of war. And I can’t say that I like it. I suppose I expected it to be different, that’s all. But now I shall have to get used to it, just like I did with the other kind.’

Clinton considered that non-answer in a silence which lengthened uncomfortably out of time. ‘Well, I suppose that’s as much as I have any right to expect from you.

Although you are almost entirely wrong, major, as it happens.’

‘I am?’ After that silence the man’s not-unkind tone surprised him. ‘Almost?’

‘Yes. It’s exactly the same war, in essence. And you must never get used to it – never, never, never, major.’

The stare became uncompromising. ‘You must hate it with all your heart – always, no matter how long you have to soldier in it.’ This time the silence was mercifully shorter. ‘Do you know where I was eight dummy4

years ago?’

Eight years ago – ? 1937? ‘In 1937, sir – ?’

‘ You were in the middle of your first long vacation from Oxford, major – August 1937. You were staying with friends, first in New York, then in New England.

Then you went out West – you stayed at Jackson Hole, in Wyoming, and climbed up into the Grand Tetons, with a boy named Bill – William T. Schuster. August 1937 –remember?’ Clinton paused momentarily.

‘Agreed?’

‘Yes.’ That August he had been with Uncle Luke’s Wall Street friends. And the following August he had been at his first TA camp, on Salisbury Plain. But the man would surely know that too – and the extent of his knowledge was terrifying! ‘Yes, sir.’

‘ I was in Spain, on the Northern Front – the Basque campaign. Near a place called Barruelo.’

It wasn’t so much surprising that the man had been in Spain, which would certainly have been professionally interesting to any soldier, as that he was swopping his past for nothing in exchange. And, for some reason, this information was also frightening. But he mustn’t betray his fear. ‘On which side?’

‘The Nationalists’ – the full-blown Fascist one.’ The reply came matter-of-fact, without excuse. ‘I was a stretcher-carrier with the Navarrese – the 6th – next to dummy4

Bastico’s Italians. And I used to lie on my back and watch the German planes make mincemeat of the Russian Ratas. The Russians had supplied old stuff, and the Condor boys were trying out their latest Me-109s, so it wasn’t really a fair fight. But I didn’t stay to see the finish of it, after the Italians broke their promise and handed over their prisoners to Franco to be murdered – I got myself conveniently killed in action –

“missing, presumed” – so that I could join the Republican side, in Barcelona. Because the only fellow in the British battalion of the International Brigade –

the XVth, that was . . . the only fellow who might have recognized me had conveniently got himself killed on the Ebro. So ... in answer to your most intelligent question, major ... I am a hero of both sides. Which I can admit to you now because both sides know it now.

But, fortunately, they didn’t know it then, of course.’

‘Of course.’ Fred stopped worrying. After that put-down he really had nothing to lose. ‘Which side did you prefer?’

‘Ah . . . now that is a good question, actually.’ The academic mildness of Clinton’s reaction piled surprise on surprise. ‘In a way, it is perhaps the question . . .

although for most people, now, at this exact moment in history, it may seem not a question at all, but an insult . . . But . . . mmm – I have often thought about that. Although perhaps not in quite the same way . . .’

dummy4

He trailed off, for a moment. ‘ Mmm ... if the worst ever could theoretically come – or have come – to the worst . . .’ The Brigadier trailed off again. The truth is that . . . I really don’t know, Fred.‘ Clinton bestowed the diminutive on him with such transparent sincerity that Fred found himself leapfrogging contempt (which usually came after relief when senior officers betrayed their fallibility) and coming up against that old unjumpable mixture of respect and sympathy and understanding, which always evoked loyalty!

But – damn it! – he mustn’t give way to that! Not so easily, and on such short acquaintance! Not with this man of all men!

‘The truth is that there were decent men on both sides.

There was even an Italian colonel – Farina, I think his name was . . . Armado – ? Giuseppe – ? Gian-Carlo – ?

I can’t remember . . . But he was a decent man – an honourable man, in the old sense: he hated what he was doing in Spain, and resigned in protest in the end.

And there were a lot of good men in the International Brigade, too, who thought they were good Communists . . . although they wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes if their side had won – and some of them didn’t last much longer than that as it was: if it wasn’t a Fascist bullet in the front, it was one in the back for them, and when no one was looking!’ Clinton drew a huge reminiscent sigh, and then looked directly at Fred, dummy4

with the pale-blue clouded. ‘So . . . no, in answer to your question – same in Spain, same in Germany, you’ve got to remember.’ Nod. ‘When it starts . . .

there aren’t just good men on one side, and bad men on the other – there are good men on both edges of the middle. And some of them are stupid, but some of them are quite clever . . . but just not quite clever enough. And, of course, a lot of them are quite ordinary, also. And, then, as one side or the other starts to win, and to show its true colours, they don’t know what to do. But by then it’s too late, and they haven’t anywhere else to go, because they’re inside the thing by then – they can’t run, then: it’s Bergen-Belsen or Siberia, or a firing squad for them – and their families.

So what do they do then, eh?’

Having asked two silly questions of his own in succession and got far more than he’d bargained for in reply, Fred decided that he would treat this one as rhetorical and say nothing.

‘The very brave ones resist, and take the consequences.’ Clinton accepted his silence. ‘And there aren’t many of them around in Germany now, take my word for it. Or in Spain, although Spain’s not quite so bad. But in Soviet Russia . . . there are none.’

He stared through Fred. ‘And the not-so-brave ones and the confused ones . . . some of them try to hide – to lie low, in the hope of better times one day. But you dummy4

need both cleverness and luck for that, as well as hope.’ The stare focused on him suddenly. ‘But your average chap ... as it might be you or me, my lad – you or me ... he gets swallowed up by the thing – The Beast! Because that’s the Nature of the Beast, you see –

you get involved with it, for whatever reason . . .

because of your job, or your family, or at worst your ambition – or even by accident, or by pure bad luck. Or you can even become part of it out of patriotism, or for religious reasons – there was a lot of that in Spain, believe me. Or even idealism – for any number of reasons ... I once worked with a British Officer who thought Oswald Mosley had all the right ideas but the wrong friends – he died at Dunkirk, fighting the Nazis.

But it was a damned close-run thing with him, and he was just lucky – lucky being an Englishman – it was

“Our country, right or wrong” with him, so he landed up on the right side by accident-of-birth, you might say.’ The terrible mirthless smile returned. ‘Up until August ’39 he always half suspected that I was a damned Red. But then Stalin made his pact with Hitler, and he gave me the benefit of the doubt after that. And, in a queer way, he was quite right of course – as well as being quite wrong. Quite wrong, that is, because I’m not a patriot, major. You may choose to insult me in any way you like, but I’d be obliged if you would avoid making that mistake.‘

dummy4

They had got past 1937, to reach 1940. But now they seemed to have returned to 1939; the truth was that Fred didn’t know where he was, except that he wasn’t in the real world of 1945 any more.

‘The best news I ever heard was the German-Soviet Pact in ’39.‘ Clinton was so wrapped up in his own unpatriotism that he missed Fred’s quiet desperation.

’Both the Beasts of Spain were suddenly on the same side, which I’d never hoped for in my wildest dreams.‘

He turned away from Fred and Hermann both, to look out into a gap between the trees, over the dull grey-green German landscape. ’Of course, I was younger then, and I didn’t realize how far the rot had gone in France. And I thought the Americans would be pulled in sooner than they were, so that we’d be back in 1918

before long . . . Foolish! Foolish! The old idiocy of making pictures of what I wanted to see!‘ He swung back to Fred unexpectedly, catching him with his mouth open. ’But you went to America in 1937, and not to Spain as some of your friends wanted you to do?

Now . . . why was that, major? New York instead of Barcelona. And the Grand Tetons instead of the Ebro –

why?‘

Why – ?

There had been a ferment then, not just in Oxford, but with the word coming from Cambridge and elsewhere, as that summer term had ended. But then Uncle Luke dummy4

had appeared out of nowhere, with his membership of Vincent’s Club and held in surprising esteem there, on the basis of some great and unexpected Oxford sporting triumph over The Other Place in the distant past, which was still remembered by the Steward as a famous victory.

‘Actually, it was my uncle – Uncle Luke.’ At such short notice, and with his back to Hermann, Fred could only present the truth by way of an explanation. ‘He’d got an invitation from the Schusters for me.’ But that wasn’t the whole truth; and he owed that to himself too in retrospect, as well as to Uncle Luke. ‘We talked a bit about Spain, actually – ’ But, when it came to the crunch he couldn’t bring himself to go further than that. ‘I don’t really remember much of it.’ He could only shrug now. ‘But . . . he’s a persuasive old devil.’

‘He told you to keep your powder dry. He said it took five minutes to put cannon-fodder into the line, but nine months to train an infantryman who wasn’t a danger to others as well as himself – and eighteen months for second-lieutenant. By which time the war would be over. So if you wished for a useful death as well as a glorious one, you might as well join the OTC, and then the TA, and get your degree meanwhile. And then there’d be plenty for you to do, wearing the right uniform at the right time, in the right place.’

That was exactly what Uncle Luke had said. But dummy4

Brigadier Frederick Clinton couldn’t have been there in Vincent’s that night, either as himself or as a fly on the wall, because he had been in Spain. So that pointed to an almost-certainty, because there had been only one other person there halfways sober enough to recall those words so accurately. ‘You’ve talked to him –

obviously – ? Uncle Luke, I mean? About me?’

‘Talked to him? My dear Fred . . . your “Uncle Luke”

and I go back longer than the odd talk about you! Don’t you know that the Fattorini Brothers have useful Spanish contacts – just as they have a hand in Colonel Michaelides’ Balkan Mercantile Bank, and the so-called “Aegean Mutual Trust” – ?’ Clinton stopped as he saw Fred’s face. ‘You must forgive me. I’m sorry – ’

‘Don’t be.’ Feeling foolish in a retrospect stretching back to the late 1930s might well be a burden the Brigadier could bear now. But his own failure to put two-and-two together was of a much more recent date, and its taste was bitter. ‘I think – ’

‘No. I spoke out of turn. And that was unpardonable –

quite unpardonable.’ After sharply pulling rank with that first interruption, Clinton seemed almost embarrassed. ‘Besides which ... I would not have you think ill of your Uncle Luke, of all men.’

‘I don’t.’ A small revenge offered itself. ‘You couldn’t make me do that. . . sir.’

‘Good! I’m relieved to hear it.’ Clinton’s confidence dummy4

and authority returned instantly: he sounded more relieved by Fred’s sound judgement than by the news that there was nothing to forgive.

‘But I am a little surprised that you didn’t mention him the first time we met, though.’ Fred decided to push his luck. ‘You gave me quite a hard time in Greece, I seem to remember. “Gallivanting in hostile territory without a thought” – was that it? And you never said you knew my uncle.’

‘No.’ Clinton gave him a hard look. ‘Your Uncle Luke is a remarkable man in his way, major. A good man, even.’

That was no answer. ‘I know that he’s a good banker.’

The lack of answer had been contemptuous. But that somehow goaded him into wondering where else the old firm had ‘useful contacts’. Rome, certainly . . .

But . . . Berlin? And Moscow? ‘And you like bankers –

I know that, too.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Does it matter?’ What mattered suddenly was that all the ramifications of the Fattorini Brothers in general, and the Brigadier’s long-time friendship with Sir Luke Fattorini in particular, accounted for the involvement of the unfortunate ci-devant Captain Frederick Fattorini in this murky business, thought Fred. Or, when added to the pure mischance of his own friendship with Kyri, dummy4

it did . . . Except that, even there Uncle Luke and the old firm were at the heart of the accident too. So ... was he never to have free will – even to be a victim?

‘It was that young blackguard Audley!’ Clinton came up with his own correct answer. ‘I’ll bet it was!’

‘Does it matter?’ Fred came to the point of decision not so much to save Audley as to assert and save himself.

‘You’re quite right, of course – about Uncle Luke, I mean.’ He paused for a fraction of a second. ‘But you’re also wrong.’

The possibility that he could be wrong about anything that he didn’t already know of brought the Brigadier up short. ‘What d’you mean, major?’

That had saved Audley. Now he had to save himself.

‘He did talk to me in Vincent’s – he was afraid I might go to Spain, of course.’

‘With Sebastian Cavendish – yes?’ Clinton asserted his own knowledge cruelly. ‘Who was killed on the Ebro –

uselessly.’

‘With Bassie Cavendish.’ There would have been a time when he would have hit the bastard for that, Brigadier or not. ‘And I regretted not going for a long time after that. Almost . . . almost until very recently, actually. And then I remembered something else Uncle Luke said . . . which, in a way, you’ve also said now, you see.’

dummy4

The Brigadier plainly didn’t see. (So Uncle Luke’s memory of that night in Vincent’s hadn’t been quite word-perfect, then!) But this time Clinton had the wit not to interrupt.

‘I didn’t much like what was happening in Greece, sir.

Not even after I’d realized that the Communists had always planned it that way . . . only, they hadn’t bargained on us fighting them. But . . . but, anyway, they’d planned to make a clean sweep of the other side.

And then the middle wouldn’t have any choice. And I didn’t much like that, either – ’

(He had said to Kyri: ‘ What’s the difference between you and them?’ And Kyri had replied: ‘ Not a lot, my dear chap. Only. . . I am personally responsible for whatever I do, and I cannot say to God therefore that

“I was only obeying orders” when I come before Him

– that is really the only difference.’) Only, he couldn’t say that to the Brigadier. But what could he say, then? And, by God, it would have to be good, now!

And the Brigadier was still waiting, too –

‘We had a fellow posted to us from Northern Italy . . .

or it might have been Austria, I don’t know.’ He fought for time. ‘But he was more or less in disgrace, about dummy4

half a step from court-martial. And he got pissed out of his mind one night . . .’ He could see that time was running out ‘. . . he said that we’d been sending prisoners back east – all sorts of odds and sods of Russians, and Ukrainians and assorted Slavs . . . old men, and women and children, too . . . And they were committing suicide, some of them – ’ He trailed away helplessly.

‘What else did he say?’ The Brigadier urged him on.

‘He fell under the table then. So we put him to bed.’

Fred could still remember Captain Smith’s drunken misery as they’d tried to make him comfortable. And his endless questions – ‘ What would you have done, Fattorini?’

‘Very sensible. And when he’d sobered up ... what did he say, then?’

‘He wouldn’t talk. And he was posted again shortly after that, in any case.’ He met the Brigadier’s stare.

‘To Burma, actually.’

‘Yes. Also very sensible.’ The terrible smile returned.

‘Traditional, too.’

‘Traditional?’ The last tradition he had encountered had been Audley’s umbrella.

‘Yes.’ The smile twitched hideously. ‘In Nelson’s day, when there were signs of indiscipline, they always used to ship out those who knew about it as far away as dummy4

possible, and as quickly as possible. Nothing like a long sea voyage to isolate contagion.’ The Brigadier pointed suddenly at a smaller statue alongside the path, to a carved stone trophy of Roman equipment presumably symbolizing loot from the ruin of Varus’s army: armour, shields, sword, eagle standard and helmet hanging on a central shaft. ‘The Romans weren’t so kind: they favoured decimation –crucify every tenth man, regardless.’

There was no escaping the man’s meaning. ‘Is that a threat?’

‘If you think it is ... then it is.’ Clinton studied the trophy. The Germans took three legionary eagles in the Teutoburger fight. And the Romans wasted a lot of effort trying to get ‘em back, as a matter of prestige.

But they only recovered two. And I’ll bet Gus Colbourne would give his pension for the missing one . . .’ He turned on his heel to study a matching trophy on the other side of the pathway. ‘Conventional war, for most people – for the young anyway – is a group activity, transacted by a majority vote. The generals – the generals and the politicians . . . they just want bodies to do as they are told. For the rest ... if the bodies are willing, then their job is to carry each other on to quite remarkable feats of heroism and self-sacrifice, equally in victory and defeat, in the execution of their orders.’ He looked from one trophy to the dummy4

other, as though comparing them. ‘All that is required additionally is a sense of comradeship and duty and proper training and decent leadership – decent leadership particularly in the lower ranks . . . and patriotism, of course – however misconceived – if possible. And then custom and practice – that’s very important. Because the Germans and the Russians both regarded soldiering as something quite natural and inevitable. The Germans particularly . . . but the Russians too, in spite of grossly inadequate training and deplorable leadership . . . Both of them performed miracles because of that, added to patriotism. Whereas the British and the Americans really have no military tradition – no military inclination. No self-respecting Englishman – or Welshman . . . with the Scots and the Irish I’m not so sure . . . but in general, no self-respecting Briton or American would dream of taking the King’s shilling, or Uncle Sam’s dollar, unless he was starving or otherwise unemployable. But in wartime, by a majority vote and with certain of those additions, you can still do a great deal with them. And, of course, in the First World War, thanks to greater ignorance and consequently greater patriotism, miracles were done with them, too.’ He turned to Fred at last. ‘But all that is in war . . . and all you temporary hostilities-emergency-only soldiers believe that you’ve more-or-less won this war, so now you can go home –

is that it?’

dummy4

That was exactly it, thought Fred. But, short of a direct order, he was not about to admit it. And, indeed, even with a direct order he would plead incomprehension, ignorance and stupidity if pressed.

‘Well, I have news for you, major.’ Mercifully, it was another rhetorical question. ‘We are still in a state of official war, even though the exceedingly formidable Japanese are far away. So, under the Rules of War –

and probably the Geneva Convention too, for all I know – I can have you court-martialled for having a tender conscience and disobeying any legitimate order.

Or, in the appropriate circumstances, I can shoot you myself, and almost certainly get away with it. Whereas, if you shoot me you will be shot yourself – at least, you will unless you can get Colonel Augustus Colbourne to defend you, anyway.’ Again the terrible smile. ‘But that is unlikely, partly because he won’t . . . but mostly because I will get you first, you see.’

Actually, thought Fred, he really could plead incomprehension, ignorance and stupidity honestly now. ‘Sir?’

‘Apart from all of which we haven’t won the war.

Even, most regrettably, we haven’t beaten the Germans. Because the Russians have done that for us, unfortunately. Although that does not oblige us to be grateful, because they didn’t do it either for us, or from choice: what they intended is that we should ruin each dummy4

other – the democrats and the fascists both – and then they could pick up the pieces, as they foolishly hoped they would do in Spain. But Hitler and European geography dictated differently. So don’t “but” me with foolish gratitude for Our Glorious Russian Allies, eh?’

Fred had not been about to do that, either. But, also, he was not about to say anything, either.

‘But then you wouldn’t, would you?’ Clinton pressed the question with a disconcerting certainty, as though everything he had said had been perfectly understood and the answer was no more than a marriage-vow formality.

‘No. As it happens, I wouldn’t.’ The marriage image persisted oddly in Fred’s mind. On the face of it he was agreeing with the Brigadier’s scorn for those who confused the heroism and achievement of the Russians against a common enemy with selfless friendship for their western allies. But his recent exposure to the influence of Colonel Kyriakos Michaelides and the drunken misery of Captain Smith of the Intelligence Corps (who was probably sweltering in his Burmese jungle by now) had only confirmed a process started long before by Uncle Luke at Vincent’s. But there was also something curiously affirmative about that negative: it was like saying “I do” rather than “I wouldn’t”, – it was like saying “I, Frederick, temporary major, take thee, Frederick, to be my lawful dummy4

wedded Brigadier . . . for better, for worse . . . and to obey, if not to love, honour and cherish!” So he couldn’t leave it there. ‘But what makes you so sure that I wouldn’t?’

The Brigadier liked the question: it almost softened his gaze. ‘I know everything about you, Major Fattorini –

don’t you remember? You wouldn’t be here now if I didn’t – and neither would I.’

That was a challenge, as well as a statement.

‘Everything?’

‘Try me, and see.’

That was a nasty one. Because Clinton had already thrown in Bassie Cavendish and Bill Schuster ... so he could eliminate Uncle Luke from the reckoning. And after that he hardly knew where to begin – or even whether it would be good for his peace of mind.

Because, equally, he could eliminate Kyri from the trial: Colonel Michaelides and Brigadier Clinton would undoubtedly have talked together – and understood exactly what the other was saying, because they talked the same language, if not the same mother tongue.

‘Let’s see . . .’ Clinton cut through his irresolution.

‘Smith, Nigel John, major, “I” Corps, Rangoon?’ He paused deliberately to let the cut slice deeper. ‘Of course, he was only a captain when you put him to bed in Athens. But he also wasn’t as drunk as you thought he was . . . although he was genuinely miserable, and dummy4

also quite mutinous, I would agree.’ This time he nodded. ‘Which was why I had him shipped out east afterwards, instead of bringing him here instead of you, actually.’ Another nod. ‘Oh yes – he was a double-check on you. Which was necessary because of your reactions to Greece, in spite of your Greek friend’s recommendation. Because, as you yourself said, you

“didn’t much like that”, did you?’

There was treachery! thought Fred again. But what could he expect, now that former allies were enemies, and (after last night) even present allies had to be double-crossed?

‘But don’t think badly of Colonel Michaelides.’

Clinton read his face with disconcerting accuracy. ‘He tried hard to preserve you from me. But unconvincingly, I’m afraid: he said you were an honourable man, thinking that that would put me off.

Because, in his own way, he is also an honourable man

– just like your Uncle Luke. Although Luke didn’t try to put me off.’

There was no end to the villainy of friends and relations, it seemed. ‘He gave me to you, did he?’ It rankled equally that Nigel Smith hadn’t been as drunk as he had seemed on that memorably argumentative evening – and that he himself hadn’t been as sober, maybe. So brother-officers couldn’t be trusted either, and he’d never again know for sure where he was with dummy4

any of them – friends, relations and equals . . . not for sure, as he had been able to know on that road to the north, in Italy, with that long-lost German engineer brother, who had at least been a trustworthy enemy.

‘He gave me to you?’

‘That he most certainly did not!’ No almost-softness now: cold authority now. ‘He said you might be difficult. But he said that, as a good Fattorini, you would listen to a fair offer. And that if you made a bargain you would keep your side of it.’

Again, a nasty one. And it was nasty both because brigadiers didn’t usually make offers to subordinates, and also because good Fattorinis always mistrusted fair offers. And, since Uncle Luke knew that rule better than he did, the very statement was a warning.

‘I keep telling you – I know all about you. So ... if you don’t believe me . . . then I challenge you to test me.’

Short of an answer, Clinton tried another tack. ‘Are you afraid of losing?’

Fred saw the trap just in time. ‘I’m not afraid. But if I lose, then I lose. But if I win, I lose. So I just don’t fancy playing, that’s all.’

‘That’s a pity. Because I was hoping you would ask me what it was that your Uncle Luke said, which you remembered just now . . . which I didn’t remind you of.

Because that’s the point now.’

dummy4

What Fred remembered at once was that, at the time, the Brigadier hadn’t seemed to understand what he’d said, then. But now it seemed that he himself hadn’t read the man correctly at all when it came to the very heart of the matter. ‘Very well: what did he say?’

‘He said that it wasn’t your body the Reds wanted in Spain – it was your soul they wanted, for future use.’

Clinton nodded. And then stopped nodding. ‘But I don’t want your soul, you see, major.’

That was exactly what Uncle Luke had said. ‘I wouldn’t give it to you if you wanted it.’ As he spoke, Fred decided that wouldn’t should be couldn’t. ‘I wouldn’t and couldn’t.’

‘I’m so glad to hear it. Because for what I have in mind I need men whose souls are their own.’ He watched Fred for a moment. ‘That surprises you?’

It was no good denying what his face must be betraying. ‘It surprises me that we’re discussing my soul. Or anyone else’s soul.’

‘Not in King’s Regulations – souls? Nothing about

“Free Will” in the Manual of Military Law?’ The man’s lack of emotion went with his placeless, classless, accent. ‘No mention of “Souls G. S., officers, for the use of or ” Souls G. S., other ranks“ — made out of coarser materials, of course – ” if damaged or lost on active service, report to Chaplain for replacement“

– ?’ There wasn’t the slightest hint of humour, either.

dummy4

‘No ... it was the word your Uncle used. And, as it happens, also the one Colonel Michaelides chose; although in his case it had a more narrowly religous connotation, I suspect. For myself, I might have selected a different one. But since you evidently understand what it means, then I shall use it to describe our bargain – very good?’

All the Fattorini warning bells rang simultaneously again. ‘On which side of this bargain is my soul supposed to be weighed – yours or mine?’

‘On which side?’ Clinton seemed almost surprised.

‘Why – on both sides, of course. And on neither side.

Your soul ... if there are such things, and if you have one – your soul is the scales on which your actions must be weighed. Isn’t that what souls are for?’

Damn the man! ‘My actions?’ Damn the man!

‘That’s right. On these terms, you come to me freely.

And you freely obey my orders. But you yourself take absolute responsibility for whatever you do, just as I take absolute responsibility for giving you the order to do it. So ... in effect, as of now, and probably for the first time in your life . . . you are a free man, major!’

Fred had never felt more unfree in his life. ‘It seems a rather one-sided bargain. If I have to take the responsibility for –’

‘Not at all! If you believe you have a soul, then you dummy4

must admit the possibility that I have one also. And you can’t have my soul in order to excuse yourself –

that’s all.’

There was something very dodgey about this bargain.

But there was also a much more urgent question. ‘And what if I disagree with your orders?’

‘Then you must question them. I have no use for unquestioning obedience: that is for slaves – and well-trained animals.’

‘And soldiers.’

‘And soldiers. But you are no longer a soldier.’

‘I’m not?’ Fred looked down on himself, past his tarnished brasses and crumpled and muddy battledress trousers to his disgracefully dirty boots. It was true that he looked unsoldierly: he hadn’t looked as dishevelled as this since Italy. Or, at least, since Osios Konstandios. ‘Aren’t I?’

‘You still wear the uniform. But that’s only because it suits the time and the place. And me, of course.

Civilians don’t have much clout here in Germany. But that will change very soon. And when it does, then you will change.’

Fred looked up again. Things were already changing, but they were doing so far too fast, from a taken-for-granted present to an indefinite future which threatened to stretch even beyond the war’s far off and bloody end dummy4

in Japan sometime next year, if they were lucky.

‘So there are no King’s Regulations between us now,’

Clinton continued before he could speak. ‘And no Rules of War or Geneva Conventions either. Nothing but our bargain, freely entered into on both sides –

“bargain” is also your uncle’s word. But the exact word doesn’t matter so long as we both understand its meaning.’

‘But . . . I’m not sure that I do understand it.’ Fred’s voice sounded thick to his ears. ‘Whatever the word may be.’

‘In what respect do you not?’

Fred cleared his throat. ‘The war must end soon.’

‘Very soon.’ Clinton shook his head. ‘But our war will not end soon.’

Our war? ‘I have a Release Number which says mine will.’

‘You have no Release Number any more – as of this moment.’

This time he wasn’t going to say that he didn’t understand. ‘But . . . you said I am “a free man”. How do I exercise my freedom?’

‘Very simply.’ Clinton undid the top button of his battledress blouse and drew a long buff-coloured envelope from his inside pocket. ‘This is my side of the bargain, major. It contains a special release from His dummy4

Majesty’s service, properly signed and officially stamped. Your demobilization papers, in fact – go on, major – take it!’

Fred’s right hand refused to move. Instead he felt his good fingers clench into a palm which was unaccountably sweating.

‘Go on – take it.’ Clinton sounded almost dismissive.

‘Have you got a pen?’

‘A pen – ?’ The envelope seemed to hang in the air between them.

‘It’s undated. So if there comes a day when you cannot obey my orders, then all you have to do is date it from that day. All my officers have a similar document –

except young David Audley of course.’

Of course? The words repeated themselves stupidly inside Fred’s brain. But, then, young Audley had said he was an exception to all the rules, of course.

‘The King hasn’t had his money’s worth out of that boy yet. And neither have I.’ Clinton paused. ‘But for the rest ... I have no uses for any man who has no use for me. For my work I need free men, nothing else will serve. Otherwise I cannot do the work and neither can they. And, also, I should very soon become a mirror-image of my enemy. And then the work would not be worth doing.’

The envelope was still in mid-air. And Fred was dummy4

remembering that old feeble joke, which he’d first heard in 1939, on Salisbury Plain, and thereafter at intervals, through bitter Italian winters and the last time in a gun-pit within sight of the Acropolis in Athens on Christmas Day (the real Christmas Day, not Scobiemas) –

‘ There was this squaddie, see ... an’ ‘e’d ’ad enough . . . an‘ ’e reckoned to work ‘is ticket by pretendin’ ‘e was a looney –’

(‘He’s mad,’ David Audley had said; and ‘All my officers are mad,’ Colonel Colbourne had replied – )

‘ – so ev’ryfink ’e touches, or picks up ... ‘ e sez “No!

That’s not it!” Like it might be ’is rifle, or ‘is boots, or

’is bleedin‘ mess-tin – ’e sez “No! That’s not it” . . .

Until, in the end, after the doc ‘ad seen ’im, an‘ the padre an’ all, they reckoned that ‘e really was a looney

– ’

(And, also, hadn’t Clinton himself said: ‘All sappers are mad’? –)

‘ – so they give ’im ‘is discharge. An’, as ‘e grabs it, ’e sez: “Gor‘ blimey! THAT’S IT!”’

dummy4

It had never been very funny, that joke – and not least because it had always been told and re-told in situations of extreme unfunniness. But it had never been more unfunny than now, as he stretched out and accepted the long-dreamed-of manumission.

‘Why do I need a pen?’ He heard himself reject his freedom even as he touched it, as though from far away.

‘It’s August 7th today.’ The Brigadier re-buttoned his blouse with his newly-freed hand. ‘You can date it from today if you wish. Although Major de Souza will have to process it, and arrange transport. But that will only be a formality, for he has all the necessary Army Instructions to hand.’

The bloody man was so bloody-sure of himself that Fred was tempted for a fraction of a second to put him to the test. But then he remembered that his pen was dry, and he’d lost his indelible pencil. And it would be no joke to face Amos de Souza, who possessed the same document, even as a joke, anyway – any more than he could face Uncle Luke if it hadn’t been, damn him – damn him, and damn them all!

He transferred the envelope to his good left hand and began to fumble with his own top button, forcing his clumsy promoted second finger to do its new work in default of its useless superior.

dummy4

‘So – ’ It pleased him absurdly that his bad hand obeyed him faultlessly with the Brigadier watching it ‘

– what are my first orders then . . . Freddie?’

The Brigadier stopped watching his hand and met his eyes. But now, at least, he was truly ready for that steel to rasp down his own. Which was wonderfully more exciting than anything which had happened to him for a very long time –

‘Good.’ Clinton seemed to take his victory for granted, without pleasure. ‘But they’re not simple ones. You may not like them.’

Fred felt the weight of the envelope inside his blouse, against his heart. ‘That doesn’t surprise me one bit.’

All he had to do was think of that weight as freedom –

then he could accept it. Because freedom ought to be heavier than servitude. ‘Who are you hunting now?’

Clinton’s stare became blank. ‘What makes you think I’m hunting anyone?’

Fred knew he was right. ‘Kyri – Colonel Michaelides ... he said you were a man-hunter. Isn’t that what TRR-2 has been doing: hunting Germans?’

‘Yes.’ Clinton paused. ‘But I am not hunting a German now, major. It’s an Englishman I want now, I’m sorry to say.’

PART FOUR

dummy4

The Price of Freedom

In the Teutoburg Forest,

Germany, August 8, 1945

1

Down in the castle courtyard below, someone started singing in a high, sweet voice, quite destroying Fred’s concentration in an instant.

‘Als die Romer frech geworden,

Zogen sie nach Deutschlands Norden,

Vorne beim Trompetenschwall

Ritt der Generalfeldmarschall,

Herr Quinctilius Varus – ’

For a moment the very sweetness of the sound, rendered crystal-clear in the morning air by some acoustic accident even within his bedroom, deceived him. Then the meaning of the words registered.

‘Doch in Teutoburger Walde

Hu, wie pfiff der Wind so kalte;

dummy4

Raben flogen durch die Luft,

Und es war ein Morderuft

Wie von Blut und Leichen!’

That was quite enough, thought Fred vengefully, throwing back the sheet and starting towards the window across the bare boards.

‘Plotzlich aus des Waldes Duster

Brachen krampfhaft die Cherusker

Mit Gott fur Furst und Vaterland – ’

Far below him, foreshortened by the angle of sight, there was a German soldier – or, anyway, a man in field-grey overalls and German steel helmet – washing the Brigadier’s Humber Snipe as he sang. But as Fred opened his own mouth there was a sharp knock on the door behind him.

‘Come in!’ He turned from the window quickly.

‘Mornin’, sir.‘ The soldier who had swept away all his clothes and equipment the night before appeared in the doorway. Trooper Leighton – char up, sir. An’ your bath’ll be ready in ten minutes – I ‘ave to bring the ’ot water up, ‘cause the pipes broke on this floor, so I’m your bheesti, sir –’

dummy4

‘Weh! das war ein grosses Morden!

Sie erschlugen die Kohorten – ’

‘I’ll take the major’s tea, Lucy.’ David Audley appeared from behind the man, fully-dressed and with a cup of tea already in one hand. ‘You go and fill his bath.’ He grinned at Fred. ‘Bloodthirsty, isn’t it! “Woe!

There was a great killing!” Morning, Fred.’

Although he very carefully hadn’t drunk too much the night before there was a small knot of pain just above Fred’s left eye. ‘Where’s my uniform? Where are my clothes?’ he snapped at the trooper.

‘Get the major’s things first, Lucy.’ Audley supplemented the question unnecessarily as he lifted the steaming mug out of the man’s hand. ‘ Juldi.’ He grinned again as the man scuttled away. ‘Lucy started his army service as a band boy in India, so he prefers to be addressed in Urdu. But you don’t need to worry about your stuff – it’ll be superb. Caesar Augustus insists on nothing less: he says that a Guards turnout impresses the Germans – or “the Cherusci” – “die Cherusker” – as he calls them. One of Hermann’s tribes, that is ... And the Redcaps too, when they catch us “fraternizing”. Saves trouble, he says.’

Fred frowned. The almost-falsetto song was even now recounting the massacre of the Roman Army by the dummy4

Cherusci in grisly and ill-omened detail, and somehow Audley’s early morning cheerfulness made it worse.

‘You’re not late, don’t worry. It’s just that I’m an early bird.’ Audley misread his expression as he handed over the cup. ‘I’ve only dropped in to apologize if I disturbed you in the night.’

‘Disturbed me?’ He took a gulp of the scalding tea, and it instantly started to perform its daily miracle. ‘You didn’t disturb me, David.’

‘Oh good!’ Audley blinked. ‘It’s just . . . I’m next door . . . and I shout in my sleep, so I’m told. I have these nightmares about a tank I once briefly occupied which was absolutely full of flies – big, fat greeny-black ones. But I don’t have ’em so often now. They’re going away –like my stutter. It’s the th-therapeutic effect of the soft life we now lead, the MO says. But I think it’s the absence of tanks from my life. I never liked them, you know – ‘ He took two long steps past Fred and leaned out of the window ’ – SHUT UP, OTTO! “FLUCH AUF DICH” TO YOU, TOO – YOU

BLOODY CHERUSKER! SHUT UP!‘ He turned back, grinning widely again. ’He always sings his Teutoburger song when he’s washing the cars, and it really gets on my nerves. I think he only does it to remind us that victorious armies can come unstuck in Germany if they don’t watch out, too – he’s a caution, is our Otto! A man of many parts.‘

dummy4

Fred looked down into the courtyard, where the silenced Otto had moved on to Major McCorquodale’s French limousine. ‘He sings as though he’s lost two of them.’

‘Lost two of them?’ Audley followed his glance. ‘Oh, I see! Yes – the Crocodile did say something about

“castrati” singing when he first heard him. But the way old Otto gets on with the local girls suggests quite the opposite, if Hughie is to be believed.’

‘Yes? And where did we get him from – did you tell me?’ The golden elixir of British Army life had quite dissolved the pain over his eye, and he felt suddenly benevolent towards the young dragoon. Besides which, of course, there was the boy’s pristine innocence.

‘Do you know, I’m not quite sure.’ Audley sounded a little surprised with himself. ‘I think he just turned up one day, and made himself useful. Maybe he brought one of his wild boars with him – that would certainly have been a passport to acceptance in this mess!’ He thought for a moment. ‘But you’ll have to ask Amos –

or Hughie. One of ’em’s sure to know, if the other doesn’t.‘

Amos de Souza, thought Fred with a pang of doubt verging so closely on disbelief that it was painful: if he had to stake his life on one officer in this unit he would have hazarded it cheerfully on Major de Souza. But, in spite of his instinct – and in spite of the night before dummy4

last, which would have added circumstantial proof to that instinct until Brigadier Clinton had reinterpreted those events for him ... in spite of all that, Major de Souza’s name was on the Brigadier’s list, and high up, too –second only to that of Colonel ‘Caesar Augustus’

Colbourne himself.

Damn and damn and damn and damn! he thought, remembering his own troubled sleep. This was going to be bad, one way or another, if Clinton was right and if Otto Schild had sung a true song –

Yet, in the Teutoberg Forest

Cold blew the wind,

And the ravens flew above.

There was an air of doom,

As of blood and corpses . ...

‘You’ll catch cold if you stand there in the window.

This isn’t Greece, you know.’ Audley swung his arms.

‘God knows what it’ll be like in winter! Always supposing the Crocodile hasn’t got me posted to a tank landing-craft for the invasion of Malaya!’

Fred realized that he had shivered. ‘Oh, I don’t think there’s much chance of that, David.’ He forced a reassuring grin. Audley was a loyal young man as well as a clever one, if Clinton’s judgement could be relied on; and it was an irony that he was the only unfree man dummy4

among them. But . . . (and brave too, Clinton had said:

‘foolishly and suicidally brave, according to his CO’; but that was no more than had been expected of very young officers, wasn’t it?) . . . but it was no real consolation, among all these other veteran officers, to have to rely on the least-veteran, and most callow and awkward, if push came to shove today.

‘You don’t?’ After searching his grin for a long moment Audley seized on his reassurance eagerly. But then the look became calculating. ‘And you are a friend of the Brigadier’s, aren’t you! And a bloody dark horse, therefore ... at least, according to Hughie, anyway!’

Poor boy! ‘I wouldn’t put too much store on that . . .’ A dull thump at the door stopped him from continuing to qualify his statement. ‘Come in!’

There was a scuffling noise outside before the door opened, to reveal Trooper Leighton piled high with Fred’s belongings.

‘Put it all down, Lucy – put it all down!’ Audley started to unload the man quickly of his variously well-pressed or well-blancoed and well-polished cargo. ‘Put it all down –and get out, man-juldi, juldi!’

Trooper Leighton gave Fred an agonized glance. ‘Your bath, sir – Major M’Crocodile’s servant took all the ’ot water while my back was turned – ‘

dummy4

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Fred was grateful for having been saved from contradicting the rumour Clinton wanted spreading. ‘I prefer to wash in cold water. Just bring me enough hot for shaving.’

‘Thank you, sir – ’

‘No?’ Audley closed the door on the man. ‘Why not?’

The battle-dress was as immaculate as Audley had promised, Fred saw with relief. And, for good measure, his major’s crowns were there on the straps, too.

‘What?’ This was hardly the time to tell Audley that, according to Hughie, Captain Audley himself was a good friend of the Brigadier’s. Because Audley would know that that was a distorted version of the truth.

‘What?’

‘Ah!’ The boy’s downcast expression vanished suddenly. ‘It’s that bomb, of course!’ He grinned hugely. ‘Saved by a bomb – that’s me!’

‘Yes.’ Half the conversation over dinner had been about the amazing new bomb which had been dropped on Japan the previous day – or, at least that part of the evening which had not been devoted to a long and acrimonious argument about the origin of the recipe for the delicately-spiced meat balls which had formed the meal’s pièce-de-résistance . . . which the Crocodile had maintained was Berlin, while the Alligator had originated them in Hamburg; and which, in Otto Schild’s unexpected absence, had never finally been dummy4

resolved. ‘Yes – I think you can rely on the atomic bomb, David.’

Audley nodded happily. ‘That’s what old Kenworthy said. Bloody marvellous!’

‘Kenworthy?’ Fred’s memory of the little bespectacled major was of sullen silence and heavy drinking. ‘But he didn’t say anything – ?’

‘It was after you left.’ Audley nodded again. ‘He perked up then for a bit, before he was sick – before Lucy and Hughie carried him away and tucked him up.’ Nod. ‘But he said the Japs would be waving the white flag within a week. Or, if they didn’t, it didn’t matter. Because then there wouldn’t be any Japs left, so it came to the same thing. And that we’d all be going home.’ This time Audley shrugged his immense shoulders. ‘But that was just before he threw up –

which was just after he said he was going home tomorrow. Which is today of course . . . But I don’t think he will.’

Fred looked across the room to his valise, and to the zip-fastened pocket in it with the lock, the key to which hung round his neck with his identity discs. Because his own envelope was there, with his wallet and all the things he had taken out of his pockets last night. ‘Why not?’

‘He was very drunk . . . drunker than I’ve ever seen dummy4

him. So I don’t think he’ll be able to walk,’ explained Audley innocently. ‘But he certainly talked last night . . . before he returned to his Hamburger or Berliner meat balls ... to us, coram populo. Which was all the more spectacular because that isn’t like him either . . . Besides which he’s not due for release until next year, by my calculations.’

‘What did he say?’ It was unfortunate that Audley was the one officer he couldn’t ask about the efficacy of the long brown envelope in practice, and whether it had ever been opened and given a date before.

‘Oh ... he said this bomb was the real thing . . . not just like the Tallboys our gallant boys in blue dropped on the Bielefeld viaduct just down the road, which brought it down even though they missed it by miles . . .’ The boy’s eyes widened as he exaggerated the RAF’s incompetence ‘... he said it almost certainly isn’t very big . . . But that doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t work like an ordinary bomb . . . it’s quite different from all the stuff we’ve dropped on Germany.

In fact, he says that there’s no limit to its destructive power, and that the Jap scientists would know that themselves. So the one the Yanks dropped on wherever it was is probably just a little demonstration job. Some demo!’

It was plain that Audley wasn’t a scientist. But then, of course, he wasn’t: he was a historian potentially, and dummy4

an unwilling ex-tank commander and temporary captain actually, at this moment. ‘What does Major Kenworthy do ... refresh my memory, David? He collects machinery . . . ? But what was he ... before the war?’

‘What he really does . . . don’t ask me! He never talks to me ... or anyone else, much. But he is damn good with his machinery, certainly.’ The boy was still so entranced with the end of the war that the words tumbled out of him. ‘What he was ... I think was a physics lecturer at Manchester, or Birmingham, or somewhere. But he kept talking about his friends in the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge last night ... is there a Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge? It’s all Greek to me, I tell you!’

‘Yes.’ It was almost Greek to Fred, too. But there was a hint of Teutoburger Blut und Leichen about it also, with his mathematician’s war-weakened recollections of the bright boys of the Cavendish in mind, as well as what Clinton had said yesterday.

‘Well, whatever it is, it’s got my vote if it’ll end the war before the Crocodile sets his teeth into me!’

Audley peered out of the window again. ‘Ah! Good old Otto’s finally got round to my little car. So you won’t have to be ashamed of it if we use it today – ’ He came back to Fred ‘ – you know you’re with me today?

Everyone else can pursue their private interests, or do dummy4

their paperwork . . . or scratch their balls, and contemplate their navels, and generally recover from yesterday’s journey and last night’s excesses. But Jacko Devenish, and Hughie, and I – and you, Fred ...

for our sins, we four have to report to Amos bright and early, directly after brekker.’ He returned his attention suddenly to the scene below. ‘PUT YOUR BACK

INTO IT, MAN! GET THAT MUD OUT FROM

UNDER THOSE MUDGUARDS! Yes ... but then, of course, you’ll know all about that already . . . won’t you, Fred!’

Driver Hewitt had done his work well – and quickly, too. Because even before Clinton had arrived in the mess to contribute his own brief but masterly performance, which had only hinted at an old and special relationship between them, his fellow officers had eyed him differently. So now it was not to be wondered that this young man was fishing: that, and not his self-revealing apology, was the reason for this visit, of course.

‘THAT’S BETTER!’ The boy’s pretended lack of interest in Fred’s advance knowledge of the day’s operations was not badly done for one of such tender years.

‘Why should I know that?’ What made the lie easier was the certainty that Audley wouldn’t like the truth any more than he himself had done, when the time dummy4

came for it – if the time came for it.

‘Oh, come on! Aren’t you Our Freddie’s long-lost brother? Don’t disappoint me – ’ Audley stopped as he registered Fred’s frown, and his own expression changed from youthful falsely-innocent ugliness to an honest ugliness older than his years. ‘No, of course –

that’s not how the game is played, is it?’ He sighed.

‘And to think that I’ve been blaming myself for taking you away from your Greek fleshpots, because of my glowing references to the Fattorini family that day in the monastery! When in fact you were old acquaintances – ’ He stopped again, and all expression blanked from his face, reminding Fred oddly of Clinton himself. ‘In fact, now I come to think of that particular day in all its beauty . . . that Greek bandit you were with – he certainly wasn’t there by accident, was he!’

A hint of belated satisfaction re-animated the boy’s face. ‘So, of course, you weren’t, either – were you? So I’ve been slow – slow as usual!’

It was exactly as the Brigadier had said: there was always a danger in making pictures from inadequate evidence and misinterpreted facts. So this boy, although he was no fool, was doing that now. But there was nothing he could do about it yet.

‘My shaving water will be getting cold, David.’ He steeled himself against the boy’s enmity with the promise of a future explanation – one day, if not today.

dummy4

And also, hadn’t Audley himself been playing games, with his story of those fly-blown nightmares? ‘And I’d also like my breakfast.’

‘Yes.’ Audley was himself again as he started to turn towards the door. ‘Well, I can recommend the breakfast here: it’s quite outrageously Old English, with mounds of bacon-and-eggs, and fried bread and bangers. And tomatoes and mushrooms too, if Otto’s obeyed the Alligator’s orders.’ He almost left, but then leaned back through the gap in the door. ‘But you’ll pardon me if I hope your shaving-water is stone-cold, eh?’

Fred stared at the finally closed door, in further agreement with the Brigadier: the boy had something about him, in spite of all his defects – in spite of his mixture of arrogance and uncertainty . . . the mixture which so outrageously loosened his tongue, leading him always to say too much. But what was it, exactly

– ?

He reached into his valise for the scuffed and worn toilet-bag which was the only thing he had left of those original gifts from his mother on the eve-of-the-war, so long ago, to reach this final eve-of-peace which was dawning amidst Japanese ruin far away: the writing-case had long gone, and those three slim volumes of Plato’s Apology, and Crito, and Phaedo with it –

dummy4

somewhere in Italy they were, with the Bible he’d always meant to read, but somehow never had –

What was it – ?

‘ Audley?’ the Brigadier had said. ‘ Yes, he is an exception, and not just in the matter of loyalty . . .

Because all the others were hand-picked by me. Just as you yourself have been hand-picked finally, major. And if you and I fail now . . . then it will be back to the beginning again. But much less confidently – ’

But, as he lifted the bag, he didn’t want to think about that now: he had thought of that long enough already, across the candlelight of those same plundered silver candle-sticks of the first night, which had reappeared on the table last night. And he had continued to think about it during the night, while sleep eluded him, and then again on waking, before Otto Schild had sung his song – ‘ Yet, in the Teutoburg Forest, cold blew the wind’ –

A cold wind also blew in the Brigadier’s list –

Colbourne,

de Souza,

The Crocodile,

The Alligator,

Carver-Hart,

Kenworthy –

dummy4

He didn’t want to think of any of them now, but they wouldn’t let him go – ‘ All the others have been eliminated. And, the very devil of it is, that I can’t believe that any of those men would betray me either.

But that only means that I’m making a mistake: that I’m making pictures which I want to see, Fattorini –

Fred . . . So now we have to play for high stakes.

Because I need all these men for the future, when the stakes may become even higher — because all of them are marked for promotion – ’

But not Audley, of course!

The bathroom was huge, and its plumbing was antediluvian as well as foreign: this wasn’t the servants’ floor, but it was obviously for the less important guests. (Although he wasn’t a less important guest in Schwartzenburg Castle; he was just a late-comer – later than Colbourne, de Souza, The Crocodile, The Alligator, Johnnie Carver-Hart, Professor Kenworthy and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, right the way down to Lieutenant (temporary Captain) David Audley – )

Audley had been wrong about the water: Trooper Leighton had done his best with it, so that the shaving-water in its antique silver bucket was more than warm, and even the bath-water was tepid.

Audley —

dummy4

He stopped there, staring at himself in the mirror with the lather on his face and a new blade in his razor, as a new thought occurred to him –

‘But. . . Audley, yes: I took him on last year, in France.

And only temporarily, to repay a debt and because there was no one else I could get who spoke fluent French at short notice . . . which he does do, although with a perfectly execrable accent . . . It was his godfather who gave him to me, to save him getting killed, like all the other subalterns in his regiment were doing, in the bocage there . . . And I nearly got killed myself, actually — in a quite different operation from this, mark you . . . out of which I picked up several other useful men who are now obligated to me –

Sergeant Devenish and Driver Hewitt among them, as it happens. But that’s another story – the irony now is that Audley is the only one we can trust . . . because I didn’t pick him!’

He saw another story in the mirror suddenly, in his own eyes – ‘ Of course, afterwards I checked him all the way back – as I have checked you . . . And the others, so I thought. . . But no matter! He did well in France. So . . . I kept him on. Because he’s also going to be a useful man one day, when he matures – because inside that great hulking overgrown subaltern’s body there just may be that extra thing that we need, and which is going to be in short supply in our business dummy4

after the war, I fear – ’

There was also another story there, Fred saw much too late, but which Audley had seen before him, albeit only just: of two officers on a Greek hillside, the English one (or the Anglo-Scottish-Italian one!) innocently and accidentally, but the Greek-Cypriot bravely and deliberately in the execution of his duty – was that it?

And, if there was . . . then was there more than that, with no blind chance dictating events, all the way back to Frederick Clinton and Uncle Luke long ago? Was that it – ? Had Kyriakos deliberately tested him under stress, to bring him to Osios Konstandinos at Clinton’s bidding?

He rasped the razor across his cheek, suddenly certain that he was hungry for more than his Old English breakfast. But he wouldn’t think of that now: he would think of David Audley –

‘But he’s too young for this: it’s always a mistake to give a man’s work to boys – even lucky ones, like our young David. Because he lost several of his nine lives in Normandy, before I ever caught up with him. And then I took several more of them, through my own stupidity, I’m sorry to say. So, although you can use him now – and trust him . . . I’d be obliged if you could return him to me intact if you can, major!’

Fred examined his face carefully for missed stubble.

With his uniform so well-pressed, and everything else dummy4

so well-polished and blancoed, he needed to look his best this day.

‘But his survival isn’t tomorrow’s objective, major.

And neither is yours. Because what I now need above all else is a name —’

He made his way back to the room, blindly and automatically, and put on his wrist-watch first, while stark naked, as he always did when he had been able to wash properly first. And then put on the clean change-of-clothes which Trooper Leighton had brought with the same thought he also always had when that added luxury had been available: that, if possible, one should always go into action with clean underwear.

‘What I want is the name of the traitor in my camp, and nothing else. And then I want him alive. Because we’ve got work to do now – ’

In the final analysis, thought Fred as he turned his shoulder to the long mirror on the wall to admire his new badge of rank, if he failed, or if he found the work uncongenial, he could use that envelope with major’s crowns on his shoulders, anyway!

‘ Listen, Fred. Something happened yesterday a long way from here, in Japan –at a place called Hiroshima

– ’

2

dummy4

Audley looked round again, and he consulted his watch for the umpteenth time.

‘What are you looking for, David?’ Except for the People’s Car and the jeep containing Sergeant Devenish and Driver Hewitt, the courtyard of Schwartzenburg Castle was quite empty. ‘We’re late already.’

‘Only two minutes. And I know the way to the Exernsteine.’

‘Yes, so the adjutant said.’ Fred watched the boy curiously. ‘But we’re still late, according to his schedule. So what are you waiting for?’

‘I just thought our prisoner might turn up – “Corporal Keys” ... I haven’t laid eyes on him since we handed him over. But he must still be on the premises, damn it!’ Audley frowned up at the blank rows of windows above him. ‘Isn’t he the object of our peregrinations today?’

Peregrinations? And the boy was still fishing, too. But in his heart Fred couldn’t blame him. ‘The instrument, but not the object. Get in the car, David – that’s an order.’ He stretched his own orders slightly. ‘You’ll see him soon enough, now that he’s been promoted.’

‘What – ?’ Audley’s mouth opened comically.

‘Get in the car.’ Poor boy! How many lives have you got left, then? ‘Get in the car, and all shall be revealed, dummy4

David – ’ He had to stop there because Audley had closed his mouth quickly and was already folding himself up into the little car.

‘You don’t mind me driving – ?’ The engine whirred behind them reliably. ‘I’m actually not a very good driver – I think driving’s boring . . . But on this occasion ... I do know the car – and the way.’ Audley looked at him with eager expectation as the People’s Car shot through the castle gateway with half an inch to spare on its passenger’s side.

‘Yes – no!’ Fred shuddered as they barely missed the line of larger transport, which included Major Kenworthy’s monster, parked under the castle walls – a line complete with an armed sentry now, he noted.

‘You were saying – ?’ Audley couldn’t contain his curiosity. ‘Where’s the prisoner, then?’

‘Watch the road, David.’

‘Yes – damn it, I am watching it – ’ Audley peered into his mirror ‘ – it’s all right: our escort is right behind us.

You were saying – about Field-Marshal Keys?’

‘He’s done better for himself than that.’ Fred began to tire of the riddle-game. ‘As of last night he became a free man.’

‘ Ah . . .’ Audley swung the little car on to the main road. ‘Now ... I thought there weren’t many extra precautions last night, when I took my evening dummy4

constitutional and had a look round. Because I only got challenged on the horse-lines, by the transport – not anywhere in the castle at all!’ He nodded sagely at the road. ‘And that did strike me as ... rather odd, after our earlier failures.’

Clinton was right. ‘Did you meet anybody ... on your peregrinations?’

‘Meet anybody? They were all pissed, more or less, if you ask me – celebrating the end of the jolly old war!

And so was I, a bit ... No. Only Amos and Busy-Izzy doing their accustomed rounds, checking up on the wine-cellar, and such, of course – and the state of the duty officer’s liver, I shouldn’t wonder . . . But, he’s gone, you say? Our first real and undoubted success –

No 21 – “The-Key-of-the-Door” – ?’ He stopped suddenly, and then thumped the wheel, causing the little car to shake and swerve slightly. ‘But of course he’s gone! How stupid of me!’

‘Why?’ If the boy wanted to talk, who was he to stop him?

‘No 21! What does the key do?’ Audley accelerated.

‘Why – he opens the door to reveal No 16 – “Sweet-Sixteen-and-Never-Been-Kissed”!’ Then he looked at Fred quickly. ‘And Clinton trusted him – ? But obviously he did, the foxy old swine! And, of course, No 21 had a bloody convincing tale to tell, too: not just

“Come home, and all is forgiven”, but “Come home ...

dummy4

or someone will put a bullet through you, like they did to my ersatz self last night”!’ He thumped the wheel again, with the same disconcerting effect. ‘And, by God, that would certainly convince me! Because . . .

letting him go — after all the trouble we had taking him . . . Oh! He’s a lusty old blackbird is Our Freddie!’

Clinton was right – the boy was sharp.

‘God! I wish he’d let me go!’ Audley sighed. ‘Only then you wouldn’t see my tail for dust, though!’

‘Maybe he will, if you’re good, David.’

‘Some hope! It’s nineteen-bloody-forty-seven for me –

if I’m lucky – ’ Suddenly the car slowed, and so abruptly that Fred was instantly afraid that the jeep behind would collide with them. But when he looked over his shoulder he saw that Driver Hewitt was prudently keeping his distance.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing’s the matter. But I just remembered that you were going to reveal all. And you haven’t actually said very much – have you?’

Fred let the unspoilt German countryside slide past them for a few moments while he collected his thoughts.

But then, in spite of his orders, he was tempted to take another route to his own destination.

‘What do you think you’ve been doing?’ It would be dummy4

interesting to find out how much this clever boy had worked out. ‘Not just since I’ve been around – before that?’

‘What have I been doing – or we?’ Audley slowed even more, down almost to walking pace, craning his neck forward.

‘Why are you slowing down?’

‘There’s a checkpoint hereabouts. It won’t hold us up, because they know me perfectly well . . . That’s funny

–’

‘What’s funny?’

‘The MPs are there – but they’re not checking – see?’

Audley followed his own curiosity for a moment.

‘There’s a DP camp nearby they keep watch on ... But it looks like anyone can use this road today –’ He sniffed and shrugged. ‘Oh well... I told you, anyway: officially ... we hunt for items of interest. Though, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a bit bloody late to find out just how good old Jerry’s tanks were. But I go through the motions, as my old troop-sergeant used to say. . .’

He accelerated ‘. . . God rest his black and shrivelled soul – like his black and shrivelled body – ’ He gave Fred a sidelong look ‘ – you know how you come out of a brewed-up Cromwell – ? About the size of a bloody chimpanzee, actually –’

‘But what have you actually been doing?’

dummy4

‘Ah . . . well, among other things, I’ve done a bit of scouting round the Teutoburg Forest, to see if any Roman artefacts have turned up here and there in the last few years, with the bombing and all that, as per my orders.’ Audley sat back as comfortably as he could in the confined space. ‘Not that there is anything here.

Because the Romans never settled here – or hereabouts: they just got massacred. And the local lads . . . alias the Cherusci, and the Chauci, and the Chattii, who were the German equivalent of the Sioux and the Black Feet and the other Red Indians . . . they all carried off the loot, rejoicing, just like the Indians did after General Custer had stood his Last Stand. So there wouldn’t be anything, would there?’ Another shrug. ‘All the good Roman stuff will have surfaced over on the other side of the Rhine – ’

‘Don’t play games with me, David.’

‘I’m not playing games. It’s the truth, Fred.’ Knowing at last that he was playing some sort of game, Audley played it innocently and well. ‘Those Germans in the picture I showed you – the picture I showed you when I thought you didn’t know what was happening . . .

they operated in Roman Germany, not here. But when we arrived back there in March, after we were pulled out of that Greek raid of ours, we did fuck-all most of the time. At least, I did. Because I was on transport.

And every time I got hold of a decent car, some senior dummy4

bastard took it off me. Like the egregious Crocodile did with my French car, for example. Which is why I ended up with this little dodge-’em – ‘ he caught his tongue quickly as he felt Major Fattorini stiffen beside him. ’All-right-all-right- all-right! So ... we were after the Jerries in the picture: is that what you want me to say?‘

‘You could start in Greece, David.’

‘ In Greece? God – that was the scene of our first debacle – ’ Audley swung the wheel to avoid an old woman in black who was pulling a cart round a heap of rubble regardless of him: they were on the edge of a ruined town now. ‘But you were there yourself, damn it!’

‘But what were we after?’ The lying ‘we’ had a distinctly bitter taste. But he had to keep the upper hand.

Audley took a breath. ‘I don’t see why I should tell you what you already know – and better than I do, too.’

‘Tell me, all the same. If you want the rest of it, David.’

‘Oh . . . shit!’ But the boy craned his neck again as they turned out of the ruins. ‘That’s another one – ? I think the MPs are all on strike today –’

‘ Tell me!’

‘Okay, okay! Clinton was trying to bring out one of his own men, is what I think now. Although all I knew dummy4

then was that we had to get him alive – and we didn’t.’

He looked at Fred. ‘Is that it?’

‘It is.’ After the stick, it was time for a carrot. ‘And that put him back almost three months, David.’

‘It did?’ Audley seized on the information eagerly.

‘We first got that picture in ... May, yes – ? That would be about three months.’

‘And what do the people in it have in common?’ He couldn’t resist the extra question.

‘Oh . . . that’s easy.’ The prospect of more answers dissolved Audley’s caution.

‘Yes?’

‘Not bloody Roman remains, for a start!’ Audley crashed the gears down joyfully as the car began to climb.

‘No?’

‘No!’ Audley tossed his head. ‘Colonel “Caesar Augustus” Colbourne may be a looney. But our Freddie isn’t into Roman history – no!’

Fred waited, half expectantly, but also somewhat irritated. Maybe it was the boy’s recent military experience, when he had been forced to listen to other people’s stupidities in obedient subaltern silence, which now invariably tempted him to hear his own voice saying clever things. But whatever the reason, if he were to remain a useful member of TRR-2 in the dummy4

future, he would have to learn to hide his bright light more prudently.

‘I got it wrong first, actually – ’ Audley steered the little car regardlessly across a succession of potholes in the track which had succeeded the road surface ‘ – not understanding about Greece, of course.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes.’ The mockery bounced off Audley’s arrogance.

‘I thought . . . “cushy billet, those Jerries have got for themselves – pottering round the ruins of all the old German cities . . . Roman cities, rather: Confluentes, Moguntiacum, Colonla Claudia Ara Agrippinensis . . .

picking up this and that after the fires had cooled down, and after their ARP people had carted off the bodies, and long after the jolly old RAF had departed –

a real cushy billet!’ He pulled the car to a halt off the track under a stand of great beech trees through which a bright green meadow was visible, falling away on their right. ‘Very German of course, all the same. Great scholarship as well as great military prowess – too damn great military prowess for my liking . . . But great scholars too, they are. And they’ve always been fascinated with classical history – hence all the famous stuff in their museums. And hence that Roman fort we were billeted in, and the one the Kaiser rebuilt on the same line . . . and that bloody great statue in the woods not far from here . . . So it was a damn good cover, as dummy4

well as a cushy billet –but cover for what, eh?’ Audley stared at him for an instant, then began to unwind himself out of his seat.

Fred followed suit, staring through the trees as he stretched his legs. Not far ahead there seemed to be a great grey cliff rising up from the grass of a wide forest clearing.

‘ Nazis, I thought – ’ Audley towered over the car ‘ –

bloody Nazis taking cover in a nice, respectable job, hoping that we wouldn’t look for them in Roman Germany, dressed in scholars’ gowns. At least, that would be their second line of defence, anyway, if we did trace them. Because it was pretty clear they’d all dispersed and gone to ground long before we appeared on the scene. Which meant they knew they had something to hide.’ Audley pointed towards the cliff.

‘Shall we walk? The RV is just down the track from here, by the rocks – ’ He looked at his watch ‘ – but we’re still in good time.’

Fred fell into slow step beside him.

‘But then we started to uncover facts as well as names and dates. And then it didn’t seem to work so well, my theory. Because some of them really were pretty distinguished scholars and not Nazis at all. Like old Professor Schmidt, for example. And Langer, who was at Oxford. Although he wasn’t a classicist, or an archaeologist. He was a very smart scientist, so I dummy4

discovered – quite by accident . . . And Enno von Mitzlaff – he was an archaeologist, young and up-and-coming. And then he was a damn good soldier, until he lost his arm in the desert. But he wasn’t a Nazi – he certainly wasn’t a Nazi, by God!’

Audley was looking at the cliff now. And yet, it wasn’t a cliff: it was an extraordinary limestone outcrop ... or, rather, a series of outcrops, some rising up like great blunt fingers into the grey morning sky above the forest.

‘But, then it looked like none of them were Nazis. And they’d been on the job for years, some of them. In fact, it all really started before the war, as a sort of Romano-German encyclopaedia, and the bomb-damage rescue and recovery part of it was almost an after-thought, even though it became their main work eventually.’

Audley continued to stare at the rocks. ‘You know that this was a place of pilgrimage in medieval times?

Some bright religious entrepreneur had a replica of the Holy Places in Jerusalem carved into the caves at the bottom. And he may even have hired a Byzantine sculptor to do the job –possibly a PoW from the Crusades. Or a local man who’d been out east, maybe.

Because it isn’t straight Romanesque carving . . . And then he fleeced the pilgrims, I expect . . . But Caesar Augustus says it goes back a long way before that as a holy place – all the way to the pagan times of his dummy4

Cherusci, Chauci and Chattii – who worshipped rocks and trees. And he may actually be right, because my old Latin master, who is a proper old pagan . . . only he doesn’t worship rocks and trees, it’s Plato and rugger with him . . . he says it’s an old Christian trick to set up shop on other gods’ shrines –’

‘They weren’t Nazis?’ He still wasn’t sure whether Audley digressed deliberately or out of habit. ‘So what were they?’

‘Ah ... no, they weren’t Nazis. But I still had this strange feeling that it was a cover of some sort.’ The boy gave him an uncharacteristically shy sidelong look.

‘It was really the old Croc who put me straight, in what passes for one of his more civilized moments . . .

accidentally, of course ... if I’m right, that is – ?’

‘Go on, David.’

‘Yes . . . Well, it was when he was rabbiting on about his favourite subject one night – the Germans, and what we’re doing to them . . . and what we should be doing to them, and all that. And someone – the Alligator most likely – because he likes baiting the Croc – he said that it was no more difficult than sorting apples: you kept the good ones and threw away the bad ones. And the Croc says, quick as a flash, “Och – but what is a guid Geairr-man?’” Audley grinned hugely as he exaggerated McCorquodale’s slight burr. ‘“It’s nae guid simply saying it’s those that fought with us dummy4

against the wee man Hitlerrr. Because there’s many a guid decent man that disliked the both – an’ the more so when yon bluidy bastard in the Kremlin comes into the picture, as he was bound to do soonerrr or laterrr!”‘

The smile vanished. ’And he’s right, of course.‘

Right, of course! And so Major McCorquodale seemed then to be Brigadier Clinton’s man to the life, too. But Major McCorquodale was on the Brigadier’s list, too!

‘And I was right also, in a way . . . even when I was wrong –’ The look on Fred’s face halted Audley ‘ –

wasn’t I? Am I – ?’

Fred controlled his disquiet. ‘Right about what?’

‘They were taking cover. Only not just from us – but also from the Nazis – ’ The boy lifted his hand ‘ – from both of us, is what I mean, Fred – ’

‘Why?’ The boy wasn’t just clever: he was too damn clever. ‘Why did they have to hide?’

Audley stared at him. ‘They weren’t nonentities. Old Schmidt was a very well-respected academic. And von Mellenthin was a biologist, or a bio-chemist, or something – in the Croc’s field. Which includes his celebrated anthrax trials. And Langer would have been a top man in poison gases . . . And the word is that the Yanks have found some bloody-terrifying new gas the Germans were making, down south somewhere – tons of it.’ He shivered. ‘And . . . these chaps . . . they didn’t dummy4

want to help Hitler brew the stuff up, to use on us. But they also didn’t want to help us ... to maybe brew it up ourselves, and then serve it back on their own people, if things came to the crunch – if all Hitler’s other secret weapons started to bite – ’ He looked at Fred questioningly ‘ – am I right?’

‘So why did they run, at the last?’ He had to find out how much else the boy had worked out. ‘After we’d won?’

‘It wasn’t at the last.’ Audley blinked. ‘That threw me for a bit. But then I found out all about Colonel von Mitzlaff – he was mine because he was a Panzer specialist. And also not a scientist: just a poor damned would-be archaeologist who was put into a tank, like I’m a poor damned would-be historian who suffered the same fate – ’ Now a grimace ‘ – only his tanks had better guns and better armour than mine did, Fred.’

‘But you were a lot luckier, in the end.’ The memory of what Audley had said about von Mitzlaff’s fate after the Hitler bomb-plot harshened his voice.

‘Not luckier. Just braver.’ A muscle moved in Audley’s cheek. ‘But . . . unlucky, too – yes. But he also broke the rules, too–I think.’

‘What rules?’

‘What rules?’ Audley looked past him towards the vehicles on the brow of the track behind them, at dummy4

Devenish and Hewitt. ‘Should I get those two under cover somewhere, do you think?’

Softly now! thought Fred. ‘It wasn’t in their orders this time, was it?’

‘No.’ Audley turned his attention to the rocks again, then to a wide lake out of which the furthest of them rose precipitately, and finally across the broad meadow to the dark, encircling woods. ‘But I don’t like this place. I never have.’

Fred looked at his own watch. They still had plenty of time. ‘Why not? You’ve been here before?’

‘Oh yes. It’s one of Caesar Augustus’s favourite spots.

He brought me here a couple of times to help with his measurements.’

Professor Schmidt’s rules could wait for a moment.

‘Measurements for what?’

‘He wants to drain the lake.’ Audley pointed. ‘See how the land falls away? It could be done with the right equipment.’ He gave Fred a lop-sided grin. ‘In my innocence, I did rather think that was why he’d recruited you, before I learnt better: as an officer of engineers, to advise on lake-drainage, you see.’

‘Why does he want to do that?’

‘Oh . . . it’s all to do with “saltus Teutoburgiensis” –

how Tacitus described the Varus disaster . . . “saltus”, meaning “forest pass”, or “glade”, or some such.’

dummy4

‘He thinks the battle was here, you mean?’

‘No, not exactly. Because it wasn’t actually a battle. In any sort of proper battle the Romans would have licked the pants off the Germans. It was more like a series of cumulative ambushes over miles and miles of trackless bloody woods –’ Audley pointed again, but over the lake ‘ – in dozens of hillsides like this, and ravines . . .

More like the way the Afghans cut up the British army in the Khyber Pass, only with dense forest, rather than mountains. But he thinks it might have ended here . . .

the big tribal celebration in a place consecrated to the gods, with the prisoners as sacrificial offerings.

Because, apparently, they didn’t only nail ’em up on trees and burn ‘em in wicker baskets, like in Britain –

they also trod ’em in water under hurdles, and cast ‘em off high places on to sharpened stakes.’ The boy dropped his hand and sighed. ‘Cheers him up no end, the Exernsteine does. But then, as I told you, he’s mad as a hatter. Because I think he may be right. Only . . .

that makes this place pretty nasty, in my reckoning: all those poor bloody Roman PoWs being crucified, and roasted, and drowned, and spiked here – d’you see?’

Fred stared for a moment at the oiled metal-grey sheen on the water of the lake, on which the brooding sky and the grey rocks were reflected. Then he shook his head.

‘Tell me about Professor Schmidt’s rules, David.’

‘Yes.’ Audley roused himself too. ‘Old Schmidt was dummy4

my main job, you see.’

‘Because he was a historian?’

‘That’s right, I guess. But I don’t really know whether he had any rules. Only ... he got these chaps together, all nice and safely, before the war. And the proper scientists among them all had something to contribute to his archaeology, it seems. Like, new methods of dating materials, and soil analysis, and suchlike –

“scientific archaeology” was what he called it – some long German words. And they kept their heads down and did their work, and minded their own business –

always very busy, they were. Like, they were good Germans. But they were always safely in the remote past.

‘But then Enno von Mitzlaff turned up in ’42, invalided out of the Wehrmacht, and looking for work – see?‘

‘Because he was an archaeologist?’

‘He was. And also he was old Schmidt’s godson. So maybe the old man just wanted to save him, too. Only, unfortunately, he wouldn’t stay saved – he probably knew more of what was going on elsewhere.’

So the boy didn’t know everything, then. ‘And he got involved in the plot against Hitler, of course – you said

– ?’

‘Yes. And then the fat was in the fire.’ Audley nodded.

‘Maybe Schmidt or one of the others was also in on it.

dummy4

I don’t somehow think so, but I don’t know yet for sure. Only, it didn’t matter anyway, because the Gestapo was in a vengeful mood by then – I got this from a fairly senior policeman in Bonn, whom we haven’t quite got round to sacking yet . . . But he says that old Schmidt put the police and the Gestapo off as long as he could.’ There was a bleak look in Audley’s eyes. ‘Schmidt was too old and fat to run himself. But he did his best for the others –which is really what has made our job so difficult, I suppose . . . But he was a brave man too, like his godson . . . One of the Crocodile’s “guid decent men”, I’d say.’

It was like receiving a delayed message of a friend’s death in Burma: it had all happened months ago, while he’d still been trudging through Italian mud, so it was too late for tears. ‘And then?’

‘There was a big fire in Schmidt’s office, in which all his records were conveniently destroyed – all the names of personnel, as well as the marvellous new scientific techniques they’d pioneered. Which, from an archaeological point of view, was a great tragedy. So Schmidt added a convenient heart attack to it. Not a fatal one, but enough to delay the investigation somewhat. So, by the time this smart Gestapo obergruppenführer finally tumbled to the fact that the fire hadn’t been caused by a British incendiary bomb, and the heart attack wasn’t genuine, all the other birds dummy4

had flown.’

And I was probably on the beach at Vouliagmeni, thought Fred. ‘And Schmidt – ?’

‘He knew the form, when the game was up and the savages were closing in – just like old Varus did. Only swords are out of fashion now, so he shot himself with an old Webley revolver he’d taken off a British officer in his war, in 1917. So no piano wire for him, just like no wicker basket or high rocks for Varus.’ Audley looked at his watch again. ‘But the policeman did also give me more than he gave the obergruppenführer, whom he insists he didn’t like.’ Another shrug. ‘Or maybe he just saw which way the wind was blowing by then ... Or it could even be the Gestapo was too busy shooting ordinary defeatists by then – I don’t know.

But that wasn’t what was really important.’

‘What was that?’

‘He gave us a cross-bearing on where Zeitzler might be holed up – Ernst Zeitzler, alias “Corporal Keys” . . .

Because Zeitzler was another genuine archaeologist.

And his particular specialization was – guess what? –

the study of the Roman frontier . . . which was why we moved down to the unspeakable Kaiserburg, of course . . . Although it was Amos who finally tracked him down, I must admit. So I can’t claim all the credit, even though I deserve most of it.’

Typical Audley! ‘And Zeitzler is Number 16’s best dummy4

friend?’ Now they were very close to the bone, as well as the appointed hour. ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this the night before last?’

‘The night before last?’ Audley’s memory seemed momentarily to desert him.

‘Yes.’ There was only one thing remaining. ‘You had your orders, David. You were supposed to tell me what was happening.’

Audley made one of his ugliest faces. ‘I get so many orders. And . . . hell! First, you were late – and then we were pretty damn busy, blundering around in the dark . . . then superintending the death of some poor-bloody- totally-inoffensive German – or Pole, or Ukrainian DP –I don’t know, damn it!’ The boy’s square chin lifted, and he looked down on Fred from the height of his extra inches, and then looked around as though he really didn’t give a damn.

Good boy! But that didn’t change anything. ‘And – ?’

The chin came down slowly, and Audley relaxed slightly, as though he was reassured by what he had seen. ‘And I didn’t enjoy that very much, actually.’

That wouldn’t do. ‘And I asked you a question, David.

So answer it, please.’

The sharpness of his tone reclaimed Audley’s attention.

And his face did the rest. ‘Christ, Fred! I know we met in Greece that time – and I know old Matthew – ’ The dummy4

wide mouth opened and shut on Matthew, like some great ugly deep-sea fish’s jaws trawling the sea-bed.

And then it opened again and closed obstinately. ‘But we’ve had a lot of bad luck, you know. And I don’t really know you –now do I?’

Good boy! Because that was as eloquent as anything else Audley might have said to prove that his mouth wasn’t always too big. ‘And who the hell was I? When you’ve had all the bad luck you’ve had – all the way from Greece, even?’

Still nothing. So more than that: so Clinton was right about Audley being old for his years when it came to the crunch. So now was the moment for truth.

‘Yes, David – you are quite right.’ He nodded without disengaging Audley’s eyes. ‘There is a traitor in the camp. And if you didn’t know it for sure before, then you know it now.’

Audley studied him for a moment. Then he slowly nodded his acceptance of all those words implied. ‘So you really are the Brigadier’s inside man?’

‘Yes.’ More than Audley’s acceptance, this was his own acceptance of that loyalty for the working day, whatever came after. ‘I am Clinton’s man. And so are you, David –no matter what. Because we have to know who the traitor is. Nothing less will do. So this is a trap, today.’

dummy4

Audley continued to stare at him. And it was also slightly comical to see the boy’s hand move up uncertainly to his webbing holster, and then drop down to wipe the palm on his leg beside it.

‘Oh . . . shit!’ Then Audley looked quickly across the meadow, and finally towards the vehicles up the track, where Sergeant Devenish had been walking up and down and Driver Hewitt had been leaning on the jeep, smoking one of his inexhaustible supply of dog-ends, neither able to communicate with the other. ‘What about them?’

He had got it all, in that one brief exchange: all Clinton’s logic about the sufficiency of the bait, all his certainty about the traitor’s hard-driven determination to take Number 16 from them now, at the last, with all his murderous delaying tactics finally stretched beyond safety, and Major Fattorini here to make the final contact. So perhaps it wasn’t unreasonable that his trust, even in his own men, should weaken with these final certainties.

‘They’re all right. They’re both Clinton’s men from way back, David – ’ He remembered that Audley too was in some sense Clinton’s man from way back, before TRR-2 had been called into existence ‘ – from France, anyway –’

‘I know that, damn it!’ Audley made a face and shook his head simultaneously. ‘Hughie’s been babying me dummy4

halfway across Europe – I should know that. Devenish too – ’ The ugly features twisted as he glanced back up the track again for a moment. ‘ – how does it go: “He was my servant, and the better man” – ?’

Fred floundered momentarily in his turn. ‘Then . . .

what do you mean?’

From being questioning, the look became haughty. ‘I mean, you’ve just told me exactly how the land lies.

And I can accept that . . . because it explains a lot of things ... a lot of things I haven’t quite understood. All the way from Greece, like you’ve just said – a whole lot of things, yes!’ From being haughty, the look blanked out into nothing. ‘But how much do they know

– my men?’

It only irked Fred for a second that he had misread the original question. But then he understood that Audley was still a subaltern at heart, and a well-taught one. So it was no shame on him that he should think of his own subordinates before he risked their lives in some madcap venture. And yet, by the same token, it was time that he got his priorities right. ‘D’you think anyone’s going to catch Sergeant Devenish with his trousers down?’ The memory of Devenish on the ridge above Osios Konstandinos, and Kyri’s estimation of the man, gave him confidence. ‘You let him take his chances now, David. Just as we’re about to take ours –

okay?’

dummy4

‘Mmm . . .’ Audley had been looking round even before he had finished condemning the other ranks to their destined fate, taking in the rocks, and the lake and the encircling forest with what must be a tank commander’s eyes, which was all the experience he had from that other August, a year ago. But with nothing to see, he had to come back to Fred. ‘So who is the traitor then, eh?’ He fumbled again with his webbing holster, unbuttoning the flap, then rubbing his hand down his leg again, as though his palm were already sweating. ‘But, of course, you don’t know, do you? Otherwise we wouldn’t be baiting the jolly old mouse-trap, of course!’ He squinted up the track, past the vehicles. ‘And I don’t even see the cheese yet, anyway . . .’ The squint cleared as he came back to Fred once more. ‘ Not the Crocodile – that would not only be too good to be true ... it would also be too confusing. Because no one can be such an absolute shit, and also a traitor: that just wouldn’t be fair! And the old Croc – he just isn’t... is he? Or, not compared with the unspeakable Johnnie – the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse – not him, surely – surely?’

‘No?’ He had to make light of it, just as Audley was trying to do, and for the very same sound military reason: because, to give it its proper due would be to make it something beyond bearing. ‘Why not, David?’

‘Too unbelievable, Fred.’ The boy came back like dummy4

lightning.‘And therefore too clever for comfort.’ Nod.

‘So . . . who – who – ?’ He frowned finally, turning the nod into a doubtful shake. ‘It doesn’t make sense, you know.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because everyone’s been so damned carefully chosen by Clinton, that’s why.’ The shake continued for a moment, then Audley grinned. ‘Except me, of course –

I was wished on him by my godfather last year, more or less as a favour, when he was suddenly short of a French-speaker. So I’m still here only on trial ... or more like sufferance. But the others ... he chose ’em.

And then he checked ‘em back to the cradle, so the story goes. No one forced ’em on him – and there’s no bloody “old boys’ network” from school and university with him, either. Or “ the jolly old regiment”, come to that – definitely not the Clinton style.‘

‘No?’ Anything about Brigadier Clinton interested Fred mightily. ‘You once said he likes . . . bankers, was it?’

‘He likes people with enough money not to be tempted by it. Doesn’t matter where it comes from – landed-gentry money, like Johnnie Carver-Hart’s, or a whisky distillery, like the Croc’s . . . “McCorquodale’s Highland Cream” –which is apparently so awful that it accounts for the Croc’s own preference for rum . . . and Kenworthy made his fortune from writing physics text-dummy4

books, so they say.’

‘But where does Clinton come from – himself? Do you know that?’

‘Don’t you know?’ Audley cocked an eye at him.

‘No . . . well, nobody knows the answer to that. No regimental background that anyone can discover – or the right school, or university . . . definitely not Eton and Sandhurst, or Eton and Trinity. More like some little grammar school somewhere, my godfather thinks.

And then into the army by some back-door, straight to the General List – “a self-made man”, you might call him.’

A self-made man, Fred thought of Clinton as he repeated the thought to himself: no class and no past. . . but also with no burden of preconceived and inbred prejudices or illusions, for or against those he had chosen?

‘But now he’s come a cropper, and no mistake!’

Audley spoke as though to himself. ‘Because if one of us – or one of them – has been on the other side all these months . . . Christ! That could mean his whole method of selection is up the bloody spout – if his Tenth Legion turns sour on him! Because – ’ He stopped suddenly. ‘Oh God – no!’

‘What – ?’ Fred stopped just as quickly as he saw the boy’s immense shoulders sag. Then he realized that Audley was looking directly past him, across the dummy4

meadow by the rocks and the lake. And in that very instant, the shoulders straightened again and Audley raised his arm in greeting.

‘HULLO THERE!’ Audley bellowed into the silence of the Teutoburg Forest. ‘Don’t you think you ought to turn round and have a look?’

Fred had to make himself turn, in the desolate knowledge that all this time Audley had been looking past him at someone else behind him, in the open meadow. And now, that this victory, even if they came out of it to tell the tale, would be a bitter one.

‘HULLO THERE, AMOS!’ Audley lowered his arm.

‘ Amos, Fred – ? Amos – ?’

As he stared, Fred didn’t want to believe it either.

‘Why not Amos?’

The silence came back for an instant. ‘I don’t believe it.’ Audley blinked at him. ‘Last night – no, the night before. . . it was Amos who made the plan to get Zeitzler out – he could have had him hit just as easily, as those grenades went off ... or whatever they were –

time-charges, were they? But, if that was a diversion, he could have done it, anyway – ’ Audley blinked again, and glanced quickly across the meadow again before coming back to him. ‘And even now ... it still doesn’t make sense.’

Fred watched Amos de Souza still ignore them as he dummy4

completed his scrutiny of the lake, and then the meadow, and finally the towering Exernsteine rocks.

‘Why not?’

Audley thought for a moment, watching the same charade. ‘If they’re going to kill Number 16 ... it doesn’t need to be done here. They can do that perfectly well with him back in the orderly room at Schwartzenburg, with Amos minding his own business, Fred. Even if he let Zeitzler go, to get at Number 16 ... he’s throwing it all away by coming here now, isn’t he? Isn’t he?’

Once again, Clinton had been right: for his years, the boy was very quick. But, because of his years, he still wasn’t quick enough. And now, at the last, Fred needed him to understand fully what was at stake. ‘But what if they didn’t want him dead, David – Number 16? What if all the other things that have “gone wrong”, all the way from Greece, were just to delay us, so that they could get to Number 16 first? But now we’re too close to him, in spite of all they’ve done?’

The boy goggled at him, trying to catch up with insufficient understanding of what the whole race had been about, and failing miserably.

‘We don’t really need Number 16 now, David.’ He had to tell the truth, because there was no time to prevaricate. ‘We never did need him, thanks to his own conscience. And thanks to your old Professor Schmidt, dummy4

too.’

‘Why not?’ Failure to understand only made the boy angry.

‘It’s the Russians who need him. And especially after yesterday –’

‘Yesterday – ?’ Audley frowned at him.

‘All that marvellous German research, David –

remember?’ At the last he couldn’t sweeten the pill.

‘Everything they did was better than what we did, David: better weapons than ours – better guns, better guidance systems, and better radar . . . And their jet-planes years ahead of ours . . . and rockets beyond anything we’d ever imagined? And chemical weapons they didn’t use only because they thought we’d got them too?’ Now he was straying perhaps too far into what Clinton had finally told him, as they had come to the final crunch under Hermann the Liberator’s statue yesterday. So he must stop before he went further. ‘But we dropped that new bomb on Japan two days ago. The Germans didn’t drop it on us, David – ’ Now, also, he had to look away. Because now Amos de Souza had finished his survey, and was advancing towards them.

Audley caught his glance. ‘So . . . they got it wrong – ’

‘The atomic bomb?’

‘They got it wrong.’ There was just time to agree.

‘Because the one man who could have pointed them in dummy4

the right direction wasn’t there to correct them. And the Russians have known that ever since von Mitzlaff joined Schmidt’s group – or even before he did, maybe. Because we got that information out of Russia, David: there was a man in Russia who warned us about Number 16.’ He looked away again, and Amos de Souza was very close now. ‘Only he got the warning out at the cost of his own life, at Osios Konstandinos.

Because you already had a traitor in the Tenth Legion –

’ Time ran out for them also in that second of time ‘ –

Major de Souza – Amos! I didn’t think you were scheduled to join us here? What’s the problem?’

‘I’m not here – at least, not officially, Major Fattorini.’

De Souza stared past him. ‘You’ve got your two men up there, have you, David? Devenish and Hewitt?’

‘Yes, Amos.’ Audley answered quickly. ‘As per your own orders, actually ... So what’s the problem, then?’

De Souza swung on his heel, through a full circle before coming back to Audley. ‘Perhaps no problem, dear boy.’ Then he passed Audley by, to concentrate on Fred. ‘Your rendezvous is in five minutes’ time, major?’

They both knew that perfectly well. ‘Yes, Amos.’

‘Yes.’ The concentration became fiercer: this was a very different Amos de Souza from any of its predecessors. ‘And you’re quite happy about all this – ’

De Souza gestured around him ‘ – here?’

dummy4

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’ But he had to play the game until the last throw of the dice, so he looked at his watch. ‘Five minutes as of now – yes. But you’re not meant to be here, actually. So ... is something wrong, then?’

De Souza looked round again, uneasily, until he reached RSM Levin at his back, standing stiff as a board behind his adjutant, exuding blanket disapproval of everything and everyone. ‘Mr Levin . . . you wanted to get those two men up there under cover, off the road

– so do it, then. They’re lounging around as if they were at a vicarage tea-party!’

‘ Sah.’ The RSM straightened up an inch beyond his usual ramrod self.

‘Let me do that, Amos – ’ Audley moved ahead of the RSM, half-apologetically ‘ – they’re my chaps, after all–’

‘You stand fast, Captain Audley.’ De Souza immobilized Audley. ‘Mr Levin – if you please!’

‘ Sah!’ The RSM stepped out smartly, always as though on parade.

‘Amos – what the hell – ?’ Audley exploded mutinously.

‘Shut up, David.’ De Souza quelled him flatly as he watched the RSM’s progress towards Devenish and Hewitt.

dummy4

‘What do you mean, “shut up”?’ Audley only remained quelled for that single moment before erupting again.

‘Your own orders – ’

‘The devil with my own orders!’ snapped de Souza.

‘But if you want an order, then I’ll give you one now: you go down by the end of the lake, where you can see round the rocks, and keep a sharp eye on the woods there. And if you see anything move, you come back and tell me. Understood?’

The boy rolled an eye at Fred, while his right hand massaged his leg nervously on the edge of his webbing holster. ‘W-w-w –’

‘Did you not hear my order, Captain Audley?’ De Souza’s voice had lost its sharpness: now it was menacingly soft.

Fred remembered his own orders. ‘Do as the adjutant says, David.’

Audley seemed to struggle with himself for an instant, then the hand stopped massaging and slapped the leg irritably. ‘Oh . . . shit! Mine not to reason why again!

Okay, okay!’ he swung on his heel, shaking his head and growling to himself as he stamped heavily away, kicking angrily at tufts of grass as he went, like a schoolboy. It was good acting if it was an act, thought Fred. And now he must match it with one of his own.

‘What the blazes are you playing at, Amos?’ In fact, he dummy4

only needed to imagine himself in the real military world to strike the right note of outrage. ‘This is my show, not yours.’

‘Yes.’ De Souza looked around again. ‘This place gives me the shivers, you know. Always has done, and always will.’ He sniffed. ‘Maybe Colbourne’s right – ’

He looked Fred in the eye ‘ – a bad place for honest soldiers, maybe?’

The flesh up Fred’s back crawled with a million tiny insect-feet because of this shared insight. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘My duty, I hope.’ The sardonic glint was back, with the old self-mocking Amos-voice. ‘David was right, of course – I’m disobeying my orders as well as complicating yours and his.’ He turned lazily to watch Audley place-kicking another piece of grass. ‘He often is right, actually. But it does him no good. But . . . he’s a good lad ... maybe.’

‘Maybe?’ The curious emphasis de Souza had placed on the word startled him.

‘Yes.’ De Souza came back to him. ‘Aren’t you happier for my presence, then?’

‘Why should I be happier?’

De Souza nodded. ‘After the night before last?’

‘The night before last?’ He didn’t have to think hard to recall those beastly images. But he had to remember dummy4

who he was supposed to be. ‘We got our man the night before last. And the other side got the wrong one.’

‘Did they?’ De Souza stared up the path. ‘I wonder, now.’

Fred followed the man’s stare. The RSM had dismissed Audley’s men, and was now standing alone at the top of the track, studying the circumference of his world in a series of jerky movements, as though his head were fixed immovably on his neck.

‘Almost everything we’ve done in the past hasn’t gone right,’ said de Souza softly. ‘We’ve found men who couldn’t help us much – and we’ve lost the ones who could. But this time we were very clever, and we got our man. But, what I’ve been thinking is ... perhaps that was what someone intended we should do. And that makes you very vulnerable in this place this morning – if it’s true. So today I have taken certain extra precautions, without orders.’

A cold hand squeezed Fred’s guts. ‘Is that why – ’ But then the sharp snap-crunch of the RSM’s hobnailed boots on the broken road surface silenced him.

‘ Sah! ’ Having stamped himself to attention, the RSM

scorned any further explanation of a completed order.

‘Thank you, Mr Levin.’ De Souza accepted this information.

‘Arrgh-hmm!’ The RSM cleared his throat formally, dummy4

but did not withdraw.

‘Yes, Mr Levin?’ De Souza interpreted this signal interrogatively.

‘ Sah! There are two persons now approaching in the distance – civilian persons – upon the roadway, from the direction of Detmold. German civilians, I take them to be, by their dress.’ Faint disapproval crept into the RSM’s voice, as though tatterdemalion natives really had no right to disturb the British Liberation Army in its lawful business in the Teutoburgerwald this grey August morning. ‘They appear to be in no hurry . . .

sah.’

Fred looked up the path. From where the RSM had stood he would have had a good clear view.

‘Arrgh-hmm!’ The RSM cleared his throat again.

‘Shall I now attend to Captain Audley . . . sah?’

‘Attend?’ Fred’s attention snapped back to de Souza.

‘What d’you mean “attend”?’

‘Do that, Mr Levin.’ De Souza nodded. ‘Disarm him and bring him up here.’

‘ Sah.’ The RSM stamped a backward pace before moving forward again.

‘What the blazes – ?’ Fred didn’t need to act any part.

‘Merely a precaution.’ De Souza raised a soothing hand. ‘You can rely on the RSM to be as civil as the circumstances permit. He has his orders. And young dummy4

David is used to obeying him . . . And there’ll be a gun on him now if he isn’t quite what we’ve taken him to be, all these months.’

Fred stared at the RSM’s fast-receding ramrod back.

Typically, the RSM carried an issue-Sten, rather than the more exotic foreign weapon.

‘I hope I’m wrong, Major Fattorini. But if I’m not . . .

then it has to be someone inside the unit,’ murmured de Souza. ‘I’ve known something wasn’t right . . . oh, for a long time, I suppose.’ He sighed. ‘But ... it goes against the grain, rather. Because they are all Clinton’s picked men, after all.’

The cold hand inside Fred squeezed even harder. If Audley was right about Amos de Souza . . . then things were going wrong before they had a chance to do so in a way Clinton had intended them to do, and in a manner which neither of them had foreseen. But he still couldn’t be sure of that, so he must still play the game.

‘All except Audley.’ He turned deliberately back to de Souza.

‘All except Audley.’ But de Souza echoed him without nodding. ‘Except that I don’t think he’s our man, actually. Even though he fits well enough – and he’s a smart boy, I would agree.’

‘He fits ... well enough?’ Watching de Souza was more important than watching the boy’s humiliation. ‘All the dummy4

way from Greece, you mean?’

‘Yes. And he’s a bit too thick with the man Schild, who is really a most equivocal character.’ De Souza’s voice tightened. ‘And whose whereabouts I do not at this precise moment know, as it happens.’

‘But . . . isn’t Otto Schild the Colonel’s man?’ A faint echo of Schild’s Teutoburg song came nastily to mind.

‘In a sense – yes. But he’s also not what he seems, the RSM says.’

‘I thought he was ... a butcher – a civilian butcher – ?’

‘A butcher, maybe. But Mr Levin thinks not a civilian one.’

Colbourne, thought Fred. And this was his place – the Externsteine! ‘Where is the Colonel this morning?’

De Souza’s lip curled slightly. ‘He’s seeing a man about a plane – an RAF spotter-plane, at Gutersloh – to try and spot Roman marching camps east and south-east of here. Which I gather was your idea, major?’

The lip tightened. ‘I lent him my driver, as a matter of fact. Just to make sure.’

Everything was going wrong – one way or the other.

‘And . . . the other officers – M’Corquodale?

Kenworthy – ?’ De Souza looked past him suddenly, up the tracks again. ‘Don’t worry, major. The RSM has this place well staked-out, by arrangement with the Military Police and our local Fusilier battalion. So your dummy4

civilians have got in easily enough. But they won’t get out unless you are accompanying them, believe me – ’

He straightened up perceptibly. ‘And now here they are, anyway. So I take it you’d rather I withdrew somewhat, while you have your little chat? Would that make you feel more at ease?’

Not de Souza? Fred could no longer make his mind up there; only, although he experienced a certain amount of satisfaction about that, it was instantly swallowed up by the realization that, if he was innocent, then Amos had nevertheless very likely ruined Clinton’s plans with his over-intelligent innocence, by scaring off whoever wasn’t innocent with his unscheduled precautions.

‘That might be advisable, Amos.’ His mind raced ahead, trying to predict how their unknown traitor might adjust to this new situation. In such a last resort, all that was left was an ambush on the way back to Schwartzenburg Castle – which had always been a dangerous possibility in the back of Clinton’s mind.

‘The sooner we’re away from here, the better.’

Amos de Souza nodded. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’ He glanced around quickly. ‘This is a damn stupid spot for a meeting. I don’t know what’s got into the Brigadier today – it isn’t like him . . .’ He came back to Fred.

And nodded again. ‘But don’t worry. Because Mr Levin and I will watch your backs here as best we can.

dummy4

And Mr Levin has arranged a sufficient escort to pick you up just down the road to take Number 16 back safely after that.’

‘Yes?’ That was the final irony: Amos had thought everything through, to amend his superior’s defective planning. And not de Souza was certain now, since he would hardly have needed to do as much, even apart from this otherwise risky warning, if he had been the traitor. ‘Well . . . thank you.’

‘Okay.’ Amos looked over his shoulder, at the fast-approaching figures of David Audley and the RSM.

‘And Audley – ?’

Audley’s outraged voice arrived before Fred could answer. ‘ Fred –’

‘Hold on, David.’ He was simultaneously aware of the two Germans hovering discreetly, and of the RSM

behind Audley, just as discreetly trying to hide whatever he had used to disarm the boy. And of Audley himself, his ugly features aflame with anger and humiliation.

‘ But, Fred– ’ The outrage became almost plaintive.

‘Shut up, David.’ At least Audley’s face wasn’t white with fear, as his own might have been: it was ugly with rage! ‘Thank you, Amos – Mr Levin . . . But you stay here, David.’

‘Right-o.’ Amos accepted his dismissal with a good dummy4

grace. ‘Come on, Mr Levin – let’s admire the view for a moment, eh?’

Audley watched them for another moment, his mouth working. Then he returned to Fred. ‘B-b-Woody Mr L-L- Levin . . . has t-taken my fff – ’

‘Yes, I know.’ Fred had had just enough warning to nip the stuttering fuse before it became an explosive shout, so that he could turn towards the Germans. ‘Herr Zeitzler – ’ No! That was wrong! ‘ – Professor Zeitzler

– ’ He felt under-rehearsed in matters of greeting ‘ –

good morning, sir!’

Professor Zeitzler was less humiliatingly dressed (or, as he had been, half-dressed, undressed, and then uniformed) than the night before last. But he was still tall and very thin, and even with his spectacles safely on his nose he was still very far from happy.

‘Herr Major.’ The eyes behind the spectacles were wide with uncertainty; which was reasonable enough in the circumstances, even if ‘Herr Major’ had been a captain the last time they’d met.

‘I’m glad you were able to come, sir.’ Somehow, it wasn’t so hard to be polite to the man: he was, after all,

‘a decent chap’ (in Audley’s own words, from long ago); yet it wasn’t just that – or even because, if the man had never been an ally, he had also never truly been an enemy; it was just that he was what he looked like – just another middle-aged academic pacifist in a dummy4

mad world, fallen among soldiers. And that made it easier to pity him, even as Fred turned at last to the cause of all the trouble. ‘And you, sir.’

‘Herr Major.’ The Cause of All the Trouble gave him a formal little bow. But with it there was a look of understanding and resignation which turned Fred’s pity back on himself.

‘But . . . there were to be two officers only.’ Professor Zeitzler’s expression was less fearful now, after such politeness. ‘It was promised, sir – only yourself, and the . . . the large young officer.’

‘An added precaution.’ Sod you! thought Fred with sudden brutality. You’ve done your job now – it’s only Number 16 that matters now! So he concentrated on Number 16. ‘There are dangers, you understand, sir.’

‘I understand.’ Number 16 didn’t nod, but there was a strained greyness in his complexion and a wariness in his eyes which had nothing to do with any of the more recent privations of defeat: Fred had seen such masks before, on the faces of infantrymen who had been too long in the line.

‘But it is not as was arranged – not as was promised.’

Zeitzler looked at his friend as he emphasized the word before coming back to Fred. ‘A word of honour was given – by a senior British officer. And I – ’

‘Hush, Ernst.’ Number 16 cut Zeitzler off softly. ‘If a dummy4

word was given, then it was given. If it is to be broken . . . then it will be broken. We have already talked of that possibility. And I have made my choice, just as this officer has done.’ As he spoke, he never for one instant took his eyes off Fred; and, although not one of his words was stressed more than another, their challenge was plain enough.

So here was the first test, thought Fred. And it was as searching as the Brigadier had warned him it would be, by God!

‘You are free to go, sir. If you wish to do so.’ The enormity of the lie thickened his tongue inside his mouth as he committed himself finally to the acceptance of the truth about himself, which Clinton had apparently known before he did. ‘My superior’s word of honour is the same as mine.’

Again that terrible hint of pity, almost sardonic now.

Then I ask your pardon – shall I do that?‘

Did he know? Or had he mistaken those half-strangled words for honest outrage? Fred questioned himself desperately for an instant. ‘I think you’d do better to remember what happened the night before last, sir.’ He flicked a glance at Zeitzler. ‘I’m sure your friend has told you about that – ?’

‘Indeed he has.’ Still the man studied him. ‘The Russians want me, just as you want me. So they do not want you to have me ... even though all these desires dummy4

are foolish, of course – foolish beyond belief! For I am too much behind the times now. And especially since yesterday’s news – yesterday’s terrible news, Herr Major.’ He nodded. ‘Yes, I have heard of what has happened in Japan: it was on the wireless last night.’

Fred swallowed. ‘That’s not for me to comment on, sir.

I am here merely to make you an offer. Which you have the right to refuse.’ He submitted to the man’s scrutiny for another long moment. ‘We have no demands to make on you. We merely wish to take you into protective custody for a time.’ The closer he got to something like the truth, the better he felt, and the firmer became the voice – his own voice – that he heard. ‘In due course, when we judge it to be safe, we will arrange for you to be accepted by the university of your choice. Or any other establishment – ’ He had got it exactly right ‘ – in Germany, or in England. But there is another consideration to be made in that choice, it’s only fair to add, sir.’

‘Another consideration?’

‘It will be easier to protect you in England for the time being. You will be safer with us there, sir.’

‘Ach so! Yes . . .’ Number 16 saw clear through that instantly. ‘You have your own nuclear research to think of now that the war is won – of course!’ At last he nodded, but without any hint of a properly cynical smile. ‘But . . . if I told you that my research is now dummy4

into scientific dating of ancient remains and artefacts, in which I have been engaged these last six years –

would that be acceptable?’

‘Of course, sir.’ Clinton’s exact forecast of this very question, and his research into its correct answer, kindled Fred’s confidence into flame: ‘ He has no family. Otherwise we’d have got to him much sooner –

or the Russians would have done. And most of his friends are dead too, now. All except one, you see –

eh.’ But he musn’t look at Zeitzler yet. ‘We’ve got quite a few of our own old Roman cities which have been . . . cleared by bombing, for archaeology.

Canterbury – Bath . . . and London, of course – ’ He turned casually to Zeitzler ‘ – and we still have Hadrian’s Wall for you, Professor . . . which is much the same as your “limes” isn’t it?’

Zeitzler’s mouth opened incredulously.

‘And naturally the invitation includes you, Professor Zeitzler.’ He nodded at Corporal Keys. ‘Dr Crawford of our Ordnance Survey has been one of your admirers ever since he published your “limes” articles in Antiquity ten years ago. He will be honoured to arrange for your reception – ’ Back to Number 16 ‘ – and yours too, sir.’

The two Germans looked at each other, just about as nonplussed as Clinton had said they might be, and he found himself admiring the Brigadier’s cunning.

dummy4

Because, although finding this man had apparently been TRR-2’s long-time original objective, entrusted to Clinton by the War Cabinet itself, Clinton’s own intention had been to build up an intelligence team of his own on which he could absolutely rely in this new kind of war which he –and David Audley, too – had foreseen, even before that bomb had dropped. And Clinton had used the hunt for Number 16 to gather his chosen men, and to test their efficiency in the field, and to establish his reputation for the future with them. But now, to achieve all that, he also had to use Number 16

as bait to flush out the traitor whom the Russians had infiltrated into TRR-2: now that the bomb had dropped, better a dead Number 16 than a compromised TRR-2!

‘There won’t be any problem, sir.’ The saving grace was that although Clinton wanted their traitor, he still also wanted Number 16 as planned. And that was probably why he got on so well with Uncle Luke: unforeseen complications, Uncle Luke always said, always provide matching opportunities for greater profits if you look at them in the right way! ‘You will both be very welcome, I assure you, sir.’ And ... ‘ I want him to come willingly, Fred.’ Clinton had said.

‘ One volunteer is worth a hundred pressed men.

Because, once he’s with us by choice . . . there’ll be physicists from Cambridge to pick his brains, and tempt him back to his old discipline. Because with dummy4

work as well as women, you only love truly once –

everything else is a delusion, major. So whatever he believes, he’s still a nuclear physicist, not an archaeologist.’

‘Welcome?’ The eyes were not so much pitying now as very tired.

‘Yes, sir.’ Fred continued on what he knew to be closest to the truth. ‘Our people know all about Professor Schmidt, and what he tried to do. There is ...

a certain sympathy for his intention – at least, among some of our scientists.’ He tried to blot out the rest of what Clinton had said: that with the British just beginning to follow their allies in de-Nazifying dyed-in-the-wool Nazis who were useful, there really wouldn’t be any trouble getting these two into Britain, willing or unwilling. ‘So you will be welcome – and free to continue your archaeology.’

Number 16 continued to stare at him. But it was Zeitzler who broke the silence. ‘Heinrich . . . glaubst du es ihm.’

‘W – ?’ For an instant Fred couldn’t decide whether to pretend he hadn’t understood the German words.

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Number 16 held them both for an equal instant. ‘All that matters now, Ernst, is that if it is a lie, then it is a most persuasive one in our present circumstances. For we are undoubtedly caught between the Red Devil and the very deep blue British sea, I fear.