The '44 Vintage

—until his knees were raised tightly against his ammunition pouches. If he kept very quiet ... if neither of them stepped any closer to the edge of the overhang . . . maybe—

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Butler frowned at his knees. When the sergeant-major wasn't shouting his voice became deeper and harsher, as though his throat was full of gravel. And he had heard that voice before. " All right. So what do we do with young Butler?' The sergeant-major coughed. " I'm afraid he's got to go, sir." Butler's heart shrivelled. He was going to be returned to his unit in disgrace, with the indelible black mark of drunkenness against his name.

"Pity. He seemed a pleasant enough lad—quite innocent, I would have thought."

Butler's hand closed on the oatcake in a spasm of shame. He had betrayed the major—and the general.

And himself.

"That's as may he, sir. But he asked a question about Sergeant Scott and Mr. Wilson all the same."

" He did, did he?"

"Yes, sir. And near choked the life out of Taffy to get an answer, too."

" Hmm . . . very well then, Sergeant-major." The major's voice was suddenly hard and flat. " Kill him with the others."

9. How Chandos Force crossed the river of no return

" Kill him with the others."

It was bitterly cold—sharp enough to see his teeth chattering. This far south in August it shouldn't be freezing cold like this. But of course it wasn't cold at all. He was cold.

"Kill him with the others—yes."

"Very good, sir. You think they were both briefed then?"

"No, Sergeant-major—frankly, I don't see how they could have been. For a start I don't see how Military Intelligence could have known where I was going for replacements before they even knew the replacements were necessary."

"Aye, you're right there, sir. The colonel wasn't main pleased when we turned up with them last night Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

when it was too late to do anything about them."

"In the circumstances that's hardly surprising, Sergeant-major. He didn't know about Scott and Wilson—

and we weren't meant to know that they were his men. But there was nothing he could do about Audley and Butler without admitting that he'd planted Scott and Wilson in our midst—the two youngsters are perfectly adequate interpreters, after all."

"Just so, sir. And yet we've struck unluckily the second time too, so it seems . . ."

"Are you criticising me, Sergeant-major?"

"No, sir. I was just thinking to myself that we've been a bit unlucky, that's all, not getting a pair of villains."

"My dear man—I could hardly go looking for villains publicly. The whole object of the operation was to leave the record nice and clean behind us: we lost a couple of interpreters and we replaced them. I deliberately went to a couple of entirely different units which happened to be commanded by old friends of mine, so there's no way these two can have been nobbled by Intelligence. It's bad luck that neither of them appears corruptible, because they would have been useful. That's all."

"Then, begging your pardon, sir—why kill them?"

"Why? Because I prefer certainties to odds, that's why. Because Audley's too damn quick-witted and Butler doesn't know when to mind his own business—that's why. And because Colonel Clinton is a man who obviously likes to take double precautions, and once we get over the river we'll have enough on our plate without risking his getting at those two, that's why! Right?"

"Right, sir. Point taken. And the colonel's driver?"

"Ah—now he's the man who has to be kept intact at all costs, Sergeant-major. He's the key to the treasure house."

"You don't mean he's Intelligence, like the colonel, sir?"

"On the contrary, Sergeant-major. He's pure bone-headed Royal Army Service Corps of the pre-war regular variety. But he's also the man who drove the loot out of Paris in '40, so he knows where it is even better than Clinton does."

"Christ Almighty!"

"Ah, you can say that again, man. Driver Hewett is our ace in the hole—our walking map, Sergeant-Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

major. He doesn't know what it was he took out, apparendy, because they had some elaborate cover plan to put the French off the scent even back then. But he knows exactly where they planted it—"

Cold.

He sat hugging himself, trying to get the blood circulating again, staring at the thinning mist on the far side of the sandy channel.

He had started to feel cold while they were talking, and he had felt colder as they walked away. And now that he was alone he was freezing cold—

"Right you are, sir. All three of them."

"And the sooner the better, I think. Just one ... comprehensive accident, eh?"

"Won't be an accident this time, sir."

Freezing cold.

But there was something else now: the far distant drone of engines was louder—or was he imagining it?

He raised himself on one knee and cocked his head to catch the sound. Whatever happened he had to get back to Mr. Audley as quickly as possible—

The sound was louder. But there was also another sound: the sharp crack of a broken twig right behind him.

"Hullo, Jackie boyo," said Corporal Jones.

Butler swivelled on his knee and started to rise.

"No—don't get up for me—I like you better kneeling, boyo." Jones gestured meaningfully with the stubby Beretta which he held pistol-fashion in his left hand. "That's right . . . now put your hands up—"

Hände hoch—

"—and turn round—"

Dreh dich um—

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

It was all happening again. Only it was all different.

"Not towards me—away from me, boyo, away from me."

Butler stared at Jones. There was something odd about the way the little man was standing—something odd about the way he was holding the submachine gun left-handed. He hadn't been left-handed the night before when he'd pulled the corks and poured the wine, or when he'd stroked that gun of his, the best little gun ever made.

The gun moved again. "Nasty habit—eavesdropping," said Jones softly. "So turn round, like I'm telling you."

His right hand was held out of sight, that was the other thing that was strange about him.

And then, just as suddenly, it wasn't strange at all. Until the noise of the plane was much louder the threat of the gun might be an empty one, but that right hand wasn't empty—it was no more empty than the sound he had heard had been the crack of a dead twig snapping underfoot. There weren't any twigs where Jones was standing, there was only soft sand.

He started to dig the toe of his right boot into the sand behind him.

It all depended which way the flick-knife was held, for the upwards or the downwards blow. The instructors always recommended the upwards one, which came in under the overlapping ribs. But Taffy Jones was planning a stab from behind and above, which surely meant a downward thrust.

His toe was firm now. But he dare not watch that right hand, that would give the game away. Instead, he had to choose in advance whether to reach high or low for an arm which might swing either upwards or downwards, with no chance of changing his mind after he had chosen.

Downwards, then. His own raised left hand was in a better position for that, anyway . . . and his right one was still full of crushed oatcake.

But first he must play innocent—innocent and beaten—to give himself the extra fraction of time he needed to cover the two yards between them, before Jones could swing that right arm up and back for the killing stab.

He let his shoulders droop submissively. "For Christ's sake, Taf— what . . . what am I supposed to have done? If it's last night ... I don't know what came over me ... I didn't know what I was doing, Taf—I lost my rag—I was bloody sick—"

He threw himself at Jones.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Two thoughts—

His webbing belt was undone and his ammunition pouches were swinging—It was too far, and he wasn't going to reach that wrist—

Third thought—

Oh, God! It was coming upwards—he had chosen wrong—

As he hit Jones with the force of a battering ram he felt a tremendous blow on his chest, over his heart—

The death blow—

Jones was falling backwards, his feet swept from under him. No pain—

Jones's arms seemed imprisoned under him. With his left hand Butler scrabbled frantically for the knife arm—it was moving out, moving out—He rammed the oatcake into Jones's face, grinding it into the man's eyes. Jones let out an incoherent sound and wrenched his knife arm free. As it came round Butler caught the wrist and deflected the swing so that the knife plunged into the sand alongside them. While he held it there he pressed down on the smaller man with all his weight to keep the left hand imprisoned against the submachine gun, reaching at the same time with his own free hand for his bayonet in the tangle of equipment on his back. His fingers found the scabbard, then lost it again as Jones heaved under him, straining to lift the knife out of the sand. The equipment moved and the scabbard came into his hand again ... he ran his fingers up to the barrel-locking device-Stupid little spike bayonet, eight inches of steel with no handle . . . why couldn't he have had a proper sword-bayonet with a proper grip, like his father had had—

He couldn't get it out—the angle was wrong and the frog was twisted and his arm wasn't long enough—

and he couldn't hold Jones's wrist much longer—couldn't get it out and hold down Jones at the same time

—No more time! He rolled to his left. Jones's imprisoned left hand broke free and the clutching fingers caught his hair. In the same instant he pulled out the bayonet and stabbed upwards, under Jones's belt, with every last shred of strength that he had.

The little man's fingers gouged into Butler's scalp and the body arched under him convulsively, throwing him sideways. There seemed to be noise all round him: a ghastly rattling throaty cry of agony and the roar of aircraft engines above him.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

He flung himself off the body and rolled away from it in an equal convulsion of panic, landing on all fours two yards away, the breath catching in his own chest like a death rattle.

The engines drummed in his head as though they were inside his brain.

Jones lay spread-eagled in the middle of a circle of churned up sand, his hands clenched like talons.

Butler stared at him for a moment, and then down at himself. It didn't seem surprising to him that Jones was dead—he had felt the bayonet sink in, like a garden fork into damp clay soil, and knew now that however useless that eight-inch spike might be for chopping wood and opening tins, it was more than sufficient for its designed purpose. But that blow above his heart—he had felt that ... he had even heard it grate on the breastbone.

He ran his hand curiously over his left breast and then stared stupidly at it There was no pain . . . and no blood.

He was alive.

And Jones was dead.

Kill him with the others!

Oh, God!

And the sound of those engines wasn't in his head.

Automatic reflexes took over. His hands buckled his belt, straightened his equipment. His feet carried him limping across the sand to where Jones lay . . . one boot off, one boot on.

His bayonet was a black plug in Jones's side: his hand plucked it out, eight bright shiny red inches to be wiped in the sand and slid back into the scabbard. Then there was Jones's gun, the best little gun, and the knife, four razor-sharp unblooded inches of it ...

Jones was no weight at all; such a little man to cause such a lot of trouble. But no trouble in the end when dragged feet first to the overhang, just a scuffed trail in the sand.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

He threw the best little gun and the knife onto the body and picked up his sock and his gaiter and his boot, and last of all his Sten. Then he reached up and sank his fingers into the soft earth. He felt the lip of the overhanging bank tremble as he rocked his hands back and forward.

"Corporal Butler!"

The voice was pitched high and urgent, somewhere away to his left. He heaved desperately at the overhang.

"Corporal Butler!"

A wide section of the overhang tore away, falling soundlessly onto the body, spreading over a face on which in the last instant before it was covered he saw that there were still flakes of crushed oatmeal.

It wasn't enough—there was still a clenched hand protruding from the debris—but there was no time for anything more.

He prised his foot into his boot, picked up the sock and the gaiter and the Sten, and ran towards the voice.

Audley loomed out of the mist ahead of him. “For Christ's sake, man —do you want to miss the boat?"

"I'm sorry, sir." Butler adjusted his cap-comforter from the rakish angle Jones had pushed it in his last spasm of life.

"Didn't you hear me calling?" snapped Audley.

Butler swallowed. "Yes, sir—sorry, sir. But you . . . you caught me at a disadvantage, sir."

"What d'you mean—at a disadvantage?"

"Well, sir . . ." The truth flared up impossibly in front of Butler: I was just hiding Corporal Jones's body, Mr. Audley sir.

How could he possibly say that?

"Yes?" said Audley irritably.

He tried to kill me because I overheard the major talking to the sergeant-major, sir. They're planning to kill us both, sir—you and we ... and Colonel Clinton, sir.

It was hopeless: there was no way he could say that without Audley taking him for a raving madman—

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

no possible way. At least, not now and not yet and not here.

"Yes, sir ... well, with my trousers down, like, sir." The lie blossomed on his tongue effortlessly. That must be how murderers lied, with the blood still wet on their hands.

He looked at his hands involuntarily. There was a vivid purple stain on the left thumb and forefinger, and on the palm too, but no spot of blood anywhere to be seen. It was a proper murderer's weapon, that eight-inch spike, and no mistake.

"Oh," said Audley.

A solitary jeep loomed up ahead. It was their jeep, but now it was surrounded by a group of American soldiers who were examining a Bren gun which lay on the top of its load of equipment.

"You don't get a goddamn move on"—an American with no visible badges of rank addressed Audley familiarly—"you're gonna be late for your own goddamn funeral, buddy."

"Oh . . . righty-ho," said Audley. He grinned encouragingly at Butler across the jeep. “We mustn't miss that, must we, Corporal? It just wouldn't be the same without us."

The jeep lurched forward, its wheels spinning furiously as Audley put his foot down. Butler hung on, his mind spinning just as furiously as the wheels. He had tried many times to imagine what this moment would be like, the crossing of the last line into enemy country. But never in his darkest dreams had he conceived it would be like this—that he would be riding into it with death at his back more certain than any danger ahead, and the only incentive for going forward that horrible thing he had left behind him half covered with sand.

"Funny thing . . ." Audley spun the steering wheel as the jeep skidded out of the deep ruts he was following ". . . back in medieval times the French used to call the English soldiers 'goddamns' "—he spun the wheel in the opposite direction—"because that was their favourite swear word—"

There were more Americans ahead of them, and more American vehicles too—jeeps, half-tracks, and a couple of strange-looking lorries. A heavily built soldier in a soft field cap pointed decisively to the left and signalled them urgently in the same direction with his other hand, like a traffic policeman.

"—but now that's an Americanism, and our favourite word is quite different."

They were swinging round the end of the island.

"And it's a good thing the French don't call us by that word," concluded Audley. "It wouldn't be at all polite."

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Also he'd never expected to go into battle discussing medieval swear words, thought Butler with a touch of hysteria. Nothing was as he had imagined it.

The river!

It looked grey and placid, almost oily, what he could see of it, with the shapes on the far side still mist-shrouded. Moored broadside about ten yards out in it was a curious contraption which looked like a pair of small pontoons lashed together and covered with steel strips that reminded him of his old Meccano set back home. More ingenious American improvisation, obviously.

"Come on, Audley," called an English voice out of the small group of men standing on the contraption.

Another of the soft-capped Americans appeared alongside them, a stocky man with an armful of NCO's chevrons.

"Okay, let's go—follow the tracks, Lieutenant—just keep to the tracks," said the American quietly.

Audley guided the jeep down towards the water's edge. Suddenly there was a metallic sound beneath them and the vehicle was running as smoothly as on a proper road: the Americans must have laid more of that Meccano under the sand here, right down to the river, where the going would be treacherous . . .

and into it too, by God! thought Butler as the jeep moved just as smoothly through the water.

"That's great"—the American was wading beside them—"now there's a ramp just ahead—you're doing fine."

The jeep lifted miraculously in the water, and then up onto the pontoon, fetching up against chocks on the far side with a bump.

"Chocks under—okay, take her away!" The stocky NCO grinned at Butler as he pulled himself aboard.

"No sweat, eh?"

The man's quiet confidence and efficiency was infectious: Butler found himself grinning back.

"No sweat," he said.

Two Americans with wooden poles were pushing the makeshift ferry out into the river. Behind them an outboard motor buzzed into life like an angry bee.

"We just go downstream a piece," said the American. "Then you're on your own, soldier."

Butler stared around him. Obviously they weren't crossing by the shortest route, but that was hardly Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

surprising since the best—or the safest—landing point need not coincide with the perfect cover provided by the dry channel behind the island. Behind him the far end of the island was already indistinct, and he was relieved to see it go. He was still in the middle of a nightmare, but nothing worse could happen in it than had already happened back there. Half his mind was already struggling to erase Corporal Jones from the other half before the reality became indelible.

But it had happened. He stared down at the purple stain on his hand again, wanting it not to be there.

It had happened: he had heard the major— He had killed Corporal Jones.

"I'm not going to ask you what the hell you were doing back there, Audley," said Colonel Clinton. "But just don't do it again."

Butler looked across the jeep.

"No, sir," said Audley.

Butler stared for a moment at Colonel Clinton, then stared around wildly. The trees on the far side of the river were more distinct now, they were drifting diagonally towards them down the river. Away ahead the bank curved in a great arc as it bent northwards—

"All three of them."

"And the sooner the better, I think. Just one comprehensive accident."

The hair on his neck seemed to be moving. All three of them. The sooner the better. All three of them—

"It won't be an accident this time, sir."

Thump—

Butler seized the Bren gun and slammed back the cocking handle.

"What the hell—?" said Colonel Clinton.

Thump—

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Christ—a mortar!" exclaimed Audley. "Christ—"

As Butler fought to lift the Bren to bear on the riverbank downstream the water ahead of them burst into spray and there was a sharp, cloth-tearing burst of noise. The American alongside Butler was slammed into the side of the jeep and then bounced off outwards into the river. The sound of an explosion echoed out of the mist behind them, then another—

The cloth-tearing noise chattered out again, cutting through the sound of the engines above them. The American steering the outboard motor was plucked off the back of the pontoon—one minute he was there in front of Butler's eyes, then he was gone. The craft slewed round stern away from the current, out of control, but the movement brought the Bren to bear on the bank ahead.

Butler loosed off a long burst, then another, hosing down the undergrowth. Something clanged loudly in his ear.

"Get the tiller!" shouted Audley. "We're drifting towards them!"

Butler fired again—the longest burst he had ever fired from a Bren. The water exploded again, three feet to his left, throwing water over him. The Bren stopped abruptly.

"Magazine!" he heard himself shouting. Out of nowhere Audley's hand appeared, snatching off the empty magazine and snapping another one in its place. The colonel's head lifted into view, almost in line with the muzzle of the Bren, and then bobbed down again in the instant that Audley slapped his shoulder. As he pressed the trigger again he felt the craft begin to change direction under him—the colonel was in the suicide spot, steering them back towards the shore. In the last seconds before the bank swung out of his sights he loosed off the whole magazine in an almost continuous roar, the gun bucking and hammering against his shoulder.

Audley was no longer with him—he felt the jeep's engine spring to life and there was a jarring crunch as they collided with the bank.

"Leave it! Leave it!" someone shouted, and Butler threw himself out of his seat into the water. The muzzle of his Sten raked his chin and the river closed over his head. Then a helping hand grabbed his arm and hauled him forward—he felt himself twisted in the water and rose gasping to catch a last glimpse of the jeep drifting away on the pontoon. Someone was swearing—swearing strange words—in his ear. Then the water closed in again, filling his eyes and his mouth—He was spewing up water and being pulled forward and upwards bodily. He could hear the sound of explosions in the distance.

"Are you hit, Corporal?" said Audley.

Butler blinked the water out of his eyes. They were already halfway up a steep bank, bushes all around Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

them. "No, sir."

"Just drowned—fine . . . Colonel, you're bleeding like a stuck pig, but we've got to get out of here—"

A machine gun chattered loudly a few yards away, but with an unnatural clarity Butler could distinguish its slower beat from the cloth-tearing sound of the gun which had caught them.

"Anyone alive down there?"

There was a crackling of undergrowth just below them on the slope. Audley fumbled with his holstered revolver, but before he could draw it the stocky American NCO who had directed them onto the pontoon emerged from the foliage, still swearing the strange oaths Butler had heard moments before. He took one look at them and then sank exhausted onto his face.

"Anyone alive down there?" The voice above them called again cautiously.

"No bloody dianks to you," said Audley. "But yes."

"Then for fuck's sake come on out of there! We're pulling out any minute."

"Then give us a hand, for fuck's sake," snarled Audley. "Colonel Clinton's hit—"

"I'm all right," said the colonel. "We're coming!"

Butler looked back at the American. "Yank!"

"Okay." The American raised himself suddenly. "Let's go."

Butler undid one of his ammunition pouches and extracted a Sten magazine. With it there came out a bright purple fragment of cotton waste, sopping wet—oh, God! he'd broken his bottle of gentian violet, he realised despairingly. Bloody hell!

"Butler—come on, man!" Audley called back to him.

The machine gun fired again, away to his right, and all of a sudden Epidermophyton inguinale ceased to be important. He checked the position of the top round under the lips of the magazine, cocked the Sten back to the safety slot, and pushed the magazine home. With friends like Major bloody O'Conor around, never mind the bloody Germans, it wouldn't do to leave anything to chance.

"Come on, Butler!"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Butler blundered in the direction of the voice, his feet squelching inside his boots. The side of the bank was high and steep—much higher and steeper than the island on the other side—so that he found himself sliding and slithering along its length, grabbing at branches and young trees to keep himself upright.

"Up here, lad," commanded a familiar voice.

Butler scrambled up the last few yards of sandy soil and burst out onto a roadway. Directly in front of him a soldier was wrapping a bloodstained bandage round the colonel's arm.

"You the last?" said Sergeant Purvis.

"Yes, Sergeant," Butler managed to pant. "I think so."

"Right." Purvis turned up the road. "Last one, sir."

"Very good, Sergeant Purvis." Major O'Conor's voice was calm, almost lazy. "We'll be on our way, then. . . . You pick up Smith and Fowler and catch us up."

Butler stared at the major. It didn't seem right that he should look the same and sound the same: treachery and murder ought to show.

"All right, sir? Jolly good!" The major addressed the wounded and ashen-faced Colonel Clinton briskly.

"If you'd be so good as to join me down the road there—" he pointed, then swung towards Audley.

"Now then, young David, we must get you remounted"—he looked up and down the line of jeeps, finally settling his eye on the last but one— "Basset! You and Mason double up with the sergeant-major, and tell Corporal Jones to report to me on the double."

Butler caught his breath. It hadn't even occurred to him that Jones would be missed, he hadn't thought about it.

Audley wiped his hand across his face. "What happened, sir?" he said politely.

"A bit of bad luck, that's all," said the major.

"Horseshit," said the American NCO. "You had a goddamn patrol out—you had three goddamn patrols out."

The major ignored the American. "German patrol," he said. “We're dealing with it. But now we must get a bit of a move on before they start checking up on it."

"Then they'll be after us, sir—" Audley began.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

The major cut him off with a raised hand. "Don't fret, my dear boy! In five minutes from now I'll put a limejuice down on this spot to cover our tracks. By the time they sort things out—if they ever do—we shall be long gone." He looked down his nose at the American. "Now as for you, Sergeant . . . you can stay here or swim back to your friends on the other side or come with us—which would you rather do now?"

Butler felt the blood rise to his cheeks with shame.

"Come with us, Sergeant," said Audley quickly. "You'll be m-most welcome to ride with us."

The American glanced at Audley doubtfully, then down the line of jeeps, as though he had no very great confidence in the value of a British welcome.

"Corporal Butler here can smell Germans before anyone else can even see them," said Audley, reacting to the doubtful glance.

The major's good eye flicked disconcertingly onto Butler for a second, then returned to the American.

"Make your mind up, Sergeant—stay, swim, or come."

The machine gun fired again.

The American drew a deep breath. "Okay, Lieutenant, you've got yourself another passenger."

Bassett came pounding down the road towards them. "Major, sir!" He skidded to a halt in front of the major. "Corporal Jones is missing, sir—the s'arnt-major says for me to tell you, sir."

"Missing?"

"Yes, sir. He didn't come across with the point section, and he hasn't reported since, sir, S'arnt-major Swayne says."

"Damnation!" exclaimed the major. He frowned, then turned suddenly to Audley. "He didn't come with you by any chance, David?"

"Who, sir?"

"Jones—the man who drove you last night."

"Oh, the Welshman! I don't think so—if he was I certainly didn't see him. Did you, Butler?"

There was a rustle in the bushes further down the road, beyond the last jeep, and Sergeant Purvis stepped Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

out onto the grass verge. He carried a German light machine gun on his shoulder.

Butler shied away from the outright lie which had been on the tip of his tongue. A lie might be disproved later—the American sergeant could even contradict it here and now. But he could at least sow a seed of doubt—

"There was somebody in the front, sir—I thought . . . maybe it was Jones, I don't know—but when the Germans opened up on us—I can't say for sure, sir, to be honest."

Another soldier appeared out of the hedge behind Purvis, who was frowning at them in surprise as though he hadn't expected them to be still there. Which, if limejuice was already on its way, was hardly to be wondered at.

"Have you seen Jones, Purvis?" said the major.

"Jones? No, sir. He's with the point section." Purvis paused. "We lost Lance-corporal Fowler, sir."

"You what?"

"Shot through the head, sir. Machine gun."

Major O'Conor stared at the sergeant speechlessly for a moment. Butler noticed one of his bony hands opening and closing spasmodically as though he was releasing emotion through it.

"Right!" The hand became a fist. "Let's get out of here. Mount up!"

"Can you drive, Sergeant?" Audley asked the American.

"Lieutenant?" The question seemed to throw the American.

"Silly question." Audley smiled. "Will you drive this thing?" He pointed to the jeep.

"Sure, Lieutenant—be pleased to." The American looked doubtfully at Butler nevertheless, as though unwilling to usurp another NCO's job.

Audley intercepted the look. "That'll free the corporal's nose for Germans," he said lightly. "And his trigger finger."

Butler climbed into the back gratefully, making himself comfortable as best he could on the top of a Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

bazooka, carrying satchels of its projectiles and several cartons of C rations.

Audley climbed into the passenger's seat and at once offered his hand to the American. "David Audley, late Royal South Wessex D-d-d . . . Dragoons," he said.

That was very strange, thought Butler. Audley had hardly stuttered at all during the last few hours. But now he was back on form.

The American took the hand. "Frank Winston . . . late Combat Engineers, I guess."

"Ah—so you're the river-crossing expert!"

"Some crossing!" Sergeant Winston grimaced. "I'm a demolition specialist actually . . ." He pointed to Audley's cap badge, with its prancing horses. "So you're a horse soldier?"

"I w-wish I w-was," said Audley, reminding Butler of the fisherman on the bridge in Norman Switzerland. "But up to n-now I've been more of a d-demolition specialist." He paused. "And this is Corporal Butler, late of the Lancashire Rifles."

Sergeant Winston looked at Butler curiously. "With a nose for Germans, huh?"

The jeeps ahead were starting to move, and not before bloody time, thought Butler.

"Ye-ess . . ." Audley was also regarding him thoughtfully. "You were remarkably quick off the mark back there in the river, Corporal."

"I heard the mortar, sir." The lie came out automatically; lying was a reflex like any other, once the right stimulus was applied.

The jeep moved forward smoothly.

But Audley was still watching him. "You did? I could have sworn you were reaching for that Bren even before I heard it, you know . . . and I also could have sworn Corporal Jones wasn't on that boat-thing of the sergeant's—there were just the three Americans and Colonel Clinton when I drove onto it."

Sergeant Winston nodded. "That's the way it was."

Suddenly Butler knew how tired and wet and frightened he was. And he was aware also that the weight of fear and knowledge—knowledge that he didn't understand and which made no sense to him—was greater than he could bear.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"No, sir—he wasn't," he said. "And those weren't Germans who machine-gunned us, either."

10. How Master Sergeant Winston joined the British Army

They travelled half a mile along the road before Butler realised that they weren't on the proper bank of the Loire at all, but on another flood embankment matching the one they'd crossed on the friendly northern shore.

Which wasn't friendly any more, with what he'd left behind him half-buried in the sand for the next passer-by to see . . .

He thrust the foul memory into the back of his mind before it could panic him and concentrated on his new surroundings: this was enemy country at last, in which every piece of cover might conceal a German, and he must keep his wits about him.

The jeeps were turning sharply, one after another, onto a narrow track which twisted off the embankment road down its landward side. Sergeant Winston swung their vehicle after the jeep ahead of them, spinning the wheel with a skill Butler envied. At the bottom of the track they passed a small farmhouse shuttered like the ones on the far bank, its ancient paint flaking from the woodwork.

Whatever the French were like, they weren't house-proud like back home, where a scrubbed step and a well-polished door-knob mattered more than a threadbare coat and a patched elbow.

It didn't surprise him that there was no sign of life to be seen: the rattle of those machine guns and the thump of the mortar bombs would have sent sensible civilians into their cellars, to pray that they hadn't drawn the card in the lottery that decreed which house should be smashed to rubble and matchwood and which should be left without a scratch.

The jeep turned again sharply, manoeuvred between two more blankly shuttered houses, and set off down a long, straight road in a dead flat countryside of small fields and lines of poplar trees. It was like the landscape he had glimpsed in the misty half-light on the nightmare side, only now he could see that the strange dark balls in the trees weren't bee swarms at all, but some sort of parasitic vegetation . . . and the fields—vines and vegetables and orchards—were as well tended as gardens: it was funny that the houses should be so unkempt but the land so cherished.

Audley swivelled in his seat. "All right, Corporal," he said conversationally, " talk."

"Yes, sir . . ."

But when it came to the ultimate point, he found he didn't know what to say, or even how to start.

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I've got this trouble with my foot, sir—

"Come on, Corporal—they weren't Germans? Well, who the hell were they, for God's sake?"

That was the end of the story, not the beginning of it. But where was the beginning?

"I don't know how to start, sir," he said.

"Just tell it like it was, man," said Sergeant Winston.

Butler gritted his teeth. "I've got this trouble with my foot, sir—it's called 'athlete's foot', sir—"

"What?" said Audley incredulously.

"Let him tell it his way," said Sergeant Winston.

He started to tell it like it was.

The jeep in front slowed down again and finally pulled in alongside others parked on the edge of a small copse.

Sergeant-major Swayne came down the road towards them, accompanied by a soldier Butler didn't recognise.

The sergeant-major stopped beside Audley. "Main road ahead, sir. When we're sure it's still clear we'll be going across." He looked across at the American. "You keep your foot down when we start moving—

understand?" he said.

Sergeant Winston studied him for a second or two. "Okay." The soldier had continued on past them.

Butler heard the crunch of boots on the road behind them and Sergeant Purvis appeared.

"You wanted me, Sergeant-major?" Purvis found time to give Butler a friendly nod.

"You take over point section, Sergeant," said the sergeant-major. "Hobbes and Macpherson are out ahead of you."

"Taffy not turned up then?" Purvis shook his head in disbelief. "I'd never have thought it of him—I always thought he was born to be bloody hanged."

"Harrumph!" grunted the sergeant-major disapprovingly.

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"What happens after the main road, Sergeant-major?" asked Audley.

"Two miles of open country, sir. We take that at the double if the road doesn't throw up the dust . . .

Then there's good wooded country, sir." The sergeant-major straightened. "Now, if you'll excuse me, sir

—"

"Carry on, Sergeant-major." Audley smiled at the American as Swayne marched away, carrying Sergeant Purvis in his wake. "You've just heard my favourite command, Sergeant Winston. It's the only one I can rely on not to get me into trouble. At least until now."

"Is that a fact?" Winston turned towards Butler. "But I think I'd like to hear you say 'Carry on, Corporal'

right now."

Butler looked over his shoulder, then back at Audley. Of all the bandits, Sergeant Purvis was the only one he would have been inclined to half-trust. But the villainous-looking replacement in Purvis's jeep was another matter.

"I think we'll just wait a minute," said Audley, evidently coming to the same conclusion. "When we get on the road again . . ."

Far away behind them there came a whining snarl of distant engines; not the steady beat of the aircraft which had circled above them at the river, but a sharper and more malevolent sound.

"Limejuice," whispered Audley, staring back into the pale bluish morning sky. "Limejuice!"

"Huh?" said Winston.

"Typhoons." Audley searched the sky. "If there are any Germans left back at the river, then God help the poor devils."

"Jee-sus!" murmured Winston, looking in the same direction. "The stubby bastards with the rockets—

Typhoons?"

Audley's mouth twisted one-sidedly, as though the sergeant had touched his bruised shoulder. "That's right."

Winston whistled softly. "Man—I saw some of their handiwork at Mortain. But how'd they get here so quickly?"

"Standing patrol in the air. The major must have put them up before dawn, just in case."

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The American looked around him. "Just for ... you guys? A standing fighter-bomber strike on call?" His eyes came back to Audley. "You're not joking?"

Audley shook his head. "No joke."

Engines burst into life ahead of them, drowning the sound of those other more powerful engines away to the north just as their note changed.

"No joke," muttered Sergeant Winston. "Then let's get to hell out of here, like the man said."

They'd just reached the road junction when the sound behind overtook them. The jeep ahead bounced into the air as it roared up the incline of the minor road onto the major one, warning Butler to hold on for dear life. He felt the bazooka and the C rations lift under him as the distant crash of the exploding rockets and the ratde of cannon fire passed over his head. He wondered how the little shuttered homes beside the embankment had fared.

He glimpsed a long, straight road, and a fairy-tale house with round towers topped by conical roofs of smooth blue-black slate. Then they were over the junction and racing down another narrow tree-shadowed road like the one they'd just left, the jeep lifting in anotiher stomach-sickening bounce as they did so. Something flicked past them away over the fields to his left, a mere blur of movement flashing on and off between the trees so fast that it mocked their own furious pace. Then, with a tremendous surge of power, an RAF Typhoon rose across the funnel of sky ahead of them in an almost vertical climb. The sun glinted for a fraction of a second on its cockpit hood before it curved out of Butler's sight, turning it into a diing of beauty in the instant of its disappearance.

"He's going to make another pass," shouted Audley.

"Don't mind me if I don't stay to watch," Winston shouted back at him.

The land started to rise gently under them. They passed another shuttered farmstead with no sign of life around it except a goat tethered to a pear tree in a parched orchard. The goat had huge udders— Butler had never seen a goat with such big udders. Come to that, he thought, he had only once before seen a goat.

Then the trees thickened on each side of them and their speed came down to a more comfortable level.

"Go on, Corporal," said Audley. "What did the major say then?"

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Kill him with the others—

They listened in silence right to the end—or at least to the edited end Butler found himself fabricating, with that one unendurable fact omitted.

And then for what seemed an age they continued in silence, until he began to feel a different fear spreading within him over the hard lump of panic that already constricted his chest.

They didn't believe him . . .

Finally Audley turned towards him again.

"Jones tried to stab you . . . you were kneeling, and he told you to turn round. But you jumped him, and you knocked him cold—that's right?"

Butler nodded wordlessly. Put like that—and put like that after his report of the conversation between the major and the sergeant-major—he hardly believed himself.

"And you had a fight with Jones the night before—that's last night?" said Sergeant Winston.

"Yes . . . but—" Butler saw with horror how those two separate but connected events could be rearranged to make a very different story. "But that was why they wanted to—to kill me," he said desperately.

"Uh-huh." Winston nodded at the road ahead. "And just how cold did you knock this guy Jones? Very cold, maybe?"

Butler looked wildly at Audley. "Sir—he tried to stab me—he did stab me—I felt him stab me—"

"Well, you sure as hell don't sound stabbed to me, man," said Winston.

Butler looked down at himself disbelievingly, his hands open.

Audley stared at his left hand. "No blood . . . not unless you've got purple—" He stopped suddenly, the stare becoming fixed on Butler's midriff. "Just a moment though . . . let's have a closer look at you, Corporal."

He reached down and lifted one of Butler's ammunition pouches up so that he could see the bottom of it.

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'Well, well!"

"What is it?" asked Winston quickly.

Audley dropped the pouch back into place. Butler seized it and tried to twist it, but the Sten magazines inside prevented him from seeing what Audley had stared at. All he could make out was the beginning of a dark purple stain on the edge.

"He's got a one-inch slit on the bottom of the pouch," said Audley. "And . . ."

"And . . . ?"

"This webbing of ours is extremely tough, Sergeant. It takes quite a lot of force to go through it."

"Like a knife, huh?"

"Like a knife. And then a couple of Sten mags and a bottle of what's-it . . ." Audley looked into Butler's eyes. "Well, well!"

Winston glanced quickly at Audley. "You're thinking maybe . . . ?"

"I'm thinking a lot of things, Sergeant."

"Like what?"

Audley didn't reply. Instead he rubbed his hand over his face as though he was wiping cobwebs from it.

As he reached his mouth his hand stopped.

"Like what?" Winston repeated.

"Like . . . like limejuice was pretty quick off the mark this morning just now. . . . We used to reckon on ten minutes at the least, and that was one hell of a lot closer to their forward landing strips than we are here."

"But they got a standing patrol, you said."

"So I did. But he said he wasn't expecting any trouble at the crossing —it was going to be a piece of cake."

"He could be just careful?"

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"That's exactly what I'm thinking—he could be just very careful indeed. As the corporal said, he could prefer certainties to odds, Sergeant."

This time Sergeant Winston didn't reply.

"And there was something damn queer about the way he acted back there . . ." Audley's hand rubbed his stubbly chin. "When we were jumped on the river ... by a German patrol—when you made that memorable observation of yours. 'Horseshit' was it?"

Winston grunted. "He had his goddamn patrols out, for Christ's sake."

"That's right. And if there's one thing about this crew of desperadoes it's that they're highly professional at smelling out Germans. Because they've been keeping one jump ahead of them for months in Jugoslavia."

"So they fouled this one up, you mean?"

"Or maybe they didn't foul it up—also as Corporal Butler says. . . . Or maybe they did foul it up, at that!"

"I don't get you now, Lieutenant. They didn't—and they did?"

"That's right. They were laying it on for us, the colonel, the corporal and me—three birds with one stone

—the birds who weren't wanted any more en voyage. And then the corporal messes things up with his quick reflexes and his Bren gun: they were expecting sitting ducks, and they got thirty rounds rapid just where it hurt." Audley's thin lips twisted. "Naughty Corporal Butler!"

Winston rocked in his seat uneasily. "Hell—but how d'you know they weren't Germans? That guy had an MG 42—and that was an MG 42 firing at us, I'd know that goddamn noise anywhere!" He shook his head. "I heard that first time on Omaha Beach and I'm not ever going to shake that out of my head, Lieutenant, you can believe that for sure."

"They've got all sorts of guns with them," said Butler.

"That's right." Audley nodded at him. "These people are weapon specialists. The job they had in Jugoslavia was instructing the partisans in weapon training. The major's second in command—Captain Crawford—was explaining to me last night . . . half the men Marshal Tito has don't know one end of a gun from the other, they're shepherds and schoolboys, and they have to fight with what they can get—

not just our weapons, but German and Italian . . . and Russian too, now. And the marshal asked our people for a squad to train his chaps, and these are one lot of them. They're a sort of mobile musketry school."

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They stopped again.

This time the woods were all around them, thick and silent. Friendly woods, Butler told himself: friendly and concealing woods where no enemies were, and the feeling of unease and watching eyes all around him was just the town-bred boy's unfamiliarity with anywhere away from bricks and mortar and stone and slate, and straight ordered lines and sharp angles of houses and walls and roofs.

But he knew he was deceiving himself now, and that the enemy was all around him, much closer than what might lie hidden behind the green tangles.

Major O'Conor was striding towards them again, the ashplant swinging nonchalantly for all the world as though he was a country gentleman walking his acres.

"Ah, David!" The major waved the stick. "Limejuice to your liking, eh?"

"Yes, sir. B-b-b . . ."—Audley fought the word—"better them than us, sir."

The major laughed a quick, mirthless laugh. "I couldn't agree with you more. I had a bit of that in 1940—

and another bit in Crete in '41. So I'm quite content to see them on the receiving end, I can tell you, by jiminy." His eye swept over Butler. "No Germans to smell here, Corporal. . ." The eye came to the American sergeant. "Bit short with you back there by the river, Sergeant, but not much time, you understand—Germans and all that. . . But welcome to Chandos Force, anyway."

"Major, sir"—Winston gripped the wheel with both hands—"I'm sure we'll get along just fine."

"That's the spirit!" The eye roved over the jeep. "Sergeant-major! Get this bazooka out of this jeep—and the projectiles too. I want that up front in Cranston's jeep. He knows how to use the damn thing." The major's golden smile showed. "They can carry some more petrol instead."

"Sir!" shouted the sergeant-major in the distance.

The major tapped the bonnet of the jeep. "Another main road two or three miles ahead, David," he said conversationally. "All being well, we'll hop that in the next stride. Then we should be right as rain for quite a way . . . my chaps know the drill backwards. Just follow instructions and you'll have no trouble."

Audley nodded. "Righty-ho, sir. . . how's the colonel, sir?"

"Hah! Lost a bit of blood, but nothing serious. Fleshy part of the arm, that's all—orderly's got him nicely wrapped up. Good night's rest and he'll be as right as rain too."

Butler surrendered the bazooka and its ammunition to a couple of bandits in exchange for jerrycans of Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

petrol. It was hard to equate this major, all friendliness and businesslike confidence, with the coldblooded bugger he'd overheard under the bank of the island beside the Loire. He glanced at Audley to reassure himself that he wasn't dreaming: the subaltern was watching the major with a strangely blank look on his face, as though he too found the adjustment beyond him.

"Jolly good!" The major lifted the ashplant in farewell, and strode back up the road.

The American sergeant watched him go for a few seconds, and then turned towards Audley. For another two or three seconds the Englishman and the American stared at each other.

"Horseshit?" said Audley.

Winston nodded. "Horseshit." He paused. "But that's how it feels . . . how it really is—well, you better know better than I do, because that isn't quite the brand of horseshit I'm used to, Lieutenant."

They moved on again, but more slowly this time.

"Back at the river—'Germans and all that'. . ." said Audley.

"Yeah?"

"A patrol, he said. And 'we're dealing with it,' he said too."

"That's right. And he sure as hell wasn't very worried by it either." Winston agreed. "Which seems kind of surprising to me in the circumstances."

"Right! And particularly in the circumstances that he'd sent only two men to deal with it."

"Smith and Fowler," said Butler. "And he lost Fowler. And he was angry."

"He wasn't just angry." Audley stared from one to the other quickly. " He was surprised."

"Man—you're dead right," Winston nodded so quickly that the jeep swerved slightly. "He was surprised."

"Which in the circumstances is surprising," concluded Audley.

"Huh! Which in the circumstances means—no Germans," said Winston. Suddenly he half-turned in the driving seat. "How hard did you say you hit that guy—who was it?—Jones?"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Butler swallowed. "Pretty hard, I suppose."

"Uh-huh . . ." Winston grunted knowingly. "Like maybe so he won't wake up this side of never, don't tell me. So now with the ambush that makes your score two-nil . . . and if we meet any Germans we can stop and ask them if they'll give you an Iron Cross—"

"Lay off, Sergeant," said Audley sharply. "If it wasn't for Corporal Butler we'd all be food for the crayfish in the river now."

The subaltern was looking at him, Butler realised. "Sir—"

"Never mind. Forget it."

"Never mind?" The American's voice rose. "Holy God, Lieutenant! if it wasn't for you British fighting among yourselves I'd be back the other side of the river now fighting the war I was drafted for—and you want me to forget that like it hadn't happened?"

"No. But—"

"No—hell, no! And if I had any sense I ought to take the next turning and get the hell out of here—

limejuice, for God's sake—and loot!" The American's foot went down on the accelerator as the jeep in front started to pull away from them. "What loot—do I get to know that before one side or the other blows my head off?"

"We don't know," said Audley promptly, as though he had seen the question coming. "All we know is that it's very valuable."

The woods were thinning ahead of them: Butler could see light between the trees on both sides of the road.

"That's great—here we go again, hold on—I always wanted to the rich—"

This time there was no bump. And this time the main road was even wider and straighter, with a wide verge of rough grass on each side of it. Looking quickly to each side of him Butler saw it stretching away into the far distance, to his left towards a gap on the skyline and to his right away into infinity.

Where were all the people in France—not just the Germans, that quarter of a million of them, but the millions of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen? They couldn't all be huddled in cellars waiting for the liberation.

Then they were across into the forest again, the trees as thick as ever. Before he had landed in Normandy he had thought of France as a land of pretty girls and the Eiffel Tower. After three days in Normandy it had become a land of ruined villages and shapeless old people and foul smells. Now it was a place of Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

misty sand and endless woodland.

" Uh-huh . . ." It almost seemed that the American sergeant was beginning to enjoy his unhappiness.

"And where is this very valuable loot, that has a limejuice all of its very own? . . . Don't tell me—you don't know that either?"

"Not far from here," said Audley stiffly. "The major said we could reach it tomorrow if we were lucky."

"But you don't know where it is? I guess the major wouldn't have told you that?" Winston looked quickly sideways at Audley.

"It's in Touraine," said Butler. "I know that."

"Which is like saying 'It's in South Dakota, or Illinois, or Florida," said Winston. "And we're in Touraine now, Corporal—and if you don't know where you're going, I sure as hell don't either."

"But we can find that out from Colonel Clinton just as soon as we harbour for the night," said Audley.

"And we can tell him what's happening."

Winston shook his head. "You can—I'm not. The moment you go anywhere near that colonel of yours—

you and the corporal—that's the moment you won't find me around. Because the place where you three are together isn't going to be a very healthy place to be ... I've been there once, and I still don't know how I got out of it in one piece."

There was sense in that, thought Butler. The only comfort in their present position was that Colonel Clinton was somewhere else up front. "Our best bet is to duck out of this tonight, first chance we get,"

said Winston. "That way we live to fight another day, Lieutenant."

Audley was silent for a moment. "We can't do that"

"Why not, for heck's sake?"

Audley looked at Butler. "Because we're the real Chandos Force— and we've got a job to do," he said flatly.

The American was silent in his turn, driving steadily. Then he leaned back towards Butler. "Are you . . .

the real Chandos Force too, Corporal?"

"Corporal Butler goes with me," said Audley.

"I see." The sergeant sat forward again. "Well, don't mind me if I wave a different flag—"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"That's fair enough." Audley's voice sharpened.

"I haven't quite finished, Lieutenant." Winston's voice sharpened to match. "I don't know whether you can take your major or whether you can't. But I'm pretty sure if he suspects you're on to him, you're gonna cramp his style if you disappear from under him—that'll make him think twice, whatever he's planning, not knowing what you're up to, huh?"

There was even more sense in that, thought Butler—the addition of the American sergeant to their strength was beginning to look like a greater blessing merely than his jeep-driving expertise.

He glanced hopefully at Audley. In his experience second lieutenants could not be relied on for anything but the simplest reaction to events, since that was all that was expected of them. But one day he hoped to do better than that himself, and now he prayed that Audley might live up to his CO's estimation.

"Looks like another halt ahead," said Winston. "So think it over, Lieutenant"

The jeeps slowed down as before, pulling into the side of the road under the shadow of the trees with a gentle rise stretching ahead of them to the crest of the next ridge.

But this time, to Butler's relief, it was Sergeant Purvis who came back towards them.

"Sir"—Purvis sounded breathless, but cheerful—"the major's compliments, and we shall be going through a village very soon. Nothing to worry about—I've had a look-see myself and I've put two men over the top of the hill beyond the village. The major's in there now, asking around if there's any suspicious persons been seen in the vicinity— won't take my word for it yet, like he used to for poor old Taf . . ." He grinned suddenly at Butler, with the ghost of a wink. "Now if you were to lend me the corporal there—I hear tell he's got a bit of a nose, like Taf had—Corporal Jones, that is . . ."

"I'll think about it, Sergeant," said Audley. "Are we halting in the village?"

"Lord—no, sir! Never stop inside a place, we don't. Too many prying eyes, there are . . . not unless it's been okayed by the partisans, and we don't know any of them here." Purvis shook his head. "No sir, we'll go straight through, and in four separate groups—that way if there is anyone watching that shouldn't be he'll likely get the wrong idea about our strength. You two"—he waved his hand to include the jeep behind— "are the rear guard, with me as tail-end Charlie." He grinned again. "Just go straight across the village square and there's a sign to St. Laurent-les-Caves. Then up the hill till you meet up with the rest."

"All right, Sergeant," Audley nodded. “We'll manage."

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"Of course you will, sir. Just take it nice and steady—not too fast and not too slow. But don't stop for anyone, no matter who . . . and do keep an eye out for the kiddies, sir—if you catch them on the wrong side of the road from their mothers they'll like as not run across in front of you in a flash."

There was something infinitely comforting about Sergeant Purvis, decided Butler. And not the least element in that comfort was his capacity for worrying about other people, even about small French children in a village in the middle of nowhere. If there was anyone they could risk trusting in Chandos Force, Purvis was the one.

Also, he was beginning to get the hang of Major O'Conor's operating rules, which seemed to be a variation on the hallowed principle of fire-and-movement. Very skilful reconnaissance—what Sergeant Purvis would no doubt describe as “look-see"—and movement had obviously kept them alive and operational for months in the far more hazardous conditions of occupied Jugoslavia.

It was a pity—indeed, it was also almost beyond his understanding— that the major had somehow gone to the bad.

And it was a pity also that the very blindest chance had made Audley and himself—and the colonel and Sergeant Winston—the innocent victims of his villainy.

He frowned at the back of Sergeant Winston's neck. The American's bad luck was enough to rattle even a man of such evident common sense and efficiency, which all senior NCOs in the engineers appeared to share: to be cut off from his unit among foreigners, was bad enough. But to be cut off among villainous foreigners in enemy territory . . .

He realised that all three of them were wrapped in thought, but that the thoughts must be very different.

And the heaviest burden lay on the broad but utterly inexperienced shoulders of the young dragoon subaltern, with his stutter and his bruises and his Cambridge scholarship which was of as little use to him now as a packet of fish and chips. Indeed, a packet of fish and chips would be a lot more use, he thought, feeling hungrily in his haversack. His fingers closed on the familiar oatmeal block.

And then he knew that he could never face a mouthful of oatmeal again, not even if he was starving, not even if it was the last edible thing in the whole world. There had been oatmeal in Jones's eyes and in his eyebrows and in his nostrils.

He munched a bar of ration chocolate and tried to think of something else.

Loot. . . the colonel had called it "valuable property," but the major had called it loot—

Oatmeal.

So the major must know what it was—obviously he knew what it was, or he wouldn't be planning to Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

do ... but what was he planning to do? And, come to that, what had the colonel himself been planning to do?

Oatmeal.

He reached inside his battle-dress blouse for his pocket watch. It was still incredibly early; everything seemed to have happened this morning on a time scale of its own, outside ordinary time. Back home at this hour his father would be having his breakfast, or maybe getting a proper shine on his boots before setting out for work. And the general . . .

He opened the watch case a little more—james butler 15-5-42 from h.g.c. 6.9.91—if anyone came into possession of this watch they would take those two dates for birthdays, he thought wryly, and not the days on which the British Army had acquired two of its recruits. His own "42" date might stump them a bit, but they'd probably take the fifty-one-year gap as separating grandson from grandfather.

Which in a manner of thinking wasn't completely wide of the truth, he understood quite suddenly and for the first time: in a way the general had become the grandfather he'd never had, and he had become the grandson the general lacked. The odds had been hugely against its happening, not just because of the difference between the little terrace houses of Jubilee Street and the stately homes of Lynwood Road but also because of the greater gulf between his father's position and politics and those of the general. But it had happened.

And it had begun happening during one lunchbreak, when he'd been curled up with his book on the edge of the rhododendrons, out of sight, so he had thought—

"What are you reading, boy?"

" The River War, sir. It's by Mr. Winston Churchill." (If he asks you a question always answer loud and clear, Sands had told him. And truthfully too—he can see clear through you like a sheet of glass.)

"Not studying?"

"It's history, sir." (Was that a lie? "Isn't it?")

"Hmm . . . well, perhaps it is. Mr. Churchill would be pleased to hear you say so, anyway. . . . And which bit do you like best—the battle of Omdurman?"

"Yes, sir."

"Of course. And in the battle the charge of the 21st Lancers, I suppose, eh?"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"No, sir. The bit about MacDonald's brigade—the Soudanese and the Egyptians, sir—how they and the Lincolns fought off the Green Flag dervishes."

"Indeed? Then read it to me, boy."

"Yes, sir—it comes after the Black Flags had been beaten. Then the Green Flags suddenly came down from the hills . . ." (His fingers ran through the pages, but the book knew the place better than he did, opening itself ready for him.) " 'Had the Khalifa's attack been simultaneous with that which now developed, the position of MacDonald's brigade must have been almost hopeless— "

(This was the great passage, the one he knew so well that he could close his eyes on it.)

" ' All depended on MacDonald, and that officer, who by valour and conduct in war had won his way from the rank of a private soldier to the command of a brigade, was equal to the emergency— '"

(The words flowed on. Not even E. M. Wilmot Buxton could equal Winston Churchill in describing a battle.)

"'Thus ended the Battle of Omdurman—the most signal triumph ever gained by the arms of science over barbarians.'"

"Most signal massacre, more like, my boy. They didn't have a chance, the poor barbarians."

"Against MacDonald they did, sir." (He couldn't have MacDonald slandered, not even by the general.)

"Were you there, sir?"

"Hah . . . no. The Lancashire Rifles did not have that honour . . . Well, maybe against MacDonald the barbarians did." (The general's blue eyes were looking at him: he was a sheet of clear glass.) "But you don't want to be a soldier, surely?"

"Yes, sir. Like MacDonald."

"Like MacDonald? And what does your father say about that?"

"My father?" (He was still clear glass: they both knew what his father would say to that.) "Yes—your father."

"I don't know. But I'm going to be a soldier all the same."

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Ambition, thought Butler. That was the bridge between Jubilee Street and Lynwood Road.

"Move out!" Sergeant Purvis shouted from ahead of them.

The rise ahead was empty now except for the sergeant's jeep, with its massive .50 Browning mounted in front. The sergeant himself was standing up in it, one hand on the gun and the other waving them forward.

Over the crest the road curved away through the trees, past a fork with a gaudily painted cavalry, its hanging Christ bright with blood, and a signpost bearing the legend 1k. 7 SERMIGNY 6k 4 ST.

LAURENT. At least they were on the right road.

"About a mile," said Winston. "Have you decided, Lieutenant?"

"We can't break off here," said Audley. "Not with two jeeps behind us."

Butler looked back. The jeep behind them was closing up, but Sergeant Purvis's was only just topping the crest. The sergeant was taking his tail-end Charlie role as seriously as he would have expected.

Now there were houses ahead of them, the first outliers of Sermigny, and behind them a jumble of roofs surmounted by a stubby little church spire. With any luck he was about to see his first Frenchman since joining Chandos Force.

Not that they were going to make an exactly triumphant entrance into the village; the forest road was hardly more than an overgrown farm track and the houses he had seen along it were more like broken-down barns than homes. Between them he could just glimpse orderly rows of vines.

And there at last was a real live Frenchman, a little fat man in worn blue dungarees. He stared pop-eyed at Butler across the narrow street, and then started to wave wildly.

The poor sod thought he was being liberated, thought Butler guiltily —that possibility was something which hadn't occurred to him until this very moment.

He heard the man shouting unintelligibly behind them, then Winston swung the jeep out of the shadow of the street into the light of the village square.

It was black with Germans.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

II. How they visited the village of Sermigny

A German soldier skipped out of the way of the jeep to the safety of the pavement.

"Drive on!" said Audley out of the side of his mouth. "Not too fast— don't move, Corporal— drive on, man, drive on!"

There were two more Germans crossing directly ahead of them. Audley signalled them out of the way with an urgent gesture.

" Achtung!" he barked.

The Germans increased their pace smartly.

Butler sat like a stuffed dummy, one hand gripping the body mechanism of his Sten convulsively, the other clutching thin air.

They were driving down one side of a tree-lined square, between a line of grey lorries under the trees on one side—lorries so heavily camouflaged with branches that the trees seemed to be growing out of them

—and a wall of drag shops and houses. The intervals between the lorries were crammed with German troops in full marching order, some in steel helmets but most in soft field caps, with their helmets hanging from their packs.

"Turning ahead—" Audley lifted his hand in a vague half-salute. "Smile, Oberjager— what's 'clear the road' in German, for Christ's sake? Something die Strasse—?”

" Bahnen Sie die Strasse," hazarded Butler.

"Bahnen Sie die Strasse," repeated Audley to himself.

Winston started to turn the wheel, then straightened it instantly. A second later Butler saw why: the side road was jammed with horse-drawn transport—and with more Germans. And, what was worse, at the head was a group of jack-booted officers pouring over a wide-spread map held between them. In the second that it took to pass the turning one of them looked up to stare directly into Butler's smiling face.

At least, it was the nearest he could get to obeying Audley's command—he could feel his cheek muscles drawn back.

They were past the turning. A shop door opened just ahead and two soldiers stepped blindly into the road, their arms filled with long French loaves.

Audley half rose from his seat. " Bahnen Sie die Strasse!" he shouted. " Achtung! Achtung!"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

There was a shout behind them, and the sound of another motor engine.

"The other jeeps," said Audley. "Let's go, Sergeant."

"Yes, sir!" Winston stood on the accelerator.

As the engine roared there came a single shot from the rear, then a burst of firing. One of the loaf-carrying Germans dropped his load and threw himself backwards, upsetting his comrade. The jeep's tyres screamed and skidded on the cobbled road surface. Butler had a fleeting, confused impression of men scattering in the last lorry interval to his left; dead ahead of them there were more men scattering—

men who had been sitting on the steps of the church. Winston swung the steering wheel to the right, then to the left, flinging Butler from one side of the jeep to the other.

They were into a narrow passage—so narrow that the jeep barely fitted between its walls and the sound of its engine filled his senses.

"Shoot, Butler!" screamed Audley.

For a moment Butler didn't understand the order—there was nothing he could see ahead of them to shoot at. Then he realised that anyone firing down the passage at them from behind could hardly miss.

As he twisted in his seat there was another burst of gunfire behind them, followed by a grinding crash of metal on metal which ended in an explosive crash.

The passage was empty—

"Shoot!" Audley shouted again.

Butler loosed off the Sten at nothing—he couldn't have hit anything if it had been there, with the jeep bucking under him.

"More!"

He put another burst down the empty passage and saw dust and chips of stone fly from the walls of a house as the bullets ricocheted from one side to another.

"On the right—there!" shouted Audley.

"I can see it—hold tight!" Winston shouted back

The jeep braked hard. Just as the Sten magazine emptied there came a single shot from the far end of the Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

lane and in the same instant a bullet cracked over Butler's head. The jeep swung sharply to the right, un-sighting him.

"Holy God!" said Winston. "It's a dead end!"

Butler turned. They had travelled no more than two or three yards down a passage almost as narrow as the alleyway they'd left behind. But now directly in front of them was a pair of heavy wooden doors.

Audley sprang out of the jeep and ran to the doors. For a second he rattled the iron handle on one of them, then he hammered desperately on them with his fists.

"Open up, open up! Ouvrez, for God's sake— ouvrez les portes!" He turned back towards them. "It's no good—they're locked . . . We've got to ram the bloody thing . . . Butler—hold off the Germans."

Butler ran back up the passage, fumbling in his ammunition pouch for a fresh magazine. There was no time to take a preliminary look out, he could already hear the hammering of iron-shod boots.

One thing at least, he thought as he snapped the magazine home: a left-facing corner gave better cover than a right-facing one—he could fire round it without showing the whole of his body.

The jeep's engine roared again, and an instant later there was a loud crash from behind him.

He stepped half into the open, swinging the Sten into the firing position.

The enemy—

They were there in plain sight, thirty yards down the alley, but even before he could fire they seemed to vanish into convenient doorways—he marvelled that human beings could move so quickly as he opened fire on the emptiness.

Another crash behind him.

"It's no good," shouted Audley. 'They're too strong!"

Something sailed through the air from down the alley to bounce off the wall of a house two yards below him. He shrank back round his corner, pressing himself flat against the wall behind him. The house shook with a sudden deafening concussion.

They were all going to die here—

He sprang out into the alley again and emptied the Sten into a cloud of dust.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Come on, Butler," Audley shouted at him. "We're making a run for it—"

The jeep was jammed up close to the wooden doors. Sergeant Winston was nowhere to be seen—Butler looked around stupidly.

There was a strong smell of petrol—

"Over the gates—on the jeep and over the gates," Audley urged him.

Butler leapt onto the bonnet of the jeep and threw himself over the top of the wooden doors. As he did so he had a vision of a great white angel with high folded wings stretching out its arms to welcome him.

Then he landed with a bone-jarring thud beside Sergeant Winston, who was crouched beside the gates slopping petrol out of a jerrycan.

Audley dropped beside them.

Another grenade exploded behind them somewhere.

Sergeant Winston clicked his cigarette lighter in the puddle of petrol, which ignited with an explosive whumppp.

"Let's get the hell out of here," said Winston.

WHUMPPP!

The wooden doors shook and a great tongue of orange flame rose above them.

"Holy God! Come on, Corporal!" said Winston, dragging at Butler's arm.

"Steady on." Audley took Butler's other arm. "That first grenade almost got him, I think—come on, Butler . . . it's time to be moving, old lad."

Butler had been staring at the beautiful white angel, whose arms were still raised in welcome. He felt himself being lifted and swivelled —now there was a great white cross in front of him.

Something stung his cheek.

He was in a monumental mason's yard, just like the one in Inkerman Street, which he'd passed a thousand times on his way to school.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Sorry." He shook his head. "I'm all right, sir."

"Well, you won't be for long," said Winston. "If we don't get out of here soon we're gonna have to find a real good excuse for disturbing the peace—"

They were running.

White blocks of marble ... a door in a wall—Sergeant Winston kicked it open ... a vegetable garden—

rows of French beans—Butler giggled at the sight of them, because if there was anywhere in the world where there ought to be rows of French beans it was in a French vegetable patch . . . and beetroot, with red-veined leaves, and fine big savoys, better even than in the general's garden.

The garden ended in a trim little hedge: Audley went through it as though he still had a tank around him.

Butler followed him and found himself in a dusty little lane, with an open vineyard on the far side of it.

The sky above him was blue and cloudless and for the first time he felt the warmth of the sun on his face.

"Come on, man!"

He blinked at the sun. Audley and Winston were already pounding down the lane ahead of him.

"Come on!" Audley was shouting at him.

He started to run again. His head seemed to be spinning, but his legs worked independently—it was like running downhill when the hill was so steep that the only way to keep upright was to run faster and faster.

There were trees now along the roadside, and he followed the other two off the lane into their shadow on the field's edge. The going was harder on the crumbly soil and he felt enraged with them that they should thus slow him down unnecessarily when he'd been running so well—

Audley pulled him down into the field between the vines.

"Crawl." Audley pointed at the American's backside, which was disappearing down the leafy avenue of the row. " Crawl!"

Butler crawled as best he could, with the Sten banging backwards and forwards and sideways on its strap round his neck.

"Faster!" urged Audley from behind. "Go on, go on, go on!"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Butler's heart was pounding on his chest now, but he drew reserves of strength from the anger within him

—he wasn't quite sure who or what he was angry with, but he certainly didn't intend to let any bloody tank officer, or any bloody American, outcrawl him. Marching, running or crawling, no one could beat a rifleman—

Suddenly his legs were jerked from under him and Audley was pressing him down into the dirt.

"Quiet!" Audley hissed into his ear.

All he could see was endless vine bushes, the stems of which were gnarled and knotted as though the vines had grown slowly and painfully out of the soil over many years.

He was also aware that his head ached—there was a hammer inside it which grew louder and louder . . .

and then faded.

"We'll crawl some more now . . . can you crawl some more, Corporal?" Audley's voice in his ear was solicitous.

Butler raised himself on one elbow. "Yes, sir."

"I'll take the Sten," said Audley.

"That's all right, sir—"

"I'll take it," Audley insisted.

"Yes, sir... I'd better put a fresh mag in then." He fumbled for another magazine and rearmed the gun.

"There we are then, sir."

Audley was looking at him strangely. "You sure you feel okay?"

"Sir?" Butler frowned. "Why shouldn't I feel okay?"

The strange expression changed to one of surprise. "Don't you know you've been hit?"

"What?"

"Corporal . . ." Audley reached forward and touched the side of Butler's head. "Let's just have a look—"

"Ouch!" The subaltern's fingers stung like fire. He brushed them away and touched the same spot.

"Ouch!"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

His own fingers were covered with blood.

"Phew!" Audley breathed a sigh of relief. "It's only a flesh wound, I think—but you look as if half the side of your head has been blown off ... yes ... I can see where it creased the side of your skull and clipped your ear: it just dazed you a bit, that's all." He grinned at Butler. "It's only blood, that's all—

that's a relief."

Butler looked down at his hand in horror. It was his blood.

There was a rustle among the vines ahead of them.

Sergeant Winston crawled into view. 'We better shift our asses out of here before those motorcyclists come back," he said.

Motorcyclists?

"You okay, Corporal?" Winston addressed Butler. He sounded remarkably casual in the circumstances, thought Butler.

"Yes," he said sharply.

"Great." Winston nodded encouragingly at him. "That's head wounds for you—you can walk, you're alive. You can't walk, you're dead. So let's crawl instead, huh?"

They crawled.

The field went on and on forever, and Butler felt sicker and sicker, and angrier and angrier.

Then the hammering returned which had seemed before to be inside his skull, but which now came from the lane they had left. Only now it was also a long way away.

They hugged the earth until it had faded.

"They got better things to do than look for us," said Winston hopefully. "Come to that, the way the jeep went up, maybe they think we're still riding in it, with a bit of luck."

"True. But they could be looking to see whether there are any more of us," murmured Audley. "Which there won't be."

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Butler stared at him. He was beginning to remember the confused events of their passage through Sermigny in greater detail.

"The other jeeps didn't get through," he said.

"Correction," snapped Audley. "The other jeep—singular."

Butler stared at him for a moment. Then he knew suddenly why he had been so angry—why he was still angry—and why he was going to remain angry until the score was evened.

"That treacherous bugger Purvis!" he whispered.

"And O'Conor," agreed Audley. "In fact—O'Conor first and last Purvis merely set us up. He merely directed us."

"Holy God!" said Sergeant Winston.

"Yes," said Audley. "'I've had a look-see myself—take it nice and easy, and don't run over any kiddies'—

we let ourselves be taken, and he took us. Two little birds with one stone, and he even got someone else to throw it."

"But. . . the other jeep?" Butler raised his hand to scratch his scalp, which was itching, and then thought better of it. The bleeding seemed to have stopped of its own accord; he didn't know why it had stopped, only that was no more surprising than the fact that he couldn't remember when or how it had started. But it was better left alone, anyway.

"His own men, you mean?" Audley nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, that was pretty average cold-blooded—

even by O'Conor's standards. . . . But then there's no reason why the whole of Chandos Force should be privy to the major's little scheme for liberating His Majesty's property on his own account ... in fact, when you think about it—the more you think about it, the less likely it is that anyone except his inner circle knows what he's planning."

"Why not?" Butler had a feeling that Audley was right, but after Sergeant Purvis's appalling treachery nothing was certain any more, and he felt that everyone was guilty until proved innocent.

"Why not? Well . . . because loot has to be divided, for one thing, so the fewer there are, the bigger the shares. And the fewer there are, the safer the secret is—and I don't think even Major O'Conor could have assembled an entire platoon of gangsters like himself." Audley turned towards the American. “What d'you think, Sergeant?"

Winston grunted. “Well, those two guys in the jeep behind us certainly weren't in on the deal, that's for sure." He raised himself cautiously above the vines. "But if you want to know what I think—I think we Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

ought to put some more distance between us and those krauts while we can."

"Can you see anything?"

Winston lowered his head. "Nope. There's a column of smoke back there—looks like we started quite a fire, so maybe that'll keep them occupied some."

"There is, is there?" Audley lifted himself to peer over the leaves. "So there is, by jiminy! Now that's very promising . . ."

"Promising?"

"Yeah—how?"

Audley sank down again. 'If those chaps weren't 'in on the deal' ... I was just wondering how the esteemed sergeant—what was his name?" He looked at Butler.

"Purvis," spat Butler.

"Purvis, yes—how Sergeant Purvis will have reported our disappearance to the rest of them—including Colonel Clinton."

Winston frowned at him. "Hell, Lieutenant. . . that's no problem. I can just see that smiling sonofabitch explaining how we took the wrong turning and ran into the village before he could stop us."

"Exactly. They may even have heard the firing in the distance."

"So what?"

"So what will the major do, then?"

Winston frowned more deeply, his forehead creasing. "He'll shift his ass—?" He stared at Audley.

"He'll . . . ?"

"Limejuice," said Butler.

"That's right." Audley gave Butler a twisted non-smile. "He'll do what he'd do if it was a genuine accident—he'll cover his tracks and spread alarm and confusion among the enemy with an air strike.

He'll have to do it to keep up the pretence—and I rather think he would have done it anyway. Because it makes good sense."

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

This time Butler frowned—and discovered in doing so that it hurt to frown now. "Good sense . . . sir?"

"Ye-ess ... a downy bird . . . Because even if there weren't any Germans at the Loire crossing when we came over they'll be wondering what the hell happened there by now, with that limejuice strike. So now he's given them the answer—which was us blundering into Sermigny." Audley paused, staring up at the blue sky above them and listening to the stillness for a moment. "And now ... if he's the downy bird I take him to be ... he'll ram the answer home with another drop of limejuice."

They all listened, but there was only an empty silence. "What d'you think, Sergeant?" said Audley finally.

"Lieutenant"—Winston gave the silence another five seconds—"I think the sooner we crawl our asses out of here the better."

They crawled again.

But this time they crawled more steadily, and without the hampering Sten, Butler was able to fall into the rhythm of it, timing the movement of his left hand to his right knee, and that of his right hand to his left knee until they became automatic.

Ahead of him the American sergeant moved just rhythmically down the narrow avenue of vines, with their clusters of small green grapes and odd-shaped leaves. He had never imagined grapes growing on small bushes like these, but rather on high trellises like in the Kentish hop fields; nor did the grapes look anything like as juicy as the ones he remembered from Christmas before the war, when they had been one of the extra-special treats—though a treat not in the same class as the orange in the toe of his stocking.

More strange than the grapes were the American's boots, which were queer, high-laced things that reminded him of pictures of Edwardian ladies' boots; and they had no metal studs on their soles—that was why the American Army marched so unnaturally silently, of course—

The boots slid sideways suddenly.

"There's a wood just up ahead," said Winston.

Audley crawled up alongside them, breathing heavily—that was the difference from being encumbered by the machine-carbine, which outweighed its lightness with its awkwardness, thought Butler charitably.

"Okay. Let's get into it," said Audley.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"And then where?" asked Winston.

That was the question which had been looming in the back of Butler's mind all the time as he had crawled, beyond the immediate problem of surviving.

What were they going to do?

Audley looked up into the sky, as though gauging his position. "Well ... so far as I can make out, we're southeast of the village— maybe south-southeast—which means this is the wood we came out of, probably."

Winston squinted towards the sun. "Yeah—could be."

"Right ... so if we head due east through the wood we should hit that other road—the one they took?"

Audley looked at Winston questioningly.

Winston nodded slowly. "Could be, yeah."

"Then we head south."

Butler looked from one to the other of them as they stared at each other.

"I get you," said Winston. "And then the first Frenchman you meet, you ask if your buddies have passed that way, huh?"

"That's right, Sergeant."

The American smiled. "You know, Lieutenant, I kind of thought you were going to say that—I really did."

"You did?" said Audley stiffly. 'That was clever of you, Sergeant."

"Sure. You're still the real Chandos Force. All two of you."

Audley took a deep breath. "I was . . . very much hoping it would be all three of us, Sergeant. I was hoping that very much." He took another breath. "We could use some help."

The sergeant chewed his lip. "Yeah, I can see that." He looked at Butler. "What d'you think, Corporal?"

Butler's mouth opened. "Who—me?"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Winston gazed at him for a second, shook his head, and then turned back to Audley.

"Okay, Lieutenant," he said. "Let's get the real Chandos Force on the road."

12. How they met strangers in the forest

The drawback of the wood was that it was impossible to move quietly in it.

Once they had put the first belt of trees and bushes between themselves and the vineyard they were able to walk free and upright, and that was a marvellous relief. But the ground was thick with twigs and small fallen branches which crunched and crackled and snapped underfoot until Butler felt that the whole German Army, or at least that part of it which was south of the Loire and hadn't yet heard that the war was almost over, must hear them.

That was a childish imagining, he knew, but it also seemed to affect the others, because they both trod as delicately as they could, and indicated to him that he should do the same. The problem was that it was difficult to keep his eyes on his feet and at the same time avoid the foliage that brushed against his face, something that would normally not have worried him at all but which now became extremely painful.

Try as he would, he could not stop the branches whipping the wounds on the side of his head and his ear: they seemed malevolently determined to draw blood again, so that finally he found himself stumbling along with one hand clamped over the injuries and the other stretched out ahead of him like that of a blind man feeling his way in the dark.

At the same time he experienced a growing irritation with Audley for holding onto his precious Sten gun. He recognised the emotion as being no less childish than his fear of the noise they were making and his preoccupation with the pain of superficial scratches; and that the young officer had only taken the Sten in the first place as an act of kindness. But without it he felt naked and defenceless in the knowledge that if they did meet up with any Germans the lack of it left him no choice other than to surrender or to run like a rabbit. Which was not only unfair, but doubly unfair, because Audley still had his holstered pistol—which was the only other weapon they possessed between them.

For the first time he began to think of the impossibility of what Audley was proposing to do.

It wasn't just impossible—it was ridiculous. They didn't know where they were— They didn't know where they were going— They didn't know where the major was going— And even if they were able by some miracle to find out the answer to that last question they had no prospect of catching up with the major before he did whatever it was that he intended to do, whatever that was exactly, which they didn't know—Apart from which, there were still the sodding Germans to think about, because however experienced the major and his bloody bandits were at keeping out of harm's way, Second Lieutenant Audley's knowledge of war was limited to the destruction of tanks, and mostly British tanks, and Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Sergeant Winston was of all things, for Christ's sake, a demolition expert who probably didn't know one end of a rifle from the other—

Not that they'd even got a rifle—all they'd got was a Sten and a bloody revolver, and Mr. Audley was now carrying both of those— "Are you all right, Butler?" asked Audley. "Sir?" Butler looked at his right hand.

"You were mumbling and"—Audley stared at him—"and you've started bleeding again, man."

Butler could see that from the bright wet blood on his hand. Looking at it made him feel dizzy.

"Sit down," ordered Audley.

"I'm okay."

"I know you're okay. I'm just going to patch you up a bit, that's all. So sit down like a good fellow."

Butler sat down. There was a crashing in the bushes and Sergeant Winston appeared. Audley must have sent him up ahead to scout the route, he decided. Look-see and movement, in the best Chandos Force manner, that would be.

There was a glugging sound and then Audley handed him a large red silk handkerchief, soaking wet.

"Wipe your face with that, Corporal—freshen up." Audley's voice changed. "What's it like up ahead?"

"Like this for about half a mile. But then there's a track goes more or less in the right direction." Winston paused. "And I guess you were right."

"Right? . . . That's fine, Corporal. Now hold this dressing on the side of your head." Audley took the silk handkerchief in exchange. "How was I right?"

Butler applied the field dressing cautiously to the side of his head. He could well understand why Audley was so concerned about his well-being, since he constituted one third of the available manpower.

But the subaltern needn't have worried, he thought grimly: if there was one thing worse than the madness of going on it was the prospect of being abandoned as unfit.

"How bad is he?" asked the American.

"I'm perfectly all right," said Butler.

"Huh?" Winston addressed the sound to Audley.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"The corporal?" Audley bent over him. "Oh, he's okay . . . I'm going to tie the dressing down with this handkerchief, Corporal. When I tighten it—that's when it'll hurt. . . . Yes, he's okay. That second grenade went off right in his face and all he's got is a couple of scratches and mild shock—"

What second grenade? There had been a second grenade which had gone off somewhere behind them, on the other side of the wooden gates, but— ouch!

What second grenade?

"—so he was obviously born to be hanged, like Corporal Jones. . . . But how was I right, Sergeant?"

Audley surveyed his handiwork. "Well, it doesn't improve your appearance much, I must say. As the Iron Duke said, I don't know what effect you'll have on the enemy, but by God you frighten me. . . . But I think it'll hold for the time being. How was I right, did you say, Sergeant?"

Winston lifted his hand, one finger raised to silence them. In the far distance there was an angry, buzzing drone—no, it was not so much far off as high up. He had been listening to it for a minute or two—it had been growing inside his mind while they had been talking, Butler realised. And he had heard it before.

"Yes . . ." Audley looked at Butler. 'Well, at least we won't have to be worrying about the Germans following us, not for the time being anyway ... all right, Corporal?"

They pushed on at a steady dogtrot, careless of the noise they made.

Butler was aware, with a curious sense of detachment, that he felt very much better. He couldn't quite work out what had happened back in the village: there seemed to be a gap in his memory now, although there hadn't been any loss of consciousness at the time. But after that there had been some bad moments

—he could see now that they had been bad moments by comparing the clarity of his present thoughts with the haziness of his recollection of their escape from the village into the woods.

He was also aware that the drone of limejuice was building up into a roar. The first time he had heard it the sound had been overlaid by the acceleration of the jeep's engine at the road crossing near the big house with the fairy-tale towers; now the trees surrounding them and the makeshift bandage which covered his damaged ear did nothing to mute it, but only seemed to spread it until it echoed all around them until it changed abruptly to a high-pitched shriek directly over their heads.

Suddenly they weren't dogtrotting any more, they were running as though their lives depended on their legs again.

With his new-found detachment, Butler realised as he ran that they were running away from nothing.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

The Typhoons were attacking the village, drawn irresistibly by that column of smoke like wasps to a jam pot. What they were experiencing—and he could feel the same fear pounding in his own chest—was what the old sweats in the battalion, the survivors of Dunkirk, had warned him against: the panic which made men believe that every dive-bomber was lining itself up on them alone.

Not even the distant sound of explosions far behind them slowed down their speed. Rather, the explosions seemed to urge them on— Butler could feel another logic taking over, whispering to him that he couldn't be too far away from what was happening behind him. The farther away, the better, the farther away the better, the farther away the better.

Not until they finally burst out of the last of the thick undergrowth into a plantation of tall pine trees did they start to slow down. "Which way?" said Audley breathlessly, skidding at last to a halt.

"Hell, Lieutenant"—Winston panted, looking around him—"I didn't come this way first time"—he pointed towards a great tangle of what looked like blackberry bushes on the far side of the plantation

—"that way, I guess."

Audley stared at the bushes for a moment, then sank onto one knee behind a pine tree. "What was it like? Did it look as if it's used much?" he said.

Butler was suddenly aware that the noise behind them had stopped and the drone of the Typhoon engines was dying away. The loudest sound now was the thudding of his own heart.

"The track?" Winston frowned from behind his tree towards Audley. "It looked kind of overgrown to me, what I could see of it. You want me to take another look, Lieutenant?"

"No." Audley was still staring at the bushes ahead, moving his head from one side to the other to scan the green wall more closely, as though there was something he had glimpsed momentarily and then lost.

"You seen something?" Winston stared intently in the same direction.

"No." Audley's voice had dropped to an urgent whisper. "But I can smell something, by God!"

"Smell—?" Winston cut the question off.

Butler started to draw in a deep breath through his nose and then stopped as quickly as Winston had stopped speaking.

It was a sweet-rotten smell, not the dead-cow smell, which was foul enough, but something different and fouler which caught in the back of his throat. He breathed out carefully through his mouth, grateful that there was nothing in his stomach; it wasn't that he hadn't encountered this particular death-smell before—

it was very much a Normandy-smell—but rather that here, beyond the killing ground, it had caught him Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

by surprise.

"Yeah . . ." Winston sniffed again, crouching down behind a tree as he did so. "Which way, d'you reckon?"

"Must be somewhere ahead," said Audley.

"Yeah . . ." Winston peered to the left and right, and then moved silently across the pine needles to sink down beside Audley. "Gimme the gun, Lieutenant, and I'll go take a look."

Audley surrendered the Sten before Butler could think of protesting, but then caught the American by the arm. "Not you, Sergeant—I'll go."

"Aw—come on, Lieutenant!" Winston tried to shake off the hand. "You're the brains of the outfit."

Butler came to a lightning decision: they were both equally unsuited to scouting, the heavily built engineer sergeant and the large dragoon subaltern, and it was high time he justified his own existence as something more than the useless walking wounded. He ran lightly across the plantation to a tree near Audley's. "Sir"—the trick was not to give them time to argue, so he started to move again as they turned towards him—"cover me—"

The thick carpet of pine needles deadened his footfalls as he zigzagged from tree to tree, heading for the only gap he could see in the thicket ahead. Beyond the gap and in the chinks in the thicket he could see the bright sunlight unfiltered by overhanging greenery: it was like looking from a cool, shadowy room into the open, where nothing was hidden from sight.

There was a thin scatter of brambles, weak and straggling for lack of direct light, among the last trees of the plantation. Their trailing ends plucked at his battle dress, but without the encumbrance of the Sten he had both hands free to part them without making any sound. As he did so the stink of dead flesh thickened horribly around him, filling his nose and his mouth and his lungs. It seemed to grow worse with every step he took, until suddenly he knew with absolute certainty that all his care in making a silent approach to the track was unnecessary: whatever there was out there, it was long past listening to anything— nothing alive and breathing could endure to hang around within range of this smell, which begged only for the mercy of a burial detail. He would stake his stripes on that.

The sunlight lay three steps ahead of him. Only as he was in the act of taking the third, when it was really too late to draw back, did it occur to him that he was staking more than his stripes on his sense of smell.

Twenty yards down the track, half hidden in the undergrowth on the other side into which it had been driven, was a German lorry. Behind it, farther down, was another vehicle—a decrepit-looking truck—

surrounded by several smashed-open ammunition boxes, and beyond that what looked like a civilian car Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

with its touring hood half raised, its doors hanging open. Like the lorry, they had both been driven off the narrow track into the overgrown verge. The track itself stretched away beyond them, open and deserted, and so silent that he could hear the buzz of insects.

"Butler"—Audley was crouching in the shadow at the edge of the plantation—"can you see anything?"

A big dragonfly flew across the bonnet of the lorry, hovered for an instant in a flash of iridescent blue, and then set off fearlessly down the line of vehicles. Butler watched it settle on one of the splintered boxes. His eye came back to the lorry again: its windscreen was bullet-scarred. He beckoned to Audley.

"It's all clear," he said.

Audley stepped out through the thicket into the sunlight, stared for one long moment at the abandoned vehicles, and then pushed his pistol back into its webbing holster.

Sergeant Winston appeared at his shoulder, wrinkling his nose against the smell. "Jesus! Looks like someone's been picking off the stragglers, eh?"

Audley looked at him quickly. "The stragglers? Yes—I see . . . you mean the French Resistance?"

"Can't be anyone else this far south of the river. Our patrols didn't tangle with anyone." Winston walked towards the lorry, pointing to its pock-marked side. "That's sure as hell not nice, and it's not point-fives either, so it's not an air strike—those babies punch bigger holes than that. This is small-arms stuff did this."

"Uh-huh?" Audley had circled warily round to the back of the truck as the American was speaking. He raised his hand towards the bullet-torn canvas flap.

"Hey, hold on, Lieutenant," Winston cautioned him, grimacing. "The way it stinks here, maybe what's in there's better left alone, huh?"

"Oh . . . yes." Audley stared at the flap for a moment, then dropped his hand, wiping the palm against his trousers as though the nearness to the lorry had contaminated it.

They moved on to the truck which had carried the ammunition boxes. It was a bit like a box itself, with an old-fashioned, home-made look about it which reminded Butler of the ancient vehicle which the scouts had hired to transport the troop and its equipment to the Lake District for that last camp before the war.

Winston ran a professional eye over it, shaking his head in wonderment. "Man—they sure are scraping the bottom of the barrel," he murmured.

Audley stepped up onto the runningboard and peered into the high, open cab. There was a sudden Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

buzzing sound and a cloud of flies rose into the air—great bloated obscene things the size of young wasps.

Audley shied away from them, jumping back onto the grass with an exclamation of disgust.

"What's the matter?" said Winston quickly.

"Nothing." Audley blinked and shook his head. "Just blood."

"Blood?"

"Dried blood . . . four, five days old." Audley went on shaking his head. "Just... it just reminded me of s-s-something, that's all."

Beyond the truck and the shattered boxes lay a big BMW motorcycle. Winston pounced on it eagerly.

"Now this is more like it"—he heaved the machine upright—"aw, shit—the goddamn thing's smashed to hell!" He let it fall back into the grass. "Front fork's snapped, handlebars twisted—like it ran smack into something."

"Indeed?" Audley bent over the motorcycle. "Yes, I think you're right. . . ." He straightened up, staring back the way they had come and then forward at the last vehicle, the civilian car. "You know there's something funny about this little lot—something decidedly queer . . ."

"Funny?" Winston stared at him.

"Yes. Funny peculiar, not funny ha-ha." Audley nodded, studying the line again. "I thought it was a straightforward ambush when I first saw it—took it for granted. But you know ... it isn't an ambush at all." He shook his head emphatically. "These things were all shot up somewhere else, I think—and then they were brought here and dumped."

Winston frowned, first at Audley, then at the vehicles, then back at Audley again. "How d'you figure that, Lieutenant?"

Audley pointed at the ground behind the ancient truck. "See the tyre tracks in the earth there?"

Butler followed the pointing finger. Weighed down by its load, the truck had pressed deeply into the verge where it had left the hard-compacted surface of the track.

"Sure, but—"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"The ground was damp when they ran it off the road." Audley pointed back towards the lorry. "But that didn't dig into the ground, and it's a lot bigger and heavier than this one. And that isn't the only thing—"

He gestured at the tyre-ruts again. "See how the grass has sprung up. That's what I first noticed about the lorry: the way the grass and the weeds had recovered. Which means they've both been here for several days, maybe a week or more, as well as being parked at different times."

Butler shifted his attention to the motorcycle. That, after all, had been what had started Audley's detective process. So the decisive clue must be somehow connected with it, and the best way of proving his own powers of observation was to spot it before Audley had time to reveal it first.

To his joy the clue was obvious.

"But the motorbike's only just been ditched here," he said eagerly, pointing to the clear line of crushed grass which marked the machine's route from the track to its last resting place. "And there's no sign that it crashed here, either."

Audley grinned at him. "That's exactly it, Corporal—spot on! In fact it can't have been here for more than a day, I'd guess."

"Aye, sir . . ." Butler stared down the track. The young officer's pleasure at his own cleverness was a bit comical—he could imagine how it might annoy his superiors and make him a figure of fun among his NCOs and troopers. The very fact that he would often be right and one step ahead of the field—as he had been in the barn the night before —would make matters worse, not better. That was what Colonel Sykes had meant when he had observed that Mr. Audley was perhaps too clever for his own good: the function of second lieutenants was not to be clever but to obey orders and lead their men and be killed.

At least, that was their function in the Lancashire Rifles, as laid down by the adjutant. Those who were capable of more than that were expected to hide their light under a bushel, and that was obviously a lesson Mr. Audley hadn't learnt.

And yet, and yet... and yet even though under the young officer's innocent self-esteem there was also a suggestion of typical bloody-minded public-school arrogance—he hadn't learnt that lesson because such lessons didn't apply to him—there was a challenge. Rank meant nothing to David Audley: only the man who could outthink him was his superior officer.

"Aye." He looked Audley in the eye. "And we're close to the road, that means."

The confirmation was there in Audley's face: the recognition that Corporal Butler was something more than cannon fodder.

"What d'you mean?"

Winston started towards the civilian car. "He means nobody rode that goddamn bike here—not with a Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

broken front fork. They pushed it." The last sentence was delivered over his shoulder as he reached for the clips on one side of the car's bonnet. "Which means . . . we're close to the goddamn road."

"Oh . . ." Audley looked chagrined. "You're right—and I should have thought of that."

"Hell, no! What you should have thought"—Winston threw back one half of the bonnet with a clang

—"is whether I can get this thing going. Because if we're going to catch up with those sons-of-bitches we've got to have wheels under us." He glanced quickly at Butler. "Check the gas, Corporal—the tank'll be round the back somewheres."

On second thought maybe the American's practical common sense was going to be of more use than Audley's powers of deduction, decided Butler.

"Do you think you can?" said Audley excitedly. "By God—d'you think you can, Sergeant?"

"I dunno, but I'm sure as hell going to try." Winston frowned at the engine. "It shouldn't be too difficult ... if the battery's okay . . . and if there's—now what the fuck is that, for God's sake? Oh, I get it ... yeah, I get it—the last time I tried this, Lieutenant, my pa kicked my ass so hard I couldn't sit down for a week."

"Indeed? And why did he do that?"

"It was his car. . . . But whether it works with a kraut car . . ."

"It's a French car actually, I rather think."

"Yeah? Now if there's gas—"

Butler skipped guiltily to the rear of the car. There was the filler cap, sure enough—but how was he expected to discover whether there was any petrol in the tank?

Winston lifted his head out of the engine. "Any luck?"

There was a strong smell of petrol, in as far as any other smell could be called strong in the presence of the one from the back of the lorry.

"There's petrol in the tank," he said hopefully. "I can smell it."

"Yeah . . . there's petrol this end. But whether there's more than a smell . . ." Winston looked at Audley.

"So we give it a try, Lieutenant?"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Audley shrugged. 'What have we got to lose?"

Winston smiled, his ugly face suddenly transformed, even though it was a rueful smile. 'Well, I guess if you don't know then it's too late to tell you. But . . . okay—here we go!"

Butler crossed his fingers. He didn't know what Winston meant, but he knew that Americans were wizards with machines.

The engine whirred—coughed—whirred again, coughed again, fell silent. Hope faded.

"It's no good?" said Audley.

"Hell no! One more try and I think we're there—"

" No!" said a new voice behind them.

For a fraction of a second Butler was aware that all three of them had frozen, Winston with the wires he had loosened in his hands, Audley and himself foolishly gawping into the engine at the magic the American was about to perform. It flashed through his mind that they had been behaving as though they were the last three people in the world, with all thoughts of caution blotted out by the prospect of pursuing the major. They had been caught as defenceless as babes-in-arms —babes without arms.

He turned round slowly.

Dreh dich langsam un—?

" Nous sommes des amis," said Audley. " Je suis un officier anglais."

There was not one, but three men facing them—and now a fourth stepped out of the bushes farther down the track, to cover them with a machine pistol.

"That I can see—fortunately for you." The speaker was a slightly built man wearing a pale grey double-breasted suit which looked too big for him. He carried no weapon, but in the circumstances he didn't need to: the men standing on either side of him were armed to the teeth, cross-bandoleered complete with German stick grenades in their belts. And somehow the cloth caps which they wore made them even more dangerous-looking: Butler had the strange feeling that they were his enemies no less than the Germans—that they were primed and ready to shoot down anything in uniform, grey or khaki or olive drab. All it needed was one word from the little man in the double-breasted suit.

The Frenchman's eyes flicked over them, lingering momentarily on Audley's black beret and on Sergeant Winston. Finally he came back to Audley.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"You are SAS—you have a mission here?" he snapped.

Audley's chin lifted. "Not locally. We were reinforcing an operation to the southwest. But we ran into some Germans—"

"What operation?"

Audley shrugged. "Does it matter? What matters is—we need some transport to catch up with our main party." He slapped the car's mudguard. "If it's all the same to you, m'sieur, we'll be on our way."

The Frenchman compressed his lips. "For the moment that is not possible."

"Indeed?" Audley managed to sound arrogant. "And may one ask why it isn't possible?"

"One may, yes." The Frenchman gave as good as he'd received. "One may also come and see for oneself."

"See what?"

"Why you must delay your departure." The Frenchman looked at his wristwatch. "Perhaps it would even be to your advantage."

"Oh yes?"

"Oh yes." The compressed lips twisted. "You wish for transport. . . . Well, we may perhaps be able to get you something better"— he pointed to the car—"than that."

"Like what?" asked Winston. "Like a Sherman, maybe?"

"Not a tank, no." The Frenchman raised an eyebrow at the sergeant. "But a German staff car—would that suit you?"

13. How Second Lieutenant Audley took a prisoner

Butler snuggled himself comfortably on the thick bed of leaves behind the beech tree, munched the last two squares of his bar of ration chocolate, and decided that things had taken another distinct turn for the better.

For one thing, and a most comforting thing too, he'd got the Sten back— his Sten. And this had been Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

accomplished without recrimination simply by picking it up from where Sergeant Winston had laid it down, and not returning it to him. Winston had given him an old-fashioned look, true; but then he'd shrugged his acceptance of the repossession—and now one of the French Resistance men had obligingly furnished him with a Luger pistol, so that he couldn't argue that he was unarmed even though the Luger looked well worn and would probably jam after the first shot.

And for another thing, and an equally comforting one for all that the condition was a temporary one, they were no longer alone in a sea of Germans. There were at least ten Frenchmen on this side of the road, and as many more on the other side; and if they were irregulars who could hardly be expected to stand up to real fighting like trained soldiers at least they were well armed—he'd seen two LMGs as well as a variety of submachine guns—and if they did run away it was their country, so they would know where to run.

And, possibly best of all, this was an ideal spot for an ambush.

He peered round the trunk of the beech tree down to the narrow roadway below, running his eye back along it from the culvert on his left to where it disappeared round the curve of the hillside fifty or sixty yards to his right.

It was a perfect killing ground. By the time anyone driving round that curve saw the ten-foot gap which had been blown in the culvert they would be smack in the middle of two converging fields of fire. They couldn't go on, and with the narrowness of the road—the hill slope on one side and an eight-foot drop on the other—they couldn't turn round. Their only chance was to back up, and to do that they'd have to stop dead first. And when they stopped dead they'd be dead.

It would be as easy as cowboys and Indians—He frowned suddenly at the image as it occurred to him that somehow he'd become one of the Indians. And although he tried to reverse the thought—for God's sake, the men in the staff car would be Germans —it wouldn't change.

Somewhere along the line of the past twenty-four hours everything had become mixed up, where before it had been so clear. On this, his first day of war, nothing had been as he had imagined it would be.

Everything he had trained for, everything he knew, everyone he knew— the real world and the real war

—it was all far away, back in Normandy.

Even the enemy was different.

In the last couple of hours—or however many hours it was—he had killed two men, two human beings, and both of them had been British soldiers like himself.

And yet both of those British soldiers had been his enemies. In fact, they had been his enemies more certainly than any of the Germans he had seen in the village square at Sermigny—more certainly even than the German soldier who had hurled the grenade at him in the alley.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Because that German had only been trying to kill the British soldier who had been trying to kill him.

Whereas Corporal Jones and the machine-gunner beside the Loire had been set on killing him— 944

Butler J, Jack Butler, little Jackie Butler-foim. And for no better reason than because the major preferred certainties to odds. Which made it not war, but plain murder— "Hey, mac—"

Butler blinked, and found that he'd turned away from the road and was staring fixedly at the dead leaves six inches from his nose. "Hey, mac—you okay?"

Sergeant Winston had crawled from his position behind the neighbouring tree right up beside him.

He stared at the American. "It's Jack, not mac," he said automatically, wondering as he did so why the sergeant should take him for a Scotsman.

"Jack then. Are you okay?"

Butler frowned again. "Yes ... of course I'm okay. I was just thinking—I was wondering whether we're the cowboys or the Indians, that's all."

"Wondering what?" Winston's face creased up in sudden bewilderment. "I don't get you."

Butler poked the leaves savagely with his finger, wishing he hadnt spoken. "I don't get myself."

"What d'you mean—cowboys and Indians?" Winston pressed him. "You kidding me or something?"

"No ... I don't know." Butler concentrated on the miniature trench he was digging in the leaves. For no reason he thought of the German who had been carrying the armful of loaves. "I suppose ... I don't know ... it doesn't seem right, killing Germans like this—I didn't think I'd ever feel like this. I thought it'd be the easiest thing in the world." He looked at Winston. "I was looking forward to it."

Winston appeared thunderstruck. "You never killed a German before?"

No, just two Englishmen, thought Butler miserably. "No," he said.

"What about back in the village?"

Butler swallowed. "I don't think I hit anybody."

"Well—Jee-sus Christ!" Winston rocked on his heels. "Jee-sus!" Then he started to chuckle. "Jee-sus!"

Butler flushed angrily.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Winston shook his head helplessly for a moment. "Man—Jack—don't get me wrong! I'm not laughing at you—I tell you, I never seen a German until today, except prisoners. Not even on Omaha . . . But you—I had you figured for a hard-nosed bastard, a real fire-eater."

"Me?"

"Sure. Like—shoot first and to hell with the questions, and a bayonet in the guts if you haven't got a gun handy—" He stopped abruptly and stared hard at Butler. "You're really not kidding me?"

A sound from the road drew Butler's attention momentarily. Audley and the Frenchman in the suit were crossing it just beyond the culvert, followed by a party of Resistance men.

He turned back to Winston. "I wish I was."

"Okay." Winston nodded. "Then you just think how much the krauts would be worrying about you if they were up here waiting. Because my guess is—not one hell of a lot."

Butler was still struggling with the idea of himself as one of Major O'Conor's hardened veterans. "I suppose you're right."

"I know I'm right. They're the Indians, Jack—and the only good Injun is a dead one, you can take that from me."

The memory of the major had concentrated Butler's mind. When he thought about it, it wasn't the Germans who had confused the issue—it was the major.

He nodded. "I think it's just that if there's anyone I'd like to kill at this minute, it'd be Major O'Conor."

"And that sonofabitch sergeant—now you're talking!" Winston jabbed a finger towards him. "In fact, talking of cowboys and Indians, you ever seen a movie called Stagecoach?"

"No."

"You should have—it's a great movie. Got Claire Trevor in it, and I really go for her in a big way . . .

but, see, there's this young cowboy on the stagecoach wants to get to town to kill the three men who gunned down his pa. And they get chased by Indians on the way— yeah, the young guy lost his horse, just like us, which is why he has to take the stage. And they're right down to their last bullet—"

"When the cavalry arrives." Audley appeared round the side of the tree. "That's Stagecoach— made by John Ford, who also made The Grapes of Wrath— I saw it on my last leave. Right?"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Winston looked up at the officer, a trace of irritation in his expression. "That's right, Lieutenant. Except it came out in the States about two years before the war," he said coolly.

"Two years before your war, not ours," said Audley. "But that's beside the point just now. Because our joint war starts in about eight minutes. There'll be two vehicles—a Kübelwagen with three men in it and the staff car with four. The Kübel is the escort—it has a machine gun mounted. Of the men in the staff car, at least two are in civvies— the French think they're Gestapo. But there's also a Wehrmacht officer, possibly a high-ranking one—could be Waffen SS. They want him alive if possible, or at least not too badly damaged. Make a useful hostage, apparently."

"Okay, Lieutenant." Winston nodded. "For him, we'll aim low."

"No." Audley shook his head quickly. "We don't shoot at all, unless we absolutely have to. The French have got it all worked out, they've done it before on this very spot. The only difference is that this time they're going to try to keep the vehicles unmarked so we can use them afterwards."

"You mean ... we just sit and watch?"

"Not quite. They do the shooting. But in return for the staff car—or the Kübel if we prefer it—we take the prisoner for them."

"Oh, just great! They sit behind their trees and pick the bastards off, and we take the risks!" Winston grunted scornfully. "You sure drive a hard bargain, Lieutenant—or they do."

"They'll be taking risks too, don't you worry, Sergeant," snapped Audley. "And if you thought for a moment instead of bellyaching you'd realise it makes sense, our trying for the general or whoever he is.

These Frenchmen aren't choosy about taking prisoners—I think this lot are all Communists and they're settling old scores. And if the general knows that, which he certainly will know, then he'll fight like the rest of them. But if he sees our uniforms then there's a good chance he'll surrender—that's the whole bloody point."

"Huh!" Winston subsided. "Okay, Lieutenant."

Audley looked at Butler. "Any questions, Corporal?"

Butler thought for a moment. "How do the French know so much about the Germans, sir—how do they know they're coming this way, even?"

The corner of Audley's mouth twisted. "They've got it all organised as I said. They come from a village down the road, and they wait until one or two German vehicles come through on their own—they let the bigger convoys through. But when something like this lot comes along they put up a sign on the main road—a sign in German, a proper Wehrmacht diversion sign—saying the bridge farther along is down.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

And they've got one of their own chaps in Milice uniform who offers to take the Germans round a back road which is safe. . . . You just wait and see, anyway."

"Seems a lot of trouble. Why don't they deal with them there and then?" murmured Winston, staring down at the road.

"Because they're scared stiff of reprisals. It seems the SS wiped out a village down south where one of their divisions was held up . . ."

"Wiped out?"

"That's what they say. So the stragglers they cut off have to disappear completely—that's what we found back there"—Audley nodded in the direction they'd come—"the evidence, you might say."

"The smell is what I remember," said Winston.

Audley stood up, and incredibly he was grinning. "Yes, the smell. . ." He looked at his watch. 'Three minutes . . . Yes, they killed the poor devils. But they did bury them."

Winston frowned, first at Butler, then at Audley. "Huh?"

Audley looked from one to the other. "The first time they were after weapons and ammunition—in the lorry. But they were unlucky."

"Unlucky?"

Audley started to move. "Yes. They captured a ton of overripe cheese," he said over his shoulder.

Butler watched him move to a nearby tree.

"Cheese," whispered Winston. He stared past Butler towards Audley. "Now . . . there goes a genuine one-hundred-per-cent hard-nosed sonofabitch." He looked at Butler. "We've got to watch ourselves, you and me, Jack—like the young guy in Stagecoach had to watch the sheriff."

"What d'you mean?" asked Butler.

The American continued to look at him. "Yeah ... I didn't finish, did I? They were down to their last bullet when the cavalry arrived and killed off the Indians. And then when they got to town the sheriff let the young guy go and settle up with the bad guys—he even offered him some more ammunition. So he was okay—the sheriff was."

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Yes?"

Winston looked again towards Audley. "I just don't know about the lieutenant . . ." He turned towards Butler. "But then the young guy took off his hat—and you know what there was in it?"

"No?"

"Three bullets. And you know ... I think we'd better keep a couple of bullets too, just in case."

Cheese.

Butler lowered his head until his chin was touching the leaves. There was a one-inch gap between them and the fallen tree trunk behind which he'd settled in preference to his original position. As a firing position it was too low and narrow to be any use, but it was a perfect observation slit, giving him a clear view of the road, and if he wasn't going to be able to take part in the ambush, he was determined to watch.

Well, it hadn't smelt like any cheese he'd ever smelt; at least, not like the soapy mousetrap Cheddar favoured by the Army, which sweated and grew grey-green hairy mould in its old age but didn't smell much. But then he'd never been close to a ton of it; and French cheese was obviously very different from English—that smell had been a fearful, liquid-putrescent one.

Now he could hear the distant sound of engines—

So dead horses smelt worse than dead men, and dead mules smelt worse than dead horses, but dead cheese smelt worse even than dead mules. That was one thing his dad hadn't discovered in the trenches. . . .

A small, grey, jeeplike car came into view—it was at once more carlike than the jeep, with its high body, but less carlike with its little sloping bonnet carrying its spare wheel and its feeble, whining engine.

Four Germans—no, three Germans and a fourth man in a dark blue uniform and an oversized floppy beret—

The small car—Audley's Kübel it had to be—breaking sharply as the driver saw the wrecked culvert, rocking and skidding almost broadside. The soldier in the passenger's seat half rose to his feet, then ducked as the machine-gunner started to traverse his weapon behind him.

Now there was a second vehicle in view—it was the staff car, a heavy, powerful-looking vehicle with a closed canvas hood and side-screens. Even before it had quite pulled up the front passenger's door had Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

swung open and a civilian wearing a dark felt hat raised himself above the level of the hood without getting out. He stared round suspiciously at the silent woods all around him.

The machine-gunner traversed his weapon left and right, up and down, left and right again. Butler could feel the tension and the fear spreading out from the men in the vehicles, like ripples in a pond lapping over him, making his heart beat faster.

Nothing happened.

Suddenly the blue-uniformed man moved—if that was the French Resistance man in the Milice uniform, then, by God, he was a brave one, thought Butler admiringly. He sprang out of the Kübel and took half a dozen cautious steps to peer over the edge of the gap in the culvert. Then he turned and called to the civilian in the staff car, pointing down into the gap.

The civilian stepped down onto the road and started towards the culvert, swinging to the left and right as he advanced to keep his eye on the woods. When he reached the gap the blue-uniformed man spoke quickly to him, gesticulating into the hole at their feet.

The civilian nodded finally, then swung back towards the Kübel and barked an order. As the Kübel's driver and the man beside him jumped obediently onto the roadway the Milice man eased himself over the edge of the gap into the crater.

A moment later the end of a stout plank appeared out of the crater.

So that was it, thought Butler: there were planks in there, the material of a temporary bridge which had spanned the gap. And the false Milice man was tempting the Germans into replacing them—tempting them away from the vehicles.

One of the rear doors of the staff car opened and another felt-hatted civilian raised cautiously, just as the first one had done.

The scene had fragmented into three separate areas of activity, which Butler found he could no longer observe simultaneously.

Above the staff car's canvas hood the second civilian was scanning the trees intently, just as his predecessor had done; on the Kübel the machine-gunner continued to traverse the gun, searching for a target; and beside the crater the two soldiers were hauling at the plank, under the direction of the first civilian.

Butler's senses all seemed to be stretched to breaking point: he could see every detail below him, he could smell the exhaust gases of the idling engines mixed very faintly with the stronger odour of the leaf mould and forest duff right under his nose; he could hear the sound of the individual engines, and Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

beyond them the very absence of sound, and beneath both the thud of his own heart.

Now!

He was staring at his own chosen objective, the shadowy figure in the back seat of the staff car, when the first shot rang out.

The sound of the shot was overtaken by that of a second shot in the same instant that he saw the machine-gunner start to fall. And then all single sounds were lost in the crashing burst of fire from all around him.

" Come on!" shouted Audley.

Butler hurled himself down the slope. The firing had stopped as though by magic—he could still hear it ringing and echoing—but now everyone was shouting and he was shouting too.

And above the shouting was the continuous blaring of a car horn.

" Hände hoch! Hände hoch!" roared Audley as he sprang onto the road two yards ahead.

Butler saw him leap at the car like a tiger and wrench the driver's door open.

" Ich bin Offizier englischer!" he shouted ungrammatically.

The driver slumped out onto the road and the car horn stopped.

Butler tore at the rear door.

The only remaining occupant of the car was cowering down between the seats on the floor of the car.

" Ich bin Engländer," said Butler to the field-grey back.

Audley thrust himself and his revolver into the front of the car. " Ich hin Offizier englischer," he repeated hoarsely. " Hände hoch."

The field-grey back began to move.

"Gott sei Dank! Gott sei Dank!"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

They had taken their prisoner, and he was undamaged.

The German raised himself from the floor and turned towards them. He took in both of them carefully for a moment before settling on Audley.

"Lieutenant," he said in English that was only slightly accented, "I surrender myself to you."

Then, as they stared at him in surprise, he raised his hands in what Butler thought for a second was supplication.

They had taken their prisoner right enough—and he was a German officer too.

And he was also all of twenty years old.

And he was handcuffed.

14. How Hauptmann Grafenberg fell out of the frying pan

" Oh my God!" said Sergeant Winston hoarsely.

Butler pulled back from the staff car and swung towards the American in alarm.

" My God." The suet-pudding colour of Winston's face under its tan went with the horror and disgust in his voice.

For a moment Butler thought the sergeant had been hit; then, even before the evidence of his own eyes cancelled the thought, he realised that wasn't possible. The enemy hadn't had time to fire a shot, and from the moment Audley had jumped up from cover the French hadn't fired another one. The ambush had been over ten seconds after it had started.

And besides, Sergeant Winston was obviously not wounded: he was standing stock-still on the edge of the road behind the staff car, his Luger pointing at the ground beside him. He was simply staring towards the crater.

Butler followed the stare. The man in the Milice uniform was rolling the body of a soldier over onto its back—the jack-booted legs seemed unwilling at first to follow the torso, but finally twisted with it, splaying out stiffly and horribly like a dummy's.

He looked back at Winston. Somehow there must be more to it than that. Winston might not be a battle-Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

hardened veteran, but he hadn't behaved until now like a man who'd be scared sick at the sight of death.

He might not have seen any fighting Germans until today, but he must have seen enough of that on Omaha Beach, by God!

"What's the matter?" he said sharply, the disquiet he felt edging out concern from his own voice.

"The matter?" Winston repeated the words under his breath before turning to him. "The matter is—you were goddamn right, mac—we are the fucking Indians."

"What's this?" Audley straightened up beside them. He took in Winston's stricken expression, and then the scene at the edge of the crater, where the Milice man was methodically stripping the Germans. His bruised cheek twitched slightly as he turned back towards the American. "He's dead, for God's sake."

Winston watched the Milice man. "Yeah . . . he's dead"—he paused —"now."

"Now?" Audley stared at the American, then back at the Milice man, and then finally at Butler. "Did you see, Corporal?"

"I saw," Winston snapped. "I saw."

Audley bit his lip. Suddenly he looked around him nervously.

"That's right, Lieutenant," said Winston. "You take a good look."

There were Resistance men coming down the road behind them, and others advancing through the trees across the road. Up the hillside Butler could see more of them.

He caught Winston's eye and knew that now he was frightened too.

Winston nodded. "You got there, mac—Jack, huh? You play with Indians . . . and they play rough."

"But—" Butler could see the little man in the suit picking his way round the crater. He was trying to keep his shoes clean.

"So we've got them their general, like they wanted," said Winston.

Their general? Oh, God! thought Butler, remembering the white-faced boy in the staff car—the boy in the handcuffs who had just a moment ago thanked the same God.

"So now we're maybe surplus to requirements," said Winston.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Cock your Sten, Corporal," said Audley.

"What?"

"Cock the bloody thing!" Audley hissed at him. "Cock it and smile!"

Butler looked down at the machine carbine and saw to his horror that it wasn't cocked. He'd charged down the hillside shouting like—like an Indian. But he hadn't remembered to cock his gun.

The little man in the suit came towards them.

Audley ostentatiously replaced his pistol in its holster. Then he took four quick paces towards the Frenchman and threw his arms round him.

" Bravo, mon camarade! Bien joue!" he cried loudly, kissing the little man first on one cheek, and then on the other. "Jolly good show!" He released the little man and grabbed the hand of the man next to him, pumping it vigorously. " Je vous remercie—je vous remercie beaucoup. Au nom des armées anglaises et americaines je vous remercie—vive la Résistance! Vive la Libération! Vive la France!"

" Monsieur—" The man in the suit raised his hand to silence him, but Audley took not a blind bit of notice. Instead he gestured to include everyone in earshot.

" Mes amis—j'ai de bonnes nouvelles pour vous—de très bonnes nouvelles. Aujourd'hui des chars americains font le passage de la Loire, Le débarquement des puissances alliées au sud de la France a commencé. Les allemands sont finis. C'est la victoire!" Audley raised his arms to suit his words, his fingers giving the V-sign.

The Resistance men stared at him as though he was mad.

Winston stepped forward to Audley's side, stuffing his pistol into his waistband as he did so. "That's dead right—this is a big day. And I can tell you—General Patton's sure going to be glad to hear how you boys helped us. Yes, sir!"

Butler looked around despairingly. Audley could hardly have got less reaction from his listeners if he'd been speaking in ancient Greek—or if he'd been telling them that the war was not won, but lost.

There came a scraping sound from behind him, followed by a quick half-suppressed grunt of pain.

The young German officer stumbled forward, prodded from behind. The man in the suit looked at him in astonishment.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Yes . . ." Audley smiled ruefully. "Well, we don't seem to have got ourselves a general after all. And it does rather look as if we've actually released a prisoner, not captured one, eh?"

The Frenchman ignored him. " Sprechen Sie franzosisch?"

" Nein." The prisoner brushed at a lock of straw-coloured hair which had fallen across his face.

Audley gave a grunt. "But he speaks good English." He half-turned towards the German. "Name and rank?"

The German stiffened, abandoning the attempt to shift the hair. "Grafenberg, Hauptmann—captain," he said.

There were only two pips on the boy's shoulder strap—but that was right for a captain, Butler remembered. What was more to the point was that there was no other telltale badge, which meant he was straight Wehrmacht. It didn't surprise him that there were now captains just out of nappies in the German Army: back in 1940 there'd been plenty of flight-lieutenants like that in the RAF.

"Unit?" said Audley quickly. 'What unit, stationed where?"

Captain Grafenberg looked at him helplessly, rocking slightly on his heels as though the questions hurt him. "Grafenberg, Hauptmann," he whispered.

Audley grinned. "Of course! Just name, rank and number—and I'm not going to bother about that. I accept your surrender, Captain."

"No—" began the Frenchman.

"Yes. And in the circumstances I also require your parole— your word of honour"—Audley fired the words in a machine-gun burst— " immediately."

"No!" snapped the Frenchman.

"Yes!" said Captain Grafenberg. "Yes—my word of honour—I give my word of honour—"

"Good. I accept your word of honour, under the rules of war. It will hold good until I hand you over to the first Allied unit we meet, which will probably be one from the American Army—is that clearly understood, Captain?"

"Yes, lieutenant." Captain Grafenberg brushed the hair out of his face with his manacled hands. "I understand."

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Very good." Audley nodded. "Corporal Butler!"

"Sir!"

"You will take charge of the prisoner, Corporal." Audley turned back to the Frenchman. "Now, m'sieur . . . you wanted a senior officer, but all we've caught is a junior one, who can't possibly be of any use to you —he'll just be an embarrassment—an encumbrance . . . un embarras, n'est-ce pas?"

The Frenchman gave Audley a very old-fashioned look, and then flicked a quick glance at Butler just in time to catch him lowering his Sten.

He watched Butler for a moment before speaking. "You are ... a rash young man, Lieutenant, I think."

"Maybe."

"Not maybe. Morte la bête, mort le venin— if they have no use they are better dead."

"You can't kill them all."

"But we can kill as many as we catch." The Frenchman's lips drooped at one corner. "You have not had four years of them."

"No?" Audley's chin lifted in that characteristically arrogant way of his. "You know, I could have sworn we'd been fighting them too."

Winston coughed. "Lieutenant," he said out of the side of his mouth, "we got some distance to make, remember?"

"I hadn't forgotten." Audley shook his head stiffly.

"And a job to do," Winston persisted. "A job, huh?"

Audley took the warning at last. "Of course . . ." The arrogance was gone from his voice. "Look, m'sieur

—if they have no use, you said. Give us one of the cars and we'll take him with us. Because where we're going we may find a use for him. I'll be responsible for him—personally."

This time the Frenchman's lips twisted in the other direction. "Oh yes? And when you are a prisoner—a prisoner under your rules of war— and he is free again . . . and I am dead—and we are dead . . . and our little town is like Oradour-sur-Glane, where the women and children are also dead—you will still be responsible? Personally?"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"What d'you mean, 'when he's free again'?" Audley grabbed the German's handcuffed hands and lifted them up. "What the hell are these—charm bracelets?"

The Frenchman stared at the handcuffs for a moment. Then he shrugged. "So he has committed some crime. But he is still a German officer."

"Very true. But if they're taking the trouble to pull him out of the battle"—Audley dropped the German's hands and pointed to the staff car—"then he's in big trouble himself. And that makes him practically one of us."

Audley's voice was no longer arrogant—it was vehement.

"Lieutenant—" Winston started to interrupt again.

"Shut up, Sergeant!" snapped Audley.

Winston raised his eyebrows at Butler hopelessly.

"So you say ' morte la bête, mort le venin'—vous voulez qu'il tombe de Charybde en Scylla," went on Audley. "But I say that's the very reason why he can be of use to us."

Butler saw, out of the corner of his eye, that the Resistance men were clearing up around them: one of them was lugging a body up the hillside while another scuffed leaves and dirt into the pool of blood which the dead soldier had left. And as they did so one piece of his mind was obstinately attempting to translate Audley's French—"dead the beast, dead the" . . . what on earth was le venin?— while his finger lay on the trigger of the cocked Sten.

Madness!

"No, Lieutenant—"

Why did everybody else pronounce that rank differently? thought Butler irritably. To the American it was loo-tenant and to the Frenchman it was lyuhtenon—

"—because if his friends get him back—"

"Why should they get him back?" cut in Audley.

"Why?" The Frenchman sniffed. "Because the American tanks have not crossed the river. They are heading north and east past Orleans ... so if his friends get him back—and when he feels the muzzle kiss the back of his neck—then he will remember that he is a German officer. And then he will trade us in Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

exchange for his life—"

" No!" said the German.

The Frenchman looked at the German, at first impassively and then with a trace of pity. "Oh yes—there is your word of honour, I know—"

"No." The boy's shoulders sagged.

"What then?"

The lock of hair had fallen across the white face again, and the German's other eye had closed. The ring under it was so dark as to look almost like a bruise: it was not just the face of defeat, but of disintegration.

" Ich bin ein Kind des Todes . . . aus dem Regen in die Traufe." The eye opened, almost defiantly. "There are not enough Frenchmen in France to trade for me. There is in the car ... a case . . ." He frowned. "A briefcase."

The Frenchman stiffened, looked quickly at the staff car, and then at Audley. " Un moment, Lieutenant . . ."

They watched him dive into the staff car and retrieve the briefcase. But when he'd ripped it open he showed no inclination to share its contents with them.

Winston leaned forward towards the German. "Captain . . . this had better be good."

Captain Grafenberg looked at him questioningly. "Please?"

"I mean"—Winston heaved a sigh—"I hope you've done something real bad—like surrendered half the German Army maybe. Or put arsenic in Rommel's coffee. Or given Himmler the V-sign."

"Please?" The captain looked as though he was ready to burst into tears.

"Because if you haven't, then I think you and the lieutenant there have got us into one hell of a mess."

Winston turned suddenly towards Audley, and Butler saw to his surprise that he was grinning. "Not that I don't go along with you, Lieutenant sir. It's just that I never thought I was going to die in the defence of the German Army, that's all. The British Army—I've just about gotten used to that. But the German Army ... I'd really like a little more time to adjust to that. What d'you think, Corporal Jack?" He tilted his head towards Butler.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

The question caught Butler by surprise.

"That's what I thought," said Winston. "Like The Charge of the Light Brigade, starring Enrol Flynn, you don't think—not until the lieutenant has passed on the thought to you—"

"Balls!" snapped Butler. "There isn't anything to think about. We just don't kill prisoners."

"You don't?" Winston raised his voice in scorn. "Well, I think you've got a lot to learn, Jack old buddy.

In fact—"

"Bloody shut up—both of you!" said Audley angrily. "Hauptmann Grafenberg . . . would you please tell us what it is you've done?"

Grafenberg straightened himself but didn't answer.

Audley waited patiently.

"I am sorry," said Grafenberg finally.

" You're sorry—" Winston exclaimed.

"Hush!" Audley paused. Then he pointed at Winston, without taking his eyes off the German's face.

"Sergeant . . . Frank Winston, United States Army." With the other hand he pointed at Butler.

"Corporal . . . Corporal Jack Butler, Lancashire Rifles." He tapped his own chest. "Audley, David . . .

second lieutenant, Queen Charlotte's Own Royal South Wessex Dragoons."

Chandos Force, thought Butler irrelevantly—the real Chandos Force, even though it had lost its way en route to its unknown target. But then Hauptmann Grafenberg could hardly be expected to know that.

But also he knew why Audley had made the introduction so formally: if we're going to fight for you, Hauptmann Grafenberg, at least we're going to know whyl

"I am sorry." Grafenberg looked at each of them in turn, lastly at Audley. "Second Lieutenant—"

Second Lef-tenant—

"—I have not done . . . anything at all."

"What?" said Audley. "Nothing?"

Grafenberg shook his head.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Well"—Audley's voice cracked—"what's in the briefcase, for God's sake, man?"

Winston nodded meaningfully to his right, past Butler's shoulder. "I think we're just about to find that out, Lieutenant."

Butler twisted round in the direction of the American's nod, to find the Frenchman coming towards them again. He was aware of the Sten in his hands, still cocked and dangerous. But now it felt curiously heavy

—heavy with the memory of the German machine-gunner who had been picked off with that first sniper's shot before he could squeeze his trigger.

The Frenchman faced Hauptmann Grafenberg. "Erwin Grafenberg, Hauptmann, 924th Anti-tank Battalion?"

"Jawohl."

"So!" The Frenchman turned on his heel towards Audley. "Where do you wish to go?" he asked.

"Where—?" Audley swallowed. "Yes . . . well, if you'd just give us one of these vehicles . . . then we'll follow our noses."

"What is the name of your Operation?"

"Our Operation?"

"Yes. Your Operation." The Frenchman's tone was polite but firm. "It has a code name, naturally."

"Oh yes—naturally. Of course, that is . . ." Audley nodded. "Yes, it has."

"Which is?"

"Which is none of your business, m'sieur, I think," said Audley firmly.

"Oh Jesus Christ!" murmured Winston. "Here we go again!"

"You want a vehicle, Lieutenant," said the Frenchman.

"No. I was promised a vehicle—by you."

"In exchange for a prisoner."

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

They stared at each other obstinately.

Suddenly Sergeant Winston stirred restlessly, looking first to the right, then to the left, then behind him.

"Hell now . . . I've been thinking"—he looked seriously at Audley, then at the Frenchman—"do the krauts ever come this way normally?"

"M'sieur?"

"I mean—do they come this way if you don't steer 'em this way? Like, it seems a kind of quiet back road, I mean."

The Frenchman frowned. "No, they do not come this way. It is not the main road."

"Great! So you and the lieutenant—and the kraut—can sit here and argue, and no one's gonna disturb you . . . and me and the corporal can take the car ... and when the war's over we can come back and tell you who won it." Winston spread his hands in the manner of one modestly offering his answer to a difficult problem. "Or, if you like, we'll just tell you when it's over—then you can go on arguing . . .

about which of you won it, huh?"

Audley and the Frenchman both stared at him for a second or two, and then again at each other.

Suddenly the Frenchman raised his hands apologetically. "M'sieur— Lieutenant—you will understand that we have learnt to be cautious ... to ask questions. Perhaps too many questions. But it is how we have stayed alive, you see."

Audley nodded slowly. "Yes," he agreed.

"So . . . you shall have your vehicle—and your prisoner . . . and we will also help you find your way—I shall give you a driver to guide you . . . Pierrot!"

One of the Resistance men who had been working on the restoration of the plank bridge over the crater straightened up and turned towards them obediently.

Audley relaxed. "Well ... I suppose there are times when we're a bit too jolly careful for our own good, at that!" He glanced for a moment towards Butler. "Eh, Corporal?"

"Sir?" Butler had the distinct impression that the look Audley had given him had been for one fraction of a second much less friendly than his tone of voice. "Yes, sir."

Audley grinned at the Frenchman. "Bulldog—Operation Bulldog, that's us."

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

The Frenchman frowned. "Bull. . . dog?"

Audley struck his forehead. "I'm an idiot! I mean Bullsblood, of course. Just got the wrong word-association—Bullsblood it is."

"Ah—Bullsblood."

"That's right. It's a road interdiction mission." Audley grinned again. "But if you don't mind, I'll spare you the details."

"A very proper precaution." The Frenchman nodded. "And now . . . Pierrot, mon vieux—"

"Hey, m'sieur, just hold it a sec!" Sergeant Winston pointed towards the German. "You never did get round to telling us what he did—was it real bad?"

"Bad?" The Frenchman gave Grafenberg a curious glance. "No, it was not bad. It was what he did not do that was bad . . . and that— that was very bad."

"And what was it he didn't do, then?"

"He failed to kill Adolf Hitler, m'sieur."

15. How they encountered the Jabos

It was true what Dad had said, thought Butler: Germans smelt differently from Englishmen.

But then, to be fair, Captain Grafenberg was probably thinking much the same thing. And whenever the captain had last washed, he knew for a fact that he himself hadn't had anything like a decent wash for a week, so he must be ripening up a treat on his own account. In addition to which, since the captain was wedged between him and Sergeant Winston in the back of the staff car, he would have both American and British smells to contend with.

The car completed its backward passage up the road and swung sharply into the entrance to the track along which the other ambushed vehicles were hidden.

Butler caught a strong whiff of garlic on Pierrot's breath: that made, altogether, a pretty formidable Allied presence, he decided.

They backed up the track for ten yards. Then the Kübel backed in ahead of them.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"We gonna have an escort?" asked Winston.

Audley watched the Kübel set off ahead of them. "For the first ten kilometres, according to the schoolmaster," he said.

"The schoolmaster?"

"Yes. It seems that he's a schoolmaster when he's not killing Germans," said Audley. "Or that's what they call him, anyway."

"Like Bullsblood?" said Butler.

"Or Bullshit?" said Winston.

Audley turned towards them from the front seat "Now just hold it," he said warningly.

Pierrot put the car in gear and pulled onto the road a hundred yards behind the Kübel.

"We get to know where we're going, though?" said Winston.

Audley stared ahead of him. "To their headquarters. Then they're going to see if there's any information about the main party." He turned towards them again. "I said . . . hold it."

Winston frowned across the German at Butler.

Audley smiled at Pierrot. "Do you have the key to the handcuffs, m'sieur?" he enquired politely.

"Huh?" Pierrot looked at him quickly.

"Do—you—have—the—key—to—the—handcuffs?" repeated Audley slowly.

Butler lifted up the German's handcuffs. " La clef?" he said.

"Oh, la clefl" Pierrot nodded. " C'est dans ma poche."

Audley gave Butler an exasperated look, then turned back to Pierrot. "Do—you—speak—English?"

"M'sieur?"

Audley smiled. "Is it a fact that your sister sleeps with your father?" he said amiably.

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Pierrot shrugged. " Je ne comprends pas, m'sieur."

Winston leaned forward suddenly. "Okay, Lieutenant"—he held up a finger behind Pierrot's back

—"when we slow down at the next intersection, I'll stick this knife of mine into his back—right?"

"Exactly right, Sergeant." Audley nodded. "And I'll grab the steering wheel. Just make sure you stick that knife of yours in the right spot, eh?"

Winston waggled his finger. "You betcha."

Audley stared ahead again. "Here we go, then."

The Kübel slowed in front of them as the road forked. Butler watched fascinated as Winston placed the tip of his finger gently below Pierrot's shoulderblade.

"Now, Sergeant," said Audley conversationally, tapping the dashboard with his left hand.

Winston jabbed his finger.

Pierrot wriggled slightly. " Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

"Sorry, mac"—Winston leaned forward apologetically—"I was just stabbing you by accident.

Pardonnez, huh?"

Pierrot shrugged.

"Okay, Lieutenant," said Winston. "You can take it from my finger that he's not with us. So now what?"

"So now we're in trouble again," said Audley.

"You don't say!" Winston gave a grunt. "And what sort of trouble this time?"

"We're being double-crossed." Audley nodded at Butler. "D'you remember the colonel gave us the cover if we got picked up—no matter who we were picked up by?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes . . . well, I thought it smelt to high heaven then, and now I'm bloody sure of it." Audley gave Pierrot another friendly grin. "These people know there's something in the wind."

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"How d'you figure that?" asked Winston.

"The wrong code name," said Butler suddenly. "You gave him the wrong code name—and he knew it was the wrong one. He was waiting for you to give the cover—the right cover." Then he frowned at Audley. "But how did you come to suspect him, sir?"

"I didn't exactly suspect him. But when he was showing me the ambush setup he kept asking questions in between—he wanted to know where the main party was, and where they were going."

Winston nodded. "Yeah, I get you . . . and when you wouldn't play ball he gave us lover-boy here, to make sure you didn't run out on him." He patted Pierrot's shoulder. "You're doing a great job, man."

Butler stared blindly at the road ahead. If Audley was right they were in all kinds of trouble now—

trouble multiplied by ten. What they had run into had been practically a reception committee lying in wait for them. The German at his side had fallen into the trap almost incidentally—the Frenchman had picked him up almost as a man hunting a fox might bag a rabbit or two on the side for the pot while he searched for the killer of his chickens.

And, what was more, it meant that the major himself had slipped through the net.

"Wow-ee . . ." Winston breathed out noisily. "You really got yourself into the shit right up to your chin, Lieutenant!"

"What d'you mean?"

"Man—I mean when that schoolteacher gets you home he's going to take you apart piece by piece to find out where the major's heading for." Winston shook his head. "And the joke is—you don't know . . .

and he's not going to believe you one little bit."

Audley scowled at the American. "But that goes for you too, Sergeant," he said nastily.

"Me? Hell no!" Winston sat back. "I'm just a poor Yankee who's got caught up in a private fight." He gestured with his head towards the German. "Me and the kraut—we're just a couple of innocent bystanders . . . Say, Captain—did you really try and kill the Führer? I heard tell someone tried to blow him up just recently—was that you?"

Captain Grafenberg looked around him a little wildly, from the American to Audley and back. As well he might, thought Butler bitterly: if ever there was a case of au s dem Regen in die Traufe it was now.

"No— nein," he said hoarsely.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Well, Captain, I wouldn't deny it if I were you. Right now, in this company, I'd say I did it and I was just sorry it hadn't worked out. Because that's going to be almost as good as saying that you voted for FDR in the last election—if you say it loud enough and often enough they'll probably make you a general after the war, if you live so long." Winston winked at Butler. "If any of us live so long, that is."

The German captain looked at Audley. "Lieutenant ... if you please . . ." He trailed off miserably.

"Okay!" Winston lifted his hand. "So he didn't try to kill the Führer. But I still think I've given him good advice."

Butler was suddenly aware that his foot hurt again, and that there was a dull pulse of pain centred on his ear. But he was also conscious that his physical problems were now minor ones.

"I bloody wish you'd give us some good advice," he said before he could stop himself.

"Shit, man! You've already got my advice," said Winston conversationally, lifting up his finger. "Next time this old car slows down you take your bayonet and you stick it in lover-boy—and then you run like hell."

Butler stared at Pierrot's back.

"That's right!" Winston nodded round the German. "Only don't include me when you do it. Because as of now you two are on your own —you and the French can double-cross each other until you're blue in the face. The man didn't draft me to get mixed up in private fights."

Butler was no longer listening to him, but was staring at the countryside round him for the first time.

They were coming out of the woodland at last, into a more open terrain of fields and copses, well cultivated but un-English as usual in its lack of hedges and proper ditches, and distinctively French with its line of spindly trees marking the straight road that climbed the ridge ahead of them.

Butler met Audley's eyes and read the same conclusion in them: if they were going to make a break for it they needed better cover than this; a forest for choice, but woodland of some sort for sure if they were to outrun the machine gun on the Kübel.

But without the sergeant . . .

He looked at the American.

"No sir!" Winston said quickly. "I mean it. I don't mind running away from Germans—that's part of the deal . . . but running away from Germans and Frenchmen—"

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" Sssh—" The German sat bolt upright between them, his manacled hands raised.

"What the hell—" said Winston.

"Jabo!"

"What?"

The German was listening intently. "Jabo!" he repeated.

"Year-bo?"

Grafenberg turned on him. "Jabo—Jabo!" He switched to Audley. "Lieutenant— Achtung, Jagdbomberen

— fighters!"

Butler heard the snarl of aircraft.

"Oh, sure!" Winston ducked his head to peer through the side-screen. "I've got them . . . Mustangs, two of them ... no sweat, Captain—they're ours, man." The engine note changed.

"No—no— no! " Grafenberg's voice cracked. “We are the enemy— du lieber Gott!— don't you understand?"

"Oh my God!" whispered Audley. "He's right We're the enemy!"

"Oh, Jee-sus!" exclaimed Winston, ducking down to peer out of the side-screen again. "Now I've lost them—"

"Down the road—they'll be coming down the road—" Grafenberg hunched himself down to get a view ahead.

"So we better get off it." Winston shook Pierrot's shoulder. "Fighter-bombers, man—we gotta get off the road."

The car swerved. " Qu'y a-t-il?" protested Pierrot angrily.

" Des— bloody hell!— des chasseurs . . . no, des chasseurs-bombardiers —Us vont nous attaquer,"

shouted Audley desperately. " Quittez la route, pour l'amour de Dieu—quittez la route!"

Pierrot rocked away from him. " Que voulez-vous dire—?” He did a double-take of Audley, as though the lieutenant's newly found fluency surprised him more than what he'd actually said.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Hey?"

"Here he comes!" cried Grafenberg.

Butler saw a black dot framed between the trees on the skyline—a dot which grew and sprouted wings as he watched it.

Winston and Audley both simultaneously grabbed at the steering wheel, the American from behind and Audley from the right. The car lurched to the right, tyres screaming. A tree flashed in front of them and then the car left the road with a tremendous grinding crash. Butler was thrown upwards and sideways—

he bounced off the canvas roof and came down partly on top of the German, who cried out in pain. The car crashed down again. The door beside Butler burst open and the side-screen fell away just as he was bracing himself for the next neck-breaking bounce—this time he hit the canvas less hard but descended agonisingly onto his Sten. Sound and pain were indistinguishable for a second, and then both were overtaken by a terrifying vision of corn-stubble rushing up and past his face. But just as it was about to hit him his webbing straps tightened against his shoulders and he was jerked backwards into the car again. The door bounced back and hammered him into the car, filling his head with exploding stars and deafening noise.

Suddenly he was conscious that the sound had been outside him—it was receding—

He clawed himself upright.

Winston and Audley and the Frenchman Pierrot were still fighting for the wheel, all shouting at each other at the same time.

They were in the cornfield alongside the road, bright sunlight all around them. And they were also still moving, although there was now something desperately wrong with the car—a juddering, grinding underneath them.

"Back under the trees!" shouted Grafenberg gutturally, his English accent breaking down. "Under zerr trrees!"

This time there seemed to be a measure of agreement among the contestants, and the car swung back towards the line of trees beside the road. But the flash of comfort this brought to Butler's confused mind was instantly blotted out by the sound of the reason for it—the same sound he had heard as the German had screamed Jagdbomberen.

Hunting-bombers, he thought foolishly.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

He saw the RSM's face: There is a requirement for a German-speaking non-commissioned officer.

The hornet sound of the approaching Mustang dissolved the RSM's face. It wasn't fair, he decided angrily. It wasn't fair that it should have been him. And it wasn't fair that they should be here. And it wasn't fair that their own planes should attack them.

There was a bright orange flash ahead of them—

The car was moving so slowly—

The flash blossomed, and to his horror he saw the Kübel lying on its side in the road, burning fiercely.

"Turn the goddamn wheel!" shouted Winston. "She won't take the ditch again—"

The staff car swung sharply to the right again, parallel to the road, but still in the field and just under the canopy of branches. As it did so there was a sharp, hammering noise and the road burst into dust and sparks alongside them. The Frenchman wrenched the wheel instinctively away from the road.

"Stop the car!" commanded Grafenberg.

"There's a copse up ahead." Audley pointed.

"We would not get to it in time," snapped Grafenberg. "If we stop he may think he has hit us—if we go on then he knows we are still alive. So we go behind the trees on the other side of the road, then there is a chance. Believe me—I know!"

"Right—everyone out—on the double!" said Audley.

Butler threw himself out of the car. He was halfway across the road before he realised he had left his Sten behind and that he didn't give a damn. Anything—any humiliation—was better than being a helpless target.

"Do not move—and do not look up," Grafenberg shouted. "Whatever you do—do not look up!"

Butler hugged the ground in the shadow under his tree, listening to the high drone of engines above him.

The earth was dry and powdery between the patches of dead grass below his face; as he stared at it a droplet of moisture fell from him into the powder. He didn't know whether it was blood or sweat, or maybe even a tear of fright. His eyes felt wet, so it probably was a tear, he decided. He couldn't remember when he'd last cried, but it had been a long time ago, and it would certainly have been with pain, not fear as it was now. He hadn't cried with fear since he'd had nightmares as a kid.

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He lowered his face slowly down until he was able to wipe it on his battle-dress cuff. The cuff was greasy with sweat at the edge, and there was a darker stain on it which was probably blood from his ear.

Now it had tears as well, then—but that was no more than Mr. Churchill had promised everyone years ago: blood, sweat, and tears. And that was rather clever, remembering those words, even though he'd never be able to bring himself to tell anyone how he'd remembered them just after his own side had tried to kill him. And that was the third time in one day—Was it really only one day?

"Okay, Butler?" said Audley.

Butler rose to his feet quickly to prove to Audley that he wasn't in the least frightened. "Sir!"

Audley was standing in the middle of the road with his hands on his hips. Butler had the very distinct impression that the second lieutenant was also doing his best to prove how second lieutenants ought to behave.

" Jee-sus!" Winston came out from behind his tree, dusting down his combat jacket. "Jee- sus!"

"Sssh!" Grafenberg held up his hands again, listening.

Butler's stomach turned over.

"Oh—no—" began Winston.

They all listened. Finally Grafenberg relaxed. "No . . . there were only two. Sometimes . . ." He shrugged. "Sometimes there are four—or twenty-four. But we are lucky."

"Well, you could have fooled me. But I guess you know better, mac."

"Yes, I do know better. Sie haben Wichtigeres zu tun— so we are lucky." Grafenberg looked at Audley.

"And now?"

As Butler turned towards Audley there was a sharp double crack behind him. Audley jumped as though he'd been shot.

"The Frenchman!" exclaimed Winston.

They all looked down the road towards the burning Kübel, from which the sound had come. Pierrot was bending over a body at the side of the road, fifty yards away, and as they looked at him he turned. For a moment he stared at them, straightening up slowly, then he started to run back down the road away from them.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Audley took a step forwards, fumbling at his holster, and then stopped as Pierrot left the road to zigzag among the trees.

"Yeah . . . that's right, Lieutenant," murmured Winston. "You can maybe run after him, but you sure aren't going to hit him with that thing."

Audley watched the departing figure dwindle in the distance.

"So now we'd better stir our asses to get someplace else, huh?" Winston's voice was suddenly gentler and more encouraging—so much so that Butler looked at him with surprise. "It'll take him an hour or two to find his buddies. We could still get lucky."

For the first time Butler saw Winston not just as an American and a foreigner, but as a senior NCO who

—no matter what army he belonged to—had the job of jollying along young men like Audley when they no longer knew what to do. And it was his own plain duty no less to support the sergeant

"The car, sir—" he said quickly.

"—Isn't going anywhere," snapped Winston. "It's a goddamn miracle it got us where it did."

Audley straightened up. "And you're back with us, Sergeant?"

Winston grinned horribly. "Seems I got no choice, Lieutenant sir . . . so—which way?" He pointed up the road.

Audley looked round, squinting up at the sun. "South—then southeast," he said.

"Yes . . ." Winston nodded patiently. "But where to, Lieutenant?"

Audley stared southwards without answering, as though he hadn't heard the question.

Winston waited for a moment or two, and then moved round to block the subaltern's view. "Lieutenant, we have to have some kind of plan, for God's sake. We have to know where we're going—or at least: we have to know whether we're still chasing the major or just running away from the frogs. So you tell us, huh?"

"Yes—" Audley roused himself. "Yes, of course."

"Okay." The American paused. "So?"

Audley drew a deep breath. "About fifteen kilometres south of here— or it may be southeast. . . and it Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

may be more than fifteen kilometres, but we should be able to pick up the signposts if we keep going . . ." he frowned.

"Yes?"

"There's a village called La Roche Tourtenay—it's off the road to Loches somewhere. And the Chateau Le Chais d'Auray is a mile to the west of it."

"The chateau—? Is that where the major's heading?"

"No." Audley shook his head. "But that's where we're going, Sergeant."

"Why there?"

"Wait and see." Audley turned decisively to Butler. "Get your Sten, Corporal . . . Hauptmann—I'm sorry about the handcuffs. But we'll deal with them when we get to Le Chais d'Auray."

Sergeant Winston stood unmoving in front of Audley.

"You know this place—the Chateau Shay-dough-ray?"

"Yes, Sergeant."

"You've known it all along?"

"Yes."

"And we've been heading for it from the start—but you just forgot to tell us. Is that it?"

"No. That isn't it at all, Sergeant."

"So why are we heading for it now, then?"

"Why?" Audley closed his eyes for a second. "If you were on the run back in Texas—"

"Chicago, Illinois. And Jesus!—I wish I was there now!"

"Chicago, Illinois. If you were on the run in Chicago, Illinois—on the run from the gangsters, Sergeant . . . would you go home to your parents?"

"Hell no! Not unless—" Winston stopped.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Not unless you were desperate. Not unless you'd tried everything else." Audley regarded the American stonily. "So I am desperate now— and I can't think of anything else. So I'm going home."

16. How Second Lieutenant Audley came home again

Butler lay exhausted among the vines on the edge of the track to the Chateau Le Chais d'Auray, watching the moonlight polish the dark slates on the little conical tower nearest to him.

The important thing was not to go to sleep, he decided.

They had marched the day into the afternoon, and the afternoon into the evening, and the evening into the night.

First they had force-marched out of necessity, simply to put distance between themselves and the scene of the air strike.

Then they had settled into the rhythm of a route march, by side roads and country tracks, and over fields to skirt round villages, and through hedges and thickets to avoid prying eyes.

But a route march was no problem: it was what a soldier's legs were for, and the farmlands of Touraine were nothing to a soldier who had trained on the high moors of Lancashire and Yorkshire and the mountains of Wales.

Yet each five-minute halt was a little more welcome than the last one. And after each halt it took a little longer to get back into the rhythm. And so, by slow degrees, the route march became an endurance test But at least they were going somewhere at last, because Second Lieutenant Audley studied each signpost and changed direction accordingly.

And once, when they surprised a small boy beside a fish-pond, Audley exchanged their last slab of ration chocolate for a pointing finger.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Loches?

That way, the finger pointed.

La Roche?

That way.

Channay-les Pins?

That way.

The urchin never said a word from first to last, and scuttled away smartly as they set out for Channay.

After which they retraced their steps and headed for La Roche.

Audley didn't trust anyone any more, not even small boys.

Or German captains.

"Hauptmann . . ." Audley seemed embarrassed. The great bruise on his cheek was less black now, more like a dark stain half camouflaged by dust and sweat.

The German stirred nervously where he lay, brushing at his hair with his chained hands. "Lieutenant?"

"There are . . . some things we have to get quite clear."

"Some things?" the German swallowed nervously. "What things, please?"

"The Frenchman said you were in the plot against Hitler. But you've said that you weren't." Audley paused, then pointed to the handcuffs. "So why are you wearing those?"

"Yeah." Winston rolled sideways from where he'd flopped down exhausted a moment before. He held up his head with one hand and started to massage his thigh with the other. "I'd like to get the answer to that too, Captain."

The German looked from one to the other. "I have given you my parole— my word of honour."

"That's right—so you did." The American nodded. "But I heard tell that all you boys swear an oath to Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

the Führer. Like a word of honour, huh?" He nodded again. "And that makes you a kind of a problem to us."

"How ... a kind of problem, please?"

"Well now ... it wouldn't be a problem if you had tried to give the Führer the business, like the Frenchman said you had. Because then you'd be on our side, because that 'ud be the only side you'd got left. But that's where the problem starts."

"Please?" The German turned towards Audley. "I will keep my word—as a German officer."

"That's exactly what's worrying me." Winston rubbed his thigh harder. "Because that Frenchman wasn't kidding us. He looked at those papers, and he went off the boil about you and he was ready to get back to the main business of shitting us up. But now you say that's all baloney, you never touched the Führer ... so if those cuffs aren't for that—if they're just for screwing the general's daughter, or stealing the PX blind, or something—then like the Frenchman said, which word of honour are you going to stick to if we meet up with any of your buddies? The Führer's word—or our word, hey?" He stopped rubbing his thigh and pointed his finger at Audley. "Right, Lieutenant?"

"Yes . . . well, broadly speaking . . ." Audley watched the German, ". . . right."

For a moment the young German said nothing. Then he squared his shoulders defiantly. "If that is what you think, Lieutenant—" he began reproachfully.

"No." Audley cut him off. "It isn't as simple as that. I was quite prepared—damn it, perfectly prepared—

to take your word for us. But if we go on now to ... where we're going . . . then other people could be involved. And I don't have the right to risk them—not on your word, or my word, or anyone's word."

Chateau Le Chais d'Auray, thought Butler quickly. Audley had let slip that name when the sergeant had pressed him for their destination. And he had let it slip in the German's presence, that was what had been distracting him.

So now they couldn't leave him, they had to either shoot him or take him with them. And if they took him with them they needed to trust him.

Butler stared at the young German with a curious sense of detachment. This, he told himself, was a genuine, one-hundred-per-cent German soldier, one of the species he'd been trained and primed to kill on sight without a second thought. The boy even looked like a German —even in his rumpled, sweat-stained uniform and without his officer's hat he still looked a lot more like a German than the fat soldier with the loaves in Sermigny.

So now, although we just don't kill prisoners and a few hours ago they would have fought for that Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

principle, what would he do if Audley was to say shoot him?

He would do it, of course.

The German was staring at him.

"I was on the Eastern Front, with my battalion ... in the 4th Army, near Vitebsk. An anti-tank battalion ...

in April I was promoted and sent on a special course at home, at—at home—on the use of the new Jagdpanzers ... I saw my father, who was on the staff of Admiral Canaris. And my brother, my elder brother, who worked for General Olbricht, also in Berlin . . .

"Halfway through the course I was posted to the staff of General von Stulpnagel in Paris . . . which I did not understand—killing tanks I understand, not paper-work. So I asked for a combat posting—if not to the Jagdpanzers, at least to one of the 8.8-centimetre gun battalions on the West Wall. They sent me to Nantes, to report on the state of the landward defences—the landward defences! 'Landward defences—

none.' Then I am in command of ... of transport despatch. I count horses into trains—the Amis bomb the trains, the French steal the horses. I am trained to destroy Josef Stalins, and I count horses—"

("Tough shit," murmurs Sergeant Winston. "I'm trained to blow up blockhouses.")

"Then there is the attentat of the second July—we heard the Führer's voice on the radio that night—I am in Nantes, counting horses . . ."

("Safest place to be," murmurs Sergeant Winston.)

("Shut up," says Second Lieutenant Audley.)

"Then General Olbricht is executed . . . and I am afraid for my brother, that he will be unjustly suspected. And also Admiral Canaris is arrested ... I am afraid for my father too. Even more afraid, for I have heard him speak criticisms, even before the war.

"Then General von Stulpnagel is executed. And he has been a friend of my father, also from before the war."

("Wow-ee," murmurs Sergeant Winston. "Now it's really getting close to home . . . except that you're just still counting horses' legs and dividing by four, huh?")

"And ... at last I get a letter from my father. It was delivered to me by a man I do not know, but he is an Ahwehr officer I think . . . This is ... maybe two weeks ago. But it is written, the letter, on nineteenth July

—"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

(Hauptmann Grafenberg is speaking so softly now, almost whispering, that Butler has to move closer to hear his words. The German does not notice this at first, he is speaking to the ground in front of him now; when he finally does he clears his throat and speaks up; but not for long, and soon he is whispering again.)

"He says that if I receive this letter—when I receive it—he will be dead. And my brother too.

"But to tell me that is not the reason for which he writes, it is to tell me that I must go north to Normandy with the next convoy—that I can do that easily because I am the transportation officer, and I have the necessary documentation. And when I am in Normandy I must pass through the lines and surrender myself to the first Americans I meet—"

And after that they had gone, with Audley setting the pace as though he was determined to outmarch them all.

And then the endurance test became a nightmare.

The side of Butler's head had started to ache again and his toes began to itch inside his boot. He could also feel with every other step the impression which his Sten had punched into his buttock, where he had fallen on it in the staff car.

All of which was compounded by the confusion of his feelings over the German—

(Bayonet practice: What the fucking hell are you doing, son—yoking that sandbag like you were sorry for it? That's not a sandbag, son— that only looks like a sandbag. THAT'S A BLOODY GERMAN, THAT

IS! He'll rape your mother, he'll rape your sister, AND BY GOD IF YOU DONT WATCH OUT HE'LL

RAPE YOU! So you're here to stick your hayonet in his guts and your butt plate in his teeth and your boot in his balls, and I want to hear you yell with joy when you do it—AND DON'T YOU DARE BE

SORRY FOR HIM OR I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO BE SORRY ABOUT!)

"But why didn't you get out while you could, then?" Audley had asked. "Why did you wait for the Gestapo to come for you?"

"You heard what the man said," Sergeant Winston had answered for the German. "Because he hadn't done anything—he'd counted his horses, like a good little boy—"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Not true, Butler thought. Or not the whole truth.

The whole truth was that when the utterly unbelievable happened ordinary blokes didn't believe it, not until it was too late. The only thing they could think of doing was nothing at all—they just stood around like bullocks waiting their turn outside the municipal slaughterhouse.

He'd stood in the mist that way, back on the riverbed, even after he'd heard the major sentence him to death—heard him with his own ears. Because if it had been Sergeant Purvis who had come out of the mist behind him, and not Corporal Jones, whom he already hated and distrusted in his heart... if it had been Sergeant Purvis, not Corporal Jones—then he would have been one of the bullocks.

There came a time when all he wanted to do was to stop and lie down. But while he was deciding how many steps he would take before he would do that—fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred?—the effort involved in making the decision became greater than the effort required in not making it.

And then the nightmare became a dream.

He was inside E. Wilmot Buxton's blue and gold Story of the Crusades, marching between the general and his father, because that way they couldn't argue with each other about whether Winston Churchill had really ordered the troops to fire on the miners during the General Strike—

The exhausted remnant of the crusading host, now much reduced, took the road to the Holy City, the end of all their endeavours— He was half aware that the Chateau Le Chais d'Auray was not the Holy City, and that it was certainly not the end of all their endeavours. But for the time being it would do, it would do.

There was a scrunch of boots on gravel in the shadows thrown by the trees in the moonlight on the road.

"Psst!" Winston hissed from the next row of vines. "Here, lieutenant!"

Audley tiptoed out of the shadow across the pale line of the road and threw himself down on the earth beside them.

"Anybody at home?"

Audley breathed out. "There isn't a sound, and not a light either— I've been right round the house and the buildings. Not a sound . . . but they're there."

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"How d'you know?"

Audley picked up a handful of the dry earth and squeezed it out. "Not a weed to be seen. Another month, then they'll be harvesting these grapes." He reached out towards a bunch of grapes on the vine near him.

"I wonder what the vintage of '44 will be like. ... It would be nice if it was a really great one, to remember us by, wouldn't it!"

"Shit! The hell with the grapes! How d'you know they're there?"

The subaltern's face was white in the moonlight. "Because the grapes are here, Sergeant. As they've been for a thousand years, since they learnt the art of pruning—you know that, Sergeant? They learnt the art of pruning here. The donkeys of the Abbey of Marmoutier got into the vines, and ate them. And when the vines grew again the ones they'd eaten gave the finest grapes—that's the one miracle of St Martin of Tours that they remember here. So you can drink a full pitcher of Loire wine and not hurt yourself, that's what they say—"

Not true, thought Butler.

Or perhaps it was true. If he hadn't drunk a full pitcher, and been sick as a dog—maybe that was another miracle of St. Martin of Tours—

"So what do we do?" grated the American. "Drink a pitcher of Loire wine, and not hurt ourselves?"

"That would be nice. But no . . ." Audley peered around him. "Corporal Butler, are you there?"

"Sir!" said Butler. He had known one fraction of a second before Audley had spoken that the subaltern would say 'Corporal Butler,' because that was what he would have said.

Because not being a bullock was what life was all about, even right outside the slaughterhouse. And especially right outside the towers of the Holy City.

Obedience was duty. But duty was free will—the soldier's free will, which was the last and best free will of all. The general had tried to teach him that, but he'd never understood until now what the general had meant. But now he knew.

"Sir."

Audley looked into the shadow where he lay. "We'll go in and find out. You'll cover me." He turned to the sergeant's patch of shadow. "You wait with Hauptmann Grafenberg. If there's trouble, then you're on your own. Just get to blazes out of here—"

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Hell, no—"

"Hell, yes! This is our show. So if it's a balls-up then it's our balls-up." Audley's voice softened. "Don't worry, Sergeant. My thumbs tell me we're okay. If my thumbs are wrong, there'll be nothing you can do about it. But then somebody's got to survive, otherwise we've done all this for nothing, don't you see?"

Done all what? Butler asked himself. He really didn't know any more what it was they were doing. They were chasing the major, of course. But what he was doing, and what they would do if they ever caught up with him, that had somehow ceased to be of any real importance. It was the doing, not the objective, that mattered.

"Okay, Lieutenant." Winston conceded the point doubtfully. "But then I do what I want—right?"

"Okay. Just so long as the chateau isn't full of Panzer Grenadiers—" Audley caught the words.

"Hauptmann . . ."

The vines stirred. "Lieutenant?"

"We're going to have a look at the chateau, the corporal and I—you understand?"

"I understand. You have my word."

"But I want you to understand something else, Hauptmann. We are not fighting your chaps now."

"I understand. You are escaping."

"No. For Christ's sake—" Audley stopped short, suddenly at a loss. "Oh, damn it, Sergeant, you tell him ... if you can. I'm past caring almost. . . come on, Corporal—"

The muscles in Butler's legs were double-knotted, he could feel them twist with each step.

"I'm absolutely buggered, you know, Jack," said Audley conversationally. "It is Jack—isn't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes . . ." Audley nodded to himself. "I thought that was it. Is that short for John or James, I never have worked out which?"

"John, sir." Butler wanted to say more, but couldn't think of anything to say.

"John, is that it?" Audley nodded again. "You know, the first time I walked down this road—or Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

whatever you'd call it—I was nine years old. And there are forty-eight trees in this road, from the main road to the chateau—twenty-four each side."

"Yes, sir?"

"Twenty-four each side. The first time I made it forty-nine, and the second time forty-seven. But there are actually forty-eight. Would you I have guessed as many as that?"