The '44 Vintage

"I don't rightly know, sir."

"Well, of course, you can't really see in the dark." Audley pointed towards the house. "I had a room up there, near the tower. I had a feather bolster instead of a pillow—I never could get used to it. That, and not having porridge for breakfast."

They came off the compacted surface of the roadway onto a side square of loose gravel in front of the house—gravel which crunched noisily under their boots, much more loudly than the scatters of small stones on the roadway.

There was the rattle of a chain, faint but sharp in the dark ahead of them, and a dog began to bark inside the house, each bark echoing and re-echoing as the animal roared against itself furiously.

Butler cocked his Sten automatically and set his back on one side of the doorway as Audley reached up to bang on the door with the side of his fist. The dull thump— thump-thump-thump— drove the dog inside frantic with rage: Butler could hear its paws scrape and skid on the floor as it strained against its chain.

Audley banged on the door again. Suddenly the barking subsided into a continuous growl. " Qui est il?"

Audley pressed his face to the edge of the door. "M'sieur Boucard?"

"Qui est il?"

" M'sieur Boucard, c'est David Audley . . . David Audley, le fils de Walter Audley, de Steeple Horley, en Angleterre."

The growling continued.

"C'est David Audley, M'sieur Boucard—tu ne me remets pas?"

There were other sounds behind the door now; someone even hushed the watchdog into silence.

A man's voice and a woman's voice . . . but Butler couldn't catch any of the words.

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

Audley placed both palms against the door and leant forward on them. "M'sieur Boucard—"

"C'est toi, David?"

" Oui, maman, c'est moi— what's left of me," said Audley wearily.

17. How Corporal Butler made a promise to a lady

The lamp on the hall table was turned down so low that Butler couldn't make out the woman's features even after she had stopped hugging Audley, but more particularly because most of his attention was on the shotgun which the man of the house was pointing at him.

"Oh . . . my little David—but you have grown so much! You are so big!" The woman held Audley at arm's length.

"And so smelly, maman . . . I'm afraid I didn't wash behind the ears this morning, as you always taught me to," said Audley carefully, as though he was pronouncing a password.

The shotgun stopped pointing at Butler: perhaps it really was a password at that, thought Butler—an old shared memory which Audley had deliberately produced to prove that he was indeed that long-lost "little David."

"My dear boy!" Monsieur Boucard's English was not merely perfect!, it was decidedly upper-class. "My dear boy!"

"It's good to see you again, sir ... Maman, allow me to present my friend Corporal Jack Butler—

Corporal, Madame Boucard, my godmother, and M'sieur Boucard, one of my father's oldest friends."

Butler just had time to wipe his sweaty hand before accepting Madame Boucard's.

"Corporal Jack, I am so pleased to meet you—" Madame Boucard peered up at him. "Turn up the lamp, if you please, Georges."

The lamp flared into brightness, shooting great shadows all around. For a moment Butler registered only the substantial remains of what must once have been marvellous beauty, but then her expression changed to one of alarm and concern.

"Oh— mon Dieu!" Madame Boucard raised a hand towards him. "You are hurt, Corporal Jack—you are wounded." She swung round quickly. "Madeleine! Madeleine! Le caporal est blessé—vite, vite!"

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

There came a scuffling from the back of the hallway, from the darkness on the far side of the great bare staircase which rose up ahead of them.

Butler blinked stupidly from the darkness back to Madame Boucard. "It's quite all right, madame. It's only a"—he shied away from the word "scratch," which was the sort of thing Audley would have said, but which didn't sound right on his own lips—"a graze . . . and it happened hours ago. I'm okay now, really I am."

"So . . ." Boucard frowned at him for a couple of seconds, then turned towards Audley. "You have been prisoners, David? And you have escaped from the Germans?"

It was a sensible conclusion, thought Butler. Whatever they looked like, they could hardly be mistaken for the spearhead of a victorious army pursuing a defeated enemy. And in any case the French in these parts would be expecting the Americans, not the British.

"No, sir. At least, not exactly, that is," Audley floundered.

"What do you mean 'not exactly'?" Boucard's voice was businesslike.

"Well, sir—we're not exactly escaping from . . . the Germans. We haven't seen a German for hours—"

Audley trailed off, obviously remembering suddenly the German he'd left beside the road a couple of hundred yards away. "I mean, the Germans aren't following us. But . . . we aren't alone, sir."

"You have comrades outside?"

"Just nearby, yes," Audley admitted reluctantly.

"How many?"

"Just two, sir. One of them's an American and . . ." Audley broke off nervously. “We won't stay, sir—

that wouldn't be right. What I really want is food and drink—and some information. I think you may be able to give me a line on a place ... a place we must rendezvous with someone. But we won't stay here."

He shook his head. "I was thinking —maybe we could hide for the night in the old mill, down by the stream—"

Butler felt a half-hysterical urge to laugh. This was a new Audley far removed from the obstinate dragoon subaltern; this was "little David" in a soldier's battle dress many sizes too big for him.

Boucard chuckled. "My dear David, kindly don't be ridiculous. Do you really think you are the first escaper to come through Le Chais? My dear boy, the only difference between you and all the others is that you have come on your own initiative, because you knew us. Which is why we weren't expecting Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

you . . . whereas all the others—they have come down the line—British, American, French, Polish . . .

they were expected. But no one is more welcome than you and your friends, believe me!"

There was another scuffle in the shadows.

"Maman—"

Madame Boucard took Butler's arm gently. "Come, Corporal Jack. If you will be so good as to accompany me to the kitchen, my daughter is trained in first aid."

Butler looked questioningly at Audley.

"Go on, man—do what you're told." Audley nodded almost eagerly, as though the task of explaining to Boucard that he was about to add a new nationality to the list of escapers was one he preferred to tackle in private.

Butler followed Madame Boucard past the staircase and down a stone-flagged passage on which his iron-shod boots rang sharply. The sound and the feel of the hard surface under his feet reminded him of something he didn't wish to recall, but couldn't help remembering now —something which the lamplight itself had already stirred in his memory: the friendly kitchen in which he had met the NCOs of Chandos Force just twenty-four hours before, at the beginning of the nightmare.

It didn't seem possible that it was only twenty-four hours since then. Half his life had been lived in those hours—half his life and on four separate times nearly his death also. Perhaps being touched on the shoulder by death so very personally transformed the nature of time, spreading it out unnaturally at each touch and using it up, swallowing it up. ...

There was more warm light behind a glass-panelled door; and when the door opened there was also a warm smell, the heavenly smell of thick, nourishing soup. Until the moment he smelt it Butler knew he would have set exhaustion above hunger, but now he could only think that he couldn't remember when he had last eaten anything which smelt like that soup.

There was a steaming bowl on the table, but the bandages beside it told their own tale: the soup must be in the pan on the great black kitchen range.

"Corporal Jack, this is my daughter, Madeleine," Madame Boucard said graciously. " Ma cherie, Corporal Jack is a friend and comrade of our David, our own David."

It required a prodigious effort to look away from the soup to the daughter, but the effort had to be made.

"Mademoiselle," said Butler.

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

Madeleine Boucard was almost as beautiful as the pan of soup, with her little, pale, heart-shaped face framed in hair turned to red-gold by the lamplight.

And Madeleine Boucard was also looking at him with the same mixture of alarm and concern her mother had shown.

Butler passed his hand across his stubbly chin, uncertain as to how to react to that look, which made him feel a fraud, because of his red silk bandage.

"Mademoiselle . . . I'm really quite okay," he managed to stammer. "But... if you've got anything to eat.

Like a little soup, maybe?"

Mother and daughter exchanged looks, then Madame Boucard stepped towards the dresser. For a moment Butler hoped she was going to get him a soup-plate, but to his disappointment she offered him only a small tray.

He accepted the tray automatically. "Madame?"

" Regardez, Corporal Jack—look, please."

Butler glanced down at the tray. He saw that it was not a tray at all, but a mirror.

"Look, please," repeated Madame Boucard.

Butler raised the mirror, and then almost dropped it with shock.

The face under the commando cap and the red silk handkerchief was a mask of dried blood and grime from which two white eyes goggled at him. In some places the blood and the dirt had mingled, and runnels of sweat had scoured the mixture; in others the blood had already blackened and cracked where the skin had creased. The mask was the more frightening and unrecognisable for being his own.

"Sit down, if you please," said Madeleine briskly.

Butler sat down.

"There now . . ." She removed the cap and began to untie the handkerchief. "You know, I did not recognise him—David—it is so dark and he is so big, so grown upwards as Maman says. But then it is six years past since he was living with us . . . it is very tight— le noeud— how do you say in English?"

"The knot?"

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

"The knot—yes, the knot—knot," the girl repeated the word to herself. "I remember it now."

"You speak very good English—and your mother and father too, mademoiselle. I mean really perfect English," said Butler shyly.

"Myself . . . not perfect, though it is kind of you to say so ... eh bien! It is untied at last. . . my mother and my father, yes. But then so they should. My mother is half English by birth, and my father, he was educated at an English school . . . now, I am going to wash these wounds of yours with the warm water ... at a most famous and expensive school, where he learnt to play rugby football. Do you play rugby football?"

Butler held his head very still. She was talking to him to take his mind off what she was doing, that was an old nursing trick. And no matter what, it was the least he could do to pretend that she'd succeeded.

"No, mademoiselle. I played soccer, but not very well. My game was cricket."

It wasn't difficult really: her hands were as soft as thistledown— ouch! That was the dressing coming off.

"There now—that's done. Now, if you will move your head a little towards the light ... so! That's good. . . . Was this a bullet?"

"I don't honestly know, mademoiselle. It may have been a grenade fragment."

"Mmm . . . ?" She was finding it difficult now to concentrate on her work and make conversation in a foreign language. "Cricket ... a little more to the side please . . ."

Butler found himself gazing directly down the front of her dress at two small but perfect breasts six inches from his face.

"Am I hurting you?" She drew back suddenly.

Butler closed his eyes. "No, mademoiselle," he said.

The soft hands continued cleaning him up again. Cautiously he opened his eyes and discovered to his great joy that the breasts were still in view.

"My father played at cricket when he was in England, but it is not played in France . . ."

Butler held his breath, trying to imprint the vision on his memory. He had never seen anything like this before, except in pictures and photographs. Other men, even other boys at school, had managed to see it all and do it all; but he had somehow never had the opportunity . . . or the inclination or the time or the Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

courage—or whatever it was . . . and now he regretted it bitterly. He had passed his exams and learnt German instead, but now those didn't seem such clever things to have done.

"But for the war I would have gone to school in England too—to a school in Chelt-en-ham. Do you know Chelt-en-ham?"

"No, mademoiselle," Butler croaked. "But . . . you speak English so well no one would . . . know that you hadn't been educated there."

"Oh, that is because Maman has this rule—nothing but English at meals." She drew back to survey her handiwork, and he lifted his eyes just in time to meet hers. She smiled at him. "In fact, the only times I have spoken French at meals was when David lived with us. Then it was only French—poor David, I was sorry for him . . . well, a little sorry. He was very clever. His accent was not good, but he learnt everything so quickly."

She sounded almost as though she hadn't much liked Audley, Butler thought. But then at twelve and thirteen boys and girls generally didn't much like each other, even when they spoke the same language, so far as he could remember.

All the same he felt himself envying Audley desperately all the advantages he had had. He, Butler, had a lot of ground to make up, and very little time.

Perhaps no time at all.

Here and now especially no time at all.

"You have known David long?"

"David?" Butler stared at her stupidly, then looked quickly round the kitchen. The mother had gone—

from the moment he had sat down he had forgotten about her. But she had gone, anyway.

"You have known him long?" she repeated the question.

"No." He swallowed. "You are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," he heard himself say.

"Oh . . ." She looked at him in surprise, only half-smiling. "My father once said . . . that is what the soldiers will say . . . but you are the first, the very first."

"You are the very first girl I've said it to." It was like hearing someone else speaking, but somehow that made it easier.

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

"Perhaps you have not seen many girls. You have been too busy fighting, perhaps," she said lightly. "But you will see other girls. Then you will say it to them also."

"I'll never see any other girls, I shall only see you."

She looked at him seriously, no longer even half-smiling. " Vous ne perdez pas de temps."

Butler struggled with the French words, although their meaning was plain enough. He had been thinking the very same thing only half a minute before, after all.

"I have not lost any time, mademoiselle. I don't have any time to lose. In an hour or so from now, we shall have gone—David . . . and I. We have a job to finish. Then we will return to our regiments—

somehow."

"But—"

Butler raised his hand. "No. I don't want you to say anything, or promise anything. I will make the promise."

"But Corporal Jack—"

Corporal Jack . . .

Well, that was just part of the promise, he decided. Half his brain had been telling him that he was crazy

—that she was beautiful and he was lightheaded with hunger and tiredness, and that anything which happened so quickly had to be shallow-rooted in those facts.

But the other half had already promised him that nothing he wanted badly enough was out of his reach.

Not Corporal Butler, but Second Lieutenant Butler.

Captain Butler.

Colonel Butler.

Colonel and Mrs. Butler.

Mrs. Madeleine Butler.

With his red hair and her red hair—red-gold hair—they would have red-headed sons and daughters for sure.

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

"I will come back to this house after the war," said Butler. "And I won't be just a corporal either—I shall be an officer. And . . ." Suddenly he felt himself run out of steam. "And . . ."

She regarded him gravely.

He had to say something, but now for the life of him he couldn't think of anything to say. All his new-found eloquence had deserted him without warning.

"And then we shall see," said Madeleine Boucard gently. "Very well, C— . . . very well, Jack. When you come back to me we shall see—you have promised that, then."

Butler nodded.

"Good. And now I will bandage your head, if you will permit me."

She smiled at him, and touched his cheek lightly with her hand. "And you know what?"

He shook his head dumbly.

"I think I will hold you to that promise," she said.

18. How Madame Boucard guessed right—and wrong

"Another glass of wine—allow me to fill your glass, Jack," said Monsieur Boucard politely.

"No, sir—thanking you kindly, sir." Butler stopped his hand just in time from covering his wineglass.

Such vulgar actions were obviously out of place in this company, and he was as desperately keen not to be caught out by them as he was determined not to be trapped again by the deceptively gentle wine of Touraine.

But there too was a dilemma, for this was not just any old wine, but the produce of Le Chais d'Auray itself, as Audley had carefully explained. So it was essential to qualify his refusal in some way.

"Not that it isn't a beautiful wine—" He caught his tongue before he could add "sir"; there had been one

"sir" too many in the previous sentence as it was, and that was another thing to watch.

In fact, there were altogether too many things to watch—even though the food had driven back his fatigue and put fresh heart into him— when all he wanted to do was to watch the lamplight on Madeleine Boucard's hair.

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

But that also was forbidden—and forbidden not only by the "don't stare" rule Dad had clouted into him long ago, but also by another of Rifleman Callaghan's sovereign remedies which sprang to mind now as gratuitously as when Callaghan had once offered it to the whole barrack room, flushed with beer and conquest: Happen you fancy t' daughter, lads—then just smile sweet at t' mother first!

He had always despised Callaghan, and now he despised himself and felt ashamed to think of the bugger in the same breath as Madeleine Boucard—Callaghan, whose endless seductions of local girls were the shame and the pride of the platoon.

He thrust the coarse memory out of his mind. Jack Butler was not Pat Callaghan, any more than Madeleine Boucard was any hapless local girl—or the Chateau Le Chais d'Auray was a Lancashire Rifles barrack room.

And yet, for all that, he found himself smiling now at Madame Boucard, and seeing in her features the source and origin of Madeleine's beauty.

And she smiled back at him, and the smile caught his breath in his throat.

The mother, the daughter, the wine and the food, the sparkle of flame reflected on glass and silver and polished mahogany—it was all as unreal as the calm which the books said lay in the centre of a hurricane. It was even more impossible than the other things that had happened to him.

He touched the bandage on his head and let his glance touch the girl, and knew that both of them were real. And he knew that by the same token the promise he had made her was real too, even though he had been out of his depth and out of his class and more than half out of his head when he'd made it—real even though she'd probably only been humouring him, as any nice girl in an awkward spot might do: he couldn't blame her for that, with a crazy foreign soldier on her hands, a soldier who'd just come out of the dark from nowhere, and who was going back into the dark to nowhere soon enough—No, not real for her maybe. But real for him, and so binding on him that it would make him indestructible until he'd discharged it—

Suddenly he was aware that she had said something to him, only he'd been too busy dreaming as he looked at her, and had missed the words.

"Are you all right, Jack?" Her eyes were dark with concern. Butler shook off the dream. Ever since the fight in Sermigny everyone had been asking him if he was all right; it was time to set the record straight once and for all.

"Aye—never better." He grinned at her and nodded. Then he swung towards Audley, switching off the grin as he turned. “Fit for duty."

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

It somehow didn't sound the way he'd intended it to sound—it came out not so much as a statement, but more something halfway between a question and a challenge. And yet when he thought about it in the silence which followed he wondered if he hadn't meant it to be just that: half a question and half a challenge. Because all they'd had since he'd sat down at the table was the small talk of polite conversation between Audley and the Boucards: small talk in which he couldn't have joined even if it hadn't been layered below his concern for his own behaviour, so that he only half-heard it anyway . . . —

The excellence of Maman's supper—Monsieur Boucard's expressive shrug: Those living on their own land, with their own produce, they have been the fortunate ones, these four years . . .

—And with the wine of Le Chais to drive away gloom—

Alas, not such good years. Except perhaps the '43 ...

—Not the '44?—

Shrug. The prospects were not promising. Old Jean-Pierre—

—Old Jean-Pierre! As crusty as ever? And Dominique and Marcel? And Dr. de Courcy?—

Ah! Now it is Dr. de Courcy who—

(Boucard had cut off there suddenly, as though an alarm bell had sounded inside his head, and had flicked the merest suggestion of a covert glance at Hauptmann Grafenberg.) (Hauptmann Grafenberg sat there between Madeleine Boucard and Sergeant Winston, very stiff and formal, swallowing his soup nervously for all the world as though he was as worried about his manners as was Butler himself.)

(Hauptmann Grafenberg hadn't noticed Boucard's quick glance, he had been staring down at his plate; and when he did finally look up into the silence his eyes had the blank, withdrawn expression of a man who could only see the pictures that were running inside his own head; and, for a bet, those would be desolate pictures, thought Butler sympathetically; because if here at this table the young German was no longer altogether an enemy he was certainly very far from being among friends; his former friends were now his enemies, and his former enemies were not his friends—he had no family and no country and no cause; and none of it was his own fault and his own doing, God help him!)

—Dr. de Courcy who—?

Will be glad to see you, my boy . . .

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

Small talk. Polite phrases as far removed from the world outside as light was from darkness, and the soft curve of Madeleine Boucard's breasts from the aching muscles of his own body.

"Fit for duty." Boucard repeated the words thoughtfully. "But what duty is this, with which I can help you? That is, if you are not escaping, as you say you are not?"

As he spoke he glanced again in Hauptmann Grafenberg's direction, and this time the young German picked up the signal.

"You will wish me to ... withdraw, I think." He pushed back his chair and stood up.

"No. On the contrary, Hauptmann—I want you to stay," said Audley. "Do please sit down."

Hauptmann Grafenberg remained standing. "I think it is better that I do not hear what you are to do. I would prefer not to, please."

Sergeant Winston stirred. "He means you got his word of honour, Lieutenant, but he'd rather keep his peace of mind—what he's got left of it. Right, Captain?"

The German looked at the American sergeant, brushing as ineffectively as ever at the hair which fell across his face, but before he could say anything, Audley held up his hand.

"No. I understand that, but it can't be like that. First because we can't leave you here—"

"David—" Boucard interrupted.

"No, sir. We can't and we won't. I wouldn't have come here otherwise . . . but there's another reason too

—for my peace of mind, you might say. Because I need a witness."

Madame Boucard leaned forward. "A witness, David? A witness for what?"

"For what we may have to do, maman." Audley blinked at her uncertainly, as though still unable to reconcile his twin roles of small godson and large dragoon lieutenant.

"What you may have to do?" Madame had no such difficulty: for her the years and inches and the King's Commission had clearly changed nothing. "And what is it that you may have to do which requires the attendance of a German officer?"

"It doesn't exactly . . . require a German," said Audley hastily. "It just happens he'll make a damn good witness, is what I mean."

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

"There's no need to swear."

"No, maman—I beg your pardon." The unbruised cheek reddened in the lamplight. Audley swayed from side to side for a moment, and then suddenly seemed to notice the German again. "Oh, do sit down, for God's sake, there's a g-g-good chap."

Hauptmann Grafenberg brushed at his hair again, but remained standing. "Herr Leutnant—"

Madame Boucard gave a small cough. "Please be so good as to sit, Captain."

Hauptmann Grafenberg sat down.

"Now, David—?" She turned back to Audley.

But all Audley's courage seemed to have deserted him, together with his wits and the power of speech.

Instead he began to straighten the place mat in front of him, and then the plate on the place mat, and after that the knife on the plate.

The trouble was that silence didn't make matters better, it made them worse by answering the question in Butler's mind with a terrifying certainty.

What we may have to do.

"Hell!" said Sergeant Winston. "I beg your pardon, ma'am—but hell all the same. Because we got ourselves into one hell of a mess, so hell is right. But it isn't the lieutenant's fault, he's just doing his duty the way he sees it." He paused defiantly. "And the way I see it too, come to that, so I guess you can freeze me too."

Butler felt ashamed that he had left it to a foreigner to defend his officer, which was what he should have done without a second thought.

"And me too, madame," he said.

Madame Boucard smiled at him, and then at the sergeant "I never doubted that for one moment."

"No, ma'am?" Sergeant Winston tested the statement to destruction. "That's good, ma'am."

"I agree, Sergeant." She took the verdict like a lady—and an equal. "Very well, then, David—so you are going to assassinate someone."

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

Audley's mouth opened, then closed again.

She nodded at him. "Very well—kill, if you prefer the word."

Audley swallowed. "Yes—I prefer the word."

"Of course. Killing is what soldiers do."

"We're soldiers, maman."

Madame Boucard inclined her head fractionally, as though to concede what could hardly be denied but not one jot more.

Sergeant Winston stirred restlessly. "Seems to me, ma'am, you know a lot more than you're telling." He gave Audley a thoughtful glance. "But then you're not the first person we met today like that."

"No." Audley shook his head. "My godmother's just a very good guesser. She always was."

"Uh-huh? So she still is." Sergeant Winston regarded Madame Boucard speculatively. "But I'd still be obliged to know how you guess so good, godmother."

The expressive eyebrow lifted again. "Is it of so much importance to you, Sergeant—to know how an old woman guesses?"

Winston shook his head. "Normally, ma'am—no. I had a grandma could see clear through me and a brick wall both, so it's no surprise you can figure us. But then it was just my ... backside was at risk. This time it's my skin. And the way things have been happening to us today —I guess I'm more suspicious than I was yesterday, even of godmothers."

Both eyebrows came down into a frown. "The way things have been happening to you?"

"Uh-uh." The American grinned and shook his head. "I got my question in first, ma'am. So I get my answer first."

For an instant she looked at him severely, but then the corner of her mouth lifted. " Vraiment... I can see why your grandmother kept her eye on you, Sergeant. But—very well. When a man says there is something he may have to do, then it is usually something he doesn't want to do. And when the man wears a uniform and protests that he is also only doing his duty, then that is even more certainly the case

—for then he is about to do something either very brave or very wicked. Or perhaps both ... or perhaps he doesn't know which, even."

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

She paused to look for a moment at Audley. "Now ... my godson there—your lieutenant—if he was here to blow up a bridge or destroy a railway line ... if there are still such things left in France that have not already been destroyed ... he would not need to explain that it was his duty. It would not even occur to him to explain it ... nor would he need a witness to it.

"Nor, I think, if he was merely engaged in killing Germans"—she gave Hauptmann Grafenberg a grave little bow—"would he need to justify such an action, any more than our guest would need to explain why he was forced by his duty to kill Englishmen and Americans. . . .

"And also my godson is not so insensitive that he would invite a German officer to witness such . . .

duty. Which really leaves us with only one possibility." She looked for the first time towards her husband.

"Which we have already foreseen, my husband and I—a sad but necessary duty, which we will not hinder."

Butler frowned at Audley, suddenly mystified.

Audley's face was a picture—a mirror image of his own mystification. And then suddenly it was transformed by understanding and relief.

"My God, maman! Is that what you think we're here for?"

Boucard shook his head. "Not the British, my boy—or not the British by themselves. But we realise that General de Gaulle and the Allies are not going to let the Communists take over, and ever since they have started to move Popular Front units into this area we've been expecting a countermove of some sort from the Free French and the Allies—particularly after today's news from the south."

"You know about the landing?" Audley said quickly.

Boucard smiled. "The Americans captured St. Tropez this afternoon, and their paras are already closing in on Draguignan . . . yes, we know. But what matters to us now is what happens here."

"Jee-sus Christ!" Winston exploded.

"Sergeant!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am—but"—Winston appealed to Audley—"what the hell are they on about?

Communists?"

Audley grinned wryly at him. "Welcome to Europe, Sergeant. They think we're here to kill Frenchmen—

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

and French Communists for choice."

Butler found himself staring at Hauptmann Grafenberg—he didn't know why, but perhaps it was because of all the faces at the table the young German officer's was the most completely bewildered.

Except that the German was also staring at him.

A few minutes before he had felt sorry for his enemy, because he had seen in his painful confusion the bitter truth that there was more to losing a war than just being beaten in fair fight by the stronger side.

But now he himself was discovering that winning a war was more complicated than beating the enemy—

that when one enemy was beaten there were suddenly more enemies and new enemies. Enemies stretching away into infinity—Germans killing Germans.

Frenchmen killing Frenchmen.

"Hell, ma'am—for once you really guessed wrong," said the American. "We're not here to kill Frenchmen. We're here to kill the goddamn British."

It was perfectly logical, thought Butler.

Or, if not perfectly logical, it had five years' blessing, all but a couple of weeks, behind it. And that was how Dad would have argued it, first with the other union officials round the kitchen table, then with the bosses—

Custom and practice.

“We have the custom and practice of the shop floor behind us. There's no getting away from that, lads."

And the only difference was that then it was peacetime, and you struck—or they locked you out—and the one that broke first was the loser.

But since September 3, 1939, it had been war, and the custom and practice of war was killing, and the one that dies first was the loser.

"Traitors, you mean," said Boucard.

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

"Not. . . traitors, exactly," Audley shook his head. "More like criminals, sir—thieves, certainly."

"And murderers," cut in Winston, looking at Audley. "What happened in that village—to those other guys—that was murder, by God. Even though they got the krauts to pull the trigger."

And Mr. Wilson and Sergeant Scott, the dead interpreters whose shoes they were wearing, thought Butler fiercely. That had been murder plain and simple.

"Aye—murderers," he echoed the American, the anger within him edging the words. When he thought about it, the trail of death Major O'Conor had left behind him had all been plain murder, not war at all: not just the two interpreters and the men in the jeep behind them at Sermigny, but the dead men at the river ambush, and those who must have died in the limejuice strike on Sermigny—Germans and French civilians alike, and even the Resistance men strafed by the Mustangs. They had all been the victims of the major's greed.

Even Corporal Jones—it had been the major's hand on the bayonet in Taffy's guts, not his own.

None of that had been war, just murder.

"I see." Boucard stared at each of them in turn. "So you have been sent to ... execute them, is that it?"

Audley blinked. "It isn't quite as simple as that. We have to stop their doing . . . what they're planning to do."

"And killing them is the only way?" Madame Boucard paused. "Is that it, David?"

Audley blinked again, shifting nervously in his chair.

"Is it, David?" she repeated softly.

"It's the only way I can think of." Audley looked directly at her. "Maman—if I was a general or a colonel ... if we had a squadron of Cromwells parked in your drive, ready to go ... maybe I could come up with something clever." He shook his head. "But I'm not, and there aren't. There are just three of us, and we have to do the job somehow."

"Huh!" Sergeant Winston grunted. "Always supposing we can even find the bastards."

Audley glanced at him sidelong. "Oh, we can find them now, I think," he said.

"So you do know where they're heading?" Winston made the question sound like an accusation.

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

"No." Audley looked at Winston for a second, then turned to Boucard. "But I think you'll know, sir. In fact I'm betting on it."

"Me?" Boucard frowned. "Then I'm afraid you have lost your bet, my boy. Because I know of only two Englishmen in Touraine at this moment, and both of them are guests under my roof—they are sitting at this table."

"Yes, sir. But you'll know where the men we're after are heading all the same, I think."

Boucard shook his head. "No, David. We are an escape route, not a resistance group. Unless they are escaping—"

"They're sure as hell not doing that," said Winston.

"Then I simply do not have the sort of information you need." Boucard shrugged. "I might try to get it for you, it is true . . . there are ways, there are people . . . but it would take time. And I would guess that it is time that you lack?"

"Yes, sir . . ." Audley turned suddenly towards Madame. "Maman, you remember we once went on a picnic to that chateau built right across a river—you had a special place just downstream on the south bank, on the towpath, where we had a terrific view of it?" Madame looked at him in surprise. "Just north of here, maman?"

"Yes ... I remember. Chenonceaux." She nodded. "You made the occasion memorable by falling in the river."

"So I did ... though actually Madeleine pushed me." Audley's lips twitched. "The river Cher?"

"The Cher—yes." She nodded again. "Is that the place you are seeking?"

"No, I don't think so. We've come too far south already for that, unless"—Audley looked to Boucard

—"have the Germans occupied the chateau there?"

"No." Boucard shook his head. "On the contrary, we've used the place to get people across the river—in the days when the demarcation line between the zones was there."

"What demarcation line?" asked Winston.

"Between German-occupied France and Vichy France," said Audley triumphantly. "I thought it was there

—I read it was there years ago— and I wondered what would happen to the chateau. I remember wondering"—he took in both Winston and Butler with a sweeping glance— "you see, the chateau's built Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

over the river, from one side to the other, like a bridge. Like old London Bridge was, and Ponte Vecchio in Florence—"

"So what?" snapped Winston. "If that isn't where the major's heading, what the hell does it matter?"

"It's the whole point." Audley pounded his fist into his open palm.

"As soon as the major told us we were going south of the river—and with what little he told us about what we were doing—I knew exactly the sort of place we were heading for. Not the place itself, but the sort of place."

"I don't get you," said Winston.

"Because it was in the unoccupied zone—in Vichy France, not in the German territory," said Audley.

"But—hell, Lieutenant, the krauts are everywhere."

" But they weren't in 1940."

"In 1940?" Boucard sat up straight. "What has 1940 to do with all this?"

"Everything, sir." Audley's voice had the same mixture of arrogance and eagerness that Butler remembered from his collision with Colonel Clinton back in the barn: this was exactly what his own CO

had meant by "having too many brains for his own good" and not the wit to hide them.

"Look, sir—maman"—only the eagerness to prove how clever he was made the subaltern's arrogance endurable—"there's a story to this. I can't tell it all to you, but I can tell some of it."

"You were always very kind, David," said Madeleine. "So do tell us." Butler did a double-take on her, suddenly aware that the future Mrs. Butler had sharp claws.

"Eh?" Audley looked at the girl vaguely, and Butler decided to be grateful that he had no problem of childhood sweethearts to overcome; that push into the river Cher all those years ago had been deliberate, not accidental.

"Madeleine!" Madame said sharply. "Go on, David."

"Yes . . ." Audley grimaced at Madeleine. "Yes—well, in 1940 we took something out of Paris—"

"We?" interrupted Madame.

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

"The British, maman. When everything was cracking up, we got this thing out—"

"This thing?"

"I don't know what it was—honestly. But it was very valuable—and we got it out in an ambulance. ... It was something worth stealing, it has to be—otherwise the major wouldn't"—Audley spread his hands—

"honestly, I don't know, maman. But it was British, and it was valuable—"

"You've been told it was British, and it was valuable—?"

"Hush!" snapped Boucard. "Let the boy tell his story, au nom de Dieu!"

Audley gave Boucard a grateful glance. "They got this far, somewhere. And then the ambulance broke down—"

"Ran out of gas," murmured Winston.

"Maybe. But this far, anyway. And they hid it in a chateau somewhere."

"In the country of chateaux?" said Boucard incredulously. "David— in all France—here of all places . . .

Chambord and Chenonceaux, Blois and Amboise—Villandry and Azay—Usse and Loches . . . there are fifty chateaux within a morning's drive of here where I could hide anything you wish. Big chateaux and little chateaux—Cinq-Mars-la-Pile, perhaps. Or Montpoueon, down in the wash-house by the stream there. You have to be joking, my dear boy."

"No, sir."

"No? Well, if you are not joking then what are you saying?"

Audley leaned forward. "Sir—I'm saying—if you hid something in— say Montpoucon ... or Varenne, in 1940 . . . could you get it out again in 1941—or '42, or '43? With half a dozen good men on a dark night?

Could you get it out? Christ! Of course you could! But what I'm looking for, don't you see, is a chateau you couldn't get it out of—until now."

He looked around the table. "All along—ever since the major ditched us—half of me has been telling me that we didn't stand a chance of getting him unless we could either catch up with him or at least pick up his trail. But the other half of me kept telling me that we didn't need to do either of those things, not if we could get to where he was going ahead of him.

"But then the first half of me reminded me that we didn't damn well know where he was going.

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"But the second half wouldn't take that for an answer—"

The American tapped the table. "But you don't know—you said so yourself, Lieutenant."

"I don't know the name, Sergeant. But I know the—the specification. A chateau south of the Loire—

available in 1940—"

The light dawned on Butler. "Occupied by the Germans, sir. The major said so when we were in the jeep together."

"Exactly. That's the whole point—occupied by the Germans, although it was in the Vichy zone of unoccupied France. Or if it wasn't occupied by the Germans straight off it must have still been closed up tight as the Bank of England by 1941, otherwise we could have lifted the stuff out of there before now.

But occupied by the Germans now, anyway—"

Madame Boucard sat bolt upright. "Pont-Civray."

"Pont—?" Audley swung towards her.

"Civray." Madame Boucard nodded. "Le Chateau de Pont-Civray. About fifteen kilometres from here.

You may even have heard us speak of it, David—in the old days."

"No, maman—I don't think so."

"Then it was our . . . delicacy. It was—acquired, shall we say?— acquired by an Englishman from an old family here, the De Lissacs. They said that Etienne de Lissac couldn't see the cards he had in his hand, and the Englishman could see both sides of the cards in both hands . . . but that may have been mere scandal-mongering." She inclined her head very slightly. " En tout cas . . . the Englishman moved in—

that was in 1938—and had the house gutted. The builders were still there in 1940 when the Germans came."

"The Germans!"

"Oh, yes ... almost directly after the Armistice, they took over the chateau—some in uniform, and some out of uniform." She caught her husband's eye. “What was it they called themselves?"

" L'Association de l'Amitié Franco-Allemande—there was at least someone who had a sense of humour of a sort," said Boucard grimly. "To take over an Englishman's castle for what they had in mind—their brand of Franco-German friendship."

"Which was?"

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

"It was the liaison centre for the Gestapo and the Service d'Ordre Legionnaire—which is now the Milice

—the scum of the scum." Boucard's eyes flashed. "Even the Englishman was preferable to that alliance."

Audley nodded. "So security would have been tight?"

"At Pont-Civray? My dear boy—Pont-Civray has not been a healthy place these last four years. Not since . . ." Boucard trailed off.

"Not since 1940," said Audley.

19. How Second Lieutenant Audley got the truth off his chest

Dad was right about hay, Butler decided: it wasn't nearly as good as straw for sleeping in.

The night before he had been so dog-weary that it hadn't really mattered, he had been too tired to analyse its defects even though he had been the last one to go to sleep. But now, with what must be the first hint of dawn in the open doorway, he was conscious that it was dustier and mustier and pricklier, and above all colder, than straw ricks of happy memory.

He rubbed his sleep-crusted eyes and was surprised at the clarity of his mind. His body had been warm and relaxed when he had let it sink at last into the hay, but his brain had been a football crowd of unruly thoughts; now his body was cold and stiff, but a few hours of oblivion seemed to have shaken his thoughts into order. He could even remember how he had approved Mr. Audley's obstinate refusal of beds in the chateau in preference to the hayloft in the old barn by the stream; and how he had wondered later, as he listened to the subaltern mumble and groan in his sleep, whether that refusal had been due to knowledge of his sleeping habits rather than to military prudence.

Not that it mattered now, for young Mr. Audley was quiet at last and in a very few minutes it would be dawn. And the dawn of a very special day, too.

He straightiened his legs cautiously, so as not to wake the others. This was, for a guess, the same hour when he had parted the canvas flaps on the truck yesterday morning and had looked out over the darkened vineyards of Touraine across the river. He had seen the rows of vines in the flare of the American military policeman's lighter, and had not known they were vines because he had never seen a vineyard before; and also because he hadn't known where he was any more than where he was going.

But since then the world had changed, and he had changed with it.

He had killed his first man.

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He had been betrayed by men he had trusted.

He had fought his first Germans.

(He had fought his first Germans, but not very efficiently; and then he had run away from them in terror.) He had been wounded.

(But not very badly, and his wound had covered a multitude of weaknesses thereafter, so he had been lucky there.)

He had spoken to his first German, his first prisoner.

(Why was it so astonishing that Germans were so ordinary? The soldier with the loaves . . . and then Hauptmann Grafenberg, who really wasn't so very different from Second Lieutenant Audley—) (No. Say, not so different from his own company officers in the Rifles. Mr. Audley was something else and something very different from both. He didn't even know whether he liked and admired Mr. Audley, or whether he disliked and mistrusted him. But it was the general who always said that brains alone didn't make an officer, there had to be a heart somewhere—)

A heart!

Somehow, he didn't know how, on the day that all this had happened to him, he had lost his heart to a girl he hardly knew, and a foreigner too. And God only knew what Dad would make of that, apart from his other ambition—

French girls— a wink and a nod, man to man— are a bit of all right. So just you watch your step, Jack boy!

Contradictory advice that had been. And even the general had been less than helpful there—

Women— generals do not wink— are the very devil. But fortunately you will be otherwise engaged, I fancy.

Well, there was nothing that Dad or the general—or he himself, for that matter—could do about last night. He could no more remove the name from his heart than he could avoid the bullet which had his name on it

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

It was dead quiet with that peculiar before-dawn stillness which he recognised now, but to which as a town-bred boy he knew he would never grow accustomed. Beyond the breathing of the other men in the loft he could even hear the soft swish of the stream below, reminding him that before it had been downgraded to a bam the old building had been a water mill.

He ran his hand across his face at the thought of water, feeling the stubble under his finger ends. Shaving didn't really matter much in the circumstances, particularly with his colouring, but the chances of washing his feet was not to be missed: it was the least he could do for them, and also the most since the destruction of his bottle of gentian violet.

He eased himself sideways across the mounds of hay until he was able to slide down almost noiselessly into the open space by the doorway. Nobody stirred in the darkness behind him; the one and only advantage hay had over straw was that it didn't crunch and crackle so much.

But then, as he took his first cautious step towards the opening, a darker nucleus moved on the stone platform outside.

"Who's that?" whispered Audley.

Butler stopped. "Me, sir—Butler."

"Come on out then. No need to wake the others yet."

Butler tiptoed onto the platform. The air was surprisingly more chilly than in the loft, so much so that he shivered as he drew it into his lungs, and wished that he had stayed inside. Now he would have to talk to the officer, when he didn't feel like talking to anyone, least of all to Audley, who had no heart to grow cold in the moming chill.

But Audley didn't say anything; he merely sank down again with his back against the stone and stared into the black nothingness of the woods ahead of him.

His very silence unnerved Butler. It was too dark to go blundering down the steps to the stream—much darker than he had expected from the patch of sky he had seen from inside the loft. If he went he would probably fall in, or drop his boots into the water, or do something just as silly. But if he stayed . . .

"I thought I'd just . . . stretch my legs, sir," he said.

"Good idea—so long as you don't break one of them," Audley murmured. "But be my guest, Jack." Jack?

Butler took another look at the darkness and decided against it. But then decided also that he couldn't just go back into the loft.

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"Did you sleep okay, sir?" he asked politely.

Audley didn't reply, and the silence lengthened until Butler began to think he hadn't actually asked the question, it had been something he had said inside his head.

Then Audley shifted his position. "No, I didn't sleep okay," he said, still staring ahead of him. "I dreamt my usual dream. And then I dreamt it again. And then I came out here. Though I suppose I did sleep in between the two main features—I must have done."

"Your usual dream, sir?" The statement demanded the question. "A nightmare, you mean?"

Audley appeared to consider the question as though it hadn't occurred to him before. "I suppose it must be," he said finally. "But it just doesn't seem like one, that's all."

Butler began to feel embarrassed. "No, sir?"

"No, sir." Audley turned towards him, his face a vague blur in the darkness. "You looking forward to going back to your battalion, Jack?"

No doubt about that answer! "Yes, sir."

Back in the battalion a man knew who his enemies were—and in which direction they were likely to be.

"No taste for cloak-and-dagger?"

"Not trained for it, sir."

"No? Well, you've done damn well so far. We wouldn't be here now if you hadn't had your wits about you."

Butler's spirits rose, then fell as the truth grinned foolishly at him from behind appearances. "More like luck than wits."

"I doubt that. Don't sell yourself short."

"No, sir." Butler decided to change the subject. "I bet you'll be glad to get back to your regiment, sir."

"Me?" Audley made a sound that wasn't a laugh. "I tell you, Jack—if I never see a tank again, that'll be too soon. And it'ud be to the British Army's advantage if I didn't, too: I was one damn bad tank commander, and that's the truth."

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

Butler wished he hadn't changed the subject. "Your CO didn't seem to think so, sir."

"He didn't?" This time the sound was a laugh—of a sort, anyway. "Well, now ... he probably wouldn't at that . . . which just goes to show how deceptive appearances can be, you know."

Amen to that, thought Butler. But surely that couldn't be true about everyone?

"In fact I know just why he thought that." Audley turned towards him again. "And I'll tell you why—it makes a rather nice cautionary tale in its way."

Butler stared at him.

The white blur shook up and down. "Yes ... I think I must have just the merest touch of claustrophobia—

or cold feet as they call it in the Mess—but I couldn't bear to batten down inside my tank. I liked to have as much of me outside the steel coffin as possible, no matter what. Much easier to bail out if you get brewed up too . . ." He fell silent for a few seconds. "Besides, the last tank I had, the previous commander had his head blown off—his body slipped down inside . . . whole thing was swimming in blood, and you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to clean out a tank. In fact you can't clean it out—and you know what happens then, eh?"

Butler couldn't think of anything to say.

"Flies," said Audley. "Bloody thing was full of flies—great big fat things. Couldn't get rid of them.

Which was another reason I never battened down—I can't bear flies. Especially flies full of blood belonging to a friend of mine. That's what I dream about—flies." He paused again. "When I get home I'm going to buy myself the biggest fly-swatter you ever saw, and ten dozen flypapers, and I'm going to declare total war on the blighters. . . ."

He seemed to have lost the thread, but Butler was loath to recall him to it, whatever it was.

"Yes . . ." Audley's voice strengthened. "So there was me, with my head and shoulders always sticking out of the top, because otherwise I'd get the screaming ab-dabs—and that's how all the really brave chaps like to ride, and damn the snipers. 'Proper cavalry spirit'—that's what the CO called it—'standing up in the stirrups to look.' Except I was so scared into a blue funk, I was more frightened of the flies than the snipers . . . and that last time, when the Tiger jumped three of us—we were the last one he got—I was out of the turret two seconds before he pressed the tit, not blown out but bailed out, and knocked myself out cold in the process. Which is what they found when they came to pick up the pieces: three brewed-up Cromwells and one heroically concussed cornet of dragoons." His voice cracked. "And the Tiger knocked out by a Firefly posting an AP up his back-passage ... so don't let anyone ever tell you about the victors and the vanquished, Jack. In war there are only the dead and the survivors, and the dead don't win anything. But if they think they're going to get me back inside a tank again, they're going to have to carry me kicking and screaming—and stuttering too. Because that's where I got that bloody Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

stutter of mine . . . and the farther away from the regiment I got, the farther away from my stutter—isn't that a funny thing, now?"

Butler stared and stared into the darkness, and was glad of it because it hid whatever expression he was wearing on his face—whatever it was, it felt hot as though he was blushing, though whether that was for himself or for Audley he couldn't make out.

"Phew!" Audley breathed out. "They say confession is good for the soul, and I feel better for that already. But it must be somewhat less reassuring for the recipient, I should think, eh?"

Butler swallowed. "No, sir." He reached feverishly into his imagination. "I think—I think you're no different from me—when I said it was luck, not wits, that counts. What people see, that's the truth for them."

"Uh-huh? 'Beauty is only skin-deep, but it's only the skin you see'? But I don't think that's really a very sound basis for action, I'm afraid."

Butler reached out again, and Rifleman Callaghan came to his rescue. "I dunno about that, sir. But there's a man in my platoon who always says it's better to be lucky than beautiful... I reckon we're both lucky, it looks like."

There was no point in adding that Rifleman Callaghan was referring to his conquests in the ATS

quarters, not to matters of life and death in France; and that in his victories it was not survival but a clean pair of heels that mattered.

"You may be right—I hope you are," Audley mused. "On the other hand . . ."

Butler reached out for one last time, despairingly. Things had gone quite far enough, and he didn't want to go into the fight today with any more of Audley's burdens on his back. Also, if there was such a thing as good luck, and they still had it, he didn't fancy listening to Audley try to take it to pieces to see how it worked, as though it was a cheap watch. It was one thing to take a watch to pieces, but a very different thing to make it work again afterwards. "There's one thing I'd like to know, sir," he said.

It took Audley a moment to shake himself free from his own thoughts. "Yes . . . ? Well, what's that?"

What was there that he'd like to know? Butler asked himself desperately. He'd exchanged one problem for another.

He'd like to know what had been carried out of Paris in that ambulance four years before, to the Chateau de Pont-Civray. But Audley didn't know the answer to that, so he could only ask such a silly question as a last resort.

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

What would Rifleman Callaghan have done in such a fix? "I don't really know how to ask it," he temporised.

"You don't?" Audley gave a short laugh. "Then I bet I know what it is."

Well, that was one for Callaghan's book, thought Butler: by a pure fluke he'd reversed the question, and what he was going to get now was what Audley himself would like to know. “The major," said Audley.

The major?

"Yes, sir." Butler controlled his voice with an effort. "The major." It was growing lighter; he could just begin to make out Audley's features, though not yet his expression. Which was a blessing, because it meant that Audley couldn't see him either.

"I know . . ." Audley nodded. "Because I've been thinking about him too. Ever since maman spelt it out last night I've been thinking about him off and on." Butler decided to say nothing.

Audley looked at him for a moment, and then turned away again to stare at the wood, in which the trees nearest them were just beginning to emerge as individual shapes.

"It's funny ... I knew from the second we decided to go after him that if we did catch up with him we'd have to kill him. Not only because it's the only thing we can do, but because if we don't he'll certainly kill us—it'll be the only thing he can do." Butler frowned. He hadn't thought of it that way.

Audley shook his head at the trees. "I've never killed a man before ... I mean, I've never killed a man I knew—in cold blood like this. Maman was quite right, as usual: the word is 'assassinate'—God knows how she guessed, but that's what it is. Just one step up from murder, really."

Butler cleared his throat. "I don't see that, sir. Not so as to worry about it anyway. Not after what we've been through."

"Oh—it doesn't worry me, not at all. Quite the opposite actually. As I say, it's funny . . . but the last twenty-four hours or so I've been really almost happy for the first time since I landed in Normandy."

"Happy?" Butler repeated the word incredulously.

"I said it was funny, didn't I?" Audley rocked forwards. "I suppose being away from . . . from the regiment has something to do with it Away anywhere. Even here."

There came a sudden sound of flapping wings from the wood, making Butler sit up sharply in alarm.

"It's all right," Audley reassured him. "He's just gone on his morning patrol. If it'ud been anything else Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

he'd have sounded his danger call."

Butler stared at the young officer curiously, wondering suddenly how much guilty truth and how much honest battle fatigue there had been in the story of the fight with the Tiger. What was certain was that too much brains and too much imagination could be an extra burden in the front line: Audley was like a racehorse down a coal mine, desperately pretending to be a pit pony.

The wood was quiet again.

"I didn't think much about the major, anyway," Audley took up the thread once more. "The best part of yesterday ... I suppose the problem of catching him seemed more important than doing what we had to do when we did catch him—if we ever did. But now . . ." he trailed off.

Butler felt strangely protective. "We'll just do what we have to. Duty isn't a problem, sir."

Audley turned towards him. "Yes—but now I want to know why, don't you see?"

"Why what, sir?"

"Why Major O'Conor's gone rotten on us, man—wasn't that what you wanted to ask in the first place?"

Butler blinked. "Oh . . . yes, sir—it was. But I didn't think you'd know the answer to that, of course."

"But maybe I do."

"You do?" Butler's surprise was genuine.

"I said 'maybe.' The trouble is I know so little about him, really—just what they said . . . and what he said too ... in the Mess last night." Audley paused. "No, I mean the night before last. It seems only last night . . . and yet it also seems a hell of a long time ago."

So Audley was having trouble with time too, thought Butler. "Yes, sir?"

Audley nodded. "He wasn't just in the show from 1940 onwards. He was in the first lot, in 1918—did you know that?"

Butler nodded back. "Yes, sir. I recognised the ribbons."

"Yes, of course—I hadn't thought of that. . . . Well, he was a second lieutenant. Won the MC up beyond Ypres somewhere, right at the end of things. And he wanted to stay on afterwards and make a career of it, but they wouldn't have him—that's what he said. I can't imagine why anyone in his right mind should Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

want to do that, but I think he did—very much."

Butler opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come out.

"It's pretty remarkable that he got back in at the sharp end in 1939. He'd been a schoolmaster or something like that—maybe he was a Territorial officer, I suppose. That might be it. But it's still remarkable."

There was a lump in Butler's throat. "If a man wants something enough, sir . . ."

"But he wanted it enough in 1918—or 1919. Anyway he did get back in—France in '40, then the Middle East—Greece and Crete. North Africa and then Italy. And finally Jugoslavia as a weapons adviser to a big Partisan outfit—a DSO for that, so he must have been damn good. It seems incredible, doesn't it?"

"That he should go wrong on us?" Butler found himself staring at the trees. It did seem incredible. It even required an effort of will to recall the voice and the words he had heard spoken just above him on the island in the Loire, even though both were etched deep into his memory. "Yes, it does, sir."

"And yet it was there, the night before last."

It was there? "What was there, sir?"

"Something wrong. He kept asking me what I was going to do after the war. Like, did I really want to go up to Cambridge."

"They asked me that too, sir. What I wanted to do after the war. The . . . Corporal Jones did. And Sergeant Purvis."

Somehow Sergeant Purvis's treachery seemed the blackest of all. The major was an Olympian figure, a being from another world, to be admired or hated rather than understood—and it was difficult to hate what he didn't understand. But Sergeant Purvis—and the sergeant-major too —had been men he knew and trusted as the backbone of the British Army. The major was like the general, his idol. But they were no different from Dad, and that made their treachery worse and killing too good for them, the buggers.

"They did?" Audley gave him a knowing look: he could see that now and he'd have to watch his own face. "Yes . . . well, I suppose they were checking us both for the same thing. The other two chaps were from Intelligence—Colonel Clinton's men. That's why the major got rid of them. Maybe he hoped to recruit us into the plot—at least for the time being, anyway ... I don't know. But that's the key to it, I think." His mouth twisted. "In fact, when I think about it, he as good as said as much, by golly! Do you know that, Jack?" Jack. Equals.

"No. What did he say?"

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They were equals. Mr. Audley and Corporal Butler were just for the time being. He would learn and he would catch up because he had learnt. And he would be a better officer than Audley because of that "He said things would be rough after the war."

"They said that too." He couldn't quite bring himself to say David. That would only come with friendship, if not equality.

"Huh! He said the war was won, but we hadn't won it—we'd just fought it. He said the Yanks and the Russians had won, we'd lost. At least, the British had lost. But there was still a chance for individual chaps to grab what was going and get something out of it—did they say that to you, Jack?"

The lump was there again. "More or less."

Audley nodded. "I gave him the wrong answer too. I said everything I wanted was at Cambridge, waiting for me—"

He was only one breath away from asking what was waiting for Corporal Butler to keep him on the straight and narrow road, thought Butler. And he had to be headed off from that question. "What did he say to that, sir?" he said hastily.

"Oh, he sheered off. He said he was glad I'd got myself a cushy billet. And then he said something I thought was rather clever: he said that the difference between wise countries and wise men was that wise countries prepared for war in peacetime, whereas the wise man was the one who prepared for peace in wartime." He gave Butler a twisted grin. "The laugh is—I thought he was talking about me. But actually he was referring to himself, I suppose: kill everyone who gets in the way, grab the loot, and keep going, that's his formula."

"Keep going where?"

Audley shrugged. "Switzerland, I guess. That's where I'd go if I was him."

"But what about everyone else? They'd know, I mean."

"If there is any 'they' after he's finished. With the sergeant-major and that sergeant of his, plus whoever else is in on the scheme—with the Germans retreating and the French settling their private scores, there should be enough chaos for him to remove the eyewitnesses. And even if he isn't quite as cold-blooded as that—well, maybe most of the chaps don't even know what he's up to, so he can go missing and stand a good chance of being listed as a dead hero."

Put like that the risk the major was taking wasn't really so risky as that, thought Butler. The only real Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

hazard was the Germans, but now that they were retreating all the major had to do was to keep out of their road, and that was precisely where his special skill lay. Otherwise, a couple of jeeploads of British soldiers were more likely to be welcomed and helped on their way than questioned. France would be wide open to them.

"That doesn't answer the why, but it does spell out the how," said Audley. "And maybe the two add up to the same thing, anyway: it was his last and best opportunity of getting rich—he simply couldn't resist the opportunity."

There was more to it than that, Butler's instinct told him. Audley might be right about the temptation—

he probably was. But there was also the long bitterness of those civilian years which the major had endured. Audley would never understand that, even though he had half suspected it, because it didn't make sense to him.

But he, Jack Butler, could understand it very well indeed. He could almost sympathise with it.

He could even guess at how it might rust a man's soul, the thought of the might-have-been, the lost comradeship and wasted youth, the thwarted skills and ambitions. Not even the opportunities of this war would have made up for all that; they might even have made it worse when the major saw the luckier subalterns of 1918 now commanding brigades and divisions all around him, while he was only a superannuated major teaching guerrillas how to shoot, somewhere in the back-of-beyond of the Jugoslav mountains.

And he knew he was right because he could still feel the ache in his own guts where his stomach had turned over with fear at the news that the war was ending quickly—too quickly, just as it had once done for the major. Indeed, the fear was still there, twisting inside him.

Except that it wasn't going to happen to him, the same thing. He wasn't going to let it happen, one way or another. But he couldn't tell Audley any of that.

"You're probably right, sir," he began coolly. "He must—"

"Sssh!" Audley held up his hand to cut him off, turning an ear towards the wood as he did so.

Butler couldn't hear a sound other than the swish of the stream. "Someone's coming," whispered Audley.

The only noise Butler could hear was still that of the water, but the conviction in that whisper was enough for him. He twisted sideways and reached inside the doorway for his Sten.

"On the path, down by the stream— there!" Audley hissed, pointing towards the fringe of trees to the left of them.

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"I've got him," Butler whispered back, his eyes fixed on the flicker of movement in the stillness while his fingers closed on the cocking handle. There was something wonderfully comforting about the feel of the weapon and the oily, metallic smell of it in his nostrils. He remembered having read somewhere, years back, how savage warriors caressed their spears and talked to them before battle—

"It looks like just one," murmured Audley. "I can't see anyone else. Which means—keep your fingers crossed, Jack!"

All Butler's fingers were otherwise engaged, particularly one of them. But there was still a corner of his mind that wasn't concentrating on the movement between the trees.

"Sir?"

Audley watched the trees intendy. "If it's Boucard, then they're not going to help us. But if it's Dr. de Courcy . . ."

That was the big "if," of course, Butler remembered belatedly. M'sieur Boucard ran the safe house of the escape route on which they'd stumbled with such incredible beginner's luck. But it was the local doctor who controlled the escapers' transfer from one place to the next along that route—the doctor whose own journeys could always be explained by the requirements of his job.

Suddenly he was aware of his own heart thumping within his chest Another dozen yards or so, and they would be able to see who it was—

Boucard or the Doctor.

Failure or success?

Except that reaching Pont-Civray was itself no guarantee of success, only of somebody's death. Maybe Jack Butler's death even?

Audley relaxed beside him. "Over here, Doctor!" he called out.

Dr. de Courcy halted in the middle of the car-track just below them, took off his black Homburg hat, and methodically set about wiping the sweat-band with a clean handkerchief from his breast pocket. Only when he'd completed this task to his satisfaction and had returned the handkerchief to his pocket and the hat to his head, did he at last look up at them.

" Eh bien, David Audley! Tu as éventé la mèche comme toujours. Mais cette fois tu as dépassé les bornes," he said harshly.

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A rustle in the hayloft behind them distracted Butler's attempt to disentangle the meaning from the French words.

"So what's that meant to mean?" Sergeant Winston stepped onto the platform, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "And who's the funeral director?"

"Dr. de Courcy"—Audley's voice faltered—"Sergeant Winston, of the United States Army."

"Oh—yeah . . ." Winston nodded apologetically. "Sorry, Doc! Early morning—big mouth." He looked at Audley questioningly. "Are we in trouble again, Lieutenant?"

Audley stared at Dr. de Courcy uncertainly. "He says . . . we've let the cat out of the bag, somehow—?"

The doctor shook his head. "Not the cat. Another animal, perhaps . . ."

"Another animal?"

"A tiger this time, David Audley. A man-eating tiger. And he has your scent in his nose, I fear."

20. How Dr. de Courcy made a bargain

"The guys in the wood, Lieutenant," Sergeant Winston prompted Audley. He nodded thoughtfully at Butler, and Butler knew he was remembering the cold-blooded way they'd killed the wounded German soldiers in the Kiibel.

"Yes," said Audley, still staring at Dr. de Courcy. "But there has to be more to it than that, I'm thinking."

"Sure there is: we got away from them, and they don't like it."

Audley shook his head. "More than that. . . What are we supposed to have done, Doctor?"

De Courcy looked at him curiously. "You ask me that?"

"That's right, Doc." Winston leaned forward. "We're asking. So you tell us."

De Courcy frowned, glancing at each of them in turn. “Well . . . there are fifty dead in Sermigny, to the north of here . . . not counting the Germans. But that might be counted an accident of war, and not your fault. . . . But the four men you ambushed on the road—Communists, I admit, but men of the Resistance Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

also. And the German prisoner you released"—he shrugged—"no doubt you had your reasons. But innocence is not the game to play."

"Innocence?" Winston exploded. " Innocence!"

"Hold it, Sergeant!" Audley held up his hand. "We haven't killed anyone, Doctor. Not Frenchmen, anyway. I give you my word of honour on that."

"Yeah. And my word too," snapped Winston. "Not that I haven't been goddamn tempted."

De Courcy's eyes clouded. "And I, Sergeant—I have seen the bodies of the men you killed. And also . . .

M'sieur Boucard tells me you have a German officer with you. So where does that leave your word of honour, Sergeant?"

The American drew a deep breath, but then turned abruptly to Audley. "Lieutenant—are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he said slowly.

Audley nodded. "I shouldn't be at all surprised. I think you people have a word for it, too, don't you?"

"We do—several words. 'Framed' is one—and 'suckers' is another. And I guess that both apply to us, by God!" Winston swung back towards the Frenchman. "You saw the bodies, Doc—you actually saw them?"

"Yes."

"Did you examine them?" said Audley.

De Courcy frowned. "Why should I examine them? They were dead."

"Yeah, I'll bet they were," said Winston. "The way they died they'd be very dead."

"The way they died?" For the first time there was doubt in De Courcy's voice.

"That's right. They were hit by six point-five Brownings belonging to one trigger-happy P-51 pilot. And we didn't have a thing to do with it, except to get the hell out of the way of the same thing."

Audley nodded. "That's exactly the way it happened, Doctor. We were strafed on the road—we were in two captured German vehicles, and the Mustangs took us for the real thing. But we got off the road in time, and they didn't." He turned to Butler. 'Would you ask Hauptmann Grafenberg to join us, Corporal, please."

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Butler peered into the darkness of the hayloft, but before he could speak, he saw a movement in the aisle between the banks of hay on each side of the opening.

"Sir—"

"I have heard, Corporal." The German stepped forward towards the doormat, pulling at his crumpled uniform with one hand in a hopeless attempt to straighten it and brushing with the other at the hay which festooned it.

"Good morning, Hauptmann," said Audley politely. "Doctor, I'd like you to meet Hauptmann Grafenberg of the German Army."

The young German blinked at the light and stiffened to attention. If anything he looked even worse than the day before, thought Butler, as though he had spent the night with things even nastier than the blood-bloated flies which plagued Audley's dreams.

"Hauptmann, I'd be very grateful if ... you'd be so good as to tell the doctor what happened to us on the road yesterday afternoon," said Audley.

The German looked down at the Frenchman. "It is not necessary—I have heard what has been said . . .

and it is the truth." He swallowed awkwardly, as though the words were painful. "Except—it is not correct that I ... that the Herr Lieutenant released me. It was to him that I surrendered."

Winston leaned forward again, stabbing a finger at De Courcy. "Which means that someone has been lying through his teeth about us, Doc—because the driver who was with us when the P-51s hit us, he ran like a jack rabbit. So they know what happened as well as we do."

Dr. de Courcy's eyes narrowed. "But . . . why should they lie about you, Sergeant—if they knew so much?"

"Hell, Doc—that doesn't take much figuring. They knew we were coming and they were waiting for us.

So they scooped us up, but then we gave them the slip. So now they want whoever's got us to turn us in."

Winston straightened up. "like two plus two equals four—right, Lieutenant?"

Butler followed the sergeant's look to Audley, and was surprised to see how pale the subaltern's face was; it was paler than it ought to be after the German's testimony and the sergeant's triumphant mathematical assertion—paler even than thirty-six hours of strain and danger had already made it when I've been really almost happy for the first time since I landed in Normandy.

So there was something the sergeant had missed . . . something that made two plus two equals four the wrong answer.

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And then it hit him like a gut-punch: from the moment that the major had shouted 'Hände hoch, Tommy'

out of the hedge at him two plus two had never equalled four.

He studied the Frenchman's face critically for the first time. Apart from that narrow look about the eyes it was entirely without expression —as empty as the woods had seemed where the French had ambushed the German vehicles. No fear, no anger, no belief, no disbelief, no surprise.

Two plus two equals five.

"Permission to speak to the doctor, sir," he said.

"What the hell?" Winston regarded him curiously. But the American Army had no discipline, of course.

"Corporal?" Audley's glance was hardly less curious. "All right—go ahead."

"Thank you, sir." Butler dismissed them both from his mind and concentrated on the Frenchman.

"M'sieur Boucard has explained the situation to you, sir, I expect?"

Now the Frenchman was studying him for the first time also, and seeing him as a soldier with a gun in his hands—a dirty, dishevelled British Tommy with a bandaged head, a person of no account, Butler thought gleefully.

But then, of course, he couldn't know what Butler knew—

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 Frenchman hadn't answered yet, and that was a good sign.

"Sir?" he enquired politely.

"Yes." The answer was accompanied by a frown.

"So you do know our objective, sir?"

The doctor's lips tightened. "I know what I have been told," he said curtly. "Yes."

"That's fine, sir. Then you know our objective." Butler nodded, listening in his inner ear to the sweet sound of the bugles at Omdurman.

"So the only question is—how quickly can you get us to Pont-Civray? Because the way things are, we Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

probably don't have much time."

Now there was an emotion in De Courcy's face: he looked at Butler incredulously. "You think it is easy to get to Pont-Civray?"

"Hey, Jack—" Winston began.

"No!" snapped Butler, without looking at the American. 'We've been buggered around enough—now there's going to be no more buggering around . . . and the answer to that is—yes, sir. You've been running an escape route in these parts for three or four years. If you can move men around under the noses of the Germans and the French police, then you can move us to Pont-Civray, which is only just down the road from here, somewhere. So the answer is yes, sir—for you it is easy. All you have to do is to state your terms."

"My—terms?"

"Yes, sir. You said yourself that innocence isn't the game to play. So —with respect—I suggest you practise what you preach."

"My terms . . ." De Courcy left the question mark off the words this time. "What makes you think I have . . . terms?"

Butler turned to Audley. "Do you want to take over, sir?"

Audley was smiling at him, really smiling, as he shook his head. "You've got the ball, Jack—you make the touchdown."

"Very good, sir." Butler tightened his grip on the Sten as he turned back to the Frenchman. Like MacDonald wheeling his battalions and batteries, he knew that it could only be done if it was done right.

And it wasn't a small thing that Audley was doing himself, trusting him to do it.

He looked down over the stubby barrel at the Frenchman.

"You didn't never believe"—he stumbled over the grammar—"you never did believe we killed those men, sir. If you had believed it then you wouldn't be here—you'd have turned us in, as the sergeant said.

Or if you didn't want to turn Mr. Audley in, for old times' sake, then you still wouldn't have wanted to help us—and you certainly wouldn't have come down here by yourself to tell us to our faces that we were murderers, and we could stew in our own juice. You'd have sent M'sieur Boucard maybe, but you wouldn't have come yourself."

"What makes you so sure of that?"

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Butler lifted the Sten. "This does, sir. Because if I'd killed four Frenchmen then a fifth one wouldn't worry me—because if Mr. Audley says 'shoot' then I shoot." He shook his head. "But you came—sir—"

"That at least is true."

Butler felt a small knot of anger tie itself inside him. "Aye, and there's not much bloody truth round here, either."

"Steady, Jack," said Audley.

"Yes, sir." Butler stepped back from his anger. "But instead of being straight with us you've been playing your own little game."

"And what game is that?" asked De Courcy.

The question sounded casual—almost insultingly casual, and certainly condescending. A day or two back a question like that would have thrown him, thought Butler. Even a few minutes ago it might have put him off his stroke, because he hadn't understood the rules of the game. But now it was different.

"Why—sir—you've told us that yourself." He gave the Frenchman back a common corporal's surprise in return for the condescension. It wasn't a game, of course, and they both knew it. But the trick was to behave as though it was—it was as simple and easy as that. He had taken a long time to learn that rule, but he had learnt it in the end.

" Pardon?" De Courcy's English accent slipped. "I told you?"

"Oh yes, sir." It wasn't difficult to insult a man if you knew how. "Your man-eating tigers—the men who are after us—they didn't really want to know why we were here, and what we were doing. So happens they knew that." He grinned innocently. "What they wanted to know is where we were going—that was what they didn't know."

"Bravo!" encouraged Audley softly.

"But you, sir—you know where we're going, because M'sieur Boucard's told you. And you know what we're going to do as well—because he'll have told you that too. What you don't know is the why—and that's your game, sir."

"Man—but Boucard will have told him that too," said Winston. "No, Sergeant," said Audley quickly.

"Not the real why. Not—well, not the tiger's why. They couldn't possibly know what we are planning to do, and it wouldn't worry them if they did know—Englishmen hunting Englishmen—what do they care about that? What they're after is what the major is after, don't you see!" He swung towards Butler, Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

"Right, Corporal?"

Butler swelled with pride. "That's it, sir—right bang on the nose." He nodded to the American. “We're the pig in the middle, Sarge. But there's more than one on each side of us, that's what we haven't realised." Suddenly the pride dipped as it occurred to him that he wasn't sure what sides there were among the French.

"The Communists versus the Free French—General de Gaulle's people," Audley supplied the answer.

"Good for you, Corporal!"

"Yes, sir." Butler adjusted his expression to one of knowing approval. One thing his own general had been dead wrong about was that a soldier didn't need to know much about politics.

Winston stared from one to the other of them. "But . . . but we don't—" he bit the end of the sentence off. " Shit!" he said feelingly.

Audley laughed—a little too shrilly for Butler's peace of mind. "That's exactly right, Sergeant: we don't—

and shit is the appropriate reaction." The laugh caught in his throat and he stifled a cough. "I'm sorry—

but it would be really rather funny if it wasn't happening to us, of all people!" He shook his head helplessly.

"Funny?" The American growled, looking to Butler for support. "You think it's rah-ther funny, Jack— really rah-ther funny?" He stared at Butler menacingly. "Does it seem funny to you?"

Butler didn't think it was in the least funny. The remembrance of what had happened on the banks of the Loire was still a raw wound in his mind, and the murderously efficient Frenchmen in the wood—the men who were hunting for him now—were all frightening, not funny. He didn't wish to be disloyal to Audley, but there was certainly nothing there which could conceivably be regarded as even faintly amusing. Even the game he'd just learnt to play was no joke, for all that the winning of it was intensely satisfying.

But Audley was still giggling—

And now, what was worse—much worse, was that the American sergeant's face was breaking up too: even as he stared at Butler he was losing control of it—he was smiling foolishly—he was beginning to laugh.

He was laughing, now.

"Shit!" The American suddenly draped his arm on Audley's shoulder familiarly. “We don't know—but they think we do! But we don't—"

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He broke down feebly, shaking his head.

Butler looked around desperately, catching first the blank look on Hauptmann Grafenberg's face, and then the equally questioning expression on the doctor's.

"I'm sorry—I really am—" Audley began.

"Re-ally," echoed Sergeant Winston. "Doc—it's just that you're a horse trader—"

"A horse trader?" De Courcy frowned. "What is—a horse trader?"

"Aw—they come in all shapes and sizes. But mostly crooked."

Winston finally managed to control himself. "You want me to tell him, Lieutenant?"

"Be my guest." Audley gestured towards the doctor.

"Okay." Winston bowed to Audley, then to the doctor. "It's just . . . we don't have anything to trade. No horses, no mules—not even a goddamn donkey! All we've got is our boots—and Corporal Butler's gun."

De Courcy stared at them. "What do you mean?"

"He means"—Audley's voice was at last serious—"that we haven't the faintest idea what the loot is. If the Communists got us—or the Gestapo got us—even if the Spanish Inquisition got us—it wouldn't do them one damn bit of good. Because we don't know."

De Courcy continued to stare at them, though now there was a hint of something else in his face; perhaps the beginning of either puzzlement or disbelief, Butler couldn't decide which.

Winston shook his head at Audley. "I don't think we're getting through . . . and maybe that's not surprising when you think about it, Lieutenant. Because we have to be crazy to want to go to Pont-Civray, seems to me. Which means . . . unless he's crazy too there's no way we're going to convince him we're on the level. No way at all."

It hadn't been real laughter, Butler realised belatedly as Audley's eyes shifted from the American to him: it had been something much closer to hysteria. However much the subaltern pretended that all this was more to his taste than tank warfare in the bocage— he might even believe that it was—he was near to the end of his resources.

And, what was more, the American was right: it was crazy, what he had been leading and driving them to do, this mad compulsion to catch up with the major. What would they do if they did catch up with Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

him, the three of them? The odds would still be hugely against them.

But then perhaps that was what he wanted.

Perhaps it wasn't so much a case of But now I want to know why, don't you see? as If they think they're going to get me back inside a tank, they're going to have to carry me kicking and screaming.

It wasn't fair—to be caught up in something like this.

It never had been fair—to be taken away from his battalion and his company, and from his platoon and his section—just because he spoke a few words of German.

With a Lancashire-Polish accent.

It wasn't bloody well fair.

Audley was looking at him as though he expected a clever answer to a question which had no answer at all. And although he was sorry for Audley . . . although he was sorry for Audley in the same way that he was sorry for Hauptmann Grafenberg ... he knew that he wouldn't have given him an answer even if he could think of one.

And then Audley wasn't looking at him any more; or, rather, not at him, as much as at his battle-dress sleeve, with its corporal's stripes.

He looked down at the stripes himself. The stout thread he had used to sew them on had come loose, so that one end was lifting away from the sleeve. He must have snagged them on something, probably a tree branch during their panic flight through the wood near Sermigny—

"Two reasons," said Audley, turning suddenly back towards Dr. de Courcy. "There are two reasons why you should believe us."

"Two reasons?"

"Or six, if you like." Audley glanced quickly at the American sergeant, then back once again to De Courcy. And he was smiling now. "Or a dozen, even—take your pick, Doctor."

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"One would be enough, David." Curiously, the doctor sounded almost relieved.

"One then." The smile was gone from Audley's face as he reached across his chest to touch the pip on his left epaulette with his index finger. "This one will do well enough."

De Courcy frowned. "That is—a reason?"

"Oh yes, it's a reason. It's a good reason—in fact it's the best damn reason in the world!" Audley's voice was bitter. "I said we didn't know what the major was after, but that's not strictly true. We know the damn thing's valuable—we know it's top secret. And you know what we are?" The finger tapped the pip.

"Second lieutenant." The finger left the single pip and pointed towards Butler's stripes. "And a corporal"— and then at Winston—"and a sergeant." He paused just long enough to take a fresh breath.

"And you know what that makes us, Doctor? I'll tell you: it makes us the lowest form of animal life."

The bitterness was almost passionate. "Second lieutenants don't have to think, Doctor —so they don't have to know. Who's going to tell us top secrets? Not the Colonel Clintons of this world, that's for sure.

And as for the major —he didn't intend us to get this far, we were just a bit of window dressing to keep the colonel happy, that's all. So telling us why wasn't necessary. We weren't damn well going anywhere!"

The subaltern's vehemence took Butler aback, coupled as it was with the extraordinary reason for it.

Anger at being betrayed by one's own comrades was one thing—he had felt that himself. But to get angry because one's superior officers didn't explain all the whys and wherefores of their orders, that was ridiculous. A bullock might just as well expect the slaughterman to explain why he was turning it into beef!

"Colonel—Clinton?" De Courcy's mouth opened and closed.

"Of Intelligence, so-called," said Audley scornfully. "He was supposed to be running this show—he could give you the answer to your question. Or he could have. But we can't."

It really was not knowing why that enraged Audley, thought Butler. In one breath he admitted being the lowest form of animal life, but in the next was objecting to it, and the objection marked him for what he truly was: a mere civilian in uniform.

But the rage also gave his words sincerity—the proof of that was plain on Dr. de Courcy's face.

"Could have?" said De Courcy. "What do you mean—could have?"

"Hell, Doc—the major had the same plans for the colonel as he had for us." Sergeant Winston drew his finger across his throat. "The colonel was strictly surplus to requirements."

De Courcy stared at them all, then gestured abruptly as though gathering them to him. "Come!" he commanded.

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“To Pont-Civray?" Audley snapped the words out.

"To Pont-Civray." De Courcy repeated the gesture more urgently. "Those four men weren't the only . . .

casualties I saw yesterday, apart from those of Sermigny. There was also a British officer my people brought in—a colonel. From near a village not far from here, seven or eight kilometres. But there was no identification on him."

"Dead?" said Audley.

"Not dead. But left for dead. He had a bullet in his back, David."

Winston looked at Audley.

"Sounds like the major's style."

"Hmm . . . yes." Audley rubbed his chin. "And it also sounds as though we may be too late, I'm thinking.

If the major was as close to Pont-Civray yesterday as we are now . . ."

"No." De Courcy shook his head. 'We are not too late"—he drew a gold watch from his fob pocket

—"perhaps not quite too late. But we must hurry now."

"How d'you know we're not too late?" said Audley.

"Because the Gestapo are not due to leave the chateau until midday today, that is how I know."

"But the major won't know that. Or even if he does he may not choose to wait—he's got some tough men with him, Doctor, and he won't like hanging around."

"Perhaps not. But they also have some tough men with them, the Gestapo: they have a Waffen-SS

motorised company to escort them. Also they have made it very plain that they are leaving, and that if there is the least attempt to hinder them they will turn Civray St. Michel into another Oradour-sur-Glane." De Courcy gave Audley a hard look. "You know what happened at Oradour, David?"

"There was a massacre of some sort there, wasn't there?"

"A massacre of some sort?" De Courcy's voice harshened. "The SS herded all the men into a barn, and the women and children into the church, and then they burnt the barn and the church and the whole village . . . yes, David—there was a massacre of some sort at Oradour-sur-Glane. And that is why you can depend on the people of Civray St. Michel to make very sure that your major knows that the Gestapo are leaving the chateau. And that if he wants to attack the Germans he will have to fight Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

Frenchmen first."

Sergeant Winston looked at the doctor suspiciously. "Seems to me you know one hell of a lot, what's going on round here, Doc—for a simple country doctor. Like even what the krauts are doing."

De Courcy shrugged. "I told you—they have made no secret of it." Then suddenly he straightened up.

"You do not believe me, Sergeant?"

"You're damn right, I don't believe you!" Winston traded one hard look for another. "Like Jack here said, we're the goddamn pig in the middle. But that was when you were playing hard to get, and now you're saying 'Come on down, boys—Pont-Civray here we come!' So now I'm saying . . . you know so much, you just prove we're not the pig that's being taken to market, huh?"

Butler looked at De Courcy and thought on that instant that the sergeant was right: he didn't look like a country doctor any more. On him the neat black suit and the Homburg hat and the gold watch and chain seemed as much a disguise as Second Lieutenant Audley's battle dress and pistol.

"Very well, Sergeant—if you wish for frankness, then I will be frank." The corner of De Courcy's mouth lifted. "I will be français too."

"That's okay by me. like the lieutenant said—be my guest"

"No. You are my guest—all of you." De Courcy swept a hand to include them all. "You are here in France with your guns and your tanks —American, British, and German. But you are here en tourists.

You are merely passing through France ... I know so much, Sergeant, because it is my business to know

—because it is my country, not yours." He stared proudly at Audley. "And this thing you British want so badly—it is better that it stays hidden until we can decide to whom it belongs, I think."

"But—" Audley began, "but it belongs to us."

"No, David. You say it belongs to you. But you do not even know what it is. And the Communists—

they intend that it shall belong to them. And your major ... he plans that it shall belong to him. But I say it came out of Paris in 1940, and I do not trust any of you."

Sergeant Winston chuckled suddenly. "Yeah—well, I go along with you there, Doc." He grinned at Audley. "Don't get me wrong, Lieutenant—I think you're on the level. And Jack here . . . But your top brass could be as crooked as a three-dollar bill." He nodded encouragingly at De Courcy. "You can count me in so far, Doc—we give the loot to its owner, that's dealing from the top of the deck. But just how do you plan on doing that?"

"Very simply, Sergeant. I have established that you do not know where it is hidden—you have said as much, and I believe you. Your colonel . . . Clinton knows, but he is in no condition to tell anyone, even Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

if he lives—not for the time being en tout cas. Which only leaves your major—yes?" De Courcy lifted an eyebrow at Audley. “Whom you intend to ... execute as a traitor?"

"You're damn right!" exclaimed Sergeant Winston. Except that he was damn wrong, thought Butler.

Because there was also the colonel's driver—had Winston forgotten him? Or had he mentioned the driver?

He couldn't remember. They had been driving down off the embankment—he had been telling them what had happened. . . . He must have told them about the driver—He's the key to the treasure house, sergeant-major. He's our walking map!

He must have told them!

But he couldn't remember—and Audley's face was as innocent as a baby's—

Too innocent?

Then Audley nodded abruptly. "All right, sir. If those are your terms, then we accept them. You want Major O'Conor dead—"

Too innocent!

"You'll take us to Pont-Civray." Audley's jaw tightened. 'We'll kill him."

"How are you going to get us there, Doc?" asked Winston.

De Courcy smiled. "How should a doctor move his patients in an emergency?"

They followed him down the path.

Once again, it wasn't how he had ever imagined going to war: a Frenchman taking two Englishmen and an American and a German ... to kill an Englishman.

Winston grinned at him. "You did okay back there, Jack. But how the hell did you know he'd crack—the doc?"

How the hell had he known? He lifted the Sten. "I had the gun, Sergeant. He didn't."

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

That was what Rifleman Callaghan always said: The man with the gun always wins the argument.

21. How the Germans spoilt a good plan

"When you think about it, it's rather appropriate," said Audley reflectively, to no one in particular.

Butler had been thinking about it, but: that hadn't been his conclusion. He had thought, more simply, that it was a pity they couldn't see where they were being taken; but also that with the way his toes were already acting up it was a bloody sight better than foot-slogging. If the pigs really were being transported to market, at least their last journey was being made in comfort.

Sergeant Winston surfaced from out of his own thoughts. “What is?" he inquired.

"This." Audley waved his hand around vaguely.

Winston looked towards the doctor. "Yeah, I guess it is at that." He grinned suddenly. "We should be glad you aren't a garbage collector, Doc—"

"No." Audley shook his head. "I mean . . . this is how it all started —in an ambulance. This is how they brought the loot out of Paris in 1940—in an ambulance. And now us."

"Uh-huh?" Winston shrugged. “Well, just so we get there in one piece is all I care about first. But it's what the hell we do when we get there that worries me, Lieutenant. You planning to gun the major down just like that—just wait for him to show up and let him have it? Is that it?"

Audley ran his finger nervously between his neck and his collar. The light coming through the frosted window beside him caught the sheen of sweat on his forehead. Happen he didn't like being cooped up blind in the enclosed space of the ambulance, thought Butler, and that sweat was a memory of old terrors. But much more likely it was fear of what was to come, which had been all airy-fairy talk until now, with the odds against it ever being put to the test of reality.

Trouble was, he could never see through the skin for sure, not until it was too late. All he knew was that Second Lieutenant Audley was a great talker, and clever with it—no doubt about that. But what he was when the words were all said and there was no more room for cleverness, that still remained to be seen.

"Is that it?" Winston repeated the question brutally, as though he sensed the same uncertainty in the subaltern.

And yet for all that maybe they weren't being fair, thought Butler. Because it was one thing to follow Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

and obey, and another and quite different thing to decide and to lead, knowing that the burden of responsibility was on one's own shoulders, no matter whose finger was on the trigger.

He cleared his throat. “We could call on him to surrender first, sir," he said.

Winston gave an angry grunt. "Oh sure—we do that and we throw away the only chance we've got, which is catching the bastard by surprise."

Audley's jaw tightened. "We can still do that—if we can get into the chateau first." He turned towards Dr. de Courcy questioningly.

De Courcy nodded slowly. "Yes," he said.

"Uh-huh?" Winston paused. "And just how are you planning to do that, Doc?"

"It need not worry you, Sergeant. It can be done."

"So it can be done—so it still worries me." Winston paused again. "So you tell me how, huh?"

De Courcy shrugged. "Very well . . . the Germans will not leave until midday. In the meantime they will be on the alert—it is a time of danger for them, the moment of withdrawal—"

Winston raised his hand. "I don't want to care about the Germans, Doc. They don't worry me. It's the major—he worries me. Because by midday he'll be sitting on the goddamn doorstep just waiting for the krauts to move out. That is, if he isn't there already—which he probably is. And the moment they do move . . . he's not the sort of guy to wait until the dust settles, Doc. They move out—he'll move in."

The Frenchman half-smiled. "And that is what I am relying on, Sergeant."

Winston frowned. "I don't get you."

"That is because you do not know the Chateau of Pont-Civray."

"You mean—there's a secret way in?"

"No, not a secret way." De Courcy shook his head. "But another way, simply."

"Then the major may be watching it—simply."

"But there is no reason why he should." De Courcy leant forward to emphasise his point "To the west of the chateau, in the woods beside the river, there is a path. Once it was a carriageway to the West Lodge, Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

but it had not been used for many years even before the Germans came. It is ... how do you say?—

couvert—grown over."

"Overgrown—I get you. But if you're banking on the major not having cased the chateau—" Winston shook his head back at the Frenchman. "What sort of perimeter defences has it got?"

"Barbed wire, two fences. With mines in between."

"That won't stop him. It didn't stop us on Easy Red at Omaha, Doc —and the krauts were throwing all kinds of shit at us. So it sure as hell won't stop him breaking in."

"But he has no need to. He waits only for the Germans to leave, Sergeant. You worry about him, but he does not worry about you—he thinks you are dead, is that not so?"

"Okay. So we're dead—?"

"Therefore he waits for the Germans to leave, and they can only leave by the main entrance—it is the only way open to vehicles. So it is there that he will be watching, to see them go, so that he may bring his own vehicles in at the same point. De Courcy nodded in agreement with himself. "But we—we will be watching at the West Lodge. Because the Germans have a guard-post there—it is from there that they watch the river and patrol the perimeter wire through the wood. That will be our point of entry."

The frown was becoming a fixture on the American's face. "Now you're really losing me, Doc. If the krauts weren't on the alert I might just get us through the wire and the mines—I got enough practice for that on Omaha. But if there's a guard-post there how's that going to get us to the chateau ahead of the major?"

"But very simply, Sergeant!" De Courcy sat back on the bunk. "The last thing the Germans will do before they leave—the very last thing—will be to withdraw their guards from the perimeter. That will be our signal to enter." He lifted his hands expressively. “Then as they leave by the front entrance, we will move in behind them before the major enters."

There was still doubt in Winston's eyes as he shifted their attention to Audley. "What d'you think, Lieutenant?"

"It sounds . . . logical," said Audley. "If they really are evacuating the chateau completely."

"There is no doubt about that," cut in De Courcy confidently. "It is not simply that they have said as much. For two days now they have been burning their documents—that is the surest sign of all."

"Just so long as they don't leave a rear guard," said Winston, looking round the ambulance. "We don't have the muscle to fight the real war."

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

De Courcy shook his head. "They will use all their men for the escort—with things as they are, they are too nervous to do anything else, believe me. They are not looking for trouble any more."

That was an echo from the past, Butler recalled bitterly—an echo of what the major himself had said on the evening he had joined Chandos Force. And in that at least the major had spoken the complete truth: it had never been the Germans who had threatened the success of the operation; they had made all their own trouble, one way or another.

"Okay. So what then?" Sergeant Winston conceded the point grudgingly. "We get to the chateau maybe a couple of minutes ahead of the major—like firstest with the fewest. So what then?"

De Courcy looked at Audley quickly. "Then ... it is the major you want. One clear shot tout simplement."

Audley swallowed tout simplement like a spoonful of liquid paraffin. "Yes."

"Then this way you will have your best chance of it. He will come up the driveway from the main gate—

an avenue of trees of perhaps six hundred metres . . . then there is the old donjon— how d'you say?" De Courcy searched for the translation.

"The keep," said Audley. "You mean a tower, like at Chenonceaux?"

"A tower—yes. It was the original fortification beside the bridge over the river. But now it is a ruin, an emptiness. Merely the walls stand."

"It was all a ruin in the old days, pretty much, wasn't it?" said Audley.

"Until the Englishman came, yes. He rebuilt the chateau, and they were working on the bridge—they completed that just in time for the Germans. But the donjon is still unrepaired . . . But no matter! Beside it is the bridge, and beyond the bridge on the other side of the river lies the chateau." De Courcy lifted a finger. "So . . . the major must cross the bridge—and the open space in front of the chateau too. And on the bridge there is no cover." He paused. " And all you want is one clear shot."

For a second no one spoke, then Winston turned to Audley. "Lieutenant—?"

Tout simplement, thought Butler. It seemed too good—and too simple —to be true. It even had the priceless advantage of giving them a chance of escape afterwards, since one man with a gun could cover the bridge after the shot had been fired, discouraging pursuit.

"He'll send in a patrol first to check out the place," said Winston. “To make sure all the krauts have gone."

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

Audley nodded. "So he will. But we can lie low ... or rather, we can lie high, up in the chateau . . ." He frowned with concentration. "He'll send in a patrol. But if they report it's all clear, then he'll come in alone . . . with just the ones who are in on the plan."

"That smiling sonofabitch sergeant, you mean?" Winston growled.

It would be two clear shots if the American was holding the gun. And maybe not just if he was, thought Butler vengefully.

"And the sergeant-major," said Audley. "I suppose there could be others too, but I can't think he's planning to split the loot too many ways."

"Yeah. And the fewer there are in on the deal, the less chance there is of anyone ever realising what he's done, I guess," Winston agreed. He grinned at Butler suddenly. "What d'you think, Jack? You reckon you're good enough with that thing?" He pointed to the Sten on Butler's lap.

Butler drew a sharp breath. It hadn't occurred to him that he would be given the assassin's job, but he realised instantly that it made sense, however unwelcome the task. Whatever the defects of the Sten for the role, its rate of fire made it better than Audley's revolver and the Luger the American had picked up from the road after the ambush. Only experts could hit anything with handguns at more than point-blank range.

All the same he looked at Audley doubtfully. "A Lee-Enfield would be better, sir. Over fifty yards you can't be dead sure with a Sten, sir. We'll just have to let them get right up close, that's all."

Dr. de Courcy smiled suddenly, and bent forward to reach under the bunk. "Then perhaps I can help you there, too. Not with a Lee-Enfield"—with an effort he slid a battered tin box out from beneath him

—"but with something just as good."

The lid of the box carried a large red cross, and the box itself was full of bandages and rags. De Courcy plunged his hand into them and lifted a rifle into view.

"With the compliments of the French Army, Corporal—a Lebel from the '14-'18. It will shoot Englishmen just as accurately as Germans, I think."

Butler reached down towards the rifle, but Audley's hand snaked past his to grasp it first.

"Sir?" Butler looked at him questioningly.

"Mine, I think, Corporal," said the subaltern. "You'll need the Sten to cover the bridge afterwards."

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

Butler frowned. "But, sir—"

"My job, too." Audley sounded almost relieved. "Don't worry, Corporal. Even second lieutenants can fire rifles—they do teach us some useful skills." He turned to the American. "All right with you, Sergeant?"

Winston looked at the subaltern curiously. It wasn't exactly an expression of approval, Butler decided, but it was as close to that sentiment as he had come since he had first climbed into the driving seat of the jeep on the road beside the Loire. "Hell, Lieutenant—I wouldn't dream of cramping your style. If you British got a rule that only officers can shoot officers, that's okay by me. Just so you hold it nice and steady when the time comes . . ." He shrugged, and then grinned. "Maybe we're due for a good break at that, I guess."

The American's good humour reassured Butler's own doubts. If it was suddenly too easy—too good to be true—then perhaps that was only what they deserved after so much bad luck. Not so much the bad luck that had enabled them to get so far against all the odds; that might qualify as good luck. But the bad luck which had taken all three of them away from the safety of the real war, where a man knew what he was supposed to be doing.

He stared at Hauptmann Grafenberg, sitting quiet and withdrawn on the floor in the corner, almost unnoticed. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would travel across France with a German prisoner in his baggage. And yet, when he thought about it, it was only the German who had derived the good luck from their misfortunes: without them he might have been dead by now, or on his way to death. Winston followed his gaze. "Yeah ... So what do we do with him, eh?" He threw the question at Audley.

As he spoke the ambulance slowed suddenly, with a squeak of ancient brakes, and then lurched to a halt.

De Courcy twisted on his bunk and slid back a panel in the partition which divided them from the driver's compartment.

" Qu'est-ce qui se passe, Gaston?" he hissed urgently. The mutter of French was lost to Butler in the sound of a bicycle wheel skidding on gravel and a breathless treble voice, not one word of which he could catch through the narrow gap in the partition.

At length De Courcy turned back to them. "There are German vehicles on the main road ahead of us—

the Civray road. We must wait until they have passed."

"Are we far from the chateau?" asked Audley.

"Very close," De Courcy shook his head. "We cross over here, onto the Marigny road. There is a bridge over the river, two kilometres perhaps, then the turning to the West Lodge is just over the bridge. Do not worry—Jean-Pierre will tell us when the way is clear."

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

"That's . . . the kid that we heard just now?" Winston's nose wrinkled at the idea of depending on a child's judgment. "A kid?"

The doctor regarded him equably. "Jean-Pierre is small for his age, but he would not thank you for the description. This morning he is a Frenchman, Sergeant."

"How old a Frenchman?"

"Eleven years. And before you decide eleven years are too few I should tell you that his younger brother Louis-Marie is watching the main gate of the chateau just up the road."

"Jee-sus!" The American's eyes widened. "Haven't you got any men, Doc? I thought your side was going to take over here after the krauts lit out—you going to use the kindergarten to keep the Commies in line?"

The doctor's expression hardened. "In two weeks from now General de Lattre de Tassign's army will be here, Sergeant—the French army which is landing in southern France at this moment."

Sergeant Winston scratched the end of his nose. "Great. Except so far as we're concerned that's going to be just about two weeks too late, don't you think, Doc?"

Before the Frenchman could react to the jibe, Second Lieutenant Audley intervened. "I can see that children do make good road-watchers, Doctor. In fact, I remember my father and the other chaps in the Home Guard in 1940 planning to use them if the Germans landed . . . but. . . but where are your people?

I mean, not the escape-route people, like old M'sieur Boucard—but the proper Maquis types? If we had a few of them we wouldn't need— this." He lifted the old Lebel rifle.

The hard look on the Frenchman's face creased up like a celluloid mask on the Guy's face writhing in the flames of a November Fifth bonfire. He spread his hands in a gesture of despair—Frenchmen could say more with their hands than some Englishmen could say with their mouths, thought Butler.

But the gesture was lost on Sergeant Winston. "I guess it suits them better if we take the risks, Lieutenant," he murmured.

The hard mask returned instantly. "It does not suit me at all—it suits me very badly," De Courcy snapped. "A week ago we had men in this area, both sabotage teams working with British and American officers, and our own combat units. But since then we have been moving them every night to the southwest, to the German supply routes, to support the invasion of the South. When Boucard's messenger reached me during the night . . ." The hands rose again. "You are not far from the truth, Sergeant. Children and greybeards—they are the best men I have at short notice. Children and greybeards!"

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

"And the Communists?" Audley made the question sound oddly polite.

"They are not . . . amenable to orders. But there were not many of them here—until two days ago." De Courcy looked at Audley candidly. "A week ago we could have prevented the arrival of the larger group.

And when they did arrive ... we thought they were moving in support of our own units—to the south.”

"Huh!" Sergeant Winston crammed a world of bitterness into a small sound. "A week ago you could keep them out—and in two weeks' time you expect the French Army. Looks like they hit the motherlode first time, the only chance they got!"

De Courcy stared at Audley. "I do not think it was luck: they were here before you arrived. I fear they have an agent in your Intelligence operation, David."

Audley closed his eyes. "And I fear—I fear it's worse than that, sir. Or at least more humiliating." He sat back, opening his eyes and staring into space. "Much more humiliating."

"What d'you mean?" Winston turned towards him. "Humiliating for who?"

"For our Intelligence. They've been fooled right down the line— that's my guess."

"What's new about that? Jesus, Lieutenant—half the guys that buy it out here, it's because some clever sonofabitch back in headquarters wasn't clever enough. They got a man in your outfit somewhere and they knew you were coming. Surprise, surprise."

"No, I don't mean that—and I don't think that was quite how it was." Audley shook his head. "I think these French Communists—or whoever's running their show—I think they boxed smarter than that."

"In what way—smarter?"

Audley sat forward. "It's the timing of the thing. It never did seem quite right, even at the beginning." He glanced at Butler. "You remember when Colonel Clinton briefed us in the barn—'speed and surprise, and no truck with the French'?" Butler nodded.

Audley nodded back. "It started to smell then, but I smelt the wrong answer. I thought the French knew where the loot was, and we were simply making sure we got in first to take it."

"Yeah—but they don't know where it is," said Winston.

"Quite right. Or at least they don't know exactly. ... It wouldn't surprise me one bit if they knew it was somewhere in the Pont-Civray chateau—"

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

"Uh-uh." Winston shook his head. "You're forgetting the reception committee in the wood. They didn't know where we were going."

"So they said. But they could just as easily have been there to make sure we got through—to keep the Germans off our backs and to help us on our way. While keeping a discreet eye on us, of course."

Audley paused. "But all that's beside the point . . . which is the whole timing of the Chandos Operation."

Winston frowned at the subaltern. "What's with the timing?"

"It's all wrong, Sergeant. If this loot is so damn well hidden that the Germans didn't find it in four years of occupation, sitting right on top of it, and the French Communists don't know exactly where it is themselves, then what the blue blazes are we doing trying to unearth it now, when so many things could go wrong? We're like the chap who insisted on trying to make love to his host's daughter standing up in a hammock in broad daylight, when all he had to do was to wait until night came and he could crawl into her bed in comfort. We could have waited a fortnight—or a month—or a year, and it would have been perfectly safe. But we had to go and try it now!"

In the moment of silence which followed Audley's bitter complaint Butler heard the swish of bicycle tyres skidding on gravel once more. Jean-Pierre had returned.

Winston shrugged. "So you timed it wrong. But the jails are full of guys who did that—and the morgues."

Audley shook his head. "I don't think we timed it at all, Sergeant. I think the Communists timed it for us

—I think they just simply fed our Intelligence with the false information that they already knew where the loot was, and they were getting all set to pick it up themselves as soon as the Germans had moved out. Then all they had to do was to sit back and wait for us to turn up—"

There came a crunch of footsteps on the road outside, followed by a heavy blow on the rear doors of the ambulance.

"Patron?'

" Attends un moment," commanded De Courcy. "Go on, David."

" Patron!" the voice insisted.

" Je te dis d'attendre!" shouted De Courcy. "Go on."

"That's really all there is to it. Our job may have been to lead them to it, I don't know. But what they're waiting for is for us to find it—to actually find it. All they've done is to make sure we do that at exactly Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

the right moment for them, when they have the muscle to take it off us."

" Patron!" The fist banged on the door again, and this time the urgency in the voice overrode any possibility of refusal.

"Which makes it all the more important that your major dies before he can betray his secret," said De Courcy harshly. "In the meanwhile— Excusez-moi."

He rose from his seat and pushed past them to the doors. " Qu'est-ce que c'est, Gaston—Jean-Pierre—

Louis-Marie, qu'est-ce que tu peux bien faire ici?" He unbarred the door and stepped out of the ambulance, closing the door behind him.

Winston stared for a moment at the closed door. "You don't think maybe you were taking a risk, talking in front of that guy, Lieutenant?"

"Dr. de Courcy?" Audley shook his head. "No, Sergeant. The doctor's a good republican, not a Communist. And besides, if he had switched, then he wouldn't have bothered with us once he knew we couldn't find the loot for him. All we can do is stop anyone else finding it—and he knows that." He shook his head again. "Our problems will start when we've dealt with the major . . . You know what we've got ourselves into?"

"One hell of a mess, Lieutenant—that's for sure."

Audley stared into space. "An understatement. When I think about all the trouble they've been to—the Communists planting false information on us ... our side setting up a special operation at short notice—

with a hand-picked bunch of professional thugs—hand-picked because they had no connection with the French, too ... then I begin to wonder just what it is that we're trying so hard not to find." He switched back to Winston, and then suddenly to Hauptmann Grafenberg. "I owe you an apology, Captain."

The German straightened up in surprise. " Bitte?"

"I should have left you with the Boucards. But I had a plan to use you to get into the chateau. It would have been as dangerous for you as for us"—He shrugged apologetically, almost like a Frenchman—"but it was all I could think of. Fortunately it isn't necessary now."

The young German stared at him blankly. "I am at your service, Herr Leutnant." Then an odd flash of recognition animated his face. "I understand that you have ... a difficult duty to perform. And I understand also that I am in your debt for the risk you took on my behalf."

"Yeah. And I guess you understand also that we've stopped fighting Germans too, huh?" murmured Winston.

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

"Yes." The German gave a quick nod. "That too, I understand."

The American gave a short laugh. "That's right, mein Herr—welcome to World War Three."

Audley sat up sharply. "My God, Sergeant! You're exactly right: World War Three is what it is—the first skirmish of World War Three! What a perfectly bloody prospect!"

Butler felt strangely comforted. General Sir Henry Chesney had been right all along. And he, Corporal Butler, might live to be Second Lieutenant Butler yet if he survived the next few hours.

The ambulance doors swung open.

"Trouble," said Winston instantly.

He was right, thought Butler: trouble was written all over De Courcy's face.

"They are in the chateau." His voice cracked.

"Who?" said Audley.

"Your comrades—your major!"

"But—how can they be?"

De Courcy pointed. "The German vehicles—the ones which have been passing on the road—they were from the chateau. They left four hours ahead of time. Louis-Marie saw the first of your men go in—men in khaki with blackened faces, from the woods opposite the main gate."

Butler looked at Audley.

Everyone was looking at Audley.

"And also . . ." For once words failed Dr. de Courcy.

"Also?" echoed Audley.

"There are strangers on the road, Louis-Marie says. Frenchmen who are not from Civray."

"Surprise, surprise," said Winston.

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

Audley looked at him. 'We should have reckoned on the Germans doing that, Sergeant," he said mildly.

"It was the obvious thing to do, when you think about it."

"It was? So now what's the obvious thing for us to do, Lieutenant?"

The obvious thing was to run away as fast and as far as possible, thought Butler. But that was the one thing they couldn't do, nevertheless: they had a date with World War Three which couldn't be broken.

"The obvious thing"—Audley blinked—"is to blacken our faces and harden our hearts—and go and see what's happening."

22. How they passed the gate of Chateau Pont-Civray

Butler jabbed the barrel of the Sten into Hauptmann Grafenberg's back, propelling him forward into the open.

Forty yards.

" Hände hoch, Fritz," he ordered loudly, pitching his voice toward the gates. "Keep 'em up high, you bugger—that's it!"

One thing was for sure, he thought: the Anglo-Franco-American assault on the West Gate of Chateau Pont-Civray was in the best Chandos Force tradition.

It was bold as brass, ruthless, deceitful, and treacherous.

Thirty yards.

Another thing was for sure, too: if the man on the gate was one of the major's gang, then the moment he recognised the features of the dead Corporal Butler beneath their disguise of burnt cork then the dead Corporal Butler would be dead. Sergeant Winston, snugged down in the undergrowth behind him with the Lebel, might avenge him. But at fifty yards' range he could hardly be expected to read the enemy's mind quickly enough to save him.

Funny to think so easily now of another British soldier as the enemy.

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

Twenty yards.

The man was gaping at them now—he could see the blacker hole of the open mouth in the soldier's blackened face.

But would realisation follow surprise at the sight of the strange group which was approaching him—the German officer at British gunpoint, and behind them Audley bent almost double under the weight of Dr.

de Courcy's body?

He heard Audley grunt realistically behind him. The little Frenchman was a featherweight to the big subaltern, but Audley was much more concerned to keep his comical black-and-white minstrel face to the ground; it was odd that Audley still looked so very much like himself despite the burnt cork and the removal of his pips.

Ten yards.

The man's mouth was still open, and the machine pistol was still held across his body.

Bold as brass, Audley had said. If he's not in on it he'll think twice hefore shooting you if you've got a prisoner—and I'm carrying a wounded man!

They were up to the gateway.

Big iron gates, old and rusty and heavily wired.

Smaller iron gate, with a heavy iron chain and padlock But the padlock was oiled—

Bold as brass! Everything depended on him now—

Brigadier MacDonald, who by valour and conduct—

"Up against the gates, Fritz—move."

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

Hauptmann Grafenberg moved obediently up to the gates, facing the soldier on the other side. The soldier's mouth closed, and his eyes flicked uncertainly from Butler to the German, then back again to Butler. At least he wasn't an NCO, thought Butler gratefully; the blackened features were unrecognisable, and he could only pray that his own were equally so.

But he mustn't think of that—and above all he mustn't give the man himself time to think of it either.

But I'm no play-actor, sir.

Then don't play-act, Corporal. Just do what you'd do and say what you'd say if you had to get a prisoner to the major.

"Don't just stand there, for Christ's sake!" he snarled. "Open the bloody gate!"

The man licked his lips. "But, Corporal—"

"Don't you bloody argue with me." Butler bit off the protest furiously. "If you don't get this gate open double quick the major'll have your guts for garters—and when he's finished with them I'll use them for bootlaces, by God!" He counted a three-second pause. "Don't argue— move!”

The machine pistol moved, not the man, and Butler's own guts turned to mush.

"But, Corporal—it's locked." The soldier pointed the gun at the lock.

Butler was taken flat aback for a moment. Then common sense reasserted itself. The man was an idiot, but that was no reason why he should be an idiot too. He had guarded gates not unlike this in his time, and had been Corporal of the Guard on them too. There was an ugly little concrete pillbox just to the right of them: that had to be the guardhouse, and guardhouses the world over must be the same, British, German, or Chinese.

He nodded towards the pillbox. "Don't talk daft—get the bloody key out of there," he snapped.

The soldier looked from Butler to the pillbox, then back at the padlock, then back to Butler again. An idiot indeed, thought Butler; and it was surprising, almost disappointing, that Chandos Force had such boneheads in its ranks. But then perhaps he had a natural-born skill in weapons training which had endeared him to the major originally, and his deficiency in general intelligence and curiosity would now commend itself to the major for the simple job of covering the flank of the theft against intruders, with no questions asked.

But that didn't matter now, except insofar as it was a bonus for the intruders. Or intruders prepared to cloak subtlety with the bluster of an angry corporal, anyway—

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

"Don't just fucking stand there"—Butler glowered through the gate— "get moving, man!"

The soldier's reflexes took over, in obedience to confident authority. "Right, Corporal."

Butler watched him disappear into the pillbox, his brief sense of triumph quickly overlayed by doubt. In the first place, depending on what sort of routine the Germans had for checking the outer wire here, there might not be a key in there at all. And in the second place even an idiot might have second thoughts once he was out of range of the strange corporal's blistering tongue—or he might even have time to remember more precise orders which the major might have given him about admitting strangers.

The same disquieting thoughts had evidently passed through Audley's head. "Watch him when he comes out, for God's sake," he hissed urgently out of the corner of his mouth, shuffling up to Butler's shoulder.

If he comes out, thought Butler, adjusting the angle of the Sten to the observation slit in the pillbox.

From the moment the snout of the man's machine pistol showed in that gap he'd have maybe a tenth of a second if he was lucky. And no time at all if he wasn't.

"Let me go—" Audley cut off the sentence abruptly at the first glimpse of movement in the entrance to the pillbox.

Butler felt his chest swell with indrawn breath; then he saw the soldier hold up a loop of wire, jingling the key and grinning foolishly as he did so.

"Got it, Corporal," he called out happily.

"I can see that," snapped Butler ungraciously. "Get stuck into it, then—I can't stand here all bloody day."

As the man fumbled awkwardly, one-handed, to insert the key info the lock, Audley moved up to the small gate.

Let me go first— the movement answered the question which had been boiling up inside Butler. So Audley had plans for what he was going to do once he was inside, and it was his plain duty to attract the guard's attention to give those plans their best chance.

The chain rattled loose, freed from the padlock.

"Watch it, Fritz!" Butler barked warningly to Hauptmann Grafenberg.

The German hadn't in fact moved a muscle since reaching his assigned position: he had done his job simply by being there and being so obviously the genuine article. But now he stiffened automatically at Butler's meaningless command, taking the soldier's attention from the smaller gate at precisely the Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

moment when Audley shuffled forwards towards it.

"Keep those arms up—high!" Butler reinforced the warning as Audley turned his unencumbered shoulder to push open the gate, an action which also very sensibly turned his face away from the man on the other side.

"Right, Fritz— jildi, you bugger," Butler addressed the German again just as Audley went through the gate. He didn't know what jildi meant, but it was his old CSM's standard word for rousing sluggards to their duty and it came to his tongue naturally.

Hauptmann Grafenberg didn't understand it either, but he swayed uncertainly at the sound of it, and the movement was just enough to distract the soldier's eye from Audley as the subaltern began to lower Dr.

de Courcy's body to the ground two yards inside the gate and slightly behind him. Given the choice of watching either a comrade with a wounded civilian or a German prisoner he was instinctively drawn to the known enemy.

"Here, you!" said Audley.

"What—?"

The soldier had no time for a second word before Audley leapt at him. Butler had a blurred impression of the subaltern's large fist coming up from ground level and overtaking his body to connect with the man's jaw with his full weight behind it: it was as though Audley had packed into one blow every ounce of the accumulated anger and frustration he felt at being cannon fodder.

The soldier's legs shot from under him and his body cannoned off the fist into the gates with a force that shook them and made Butler himself wince. The padlock and the machine pistol flew off in different directions, clattering against the wrought ironwork; the man himself bounced off the gates to receive Audley's other fist in the guts.

Butler levelled the Sten through the bars at the two men as they rolled on the ground, but he knew it was no longer necessary: not even Joe Louis could have taken a punch like that and still come up fighting.

The struggle ended before it started, with Audley astride a body which had obviously been unconscious even before he had grappled with it, but which he still hammered at unmercifully.

"Stop it, for Christ's sake—he's finished, can't you see!" Butler cried out. "Stop it!"

Audley checked his raised fist, and sat motionless for a moment as the dust settled around him, his chest and shoulders heaving. "Let him be, sir," said Butler.

Audley lowered his fist slowly—there was blood on it, and he stared at the blood uncomprehendingly.

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

Butler could hear footsteps behind him. Beyond the gates Dr. de Courcy was on his knees, staring at Audley. Then he got up and put his hand on the subaltern's shoulder.

"That was one hell of a Sunday punch," said Winston. "Better him than me!"

Audley stood up quickly. He shook his head, and then stared around him. "Yes," he said huskily to no one in particular.

"We got to get moving, Lieutenant," said Winston.

"Yes—right—" Audley started to wipe his face with his bloodstained hand, and then stopped abruptly.

He looked at Butler, then at Winston. "Get... his gun, Sergeant. Take off his battle-dress blouse and put it on"—he pointed down at the body without looking at it—"and give the rifle to Dr. de Courcy . . . don't bother about the trousers, no one'll notice—and they're all wearing different bits of uniform, anyway."

His cheek twitched nervously under its minstrel disguise, but Butler no longer felt like laughing at him.

"The blouse'll be enough—and the beret."

Winston bent over the body and Audley stared across him to Hauptmann Grafenberg.

"This is as far as you go, Captain. We're quits now—one all. I give you back your parole." He blinked furiously. "You can wait for us to come back if you like—or you can take your chance from here.

Just. . . thanks for helping us, anyway."

Grafenberg frowned. "But I have not done anything."

Audley shook his head. "From where I'm standing you've done quite a lot."

"Then perhaps I can do more." The German gave a tiny shrug.

"Yeah. And perhaps you can get yourself killed." Winston didn't even bother to look up.

"Perhaps." Grafenberg didn't bother to look down.

Audley swallowed. "It really isn't your war, you know, Captain."

"Huh!" Winston rolled the unconscious body over. "You can say that again for me."

Grafenberg moved sideways until he stood in the open gateway. "True. But then I do not have a war any more."

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

"Then you ought to quit while you're ahead." Winston peeled off the blouse.

"And since you have given back to me my parole—my word of honour—then I am at liberty to volunteer, I think?" Grafenberg ignored the American. "And also . . . with me you may do again what you have done here—I think that also."

Winston stood up between them, ripping open his own combat jacket as he did so. "And I think you're right—and I also think you're nuts." He nodded to Butler as he stripped off the jacket "Give us the gun then, Jack. And the—whatever it is—"

Butler handed him the machine pistol and the greasy beret.

"Okay"—Winston adjusted the beret with a savage tug—"okay, Lieutenant. Let's go, then."

"Wait—" Audley began desperately, still staring at the German.

"Wait hell!" Winston pointed the machine pistol at the German. "He wants to get himself killed, that's his business. One war's as good as another, so he gets what he wants it makes no difference one way or the other. Just so we get it over quickly, that's all. Let's go, Captain!"

23. How Chandos Force fought its last fight

They heard the sound of the sledge hammer before the chateau came into view through the trees. BANG-tap.

BANG-tap— the diminished echo followed each blow. BANG-tap.

"Over there!" Dr. de Courcy pointed to the left just as Butler caught sight of the familiar creamy stone and blue-black slate pinnacles ahead between the trees.

"But that's on the other side of the river—not in the chateau." Audley's words came a fraction of a second before Butler identified the angle of difference between the sight of the chateau and the sound of the hammer.

They plunged through the screen of undergrowth separating the track from the river, suddenly heedless of the discipline which had marched them from the gate.

"Down, for God's sake!" Audley's command caught Butler just in time as the undergrowth thinned at the river's edge. He caught sight of the dark olive-green water, and a high stone-walled bank opposite which Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

surprised him as he direw himself flat: somehow he had expected the broad sandy channel of the Loire, but here the river—whatever river it was—had been caught between man-made banks.

BANG-tap.

"The tower?" Audley threw himself down beside him.

"The bridge," hissed Winston on his other side. "The goddamn bridge!"

BANG-tap.

The words and the sound both drew Butler's eye upstream, to a graceful, two-arched bridge. On the far bank it was dominated by a great round tower which was connected to it by a wall of stone filling the gap between the drop of the bank and the abutment from which the first arch rose—

BANG-tap.

There were three British soldiers standing at the foot of the wall—

BANG-tap.

—and one of them was attacking the wall with a sledge hammer.

It was Sergeant Purvis.

"What the hell . . . ?" The American left the rest of the question unasked.

"The fourth arch," said Dr. de Courcy from behind them.

"What d'you mean—the fourth arch?" Audley turned back to him.

"There used to be four arches"—De Courcy pointed—"two large ones, which you can see . . . and a small arch on each side. The smaller arches were—how do you say?—flood arches for when the river is high, between February and March every year, and sometimes in the late spring."

BANG-tap. The heavy sledge hammer rebounded off the wall again. Sergeant Purvis stepped back from the wall, spat on each palm in turn like a navvy, and wiped his brow with his arm.

Audley stared at the bridge. "You mean—they've filled in the little arch, someone has?"

Butler looked at the doctor suddenly. "Didn't you say they repaired the bridge in 1940, sir—when they Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

were working on the chateau?"

"Christ! Of course they did!" Audley hammered the ground with his fist. “That's what they must have been doing—shoring up the little arch with a wall on each side, probably to strengthen the abutments.

The way the river curves, that's the side that must take the full force of the floods—" he stopped suddenly.

"So what?" said Winston.

Audley looked at him. "So—there's a space under the bridge between the two walls, man! And no one's ever going to knock down those walls just for fun—they're possibly what's supposed to be holding the bridge up. Nobody knocks down repair work—"

BANG-tap-BANG-tap.

"Nobody . . ." Winston twisted towards the bridge again. "Jee-sus, Lieutenant—you're damn right—"

Now Butler knew what to look for he could see the line of the original arch in the wall, and once he could see it the newer stonework which filled it became obvious, for all that it had been carefully matched with the older work.

"Give me the rifle, Doc," growled Winston. "I can hit that bastard from here easy—no trouble at all."

But as he reached for the rifle Audley caught his arm. "That won't do any good. We hit one of them and there are still plenty more."

Winston looked quickly at the group beside the wall, then back to Audley. "I can maybe get two before they get under cover—"

"No. That isn't the major there with them—or the sergeant-major either." Audley shook his head.

"Then we can wait for them to show up. Because if that's where the stuff's cached, the second that sonofabitch gets through the wall then they're gonna show, Lieutenant. You can bet on that."

"And then it'll be too bloody late." Audley began to crawl backwards. "Apart from which I doubt you can wing more than one at this range—with that old rifle. And then they'll flush us out of here in no time flat. They've got LMGs and mortars and bazookas, and they know how to use the damn things too. . . .

Come on, let's get moving."

Winston crawled after the subaltern, protesting. "Jee-sus, Lieutenant —if it'll be too late then it's already too late now, for God's sake! There's no way we're gonna stop them—no way."

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

Once he had reached the safety of the path Audley stood up.

"Very well—there's no way." He lifted his chin obstinately. "So we change the plan, Sergeant, that's all.

Come on—and that's an order."

"Like hell it is!" Winston faced him.

"Sergeant"—Butler touched the American's arm lightly—"there isn't time to argue."

"Yeah. But time to get killed." Winston shrugged off the touch. "You got another plan, Lieutenant—just like that?"

"No, Sergeant—not just like that. I've got the other plan we always had. The Army's solution to all problems. The one thing we're both real experts in." Audley's voice was suddenly weary. "It's just a damn shame someone didn't remember the rules back here in 1940, that's all." He paused. "Instead of trying to be clever."

"What rules?"

"What rules?" Audley laughed shrilly, as though on the edge of hysteria. "God Almighty, Sergeant—

back in '40 we destroyed a whole army's equipment rather than let the Germans get it! ' Equipment and stores likely to fall into enemy hands must be denied them by demolition.'" He stabbed a finger in the direction of the bridge. "There's a muddy river out there, and a sledge hammer—and you've got a lighter in your pocket. . . . And, by God, there's precious little in this dirty, stinking world that can't be drowned or smashed or burnt so that it's no use to anyone." Audley's finger balled into his fist and the fist hammered his own chest "You want to know how I am, Sergeant? I'm the Open Scholar of Queen's who knocked down the medieval church at Tilly-le-Bocage with half a dozen well-placed shots! When it comes to destroying things, I'm a professional—and we are going to destroy what's under that bridge, believe me." He looked quickly at Butler. "Right, Corporal Butler?"

"Right, sir," said Butler.

They hit their second Chandos Force soldier at the edge of the wood, with the chateau plain to see.

And hit was again the operative word.

"Wot the 'ell's this, then?"

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

Butler swung his back to the man instantly, thanking God for the rival attraction of Hauptmann Grafenberg, who had the stupid bugger staring pop-eyed: it was the bandit with the Uncle Joe Stalin moustache who had stood right next to him in the barn.

"Where's t' major?" The best chance of safety lay in the Lancashire accent he had been trying to lose for two years and more. "Happen we've got summut for 'im, eh?"

"Back at the gate, sorting out the frogs—" The bandit cut off the automatic answer. "But 'oo the 'ell—

ooof!"

The question was cut off abruptly and finally by the barrel of Sergeant Winston's machine pistol swung viciously on the back of the man's neck.

There was a garden—or it had once been a garden, but now the trim little hedges and the espalier fruit trees had run riot, and the flower beds were choked with weeds.

"Frogs at the gate," said Audley. "Could be that the major's having trouble with your friends, Doctor—

could it?"

"Not my friends, David," said De Courcy.

Overgrown garden giving place to gravel square at the side of the chateau—

Broken boxes and the remains of a giant bonfire, the fitful wind stirring thousands of charred fragments of paper, black against the pale brown of the gravel.

They have been burning their files—

More debris: all the wreck of a hurriedly abandoned military outpost and the litter of defeat—

And just ahead a broader stretch of gravel, with the welcoming parapet of the bridge to the left—

"Smartly now," snapped Audley. "March as though you own the place."

”What the devil!"

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

An officer's voice. Butler tried desperately to catch Audley's eye, but the subaltern was out of view behind his left shoulder, leaving him closest to the voice.

He turned towards the chateau.

It was one of the officers who had joined them in the barn—or it must be, though again he couldn't recognise the blackened face.

"Prisoner, sir. Caught 'im by t' gate in t'wood back there," Butler jerked his head in the direction from which they'd come.

"A prisoner?" The officer took three more steps toward Butler, frowning at him. "What d'you mean?

And who the devil—"

"Herr Oberleutnant!" Hauptmann Grafenberg interrupted him sharply. "I must protest in the strongest possible terms at my treatment! My rights under the Geneva Convention have been flagrantly violated

—"

"What—?" The officer swung towards him.

It was then that Butler understood, in the last hundredth of a second before he hit the officer, exactly why Second Lieutenant Audley had put so much force into that punch of his.

Striking a private soldier in the British Army—and striking him unawares too—must have been on about the same level of impossibility for Second Lieutenant Audley as what he was about to do was for him.

And that added the force of absolute desperation to the action: when a corporal hit a captain there was no possible room for half-measure.

And he knew also why Audley had said Here, you too—

"Sir—" he said sharply.

The officer turned to receive his fist.

As they marched onto the bridge he was most strangely aware of the different pieces of him that objected to what was happening to them. He could feel his toes itch— His ear ached with a dull pulse of pain— And now his skinned knuckles burned.

Everything was unnaturally sharp and clear in the sunlight: the weathered parapet of the bridge, the gravel under his feet, the great windowless tower rising up into the blue sky.

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

And now there was a gap between the end of the parapet and the curve of the tower—a gap in which he could see the beginning of a stone stair spreading to the left and right beneath them. And away beyond it the river rippling and flashing, olive-green and silver.

Audley went through the gap without missing a step.

Journey's end, thought Butler stupidly.

But not in lovers meeting.

"That'll do very nicely, Sergeant Purvis," said Audley, holding out his revolver stiffly, two-handed.

"You can put it down now—just let it go—and back up, both of you."

"Or don't let it go—I'd like that," supplemented Sergeant Winston. "Then I can shoot you with a clear conscience, you sonofabitch."

Purvis looked at them for a second without recognition. As he had turned towards them, before Audley had spoken, Butler had caught the ghost of that familiar smile which he'd last seen at the road junction to Sermigny. But now the ghost was gone, and almost as quickly the uncomprehending look became one of frozen surprise at being faced by other ghosts: the dead of Sermigny risen from their graves.

The sledge hammer dropped with a clatter among the jumble of stones and the scatter of mortar fragments which lay on the pavement around the sergeant's feet. In the few minutes since they'd last glimpsed him he had completed his job: clear from waist height to the curve of the original arch there was a gaping hole in the stonework, and Butler realised that he hadn't heard that regular bang-tap on the hammer striking solid masonry since they had met up with the guard on the edge of the wood.

"And who might you be, then?" inquired Audley of the soldier beside Sergeant Purvis.

"Me?" The soldier looked around desperately.

"Me—sir," snapped Audley.

"Sir?" The little man did a double take on Audley, saw no badges of rank, but surrendered to the voice of authority. "Yes, sir—Driver Hewett, sir ... Colonel Clinton's driver that was, sir—I mean, Colonel Clinton that was, sir."

"Ah yes—the walking map!" Audley relaxed slightly. "And what happened to the colonel, then—he walked off the map, did he?"

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

"The map, sir?" Driver Hewett's face screwed up in misery. "I dunno about that, sir. But a sniper got the colonel last evening, that's what. Walking with the major, 'e was"—he looked nervously at Sergeant Purvis—"so they say, that is—sir."

"I'll bet," murmured Winston. "So you just showed the major where you'd stashed the loot, huh?"

The American accent threw Driver Hewett momentarily. "Yes, sir. Those were my orders—from the colonel himself. 'If anything happens to me, 'e says . . .'" he licked his lips. "But I didn't. . . stash the loot, like you say, sir—" his eyes widened suddenly as he caught sight of Hauptmann Grafenberg and Dr. de Courcy. "Christ!"

"What the hell did you do, then?" The American lifted the machine pistol threateningly. "You led that bastard here, for a start, huh?"

Years of gangster films had clearly left their mark on Driver Hewett. He pointed to the hole. "I—I only finished the wall, sir. The officers unloaded the ambulance all by themselves. Wouldn't let me touch a thing—not even watch them at it, they wouldn't—same as when they'd loaded it. The brigadier in 'is red tabs, an' all."

"What brigadier? What officers?" Audley stared at the hole.

"Dunno their names, sir—except Captain Spicer wot brought me up from the 'ospital to the place in Paris. Just officers—except they weren't real officers, of course—" Hewett gave Audley a meaningful look, half confiding and half doubting that Audley himself qualified for the courtesy.

"What d'you mean—not real officers?"

"Well. . . doctors, of course—like Captain Spicer. I mean, 'e was an officer, but 'e didn't know one end of a gun from the other. 'E was a doctor—RAMC—'Rob All My Comrades.' Not real officers."

"Oh my God!" whispered Audley.

"Doctors?" said Sergeant Winston. " Doctors?"

Audley looked at him. "It was an ambulance, Sergeant. That's what doctors use—ambulances. Give me your cigarette lighter—and keep an eye on that man." He pointed at Sergeant Purvis.

Butler watched him climb into the hole, to drop with a crunch into the darkness. The lighter flared, went out, then flared again.

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

"I only built the wall, sir," said Driver Hewett plaintively. "It was half built when we got here—the builders had all scarpered. 'Fact, everyone had scarpered—cleared orf. It was a wonder we got away, come to that . . . after the bleeding ambulance packed up. Got out of Bordeaux we did, the last boat.

Took us ten days to get there . . . But I only built the wall, that's all I did."

"And a very good wall too," Dr. de Courcy spoke soothingly from just beside Butler. "A most professional wall."

"Well, it ought to be," said Hewett, becoming talkative with fright "Bricklayer I was, before I joined up in '38. An' it was all 'ere ready— the sand and the cement, and the stone too, ready dressed. T'other wall was up and they'd part done this 'un—up beyond drainage channels." He pointed to the small gratings at the foot of the wall. "It weren't but a two or three hour job, really."

"But still a good wall," said De Courcy encouragingly. "And the . . . the place in Paris—where was that?"

"Bloody 'ell, I dunno, mister. Captain Spicer, 'e knew where to go . . . turn left, turn right—an' when we get there, 'Stay in the cab, Hewett, ready to drive off quick' 'e says. Which wasn't surprising seeing as

'ow the jerries were already in Paris when we drove out—I know that for a fact, because the brigadier said so to Captain Spicer, an' everyone else 'ad already scarpered except 'im and me—we'd been ordered to stay be'ind. An' I didn't reckon we'd 'ave got out neither, except the captain 'e knew Paris like the back of 'is 'and, 'aving studied there before the war an' spoke the lingo." He shook his head. "But where it was

—there you've got me."

"But you remembered what it was like," De Courcy persisted.

Hewett shrugged. "Well ... it wasn't a hospital—leastways there weren't no patients I seen . . . though there was a young chap in a white coat went by. . . . But it was a big place, with a brass plate on the front, an' double doors. You drive through into a courtyard—I 'ad to back up against another pair of doors—that's when the captain tells me to stay in the cab an' mind my own business." He thought for a moment, his wrinkled monkey face screwed up with the effort. "I remember as we drove out there was this little bit of a park right opposite, with a green statue looking at you."

"A green statue?"

"Well, not green exactly—sort of greeny-blue, an' streaky like someone 'ad tipped a tin of paint over it.

Yes—an' I remember thinking it looked funny too because 'e was holding 'is 'and up and reading from a book—the statue—but 'e wasn't a parson because 'e 'ad a French army hat on, like their officers wear, an'

medals on 'is chest."

De Courcy stiffened, and Butler heard him draw in his breath.

" Zeller," whispered the Doctor.

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

"Who, sir?" asked Butler.

"Zeller," said the doctor aloud, staring right through Butler. "Henri Auguste Zeller. The Saviour of Hanoi."

There was an expression on his face that suddenly frightened Butler. "A general, sir?"

De Courcy focussed on him. "A general? Yes—a general." He glanced at Driver Hewett. "But not a real general."

"Then what—" the words were dried up in Butler's mouth by the wild thoughts which were beginning to come together in his mind.

De Courcy's eyes turned back to him. "It was the Zeller Institute, Corporal," he said. "That's where they went—L'Institut Zeller."

There came a sharp, crunching sound from the hole in the wall. "That's right, sir," said Audley.

"L'Institut Zeller, rue des Cannes—and let's get to hell out of here on the double!" He began to scramble out through the hole.

De Courcy pushed past Butler and seized the subaltern's arm. "David—in God's name—what is in there?"

Audley faced him. 'What do they do in the Institut Zeller, Doctor— you tell me!" He paused. "Medical research, eh?"

De Courcy clenched his teeth. "It is one of the main centres in France for microparasitical studies, David

—"

"Micro—what the hell is that?" snapped Sergeant Winston.

"Germs," said Audley shortly. "Germs, Sergeant."

"Bacteriology and virology," said De Courcy. "Yellow fever and cholera—I know they were working on influenza vaccines and—and la poliomyelite. It was Zeller himself who pioneered the treatment of plague in Hanoi—he was a pupil of Pasteur—David, what is in there?"

"Plague!" Audley's lip twisted. "Chandos Force, by God! Someone's got a very pretty sense of humour, I'll say that for them—let's get out of here, then. Come on!"

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

Butler looked uncertainly from Audley to the American, who was still watching Sergeant Purvis like a hawk.

"Tell the man, Lieutenant—and tell me too, for Christ's sake," growled Winston out of the corner of his mouth.

"In there?" Audley pointed into the hole, his voice rising. "In there? You really want to know what's in there—you really want to know?" His voice cracked insanely.

Butler heard the sound behind him a thousand years too late.

"Right then—don't let me hear one of you breathe!"

A thousand years too late. And if he lived another thousand years he would never forget that voice.

Butler held his breath as Audley stared past him.

"That's good. Now—put down your weapons slowly."

The subaltern's chin lifted in that characteristically obstinate movement Butler knew so well. "Nobody moves," he said hoarsely. "Nobody moves."

The Sten was sweaty in Butler's hands and his back crawled.

There was a scrape of boots behind him.

"Well, bless my soul!"

The other voice—the voice which had frozen him once before, under the bank of that sandy island by the Loire.

Kill him with the others!

"Bless my soul!" repeated Major O'Conor. "Now ... let that be a lesson to you, Sergeant-major—"

How could they have been so careless, thought Butler brokenly: to stand here gabbing as though they had all the time in the world, so wrapped up in the hole and its contents that they hadn't even bothered to set someone on watch—how could they have been so careless?

"—Never underrate a friend when you ask him for a favour!"

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

"Sir?" The same neutral sound he had first heard by the stream in the bocage of Normandy.

Oh God, how could they have been so careless?

Butler's finger tightened on the trigger.

"Yes ... I asked Chris Sykes for a good man, and he gave me one, don't you see?" The major's tone was curiously sad. "And a German prisoner into the bargain too. You've done well, young Audley—I'll say that for you. And it took some doing, I shouldn't wonder, eh?"

Butler stared at Audley's blackened face and felt the subaltern's will weaken.

"Sir—" his own voice came from far away.

"It's all right." Audley swallowed painfully. "We still outnumber you, sir," he addressed the major.

"Tck! Tck! Don't be silly, boy." The major injected a world of regret into the words. "Your men are facing the wrong direction, and you've no idea how competent Sergeant-major Swayne is at close quarters—eh, Sergeant-major?"

"Sir!" The sergeant-major agreed.

"But you'll still lose, sir," said Audley.

For a moment Major O'Conor didn't reply, and Butler had a vision of that dead eye staring fishlike at Audley beside him. Then the real world came into focus: the broad back of the American just ahead of him to his left, and beyond that Sergeant Purvis and Driver Hewett frozen like waxwork figures on the very edge of the pavement with the river behind them.

Somewhere behind him and to the left were the Frenchman and the German, but they didn't come into it.

Because before he could swing halfway through the full circle the sergeant-major would cut him down, and the American—aye, and probably Purvis and Hewett too, which was a fear already stamped on their faces. And if Second lieutenant Audley thought that would slow the sergeant-major down he was backing a bloody loser, he decided bitterly.

"Because of your French friends beyond the gate, do you mean?" the major said. "You've never seen my lads in action, young man—they'll go through that rabble like a dose of salts, believe me. If you're relying on them then I'm afraid you're going to be awfully disappointed."

Judging by the performance of the Communist partisans in the ambush it would be the major who was disappointed, thought Butler. But that would be too late for them. If they moved they were dead and if Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

they surrendered they were dead, he had no doubt about that: the major had gone too far to leave any of them alive behind him. The only surprising thing was that they were still alive.

Audley shook his head. "I don't mean that, sir"—he pointed to the hole in the wall—"I mean that," he said thickly.

Again there was a slight pause.

"The payroll, you mean?" There was something different in the major's voice: it was hard to interpret the nuances of meaning in a man's voice when one couldn't see his face.

The payroll—?

"The what?" Audley's mouth opened.

"You haven't had time to look, then?" The major chuckled, and Butler knew what he had missed: the smile of triumph—the winner's smirk.

"But then of course the late lamented Colonel Clinton was rather security-conscious, I must admit—

strictly classified to field rank and above, his little secret." Major O'Conor savoured the thought like a sugarplum. "But don't tell me you weren't curious, young Audley— didn't you lie awake wondering about it? Of course you did, eh!"

"The payroll?" Audley still gaped at him.

"The sinews of war, my dear boy—and of peace too, by God! The last big payroll of the old British Expeditionary Force, no less . . . and as poor Clinton really doesn't need it any more, the sergeant-major and I—and the good Purvis there—we are going to draw it in lieu of back pay and allowances and demobilisation gratuities. Five years' devoted service in conditions of extreme discomfort and danger—

you can look on it as payment in full for a job well done, or you can look at it as a winner-takes-all lottery." The major's tone sharpened. "Last time I was a loser. This time I'm a winner, that's the sum of it, boy."

"No—" Audley began. "No—"

" Yes. What did you think it was, eh? Objets d'art of some sort? Or a secret weapon? I'm sorry, my boy . . . just filthy lucre, that's all. Not worth missing Cambridge for—and certainly not worth dying for.

So do be a sensible young fellow and tell your heroes to put down their weapons quietly. We don't want any shooting—once it starts it's apt to become infectious—"

That was why, Butler realised suddenly: gunfire from within the chateau might spark off the confrontation at the main gate! The major's kindly concern for their survival was as false as his glass eye.

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

"—but if the sergeant-major has to shoot, believe me young Audley— he will shoot." The threat at the last was as naked as a Windmill girl. "And that will be just ten seconds from now, I'm sorry to say."

"Lieutenant—" Winston tensed up. "Lieutenant—"

"No, wait!" Audley's voice cracked with strain. "He lied to you, Major—Colonel Clinton lied to you"—

he pointed into the hole wildly— "there's no money in there. There never was any money in there—"

"What?"

"He lied to you—it was just a cover story—as Bullsblood was a cover for Chandos." Audley's face twitched uncontrollably at the name. "Chandos!" he repeated bitterly.

"Hold it, Sergeant-major," snapped O'Conor. "What d'you mean, boy—a cover? What d'you mean?"

Audley blinked. "It wasn't—money, sir. There's no money."

"You're lying, damn you—he told me . . ." The major's voice trailed off. "He told me . . ." He choked on the words "He told me. . . ."

It was no longer the voice of triumph: it was an old man with ashes in his mouth. Ashes which dried up his words.

"How do you know it isn't money, sir?" The sergeant-major's bark cut through the silence.

Audley's glance shifted. "Because I've been in there, Sergeant-major. And I've seen what's in there."

The unasked question hung in the sunlight. Butler was aware suddenly that Audley was staring past him at a different angle, and staring with a peculiar intensity.

"You want to know what's in there, Sergeant-major? You really want to know?" said Audley. "You want me to tell you?"

That was odd, thought Butler: the meaningless repetition of the question, as though Audley had any possible doubt—

And then, just as suddenly, Butler knew exactly where the sergeant-major stood on the steps behind him . . . behind, slightly to the right—slightly to the right, above—

"You really want me to tell you, Sergeant-major?" said Audley again. He was fighting to take the Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

sergeant-major's attention, Butler knew. Or at least to take enough of it to give him that tiny fraction of a second's purchase for what had to be done.

Don't you ever point that gun at me again—unless you intend to shoot me with it!

"Well, I'll tell you, Sergeant-major—" Not yet.

Because whatever Audley was going to say he must have judged that it would be enough to give Corporal Butler at least a chance.

And at the moment he had no chance.

"I hope you've got a sense of humour, Sergeant-major. Because you're going to need one—"

Butler knew he was right now: whatever it was coming, it was designed to hurt.

"He was right—money's not worth dying for. Not worth risking men's lives for either, with all the millions they've spent. It always had to be nastier than that—"

Dad had been a sergeant-major: that was a funny thing to think of at a time like this. Sergeant-major Butler!

"Not worth dying at all now, really. We've won the war—"

He would never be a sergeant-major. He would be an officer—or a dead corporal.

"But that's this war. We haven't won the next war yet, Sergeant-major. So that's still worth dying for—

the Third World War—"

The sergeant-major and the major . . . rather like Sergeant-major Butler and Colonel Chesney—General Chesney. The only two people in the world he loved.

Except now there was maybe a third—He hadn't thought of Madeleine Boucard for three whole hours—

Third?

Third World War?

"That's right, Sergeant-major: the Third World War. Do you know we even guessed at it before we got here? What we didn't realise is that they'll have new weapons for the next war—King Tigers'll be as out of date as longbows next time—"

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

Now?

But he couldn't move. He wanted to know what Audley was going to say next.

"And longbows are rather appropriate—you know that? Longbows are what Sir John Chandos had back in the 1350s. Killed a lot of Frenchmen with them, by golly—Agincourt, Poitiers—and Spaniards at Najera too. But he wasn't the top killer of the time, Sergeant-major—he was a real pro, but he wasn't in the same class as the Black Death, Sergeant-major—"

Plague.

Audley pointed into the hole. "The boxes in there have INSTITUT ZELLER stamped on them. And Institut Zeller is where they came from. And I don't know what the Zeller Institute was playing with in 1940, but I can make a damn good guess, Sergeant-major—"

Butler stared into the hole in horror. War was one thing, but disease . . . loathsome and invisible, was a nightmare from the pit—

"—because we've been playing with it too, Sergeant-major. A friend of mine in the Sappers had to wire off the beaches on a Scottish island, Sergeant-major—he said an experiment there had gone wrong. So nothing can live there for a hundred years now. It had sheep on it, but they were all dead—dead and rotting, dozens of them. The Sappers weren't allowed near them. They weren't even allowed off the beach."

Butler's flesh crawled. Dead and rotting—

"Plague?" croaked the major. " Plague."

"Maybe not plague. It could be a dozen things. They were working on polio at the Institute—there's no cure for polio. If they found a virulent strain and a vaccine of some sort. . . polio or flu or plague ... an army that was vaccinated wouldn't need to fight if they had a weapon like that to clear the way ahead of them, by Christ!"

The hole yawned in Butler's imagination, straining to swallow him into its darkness. He wanted only to run away.

"No wonder they didn't want the Germans to get it in '40—the Zeller research files. And no wonder the Communists wanted it so badly." Audley paused. "And no wonder Colonel Clinton didn't tell you what we were really after—no wonder he lied to you, Major!"

Butler came to himself again. Killing or dying wasn't even a choice any more. He had to get away from Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

the black hole under the bridge.

Audley giggled insanely. "But the really funny thing is—"

Now?

"That it doesn't bloody matter—it's all for nothing, Sergeant-major—"

The orders had gone out: Butler felt like an army poised for the last great offensive in a hundred-year war, with every nerve and muscle stretched like a million soldiers waiting for the second-hand on the watch to reach the twelve on the dial, no longer conceivably stoppable—

"Because that's the flood-arch on the bridge. See the gratings there —every time the river floods have come up in the last four years the water's been inside there— every winter, every spring—"

It was already too late—

"—the paper has all rotted . . . the rats and mice have crawled in and chewed it up and eaten it—or made their nests out of it—all the files, all the records ... all the experiments and the knowledge—all shredded and eaten and excreted and flushed down the river—so we're all going to die for nothing, Sergeant-major

—for nothing—"

Now—

The second-hand hit the twelve and the bugles pealed out inside Butler.

In the very instant that he rose on to his toes he heard a single sharp in-drawn breath—a scrape of nailed-boots on stone—and first syllable of a battle-cry.

In that same instant he knew that he could never turn in time, even as he turned—

The barrel of the sergeant-major's submachine gun rose in an arc as Hauptmann Grafenberg's body collided with his legs. The sergeant-major's knee smashed into the German's face throwing him sideways.

The Sten jerked in Butler's hands and the sergeant-major's face dissolved in a bloody mask. It seemed strange to him that the face should disintegrate when he had aimed at the chest—

Audley had been looking at the sergeant-major's face.

Butler continued to swing on his heel—his bullets splashed into the stone, throwing dust and chips into Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

the air—

The major—

Major O'Conor was looking at him.

Major O'Conor was reaching for his webbing-holster. Butler thought . . . That's silly—he can't possibly do that!

The major was fumbling with the holster with one hand—an old man's hand with the heavy veins raised on it. He still held his ashplant stick in the other, half raised. The stick somehow seemed more menacing than the revolver, half drawn from the holster.

Don't, Major— the voice was inside Butler.

The Sten jumped in his hand before the words could come out and Butler saw the good eye shut—or was it the good eye? In that last living moment one of the major's eyes contradicted the other, and Butler never knew which as the old man was thrown backwards against the wall by the force of the bullets.

"Come on, Jack—for Christ's sake!" shouted Audley.

Butler was suddenly aware that the subaltern was lifting Hauptmann Grafenberg off the pavement at the foot of the stair, where the sergeant-major's knee had tumbled him. The German seemed half stunned, and as Audley raised him blood sprayed from his nose onto the pavement.

" Es geht mir gut," mumbled the German thickly. "Es geht mir gut."

Butler started towards him, but Audley waved him away. "Get up the stairs—cover us," he ordered.

"Cover us, damn it! Doctor—get back over the bridge."

The command unlocked Butler's brain, and he sprinted up the stair round the great curve of the tower.

To his right the bridge was still open and unguarded, but there was a British soldier running up the drive towards them on his left.

Butler opened fire automatically and the soldier cartwheeled off the drive in a tangle of arms and legs just as the empty magazine cut off the burst.

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

He could hear firing in the distance now, out of sight down the drive, both the stammer of automatic weapons and the crack of single shots.

He thought, with a curious clarity: the major was right—killing is infectious.

Another magazine for the Sten. There were men in the trees two hundred yards away, and at that range there was no chance of hitting them. But at least he could bloody well frighten them—

The clarity persisted. It was all quite mad, all utterly pointless. Chandos Force was fighting its last battle, against the French and against itself, and for nothing.

"Come on, Jack—get moving," said Sergeant Winston from just behind him.

"I'm okay." Butler fired again at the trees.

"Sure you are. But it's time to say good-bye."

Butler thought that was a funny thing to say in the circumstances. He also thought that the solid comfort of the tower was preferable to the open stretch of the bridge.

Suddenly he remembered Sergeant Purvis.

"Where's that bugger Purvis?" He fired again.

"The hell with Purvis! Get going, Corporal."

It didn't seem right that Sergeant Purvis of all people should get away.

He turned towards the American. "Where's Purvis?"

The look on Sergeant Winston's face answered the question: the sergeant was grinning at him like a wolf.

Butler swung back towards the trees.

The Sten jammed.

As his hand closed on the magazine he felt himself being dragged away from the wall and propelled onto the bridge. For an instant he was angry, and then fear started his legs moving.

The bridge was longer and narrower than it had been before, and the firing behind him was louder and closer. As he ran he heard a sudden swishing-hissing sound alongside him, and the gravel spurted madly Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

on his left and away in a writhing snake ahead of him.

Audley grabbed him as he came to the end of the parapet and pulled him down onto the cover of the stonework, half knocking the breath out of him. The chateau and the blue sky and the gravel spun round as he rolled sideways.

A shadow blocked out the light.

"No!" shouted Audley. "For Christ's sake, man—"

Butler found himself staring from ground level down the long funnel of the bridge parapets, back the way he had come.

Halfway down the funnel Hauptmann Grafenberg was trying to disentangle a body which was curled up against the stonework. As he tugged at one arm another long snake of spurting gravel raced up the drive and onto the bridge towards him.

The arm suddenly seemed too heavy for him. He knelt down slowly beside the American, as though the problem of lifting him was one which required special thought and he needed time to work it out. Then, just as slowly, he toppled over alongside him.

The firing was very loud now, echoing all around them.

Butler started ro rise, but Audley's hand pressed him down.

"It's no good," whispered Audley. "They're done for."

It was no good, thought Butler. They were done for.

"An' we'll be done for an' all if we stay 'ere any longer," said a voice from behind them.

Butler looked over his shoulder in surprise to find Driver Hewett crouching a yard away, nodding at him with ancient wisdom.

No winners and losers, only the survivors and the dead. Driver Hewett had been born with that knowledge, he'd never needed to learn it.

Without looking back at the bridge Butler crawled away in Audley's wake towards the safety of the woods.

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