‘ ’Ere we go, then!‘ Like so many RASC drivers, the little man evidently belonged to what Fred’s first company commander had always called ’the school of empirical verification‘: if a vehicle got through a gap, or crossed a suspect stretch of ground, then that gap was wide enough for it, or that ground was free of mines, as the case might be. ’ ‘Old tight!’
There was a rumble under them as the big car advanced across a plank-bridge over a double-ditch, and he caught a glimpse of an equestrian statue between the double doorways: it looked more like a Roman emperor than a German Kaiser—in fact it looked exactly like a statue of Marcus Aurelius he had admired in Rome last year, during his leave in that memorable time-out-of-war before the battle of the Gothic Line—so perhaps it was a Kaiser dressed as a Caesar, maybe?
But then the statue was gone, and they were squeezing through the gateway, with more familiar sights in the glare of the headlights: canvas-hooded jeeps and 15-cwt trucks lined up, with even more familiar soldiers, caped against the downpour, attending to their unloading—TRR-2 at last!
But … Christ! Because there was a man—a British soldier—standing bold as brass and unashamed under an umbrella! Christ Almighty!
‘Right, there you are, then!’ The driver swung the car round the umbrella-carrying soldier, braking so fiercely that Fred’s chest thumped sharply against the front seat. ‘End uv the line, this is, sir.’ He peered at the car’s switches, before flicking them off one by one; and then swivelled towards Fred, grinning familiarly as though they were equals who had shared some testing experience. ‘I’ll see to your bag, sir—your servant’s Trooper Lucy, shared with Mr David, so you’ll not ’ave anythin‘ to worry about there—’avin‘ Trooper Lucy is like ’avin‘ a good lady’s maid.’
Between Marcus Aurelius, and the umbrella-soldier, and Trooper Lucy, and the fact that he couldn’t find the door handle, Fred cursed impotently under his breath.
‘Wot you wanta do is to find the adjutant. An ’e’ll be in ‘is office, which is in the prinny-kipyer, first on your left as you go through the door right in front, an’ round under the little roof wot keeps the rain orf—which is that way—see?‘
Fred couldn’t quarrel with any of that, which was the last word in old-fashioned courtesy itself, compared with what he had so often been used to. Except, he didn’t understand any of it.
‘The … prinny—prinny-kip … year?’ That wasn’t quite right. ‘Kipyer?’
‘That’s right.’ Nod. ‘Wot the Colonel calls it—prinny-kipyer … Just on the left, through the door.’ Nod.
He had found the door handle. ‘Well … thank you—what’s your name?’
‘Hughie, sir.’ The little man came quickly to his rescue. ‘Knock twice, an’ ask for Hughie, is what they say.‘ The little man stared at him in the gloom. ’You’re a Sapper, sir—Major Fattorini, sir … Would that be reg’lar army or ‘ostilities only?’
‘Territorial.’ He found himself answering automatically, as a distant but warning bell sounded in his memory. ‘March, 1939.’
‘Is that a fact?’ The date seemed to meet with the man’s approval. Terriers is orl right, most of ‘em. The Colonel —’e’s a terrier.‘ He nodded. ’You’ll be orl right wiv‘ ’im then, I reckon.‘
‘Indeed? Fred tightened his grip on the door handle. ’Haven’t I met you before somewhere? Was it in—?‘ Before he could finish, a movement at the front of the car took his attention: the soldier with the umbrella appeared to be examining the offside wing intently.
‘ ’Scuse me—‘ The little man caught his change-of-attention, turned towards its direction, and was out of the car like a ferret out of a bag ’—that wasn’t me! That was there ‘fore I sets orf, that was—someone else done that!’ The sound of his voice, raised to a protesting whine, entered the car with a wind-driven spatter of rain.
The umbrella-carrying soldier straightened up to his full height, the wind catching his umbrella and almost pulling it out of his hand. ‘Hughie, you’re an absolute and in-invvv—inveterate—liar. I checked the whole b-bloody car myself before you set out. And there wasn’t a mark on it. So now the Croc-Crocodile will have both our g-guts for … garters.’
Oh God! thought Fred, the mists of half a year’s memory clearing instantly in the same instant as the umbrella soldier turned towards him. Then he knew that he must pull himself together, and confirm the hideous certainty which confronted him in the headlights.
The full force of the wind-and-rain hit him as he stepped out of the car. ‘Hullo there!’ Even as he spoke, he saw that things were as bad as they seemed. ‘David Audley, is it?’
‘It was them Yanks, Mister David—it must uv been them,’ whined the little man. ‘I ’ad to leave the major’s car, for a minnit—‘
‘It is. Or what’s left of him.’ Audley struggled with his umbrella. ‘Captain Fat-O’Rhiney, well met!’ He gave the little man a quick sidelong glance. ‘Hughie, I told you most particularly not to leave the car—remember?’ He came back to Fred. ‘Bad trip, was it?’ He gave Fred a friendly grin. ‘We’ve been expecting you these last three hours … At least, the CO has been.’
‘I ’ad to meet the major—I couldn’t let ‘im carry ’is bag now, could I?‘ The little man rolled an eye at Fred, hope and fear mixed in it equally.
‘It was a bumpy one.’ Faced with the truth, Fred temporized. ‘It’s not good flying weather. We went round three or four times before landing.’
Strangely, as he felt the rain on his face—or perhaps not strangely, as he observed Audley’s relative dryness—the need for truth evaporated. ‘But I’ve no complaints about my reception. And we certainly didn’t hit anything coming up here. Not even that bloody-great tank of yours, back there.’
Audley’s face contorted, from friendliness to its natural ugliness. ‘Not mine—yrrch!’ He drew a deep breath through his nose. ‘King Tigers … them I don’t need reminding of!’
The little man bobbed his head at Fred, and then at Audley. ‘I’d best take the major’s bag now, ’adn’t I, sir—so as Trooper Lucy can settle ‘im in, like?’ He wiped the rain from his face. ‘An’ the major is gettin‘ rather wet, sir … ’im bein‘ out in the open, like—?’
‘What?’ Audley looked from one to the other of them quickly. ‘Oh … very well, Hughie—’ He ended up looking at Fred ‘—you do that … and I will extemporize great lies about the Americans for the benefit of Major McCorquodale, if I must. And Major Fattorini will confirm them—right?’ He fixed his glance on Fred. ‘Shall we go in, out of the rain, Major Fattorini?’ He gestured towards the doors in the building directly ahead of them, which Driver Hughie—Hewitt, Fred remembered now—had indicated earlier. ‘Shall we go—?’
Fred followed him, and as Audley deflated his umbrella and opened one of the doors he caught sight of the three pips on the young man’s shoulders. ‘Congratulations … Captain Audley.’
Audley swung the door open, gesturing him through it. Temporary … but paid, thank God!‘ He grinned at Fred. ’Twenty-three shillings a day, plus sundry allowances—riches beyond the dreams of avarice, which are supposed to sunder us from all other temptations in Occupied Germany in A-U-C 2-6-9-8—two thousand, six hundred and ninety-eight, God help us!‘
‘What?’ Inside the doorway it was darker, and he couldn’t see Audley so clearly now. ‘A-U-C—?’
‘ “Ab Urbe Condita”—“From the Founding of the City of Rome”—?’ Audley shook the rain from his furled umbrella on to the stone-flagged floor ‘—he put us all up in rank in Germany, to help us on our way, did Colonel Caesar Augustus Tiberius Germanicus Colbourne: lieutenant to captain, in my case—’ he looked up, from the umbrella to Fred ‘—and captain to major, in your case.’ He grinned. ‘If you ask your friend, Driver Hewitt … who is unpromotable, actually … Driver Hewitt will say: “Take the money, and run … sir!” ’ The grin twisted. That is, if he remembered to say “sir” … because Hughie takes a somewhat jaundiced view of officers. Alt
hough, as you have already lied so nobly for him, he may treat you differently, of course.‘
They had moved across the stone flags as Audley had been speaking out of deeper darkness, faintly yellowed by a hurricane lamp hanging from a bracket, into the grey-ness of an inner courtyard with pillared arcades on all four sides, like a monastic cloister in the middle of which the rain still deluged from above, catching the faint light of other lamps at its other corners.
‘That way—’ Audley pointed to the left, towards an open doorway, moving as he did so ‘—Amos? Are you in there?’ He peered into the doorway.
‘David?’ The voice from inside was sharper, just as the light was brighter. ‘What do you want?’
‘Major Fat-O’Rhiney has arrived, Amos.’ Audley gestured to Fred.
‘Oh … Christ!’ A chair scraped on stone. ‘I’d given him up for lost, damn it! Where is he?’
‘I’m here.’ Memory reanimated him as he took up Audley’s invitation: beyond Driver Hewitt, and Audley himself, there was a nastier memory of de Souza being busy. ‘Captain de Souza—?’
‘Major de Souza, Major Fattorini.’ Audley hissed the inflated rank in his ear as Fred advanced past him. ‘Go on—go on!’ He pushed Fred forwards.
From within, the little room didn’t seem so bright as it had done from outside, in spite of its two pressure-lamps; and its typical temporary military furniture—two folding tables on thin metal legs, and two collapsible canvas chairs—somehow made it even emptier. One of the tables was furnished with a large typewriter and all the paraphernalia of its absent clerk—in-tray, out-tray, and a pile of files. And there were more files on the other table, which was set below the room’s single window—a curiously shaped opening, heavily latticed and set well above eye-level. But judging by this quantity of paperwork neither the adjutant nor his clerk would have much time for looking out of any window, thought Fred—certainly not if this was the load Colonel Colbourne’s band of brothers carried with it in the field, in a temporary billet.
‘Fattorini, my dear fellow—’ Major de Souza came out of the shadows on his right, round the room’s only other piece of furniture, which Fred had missed at first glance ‘—glad you could join us. Good of you to come.’
‘Sir.’ A trick of upwards-thrown light from one of the lamps distorted de Souza’s features unnaturally, almost diabolically. And Fred still couldn’t shake off the memory of what he had seen the man doing the last and only time they had met. And … a filing cabinet, for God’s sake! he thought, as he fumbled inside his tunic for his documentation.
‘Oh—never mind that! We can do the paperwork later.’
In the midst of all his paperwork, de Souza scorned the formalities, holding out his hand in friendship. ‘“Frederick”—? David there says I should address you as “Fred”. But I can’t possibly do that. Because … apart from the fact that I once had a cocker spaniel who answered to that name—albeit a most intelligent and affectionate beast … because, apart from that, we are accustomed to refer to our sovereign lord and master, the Brigadier, as “Fred” … so that would only be to confuse matters quite unbearably.’ He smiled devilishly. ‘So henceforth you are “Freddie”—is that acceptable?’
He had to accept the hand, even though he knew what that hand had done once, and therefore must have done many times. And he also had to answer the man coolly and confidently, if he wasn’t to be despised. ‘Anything, so long as it isn’t “Fatty”, which I had to answer to all the way through prep school—perfectly acceptable, sir.’
‘“Amos”, Freddie. We’re all equals here.’ De Souza’s grip was firm and dry and strong—the best sort of handshake. ‘All, that is, except this young whippersnapper, temporary Captain Audley.’ The hand relaxed its grip. ‘Talking of whom … have you dealt with those transport problems, young David? Are the drivers properly briefed?’
‘All except Hughie, Amos.’ Audley was quite unabashed. ‘Yes.’
‘Well, go and attend to him.’ Beneath the lazy drawl there was a sharp reef of concern. ‘I want no mistakes tonight—no unfortunate accidents, like last time: Apart from which … I have a strong suspicion that our Fred himself may very well materialize out of the darkness up on the limes romanorum tonight. So we wouldn’t want anything less than maximum effort, would we, now? Eh, Captain Audley?’
There was a fractional pause before Audley replied. ‘It w-wasn’t my fault last time. It was the Croc who fucked things up, if you ask me, Amos—’
‘But I’m not asking you, David. I am just making sure that you do not … as you put it so delicately … “fuck things up” this time. Right?’
Audley rocked slightly on his heels. ‘Yes, Amos.’
‘Thank you, David.’ Amos de Souza acknowledged the boy’s surrender quite deliberately, without mercy. ‘Now … Freddie … we’re due in the mess in fifteen minutes, and Colonel Colbourne is a stickler for punctuality. But he expected you here earlier, so I’d better wheel you in to him right away, without more ado—right?’ He turned back to his desk for a moment, and a tiny beam of lamplight glinted on the rosette on his Military Cross ribbon: MC and bar and the desert ribbon established Major de Souza as a sharp-end soldier in the past, whatever malignant fate had condemned him to do in Greece in the more recent past, and whatever he was doing in Germany now. Then he looked sideways, without straightening up, towards Audley. ‘I thought you were going back to your horse-lines, dear boy—what’s keeping you?’
Audley stood his ground. ‘I w-w-w-was … j-j- just thinking, Amos —’
‘J-just thinking?’ De Souza straightened up. ‘Now, that’s half your trouble, young David: “j-just thinking”—eh?’ Then he shook his head. ‘All right! What have you been j-just thinking, then? Share the wisdom of the ages with us—go on!’
Audley opened his mouth, and then closed it as though he was nerving himself to control his stutter.
Major de Souza turned back to his desk, selecting a thin file from a pile of thicker ones before returning to Audley. ‘But now you’ve thought better of it? Which is probably j-just as well. Go—to the horse-lines, dear boy. You’ll be much safer doing your duty there.’
The young man drew a deep breath, which seemed to make him even bigger than he was. ‘You should tell him about the Colonel, Amos.’
‘Tell him what?’
Another breath. ‘That he’s a looney.’
Major de Souza looked at Audley for a long moment, and as the moment lengthened and with bitter experience of his own adjutants taking their job seriously, Fred braced himself for an explosion. But the young man stood his ground, to the credit of his courage if not his intelligence, or his obstinacy if not his courage.
Then de Souza smiled, and shook his head, and finally laughed softly. ‘David, David, David … How many times do I have to tell you, dear boy … that we’re all loonies here. If we weren’t loonies, we wouldn’t be here.’ He favoured Fred with a cynical twist of the lip. ‘So you go back to your horse-lines, David … and make sure all our transport is ready to move on H-Hour, like a good dragoon. Because we don’t want any slip-ups this time. So … move, Captain Audley.’
Audley moved. And Fred thought, as the hobnails on the young man’s boots scraped and skittered on the stone floor, that he would also have moved after that order from the adjutant. Particularly this adjutant.
‘Now then Freddie—’ Major de Souza indicated the open doorway, out of which Audley had vanished ‘—shall we go then?’
Fred let himself be shepherded out of the office, into the gathering gloom of the cloister.
‘To your left.’ But then de Souza closed the door behind him, and locked it carefully, turning a key-on-a-chain in a heavy padlock as Fred waited for him. And, as he waited, he drew into his nose a faint savoury cooking smell, which must have drifted from somewhere round the colonnaded square, because the steady downpour still glinted in the open space in its centre, and that would have damped down such smells.
‘He’s a good
boy, is David.’ De Souza pointed their direction. ‘Very bright … if he lives, he’ll go far, as they say … but quite out of his depth, I’m afraid.’
‘Yes?’ For a man who was supposed to know what he was about, Fred still felt nonplussed.
‘Too young—far too young.’ De Souza led the way. ‘Fred—Fred, our lord and master … he should never have lumbered us with him. And Colonel Colbourne shouldn’t have accepted him.’ He stopped abruptly outside another door, and rapped his knuckles on it. This is men’s work. And boys aren’t up to it, no matter how bright they are—‘
‘Come!’ A high voice, almost querulous, invited them from the other side of the door.
‘A great pity, really.’ De Souza ignored the voice, staring at Fred in the light of a hurricane lamp hanging on a bracket on one of the pillars of the colonnade. This’ll spoil him. Because he can’t really understand what he’s doing. He’s got a scholarship waiting up at Cambridge. So … he’s done his regimental bit, in Normandy … so they should have let go of him.‘ He grasped the doorhandle. ’A pity—a great pity—‘
‘Wait!’ There were so many questions which Fred couldn’t ask now that he didn’t know what to ask. He only knew that he didn’t want to go straight into that room.
‘What?’ De Souza stared at him.
‘Come!’ The invitation was repeated.
A useless question surfaced. ‘What is this place?’
‘Huh! It’s a Roman fort.’ De Souza didn’t seem surprised. ‘A Roman auxiliary fort on the limes, in the Taunus, rebuilt by a rich German in the nineteenth century. The last unit to occupy this place, before us, was Cohors IV Britannorum Equitata, in the second century after the birth of Christ. Which makes us the second British contingent up here, on the Taunus. Which is probably why we’re here now, actually—’ The doorhandle rattled, and de Souza let go of it, and the door began to open.
‘Who’s that?’ The voice came out of the gap, still high-pitched, but irritated now.
A New Kind of War Page 8