‘Of course.’ Fred stopped worrying. After that put-down he really had nothing to lose. ‘Which side did you prefer?’
‘Ah … now that is a good question, actually.’ The academic mildness of Clinton’s reaction piled surprise on surprise. ‘In a way, it is perhaps the question … although for most people, now, at this exact moment in history, it may seem not a question at all, but an insult … But … mmm—I have often thought about that. Although perhaps not in quite the same way … ’ He trailed off, for a moment. ‘Mmm … if the worst ever could theoretically come—or have come—to the worst … ’ The Brigadier trailed off again. The truth is that … I really don’t know, Fred.‘ Clinton bestowed the diminutive on him with such transparent sincerity that Fred found himself leapfrogging contempt (which usually came after relief when senior officers betrayed their fallibility) and coming up against that old unjumpable mixture of respect and sympathy and understanding, which always evoked loyalty!
But—damn it!—he mustn’t give way to that! Not so easily, and on such short acquaintance! Not with this man of all men!
‘The truth is that there were decent men on both sides. There was even an Italian colonel—Farina, I think his name was … Armado—? Giuseppe—? Gian-Carlo—? I can’t remember … But he was a decent man—an honourable man, in the old sense: he hated what he was doing in Spain, and resigned in protest in the end. And there were a lot of good men in the International Brigade, too, who thought they were good Communists … although they wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes if their side had won—and some of them didn’t last much longer than that as it was: if it wasn’t a Fascist bullet in the front, it was one in the back for them, and when no one was looking!’ Clinton drew a huge reminiscent sigh, and then looked directly at Fred, with the pale-blue clouded. ‘So … no, in answer to your question—same in Spain, same in Germany, you’ve got to remember.’ Nod. ‘When it starts … there aren’t just good men on one side, and bad men on the other—there are good men on both edges of the middle. And some of them are stupid, but some of them are quite clever … but just not quite clever enough. And, of course, a lot of them are quite ordinary, also. And, then, as one side or the other starts to win, and to show its true colours, they don’t know what to do. But by then it’s too late, and they haven’t anywhere else to go, because they’re inside the thing by then—they can’t run, then: it’s Bergen-Belsen or Siberia, or a firing squad for them—and their families. So what do they do then, eh?’
Having asked two silly questions of his own in succession and got far more than he’d bargained for in reply, Fred decided that he would treat this one as rhetorical and say nothing.
‘The very brave ones resist, and take the consequences.’ Clinton accepted his silence. ‘And there aren’t many of them around in Germany now, take my word for it. Or in Spain, although Spain’s not quite so bad. But in Soviet Russia … there are none.’ He stared through Fred. ‘And the not-so-brave ones and the confused ones … some of them try to hide—to lie low, in the hope of better times one day. But you need both cleverness and luck for that, as well as hope.’ The stare focused on him suddenly. ‘But your average chap … as it might be you or me, my lad—you or me … he gets swallowed up by the thing—The Beast! Because that’s the Nature of the Beast, you see—you get involved with it, for whatever reason … because of your job, or your family, or at worst your ambition—or even by accident, or by pure bad luck. Or you can even become part of it out of patriotism, or for religious reasons—there was a lot of that in Spain, believe me. Or even idealism—for any number of reasons … I once worked with a British Officer who thought Oswald Mosley had all the right ideas but the wrong friends—he died at Dunkirk, fighting the Nazis. But it was a damned close-run thing with him, and he was just lucky—lucky being an Englishman—it was “Our country, right or wrong” with him, so he landed up on the right side by accident-of-birth, you might say.’ The terrible mirthless smile returned. ‘Up until August ’39 he always half suspected that I was a damned Red. But then Stalin made his pact with Hitler, and he gave me the benefit of the doubt after that. And, in a queer way, he was quite right of course—as well as being quite wrong. Quite wrong, that is, because I’m not a patriot, major. You may choose to insult me in any way you like, but I’d be obliged if you would avoid making that mistake.‘
They had got past 1937, to reach 1940. But now they seemed to have returned to 1939; the truth was that Fred didn’t know where he was, except that he wasn’t in the real world of 1945 any more.
‘The best news I ever heard was the German-Soviet Pact in ’39.‘ Clinton was so wrapped up in his own unpatriotism that he missed Fred’s quiet desperation. ’Both the Beasts of Spain were suddenly on the same side, which I’d never hoped for in my wildest dreams.‘ He turned away from Fred and Hermann both, to look out into a gap between the trees, over the dull grey-green German landscape. ’Of course, I was younger then, and I didn’t realize how far the rot had gone in France. And I thought the Americans would be pulled in sooner than they were, so that we’d be back in 1918 before long … Foolish! Foolish! The old idiocy of making pictures of what I wanted to see!‘ He swung back to Fred unexpectedly, catching him with his mouth open. ’But you went to America in 1937, and not to Spain as some of your friends wanted you to do? Now … why was that, major? New York instead of Barcelona. And the Grand Tetons instead of the Ebro—why?‘
Why—?
There had been a ferment then, not just in Oxford, but with the word coming from Cambridge and elsewhere, as that summer term had ended. But then Uncle Luke had appeared out of nowhere, with his membership of Vincent’s Club and held in surprising esteem there, on the basis of some great and unexpected Oxford sporting triumph over The Other Place in the distant past, which was still remembered by the Steward as a famous victory.
‘Actually, it was my uncle—Uncle Luke.’ At such short notice, and with his back to Hermann, Fred could only present the truth by way of an explanation. ‘He’d got an invitation from the Schusters for me.’ But that wasn’t the whole truth; and he owed that to himself too in retrospect, as well as to Uncle Luke. ‘We talked a bit about Spain, actually—’ But, when it came to the crunch he couldn’t bring himself to go further than that. ‘I don’t really remember much of it.’ He could only shrug now. ‘But … he’s a persuasive old devil.’
‘He told you to keep your powder dry. He said it took five minutes to put cannon-fodder into the line, but nine months to train an infantryman who wasn’t a danger to others as well as himself—and eighteen months for second-lieutenant. By which time the war would be over. So if you wished for a useful death as well as a glorious one, you might as well join the OTC, and then the TA, and get your degree meanwhile. And then there’d be plenty for you to do, wearing the right uniform at the right time, in the right place.’
That was exactly what Uncle Luke had said. But Brigadier Frederick Clinton couldn’t have been there in Vincent’s that night, either as himself or as a fly on the wall, because he had been in Spain. So that pointed to an almost-certainty, because there had been only one other person there halfways sober enough to recall those words so accurately. ‘You’ve talked to him—obviously—? Uncle Luke, I mean? About me?’
‘Talked to him? My dear Fred … your “Uncle Luke” and I go back longer than the odd talk about you! Don’t you know that the Fattorini Brothers have useful Spanish contacts—just as they have a hand in Colonel Michaelides’ Balkan Mercantile Bank, and the so-called “Aegean Mutual Trust”—?’ Clinton stopped as he saw Fred’s face. ‘You must forgive me. I’m sorry—’
‘Don’t be.’ Feeling foolish in a retrospect stretching back to the late 1930s might well be a burden the Brigadier could bear now. But his own failure to put two-and-two together was of a much more recent date, and its taste was bitter. ‘I think—’
‘No. I spoke out of turn. And that was unpardonable—quite unpardonable.’ After sharply pulling rank with that first interruption, Cl
inton seemed almost embarrassed. ‘Besides which … I would not have you think ill of your Uncle Luke, of all men.’
‘I don’t.’ A small revenge offered itself. ‘You couldn’t make me do that … sir.’
‘Good! I’m relieved to hear it.’ Clinton’s confidence and authority returned instantly: he sounded more relieved by Fred’s sound judgement than by the news that there was nothing to forgive.
‘But I am a little surprised that you didn’t mention him the first time we met, though.’ Fred decided to push his luck. ‘You gave me quite a hard time in Greece, I seem to remember. “Gallivanting in hostile territory without a thought”—was that it? And you never said you knew my uncle.’
‘No.’ Clinton gave him a hard look. ‘Your Uncle Luke is a remarkable man in his way, major. A good man, even.’
That was no answer. ‘I know that he’s a good banker.’ The lack of answer had been contemptuous. But that somehow goaded him into wondering where else the old firm had ‘useful contacts’. Rome, certainly … But … Berlin? And Moscow? ‘And you like bankers—I know that, too.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Does it matter?’ What mattered suddenly was that all the ramifications of the Fattorini Brothers in general, and the Brigadier’s long-time friendship with Sir Luke Fattorini in particular, accounted for the involvement of the unfortunate ci-devant Captain Frederick Fattorini in this murky business, thought Fred. Or, when added to the pure mischance of his own friendship with Kyri, it did … Except that, even there Uncle Luke and the old firm were at the heart of the accident too. So … was he never to have free will—even to be a victim?
‘It was that young blackguard Audley!’ Clinton came up with his own correct answer. ‘I’ll bet it was!’
‘Does it matter?’ Fred came to the point of decision not so much to save Audley as to assert and save himself. ‘You’re quite right, of course—about Uncle Luke, I mean.’ He paused for a fraction of a second. ‘But you’re also wrong.’
The possibility that he could be wrong about anything that he didn’t already know of brought the Brigadier up short. ‘What d’you mean, major?’
That had saved Audley. Now he had to save himself. ‘He did talk to me in Vincent’s—he was afraid I might go to Spain, of course.’
‘With Sebastian Cavendish—yes?’ Clinton asserted his own knowledge cruelly. ‘Who was killed on the Ebro—uselessly.’
‘With Bassie Cavendish.’ There would have been a time when he would have hit the bastard for that, Brigadier or not. ‘And I regretted not going for a long time after that. Almost … almost until very recently, actually. And then I remembered something else Uncle Luke said … which, in a way, you’ve also said now, you see.’
The Brigadier plainly didn’t see. (So Uncle Luke’s memory of that night in Vincent’s hadn’t been quite word-perfect, then!) But this time Clinton had the wit not to interrupt.
‘I didn’t much like what was happening in Greece, sir. Not even after I’d realized that the Communists had always planned it that way … only, they hadn’t bargained on us fighting them. But … but, anyway, they’d planned to make a clean sweep of the other side. And then the middle wouldn’t have any choice. And I didn’t much like that, either—’
(He had said to Kyri: ‘What’s the difference between you and them?’ And Kyri had replied: ‘Not a lot, my dear chap. Only … I am personally responsible for whatever I do, and I cannot say to God therefore that “I was only obeying orders” when I come before Him—that is really the only difference.’)
Only, he couldn’t say that to the Brigadier. But what could he say, then? And, by God, it would have to be good, now!
And the Brigadier was still waiting, too—
‘We had a fellow posted to us from Northern Italy … or it might have been Austria, I don’t know.’ He fought for time. ‘But he was more or less in disgrace, about half a step from court-martial. And he got pissed out of his mind one night … ’ He could see that time was running out ‘ … he said that we’d been sending prisoners back east—all sorts of odds and sods of Russians, and Ukrainians and assorted Slavs … old men, and women and children, too … And they were committing suicide, some of them—’ He trailed away helplessly.
‘What else did he say?’ The Brigadier urged him on.
‘He fell under the table then. So we put him to bed.’ Fred could still remember Captain Smith’s drunken misery as they’d tried to make him comfortable. And his endless questions—‘What would you have done, Fattorini?’
‘Very sensible. And when he’d sobered up … what did he say, then?’
‘He wouldn’t talk. And he was posted again shortly after that, in any case.’ He met the Brigadier’s stare. ‘To Burma, actually.’
‘Yes. Also very sensible.’ The terrible smile returned. ‘Traditional, too.’
‘Traditional?’ The last tradition he had encountered had been Audley’s umbrella.
‘Yes.’ The smile twitched hideously. ‘In Nelson’s day, when there were signs of indiscipline, they always used to ship out those who knew about it as far away as possible, and as quickly as possible. Nothing like a long sea voyage to isolate contagion.’ The Brigadier pointed suddenly at a smaller statue alongside the path, to a carved stone trophy of Roman equipment presumably symbolizing loot from the ruin of Varus’s army: armour, shields, sword, eagle standard and helmet hanging on a central shaft. ‘The Romans weren’t so kind: they favoured decimation—crucify every tenth man, regardless.’
There was no escaping the man’s meaning. ‘Is that a threat?’
‘If you think it is … then it is.’ Clinton studied the trophy. The Germans took three legionary eagles in the Teutoburger fight. And the Romans wasted a lot of effort trying to get ‘em back, as a matter of prestige. But they only recovered two. And I’ll bet Gus Colbourne would give his pension for the missing one … ’ He turned on his heel to study a matching trophy on the other side of the pathway. ‘Conventional war, for most people—for the young anyway—is a group activity, transacted by a majority vote. The generals—the generals and the politicians … they just want bodies to do as they are told. For the rest … if the bodies are willing, then their job is to carry each other on to quite remarkable feats of heroism and self-sacrifice, equally in victory and defeat, in the execution of their orders.’ He looked from one trophy to the other, as though comparing them. ‘All that is required additionally is a sense of comradeship and duty and proper training and decent leadership—decent leadership particularly in the lower ranks … and patriotism, of course—however misconceived—if possible. And then custom and practice—that’s very important. Because the Germans and the Russians both regarded soldiering as something quite natural and inevitable. The Germans particularly … but the Russians too, in spite of grossly inadequate training and deplorable leadership … Both of them performed miracles because of that, added to patriotism. Whereas the British and the Americans really have no military tradition—no military inclination. No self-respecting Englishman—or Welshman … with the Scots and the Irish I’m not so sure … but in general, no self-respecting Briton or American would dream of taking the King’s shilling, or Uncle Sam’s dollar, unless he was starving or otherwise unemployable. But in wartime, by a majority vote and with certain of those additions, you can still do a great deal with them. And, of course, in the First World War, thanks to greater ignorance and consequently greater patriotism, miracles were done with them, too.’ He turned to Fred at last. ‘But all that is in war … and all you temporary hostilities-emergency-only soldiers believe that you’ve more-or-less won this war, so now you can go home—is that it?’
That was exactly it, thought Fred. But, short of a direct order, he was not about to admit it. And, indeed, even with a direct order he would plead incomprehension, ignorance and stupidity if pressed.
‘Well, I have news for you, major.’ Mercifully, it was another rhetorical question. ‘We are still in a state of official war, ev
en though the exceedingly formidable Japanese are far away. So, under the Rules of War—and probably the Geneva Convention too, for all I know—I can have you court-martialled for having a tender conscience and disobeying any legitimate order. Or, in the appropriate circumstances, I can shoot you myself, and almost certainly get away with it. Whereas, if you shoot me you will be shot yourself—at least, you will unless you can get Colonel Augustus Colbourne to defend you, anyway.’ Again the terrible smile. ‘But that is unlikely, partly because he won’t … but mostly because I will get you first, you see.’
Actually, thought Fred, he really could plead incomprehension, ignorance and stupidity honestly now. ‘Sir?’
‘Apart from all of which we haven’t won the war. Even, most regrettably, we haven’t beaten the Germans. Because the Russians have done that for us, unfortunately. Although that does not oblige us to be grateful, because they didn’t do it either for us, or from choice: what they intended is that we should ruin each other—the democrats and the fascists both—and then they could pick up the pieces, as they foolishly hoped they would do in Spain. But Hitler and European geography dictated differently. So don’t “but” me with foolish gratitude for Our Glorious Russian Allies, eh?’
A New Kind of War Page 24