Fred examined his face carefully for missed stubble. With his uniform so well-pressed, and everything else so well-polished and blancoed, he needed to look his best this day.
‘But his survival isn’t tomorrow’s objective, major. And neither is yours. Because what I now need above all else is a name —’
He made his way back to the room, blindly and automatically, and put on his wrist-watch first, while stark naked, as he always did when he had been able to wash properly first. And then put on the clean change-of-clothes which Trooper Leighton had brought with the same thought he also always had when that added luxury had been available: that, if possible, one should always go into action with clean underwear.
‘What I want is the name of the traitor in my camp, and nothing else. And then I want him alive. Because we’ve got work to do now—’
In the final analysis, thought Fred as he turned his shoulder to the long mirror on the wall to admire his new badge of rank, if he failed, or if he found the work uncongenial, he could use that envelope with major’s crowns on his shoulders, anyway!
‘Listen, Fred. Something happened yesterday a long way from here, in Japan—at a place called Hiroshima—’
2
AUDLEY LOOKED round again, and he consulted his watch for the umpteenth time.
‘What are you looking for, David?’ Except for the People’s Car and the jeep containing Sergeant Devenish and Driver Hewitt, the courtyard of Schwartzenburg Castle was quite empty. ‘We’re late already.’
‘Only two minutes. And I know the way to the Exernsteine.’
‘Yes, so the adjutant said.’ Fred watched the boy curiously. ‘But we’re still late, according to his schedule. So what are you waiting for?’
‘I just thought our prisoner might turn up—“Corporal Keys” … I haven’t laid eyes on him since we handed him over. But he must still be on the premises, damn it!’ Audley frowned up at the blank rows of windows above him. ‘Isn’t he the object of our peregrinations today?’
Peregrinations? And the boy was still fishing, too. But in his heart Fred couldn’t blame him. ‘The instrument, but not the object. Get in the car, David—that’s an order.’ He stretched his own orders slightly. ‘You’ll see him soon enough, now that he’s been promoted.’
‘What—?’ Audley’s mouth opened comically.
‘Get in the car.’ Poor boy! How many lives have you got left, then? ‘Get in the car, and all shall be revealed, David—’ He had to stop there because Audley had closed his mouth quickly and was already folding himself up into the little car.
‘You don’t mind me driving—?’ The engine whirred behind them reliably. ‘I’m actually not a very good driver—I think driving’s boring … But on this occasion … I do know the car—and the way.’ Audley looked at him with eager expectation as the People’s Car shot through the castle gateway with half an inch to spare on its passenger’s side.
‘Yes—no!’ Fred shuddered as they barely missed the line of larger transport, which included Major Kenworthy’s monster, parked under the castle walls—a line complete with an armed sentry now, he noted.
‘You were saying—?’ Audley couldn’t contain his curiosity. ‘Where’s the prisoner, then?’
‘Watch the road, David.’
‘Yes—damn it, I am watching it—’ Audley peered into his mirror ‘—it’s all right: our escort is right behind us. You were saying—about Field-Marshal Keys?’
‘He’s done better for himself than that.’ Fred began to tire of the riddle-game. ‘As of last night he became a free man.’
‘Ah … ’ Audley swung the little car on to the main road. ‘Now … I thought there weren’t many extra precautions last night, when I took my evening constitutional and had a look round. Because I only got challenged on the horse-lines, by the transport—not anywhere in the castle at all!’ He nodded sagely at the road. ‘And that did strike me as … rather odd, after our earlier failures.’
Clinton was right. ‘Did you meet anybody … on your peregrinations?’
‘Meet anybody? They were all pissed, more or less, if you ask me—celebrating the end of the jolly old war! And so was I, a bit … No. Only Amos and Busy-Izzy doing their accustomed rounds, checking up on the wine-cellar, and such, of course—and the state of the duty officer’s liver, I shouldn’t wonder … But, he’s gone, you say? Our first real and undoubted success—No 21—“The-Key-of-the-Door”—?’ He stopped suddenly, and then thumped the wheel, causing the little car to shake and swerve slightly. ‘But of course he’s gone! How stupid of me!’
‘Why?’ If the boy wanted to talk, who was he to stop him?
‘No 21! What does the key do?’ Audley accelerated. ‘Why—he opens the door to reveal No 16—“Sweet-Sixteen-and-Never-Been-Kissed”!’ Then he looked at Fred quickly. ‘And Clinton trusted him—? But obviously he did, the foxy old swine! And, of course, No 21 had a bloody convincing tale to tell, too: not just “Come home, and all is forgiven”, but “Come home … or someone will put a bullet through you, like they did to my ersatz self last night”!’ He thumped the wheel again, with the same disconcerting effect. ‘And, by God, that would certainly convince me! Because … letting him go — after all the trouble we had taking him … Oh! He’s a lusty old blackbird is Our Freddie!’
Clinton was right—the boy was sharp.
‘God! I wish he’d let me go!’ Audley sighed. ‘Only then you wouldn’t see my tail for dust, though!’
‘Maybe he will, if you’re good, David.’
‘Some hope! It’s nineteen-bloody-forty-seven for me—if I’m lucky—’ Suddenly the car slowed, and so abruptly that Fred was instantly afraid that the jeep behind would collide with them. But when he looked over his shoulder he saw that Driver Hewitt was prudently keeping his distance.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing’s the matter. But I just remembered that you were going to reveal all. And you haven’t actually said very much—have you?’
Fred let the unspoilt German countryside slide past them for a few moments while he collected his thoughts.
But then, in spite of his orders, he was tempted to take another route to his own destination.
‘What do you think you’ve been doing?’ It would be interesting to find out how much this clever boy had worked out. ‘Not just since I’ve been around—before that?’
‘What have I been doing—or we?’ Audley slowed even more, down almost to walking pace, craning his neck forward.
‘Why are you slowing down?’
‘There’s a checkpoint hereabouts. It won’t hold us up, because they know me perfectly well … That’s funny —’
‘What’s funny?’
‘The MPs are there—but they’re not checking—see?’ Audley followed his own curiosity for a moment. ‘There’s a DP camp nearby they keep watch on … But it looks like anyone can use this road today —’ He sniffed and shrugged. ‘Oh well … I told you, anyway: officially … we hunt for items of interest. Though, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a bit bloody late to find out just how good old Jerry’s tanks were. But I go through the motions, as my old troop-sergeant used to say … ’ He accelerated ‘ … God rest his black and shrivelled soul—like his black and shrivelled body—’ He gave Fred a sidelong look ‘—you know how you come out of a brewed-up Cromwell—? About the size of a bloody chimpanzee, actually —’
‘But what have you actually been doing?’
‘Ah … well, among other things, I’ve done a bit of scouting round the Teutoburg Forest, to see if any Roman artefacts have turned up here and there in the last few years, with the bombing and all that, as per my orders.’ Audley sat back as comfortably as he could in the confined space. ‘Not that there is anything here. Because the Romans never settled here—or hereabouts: they just got massacred. And the local lads … alias the Cherusci, and the Chauci, and the Chattii, who were the German equivalent of the Sioux and the Black Feet and the other Red Indians … they all ca
rried off the loot, rejoicing, just like the Indians did after General Custer had stood his Last Stand. So there wouldn’t be anything, would there?’ Another shrug. ‘All the good Roman stuff will have surfaced over on the other side of the Rhine—’
‘Don’t play games with me, David.’
‘I’m not playing games. It’s the truth, Fred.’ Knowing at last that he was playing some sort of game, Audley played it innocently and well. ‘Those Germans in the picture I showed you—the picture I showed you when I thought you didn’t know what was happening … they operated in Roman Germany, not here. But when we arrived back there in March, after we were pulled out of that Greek raid of ours, we did fuck-all most of the time. At least, I did. Because I was on transport. And every time I got hold of a decent car, some senior bastard took it off me. Like the egregious Crocodile did with my French car, for example. Which is why I ended up with this little dodge-’em—‘ he caught his tongue quickly as he felt Major Fattorini stiffen beside him. ’All-right-all-right-all-right! So … we were after the Jerries in the picture: is that what you want me to say?‘
‘You could start in Greece, David.’
‘In Greece? God—that was the scene of our first debacle—’ Audley swung the wheel to avoid an old woman in black who was pulling a cart round a heap of rubble regardless of him: they were on the edge of a ruined town now. ‘But you were there yourself, damn it!’
‘But what were we after?’ The lying ‘we’ had a distinctly bitter taste. But he had to keep the upper hand.
Audley took a breath. ‘I don’t see why I should tell you what you already know—and better than I do, too.’
‘Tell me, all the same. If you want the rest of it, David.’
‘Oh … shit!’ But the boy craned his neck again as they turned out of the ruins. ‘That’s another one—? I think the MPs are all on strike today —’
‘Tell me!’
‘Okay, okay! Clinton was trying to bring out one of his own men, is what I think now. Although all I knew then was that we had to get him alive—and we didn’t.’ He looked at Fred. ‘Is that it?’
‘It is.’ After the stick, it was time for a carrot. ‘And that put him back almost three months, David.’
‘It did?’ Audley seized on the information eagerly. ‘We first got that picture in … May, yes—? That would be about three months.’
‘And what do the people in it have in common?’ He couldn’t resist the extra question.
‘Oh … that’s easy.’ The prospect of more answers dissolved Audley’s caution.
‘Yes?’
‘Not bloody Roman remains, for a start!’ Audley crashed the gears down joyfully as the car began to climb.
‘No?’
‘No!’ Audley tossed his head. ‘Colonel “Caesar Augustus” Colbourne may be a looney. But our Freddie isn’t into Roman history—no!’
Fred waited, half expectantly, but also somewhat irritated. Maybe it was the boy’s recent military experience, when he had been forced to listen to other people’s stupidities in obedient subaltern silence, which now invariably tempted him to hear his own voice saying clever things. But whatever the reason, if he were to remain a useful member of TRR-2 in the future, he would have to learn to hide his bright light more prudently.
‘I got it wrong first, actually—’ Audley steered the little car regardlessly across a succession of potholes in the track which had succeeded the road surface ‘—not understanding about Greece, of course.’
‘You did?’
‘Yes.’ The mockery bounced off Audley’s arrogance. ‘I thought … “cushy billet, those Jerries have got for themselves—pottering round the ruins of all the old German cities … Roman cities, rather: Confluentes, Moguntiacum, Colonla Claudia Ara Agrippinensis … picking up this and that after the fires had cooled down, and after their ARP people had carted off the bodies, and long after the jolly old RAF had departed—a real cushy billet!’ He pulled the car to a halt off the track under a stand of great beech trees through which a bright green meadow was visible, falling away on their right. ‘Very German of course, all the same. Great scholarship as well as great military prowess—too damn great military prowess for my liking … But great scholars too, they are. And they’ve always been fascinated with classical history—hence all the famous stuff in their museums. And hence that Roman fort we were billeted in, and the one the Kaiser rebuilt on the same line … and that bloody great statue in the woods not far from here … So it was a damn good cover, as well as a cushy billet—but cover for what, eh?’ Audley stared at him for an instant, then began to unwind himself out of his seat.
Fred followed suit, staring through the trees as he stretched his legs. Not far ahead there seemed to be a great grey cliff rising up from the grass of a wide forest clearing.
‘Nazis, I thought—’ Audley towered over the car ‘—bloody Nazis taking cover in a nice, respectable job, hoping that we wouldn’t look for them in Roman Germany, dressed in scholars’ gowns. At least, that would be their second line of defence, anyway, if we did trace them. Because it was pretty clear they’d all dispersed and gone to ground long before we appeared on the scene. Which meant they knew they had something to hide.’ Audley pointed towards the cliff. ‘Shall we walk? The RV is just down the track from here, by the rocks—’ He looked at his watch ‘—but we’re still in good time.’
Fred fell into slow step beside him.
‘But then we started to uncover facts as well as names and dates. And then it didn’t seem to work so well, my theory. Because some of them really were pretty distinguished scholars and not Nazis at all. Like old Professor Schmidt, for example. And Langer, who was at Oxford. Although he wasn’t a classicist, or an archaeologist. He was a very smart scientist, so I discovered—quite by accident … And Enno von Mitzlaff—he was an archaeologist, young and up-and-coming. And then he was a damn good soldier, until he lost his arm in the desert. But he wasn’t a Nazi—he certainly wasn’t a Nazi, by God!’
Audley was looking at the cliff now. And yet, it wasn’t a cliff: it was an extraordinary limestone outcrop … or, rather, a series of outcrops, some rising up like great blunt fingers into the grey morning sky above the forest.
‘But, then it looked like none of them were Nazis. And they’d been on the job for years, some of them. In fact, it all really started before the war, as a sort of Romano-German encyclopaedia, and the bomb-damage rescue and recovery part of it was almost an after-thought, even though it became their main work eventually.’ Audley continued to stare at the rocks. ‘You know that this was a place of pilgrimage in medieval times? Some bright religious entrepreneur had a replica of the Holy Places in Jerusalem carved into the caves at the bottom. And he may even have hired a Byzantine sculptor to do the job—possibly a PoW from the Crusades. Or a local man who’d been out east, maybe. Because it isn’t straight Romanesque carving … And then he fleeced the pilgrims, I expect … But Caesar Augustus says it goes back a long way before that as a holy place—all the way to the pagan times of his Cherusci, Chauci and Chattii—who worshipped rocks and trees. And he may actually be right, because my old Latin master, who is a proper old pagan … only he doesn’t worship rocks and trees, it’s Plato and rugger with him … he says it’s an old Christian trick to set up shop on other gods’ shrines —’
‘They weren’t Nazis?’ He still wasn’t sure whether Audley digressed deliberately or out of habit. ‘So what were they?’
‘Ah … no, they weren’t Nazis. But I still had this strange feeling that it was a cover of some sort.’ The boy gave him an uncharacteristically shy sidelong look. ‘It was really the old Croc who put me straight, in what passes for one of his more civilized moments … accidentally, of course … if I’m right, that is—?’
‘Go on, David.’
‘Yes … Well, it was when he was rabbiting on about his favourite subject one night—the Germans, and what we’re doing to them … and what we should be doing to them, and all that. And someone—
the Alligator most likely—because he likes baiting the Croc—he said that it was no more difficult than sorting apples: you kept the good ones and threw away the bad ones. And the Croc says, quick as a flash, “Och—but what is a guid Geairr-man?’” Audley grinned hugely as he exaggerated McCorquodale’s slight burr. ‘“It’s nae guid simply saying it’s those that fought with us against the wee man Hitlerrr. Because there’s many a guid decent man that disliked the both—an’ the more so when yon bluidy bastard in the Kremlin comes into the picture, as he was bound to do soonerrr or laterrr!”‘ The smile vanished. ’And he’s right, of course.‘
Right, of course! And so Major McCorquodale seemed then to be Brigadier Clinton’s man to the life, too. But Major McCorquodale was on the Brigadier’s list, too!
‘And I was right also, in a way … even when I was wrong —’ The look on Fred’s face halted Audley ‘—wasn’t I? Am I—?’
Fred controlled his disquiet. ‘Right about what?’
‘They were taking cover. Only not just from us—but also from the Nazis—’ The boy lifted his hand ‘—from both of us, is what I mean, Fred—’
‘Why?’ The boy wasn’t just clever: he was too damn clever. ‘Why did they have to hide?’
Audley stared at him. ‘They weren’t nonentities. Old Schmidt was a very well-respected academic. And von Mellenthin was a biologist, or a bio-chemist, or something—in the Croc’s field. Which includes his celebrated anthrax trials. And Langer would have been a top man in poison gases … And the word is that the Yanks have found some bloody-terrifying new gas the Germans were making, down south somewhere—tons of it.’ He shivered. ‘And … these chaps … they didn’t want to help Hitler brew the stuff up, to use on us. But they also didn’t want to help us … to maybe brew it up ourselves, and then serve it back on their own people, if things came to the crunch—if all Hitler’s other secret weapons started to bite—’ He looked at Fred questioningly ‘—am I right?’
A New Kind of War Page 27