The '44 Vintage dda-8

by Anthony Price

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "It's all clear," he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Blood?"

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

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

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

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

  "Funny?" Winston stared at him.

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

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

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

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

  "Sure, but—"

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

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

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

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

  To his joy the clue was obvious.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "What d'you mean?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Indeed? And why did he do that?"

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

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

  "Yeah? Now if there's gas—"

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

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

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

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

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

  "So we give it a try, Lieutenant?"

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

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

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

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

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

  "It's no good?" said Audley.

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

  " No!" said a new voice behind them.

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

  He turned round slowly.

  Dreh dich langsam un—?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "What operation?"

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

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

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

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

  "See what?"

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

  "Oh yes?"

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

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

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

  13. How Second Lieutenant Audley took a prisoner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  —it was all far away, back in Normandy.

  Even the enemy was different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Jack then. Are you okay?"

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

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

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

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

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