The '44 Vintage dda-8

by Anthony Price

  "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.

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

  "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.

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

  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.

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

  "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