The '44 Vintage dda-8

by Anthony Price

  stutter of mine . . . and the farther away from the regiment I got, the farther away from my stutter—isn't that a funny thing, now?"

  Butler stared and stared into the darkness, and was glad of it because it hid whatever expression he was wearing on his face—whatever it was, it felt hot as though he was blushing, though whether that was for himself or for Audley he couldn't make out.

  "Phew!" Audley breathed out. "They say confession is good for the soul, and I feel better for that already. But it must be somewhat less reassuring for the recipient, I should think, eh?"

  Butler swallowed. "No, sir." He reached feverishly into his imagination. "I think—I think you're no different from me—when I said it was luck, not wits, that counts. What people see, that's the truth for them."

  "Uh-huh? 'Beauty is only skin-deep, but it's only the skin you see'? But I don't think that's really a very sound basis for action, I'm afraid."

  Butler reached out again, and Rifleman Callaghan came to his rescue. "I dunno about that, sir. But there's a man in my platoon who always says it's better to be lucky than beautiful... I reckon we're both lucky, it looks like."

  There was no point in adding that Rifleman Callaghan was referring to his conquests in the ATS

  quarters, not to matters of life and death in France; and that in his victories it was not survival but a clean pair of heels that mattered.

  "You may be right—I hope you are," Audley mused. "On the other hand . . ."

  Butler reached out for one last time, despairingly. Things had gone quite far enough, and he didn't want to go into the fight today with any more of Audley's burdens on his back. Also, if there was such a thing as good luck, and they still had it, he didn't fancy listening to Audley try to take it to pieces to see how it worked, as though it was a cheap watch. It was one thing to take a watch to pieces, but a very different thing to make it work again afterwards. "There's one thing I'd like to know, sir," he said.

  It took Audley a moment to shake himself free from his own thoughts. "Yes . . . ? Well, what's that?"

  What was there that he'd like to know? Butler asked himself desperately. He'd exchanged one problem for another.

  He'd like to know what had been carried out of Paris in that ambulance four years before, to the Chateau de Pont-Civray. But Audley didn't know the answer to that, so he could only ask such a silly question as a last resort.

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

  What would Rifleman Callaghan have done in such a fix? "I don't really know how to ask it," he temporised.

  "You don't?" Audley gave a short laugh. "Then I bet I know what it is."

  Well, that was one for Callaghan's book, thought Butler: by a pure fluke he'd reversed the question, and what he was going to get now was what Audley himself would like to know. “The major," said Audley.

  The major?

  "Yes, sir." Butler controlled his voice with an effort. "The major." It was growing lighter; he could just begin to make out Audley's features, though not yet his expression. Which was a blessing, because it meant that Audley couldn't see him either.

  "I know . . ." Audley nodded. "Because I've been thinking about him too. Ever since maman spelt it out last night I've been thinking about him off and on." Butler decided to say nothing.

  Audley looked at him for a moment, and then turned away again to stare at the wood, in which the trees nearest them were just beginning to emerge as individual shapes.

  "It's funny ... I knew from the second we decided to go after him that if we did catch up with him we'd have to kill him. Not only because it's the only thing we can do, but because if we don't he'll certainly kill us—it'll be the only thing he can do." Butler frowned. He hadn't thought of it that way.

  Audley shook his head at the trees. "I've never killed a man before ... I mean, I've never killed a man I knew—in cold blood like this. Maman was quite right, as usual: the word is 'assassinate'—God knows how she guessed, but that's what it is. Just one step up from murder, really."

  Butler cleared his throat. "I don't see that, sir. Not so as to worry about it anyway. Not after what we've been through."

  "Oh—it doesn't worry me, not at all. Quite the opposite actually. As I say, it's funny . . . but the last twenty-four hours or so I've been really almost happy for the first time since I landed in Normandy."

  "Happy?" Butler repeated the word incredulously.

  "I said it was funny, didn't I?" Audley rocked forwards. "I suppose being away from . . . from the regiment has something to do with it Away anywhere. Even here."

  There came a sudden sound of flapping wings from the wood, making Butler sit up sharply in alarm.

  "It's all right," Audley reassured him. "He's just gone on his morning patrol. If it'ud been anything else Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  he'd have sounded his danger call."

  Butler stared at the young officer curiously, wondering suddenly how much guilty truth and how much honest battle fatigue there had been in the story of the fight with the Tiger. What was certain was that too much brains and too much imagination could be an extra burden in the front line: Audley was like a racehorse down a coal mine, desperately pretending to be a pit pony.

  The wood was quiet again.

  "I didn't think much about the major, anyway," Audley took up the thread once more. "The best part of yesterday ... I suppose the problem of catching him seemed more important than doing what we had to do when we did catch him—if we ever did. But now . . ." he trailed off.

  Butler felt strangely protective. "We'll just do what we have to. Duty isn't a problem, sir."

  Audley turned towards him. "Yes—but now I want to know why, don't you see?"

  "Why what, sir?"

  "Why Major O'Conor's gone rotten on us, man—wasn't that what you wanted to ask in the first place?"

  Butler blinked. "Oh . . . yes, sir—it was. But I didn't think you'd know the answer to that, of course."

  "But maybe I do."

  "You do?" Butler's surprise was genuine.

  "I said 'maybe.' The trouble is I know so little about him, really—just what they said . . . and what he said too ... in the Mess last night." Audley paused. "No, I mean the night before last. It seems only last night . . . and yet it also seems a hell of a long time ago."

  So Audley was having trouble with time too, thought Butler. "Yes, sir?"

  Audley nodded. "He wasn't just in the show from 1940 onwards. He was in the first lot, in 1918—did you know that?"

  Butler nodded back. "Yes, sir. I recognised the ribbons."

  "Yes, of course—I hadn't thought of that. . . . Well, he was a second lieutenant. Won the MC up beyond Ypres somewhere, right at the end of things. And he wanted to stay on afterwards and make a career of it, but they wouldn't have him—that's what he said. I can't imagine why anyone in his right mind should Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  want to do that, but I think he did—very much."

  Butler opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come out.

  "It's pretty remarkable that he got back in at the sharp end in 1939. He'd been a schoolmaster or something like that—maybe he was a Territorial officer, I suppose. That might be it. But it's still remarkable."

  There was a lump in Butler's throat. "If a man wants something enough, sir . . ."

  "But he wanted it enough in 1918—or 1919. Anyway he did get back in—France in '40, then the Middle East—Greece and Crete. North Africa and then Italy. And finally Jugoslavia as a weapons adviser to a big Partisan outfit—a DSO for that, so he must have been damn good. It seems incredible, doesn't it?"

  "That he should go wrong on us?" Butler found himself staring at the trees. It did seem incredible. It even required an effort of will to recall the voice and the words he had heard spoken just above him on the island in the Loire, even though both were etched deep into his memory. "Yes, it does, sir."

  "And yet it was there, th
e night before last."

  It was there? "What was there, sir?"

  "Something wrong. He kept asking me what I was going to do after the war. Like, did I really want to go up to Cambridge."

  "They asked me that too, sir. What I wanted to do after the war. The . . . Corporal Jones did. And Sergeant Purvis."

  Somehow Sergeant Purvis's treachery seemed the blackest of all. The major was an Olympian figure, a being from another world, to be admired or hated rather than understood—and it was difficult to hate what he didn't understand. But Sergeant Purvis—and the sergeant-major too —had been men he knew and trusted as the backbone of the British Army. The major was like the general, his idol. But they were no different from Dad, and that made their treachery worse and killing too good for them, the buggers.

  "They did?" Audley gave him a knowing look: he could see that now and he'd have to watch his own face. "Yes . . . well, I suppose they were checking us both for the same thing. The other two chaps were from Intelligence—Colonel Clinton's men. That's why the major got rid of them. Maybe he hoped to recruit us into the plot—at least for the time being, anyway ... I don't know. But that's the key to it, I think." His mouth twisted. "In fact, when I think about it, he as good as said as much, by golly! Do you know that, Jack?" Jack. Equals.

  "No. What did he say?"

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

  They were equals. Mr. Audley and Corporal Butler were just for the time being. He would learn and he would catch up because he had learnt. And he would be a better officer than Audley because of that "He said things would be rough after the war."

  "They said that too." He couldn't quite bring himself to say David. That would only come with friendship, if not equality.

  "Huh! He said the war was won, but we hadn't won it—we'd just fought it. He said the Yanks and the Russians had won, we'd lost. At least, the British had lost. But there was still a chance for individual chaps to grab what was going and get something out of it—did they say that to you, Jack?"

  The lump was there again. "More or less."

  Audley nodded. "I gave him the wrong answer too. I said everything I wanted was at Cambridge, waiting for me—"

  He was only one breath away from asking what was waiting for Corporal Butler to keep him on the straight and narrow road, thought Butler. And he had to be headed off from that question. "What did he say to that, sir?" he said hastily.

  "Oh, he sheered off. He said he was glad I'd got myself a cushy billet. And then he said something I thought was rather clever: he said that the difference between wise countries and wise men was that wise countries prepared for war in peacetime, whereas the wise man was the one who prepared for peace in wartime." He gave Butler a twisted grin. "The laugh is—I thought he was talking about me. But actually he was referring to himself, I suppose: kill everyone who gets in the way, grab the loot, and keep going, that's his formula."

  "Keep going where?"

  Audley shrugged. "Switzerland, I guess. That's where I'd go if I was him."

  "But what about everyone else? They'd know, I mean."

  "If there is any 'they' after he's finished. With the sergeant-major and that sergeant of his, plus whoever else is in on the scheme—with the Germans retreating and the French settling their private scores, there should be enough chaos for him to remove the eyewitnesses. And even if he isn't quite as cold-blooded as that—well, maybe most of the chaps don't even know what he's up to, so he can go missing and stand a good chance of being listed as a dead hero."

  Put like that the risk the major was taking wasn't really so risky as that, thought Butler. The only real Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  hazard was the Germans, but now that they were retreating all the major had to do was to keep out of their road, and that was precisely where his special skill lay. Otherwise, a couple of jeeploads of British soldiers were more likely to be welcomed and helped on their way than questioned. France would be wide open to them.

  "That doesn't answer the why, but it does spell out the how," said Audley. "And maybe the two add up to the same thing, anyway: it was his last and best opportunity of getting rich—he simply couldn't resist the opportunity."

  There was more to it than that, Butler's instinct told him. Audley might be right about the temptation—

  he probably was. But there was also the long bitterness of those civilian years which the major had endured. Audley would never understand that, even though he had half suspected it, because it didn't make sense to him.

  But he, Jack Butler, could understand it very well indeed. He could almost sympathise with it.

  He could even guess at how it might rust a man's soul, the thought of the might-have-been, the lost comradeship and wasted youth, the thwarted skills and ambitions. Not even the opportunities of this war would have made up for all that; they might even have made it worse when the major saw the luckier subalterns of 1918 now commanding brigades and divisions all around him, while he was only a superannuated major teaching guerrillas how to shoot, somewhere in the back-of-beyond of the Jugoslav mountains.

  And he knew he was right because he could still feel the ache in his own guts where his stomach had turned over with fear at the news that the war was ending quickly—too quickly, just as it had once done for the major. Indeed, the fear was still there, twisting inside him.

  Except that it wasn't going to happen to him, the same thing. He wasn't going to let it happen, one way or another. But he couldn't tell Audley any of that.

  "You're probably right, sir," he began coolly. "He must—"

  "Sssh!" Audley held up his hand to cut him off, turning an ear towards the wood as he did so.

  Butler couldn't hear a sound other than the swish of the stream. "Someone's coming," whispered Audley.

  The only noise Butler could hear was still that of the water, but the conviction in that whisper was enough for him. He twisted sideways and reached inside the doorway for his Sten.

  "On the path, down by the stream— there!" Audley hissed, pointing towards the fringe of trees to the left of them.

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

  "I've got him," Butler whispered back, his eyes fixed on the flicker of movement in the stillness while his fingers closed on the cocking handle. There was something wonderfully comforting about the feel of the weapon and the oily, metallic smell of it in his nostrils. He remembered having read somewhere, years back, how savage warriors caressed their spears and talked to them before battle—

  "It looks like just one," murmured Audley. "I can't see anyone else. Which means—keep your fingers crossed, Jack!"

  All Butler's fingers were otherwise engaged, particularly one of them. But there was still a corner of his mind that wasn't concentrating on the movement between the trees.

  "Sir?"

  Audley watched the trees intendy. "If it's Boucard, then they're not going to help us. But if it's Dr. de Courcy . . ."

  That was the big "if," of course, Butler remembered belatedly. M'sieur Boucard ran the safe house of the escape route on which they'd stumbled with such incredible beginner's luck. But it was the local doctor who controlled the escapers' transfer from one place to the next along that route—the doctor whose own journeys could always be explained by the requirements of his job.

  Suddenly he was aware of his own heart thumping within his chest Another dozen yards or so, and they would be able to see who it was—

  Boucard or the Doctor.

  Failure or success?

  Except that reaching Pont-Civray was itself no guarantee of success, only of somebody's death. Maybe Jack Butler's death even?

  Audley relaxed beside him. "Over here, Doctor!" he called out.

  Dr. de Courcy halted in the middle of the car-track just below them, took off his black Homburg hat, and methodically set about wiping the sweat-band with a clean handkerchief from his breast pocket. Only when he'd completed this task to his satisfactio
n and had returned the handkerchief to his pocket and the hat to his head, did he at last look up at them.

  " Eh bien, David Audley! Tu as éventé la mèche comme toujours. Mais cette fois tu as dépassé les bornes," he said harshly.

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

  A rustle in the hayloft behind them distracted Butler's attempt to disentangle the meaning from the French words.

  "So what's that meant to mean?" Sergeant Winston stepped onto the platform, wiping the sleep from his eyes. "And who's the funeral director?"

  "Dr. de Courcy"—Audley's voice faltered—"Sergeant Winston, of the United States Army."

  "Oh—yeah . . ." Winston nodded apologetically. "Sorry, Doc! Early morning—big mouth." He looked at Audley questioningly. "Are we in trouble again, Lieutenant?"

  Audley stared at Dr. de Courcy uncertainly. "He says . . . we've let the cat out of the bag, somehow—?"

  The doctor shook his head. "Not the cat. Another animal, perhaps . . ."

  "Another animal?"

  "A tiger this time, David Audley. A man-eating tiger. And he has your scent in his nose, I fear."

  20. How Dr. de Courcy made a bargain

  "The guys in the wood, Lieutenant," Sergeant Winston prompted Audley. He nodded thoughtfully at Butler, and Butler knew he was remembering the cold-blooded way they'd killed the wounded German soldiers in the Kiibel.

  "Yes," said Audley, still staring at Dr. de Courcy. "But there has to be more to it than that, I'm thinking."

  "Sure there is: we got away from them, and they don't like it."

  Audley shook his head. "More than that. . . What are we supposed to have done, Doctor?"

  De Courcy looked at him curiously. "You ask me that?"

  "That's right, Doc." Winston leaned forward. "We're asking. So you tell us."