The '44 Vintage dda-8

by Anthony Price

  "And you know what that makes us, Doctor? I'll tell you: it makes us the lowest form of animal life."

  The bitterness was almost passionate. "Second lieutenants don't have to think, Doctor —so they don't have to know. Who's going to tell us top secrets? Not the Colonel Clintons of this world, that's for sure.

  And as for the major —he didn't intend us to get this far, we were just a bit of window dressing to keep the colonel happy, that's all. So telling us why wasn't necessary. We weren't damn well going anywhere!"

  The subaltern's vehemence took Butler aback, coupled as it was with the extraordinary reason for it.

  Anger at being betrayed by one's own comrades was one thing—he had felt that himself. But to get angry because one's superior officers didn't explain all the whys and wherefores of their orders, that was ridiculous. A bullock might just as well expect the slaughterman to explain why he was turning it into beef!

  "Colonel—Clinton?" De Courcy's mouth opened and closed.

  "Of Intelligence, so-called," said Audley scornfully. "He was supposed to be running this show—he could give you the answer to your question. Or he could have. But we can't."

  It really was not knowing why that enraged Audley, thought Butler. In one breath he admitted being the lowest form of animal life, but in the next was objecting to it, and the objection marked him for what he truly was: a mere civilian in uniform.

  But the rage also gave his words sincerity—the proof of that was plain on Dr. de Courcy's face.

  "Could have?" said De Courcy. "What do you mean—could have?"

  "Hell, Doc—the major had the same plans for the colonel as he had for us." Sergeant Winston drew his finger across his throat. "The colonel was strictly surplus to requirements."

  De Courcy stared at them all, then gestured abruptly as though gathering them to him. "Come!" he commanded.

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

  “To Pont-Civray?" Audley snapped the words out.

  "To Pont-Civray." De Courcy repeated the gesture more urgently. "Those four men weren't the only . . .

  casualties I saw yesterday, apart from those of Sermigny. There was also a British officer my people brought in—a colonel. From near a village not far from here, seven or eight kilometres. But there was no identification on him."

  "Dead?" said Audley.

  "Not dead. But left for dead. He had a bullet in his back, David."

  Winston looked at Audley.

  "Sounds like the major's style."

  "Hmm . . . yes." Audley rubbed his chin. "And it also sounds as though we may be too late, I'm thinking.

  If the major was as close to Pont-Civray yesterday as we are now . . ."

  "No." De Courcy shook his head. 'We are not too late"—he drew a gold watch from his fob pocket

  —"perhaps not quite too late. But we must hurry now."

  "How d'you know we're not too late?" said Audley.

  "Because the Gestapo are not due to leave the chateau until midday today, that is how I know."

  "But the major won't know that. Or even if he does he may not choose to wait—he's got some tough men with him, Doctor, and he won't like hanging around."

  "Perhaps not. But they also have some tough men with them, the Gestapo: they have a Waffen-SS

  motorised company to escort them. Also they have made it very plain that they are leaving, and that if there is the least attempt to hinder them they will turn Civray St. Michel into another Oradour-sur-Glane." De Courcy gave Audley a hard look. "You know what happened at Oradour, David?"

  "There was a massacre of some sort there, wasn't there?"

  "A massacre of some sort?" De Courcy's voice harshened. "The SS herded all the men into a barn, and the women and children into the church, and then they burnt the barn and the church and the whole village . . . yes, David—there was a massacre of some sort at Oradour-sur-Glane. And that is why you can depend on the people of Civray St. Michel to make very sure that your major knows that the Gestapo are leaving the chateau. And that if he wants to attack the Germans he will have to fight Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  Frenchmen first."

  Sergeant Winston looked at the doctor suspiciously. "Seems to me you know one hell of a lot, what's going on round here, Doc—for a simple country doctor. Like even what the krauts are doing."

  De Courcy shrugged. "I told you—they have made no secret of it." Then suddenly he straightened up.

  "You do not believe me, Sergeant?"

  "You're damn right, I don't believe you!" Winston traded one hard look for another. "Like Jack here said, we're the goddamn pig in the middle. But that was when you were playing hard to get, and now you're saying 'Come on down, boys—Pont-Civray here we come!' So now I'm saying . . . you know so much, you just prove we're not the pig that's being taken to market, huh?"

  Butler looked at De Courcy and thought on that instant that the sergeant was right: he didn't look like a country doctor any more. On him the neat black suit and the Homburg hat and the gold watch and chain seemed as much a disguise as Second Lieutenant Audley's battle dress and pistol.

  "Very well, Sergeant—if you wish for frankness, then I will be frank." The corner of De Courcy's mouth lifted. "I will be français too."

  "That's okay by me. like the lieutenant said—be my guest"

  "No. You are my guest—all of you." De Courcy swept a hand to include them all. "You are here in France with your guns and your tanks —American, British, and German. But you are here en tourists.

  You are merely passing through France ... I know so much, Sergeant, because it is my business to know

  —because it is my country, not yours." He stared proudly at Audley. "And this thing you British want so badly—it is better that it stays hidden until we can decide to whom it belongs, I think."

  "But—" Audley began, "but it belongs to us."

  "No, David. You say it belongs to you. But you do not even know what it is. And the Communists—

  they intend that it shall belong to them. And your major ... he plans that it shall belong to him. But I say it came out of Paris in 1940, and I do not trust any of you."

  Sergeant Winston chuckled suddenly. "Yeah—well, I go along with you there, Doc." He grinned at Audley. "Don't get me wrong, Lieutenant—I think you're on the level. And Jack here . . . But your top brass could be as crooked as a three-dollar bill." He nodded encouragingly at De Courcy. "You can count me in so far, Doc—we give the loot to its owner, that's dealing from the top of the deck. But just how do you plan on doing that?"

  "Very simply, Sergeant. I have established that you do not know where it is hidden—you have said as much, and I believe you. Your colonel . . . Clinton knows, but he is in no condition to tell anyone, even Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  if he lives—not for the time being en tout cas. Which only leaves your major—yes?" De Courcy lifted an eyebrow at Audley. “Whom you intend to ... execute as a traitor?"

  "You're damn right!" exclaimed Sergeant Winston. Except that he was damn wrong, thought Butler.

  Because there was also the colonel's driver—had Winston forgotten him? Or had he mentioned the driver?

  He couldn't remember. They had been driving down off the embankment—he had been telling them what had happened. . . . He must have told them about the driver—He's the key to the treasure house, sergeant-major. He's our walking map!

  He must have told them!

  But he couldn't remember—and Audley's face was as innocent as a baby's—

  Too innocent?

  Then Audley nodded abruptly. "All right, sir. If those are your terms, then we accept them. You want Major O'Conor dead—"

  Too innocent!

  "You'll take us to Pont-Civray." Audley's jaw tightened. 'We'll kill him."

  "How are you going to get us there, Doc?" asked Winston.

  De Courcy smiled. "How should a doctor move his patients in an emergency?"
r />   They followed him down the path.

  Once again, it wasn't how he had ever imagined going to war: a Frenchman taking two Englishmen and an American and a German ... to kill an Englishman.

  Winston grinned at him. "You did okay back there, Jack. But how the hell did you know he'd crack—the doc?"

  How the hell had he known? He lifted the Sten. "I had the gun, Sergeant. He didn't."

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

  That was what Rifleman Callaghan always said: The man with the gun always wins the argument.

  21. How the Germans spoilt a good plan

  "When you think about it, it's rather appropriate," said Audley reflectively, to no one in particular.

  Butler had been thinking about it, but: that hadn't been his conclusion. He had thought, more simply, that it was a pity they couldn't see where they were being taken; but also that with the way his toes were already acting up it was a bloody sight better than foot-slogging. If the pigs really were being transported to market, at least their last journey was being made in comfort.

  Sergeant Winston surfaced from out of his own thoughts. “What is?" he inquired.

  "This." Audley waved his hand around vaguely.

  Winston looked towards the doctor. "Yeah, I guess it is at that." He grinned suddenly. "We should be glad you aren't a garbage collector, Doc—"

  "No." Audley shook his head. "I mean . . . this is how it all started —in an ambulance. This is how they brought the loot out of Paris in 1940—in an ambulance. And now us."

  "Uh-huh?" Winston shrugged. “Well, just so we get there in one piece is all I care about first. But it's what the hell we do when we get there that worries me, Lieutenant. You planning to gun the major down just like that—just wait for him to show up and let him have it? Is that it?"

  Audley ran his finger nervously between his neck and his collar. The light coming through the frosted window beside him caught the sheen of sweat on his forehead. Happen he didn't like being cooped up blind in the enclosed space of the ambulance, thought Butler, and that sweat was a memory of old terrors. But much more likely it was fear of what was to come, which had been all airy-fairy talk until now, with the odds against it ever being put to the test of reality.

  Trouble was, he could never see through the skin for sure, not until it was too late. All he knew was that Second Lieutenant Audley was a great talker, and clever with it—no doubt about that. But what he was when the words were all said and there was no more room for cleverness, that still remained to be seen.

  "Is that it?" Winston repeated the question brutally, as though he sensed the same uncertainty in the subaltern.

  And yet for all that maybe they weren't being fair, thought Butler. Because it was one thing to follow Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  and obey, and another and quite different thing to decide and to lead, knowing that the burden of responsibility was on one's own shoulders, no matter whose finger was on the trigger.

  He cleared his throat. “We could call on him to surrender first, sir," he said.

  Winston gave an angry grunt. "Oh sure—we do that and we throw away the only chance we've got, which is catching the bastard by surprise."

  Audley's jaw tightened. "We can still do that—if we can get into the chateau first." He turned towards Dr. de Courcy questioningly.

  De Courcy nodded slowly. "Yes," he said.

  "Uh-huh?" Winston paused. "And just how are you planning to do that, Doc?"

  "It need not worry you, Sergeant. It can be done."

  "So it can be done—so it still worries me." Winston paused again. "So you tell me how, huh?"

  De Courcy shrugged. "Very well . . . the Germans will not leave until midday. In the meantime they will be on the alert—it is a time of danger for them, the moment of withdrawal—"

  Winston raised his hand. "I don't want to care about the Germans, Doc. They don't worry me. It's the major—he worries me. Because by midday he'll be sitting on the goddamn doorstep just waiting for the krauts to move out. That is, if he isn't there already—which he probably is. And the moment they do move . . . he's not the sort of guy to wait until the dust settles, Doc. They move out—he'll move in."

  The Frenchman half-smiled. "And that is what I am relying on, Sergeant."

  Winston frowned. "I don't get you."

  "That is because you do not know the Chateau of Pont-Civray."

  "You mean—there's a secret way in?"

  "No, not a secret way." De Courcy shook his head. "But another way, simply."

  "Then the major may be watching it—simply."

  "But there is no reason why he should." De Courcy leant forward to emphasise his point "To the west of the chateau, in the woods beside the river, there is a path. Once it was a carriageway to the West Lodge, Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  but it had not been used for many years even before the Germans came. It is ... how do you say?—

  couvert—grown over."

  "Overgrown—I get you. But if you're banking on the major not having cased the chateau—" Winston shook his head back at the Frenchman. "What sort of perimeter defences has it got?"

  "Barbed wire, two fences. With mines in between."

  "That won't stop him. It didn't stop us on Easy Red at Omaha, Doc —and the krauts were throwing all kinds of shit at us. So it sure as hell won't stop him breaking in."

  "But he has no need to. He waits only for the Germans to leave, Sergeant. You worry about him, but he does not worry about you—he thinks you are dead, is that not so?"

  "Okay. So we're dead—?"

  "Therefore he waits for the Germans to leave, and they can only leave by the main entrance—it is the only way open to vehicles. So it is there that he will be watching, to see them go, so that he may bring his own vehicles in at the same point. De Courcy nodded in agreement with himself. "But we—we will be watching at the West Lodge. Because the Germans have a guard-post there—it is from there that they watch the river and patrol the perimeter wire through the wood. That will be our point of entry."

  The frown was becoming a fixture on the American's face. "Now you're really losing me, Doc. If the krauts weren't on the alert I might just get us through the wire and the mines—I got enough practice for that on Omaha. But if there's a guard-post there how's that going to get us to the chateau ahead of the major?"

  "But very simply, Sergeant!" De Courcy sat back on the bunk. "The last thing the Germans will do before they leave—the very last thing—will be to withdraw their guards from the perimeter. That will be our signal to enter." He lifted his hands expressively. “Then as they leave by the front entrance, we will move in behind them before the major enters."

  There was still doubt in Winston's eyes as he shifted their attention to Audley. "What d'you think, Lieutenant?"

  "It sounds . . . logical," said Audley. "If they really are evacuating the chateau completely."

  "There is no doubt about that," cut in De Courcy confidently. "It is not simply that they have said as much. For two days now they have been burning their documents—that is the surest sign of all."

  "Just so long as they don't leave a rear guard," said Winston, looking round the ambulance. "We don't have the muscle to fight the real war."

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

  De Courcy shook his head. "They will use all their men for the escort—with things as they are, they are too nervous to do anything else, believe me. They are not looking for trouble any more."

  That was an echo from the past, Butler recalled bitterly—an echo of what the major himself had said on the evening he had joined Chandos Force. And in that at least the major had spoken the complete truth: it had never been the Germans who had threatened the success of the operation; they had made all their own trouble, one way or another.

  "Okay. So what then?" Sergeant Winston conceded the point grudgingly. "We get to the chateau maybe a couple of
minutes ahead of the major—like firstest with the fewest. So what then?"

  De Courcy looked at Audley quickly. "Then ... it is the major you want. One clear shot tout simplement."

  Audley swallowed tout simplement like a spoonful of liquid paraffin. "Yes."

  "Then this way you will have your best chance of it. He will come up the driveway from the main gate—

  an avenue of trees of perhaps six hundred metres . . . then there is the old donjon— how d'you say?" De Courcy searched for the translation.

  "The keep," said Audley. "You mean a tower, like at Chenonceaux?"

  "A tower—yes. It was the original fortification beside the bridge over the river. But now it is a ruin, an emptiness. Merely the walls stand."

  "It was all a ruin in the old days, pretty much, wasn't it?" said Audley.

  "Until the Englishman came, yes. He rebuilt the chateau, and they were working on the bridge—they completed that just in time for the Germans. But the donjon is still unrepaired . . . But no matter! Beside it is the bridge, and beyond the bridge on the other side of the river lies the chateau." De Courcy lifted a finger. "So . . . the major must cross the bridge—and the open space in front of the chateau too. And on the bridge there is no cover." He paused. " And all you want is one clear shot."

  For a second no one spoke, then Winston turned to Audley. "Lieutenant—?"

  Tout simplement, thought Butler. It seemed too good—and too simple —to be true. It even had the priceless advantage of giving them a chance of escape afterwards, since one man with a gun could cover the bridge after the shot had been fired, discouraging pursuit.

  "He'll send in a patrol first to check out the place," said Winston. “To make sure all the krauts have gone."

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

  Audley nodded. "So he will. But we can lie low ... or rather, we can lie high, up in the chateau . . ." He frowned with concentration. "He'll send in a patrol. But if they report it's all clear, then he'll come in alone . . . with just the ones who are in on the plan."