The '44 Vintage dda-8

by Anthony Price

  de Courcy's body?

  He heard Audley grunt realistically behind him. The little Frenchman was a featherweight to the big subaltern, but Audley was much more concerned to keep his comical black-and-white minstrel face to the ground; it was odd that Audley still looked so very much like himself despite the burnt cork and the removal of his pips.

  Ten yards.

  The man's mouth was still open, and the machine pistol was still held across his body.

  Bold as brass, Audley had said. If he's not in on it he'll think twice hefore shooting you if you've got a prisoner—and I'm carrying a wounded man!

  They were up to the gateway.

  Big iron gates, old and rusty and heavily wired.

  Smaller iron gate, with a heavy iron chain and padlock But the padlock was oiled—

  Bold as brass! Everything depended on him now—

  Brigadier MacDonald, who by valour and conduct—

  "Up against the gates, Fritz—move."

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

  Hauptmann Grafenberg moved obediently up to the gates, facing the soldier on the other side. The soldier's mouth closed, and his eyes flicked uncertainly from Butler to the German, then back again to Butler. At least he wasn't an NCO, thought Butler gratefully; the blackened features were unrecognisable, and he could only pray that his own were equally so.

  But he mustn't think of that—and above all he mustn't give the man himself time to think of it either.

  But I'm no play-actor, sir.

  Then don't play-act, Corporal. Just do what you'd do and say what you'd say if you had to get a prisoner to the major.

  "Don't just stand there, for Christ's sake!" he snarled. "Open the bloody gate!"

  The man licked his lips. "But, Corporal—"

  "Don't you bloody argue with me." Butler bit off the protest furiously. "If you don't get this gate open double quick the major'll have your guts for garters—and when he's finished with them I'll use them for bootlaces, by God!" He counted a three-second pause. "Don't argue— move!”

  The machine pistol moved, not the man, and Butler's own guts turned to mush.

  "But, Corporal—it's locked." The soldier pointed the gun at the lock.

  Butler was taken flat aback for a moment. Then common sense reasserted itself. The man was an idiot, but that was no reason why he should be an idiot too. He had guarded gates not unlike this in his time, and had been Corporal of the Guard on them too. There was an ugly little concrete pillbox just to the right of them: that had to be the guardhouse, and guardhouses the world over must be the same, British, German, or Chinese.

  He nodded towards the pillbox. "Don't talk daft—get the bloody key out of there," he snapped.

  The soldier looked from Butler to the pillbox, then back at the padlock, then back to Butler again. An idiot indeed, thought Butler; and it was surprising, almost disappointing, that Chandos Force had such boneheads in its ranks. But then perhaps he had a natural-born skill in weapons training which had endeared him to the major originally, and his deficiency in general intelligence and curiosity would now commend itself to the major for the simple job of covering the flank of the theft against intruders, with no questions asked.

  But that didn't matter now, except insofar as it was a bonus for the intruders. Or intruders prepared to cloak subtlety with the bluster of an angry corporal, anyway—

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

  "Don't just fucking stand there"—Butler glowered through the gate— "get moving, man!"

  The soldier's reflexes took over, in obedience to confident authority. "Right, Corporal."

  Butler watched him disappear into the pillbox, his brief sense of triumph quickly overlayed by doubt. In the first place, depending on what sort of routine the Germans had for checking the outer wire here, there might not be a key in there at all. And in the second place even an idiot might have second thoughts once he was out of range of the strange corporal's blistering tongue—or he might even have time to remember more precise orders which the major might have given him about admitting strangers.

  The same disquieting thoughts had evidently passed through Audley's head. "Watch him when he comes out, for God's sake," he hissed urgently out of the corner of his mouth, shuffling up to Butler's shoulder.

  If he comes out, thought Butler, adjusting the angle of the Sten to the observation slit in the pillbox.

  From the moment the snout of the man's machine pistol showed in that gap he'd have maybe a tenth of a second if he was lucky. And no time at all if he wasn't.

  "Let me go—" Audley cut off the sentence abruptly at the first glimpse of movement in the entrance to the pillbox.

  Butler felt his chest swell with indrawn breath; then he saw the soldier hold up a loop of wire, jingling the key and grinning foolishly as he did so.

  "Got it, Corporal," he called out happily.

  "I can see that," snapped Butler ungraciously. "Get stuck into it, then—I can't stand here all bloody day."

  As the man fumbled awkwardly, one-handed, to insert the key info the lock, Audley moved up to the small gate.

  Let me go first— the movement answered the question which had been boiling up inside Butler. So Audley had plans for what he was going to do once he was inside, and it was his plain duty to attract the guard's attention to give those plans their best chance.

  The chain rattled loose, freed from the padlock.

  "Watch it, Fritz!" Butler barked warningly to Hauptmann Grafenberg.

  The German hadn't in fact moved a muscle since reaching his assigned position: he had done his job simply by being there and being so obviously the genuine article. But now he stiffened automatically at Butler's meaningless command, taking the soldier's attention from the smaller gate at precisely the Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  moment when Audley shuffled forwards towards it.

  "Keep those arms up—high!" Butler reinforced the warning as Audley turned his unencumbered shoulder to push open the gate, an action which also very sensibly turned his face away from the man on the other side.

  "Right, Fritz— jildi, you bugger," Butler addressed the German again just as Audley went through the gate. He didn't know what jildi meant, but it was his old CSM's standard word for rousing sluggards to their duty and it came to his tongue naturally.

  Hauptmann Grafenberg didn't understand it either, but he swayed uncertainly at the sound of it, and the movement was just enough to distract the soldier's eye from Audley as the subaltern began to lower Dr.

  de Courcy's body to the ground two yards inside the gate and slightly behind him. Given the choice of watching either a comrade with a wounded civilian or a German prisoner he was instinctively drawn to the known enemy.

  "Here, you!" said Audley.

  "What—?"

  The soldier had no time for a second word before Audley leapt at him. Butler had a blurred impression of the subaltern's large fist coming up from ground level and overtaking his body to connect with the man's jaw with his full weight behind it: it was as though Audley had packed into one blow every ounce of the accumulated anger and frustration he felt at being cannon fodder.

  The soldier's legs shot from under him and his body cannoned off the fist into the gates with a force that shook them and made Butler himself wince. The padlock and the machine pistol flew off in different directions, clattering against the wrought ironwork; the man himself bounced off the gates to receive Audley's other fist in the guts.

  Butler levelled the Sten through the bars at the two men as they rolled on the ground, but he knew it was no longer necessary: not even Joe Louis could have taken a punch like that and still come up fighting.

  The struggle ended before it started, with Audley astride a body which had obviously been unconscious even before he had grappled with it, but which he still hammered at unmercifully.

  "Stop it, for Christ's sake—he's finished, can't you see!" Butler cried
out. "Stop it!"

  Audley checked his raised fist, and sat motionless for a moment as the dust settled around him, his chest and shoulders heaving. "Let him be, sir," said Butler.

  Audley lowered his fist slowly—there was blood on it, and he stared at the blood uncomprehendingly.

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

  Butler could hear footsteps behind him. Beyond the gates Dr. de Courcy was on his knees, staring at Audley. Then he got up and put his hand on the subaltern's shoulder.

  "That was one hell of a Sunday punch," said Winston. "Better him than me!"

  Audley stood up quickly. He shook his head, and then stared around him. "Yes," he said huskily to no one in particular.

  "We got to get moving, Lieutenant," said Winston.

  "Yes—right—" Audley started to wipe his face with his bloodstained hand, and then stopped abruptly.

  He looked at Butler, then at Winston. "Get... his gun, Sergeant. Take off his battle-dress blouse and put it on"—he pointed down at the body without looking at it—"and give the rifle to Dr. de Courcy . . . don't bother about the trousers, no one'll notice—and they're all wearing different bits of uniform, anyway."

  His cheek twitched nervously under its minstrel disguise, but Butler no longer felt like laughing at him.

  "The blouse'll be enough—and the beret."

  Winston bent over the body and Audley stared across him to Hauptmann Grafenberg.

  "This is as far as you go, Captain. We're quits now—one all. I give you back your parole." He blinked furiously. "You can wait for us to come back if you like—or you can take your chance from here.

  Just. . . thanks for helping us, anyway."

  Grafenberg frowned. "But I have not done anything."

  Audley shook his head. "From where I'm standing you've done quite a lot."

  "Then perhaps I can do more." The German gave a tiny shrug.

  "Yeah. And perhaps you can get yourself killed." Winston didn't even bother to look up.

  "Perhaps." Grafenberg didn't bother to look down.

  Audley swallowed. "It really isn't your war, you know, Captain."

  "Huh!" Winston rolled the unconscious body over. "You can say that again for me."

  Grafenberg moved sideways until he stood in the open gateway. "True. But then I do not have a war any more."

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

  "Then you ought to quit while you're ahead." Winston peeled off the blouse.

  "And since you have given back to me my parole—my word of honour—then I am at liberty to volunteer, I think?" Grafenberg ignored the American. "And also . . . with me you may do again what you have done here—I think that also."

  Winston stood up between them, ripping open his own combat jacket as he did so. "And I think you're right—and I also think you're nuts." He nodded to Butler as he stripped off the jacket "Give us the gun then, Jack. And the—whatever it is—"

  Butler handed him the machine pistol and the greasy beret.

  "Okay"—Winston adjusted the beret with a savage tug—"okay, Lieutenant. Let's go, then."

  "Wait—" Audley began desperately, still staring at the German.

  "Wait hell!" Winston pointed the machine pistol at the German. "He wants to get himself killed, that's his business. One war's as good as another, so he gets what he wants it makes no difference one way or the other. Just so we get it over quickly, that's all. Let's go, Captain!"

  23. How Chandos Force fought its last fight

  They heard the sound of the sledge hammer before the chateau came into view through the trees. BANG-tap.

  BANG-tap— the diminished echo followed each blow. BANG-tap.

  "Over there!" Dr. de Courcy pointed to the left just as Butler caught sight of the familiar creamy stone and blue-black slate pinnacles ahead between the trees.

  "But that's on the other side of the river—not in the chateau." Audley's words came a fraction of a second before Butler identified the angle of difference between the sight of the chateau and the sound of the hammer.

  They plunged through the screen of undergrowth separating the track from the river, suddenly heedless of the discipline which had marched them from the gate.

  "Down, for God's sake!" Audley's command caught Butler just in time as the undergrowth thinned at the river's edge. He caught sight of the dark olive-green water, and a high stone-walled bank opposite which Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  surprised him as he direw himself flat: somehow he had expected the broad sandy channel of the Loire, but here the river—whatever river it was—had been caught between man-made banks.

  BANG-tap.

  "The tower?" Audley threw himself down beside him.

  "The bridge," hissed Winston on his other side. "The goddamn bridge!"

  BANG-tap.

  The words and the sound both drew Butler's eye upstream, to a graceful, two-arched bridge. On the far bank it was dominated by a great round tower which was connected to it by a wall of stone filling the gap between the drop of the bank and the abutment from which the first arch rose—

  BANG-tap.

  There were three British soldiers standing at the foot of the wall—

  BANG-tap.

  —and one of them was attacking the wall with a sledge hammer.

  It was Sergeant Purvis.

  "What the hell . . . ?" The American left the rest of the question unasked.

  "The fourth arch," said Dr. de Courcy from behind them.

  "What d'you mean—the fourth arch?" Audley turned back to him.

  "There used to be four arches"—De Courcy pointed—"two large ones, which you can see . . . and a small arch on each side. The smaller arches were—how do you say?—flood arches for when the river is high, between February and March every year, and sometimes in the late spring."

  BANG-tap. The heavy sledge hammer rebounded off the wall again. Sergeant Purvis stepped back from the wall, spat on each palm in turn like a navvy, and wiped his brow with his arm.

  Audley stared at the bridge. "You mean—they've filled in the little arch, someone has?"

  Butler looked at the doctor suddenly. "Didn't you say they repaired the bridge in 1940, sir—when they Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  were working on the chateau?"

  "Christ! Of course they did!" Audley hammered the ground with his fist. “That's what they must have been doing—shoring up the little arch with a wall on each side, probably to strengthen the abutments.

  The way the river curves, that's the side that must take the full force of the floods—" he stopped suddenly.

  "So what?" said Winston.

  Audley looked at him. "So—there's a space under the bridge between the two walls, man! And no one's ever going to knock down those walls just for fun—they're possibly what's supposed to be holding the bridge up. Nobody knocks down repair work—"

  BANG-tap-BANG-tap.

  "Nobody . . ." Winston twisted towards the bridge again. "Jee-sus, Lieutenant—you're damn right—"

  Now Butler knew what to look for he could see the line of the original arch in the wall, and once he could see it the newer stonework which filled it became obvious, for all that it had been carefully matched with the older work.

  "Give me the rifle, Doc," growled Winston. "I can hit that bastard from here easy—no trouble at all."

  But as he reached for the rifle Audley caught his arm. "That won't do any good. We hit one of them and there are still plenty more."

  Winston looked quickly at the group beside the wall, then back to Audley. "I can maybe get two before they get under cover—"

  "No. That isn't the major there with them—or the sergeant-major either." Audley shook his head.

  "Then we can wait for them to show up. Because if that's where the stuff's cached, the second that sonofabitch gets through the wall then they're gonna show, Lieutenant. You can bet on that."

  "And then it'll
be too bloody late." Audley began to crawl backwards. "Apart from which I doubt you can wing more than one at this range—with that old rifle. And then they'll flush us out of here in no time flat. They've got LMGs and mortars and bazookas, and they know how to use the damn things too. . . .

  Come on, let's get moving."

  Winston crawled after the subaltern, protesting. "Jee-sus, Lieutenant —if it'll be too late then it's already too late now, for God's sake! There's no way we're gonna stop them—no way."

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

  Once he had reached the safety of the path Audley stood up.

  "Very well—there's no way." He lifted his chin obstinately. "So we change the plan, Sergeant, that's all.

  Come on—and that's an order."

  "Like hell it is!" Winston faced him.

  "Sergeant"—Butler touched the American's arm lightly—"there isn't time to argue."

  "Yeah. But time to get killed." Winston shrugged off the touch. "You got another plan, Lieutenant—just like that?"

  "No, Sergeant—not just like that. I've got the other plan we always had. The Army's solution to all problems. The one thing we're both real experts in." Audley's voice was suddenly weary. "It's just a damn shame someone didn't remember the rules back here in 1940, that's all." He paused. "Instead of trying to be clever."

  "What rules?"

  "What rules?" Audley laughed shrilly, as though on the edge of hysteria. "God Almighty, Sergeant—

  back in '40 we destroyed a whole army's equipment rather than let the Germans get it! ' Equipment and stores likely to fall into enemy hands must be denied them by demolition.'" He stabbed a finger in the direction of the bridge. "There's a muddy river out there, and a sledge hammer—and you've got a lighter in your pocket. . . . And, by God, there's precious little in this dirty, stinking world that can't be drowned or smashed or burnt so that it's no use to anyone." Audley's finger balled into his fist and the fist hammered his own chest "You want to know how I am, Sergeant? I'm the Open Scholar of Queen's who knocked down the medieval church at Tilly-le-Bocage with half a dozen well-placed shots! When it comes to destroying things, I'm a professional—and we are going to destroy what's under that bridge, believe me." He looked quickly at Butler. "Right, Corporal Butler?"