– I hope I’ll be too old ... or doing something safer, somewhere else . . . Shall we go?’
Next time round? ‘What’s in this bag?’
‘The bag? Oh yes! Battle-dress, blouse and trousers, medium size . . . belts – one, gaiters – two, boots GS –one pair . . . beret –
one. But don’t ask me about badges and rank, and all that – Amos has a funny sense of humour there, so it could be anything. And he forgot to tell me, anyway.’
Christ! ‘What’s it all for, David?’
‘Ah . . .’ A shielded light showed suddenly. ‘Sorry about this – but I can’t read my wrist-watch in the dark ... it just doesn’t seem to show up, the way it should ... or maybe I need spectacles, I don’t know – ah! Okay! We’ve got a full five minutes in hand, actually.
So ... what’s it all for, did you ask? It’s quite simple, really: we are about to deceive our loyal American allies, that’s all.’ The light went out.
‘How?’ Madness! ‘Why?’
‘How? Ah . . . well, you remember what we’re doing –I did tell you just before dinner. Rather hurriedly, I admit. But I did.
Number 21, and all that –remember – ?’
‘Number 21? The man in the photograph?’
‘That’s right: “Key-of-the-Door”, like in Housey-Housey – a mindless game of quite excruciating boredom, which I shall never forget because we were obliged to play it endlessly while we were dummy4
in readiness for Normandy. You know it?’
‘For Christ’s sake, David!’ Steady! ‘Number 21 – we’re going to pick up Number 21 – does he have a name?’
‘He does. But he won’t be using it tonight, and neither will we. For our purposes he’s now “Keys”, Fred. But the name you’ve got to remember is “Krausnick” in any case –“Krausnick” – okay?’
‘Is that his real name?’
‘Lord no! Krausnick is an entirely different fellow – a scientific fellow . . . But he’s the one we’re officially supposed to be picking up tonight, you see. Are you with me?’
It was no good saying ‘no’. ‘Yes. We’re pretending to go after a scientist named Krausnick. But we’re actually after . . . “Keys”.
And that’s the deception?’
‘Partly. Because . . . actually, we’re not going to get him, of course.’
‘Keys – ?’
‘No. Krausnick.’
‘Why not?’
‘We don’t want him. Or . . . I suppose we do want him, actually.
But he won’t be there anyway. In fact, the truth is, he’s probably nowhere. Because the last time he was spotted was in Berlin, back in late April, at the very end of things there. So the Russians have probably got him, if he’s still alive.’
‘So why are we after him? Or pretending we are – ?’
‘Ah! Well, he’s big-time stuff still, even if he is “Missing, dummy4
presumed” et cetera. On everyone’s “Most Wanted” list, with his picture in every sheriff’s office, Fred, is friend Krausnick.’
‘A big-time Nazi?’
‘Nazi? No ... or maybe he is – was that, too. But nobody seems to be worrying much about that now – not with scientists, anyway.’
Audley was shaking his head: Fred couldn’t see him doing it, but he was, nevertheless. ‘Krausnick’s a rocket-propulsion expert –
one of the Crocodile’s alleged specialities. So when we’ve got the prisoners all lined up, the old Croc will be striding up and down muttering “Krausnick” loudly, and f-frowning at each of ’em and saying “Not that one – not that one”, and so on ... All for the benefit of the Americans, you see?‘
It was still no good saying ‘no’. At least, not directly. ‘But this isn’t the deception – or only partly?’
‘Right.’ This time it was an invisible nod. ‘Because they’ll be watching us like a hawk. Because they’re hellbent on picking up every rocket-expert they can lay their hands on, Fred. Because . . .
because . . . the word is that the Germans had plans for super-rockets which could fizz their way clear across the Atlantic. And you just imagine rockets landing among all those skyscrapers –eh?’
Audley allowed him time for a brief catastrophic vision. ‘In fact ...
if, by any remotest accident, Herr Krausnick did turn up in the line-up . . . then they’d probably grab him from us – and apologize afterwards, the old Croc says. But maybe he’s doing them an injustice. But . . . but . . . the possibility of that happening has wonderfully encouraged their co-operation, at all events. Hence the searchlights. Plus a large number of their military intelligence dummy4
chaps too, more’s the pity! Although, of course, they don’t take us too seriously – or not Caesar Augustus, anyway!’
There was method in Colonel Colbourne’s madness, decided Fred.
But there was also rather too much risk-taking for his taste. ‘Did we tell them about Krausnick?’
‘Lord, no! But we did accidentally let them find out, just to encourage them to help us.’ Audley’s torch went on again, illuminating his wrist-watch. ‘We’ll have to go soon, Fred –’
‘Just to deceive them?’ Routine Anglo-American military double-dealing had been par for the course in Italy, Fred remembered. And everyone had tried to fuck-up the French, as a matter of routine enmity (although the Frogs had had the last laugh – and his admiration with it). But this was all curiously depressing, nevertheless. ‘Why?’
The torch went out. ‘We had to tell them something – for God’s sake, Fred – they’re not stupid: they know we’re up to something, I mean!’
The depression hardened him. ‘So what is our deception then – our real deception? Just picking up “Keys”, instead of Krausnick?’
Audley said nothing for a moment. ‘Wait and see. We ought to be moving now – ’
‘No.’ Apart from the hardening, there was the prospect of blundering about in the sodden darkness of the forest. ‘If I’m going to carry this bloody bag . . . then, apart from what the adjutant said
– what he told you to do, David ... I want to know what’s happening, damn it!’
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Again, Audley said nothing for a moment. ‘Oh . . . very well, then!’
Fred waited for another moment. ‘Yes?’ He lowered the umbrella, and found that Audley was substantially right about the weather: apart from the spattering drips from the thick foliage above, the rain had almost ceased. ‘And you can have your brolly back now, David.’
‘I don’t need it – you can have it, Fred.’
The very last thing Fred wanted to be seen carrying, either by his commanding officer, or by the Americans, was an umbrella. ‘I don’t want it, David – thank you.’
‘Oh . . . have it your own way!’ The umbrella was seized from him with an accuracy which suggested that Audley’s night-vision wasn’t really so bad. ‘Here – you take this, then.’
It was ... a stick? A walking stick? ‘Thank you.’ That wasn’t so bad, anyway. ‘All I want is an answer to my question, David.’ He felt himself almost pull rank – over-inflated majority over over-promoted captaincy – and weakened slightly. ‘I’ve had a long day, you know.’
‘Sure – of course!’ Audley accepted the olive-branch. ‘Okay. So ...
we go into this damn place like a dose of salts . . . It’s a house, with some out-buildings. Like stables – or kennels, I don’t know ... I think it was an old hunting lodge of some sort, in the Kaiser’s days.
When he hunted Otto’s boars hereabouts, and suchlike –I don’t know . . . But it’s been empty for years, anyway. Because it’s in the middle of nowhere, Amos says. Right?’
He had heard briefings like this, from other over-promoted infantry dummy4
subalterns of tender years, full of the same careless confidence. But now wasn’t the time to remember them. ‘So?’
‘So you follow me. With the bag.’ Audley drew a deep breath, and an overloaded branch above suddenly deluged Fred.
‘And we’ll have Devenish with us by then –he’ll be waiting for us at A2.’
Fred’s morale lifted slightly, at the thought of Devenish. ‘And then?’
‘Then we wait patiently for H-Hour. And when that comes, all the pretty searchlights go on, and loud and frightening military noises are made for a moment or two. And then Colonel Augustus addresses his cowering victims – that is, assorted Germans-on-the-run, and hard-case DPs who don’t want to go home, and the odd American deserter no doubt. . .he – our Glorious Leader –
addresses all of them in his execrable German. Which will only serve to confuse them, undoubtedly. But over the loudspeakers he will address them nevertheless, because he fancies his German . . .
Although I’ve heard him address one unfortunate group of Teutons for all of quarter of an hour, and none of ’em understood a word he said . . . But maybe then Amos or the Crocodile will take over – or even the Alligator. And it’ll be okay, then, because they each spraken quite reasonable Deutsch.‘
Audley’s own German accent was on a par with his commanding officer’s. ‘But you don’t speak it?’
‘No. How did you guess?’ Audley seemed amused. ‘Just a few necessary phrases, that’s all. I’m supposed to be the unit’s French-speaker – all the rest have more German then me, even Driver Hewitt, I suspect. But then I’m an exception to the TRR-2 rule in dummy4
more ways than one . . . Shall we go, then?’
Fred stood his ground obstinately. ‘What happens then.’
‘We go in – like I said.’ Audley was trying to be languid, in the style of his admired Major de Souza. But he couldn’t conceal an undercurrent of juvenile excitement which Fred recognized. It was something he could still remember from his own youth: the foolish optimism of young subalterns who knew no better, without which wars would be impossible. But he had lost all that in Italy.
‘Like a dose of salts?’ Once it was lost, it never came back.
‘We go in behind Major de Souza and his warrant officer.’ Audley caught the mocking edge in the question, and his voice stiffened.
‘We always operate in pairs, Major Fattorini. I shall be with Jacko Devenish – ’
That made five, not two. ‘The four of you – plus me?’
‘You are a supernumerary, Major Fattorini. Shall we go?’
‘But I’m carrying the bag, Captain Audley.’ Fred played his ace.
‘I’ll go when you explain that. Not before.’
‘Oh . . . okay, Fred – damn it!’ Mercifully, the young man realized when he was being ridiculous. ‘Amos fingers Number 21 – “Keys”
– for us. And then he and his man cover us while we dress him up as a British soldier. Savvy?’
Fred savvied instantly, suddenly aware that he had been halfway there already, with his bag and David’s deception of their allies.
‘We put “Keys” into this uniform – ?’ He sensed Audley staring at him in the dark. ‘As one of ours?’
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‘That. . . that is exactly right.’ For a moment there was silence between them. ‘Full marks – join the club, and all that . . . Like,
“God Bless America” – but “God, don’t let’s trust the Yanks” –
exactly right, Fred!’
The sudden bitterness in the young man’s voice caught Fred’s interest. ‘You don’t like what you’re doing, David?’
‘Like it? Huh!’ Audley paused. ‘You should hear Sar’ Devenish on that subject!‘
‘He doesn’t like it – ?’
‘On the contrary, old boy! Sergeant Devenish poached me to rights long ago, when we were in Greece together, when I made the mistake of saying that I didn’t much like killing Greeks, when I’d been hired to kill Germans –huh!’
Even more interest. ‘What did he say?’
‘He said: “Well Mr Audley – ” I was a humble lieutenant then . . .
and I can’t do his voice – I’ve got no ear for mimickry . . . But, anyway, he said: “Well, Mr Audley, I don’t remember being signed up to do anything but obey orders. And I certainly never expected to do what I liked. Because if I could do what I liked, then I’d be doing my job back in England, and I’d be going home to the wife and the kids every evening. And none of this foolishness.”’
God! A super-saturated branch gave way above them, spattering Fred with German rain. God–this foolishness!
‘So let’s go then. We can’t afford to waste any more time discussing free will and military n-n-necessity, anyway. So come dummy4
on, Fred – ’
After a time Fred began to realize that he’d been going and coming on almost automatically, in almost total darkness and more by a mixture of sound and instinct. But then, when he lost the sound of Audley’s footsteps for an instant, his fear came back –
‘David – !’
‘Come on! We’ve got to move now! We can’t be late!’
‘David! How d’you know where we’re going?’
‘Don’t worry. Just follow me – ’ It was no use worrying –
Well ... at least he could work out the logic of the assault: if there was anyone who could be trusted to do the clever stuff, it would be Amos de Souza – no problem there . . . And, by the same logic, Audley and Devenish were an ideal snatch-squad: the young dragoon was built like a brick shit-house, and Devenish was a veteran and a hard man, as he himself had reason to remember.
He almost tripped up, on an invisible fallen branch thicker than anything he had encountered before, and saved himself with Audley’s stick; and caught the sound of the boy crashing his way ahead, regardless as a tank, and, in the surrounding silence, almost as noisy –
Then the noise stopped. ‘Are you all right, Fred?’
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‘Yes.’ Led by the voice, and with all his senses sharpened by the night, he could just see something darker in the darkness of the forest. Or he might just be imagining that he could? ‘But I can’t really see a damn thing.’
‘I can. So don’t worry – just follow me.’ Audley waited for him to close up again. ‘We’ve got to leg it now, too. Because we can’t be late for the fun – Amos would never forgive me if I missed the party, you know. Right?’
Fred clenched his teeth, trying to forget the aftermath of those other Italian fun-parties when the dawn had revealed the bodies of the fun-party-goers on the river banks, with others bobbing in the shallows among the wrecked pontoons, or caught in the reeds. And the bobbing corpses were usually his men, too, because the heavily-laden infantry sank to the bottom quickly: they were the ones you trod on, who had drowned quietly in three-foot of water, when you went to recover the sodden engineer bundles later on – damn!
Damn! Damn! Damn! ‘Right, David. But I hope you know what you’re doing –and where you’re going.’
But Audley didn’t go. Instead his torch came on suddenly, blinding him totally.
‘Put that damn thing out!’ The old night-discipline asserted itself.
‘It’s all right.’ Audley soothed him quickly. ‘We’re still half a mile from A2. No one can see us here – and I know exactly where we are, too! Look – ’ Instead of going out, the torch-beam swept left, and then right, into the forest ‘ – see?’
Fred tried to see. ‘We’re in ... some sort of ditch – ?’ That was all dummy4
he could see in the pale yellow light as it moved, directing his eye: there were banks either side, humpy and uneven . . . but banks, nevertheless, with trees on either side, and only the minor debris of fallen branches in the bed of the ditch, ahead of them.
The torch went out. ‘That’s right: we’re in a ditch. And so long as I don’t go up on the bank on either side – which I can feel with my feet . . . and my umbrella . . . because you’ve got my ashplant now, damn it! – then we’re on the right track to A2 . . . right?’ The tightness of Audley’s voice marked the end of his patience. ‘So we’re going, Fred – “quam celerrime”, as my old Latin master used to say – or “double-quick
” – or “on the double” – ?’
They went, then. And they went almost, but not quite, ‘on the double’ – the old sergeant-major’s double, hallowed on a thousand parade-grounds and route-marches . . . but as close to it as the ditch, and the debris in it, and Audley’s longer legs, permitted –
(But – dear God Almighty! Damn you, Kyri, for getting me into this mess – damn you! And I could be dining with you in Athens, this very night, but for that, Colonel Michaelides, damn you!) (Phew! The bloody ditch was almost vertical now!) And – he could feel the sweat running down his chest –And – thank God he was nearly at the top now! He could even see, far off on his right, a few distant lights twinkling of what remained of German civilization.
But – a ditch? Since when did ditches climb up almost vertical hillsides in forests – ?
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‘David!’ The name came out in a hoarse exhausted wheeze. But then, as he opened his mouth again to repeat it, the sound of an aircraft which had been droning in the back of his consciousness suddenly increased, drowning out his intention and replacing it with the fear that even if he clicked now, Audley wouldn’t hear him. So instead he felt around with his stick like a blind man, for the guidelines of the improbable ditch on either side of him.
They were still there – there first on one side, and then on the other, as the continuous drone became a steady drumming, and then graduated to a final ear-splitting roar as the plane swept over them finally, far too low for comfort, above the top of this Taunus hill.
Eventually the sound died away. But then, even as it did so, he heard more droning engines – Click-click-click-click, he pressed desperately.
Click-click-click came back to him, humiliatingly close –but then click-click – two more clicks, but further off and almost drowned by the second approaching aircraft.
Christ! Maybe they weren’t so clever at that! thought Fred, clicking again instinctively. What if there were a couple of mad low-flying Yanks up there, practising their night-flying ... or maybe helplessly lost, and circling the airfield on which he’d landed a few hours back – ?
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