The Old Vengeful

by Anthony Price

  He smiled at her. “Not at all, actually. I just got them to swop Dr Mitchell’s bag for yours. Nothing could be easier!” He turned to Paul. “Now, Dr Mitchell—which way?”

  “South, across the N2 as best you can, on to the D967, Aske.” Paul embraced Aske’s enmity like a lover.

  “You’ve been there before, then?”

  Paul looked through him. “To the Chemin des Dames? Yes, I’ve been there before, Aske.”

  Getting out and down from the old city of Laon, through the narrow streets, and down the winding hairpin road to the plain beneath, wasn’t so easy in the rush-hour; and crossing the N2 ring road was hair-raising, even though Humphrey Aske drove with relaxed excellence and courtesy; so the question on the tip of her tongue delayed itself until Aske repeated the first name on the road signs.

  “Bruyeres-et-Montberault?”

  “About twelve miles, straight on,” said Paul. “Then we cross the Chemin des Dames, and go down half a mile, to the British War Cemetery at Vendresse.”

  “Why, Paul?” asked Elizabeth.

  “Why what?” He was staring straight ahead. “Why the Chemin? Or why Vendresse?”

  “Why…all of this?”

  He stared ahead for a moment, without replying. “I like the cemetery at Vendresse. It’s only a little one, but it’s one of my favourites.”

  “What a perfectly macabre thought—to have a favourite cemetery!” exclaimed Humphrey Aske. “You normally prefer the bigger ones?”

  “And an interesting one, too.” Paul seemed not to have heard him. “Late summer 1914—and then late summer 1918—the two turning points. I’ll show you, Elizabeth.”

  “But that simply can’t be the reason, Mitchell—just to show us something … of interest?” said Aske.

  Elizabeth found herself wishing that he wouldn’t ask the questions which were uppermost in her own mind, instead of leaving the answers to the due process of Paul’s own reasoning.

  “You ought to know the reason, damn it!” snapped Paul. “The only good cover is what’s true. I don’t usually fly to France—that was a mistake. We should have taken the hovercraft and the autoroute. But when I do come to the Aisne, this is what I do—and this is what I’m doing.”

  “And what makes you think we need a cover?”

  “That’s right, Paul,” Elizabeth agreed with Aske uneasily. “David Audley said we’d be safe over here.”

  “And we are safe, Miss Loftus,” Aske reassured her. “Nobody can possibly know where we are, except those who need to know. So unless Dr Mitchell left your flight plan lying around—“

  “The flight plan was doctored,” said Mitchell testily.

  “Then no one knows. Because no one followed me, I assure you.” Aske giggled. “No one follows me when I don’t want to be followed, I promise you—not without my knowing, anyway … And, for the record, no one’s following me now.”

  “The French know,” said Paul.

  “Two or three dim fonctionnaires on a tin-pot air-strip half the size of my pocket-handkerchief? Oh, come on!”

  “Don’t underestimate the French.”

  “I don’t. I know they’ve got a smart computerised system for checking up on mauvais sujets who intrude into their privacy. But the great and good Dr Mitchell surely isn’t lumped in with visiting Libyan assassins, is he?” Aske paused. “Or is he?”

  Paul said nothing.

  “You don’t mean to say you’ve got a record here?” Aske appeared more amused than frightened. “In the line of duty, naturally—?”

  “I am known here,” Paul came dangerously close to pomposity. “Both in the line of duty, as you put it, and in the line of military history. And that’s why we’re going to Vendresse—because if they do by any chance pick me up on their radar I want to be well dug-into that second line.”

  “Ah … well now I’m with you!” Aske nodded. “So what are you doing in Champagne? I rather thought Picardy was your stamping ground—the Somme and the Hindenburg Line, and all those awful places?”

  “This is where trench warfare started for the British—in September 1914, at the end of the battle of the Marne.”

  “Indeed? And so what are we doing, then? We’re strictly 1812 experts … we don’t know anything that happened after the battle of Waterloo.”

  “In my case I’ve got a typescript of unpublished material on the origins of trench warfare—it was the basis of the opening chapters in the Hindenburg Line book. If you both read that you’ll know enough.”

  “How very jolly! All about lice and phosgene?” murmured Aske. “Well, that’s awfully clever of you—and we shall become experts on lice and phosgene, and gas gangrene and mud, Miss Loftus … did you hear that?”

  It was six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, thought Elizabeth. The truth was that when men weren’t comrades they were children— and not-very-nice, potentially savage children too.

  “Very clever … that ridge ahead must be your ‘Ladies’ highway’, Mitchell,” continued Aske, still mock-admiringly. “Except that we’re not actually here to study all those charming 1914 facts, we’re here to sort out something which occurred in 1812, or thereabouts. So … even allowing that you’re scared of the French … on account of heaven only knows what past misdeeds … we are rather going out of our way now, aren’t we? Or are we?”

  “Just drive, Aske,” said Paul.

  “ ‘Just drive’?” This time the mildness in Aske’s voice was paper-thin. “No … I know I said 1812 was fascinating … but don’t you think it’s about time you explained to me why it’s so important?”

  At the best of times that would have been a bad question to put to Paul Mitchell, reflected Elizabeth. But just now, and coming from Aske, it was like a spark in the powder-magazine.

  “Paul—“

  “I know I’m only one of the lesser breeds, Mitchell—I know that I don’t have the confidence of the legendary Dr Audley … I’m only here to do for you … or die for you, as required, like a one-man Light Brigade, and you just point me towards the Russian guns.” Aske peered ahead. “And if this is your famous Chemin des Dames I must say that it’s rather a non-event… But I would prefer to be pointed at the right guns in the right century—even if it is the nineteenth century—“

  “For Christ’s sake—shut up and drive!” spat Paul.

  “There’s no call to be offensive—“

  “Oh yes there is.” Cold rage almost choked Paul. “You are now driving, Aske—“ he spoke slowly and clearly “—across ground over which real men charged real guns … Germans and Frenchmen and British … and … if you make one more silly crack then that will be the end of this fascinating trip for you. Understood?”

  This time Humphrey Aske said nothing, and Elizabeth cringed in her seat, all her own questions equally stifled not only by the order and the threat, but also by the suppressed passion with which both had been delivered, for all that they were camouflaged under clarity.

  “Straight over the cross-roads,” said Paul tightly.

  The road continued for a little way, then dropped and twisted down the southern slope of the ridge, affording her glimpses of a river valley, of fields and trees and distant roofs below.

  “On the right there—you can pull in under the bank.” His voice was conversational again. “You come with me, Elizabeth—you stay with the car, Aske.”

  It was, as he had said, quite a small cemetery, cut into the hillside out of the sloping fields: in size it was more like the little village churchyard in which Father lay, than the hecatombs of the war dead which she had seen in photographs; but there was no church, and the lines of identical tombstones were ordered with military precision, rank on rank up the slope, as in a well-kept garden.

  Elizabeth followed Paul up the centre aisle, towards a small kiosk-like building which was open on the side facing them, having to trot to keep at his heels. When they reached it Paul opened a tiny metal door and drew out a book wrapped in a plastic envelope from the niche be
hind it. She watched him in silence as he pulled a biro from his inside pocket and signed the book, then offered both to her. “Name and date please, Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth studied the list, and was surprised to see how many names from this summer there were on the open pages—even from this same month, and several from this very day—who had found this place in the middle of nowhere, and this book.

  And there was space for comment, too—

  “My grandpa brought me here, and told me about it”—

  “I was here in 1918, and I remember”—

  But Paul had written nothing except the date and his name—plain Paul Mitchell—so Elizabeth had no stomach to do more than the same—plain Elizabeth Loftus.

  “What about me, then?” said Humphrey Aske, from behind her.

  Elizabeth looked towards Paul, quickly and fearfully. “Paul—“

  “Yes, of course—“ he blinked just once, as though the late afternoon light was too strong for his eyes “—you are here, I suppose, so you must sign. You’re right.”

  Humphrey Aske signed the book—just name and date—and meekly gave it back to Paul, who wrapped it up carefully and replaced it in its niche.

  “Sometimes I get to be rather a pain,” said Aske simply.

  “Yes.” Paul addressed the ranks below them. “And sometimes I fly off the handle, and particularly in places like this … Because everyone’s obsessive about something—“ he caught Elizabeth’s eye “—with your father it was the Vengeful… but with me … someone once said to me, she said … ‘one minute it’s a field of cabbages, but with a machine-gun you can turn it into a field of honour with a single burst’.”

  They walked down the aisle together, and it was only at the end of it that Paul spoke again.

  “The stories are all here, but we haven’t time for them—the regiments and the names … they were older in 1914 than 1918— there’s even a general here, from 1918, who was younger then than I am now … two great British armies, so alike and yet so different—one so small, and the other huge—separated by four years of war, that’s all.” He shook his head. “But we’ve got to get on—“

  He led them back to the car in silence, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  “Turn round and get back to the cross-roads, and then turn left, along the crest.” It was hardly an order, more an instruction, and almost a courteous one.

  “And then where to?” Vendresse had also taken the sting out of Humphrey Aske.

  “To a place called Coucy-le-Château. About twenty miles, mostly on side-roads. I’ll direct you.”

  “What is there to see at Coucy-le-Château?” asked Elizabeth.

  “There’s a village … and a ruined castle.”

  “A medieval castle, you mean?”

  “Yes. But the ruins are more modern—ancient and modern, like the hymns in the hymn-book.”

  “What d’you mean, Paul?”

  “I mean, there was once the greatest medieval tower in Europe there—there still was in 1812, anyway … the great tower of Enguerrand III of Coucy, who was a contemporary of our King John—he was also excommunicated by the Pope, like King John, I believe … But General Ludendorff blew up Enguerrand’s tower in 1918, before he retreated, to remind the French he’d been there.”

  They had turned on to the crest road, the fabled Chemin des Dames itself. Elizabeth’s eye was drawn to a huge French war cemetery, with a sign to a German one nearby.

  “Not that he hadn’t been reminding them already,” continued Paul. “He’d had the Paris Gun—the one that’s always wrongly called ‘Big Bertha’—stashed in a wood just below the castle. Paris is only about seventy miles down the road, as the shell flies … I could take you to see the gun position in the wood, it’s still there. But it’s rather overgrown and depressing, so I won’t.”

  “So it’s another of your 1914-18 places, where they’ve got to remember us—just in case?” If it hadn’t been for Vendresse she would have spoken more sharply.

  “It can be.” He nodded thoughtfully, then stopped nodding. “But as a matter of fact it isn’t.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t add up this reply to make a sensible answer of it, and Paul appeared to be in no mood to elaborate on it, but withdrew into himself. It was as though their passage across one of his old battlefields, on which every fold and feature had its significance for him, was inhibiting him.

  Finally Humphrey Aske roused himself behind the wheel. “You said … the tower—the Frenchman’s tower—was still there in 1812. Was that meant to mean something, or could it have been 1912, or 1712?”

  “No.” Paul shook his head. “No.”

  “No … what?”

  “You’ll be coming to the Laon Soissons road in a moment. You turn left, towards Soissons, and then almost immediately right, down a side-road.” Paul stirred. “I meant 1812.”

  Aske peered ahead. “What have medieval towers got to do with 1812?”

  Mitchell twisted in his seat, pulling his safety-belt away from his shoulder, and stared past Elizabeth out of the rear window, as though to get a last look at his old battlefield on the ridge.

  Then he caught Elizabeth’s eye. “Your father came this way, our people think, from his rough notes.”

  “My father?” She frowned at him.

  “Or, if he didn’t, Tom Chard certainly did—‘along the high road above the river to the greatest tower I ever saw’—he must have seen a few great towers along the road from the Lautenbourg, but this was the greatest… size and time and distance, that’s how they worked it out … with a few other clues beside, from Miss Irene Cookridge’s book, Elizabeth.”

  “To—?” But she had forgotten the name of the place.

  “Coucy-le-Château.” He nodded. “Because Coucy-le-Château is where Lieutenant Chipperfield died, they reckon.”

  IX

  “YOU SEE, ELIZABETH, this is a research project with a difference— or a whole lot of differences … like time, for a start, obviously.”

  “You mean, we don’t have much of it?”

  “Maybe we don’t have any of it. I don’t know. I only know that I’ve taken years to reconstruct days … and your father, Elizabeth—he bumbled along after the Vengeful escapers for months and months, enjoying himself in the best hotels and the Michelin restaurants, picking up the odd fact here and there, but mostly useless information. But he wasn’t worried about time, anyway.”

  That was Father to the life in his later days, thought Elizabeth: in spite of the doctor’s advice he had been convinced that the whisper of his heart in his ear was only a false rumour.

  “But we have other things that he didn’t have.” Paul half-smilfcd at her. “Because, when you think about it, an intelligence department is well-equipped for this sort of enterprise: we have the manpower— trained researchers, who know how to ask questions, and how to interpret the answers—and we have the resources—“

  “Huh!” Aske snuffled to himself. “If the tax-payers could see us now! Or are we going to publish this time? A Festschrift for Dr David Audley—1812: Defeat into Victory? Will that balance the books?”

  “And the contacts—manpower, and resources, and contacts—“

  “Professor Emeritus Basil Wilson Wilder, no less!”

  “Aske—“

  “Sorry, old boy! A moment’s weakness … But Wilder is a contact—at least, if this is what your Dr Audley wants to know, he is … And that’s still ultra-secret, is it?”

  Looking from one to the other, Elizabeth almost smiled; because they were Lucan and Cardigan at Balaclava, re-enacting history, with the one hating the other so much that he’d never let himself be stung into admitting that he too didn’t know why he was doing what he was doing. But since she was in this particular Light Brigade charge it was no real smiling matter.

  “So you’re not interested in the Vengeful any more, Paul? It’s only the escapers now?”

  He nodded. “That’s what your father was concerned with, Elizabeth
. You were right.”

  “After Miss … Miss Cookridge’s letter?” Here, coming down off the Chemin des Dames ridge, Miss Irene Cookridge was no more incongruous than Julian Oakenshaw and Danny Kahn in the roll-call of names.

  “Not just her letter, but the Conversations book as well. David had people working on it half the night, and me working on what they came up with this morning.”

  “Doing what, Paul?”

  “Plotting the route they took after they broke out of the Lautenbourg Fortress.”

  Aske half-turned, then his mouth closed on his unasked question and his eyes returned to the road ahead. But Elizabeth knew what was still plaguing him, because it plagued her equally; the only difference being that she knew that Paul himself didn’t know the answer to it, and Aske thought he was being frozen out from the truth.

  Why?

  “And that was a minor epic in itself—a classic Colditz-style job,” continued Paul. “Because they were shut up tight in an old barracks between the town and the citadel, and there was no way they could get through the barracks’ perimeter into the town.”

  Why?

  “So what did they do?”

  He smiled. “They climbed up into the citadel. They made ropes out of their bedding, and grapnels somehow—they were sailors, of course, and sailors are ingenious … And then they climbed down the other side, where the sentries weren’t expecting anything. But it still must have been pretty hairy, because their ropes weren’t long enough, and they had to make the descent in stages—that’s the steep side of the Lautenbourg, which is alleged to be unclimbable. But they had these two ropes, which were just strong enough to bear one man’s weight, and a thin one to pull the ropes back up for the next man. And the last man down fixed the knot so it would bear his weight, but then two of them could pull it free—risky, but ingenious, as I said.” He shook his head admiringly. “Tom Chard—he made it sound easy. But that’s one hell of a cliff, with the wall on top of it.”

  “You know the Lautenbourg Fortress, Paul?”

  “Uh-huh. I was down that way a few years back, when the French started restoring the battlefield of Le Linge, above Colmar.” He smiled at her again. “It’s a 1915 battlefield, you see, Elizabeth, Le Linge is … I just visited the Lautenbourg in passing, as it were. But then, oddly enough, I’ve visited most of the Napoleonic prison fortresses they used for our chaps in 1812—a happy coincidence, you may think.”