Gunner Kelly dda-13

by Anthony Price

  On the outbreak of war in 1939 Maxwell left the School of Artillery

  — the Commandant later remarked that he all but cut his way out of Larkhill— and returned to take command of a troop in his old dummy1

  regiment, which was one of the first artillery formations to go to France in that autumn, and one of the last to leave, via Dunkirk in June 1940. Awarded the Military Cross for gallant and above all effective conduct as one of his regiment’s Observation Post officers in actions from near Brussels all the way back to Ypres and then to Nieuport, he remarked of this period long afterwards that if there were a military manoeuvre more difficult to do well than a fighting retreat, he had yet to see it; and that while it was not a test he would choose, nothing revealed the quality of units and formations more clearly than did a lost battle— not even the debilitating stalemate they had endured between September and May.

  Soon after returning to England with the remnants of his troop, Maxwell was appointed General Staff Officer Grade III Liaison at Divisional Headquarters. He said of this period afterwards that it was his most entertaining and unrewarding military job: all he had to do was stand about pretending that he knew what was going on, until called upon to dash off on a powerful motor-cycle to talk to some senior officer who knew even less than he did.

  By the end of 1940 the division of which Maxwell’s regiment formed a part was back to full strength. But for many months the war was conducted without the help of what its officers and men considered to be the best regiment in the best division in the British Army. Early in 1943 the command of Maxwell’s troop fell vacant and he returned to it, however— which was correctly recognised by members of the regiment as a sure sign that their long wait would soon be over.

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  The second sheet ended on that note of high expectation, but Benedikt was beginning to become confused again. This was all very interesting, the ancient history of the Maxwells—or, at least, it would have been very interesting to Papa, whose guns had been the best ones in his beloved Division Afrika zur besondern Verfügung—the immortal goth Light—and who, come to that, knew exactly how Major William James Lonsdale had felt at Mons, and afterwards. But where did it all fit into the modern history of Miss Rebecca Maxwell-Smith and Duntisbury Chase?

  In March the division sailed to Algeria, to join the First Army in its assault on Tunisia. Herbert Maxwell promptly fell ill with a bad case of dysentery, and so missed the spoiling attack by the Germans across the Goubellat Plain south-west of Tunis. The attack was launched with their customary élan and professionalism in an area where the British forces were not well deployed for defence. However, when the German armour made contact south of Medjez-el-Bab it had the misfortune not only of encountering two of the most capable of the British divisions (one arriving and the other about to depart), in a sector where a single brigade might have been expected, and there were not only more British regular officers per square mile than anywhere else in North Africa, but also the new British 17-pdr anti-tank guns which matched the fearsome and much admired German 88s—

  Papa would like this—to be characterised as ‘fearsome and much-dummy1

  admired’ would make his day—his month—his year—

  — fearsome and much admired 88s. Even so, the Germans inflicted casualties, and when the uproar died down there were promotions.

  Herbert Maxwell thus returned afterwards to the command of a battery in another regiment.

  After the inevitable end in North Africa, where the struggle had become unequal, there was another distressing period of inaction for Major Maxwell, during which the division was called on to reinforce other formations, and when trained and experienced units seemed on the verge of disintegration. Maxwell nevertheless held his battery together, and was rewarded by transfer, sailing to Italy in February 1944 as Second-in-Command of his original regiment.

  The Italian front was static for a while, and the guns were in the comparatively quiet Garigliano sector. But in May the regiment formed part of the great concentration of artillery supporting the Eighth Army’s third and final attack across the Rapido, past the dominating height of the Montecassino Abbey. The crossing was difficult and casualties heavy among all ranks, but particularly among officers. More than one Commanding Officer of an artillery regiment was disabled by nebelwerfer fire on brigade headquarters

  —

  There had been a slow change in the narrative, Benedikt noted, as he reached for the next sheet. It had moved gradually from the dummy1

  generalised second-hand, with memories recalled ‘long afterwards’, to exact recollection which could only come from first-hand experience: the narrator had not been in Larkhill or Dunkirk, but he had crossed the Rapido under that nebelwerfer barrage—

  — at this time. Maxwell was promoted and transferred again, this time taking command of a regiment.

  The family record was unblemished, though with guns this time, rather than horsemen or sweating infantrymen. But what command was there for little fierce Becky, in her turn?

  This was when I knew him—

  The confirmation of his guess so quickly warmed Benedikt, rousing his confidence and his interest—

  This was when I knew him, as far as a subaltern officer in action on his gun-position ever gets to know his Commanding Officer, whose place is either at Regimental Headquarters or with the infantry most of the time; we never had a regimental officers’ mess within range of the enemy; and as far as a temporary officer in a regular regiment of artillery dared to know his superiors—

  This hadn’t been written, either: it had been taped or taken down in dummy1

  shorthand from someone long afterwards . . . someone highly literate and discerning, with a trained mind and memory, recollecting not only his memories of long ago, but also the facts and impressions which a young and inquiring mind had soaked up in combat, to fit him for his ‘temporary’ career.

  Papa had been just like that.

  He looked up at Colonel Butler. “Who wrote this, Colonel? Or can’t you tell me?”

  Butler gazed at him with a hint of approval, as though he understood what lay behind the question. “I don’t suppose it matters if you know, Captain. At least . . . let’s say it’s one of our most distinguished and enlightened High Court judges. Somebody I’d like to come up before if I was innocent—and not if I was guilty. Okay?”

  He was a fine-looking man, and dressed well in a horsey sort of way. In wet weather in action he wore breeches and riding-boots with his battledress blouse. His nickname . . . though not to anybody as junior as I . . .was ‘Squire’— he had served once, some time, with the son of one of his tenants, who called him that instead of ‘sir’, and the name stayed with him. In fact, they said that between Dunkirk and the Tunisian campaign he spent every leave down on his estate in Duntisbury Chase, so it wasn’t inappropriate. . . . But I know that all the regular officers, who in our regiment occupied all the captaincies and above at the beginning of the Italian campaign . . . they all thought very well of him, as a horseman and a gentleman, as well as professionally—

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  the old-fashioned order, if you like— and the other ranks worshipped him. As for the subalterns . . . and by now they were entirely temporary officers . . . they trusted his calm competence, and responded to him as ... as an elder brother, perhaps— quite terrifyingly exacting in the line but always friendly.. .. It isn’t true to say that we would have died for him, because you don’t think of it like that— you may have to die, it’s always a possibility, because that’s the nature of war, but no one wants to. But he was the closest one I came to who might have made me think like that, if the choice had been put to me. Which it wasn’t, thank God! Where was I, though? It’s the facts you want— Montecassino, yes . . .

  Well, the regiment performed quite adequately there, and when they gave him his DSO we were all well-pleased for him, even though some of us had been a bit miffed in the past because all the gongs went to the regulars, by
custom, because they needed them professionally, and we were going back to civilian life afterwards, and wouldn’t need such things. . . . But when he got it we were perfectly content— and he made it plain, of course, that he regarded it as a form of congratulations to the regiment for doing its job properly.

  The last sheet came to him.

  But he didn’t get any more promotion during the war, as I recall—

  because he was already quite young for his rank, the way the army conducts its arcane affairs . . .But there were the divisional dummy1

  reunions, and I used to see him there, off and on, and from below the salt we all watched his progress, the way one does . . . I think he was a brigade major in one of the few undisbanded divisions in

  ‘46, and then he was a half-colonel again, as GSO I in the British Army of the Rhine— we cracked a bottle of champagne over that, I do remember . . . In fact, that’s when we realised where he’d been at one stage, between campaigns— on one of the short war-time courses at the Staff College . . . Which shows that they’d got some sense— and that legged him up to Brigadier General Staff eventually, and finally Major-General as Second-in-Command, BAOR— missiles, and things, which he was quite bright enough to handle . . . But that would have been when Duntisbury Chase was pulling him away, with his retirement coming up— CBE, naturally . . . though we would have voted for a K— a knighthood . . . But then that never was Maxwell style: do your duty and keep a gentlemanly profile—’ fear God and honour the King‘— and make sure everyone below you is all right, that was his style . . . Also there was some family trouble— daughter and son-in-law killed in a smash somewhere. . . never met his wife, bit of an invalid— blissfully happy marriage though, they say . . . But there was this little granddaughter they were bringing up— something like that, anyway. . . . That’s all— I’m not going to pronounce on the manner of his passing, because that may conceivably become my business one day, and I shall reserve my views on that until then, just in case.

  He handed back the full collection to the Special Branch man—or, dummy1

  as he noticed when the man replaced them in the folder, perhaps not the full collection.

  “Yes, there is more.” Colonel Butler had observed his glance at the folder. “There is the recollection from an aged general, whose GSO III he was, and a letter from a headmaster, on whose board of governors he served, who knew him well more recently, and a conversation in the Eight Bells which was taped ten days ago surreptitiously by a plain-clothes detective, not long after his death

  —the local taxi-man talking to the local ne’er-do-well, with occasional mumblings from his retired groom, who could think back as far as his father and his uncle. But they all simply confirm what the judge said in their own different ways.”

  Behedikt nodded. “He was a well-respected man.”

  “More than that. Perhaps a glance at the first page of what the Vicar said at the funeral might help you. Andrew?” The Colonel paused. “Did you meet the Vicar on your tour, Captain?”

  “No sir.”

  “Aye . . . well, it’s too small to maintain a clergyman of its own now, the village. But it’s a Maxwell living, and the old General paid out of his own pocket for a retired priest to look after the parish.”

  Most of you, who today fill this little church which he loved, in this place which he loved and shared with us, will have known our dear Squire too well for any words of mine to be necessary. Some of you grew up with him, and knew him as a boy and a young man; some dummy1

  of you served with him in the war, and afterwards; some of you, the younger members of this congregation, were privileged to be his friends in his later years.

  There are, however, a few who are here today in our midst in their official capacities, discharging their duties, to whom our Squire can only be a name, albeit an honoured one. It is to them that I say . . . that we who knew him are not here to mourn, but to give thanks for his life, which enriched ours, and to pray not only for him, but also— as he would have wished—for God’s mercy andforgiveness on those who must one day stand before the Judgement Seat to account for their actions—

  “You don’t need any more. Except to know that he went on for another page about the perfection of God’s justice, and the imperfection of man’s, and the uselessness of bitterness and anger.

  He’s a sharp old bird, is the Vicar, I rather suspect.”

  Benedikt looked at him questioningly.

  “He’s not in on it, but he might have sniffed trouble, is my guess,”

  said Colonel Butler simply. “Because what they plan to do is to get the man who put the bomb in the old General’s car to Duntisbury Chase, and then deliver him to that Judgement Seat themselves.”

  “You know this?” Benedikt felt a small twinge of anger. “You have known this all along—since the beginning?”

  “I first heard about some of it a very short time ago. I learnt a bit more about it yesterday. Enough to go to your Major Herzner, who owes me a favour.” If the Colonel had noticed his anger, it didn’t dummy1

  bother him. “But I haven’t been rock-hard certain until this evening, if that’s what you want to know, Captain.”

  Suddenly there was no room for anger, there were too many questions in his head for that.

  “Aye—” The Colonel forestalled him “—and now you’ll be asking why I didn’t go straight down to Duntisbury and ask Dr David Audley what the hell he’s playing at, eh?”

  That—among other things—

  “Instead of which I let you take your chance?” Butler shook his head. “I tell you one thing, Captain Schneider—whatever David Audley’s playing at, it won’t be murder. And it certainly won’t be acting as an accessory to a teenage slip of a girl and a bunch of farm labourers—least of all when he’s given someone his private promise that he’ll look after her. He’s a tricky blighter, if there ever was one, but that isn’t his style.” The grizzled head shook again. “You weren’t in any danger.”

  Benedikt recalled the Wiesbaden Kommissar’s print-out on Audley: whatever his failings the man had an intuition for mischief like a bomb-sniffing dog for explosives.

  “But someone is in danger, Colonel.” Obviously the Colonel trusted the man up to a point, but only up to a point. “Who was it who set the bomb under General Maxwell’s car?”

  For a moment the Colonel looked at him in silence. “They haven’t the slightest idea. They don’t know who—and they don’t know why.”

  “They?”

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  “The Anti-Terrorist Squad,” said Andrew. “Their inquiries are proceeding—officially. But the truth is, they’re at a dead standstill.”

  “And your inquiries?”

  Andrew looked at the Colonel, and not too happily, Benedikt thought.

  “Do not exist—for anyone else’s consumption. Not yet.” The Colonel’s features hardened. “And we know no more than they do.

  As yet.”

  It was easy to see why the Chief Inspector wasn’t altogether happy.

  “Except that Dr Audley is in Duntisbury Chase?”

  “Dr Audley is on leave, Captain.”

  “Writing another book,” murmured Andrew. “He writes books.”

  On feudalism, remembered Benedikt. And perhaps Duntisbury Chase was at present not such an inappropriate place for him to be, in which to study a text-book example of its survival in the 19805.

  But that was not why he was there.

  He had come to the real question at last. “But in Duntisbury Chase they know—they know who and why. That must be so, Colonel.”

  “Happen they do. Or someone in there does—aye.”

  But perhaps . . . but happen . . . that was really not so surprising, thought Benedikt. Peasants the world over kept their own counsel, close-mouthed, rejecting outside interference in their affairs; and if there was a secret in the Chase, the people of the Chase would be more likely to know it than any outsiders, even outsiders with all the resources of t
he British intelligence and police agencies.

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  It was not what they knew, but what they proposed to do about it, and what that signified, which was so startling.

  “And . . . whoever it was . . . they know he’s coming to them—”

  “Right!” Colonel Butler pounced on him before he could finish.

  “They know he’s coming to them! And the Vicar preached to deaf ears: it’s good, old-fashioned Old Testament vengeance for them, and no messing around. But that won’t do for David Audley, Captain—do you see?”

  Knowing the man was everything—in this case, reflected Benedikt. Colonel Butler was known to be a stickler for the book, army-trained, which was the antithesis of everything that was known about Dr David Audley. But each was an intelligent and successful officer, and if the Colonel was now consciously and deliberately breaking every rule in his own book there had to be an over-riding reason for it.

  “Looking after the girl—that’s what he promised to do, so that’ll be what he’ll be doing. But there’s got to be more to it than that.”

  Not knowing the man was the problem. Benedikt ran the film of his memory, marrying it to the print-out: Audley striding away across the field, super-confident—over-confident?—in his old clothes . . . the scholar built like a boxer: in good shape, but physically past his prime—too old for the ring, too old for field-work . . . for guarding a girl—or a secret—from a professional, with a village of unprofessional peasants at his back?

  Then he knew what was coming.

  “I don’t want to spoil whatever he’s doing. Because it’s my guess dummy1

  that he’s seen something that they haven’t seen—it depends how far he is into their confidence, but acting as a bodyguard doesn’t suit him any better than acting as an accessory to murder. I don’t want to spoil it—but I don’t want to leave it to chance, Captain. I need to know what’s really happening in there.”