The '44 Vintage

by Anthony Price

  “Huh!” Winston subsided. “Okay, Lieutenant.”

  Audley looked at Butler. “Any questions, Corporal?”

  Butler thought for a moment. “How do the French know so much about the Germans, sir—how do they know they’re coming this way, even?”

  The corner of Audley’s mouth twisted. “They’ve got it all organised as I said. They come from a village down the road, and they wait until one or two German vehicles come through on their own—they let the bigger convoys through. But when something like this lot comes along they put up a sign on the main road—a sign in German, a proper Wehrmacht diversion sign—saying the bridge farther along is down. And they’ve got one of their own chaps in Milice uniform who offers to take the Germans round a back road which is safe… . You just wait and see, anyway.”

  “Seems a lot of trouble. Why don’t they deal with them there and then?” murmured Winston, staring down at the road.

  “Because they’re scared stiff of reprisals. It seems the SS wiped out a village down south where one of their divisions was held up …”

  “Wiped out?”

  “That’s what they say. So the stragglers they cut off have to disappear completely—that’s what we found back there”—Audley nodded in the direction they’d come—“the evidence, you might say.”

  “The smell is what I remember,” said Winston.

  Audley stood up, and incredibly he was grinning. “Yes, the smell…” He looked at his watch. ‘Three minutes … Yes, they killed the poor devils. But they did bury them.”

  Winston frowned, first at Butler, then at Audley. “Huh?”

  Audley looked from one to the other. “The first time they were after weapons and ammunition—in the lorry. But they were unlucky.”

  “Unlucky?”

  Audley started to move. “Yes. They captured a ton of overripe cheese,” he said over his shoulder.

  Butler watched him move to a nearby tree.

  “Cheese,” whispered Winston. He stared past Butler towards Audley. “Now … there goes a genuine one-hundred-per-cent hard-nosed sonofabitch.” He looked at Butler. “We’ve got to watch ourselves, you and me, Jack—like the young guy in Stagecoach had to watch the sheriff.”

  “What d’you mean?” asked Butler.

  The American continued to look at him. “Yeah … I didn’t finish, did I? They were down to their last bullet when the cavalry arrived and killed off the Indians. And then when they got to town the sheriff let the young guy go and settle up with the bad guys—he even offered him some more ammunition. So he was okay—the sheriff was.”

  “Yes?”

  Winston looked again towards Audley. “I just don’t know about the lieutenant …” He turned towards Butler. “But then the young guy took off his hat—and you know what there was in it?”

  “No?”

  “Three bullets. And you know … I think we’d better keep a couple of bullets too, just in case.”

  Cheese.

  Butler lowered his head until his chin was touching the leaves. There was a one-inch gap between them and the fallen tree trunk behind which he’d settled in preference to his original position. As a firing position it was too low and narrow to be any use, but it was a perfect observation slit, giving him a clear view of the road, and if he wasn’t going to be able to take part in the ambush, he was determined to watch.

  Well, it hadn’t smelt like any cheese he’d ever smelt; at least, not like the soapy mousetrap Cheddar favoured by the Army, which sweated and grew grey-green hairy mould in its old age but didn’t smell much. But then he’d never been close to a ton of it; and French cheese was obviously very different from English—that smell had been a fearful, liquid-putrescent one.

  Now he could hear the distant sound of engines—

  So dead horses smelt worse than dead men, and dead mules smelt worse than dead horses, but dead cheese smelt worse even than dead mules. That was one thing his dad hadn’t discovered in the trenches… .

  A small, grey, jeeplike car came into view—it was at once more carlike than the jeep, with its high body, but less carlike with its little sloping bonnet carrying its spare wheel and its feeble, whining engine.

  Four Germans—no, three Germans and a fourth man in a dark blue uniform and an oversized floppy beret—

  The small car—Audley’s Kübel it had to be—breaking sharply as the driver saw the wrecked culvert, rocking and skidding almost broadside. The soldier in the passenger’s seat half rose to his feet, then ducked as the machine-gunner started to traverse his weapon behind him.

  Now there was a second vehicle in view—it was the staff car, a heavy, powerful-looking vehicle with a closed canvas hood and side-screens. Even before it had quite pulled up the front passenger’s door had swung open and a civilian wearing a dark felt hat raised himself above the level of the hood without getting out. He stared round suspiciously at the silent woods all around him.

  The machine-gunner traversed his weapon left and right, up and down, left and right again. Butler could feel the tension and the fear spreading out from the men in the vehicles, like ripples in a pond lapping over him, making his heart beat faster.

  Nothing happened.

  Suddenly the blue-uniformed man moved—if that was the French Resistance man in the Milice uniform, then, by God, he was a brave one, thought Butler admiringly. He sprang out of the Kübel and took half a dozen cautious steps to peer over the edge of the gap in the culvert. Then he turned and called to the civilian in the staff car, pointing down into the gap.

  The civilian stepped down onto the road and started towards the culvert, swinging to the left and right as he advanced to keep his eye on the woods. When he reached the gap the blue-uniformed man spoke quickly to him, gesticulating into the hole at their feet.

  The civilian nodded finally, then swung back towards the Kübel and barked an order. As the Kübel’s driver and the man beside him jumped obediently onto the roadway the Milice man eased himself over the edge of the gap into the crater.

  A moment later the end of a stout plank appeared out of the crater.

  So that was it, thought Butler: there were planks in there, the material of a temporary bridge which had spanned the gap. And the false Milice man was tempting the Germans into replacing them—tempting them away from the vehicles.

  One of the rear doors of the staff car opened and another felt-hatted civilian raised cautiously, just as the first one had done.

  The scene had fragmented into three separate areas of activity, which Butler found he could no longer observe simultaneously.

  Above the staff car’s canvas hood the second civilian was scanning the trees intently, just as his predecessor had done; on the Kübel the machine-gunner continued to traverse the gun, searching for a target; and beside the crater the two soldiers were hauling at the plank, under the direction of the first civilian.

  Butler’s senses all seemed to be stretched to breaking point: he could see every detail below him, he could smell the exhaust gases of the idling engines mixed very faintly with the stronger odour of the leaf mould and forest duff right under his nose; he could hear the sound of the individual engines, and beyond them the very absence of sound, and beneath both the thud of his own heart.

  Now!

  He was staring at his own chosen objective, the shadowy figure in the back seat of the staff car, when the first shot rang out.

  The sound of the shot was overtaken by that of a second shot in the same instant that he saw the machine-gunner start to fall. And then all single sounds were lost in the crashing burst of fire from all around him.

  “Come on!” shouted Audley.

  Butler hurled himself down the slope. The firing had stopped as though by magic—he could still hear it ringing and echoing—but now everyone was shouting and he was shouting too.

  And above the shouting was the continuous blaring of a car horn.

  “Hände hoch! Hände hoch!” roared Audley as he sprang onto the road two yards ahead.<
br />
  Butler saw him leap at the car like a tiger and wrench the driver’s door open.

  “Ich bin Offizier englischer!” he shouted ungrammatically.

  The driver slumped out onto the road and the car horn stopped.

  Butler tore at the rear door.

  The only remaining occupant of the car was cowering down between the seats on the floor of the car.

  “Ich bin Engländer,” said Butler to the field-grey back.

  Audley thrust himself and his revolver into the front of the car. “Ich hin Offizier englischer,” he repeated hoarsely. “Hände hoch.”

  The field-grey back began to move.

  “Gott sei Dank! Gott sei Dank!”

  They had taken their prisoner, and he was undamaged.

  The German raised himself from the floor and turned towards them. He took in both of them carefully for a moment before settling on Audley.

  “Lieutenant,” he said in English that was only slightly accented, “I surrender myself to you.”

  Then, as they stared at him in surprise, he raised his hands in what Butler thought for a second was supplication.

  They had taken their prisoner right enough—and he was a German officer too.

  And he was also all of twenty years old.

  And he was handcuffed.

  CHAPTER 14

  How Hauptmann Grafenberg fell out of the frying pan

  “OH MY God!” said Sergeant Winston hoarsely.

  Butler pulled back from the staff car and swung towards the American in alarm.

  “My God.” The suet-pudding colour of Winston’s face under its tan went with the horror and disgust in his voice.

  For a moment Butler thought the sergeant had been hit; then, even before the evidence of his own eyes cancelled the thought, he realised that wasn’t possible. The enemy hadn’t had time to fire a shot, and from the moment Audley had jumped up from cover the French hadn’t fired another one. The ambush had been over ten seconds after it had started.

  And besides, Sergeant Winston was obviously not wounded: he was standing stock-still on the edge of the road behind the staff car, his Luger pointing at the ground beside him. He was simply staring towards the crater.

  Butler followed the stare. The man in the Milice uniform was rolling the body of a soldier over onto its back—the jack-booted legs seemed unwilling at first to follow the torso, but finally twisted with it, splaying out stiffly and horribly like a dummy’s.

  He looked back at Winston. Somehow there must be more to it than that. Winston might not be a battle-hardened veteran, but he hadn’t behaved until now like a man who’d be scared sick at the sight of death. He might not have seen any fighting Germans until today, but he must have seen enough of that on Omaha Beach, by God!

  “What’s the matter?” he said sharply, the disquiet he felt edging out concern from his own voice.

  “The matter?” Winston repeated the words under his breath before turning to him. “The matter is—you were goddamn right, mac—we are the fucking Indians.”

  “What’s this?” Audley straightened up beside them. He took in Winston’s stricken expression, and then the scene at the edge of the crater, where the Milice man was methodically stripping the Germans. His bruised cheek twitched slightly as he turned back towards the American. “He’s dead, for God’s sake.”

  Winston watched the Milice man. “Yeah … he’s dead”—he paused —“now.”

  “Now?” Audley stared at the American, then back at the Milice man, and then finally at Butler. “Did you see, Corporal?”

  “I saw,” Winston snapped. “I saw.”

  Audley bit his lip. Suddenly he looked around him nervously.

  “That’s right, Lieutenant,” said Winston. “You take a good look.”

  There were Resistance men coming down the road behind them, and others advancing through the trees across the road. Up the hillside Butler could see more of them.

  He caught Winston’s eye and knew that now he was frightened too.

  Winston nodded. “You got there, mac—Jack, huh? You play with Indians … and they play rough.”

  “But—“ Butler could see the little man in the suit picking his way round the crater. He was trying to keep his shoes clean.

  “So we’ve got them their general, like they wanted,” said Winston.

  Their general? Oh, God! thought Butler, remembering the white-faced boy in the staff car—the boy in the handcuffs who had just a moment ago thanked the same God.

  “So now we’re maybe surplus to requirements,” said Winston.

  “Cock your Sten, Corporal,” said Audley.

  “What?”

  “Cock the bloody thing!” Audley hissed at him. “Cock it and smile!”

  Butler looked down at the machine carbine and saw to his horror that it wasn’t cocked. He’d charged down the hillside shouting like—like an Indian. But he hadn’t remembered to cock his gun.

  The little man in the suit came towards them.

  Audley ostentatiously replaced his pistol in its holster. Then he took four quick paces towards the Frenchman and threw his arms round him.

  “Bravo, mon camarade! Bien joue!” he cried loudly, kissing the little man first on one cheek, and then on the other. “Jolly good show!” He released the little man and grabbed the hand of the man next to him, pumping it vigorously. “Je vous remercie—je vous remercie beaucoup. Au nom des armées anglaises et americaines je vous remercie—vive la Résistance! Vive la Libération! Vive la France!”

  “Monsieur—“ The man in the suit raised his hand to silence him, but Audley took not a blind bit of notice. Instead he gestured to include everyone in earshot.

  “Mes amis—j’ai de bonnes nouvelles pour vous—de très bonnes nouvelles. Aujourd’hui des chars americains font le passage de la Loire, Le débarquement des puissances alliées au sud de la France a commencé. Les allemands sont finis. C’est la victoire!” Audley raised his arms to suit his words, his fingers giving the V-sign.

  The Resistance men stared at him as though he was mad.

  Winston stepped forward to Audley’s side, stuffing his pistol into his waistband as he did so. “That’s dead right—this is a big day. And I can tell you—General Patton’s sure going to be glad to hear how you boys helped us. Yes, sir!”

  Butler looked around despairingly. Audley could hardly have got less reaction from his listeners if he’d been speaking in ancient Greek—or if he’d been telling them that the war was not won, but lost.

  There came a scraping sound from behind him, followed by a quick half-suppressed grunt of pain.

  The young German officer stumbled forward, prodded from behind. The man in the suit looked at him in astonishment.

  “Yes …” Audley smiled ruefully. “Well, we don’t seem to have got ourselves a general after all. And it does rather look as if we’ve actually released a prisoner, not captured one, eh?”

  The Frenchman ignored him. “Sprechen Sie franzosisch?”

  “Nein.” The prisoner brushed at a lock of straw-coloured hair which had fallen across his face.

  Audley gave a grunt. “But he speaks good English.” He half-turned towards the German. “Name and rank?”

  The German stiffened, abandoning the attempt to shift the hair. “Grafenberg, Hauptmann—captain,” he said.

  There were only two pips on the boy’s shoulder strap—but that was right for a captain, Butler remembered. What was more to the point was that there was no other telltale badge, which meant he was straight Wehrmacht. It didn’t surprise him that there were now captains just out of nappies in the German Army: back in 1940 there’d been plenty of flight-lieutenants like that in the RAF.

  “Unit?” said Audley quickly. ‘What unit, stationed where?”

  Captain Grafenberg looked at him helplessly, rocking slightly on his heels as though the questions hurt him. “Grafenberg, Hauptmann,” he whispered.

  Audley grinned. “Of course! Just name, rank and number—and I’m n
ot going to bother about that. I accept your surrender, Captain.”

  “No—“ began the Frenchman.

  “Yes. And in the circumstances I also require your parole—your word of honour”—Audley fired the words in a machine-gun burst— “immediately.”

  “No!” snapped the Frenchman.

  “Yes!” said Captain Grafenberg. “Yes—my word of honour—I give my word of honour—“

  “Good. I accept your word of honour, under the rules of war. It will hold good until I hand you over to the first Allied unit we meet, which will probably be one from the American Army—is that clearly understood, Captain?”

  “Yes, lieutenant.” Captain Grafenberg brushed the hair out of his face with his manacled hands. “I understand.”

  “Very good.” Audley nodded. “Corporal Butler!”

  “Sir!”

  “You will take charge of the prisoner, Corporal.” Audley turned back to the Frenchman. “Now, m’sieur … you wanted a senior officer, but all we’ve caught is a junior one, who can’t possibly be of any use to you —he’ll just be an embarrassment—an encumbrance … un embarras, n’est-ce pas?”

  The Frenchman gave Audley a very old-fashioned look, and then flicked a quick glance at Butler just in time to catch him lowering his Sten.

  He watched Butler for a moment before speaking. “You are … a rash young man, Lieutenant, I think.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Not maybe. Morte la bête, mort le venin—if they have no use they are better dead.”

  “You can’t kill them all.”

  “But we can kill as many as we catch.” The Frenchman’s lips drooped at one corner. “You have not had four years of them.”

  “No?” Audley’s chin lifted in that characteristically arrogant way of his. “You know, I could have sworn we’d been fighting them too.”

  Winston coughed. “Lieutenant,” he said out of the side of his mouth, “we got some distance to make, remember?”

  “I hadn’t forgotten.” Audley shook his head stiffly.

  “And a job to do,” Winston persisted. “A job, huh?”