“And the Communists?” Audley made the question sound oddly polite.
“They are not … amenable to orders. But there were not many of them here—until two days ago.” De Courcy looked at Audley candidly. “A week ago we could have prevented the arrival of the larger group. And when they did arrive … we thought they were moving in support of our own units—to the south.”
“Huh!” Sergeant Winston crammed a world of bitterness into a small sound. “A week ago you could keep them out—and in two weeks’ time you expect the French Army. Looks like they hit the motherlode first time, the only chance they got!”
De Courcy stared at Audley. “I do not think it was luck: they were here before you arrived. I fear they have an agent in your Intelligence operation, David.”
Audley closed his eyes. “And I fear—I fear it’s worse than that, sir. Or at least more humiliating.” He sat back, opening his eyes and staring into space. “Much more humiliating.”
“What d’you mean?” Winston turned towards him. “Humiliating for who?”
“For our Intelligence. They’ve been fooled right down the line— that’s my guess.”
“What’s new about that? Jesus, Lieutenant—half the guys that buy it out here, it’s because some clever sonofabitch back in headquarters wasn’t clever enough. They got a man in your outfit somewhere and they knew you were coming. Surprise, surprise.”
“No, I don’t mean that—and I don’t think that was quite how it was.” Audley shook his head. “I think these French Communists—or whoever’s running their show—I think they boxed smarter than that.”
“In what way—smarter?”
Audley sat forward. “It’s the timing of the thing. It never did seem quite right, even at the beginning.” He glanced at Butler. “You remember when Colonel Clinton briefed us in the barn—‘speed and surprise, and no truck with the French’?” Butler nodded.
Audley nodded back. “It started to smell then, but I smelt the wrong answer. I thought the French knew where the loot was, and we were simply making sure we got in first to take it.”
“Yeah—but they don’t know where it is,” said Winston.
“Quite right. Or at least they don’t know exactly. … It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they knew it was somewhere in the Pont-Civray chateau—“
“Uh-uh.” Winston shook his head. “You’re forgetting the reception committee in the wood. They didn’t know where we were going.”
“So they said. But they could just as easily have been there to make sure we got through—to keep the Germans off our backs and to help us on our way. While keeping a discreet eye on us, of course.” Audley paused. “But all that’s beside the point … which is the whole timing of the Chandos Operation.”
Winston frowned at the subaltern. “What’s with the timing?”
“It’s all wrong, Sergeant. If this loot is so damn well hidden that the Germans didn’t find it in four years of occupation, sitting right on top of it, and the French Communists don’t know exactly where it is themselves, then what the blue blazes are we doing trying to unearth it now, when so many things could go wrong? We’re like the chap who insisted on trying to make love to his host’s daughter standing up in a hammock in broad daylight, when all he had to do was to wait until night came and he could crawl into her bed in comfort. We could have waited a fortnight—or a month—or a year, and it would have been perfectly safe. But we had to go and try it now!”
In the moment of silence which followed Audley’s bitter complaint Butler heard the swish of bicycle tyres skidding on gravel once more. Jean-Pierre had returned.
Winston shrugged. “So you timed it wrong. But the jails are full of guys who did that—and the morgues.”
Audley shook his head. “I don’t think we timed it at all, Sergeant. I think the Communists timed it for us—I think they just simply fed our Intelligence with the false information that they already knew where the loot was, and they were getting all set to pick it up themselves as soon as the Germans had moved out. Then all they had to do was to sit back and wait for us to turn up—“
There came a crunch of footsteps on the road outside, followed by a heavy blow on the rear doors of the ambulance.
“Patron?”
“Attends un moment,” commanded De Courcy. “Go on, David.”
“Patron!” the voice insisted.
“Je te dis d’attendre!” shouted De Courcy. “Go on.”
“That’s really all there is to it. Our job may have been to lead them to it, I don’t know. But what they’re waiting for is for us to find it—to actually find it. All they’ve done is to make sure we do that at exactly the right moment for them, when they have the muscle to take it off us.”
“Patron!” The fist banged on the door again, and this time the urgency in the voice overrode any possibility of refusal.
“Which makes it all the more important that your major dies before he can betray his secret,” said De Courcy harshly. “In the meanwhile— Excusez-moi.”
He rose from his seat and pushed past them to the doors. “Qu’est-ce que c’est, Gaston—Jean-Pierre—Louis-Marie, qu’est-ce que tu peux bien faire ici?” He unbarred the door and stepped out of the ambulance, closing the door behind him.
Winston stared for a moment at the closed door. “You don’t think maybe you were taking a risk, talking in front of that guy, Lieutenant?”
“Dr. de Courcy?” Audley shook his head. “No, Sergeant. The doctor’s a good republican, not a Communist. And besides, if he had switched, then he wouldn’t have bothered with us once he knew we couldn’t find the loot for him. All we can do is stop anyone else finding it—and he knows that.” He shook his head again. “Our problems will start when we’ve dealt with the major … You know what we’ve got ourselves into?”
“One hell of a mess, Lieutenant—that’s for sure.”
Audley stared into space. “An understatement. When I think about all the trouble they’ve been to—the Communists planting false information on us … our side setting up a special operation at short notice— with a hand-picked bunch of professional thugs—hand-picked because they had no connection with the French, too … then I begin to wonder just what it is that we’re trying so hard not to find.” He switched back to Winston, and then suddenly to Hauptmann Grafenberg. “I owe you an apology, Captain.”
The German straightened up in surprise. “Bitte?”
“I should have left you with the Boucards. But I had a plan to use you to get into the chateau. It would have been as dangerous for you as for us”—He shrugged apologetically, almost like a Frenchman—“but it was all I could think of. Fortunately it isn’t necessary now.”
The young German stared at him blankly. “I am at your service, Herr Leutnant.” Then an odd flash of recognition animated his face. “I understand that you have … a difficult duty to perform. And I understand also that I am in your debt for the risk you took on my behalf.”
“Yeah. And I guess you understand also that we’ve stopped fighting Germans too, huh?” murmured Winston.
“Yes.” The German gave a quick nod. “That too, I understand.”
The American gave a short laugh. “That’s right, mein Herr—welcome to World War Three.”
Audley sat up sharply. “My God, Sergeant! You’re exactly right: World War Three is what it is—the first skirmish of World War Three! What a perfectly bloody prospect!”
Butler felt strangely comforted. General Sir Henry Chesney had been right all along. And he, Corporal Butler, might live to be Second Lieutenant Butler yet if he survived the next few hours.
The ambulance doors swung open.
“Trouble,” said Winston instantly.
He was right, thought Butler: trouble was written all over De Courcy’s face.
“They are in the chateau.” His voice cracked.
“Who?” said Audley.
“Your comrades—your major!”
“But—how can they be?”
> De Courcy pointed. “The German vehicles—the ones which have been passing on the road—they were from the chateau. They left four hours ahead of time. Louis-Marie saw the first of your men go in—men in khaki with blackened faces, from the woods opposite the main gate.”
Butler looked at Audley.
Everyone was looking at Audley.
“And also …” For once words failed Dr. de Courcy.
“Also?” echoed Audley.
“There are strangers on the road, Louis-Marie says. Frenchmen who are not from Civray.”
“Surprise, surprise,” said Winston.
Audley looked at him. ‘We should have reckoned on the Germans doing that, Sergeant,” he said mildly. “It was the obvious thing to do, when you think about it.”
“It was? So now what’s the obvious thing for us to do, Lieutenant?”
The obvious thing was to run away as fast and as far as possible, thought Butler. But that was the one thing they couldn’t do, nevertheless: they had a date with World War Three which couldn’t be broken.
“The obvious thing”—Audley blinked—“is to blacken our faces and harden our hearts—and go and see what’s happening.”
CHAPTER 22
How they passed the gate of Chateau Pont-Civray
BUTLER JABBED the barrel of the Sten into Hauptmann Grafenberg’s back, propelling him forward into the open.
Forty yards.
“Hände hoch, Fritz,” he ordered loudly, pitching his voice toward the gates. “Keep ‘em up high, you bugger—that’s it!”
One thing was for sure, he thought: the Anglo-Franco-American assault on the West Gate of Chateau Pont-Civray was in the best Chandos Force tradition.
It was bold as brass, ruthless, deceitful, and treacherous.
Thirty yards.
Another thing was for sure, too: if the man on the gate was one of the major’s gang, then the moment he recognised the features of the dead Corporal Butler beneath their disguise of burnt cork then the dead Corporal Butler would be dead. Sergeant Winston, snugged down in the undergrowth behind him with the Lebel, might avenge him. But at fifty yards’ range he could hardly be expected to read the enemy’s mind quickly enough to save him.
Funny to think so easily now of another British soldier as the enemy.
Twenty yards.
The man was gaping at them now—he could see the blacker hole of the open mouth in the soldier’s blackened face.
But would realisation follow surprise at the sight of the strange group which was approaching him—the German officer at British gunpoint, and behind them Audley bent almost double under the weight of Dr. 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.”
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—
“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 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.
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