The '44 Vintage

by Anthony Price

  The soldier’s legs shot from under him and his body cannoned off the fist into the gates with a force that shook them and made Butler himself wince. The padlock and the machine pistol flew off in different directions, clattering against the wrought ironwork; the man himself bounced off the gates to receive Audley’s other fist in the guts.

  Butler levelled the Sten through the bars at the two men as they rolled on the ground, but he knew it was no longer necessary: not even Joe Louis could have taken a punch like that and still come up fighting.

  The struggle ended before it started, with Audley astride a body which had obviously been unconscious even before he had grappled with it, but which he still hammered at unmercifully.

  “Stop it, for Christ’s sake—he’s finished, can’t you see!” Butler cried out. “Stop it!”

  Audley checked his raised fist, and sat motionless for a moment as the dust settled around him, his chest and shoulders heaving. “Let him be, sir,” said Butler.

  Audley lowered his fist slowly—there was blood on it, and he stared at the blood uncomprehendingly.

  Butler could hear footsteps behind him. Beyond the gates Dr. de Courcy was on his knees, staring at Audley. Then he got up and put his hand on the subaltern’s shoulder.

  “That was one hell of a Sunday punch,” said Winston. “Better him than me!”

  Audley stood up quickly. He shook his head, and then stared around him. “Yes,” he said huskily to no one in particular.

  “We got to get moving, Lieutenant,” said Winston.

  “Yes—right—“ Audley started to wipe his face with his bloodstained hand, and then stopped abruptly. He looked at Butler, then at Winston. “Get… his gun, Sergeant. Take off his battle-dress blouse and put it on”—he pointed down at the body without looking at it—“and give the rifle to Dr. de Courcy … don’t bother about the trousers, no one’ll notice—and they’re all wearing different bits of uniform, anyway.” His cheek twitched nervously under its minstrel disguise, but Butler no longer felt like laughing at him. “The blouse’ll be enough—and the beret.”

  Winston bent over the body and Audley stared across him to Hauptmann Grafenberg.

  “This is as far as you go, Captain. We’re quits now—one all. I give you back your parole.” He blinked furiously. “You can wait for us to come back if you like—or you can take your chance from here. Just… thanks for helping us, anyway.”

  Grafenberg frowned. “But I have not done anything.”

  Audley shook his head. “From where I’m standing you’ve done quite a lot.”

  “Then perhaps I can do more.” The German gave a tiny shrug.

  “Yeah. And perhaps you can get yourself killed.” Winston didn’t even bother to look up.

  “Perhaps.” Grafenberg didn’t bother to look down.

  Audley swallowed. “It really isn’t your war, you know, Captain.”

  “Huh!” Winston rolled the unconscious body over. “You can say that again for me.”

  Grafenberg moved sideways until he stood in the open gateway. “True. But then I do not have a war any more.”

  “Then you ought to quit while you’re ahead.” Winston peeled off the blouse.

  “And since you have given back to me my parole—my word of honour—then I am at liberty to volunteer, I think?” Grafenberg ignored the American. “And also … with me you may do again what you have done here—I think that also.”

  Winston stood up between them, ripping open his own combat jacket as he did so. “And I think you’re right—and I also think you’re nuts.” He nodded to Butler as he stripped off the jacket “Give us the gun then, Jack. And the—whatever it is—“

  Butler handed him the machine pistol and the greasy beret.

  “Okay”—Winston adjusted the beret with a savage tug—“okay, Lieutenant. Let’s go, then.”

  “Wait—“ Audley began desperately, still staring at the German.

  “Wait hell!” Winston pointed the machine pistol at the German. “He wants to get himself killed, that’s his business. One war’s as good as another, so he gets what he wants it makes no difference one way or the other. Just so we get it over quickly, that’s all. Let’s go, Captain!”

  CHAPTER 23

  How Chandos Force fought its last fight

  THEY HEARD the sound of the sledge hammer before the chateau came into view through the trees. BANG-tap.

  BANG-tap—the diminished echo followed each blow. BANG-tap.

  “Over there!” Dr. de Courcy pointed to the left just as Butler caught sight of the familiar creamy stone and blue-black slate pinnacles ahead between the trees.

  “But that’s on the other side of the river—not in the chateau.” Audley’s words came a fraction of a second before Butler identified the angle of difference between the sight of the chateau and the sound of the hammer.

  They plunged through the screen of undergrowth separating the track from the river, suddenly heedless of the discipline which had marched them from the gate.

  “Down, for God’s sake!” Audley’s command caught Butler just in time as the undergrowth thinned at the river’s edge. He caught sight of the dark olive-green water, and a high stone-walled bank opposite which surprised him as he direw himself flat: somehow he had expected the broad sandy channel of the Loire, but here the river—whatever river it was—had been caught between man-made banks.

  BANG-tap.

  “The tower?” Audley threw himself down beside him.

  “The bridge,” hissed Winston on his other side. “The goddamn bridge!”

  BANG-tap.

  The words and the sound both drew Butler’s eye upstream, to a graceful, two-arched bridge. On the far bank it was dominated by a great round tower which was connected to it by a wall of stone filling the gap between the drop of the bank and the abutment from which the first arch rose—

  BANG-tap.

  There were three British soldiers standing at the foot of the wall—

  BANG-tap.

  —and one of them was attacking the wall with a sledge hammer.

  It was Sergeant Purvis.

  “What the hell … ?” The American left the rest of the question unasked.

  “The fourth arch,” said Dr. de Courcy from behind them.

  “What d’you mean—the fourth arch?” Audley turned back to him.

  “There used to be four arches”—De Courcy pointed—“two large ones, which you can see … and a small arch on each side. The smaller arches were—how do you say?—flood arches for when the river is high, between February and March every year, and sometimes in the late spring.”

  BANG-tap. The heavy sledge hammer rebounded off the wall again. Sergeant Purvis stepped back from the wall, spat on each palm in turn like a navvy, and wiped his brow with his arm.

  Audley stared at the bridge. “You mean—they’ve filled in the little arch, someone has?”

  Butler looked at the doctor suddenly. “Didn’t you say they repaired the bridge in 1940, sir—when they were working on the chateau?”

  “Christ! Of course they did!” Audley hammered the ground with his fist. “That’s what they must have been doing—shoring up the little arch with a wall on each side, probably to strengthen the abutments. The way the river curves, that’s the side that must take the full force of the floods—“ he stopped suddenly.

  “So what?” said Winston.

  Audley looked at him. “So—there’s a space under the bridge between the two walls, man! And no one’s ever going to knock down those walls just for fun—they’re possibly what’s supposed to be holding the bridge up. Nobody knocks down repair work—“

  BANG-tap-BANG-tap.

  “Nobody …” Winston twisted towards the bridge again. “Jee-sus, Lieutenant—you’re damn right—“

  Now Butler knew what to look for he could see the line of the original arch in the wall, and once he could see it the newer stonework which filled it became obvious, for all that it had been carefully matched with the
older work.

  “Give me the rifle, Doc,” growled Winston. “I can hit that bastard from here easy—no trouble at all.”

  But as he reached for the rifle Audley caught his arm. “That won’t do any good. We hit one of them and there are still plenty more.”

  Winston looked quickly at the group beside the wall, then back to Audley. “I can maybe get two before they get under cover—“

  “No. That isn’t the major there with them—or the sergeant-major either.” Audley shook his head.

  “Then we can wait for them to show up. Because if that’s where the stuff’s cached, the second that sonofabitch gets through the wall then they’re gonna show, Lieutenant. You can bet on that.”

  “And then it’ll be too bloody late.” Audley began to crawl backwards. “Apart from which I doubt you can wing more than one at this range—with that old rifle. And then they’ll flush us out of here in no time flat. They’ve got LMGs and mortars and bazookas, and they know how to use the damn things too… . Come on, let’s get moving.”

  Winston crawled after the subaltern, protesting. “Jee-sus, Lieutenant —if it’ll be too late then it’s already too late now, for God’s sake! There’s no way we’re gonna stop them—no way.”

  Once he had reached the safety of the path Audley stood up.

  “Very well—there’s no way.” He lifted his chin obstinately. “So we change the plan, Sergeant, that’s all. Come on—and that’s an order.”

  “Like hell it is!” Winston faced him.

  “Sergeant”—Butler touched the American’s arm lightly—“there isn’t time to argue.”

  “Yeah. But time to get killed.” Winston shrugged off the touch. “You got another plan, Lieutenant—just like that?”

  “No, Sergeant—not just like that. I’ve got the other plan we always had. The Army’s solution to all problems. The one thing we’re both real experts in.” Audley’s voice was suddenly weary. “It’s just a damn shame someone didn’t remember the rules back here in 1940, that’s all.” He paused. “Instead of trying to be clever.”

  “What rules?”

  “What rules?” Audley laughed shrilly, as though on the edge of hysteria. “God Almighty, Sergeant—back in ‘40 we destroyed a whole army’s equipment rather than let the Germans get it! ‘Equipment and stores likely to fall into enemy hands must be denied them by demolition.’” He stabbed a finger in the direction of the bridge. “There’s a muddy river out there, and a sledge hammer—and you’ve got a lighter in your pocket… . And, by God, there’s precious little in this dirty, stinking world that can’t be drowned or smashed or burnt so that it’s no use to anyone.” Audley’s finger balled into his fist and the fist hammered his own chest “You want to know how I am, Sergeant? I’m the Open Scholar of Queen’s who knocked down the medieval church at Tilly-le-Bocage with half a dozen well-placed shots! When it comes to destroying things, I’m a professional—and we are going to destroy what’s under that bridge, believe me.” He looked quickly at Butler. “Right, Corporal Butler?”

  “Right, sir,” said Butler.

  They hit their second Chandos Force soldier at the edge of the wood, with the chateau plain to see.

  And hit was again the operative word.

  “Wot the ‘ell’s this, then?”

  Butler swung his back to the man instantly, thanking God for the rival attraction of Hauptmann Grafenberg, who had the stupid bugger staring pop-eyed: it was the bandit with the Uncle Joe Stalin moustache who had stood right next to him in the barn.

  “Where’s t’ major?” The best chance of safety lay in the Lancashire accent he had been trying to lose for two years and more. “Happen we’ve got summut for ‘im, eh?”

  “Back at the gate, sorting out the frogs—“ The bandit cut off the automatic answer. “But ‘oo the ‘ell—ooof!”

  The question was cut off abruptly and finally by the barrel of Sergeant Winston’s machine pistol swung viciously on the back of the man’s neck.

  There was a garden—or it had once been a garden, but now the trim little hedges and the espalier fruit trees had run riot, and the flower beds were choked with weeds.

  “Frogs at the gate,” said Audley. “Could be that the major’s having trouble with your friends, Doctor—could it?”

  “Not my friends, David,” said De Courcy.

  Overgrown garden giving place to gravel square at the side of the chateau—

  Broken boxes and the remains of a giant bonfire, the fitful wind stirring thousands of charred fragments of paper, black against the pale brown of the gravel.

  They have been burning their files—

  More debris: all the wreck of a hurriedly abandoned military outpost and the litter of defeat—

  And just ahead a broader stretch of gravel, with the welcoming parapet of the bridge to the left—

  “Smartly now,” snapped Audley. “March as though you own the place.”

  “What the devil!”

  An officer’s voice. Butler tried desperately to catch Audley’s eye, but the subaltern was out of view behind his left shoulder, leaving him closest to the voice.

  He turned towards the chateau.

  It was one of the officers who had joined them in the barn—or it must be, though again he couldn’t recognise the blackened face.

  “Prisoner, sir. Caught ‘im by t’ gate in t’wood back there,” Butler jerked his head in the direction from which they’d come.

  “A prisoner?” The officer took three more steps toward Butler, frowning at him. “What d’you mean? And who the devil—“

  “Herr Oberleutnant!” Hauptmann Grafenberg interrupted him sharply. “I must protest in the strongest possible terms at my treatment! My rights under the Geneva Convention have been flagrantly violated—“

  “What—?” The officer swung towards him.

  It was then that Butler understood, in the last hundredth of a second before he hit the officer, exactly why Second Lieutenant Audley had put so much force into that punch of his.

  Striking a private soldier in the British Army—and striking him unawares too—must have been on about the same level of impossibility for Second Lieutenant Audley as what he was about to do was for him. And that added the force of absolute desperation to the action: when a corporal hit a captain there was no possible room for half-measure.

  And he knew also why Audley had said Here, you too—

  “Sir—“ he said sharply.

  The officer turned to receive his fist.

  As they marched onto the bridge he was most strangely aware of the different pieces of him that objected to what was happening to them. He could feel his toes itch— His ear ached with a dull pulse of pain— And now his skinned knuckles burned.

  Everything was unnaturally sharp and clear in the sunlight: the weathered parapet of the bridge, the gravel under his feet, the great windowless tower rising up into the blue sky.

  And now there was a gap between the end of the parapet and the curve of the tower—a gap in which he could see the beginning of a stone stair spreading to the left and right beneath them. And away beyond it the river rippling and flashing, olive-green and silver.

  Audley went through the gap without missing a step.

  Journey’s end, thought Butler stupidly.

  But not in lovers meeting.

  “That’ll do very nicely, Sergeant Purvis,” said Audley, holding out his revolver stiffly, two-handed. “You can put it down now—just let it go—and back up, both of you.”

  “Or don’t let it go—I’d like that,” supplemented Sergeant Winston. “Then I can shoot you with a clear conscience, you sonofabitch.”

  Purvis looked at them for a second without recognition. As he had turned towards them, before Audley had spoken, Butler had caught the ghost of that familiar smile which he’d last seen at the road junction to Sermigny. But now the ghost was gone, and almost as quickly the uncomprehending look became one of frozen surprise at being faced by other ghosts: the dead of Se
rmigny risen from their graves.

  The sledge hammer dropped with a clatter among the jumble of stones and the scatter of mortar fragments which lay on the pavement around the sergeant’s feet. In the few minutes since they’d last glimpsed him he had completed his job: clear from waist height to the curve of the original arch there was a gaping hole in the stonework, and Butler realised that he hadn’t heard that regular bang-tap on the hammer striking solid masonry since they had met up with the guard on the edge of the wood.

  “And who might you be, then?” inquired Audley of the soldier beside Sergeant Purvis.

  “Me?” The soldier looked around desperately.

  “Me—sir,” snapped Audley.

  “Sir?” The little man did a double take on Audley, saw no badges of rank, but surrendered to the voice of authority. “Yes, sir—Driver Hewett, sir … Colonel Clinton’s driver that was, sir—I mean, Colonel Clinton that was, sir.”

  “Ah yes—the walking map!” Audley relaxed slightly. “And what happened to the colonel, then—he walked off the map, did he?”

  “The map, sir?” Driver Hewett’s face screwed up in misery. “I dunno about that, sir. But a sniper got the colonel last evening, that’s what. Walking with the major, ‘e was”—he looked nervously at Sergeant Purvis—“so they say, that is—sir.”

  “I’ll bet,” murmured Winston. “So you just showed the major where you’d stashed the loot, huh?”

  The American accent threw Driver Hewett momentarily. “Yes, sir. Those were my orders—from the colonel himself. ‘If anything happens to me, ‘e says …’” he licked his lips. “But I didn’t… stash the loot, like you say, sir—“ his eyes widened suddenly as he caught sight of Hauptmann Grafenberg and Dr. de Courcy. “Christ!”

  “What the hell did you do, then?” The American lifted the machine pistol threateningly. “You led that bastard here, for a start, huh?”

  Years of gangster films had clearly left their mark on Driver Hewett. He pointed to the hole. “I—I only finished the wall, sir. The officers unloaded the ambulance all by themselves. Wouldn’t let me touch a thing—not even watch them at it, they wouldn’t—same as when they’d loaded it. The brigadier in ‘is red tabs, an’ all.”