The '44 Vintage (17 page)

He glimpsed a long, straight road, and a fairy-tale house with round towers topped by conical roofs of smooth blue-black slate. Then they were over the junction and racing down another narrow tree-shadowed road like the one they’d just left, the jeep lifting in anotiher stomach-sickening bounce as they did so. Something flicked past them away over the fields to his left, a mere blur of movement flashing on and off between the trees so fast that it mocked their own furious pace. Then, with a tremendous surge of power, an RAF Typhoon rose across the funnel of sky ahead of them in an almost vertical climb. The sun glinted for a fraction of a second on its cockpit hood before it curved out of Butler’s sight, turning it into a diing of beauty in the instant of its disappearance.

“He’s going to make another pass,” shouted Audley.

“Don’t mind me if I don’t stay to watch,” Winston shouted back at him.

The land started to rise gently under them. They passed another shuttered farmstead with no sign of life around it except a goat tethered to a pear tree in a parched orchard. The goat had huge udders— Butler had never seen a goat with such big udders. Come to that, he thought, he had only once before seen a goat.

Then the trees thickened on each side of them and their speed came down to a more comfortable level.

“Go on, Corporal,” said Audley. “What did the major say then?”

Kill him with the others—

They listened in silence right to the end—or at least to the edited end Butler found himself fabricating, with that one unendurable fact omitted.

And then for what seemed an age they continued in silence, until he began to feel a different fear spreading within him over the hard lump of panic that already constricted his chest.

They didn
’
t believe him
…

Finally Audley turned towards him again.

“Jones tried to stab you … you were kneeling, and he told you
to
turn round. But you jumped him, and you knocked him cold—that’s right?”

Butler nodded wordlessly. Put like that—and put like that after his report of the conversation between the major and the sergeant-major—he hardly believed himself.

“And you had a fight with Jones the night before—that’s last night?” said Sergeant Winston.

“Yes … but—“ Butler saw with horror how those two separate but connected events could be rearranged to make a very different story. “But that was why they wanted to—to kill me,” he said desperately.

“Uh-huh.” Winston nodded at the road ahead. “And just how cold did you knock this guy Jones? Very cold, maybe?”

Butler looked wildly at Audley. “Sir—he tried to stab me—he
did
stab me—I
felt
him stab me—“

“Well, you sure as hell don’t sound stabbed to me, man,” said Winston.

Butler looked down at himself disbelievingly, his hands open.

Audley stared at his left hand. “No blood … not unless you’ve got purple—“ He stopped suddenly, the stare becoming fixed on Butler’s midriff. “Just a moment though … let’s have a closer look at you, Corporal.”

He reached down and lifted one of Butler’s ammunition pouches up so that he could see the bottom of it. ‘Well, well!”

“What is it?” asked Winston quickly.

Audley dropped the pouch back into place. Butler seized it and tried
to
twist it, but the Sten magazines inside prevented him from seeing what Audley had stared at. All he could make out was the beginning of a dark purple stain on the edge.

“He’s got a one-inch slit on the bottom of the pouch,” said Audley. “And …”

“And … ?”

“This webbing of ours is extremely tough, Sergeant. It takes quite a lot of force to go through it.”

“Like a knife, huh?”

“Like a knife. And then a couple of Sten mags and a bottle of what’s-it …” Audley looked into Butler’s eyes. “Well, well!”

Winston glanced quickly at Audley. “You’re thinking maybe … ?”

“I’m thinking a lot of things, Sergeant.”

“Like what?”

Audley didn’t reply. Instead he rubbed his hand over his face as though he was wiping cobwebs from it. As he reached his mouth his hand stopped.

“Like what?” Winston repeated.

“Like … like limejuice
was
pretty quick off the mark this morning just now… . We used to reckon on ten minutes at the least, and that was one hell of a lot closer to their forward landing strips than we are here.”

“But they got a standing patrol, you said.”

“So I did. But
he
said he wasn’t expecting any trouble at the crossing —it was going to be a piece of cake.”

“He could be just careful?”

“That’s exactly what I’m thinking—he could be just very careful indeed. As the corporal said, he could prefer certainties to odds, Sergeant.”

This time Sergeant Winston didn’t reply.

“And there was something damn queer about the way he acted back there …” Audley’s hand rubbed his stubbly chin. “When we were jumped on the river … by a German patrol—when you made that memorable observation of yours. ‘Horseshit’ was it?”

Winston grunted. “He had his goddamn patrols out, for Christ’s sake.”

“That’s right. And if there’s one thing about this crew of desperadoes it’s that they’re highly professional at smelling out Germans. Because they’ve been keeping one jump ahead of them for months in Jugoslavia.”

“So they fouled this one up, you mean?”

“Or maybe they didn’t foul it up—also as Corporal Butler says… . Or maybe they did foul it up, at that!”

“I don’t get you now, Lieutenant. They didn’t—and they did?”

“That’s right. They were laying it on for us, the colonel, the corporal and me—three birds with one stone—the birds who weren’t wanted any more
en voyage
. And then the corporal messes things up with his quick reflexes and his Bren gun: they were expecting sitting ducks, and they got thirty rounds rapid just where it hurt.” Audley’s thin lips twisted. “Naughty Corporal Butler!”

Winston rocked in his seat uneasily. “Hell—but how d’you know they weren’t Germans? That guy had an MG 42—and that was an MG 42 firing at us, I’d know that goddamn noise anywhere!” He shook his head. “I heard that first time on Omaha Beach and I’m not ever going to shake that out of my head, Lieutenant, you can believe that for sure.”

“They’ve got all sorts of guns with them,” said Butler.

“That’s right.” Audley nodded at him. “These people are weapon specialists. The job they had in Jugoslavia was instructing the partisans in weapon training. The major’s second in command—Captain Crawford—was explaining to me last night … half the men Marshal Tito has don’t know one end of a gun from the other, they’re shepherds and schoolboys, and they have to fight with what they can get—not just our weapons, but German and Italian … and Russian too, now. And the marshal asked our people for a squad to train his chaps, and these are one lot of them. They’re a sort of mobile musketry school.”

They stopped again.

This time the woods were all around them, thick and silent. Friendly woods, Butler told himself: friendly and concealing woods where no enemies were, and the feeling of unease and watching eyes all around him was just the town-bred boy’s unfamiliarity with anywhere away from bricks and mortar and stone and slate, and straight ordered lines and sharp angles of houses and walls and roofs.

But he knew he was deceiving himself now, and that the enemy was all around him, much closer than what might lie hidden behind the green tangles.

Major O’Conor was striding towards them again, the ashplant swinging nonchalantly for all the world as though he was a country gentleman walking his acres.

“Ah, David!” The major waved the stick. “Limejuice to your liking, eh?”

“Yes, sir. B-b-b …”—Audley fought the word—“better them than us, sir.”

The major laughed a quick, mirthless laugh. “I couldn’t agree with you more. I had a bit of that in 1940—and another bit in Crete in ‘41. So I’m quite content to see them on the receiving end, I can tell you, by jiminy.” His eye swept over Butler. “No Germans to smell here, Corporal…” The eye came to the American sergeant. “Bit short with you back there by the river, Sergeant, but not much time, you understand—Germans and all that… But welcome to Chandos Force, anyway.”

“Major, sir”—Winston gripped the wheel with both hands—“I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”

“That’s the spirit!” The eye roved over the jeep. “Sergeant-major! Get this bazooka out of this jeep—and the projectiles too. I want that up front in Cranston’s jeep. He knows how to use the damn thing.” The major’s golden smile showed. “They can carry some more petrol instead.”

“Sir!” shouted the sergeant-major in the distance.

The major tapped the bonnet of the jeep. “Another main road two or three miles ahead, David,” he said conversationally. “All being well, we’ll hop that in the next stride. Then we should be right as rain for quite a way … my chaps know the drill backwards. Just follow instructions and you’ll have no trouble.”

Audley nodded. “Righty-ho, sir… how’s the colonel, sir?”

“Hah! Lost a bit of blood, but nothing serious. Fleshy part of the arm, that’s all—orderly’s got him nicely wrapped up. Good night’s rest and he’ll be as right as rain too.”

Butler surrendered the bazooka and its ammunition to a couple of bandits in exchange for jerrycans of petrol. It was hard to equate this major, all friendliness and businesslike confidence, with the coldblooded bugger he’d overheard under the bank of the island beside the Loire. He glanced at Audley to reassure himself that he wasn’t dreaming: the subaltern was watching the major with a strangely blank look on his face, as though he too found the adjustment beyond him.

“Jolly good!” The major lifted the ashplant in farewell, and strode back up the road.

The American sergeant watched him go for a few seconds, and then turned towards Audley. For another two or three seconds the Englishman and the American stared at each other.

“Horseshit?” said Audley.

Winston nodded. “Horseshit.” He paused. “But that’s how it feels … how it really is—well, you better know better than I do, because that isn’t quite the brand of horseshit I’m used to, Lieutenant.”

They moved on again, but more slowly this time.

“Back at the river—‘Germans and all that’…” said Audley.

“Yeah?”

“A patrol, he said. And ‘we’re dealing with it,’ he said too.”

“That’s right. And he sure as hell wasn’t very worried by it either.” Winston agreed. “Which seems kind of surprising to me in the circumstances.”

“Right! And particularly in the circumstances that he’d sent only two men to deal with it.”

“Smith and Fowler,” said Butler. “And he lost Fowler. And he was angry.”

“He wasn’t just angry.” Audley stared from one to the other quickly. “
He was surprised.
”

“Man—you’re dead right,” Winston nodded so quickly that the jeep swerved slightly. “He
was
surprised.”

“Which in the circumstances is surprising,” concluded Audley.

“Huh! Which in the circumstances means—no Germans,” said Winston. Suddenly he half-turned in the driving seat. “How hard did you say you hit that guy—who was it?—Jones?”

Butler swallowed. “Pretty hard, I suppose.”

“Uh-huh …” Winston grunted knowingly. “Like maybe so he won’t wake up this side of never, don’t tell me. So now with the ambush that makes your score two-nil … and if we meet any Germans we can stop and ask them if they’ll give you an Iron Cross—“

“Lay off, Sergeant,” said Audley sharply. “If it wasn’t for Corporal Butler we’d all be food for the crayfish in the river now.”

The subaltern was looking at him, Butler realised. “Sir—“

“Never mind. Forget it.”

“Never mind?” The American’s voice rose. “Holy God, Lieutenant! if it wasn’t for you British fighting among yourselves I’d be back the other side of the river now fighting the war I was drafted for—and you want me to forget that like it hadn’t happened?”

“No. But—“

“No—hell, no! And if I had any sense I ought to take the next turning and get the hell out of here—limejuice, for God’s sake—and
loot
!” The American’s foot went down on the accelerator as the jeep in front started to pull away from them. “What loot—do I get to know that before one side or the other blows my head off?”

“We don’t know,” said Audley promptly, as though he had seen the question coming. “All we know is that it’s very valuable.”

The woods were thinning ahead of them: Butler could see light between the trees on both sides of the road.

“That’s great—here we go again, hold on—I always wanted to the rich—“

This time there was no bump. And this time the main road was even wider and straighter, with a wide verge of rough grass on each side of it. Looking quickly to each side of him Butler saw it stretching away into the far distance, to his left towards a gap on the skyline and to his right away into infinity. Where were all the people in France—not just the Germans, that quarter of a million of them, but the millions of Frenchmen and Frenchwomen? They couldn’t all be huddled in cellars waiting for the liberation.

Then they were across into the forest again, the trees as thick as ever. Before he had landed in Normandy he had thought of France as a land of pretty girls and the Eiffel Tower. After three days in Normandy it had become a land of ruined villages and shapeless old people and foul smells. Now it was a place of misty sand and endless woodland.

“
Uh-huh
…
” It almost seemed that the American sergeant was beginning to enjoy his unhappiness. “And where is this very valuable loot, that has a limejuice all of its very own? … Don’t tell me—you don’t know that either?”

“Not far from here,” said Audley stiffly. “The major said we could reach it tomorrow if we were lucky.”

“But you don’t know where it is? I guess the major wouldn’t have told you that?” Winston looked quickly sideways at Audley.

“It’s in Touraine,” said Butler. “I know that.”

“Which is like saying ‘It’s in South Dakota, or Illinois, or Florida,” said Winston. “And we’re in Touraine now, Corporal—and if you don’t know where you’re going, I sure as hell don’t either.”