The '44 Vintage (18 page)

“But we can find that out from Colonel Clinton just as soon as we harbour for the night,” said Audley. “And we can tell him what’s happening.”

Winston shook his head. “You can—I’m not. The moment you go anywhere near that colonel of yours—you and the corporal—that’s the moment you won’t find me around. Because the place where you three are together isn’t going to be a very healthy place to be … I’ve been there once, and I still don’t know how I got out of it in one piece.”

There was sense in that, thought Butler. The only comfort in their present position was that Colonel Clinton was somewhere else up front. “Our best bet is to duck out of this tonight, first chance we get,” said Winston. “That way we live to fight another day, Lieutenant.”

Audley was silent for a moment. “We can’t do that”

“Why not, for heck’s sake?”

Audley looked at Butler. “Because we’re the real Chandos Force— and we’ve got a job to do,” he said flatly.

The American was silent in his turn, driving steadily. Then he leaned back towards Butler. “Are you … the real Chandos Force too, Corporal?”

“Corporal Butler goes with me,” said Audley.

“I see.” The sergeant sat forward again. “Well, don’t mind me if I wave a different flag—“

“That’s fair enough.” Audley’s voice sharpened.

“I haven’t quite finished, Lieutenant.” Winston’s voice sharpened to match. “I don’t know whether you can take your major or whether you can’t. But I’m pretty sure if he suspects you’re on to him, you’re gonna cramp his style if you disappear from under him—that’ll make him think twice, whatever he’s planning, not knowing what you’re up to, huh?”

There was even more sense in that, thought Butler—the addition of the American sergeant to their strength was beginning to look like a greater blessing merely than his jeep-driving expertise.

He glanced hopefully at Audley. In his experience second lieutenants could not be relied on for anything but the simplest reaction to events, since that was all that was expected of them. But one day he hoped to do better than that himself, and now he prayed that Audley might live up to his CO’s estimation.

“Looks like another halt ahead,” said Winston. “So think it over, Lieutenant”

The jeeps slowed down as before, pulling into the side of the road under the shadow of the trees with a gentle rise stretching ahead of them to the crest of the next ridge.

But this time, to Butler’s relief, it was Sergeant Purvis who came back towards them.

“Sir”—Purvis sounded breathless, but cheerful—“the major’s compliments, and we shall be going through a village very soon. Nothing to worry about—I’ve had a look-see myself and I’ve put two men over the top of the hill beyond the village. The major’s in there now, asking around if there’s any suspicious persons been seen in the vicinity— won’t take my word for it yet, like he used to for poor old Taf …” He grinned suddenly at Butler, with the ghost of a wink. “Now if you were to lend me the corporal there—I hear tell he’s got a bit of a nose, like Taf had—Corporal Jones, that is …”

“I’ll think about it, Sergeant,” said Audley. “Are we halting in the village?”

“Lord—no, sir! Never stop inside a place, we don’t. Too many prying eyes, there are … not unless it’s been okayed by the partisans, and we don’t know any of them here.” Purvis shook his head. “No sir, we’ll go straight through, and in four separate groups—that way if there is anyone watching that shouldn’t be he’ll likely get the wrong idea about our strength. You two”—he waved his hand to include the jeep behind— “are the rear guard, with me as tail-end Charlie.” He grinned again. “Just go straight across the village square and there’s a sign to St. Laurent-les-Caves. Then up the hill till you meet up with the rest.”

“All right, Sergeant,” Audley nodded. “We’ll manage.”

“Of course you will, sir. Just take it nice and steady—not too fast and not too slow. But don’t stop for anyone, no matter who … and do keep an eye out for the kiddies, sir—if you catch them on the wrong side of the road from their mothers they’ll like as not run across in front of you in a flash.”

There was something infinitely comforting about Sergeant Purvis, decided Butler. And not the least element in that comfort was his capacity for worrying about other people, even about small French children in a village in the middle of nowhere. If there was anyone they could risk trusting in Chandos Force, Purvis was the one.

Also, he was beginning to get the hang of Major O’Conor’s operating rules, which seemed to be a variation on the hallowed principle of fire-and-movement. Very skilful reconnaissance—what Sergeant Purvis would no doubt describe as “look-see”—and movement had obviously kept them alive and operational for months in the far more hazardous conditions of occupied Jugoslavia.

It was a pity—indeed, it was also almost beyond his understanding— that the major had somehow gone to the bad.

And it was a pity also that the very blindest chance had made Audley and himself—and the colonel and Sergeant Winston—the innocent victims of his villainy.

He frowned at the back of Sergeant Winston’s neck. The American’s bad luck was enough to rattle even a man of such evident common sense and efficiency, which all senior NCOs in the engineers appeared to share: to be cut off from his unit among foreigners, was bad enough. But to be cut off among villainous foreigners in enemy territory …

He realised that all three of them were wrapped in thought, but that the thoughts must be very different. And the heaviest burden lay on the broad but utterly inexperienced shoulders of the young dragoon subaltern, with his stutter and his bruises and his Cambridge scholarship which was of as little use to him now as a packet of fish and chips. Indeed, a packet of fish and chips would be a lot more use, he thought, feeling hungrily in his haversack. His fingers closed on the familiar oatmeal block.

And then he knew that he could never face a mouthful of oatmeal again, not even if he was starving, not even if it was the last edible thing in the whole world. There had been oatmeal in Jones’s eyes and in his eyebrows and in his nostrils.

He munched a bar of ration chocolate and tried to think of something else.

Loot… the colonel had called it “valuable property,” but the major had called it
loot—

Oatmeal.

So the major must know what it was—obviously he knew what it was, or he wouldn’t be planning to do … but what was he planning to do? And, come to that, what had the colonel himself been planning to do?

Oatmeal.

He reached inside his battle-dress blouse for his pocket watch. It was still incredibly early; everything seemed to have happened this morning on a time scale of its own, outside ordinary time. Back home at this hour his father would be having his breakfast, or maybe getting a proper shine on his boots before setting out for work. And the general …

He opened the watch case a little more—james butler 15-5-42 from h.g.c. 6.9.91—if anyone came into possession of this watch they would take those two dates for birthdays, he thought wryly, and not the days on which the British Army had acquired two of its recruits. His own “42” date might stump them a bit, but they’d probably take the fifty-one-year gap as separating grandson from grandfather.

Which in a manner of thinking wasn’t completely wide of the truth, he understood quite suddenly and for the first time: in a way the general had become the grandfather he’d never had, and he had become the grandson the general lacked. The odds had been hugely against its happening, not just because of the difference between the little terrace houses of Jubilee Street and the stately homes of Lynwood Road but also because of the greater gulf between his father’s position and politics and those of the general. But it had happened.

And it had begun happening during one lunchbreak, when he’d been curled up with his book on the edge of the rhododendrons, out of sight, so he had thought—

“What are you reading, boy?”

“
The River War
, sir. It’s by Mr. Winston Churchill.” (If he asks you a question always answer loud and clear, Sands had told him. And truthfully too—he can see clear through you like a sheet of glass.)

“Not studying?”

“It’s history, sir.” (Was that a lie? “Isn’t it?”)

“Hmm … well, perhaps it is. Mr. Churchill would be pleased to hear you say so, anyway… . And which bit do you like best—the battle of Omdurman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Of course. And in the battle the charge of the 21st Lancers, I suppose, eh?”

“No, sir. The bit about MacDonald’s brigade—the Soudanese and the Egyptians, sir—how they and the Lincolns fought off the Green Flag dervishes.”

“Indeed? Then read it to me, boy.”

“Yes, sir—it comes after the Black Flags had been beaten. Then the Green Flags suddenly came down from the hills …” (His fingers ran through the pages, but the book knew the place better than he did, opening itself ready for him.) “
’
Had the K
halifa
’
s attack been simultaneous with that which now developed, the position of MacDonald
’
s brigade must have been almost hopeless—
“

(This was the great passage, the one he knew so well that he could close his eyes on it.)

“‘
All depended on MacDonald, a
nd that officer, who by valour and conduct in war had won his way from the rank of a private soldier to the command of a brigade, was equal to the emergency—
‘”

(The words flowed on. Not even E. M. Wilmot Buxton could equal Winston Churchill in describing a battle.)

“
‘
Thus ended the Battle of Omdurman—the most signal triumph ever gained by the arms of science over barbarians.
’”

“Most signal massacre, more like, my boy. They didn’t have a chance, the poor barbarians.”

“Against MacDonald they did, sir.” (He couldn’t have MacDonald slandered, not even by the general.) “Were you there, sir?”

“Hah … no. The Lancashire Rifles did not have that honour … Well, maybe against MacDonald the barbarians did.” (The general’s blue eyes were looking at him: he was a sheet of clear glass.) “But you don’t want to be a soldier, surely?”

“Yes, sir. Like MacDonald.”

“Like MacDonald? And what does your father say about that?”

“My father?” (He was still clear glass: they both knew what his father would say to that.) “Yes—your father.”

“I don’t know. But I’m going to be a soldier all the same.”

Ambition, thought Butler. That was the bridge between Jubilee Street and Lynwood Road.

“Move out!” Sergeant Purvis shouted from ahead of them.

The rise ahead was empty now except for the sergeant’s jeep, with its massive .50 Browning mounted in front. The sergeant himself was standing up in it, one hand on the gun and the other waving them forward.

Over the crest the road curved away through the trees, past a fork with a gaudily painted cavalry, its hanging Christ bright with blood, and a signpost bearing the legend 1k. 7 SERMIGNY 6k 4 ST. LAURENT. At least they were on the right road.

“About a mile,” said Winston. “Have you decided, Lieutenant?”

“We can’t break off here,” said Audley. “Not with two jeeps behind us.”

Butler looked back. The jeep behind them was closing up, but Sergeant Purvis’s was only just topping the crest. The sergeant was taking his tail-end Charlie role as seriously as he would have expected.

Now there were houses ahead of them, the first outliers of Sermigny, and behind them a jumble of roofs surmounted by a stubby little church spire. With any luck he was about to see his first Frenchman since joining Chandos Force.

Not that they were going to make an exactly triumphant entrance into the village; the forest road was hardly more than an overgrown farm track and the houses he had seen along it were more like broken-down barns than homes. Between them he could just glimpse orderly rows of vines.

And there at last was a real live Frenchman, a little fat man in worn blue dungarees. He stared pop-eyed at Butler across the narrow street, and then started to wave wildly.

The poor sod thought he was being liberated, thought Butler guiltily —that possibility was something which hadn’t occurred to him until this very moment.

He heard the man shouting unintelligibly behind them, then Winston swung the jeep out of the shadow of the street into the light of the village square.

It was black with Germans.

How they visited the village of Sermigny

A GERMAN SOLDIER
skipped out of the way of the jeep to the safety of the pavement.

“Drive on!” said Audley out of the side of his mouth. “Not too fast—
don
’
t move, Corporal—
drive on, man,
drive on
!”

There were two more Germans crossing directly ahead of them. Audley signalled them out of the way with an urgent gesture.

“
Achtung!
”
he barked.

The Germans increased their pace smartly.

Butler sat like a stuffed dummy, one hand gripping the body mechanism of his Sten convulsively, the other clutching thin air.

They were driving down one side of a tree-lined square, between a line of grey lorries under the trees on one side—lorries so heavily camouflaged with branches that the trees seemed to be growing out of them—and a wall of drag shops and houses. The intervals between the lorries were crammed with German troops in full marching order, some in steel helmets but most in soft field caps, with their helmets hanging from their packs.

“Turning ahead—“ Audley lifted his hand in a vague half-salute. “Smile,
Oberjager—
what’s ‘clear the road’ in German, for Christ’s sake? Something
die Strasse—?”

“
Bahnen Sie die Strasse
,” hazarded Butler.

“Bahnen Sie die Strasse,” repeated Audley to himself.

Winston started to turn the wheel, then straightened it instantly. A second later Butler saw why: the side road was jammed with horse-drawn transport—and with more Germans. And, what was worse, at the head was a group of jack-booted officers pouring over a wide-spread map held between them. In the second that it took to pass the turning one of them looked up to stare directly into Butler’s smiling face. At least, it was the nearest he could get to obeying Audley’s command—he could feel his cheek muscles drawn back.