The '44 Vintage (5 page)

Time slowed almost to a standstill as he stood, rooted to the spot, clasping the major’s cases of champagne to his chest.

“Sir!” He appealed helplessly, trying to catch the major’s attention.

But the major’s attention was already caught: he was staring upwards into the branches as though to judge the line of the mortar bomb’s descent—indeed, judging by the movement of his hands, almost as though he intended to catch it.

Butler closed his eyes in the very instant that something crashed through the branches almost directly above them. There was another thump—

This time more a slapping thump than a thudding one—and then a second or two of silence finally broken by the distant whinnying of a horse.

He opened his eyes again.

The major was now holding a rugby football in his hands.

“Hmm …” he said, raising the eyebrow over his good eye at Butler. “In my young days it was hunting, fishing, and shooting they played at. Now it seems to be hunting, fishing, and rugger. I suppose they’ve had a bellyful of shooting for the time being, poor devils… . Come on, Corporal.”

As they came out of the shadow of the trees a hulking young soldier, naked to the waist, appeared out of a gap in the bushes just ahead of them. If this was the rugger player, his side had been the losing one, thought Butler critically: he sported a great purple-black bruise on his left cheekbone, and another on his shoulder to match. There was a rather bedraggled field dressing on his right forearm.

He stopped abruptly as he saw the major, blinked in surprise, and opened and shut his mouth as though the first words he had thought of were not the ones he now wanted to say.

“Speak, thou apparition,” said the major.

The young soldier blinked again, and then produced a nervous half-smile. Under the tousled thatch of light brown hair his face was dead white, except for dark rings under his eyes, the angry bruise of his cheekbone, and an acne rash on his chin.

“C-can we have our b-ball b-back, sir?” he stuttered in an exaggerated public-school drawl.

Butler’s normally dormant class prejudices stirred. The apparition was an officer, for all its appearance, which was not improved by a suggestion of pale stubble on its chin—though to be fair that might be due
to
the acne.

And, to be fair also (when the prejudices stirred Butler instinctively leaned over backwards to silence them), he wasn’t a chinless wonder of the Guards variety; the stubbly chin was square and hard, and the pale blue eyes were hard too. It was a rugger player’s face, and the physique below it was built to match.

It was the dead-giveaway voice, the arrogant stutter, which nettled him, reminding him that cavalry regiments notoriously recruited just this type of subaltern, at least in the old days. In the Royal Lanes the officers were, with exceptions, gentlemen, and none the worse for that (and one day Butler himself intended to be one of them, and no exception). But in at least one of the county’s yeomanry regiments the commissions before the war went exclusively to the gentry, to men with land under their belts (as his father put it), or to their sons and brothers. Even the general had counselled him against volunteering for that regiment, though he had produced other reasons for his counsel.

“By all means,” said the major suavely, tossing the ball to the apparition. “Come on, Corporal.”

As he strode past the young officer, the crowns on his shoulder seemed to register for the first time, and the boy stiffened. “Thanks most awf’ly, sir,” he called after the major’s back. “I’m afraid I sliced the k-k-kick rather b-b-b”—he paused to concentrate on the word, looking blankly at Butler—“rather
badly
,” he concluded with unnatural emphasis.

A very strange character, thought Butler as he stumbled past, aware that his arms were beginning to ache painfully under their burden. But then it seemed a rather strange unit, so no doubt the strangeness of its officers passed unremarked.

Something squashed under his right boot, and the rich smell of horse manure rose to his nose, reminding him sharply for a second of General Chesney’s rose garden, onto which he had forked tons of the stuff. Then, just as sharply, he was aware that the major had stopped just ahead of him, and that they had reached the horsemen.

He peered cautiously round the cases, wondering as he did so whether it would be safe to put them down. Better not, he decided; his arms were now locked in position, at the limit of their sockets. If he did put them down he might not have the strength to pick them up again.

“Willy, my dear fellow!” The third horseman—the one who had dismounted and who therefore must be Colonel Sykes, appeared from between the horses. “So you found us all right.”

Colonel Sykes shook the major’s hand warmly.

“No problem at all.” The major cocked his head on one side. “The trail was … unmistakable.”

“Hah!” Colonel Sykes shook his head. “Yes … I suppose it must be, at that.”

“It looked as though you’ve been having a rough time, Chris.”

“Perfectly bloody, not to put too fine a point on it. All the way from just south of Caumont—perfectly bloody, Willy. If it wasn’t Tigers it was damned self-propelled guns, and this bocage country is no place to fight either of them, especially with these wretched Cromwells. So … we’ve been swapping at about the rate of six to one half the time.”

The colonel stroked his horse abstractedly, and the two men shook their heads at each other. Butler forgot about his arms and thought instead of the anglers on the bridge, and also of the burnt-out tanks they’d passed along the way. There had been rather a lot of them, he remembered now.

“And here am I, come to deplete your strength further,” said the major apologetically. “I’m sorry about that, Chris.”

“My dear fellow!” Colonel Sykes raised his hand to cut off the apology. “Think nother of it. Fact is, it’s all the same to me now—we’re being disbanded, you see.”

“Good Lord! I’m sorry to hear that. That’s damn bad luck.” The major managed to make the banal phrases sound sincere, Butler thought. But if the two were old friends, maybe he really meant them. “No good crying about spilt milk. The same thing’s happening to the 2nd Northants, they’ve caught a packet too … once you go beyond a certain point it’s the best thing to do, really.” Colonel Sykes shrugged. “So I’m off to 21 Army Group and the rest are mostly going to the 7th Armoured—they’ve got Cromwells too, poor devils … No, as a matter of fact, Willy, you’re doing me a good turn if what I hear is true.”

The major half-turned, and for the first time since the conversation had started Butler could see his face. But then he saw it was still only the blind side, which never seemed able to betray any emotion.

“What do you hear?” The major’s question was as devoid of curiosity as the blind side was of expression. “What’s that, then?”

“Well, Brigade made it sound like a holiday jaunt—a sort of tourist excursion to some desirable resort, with no Tigers or such things in attendance,” said the colonel airily. “Didn’t say what it actually was—that was all hush-hush as usual. But they made it sound like just what the doctor ordered for my lad, certainly.”

“What the doctor—?” The major sounded wary now. “Come on, Chris—you’re not giving me walking wounded, are you?”

“I don’t mean
literally
what the doctor ordered.” Colonel Sykes swung on his heel, taking in the whole scene: the anglers, the bathers, the horsemen who had mounted up and were cantering away over the meadow. “They’re all a bit battered, but there’s nothing wrong with any of them. Tanks—third-rate; morale—first-rate, you might say. Could give you any one of them, and you’d have a bargain. Fact is, I’m giving you one of the best … absolutely bulging with brains, almost too much for his own good.”

“I want one bulging with French, Chris. Not brains, just French.”

The colonel waved his hand. “Fluent, even though he’s a history scholar—French, Latin, Greek—Russian too, for all I know. Even a bit of German.”

“Just French.”

Butler was beginning to think faster. There had been a requirement for a German-speaking NCO; presumably there was also a requirement for a French-speaking one too. On a holiday jaunt, a tourist excursion.

“Speaks it like a native, Willy. I’ve heard him myself—he was apologising to an old Frenchwoman who came out of her front door with a bottle of calvados and a Union Jack thirty seconds after we’d put a burst of machine-gun fire through her bedroom window.” Colonel Sykes stared past Butler across the field. “I sent young Pickles to rout him out, so he should be appearing any minute now—“ He broke off, staring this time directly at Butler.

The major followed the stare and started guiltily as he set eyes on Butler. “Good God, Corporal—put those cases down at once! They must be killing you!”

Butler lowered the cases to the ground. He hoped devoutly that no sort of introduction requiring a salute would now take place, or at least not until he had the use of his right arm again.

But the major merely gestured towards the cases. “Present for your mess, Chris—in exchange for one guaranteed French-speaker. Top case is champagne, courtesy of the German Army. The rest is scotch, which is said to have fallen off the back of an American half-track … I heard tell you were living on cider and army rum.”

“My dear fellow—too kind! We have been rather short just recently —ah, here he comes now—“

Butler was standing at ease, with his hands clasped behind his back, which was about the most comfortable position his arms had been able to find. But as the major stared fixedly over his shoulder—the good eye appeared as fixed suddenly as the false one, so that for a moment he couldn’t make out which was which—he couldn’t resist turning himself to get a look at his comrade in good or bad fortune, the French-speaking NCO.

He understood instantly why the major was staring. Of course, no one had actually said the French-speaker was to be a two-striper like himself, he had simply assumed it to be so. And he had assumed wrong.

Even in immaculate Canadian battle dress, trouser creases knife-edged from the iron, pistol at his hip, there was no mistaking the Apparition. If anything, the smart black beret, its prancing horses badge catching the red of the setting sun, emphasised the black and white of the face.

“Ah, David … good of you to join us”—Colonel Sykes acknowledged the OCTU-fresh salute—“David, this is Major Willy O’Conor, to whom you are being lent for the time being, as I explained to you this morning … Willy, this is David Audley, my best French-speaker— and the best-educated officer in the regiment, come to that, I shouldn’t wonder, so take good care of him.”

Audley saluted again, and then accepted the major’s hand.

“We have met, actually,” said the major. “But we didn’t get round to introductions.”

Colonel Sykes looked at his subaltern inquiringly.

Audley’s blackened left cheek could betray nothing, but there was a suggestion of colour in the undamaged right one. “I’m afraid I nearly b-b-brained the m-major with m-my”—Audley paused as he had done before, as though he could see the words ahead like tests in an obstacle course and was gathering his strength to meet them—“my—my rugby b
all.
”

“
I
see.” Colonel Sykes smiled. “David has a mighty right foot, Willy. He never missed a penalty and the regiment carried all before it back in England—didn’t it, David?”

Audley’s good cheek twitched. “I’m a bit… a b-bit out of practice now.” He eyed the major searchingly. “D’you want me to t-travel light, sir?”

Presumably people with their own twenty-seven-ton transport travelled with more worldly goods than the poor bloody infantry, thought Butler enviously. Then the memory of the blackened Cromwells reasserted itself, and the envy evaporated.

“As light as you reasonably can, David,” said the major. “Ten days, we’re reckoning on. Possibly less. But we’ll be travelling by jeep all the way.”

All the way. Butler packed the words away with the other information he had in store. But all the way
where
?

“Five minutes, and I’ll be ready, sir,” said Audley.

“Right. We’ll meet you on the road, at the end of the bridge, then.” The major nodded.

For a few seconds they watched the apparition stride away, then the major turned to the colonel. “I’m afraid I’m weakening your all-conquering rugby team too,” he said, the regiment’s disbandment apparently forgotten.

The colonel was still watching the departing figure. “No, not weakening it, Willy—finishing it off,” he said softly. “Young David is the sole survivor, as it happens.”

“Hmm … he looks a bit shaky to me.”

The colonel turned towards the major. “He’s all right.”

“For a holiday jaunt, you mean?”

“I mean … all right for duty.” Colonel Sykes’s voice had hardened. “I told you I’d given you a good one, and I have. But he’s been unhorsed three times in a fortnight, and the last time he was blown clean out of his tank by a Tiger.”

“He’s lucky then.” The major’s voice was harder too.

“Luckier than the rest of his crew—yes.” The colonel paused. “But if he reckons he’s on borrowed time it isn’t surprising. So what I’m relying on you for, Willy, is to borrow him another fortnight with this special operation of yours while I pull a string or two to get him where he can do the job he’s best fitted for, with his brains.”

“Uh-huh? Which is some form of intelligence, I take it?” Suddenly the major’s voice was soft as silk. “In which cushy billet he can survive the war to help build a land fit for heroes?”

The silken covering didn’t conceal the bitterness from Butler’s ear. It might have been his father talking, in a different accent about a different war, but with the same meaning.

“Better him than superannuated cannon fodder like us, Willy.”

The major gave a short laugh. “Speak for yourself, my dear chap.”

“Very well! Superannuated cannon fodder like me—and a bloodthirsty old bandit like you. We’ve been on borrowed time since ‘40. That’s what I mean.”

“Hah! And I fully intend to stay on it—that’s what
I
mean—“ The major checked himself. “But don’t worry, Chris. I’ll try to include your protégé in my survival plans. In fact, if all goes well with our little jaunt, I shall be giving him the chance of winning his spurs in the field of intelligence, I shouldn’t wonder.”