The '44 Vintage dda-8

by Anthony Price

  "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."

  Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  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 Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  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?"

  Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  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 Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  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."

&nb
sp; "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."

  "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—"

  Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  "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."

  Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  "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 Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  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?"

  Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

  "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 Khalifa'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, and 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.'"