Winston appeared thunderstruck. "You never killed a German before?"
No, just two Englishmen, thought Butler miserably. "No," he said.
"What about back in the village?"
Butler swallowed. "I don't think I hit anybody."
"Well—Jee-sus Christ!" Winston rocked on his heels. "Jee-sus!" Then he started to chuckle. "Jee-sus!"
Butler flushed angrily.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
Winston shook his head helplessly for a moment. "Man—Jack—don't get me wrong! I'm not laughing at you—I tell you, I never seen a German until today, except prisoners. Not even on Omaha . . . But you—I had you figured for a hard-nosed bastard, a real fire-eater."
"Me?"
"Sure. Like—shoot first and to hell with the questions, and a bayonet in the guts if you haven't got a gun handy—" He stopped abruptly and stared hard at Butler. "You're really not kidding me?"
A sound from the road drew Butler's attention momentarily. Audley and the Frenchman in the suit were crossing it just beyond the culvert, followed by a party of Resistance men.
He turned back to Winston. "I wish I was."
"Okay." Winston nodded. "Then you just think how much the krauts would be worrying about you if they were up here waiting. Because my guess is—not one hell of a lot."
Butler was still struggling with the idea of himself as one of Major O'Conor's hardened veterans. "I suppose you're right."
"I know I'm right. They're the Indians, Jack—and the only good Injun is a dead one, you can take that from me."
The memory of the major had concentrated Butler's mind. When he thought about it, it wasn't the Germans who had confused the issue—it was the major.
He nodded. "I think it's just that if there's anyone I'd like to kill at this minute, it'd be Major O'Conor."
"And that sonofabitch sergeant—now you're talking!" Winston jabbed a finger towards him. "In fact, talking of cowboys and Indians, you ever seen a movie called Stagecoach?"
"No."
"You should have—it's a great movie. Got Claire Trevor in it, and I really go for her in a big way . . .
but, see, there's this young cowboy on the stagecoach wants to get to town to kill the three men who gunned down his pa. And they get chased by Indians on the way— yeah, the young guy lost his horse, just like us, which is why he has to take the stage. And they're right down to their last bullet—"
"When the cavalry arrives." Audley appeared round the side of the tree. "That's Stagecoach— made by John Ford, who also made The Grapes of Wrath— I saw it on my last leave. Right?"
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
Winston looked up at the officer, a trace of irritation in his expression. "That's right, Lieutenant. Except it came out in the States about two years before the war," he said coolly.
"Two years before your war, not ours," said Audley. "But that's beside the point just now. Because our joint war starts in about eight minutes. There'll be two vehicles—a Kübelwagen with three men in it and the staff car with four. The Kübel is the escort—it has a machine gun mounted. Of the men in the staff car, at least two are in civvies— the French think they're Gestapo. But there's also a Wehrmacht officer, possibly a high-ranking one—could be Waffen SS. They want him alive if possible, or at least not too badly damaged. Make a useful hostage, apparently."
"Okay, Lieutenant." Winston nodded. "For him, we'll aim low."
"No." Audley shook his head quickly. "We don't shoot at all, unless we absolutely have to. The French have got it all worked out, they've done it before on this very spot. The only difference is that this time they're going to try to keep the vehicles unmarked so we can use them afterwards."
"You mean ... we just sit and watch?"
"Not quite. They do the shooting. But in return for the staff car—or the Kübel if we prefer it—we take the prisoner for them."
"Oh, just great! They sit behind their trees and pick the bastards off, and we take the risks!" Winston grunted scornfully. "You sure drive a hard bargain, Lieutenant—or they do."
"They'll be taking risks too, don't you worry, Sergeant," snapped Audley. "And if you thought for a moment instead of bellyaching you'd realise it makes sense, our trying for the general or whoever he is.
These Frenchmen aren't choosy about taking prisoners—I think this lot are all Communists and they're settling old scores. And if the general knows that, which he certainly will know, then he'll fight like the rest of them. But if he sees our uniforms then there's a good chance he'll surrender—that's the whole bloody point."
"Huh!" Winston subsided. "Okay, Lieutenant."
Audley looked at Butler. "Any questions, Corporal?"
Butler thought for a moment. "How do the French know so much about the Germans, sir—how do they know they're coming this way, even?"
The corner of Audley's mouth twisted. "They've got it all organised as I said. They come from a village down the road, and they wait until one or two German vehicles come through on their own—they let the bigger convoys through. But when something like this lot comes along they put up a sign on the main road—a sign in German, a proper Wehrmacht diversion sign—saying the bridge farther along is down.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
And they've got one of their own chaps in Milice uniform who offers to take the Germans round a back road which is safe. . . . You just wait and see, anyway."
"Seems a lot of trouble. Why don't they deal with them there and then?" murmured Winston, staring down at the road.
"Because they're scared stiff of reprisals. It seems the SS wiped out a village down south where one of their divisions was held up . . ."
"Wiped out?"
"That's what they say. So the stragglers they cut off have to disappear completely—that's what we found back there"—Audley nodded in the direction they'd come—"the evidence, you might say."
"The smell is what I remember," said Winston.
Audley stood up, and incredibly he was grinning. "Yes, the smell. . ." He looked at his watch. 'Three minutes . . . Yes, they killed the poor devils. But they did bury them."
Winston frowned, first at Butler, then at Audley. "Huh?"
Audley looked from one to the other. "The first time they were after weapons and ammunition—in the lorry. But they were unlucky."
"Unlucky?"
Audley started to move. "Yes. They captured a ton of overripe cheese," he said over his shoulder.
Butler watched him move to a nearby tree.
"Cheese," whispered Winston. He stared past Butler towards Audley. "Now . . . there goes a genuine one-hundred-per-cent hard-nosed sonofabitch." He looked at Butler. "We've got to watch ourselves, you and me, Jack—like the young guy in Stagecoach had to watch the sheriff."
"What d'you mean?" asked Butler.
The American continued to look at him. "Yeah ... I didn't finish, did I? They were down to their last bullet when the cavalry arrived and killed off the Indians. And then when they got to town the sheriff let the young guy go and settle up with the bad guys—he even offered him some more ammunition. So he was okay—the sheriff was."
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
"Yes?"
Winston looked again towards Audley. "I just don't know about the lieutenant . . ." He turned towards Butler. "But then the young guy took off his hat—and you know what there was in it?"
"No?"
"Three bullets. And you know ... I think we'd better keep a couple of bullets too, just in case."
Cheese.
Butler lowered his head until his chin was touching the leaves. There was a one-inch gap between them and the fallen tree trunk behind which he'd settled in preference to his original position. As a firing position it was too low and narrow to be any use, but it was a perfect observation slit, giving him a clear view of the road, and if he wasn't going to be able to take part in the ambush, he wa
s determined to watch.
Well, it hadn't smelt like any cheese he'd ever smelt; at least, not like the soapy mousetrap Cheddar favoured by the Army, which sweated and grew grey-green hairy mould in its old age but didn't smell much. But then he'd never been close to a ton of it; and French cheese was obviously very different from English—that smell had been a fearful, liquid-putrescent one.
Now he could hear the distant sound of engines—
So dead horses smelt worse than dead men, and dead mules smelt worse than dead horses, but dead cheese smelt worse even than dead mules. That was one thing his dad hadn't discovered in the trenches. . . .
A small, grey, jeeplike car came into view—it was at once more carlike than the jeep, with its high body, but less carlike with its little sloping bonnet carrying its spare wheel and its feeble, whining engine.
Four Germans—no, three Germans and a fourth man in a dark blue uniform and an oversized floppy beret—
The small car—Audley's Kübel it had to be—breaking sharply as the driver saw the wrecked culvert, rocking and skidding almost broadside. The soldier in the passenger's seat half rose to his feet, then ducked as the machine-gunner started to traverse his weapon behind him.
Now there was a second vehicle in view—it was the staff car, a heavy, powerful-looking vehicle with a closed canvas hood and side-screens. Even before it had quite pulled up the front passenger's door had Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
swung open and a civilian wearing a dark felt hat raised himself above the level of the hood without getting out. He stared round suspiciously at the silent woods all around him.
The machine-gunner traversed his weapon left and right, up and down, left and right again. Butler could feel the tension and the fear spreading out from the men in the vehicles, like ripples in a pond lapping over him, making his heart beat faster.
Nothing happened.
Suddenly the blue-uniformed man moved—if that was the French Resistance man in the Milice uniform, then, by God, he was a brave one, thought Butler admiringly. He sprang out of the Kübel and took half a dozen cautious steps to peer over the edge of the gap in the culvert. Then he turned and called to the civilian in the staff car, pointing down into the gap.
The civilian stepped down onto the road and started towards the culvert, swinging to the left and right as he advanced to keep his eye on the woods. When he reached the gap the blue-uniformed man spoke quickly to him, gesticulating into the hole at their feet.
The civilian nodded finally, then swung back towards the Kübel and barked an order. As the Kübel's driver and the man beside him jumped obediently onto the roadway the Milice man eased himself over the edge of the gap into the crater.
A moment later the end of a stout plank appeared out of the crater.
So that was it, thought Butler: there were planks in there, the material of a temporary bridge which had spanned the gap. And the false Milice man was tempting the Germans into replacing them—tempting them away from the vehicles.
One of the rear doors of the staff car opened and another felt-hatted civilian raised cautiously, just as the first one had done.
The scene had fragmented into three separate areas of activity, which Butler found he could no longer observe simultaneously.
Above the staff car's canvas hood the second civilian was scanning the trees intently, just as his predecessor had done; on the Kübel the machine-gunner continued to traverse the gun, searching for a target; and beside the crater the two soldiers were hauling at the plank, under the direction of the first civilian.
Butler's senses all seemed to be stretched to breaking point: he could see every detail below him, he could smell the exhaust gases of the idling engines mixed very faintly with the stronger odour of the leaf mould and forest duff right under his nose; he could hear the sound of the individual engines, and Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
beyond them the very absence of sound, and beneath both the thud of his own heart.
Now!
He was staring at his own chosen objective, the shadowy figure in the back seat of the staff car, when the first shot rang out.
The sound of the shot was overtaken by that of a second shot in the same instant that he saw the machine-gunner start to fall. And then all single sounds were lost in the crashing burst of fire from all around him.
" Come on!" shouted Audley.
Butler hurled himself down the slope. The firing had stopped as though by magic—he could still hear it ringing and echoing—but now everyone was shouting and he was shouting too.
And above the shouting was the continuous blaring of a car horn.
" Hände hoch! Hände hoch!" roared Audley as he sprang onto the road two yards ahead.
Butler saw him leap at the car like a tiger and wrench the driver's door open.
" Ich bin Offizier englischer!" he shouted ungrammatically.
The driver slumped out onto the road and the car horn stopped.
Butler tore at the rear door.
The only remaining occupant of the car was cowering down between the seats on the floor of the car.
" Ich bin Engländer," said Butler to the field-grey back.
Audley thrust himself and his revolver into the front of the car. " Ich hin Offizier englischer," he repeated hoarsely. " Hände hoch."
The field-grey back began to move.
"Gott sei Dank! Gott sei Dank!"
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
They had taken their prisoner, and he was undamaged.
The German raised himself from the floor and turned towards them. He took in both of them carefully for a moment before settling on Audley.
"Lieutenant," he said in English that was only slightly accented, "I surrender myself to you."
Then, as they stared at him in surprise, he raised his hands in what Butler thought for a second was supplication.
They had taken their prisoner right enough—and he was a German officer too.
And he was also all of twenty years old.
And he was handcuffed.
14. How Hauptmann Grafenberg fell out of the frying pan
" Oh my God!" said Sergeant Winston hoarsely.
Butler pulled back from the staff car and swung towards the American in alarm.
" My God." The suet-pudding colour of Winston's face under its tan went with the horror and disgust in his voice.
For a moment Butler thought the sergeant had been hit; then, even before the evidence of his own eyes cancelled the thought, he realised that wasn't possible. The enemy hadn't had time to fire a shot, and from the moment Audley had jumped up from cover the French hadn't fired another one. The ambush had been over ten seconds after it had started.
And besides, Sergeant Winston was obviously not wounded: he was standing stock-still on the edge of the road behind the staff car, his Luger pointing at the ground beside him. He was simply staring towards the crater.
Butler followed the stare. The man in the Milice uniform was rolling the body of a soldier over onto its back—the jack-booted legs seemed unwilling at first to follow the torso, but finally twisted with it, splaying out stiffly and horribly like a dummy's.
He looked back at Winston. Somehow there must be more to it than that. Winston might not be a battle-Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
hardened veteran, but he hadn't behaved until now like a man who'd be scared sick at the sight of death.
He might not have seen any fighting Germans until today, but he must have seen enough of that on Omaha Beach, by God!
"What's the matter?" he said sharply, the disquiet he felt edging out concern from his own voice.
"The matter?" Winston repeated the words under his breath before turning to him. "The matter is—you were goddamn right, mac—we are the fucking Indians."
"What's this?" Audley straightened up beside them. He took in Winston's stricken expression, and then the scene at the edge of the
crater, where the Milice man was methodically stripping the Germans. His bruised cheek twitched slightly as he turned back towards the American. "He's dead, for God's sake."
Winston watched the Milice man. "Yeah . . . he's dead"—he paused —"now."
"Now?" Audley stared at the American, then back at the Milice man, and then finally at Butler. "Did you see, Corporal?"
"I saw," Winston snapped. "I saw."
Audley bit his lip. Suddenly he looked around him nervously.
"That's right, Lieutenant," said Winston. "You take a good look."
There were Resistance men coming down the road behind them, and others advancing through the trees across the road. Up the hillside Butler could see more of them.
He caught Winston's eye and knew that now he was frightened too.
Winston nodded. "You got there, mac—Jack, huh? You play with Indians . . . and they play rough."
"But—" Butler could see the little man in the suit picking his way round the crater. He was trying to keep his shoes clean.
"So we've got them their general, like they wanted," said Winston.
Their general? Oh, God! thought Butler, remembering the white-faced boy in the staff car—the boy in the handcuffs who had just a moment ago thanked the same God.
"So now we're maybe surplus to requirements," said Winston.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
"Cock your Sten, Corporal," said Audley.
"What?"
"Cock the bloody thing!" Audley hissed at him. "Cock it and smile!"
Butler looked down at the machine carbine and saw to his horror that it wasn't cocked. He'd charged down the hillside shouting like—like an Indian. But he hadn't remembered to cock his gun.
The little man in the suit came towards them.
Audley ostentatiously replaced his pistol in its holster. Then he took four quick paces towards the Frenchman and threw his arms round him.
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