"So why are we heading for it now, then?"
"Why?" Audley closed his eyes for a second. "If you were on the run back in Texas—"
"Chicago, Illinois. And Jesus!—I wish I was there now!"
"Chicago, Illinois. If you were on the run in Chicago, Illinois—on the run from the gangsters, Sergeant . . . would you go home to your parents?"
"Hell no! Not unless—" Winston stopped.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
"Not unless you were desperate. Not unless you'd tried everything else." Audley regarded the American stonily. "So I am desperate now— and I can't think of anything else. So I'm going home."
16. How Second Lieutenant Audley came home again
Butler lay exhausted among the vines on the edge of the track to the Chateau Le Chais d'Auray, watching the moonlight polish the dark slates on the little conical tower nearest to him.
The important thing was not to go to sleep, he decided.
They had marched the day into the afternoon, and the afternoon into the evening, and the evening into the night.
First they had force-marched out of necessity, simply to put distance between themselves and the scene of the air strike.
Then they had settled into the rhythm of a route march, by side roads and country tracks, and over fields to skirt round villages, and through hedges and thickets to avoid prying eyes.
But a route march was no problem: it was what a soldier's legs were for, and the farmlands of Touraine were nothing to a soldier who had trained on the high moors of Lancashire and Yorkshire and the mountains of Wales.
Yet each five-minute halt was a little more welcome than the last one. And after each halt it took a little longer to get back into the rhythm. And so, by slow degrees, the route march became an endurance test But at least they were going somewhere at last, because Second Lieutenant Audley studied each signpost and changed direction accordingly.
And once, when they surprised a small boy beside a fish-pond, Audley exchanged their last slab of ration chocolate for a pointing finger.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
Loches?
That way, the finger pointed.
La Roche?
That way.
Channay-les Pins?
That way.
The urchin never said a word from first to last, and scuttled away smartly as they set out for Channay.
After which they retraced their steps and headed for La Roche.
Audley didn't trust anyone any more, not even small boys.
Or German captains.
"Hauptmann . . ." Audley seemed embarrassed. The great bruise on his cheek was less black now, more like a dark stain half camouflaged by dust and sweat.
The German stirred nervously where he lay, brushing at his hair with his chained hands. "Lieutenant?"
"There are . . . some things we have to get quite clear."
"Some things?" the German swallowed nervously. "What things, please?"
"The Frenchman said you were in the plot against Hitler. But you've said that you weren't." Audley paused, then pointed to the handcuffs. "So why are you wearing those?"
"Yeah." Winston rolled sideways from where he'd flopped down exhausted a moment before. He held up his head with one hand and started to massage his thigh with the other. "I'd like to get the answer to that too, Captain."
The German looked from one to the other. "I have given you my parole— my word of honour."
"That's right—so you did." The American nodded. "But I heard tell that all you boys swear an oath to Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
the Führer. Like a word of honour, huh?" He nodded again. "And that makes you a kind of a problem to us."
"How ... a kind of problem, please?"
"Well now ... it wouldn't be a problem if you had tried to give the Führer the business, like the Frenchman said you had. Because then you'd be on our side, because that 'ud be the only side you'd got left. But that's where the problem starts."
"Please?" The German turned towards Audley. "I will keep my word—as a German officer."
"That's exactly what's worrying me." Winston rubbed his thigh harder. "Because that Frenchman wasn't kidding us. He looked at those papers, and he went off the boil about you and he was ready to get back to the main business of shitting us up. But now you say that's all baloney, you never touched the Führer ... so if those cuffs aren't for that—if they're just for screwing the general's daughter, or stealing the PX blind, or something—then like the Frenchman said, which word of honour are you going to stick to if we meet up with any of your buddies? The Führer's word—or our word, hey?" He stopped rubbing his thigh and pointed his finger at Audley. "Right, Lieutenant?"
"Yes . . . well, broadly speaking . . ." Audley watched the German, ". . . right."
For a moment the young German said nothing. Then he squared his shoulders defiantly. "If that is what you think, Lieutenant—" he began reproachfully.
"No." Audley cut him off. "It isn't as simple as that. I was quite prepared—damn it, perfectly prepared—
to take your word for us. But if we go on now to ... where we're going . . . then other people could be involved. And I don't have the right to risk them—not on your word, or my word, or anyone's word."
Chateau Le Chais d'Auray, thought Butler quickly. Audley had let slip that name when the sergeant had pressed him for their destination. And he had let it slip in the German's presence, that was what had been distracting him.
So now they couldn't leave him, they had to either shoot him or take him with them. And if they took him with them they needed to trust him.
Butler stared at the young German with a curious sense of detachment. This, he told himself, was a genuine, one-hundred-per-cent German soldier, one of the species he'd been trained and primed to kill on sight without a second thought. The boy even looked like a German —even in his rumpled, sweat-stained uniform and without his officer's hat he still looked a lot more like a German than the fat soldier with the loaves in Sermigny.
So now, although we just don't kill prisoners and a few hours ago they would have fought for that Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
principle, what would he do if Audley was to say shoot him?
He would do it, of course.
The German was staring at him.
"I was on the Eastern Front, with my battalion ... in the 4th Army, near Vitebsk. An anti-tank battalion ...
in April I was promoted and sent on a special course at home, at—at home—on the use of the new Jagdpanzers ... I saw my father, who was on the staff of Admiral Canaris. And my brother, my elder brother, who worked for General Olbricht, also in Berlin . . .
"Halfway through the course I was posted to the staff of General von Stulpnagel in Paris . . . which I did not understand—killing tanks I understand, not paper-work. So I asked for a combat posting—if not to the Jagdpanzers, at least to one of the 8.8-centimetre gun battalions on the West Wall. They sent me to Nantes, to report on the state of the landward defences—the landward defences! 'Landward defences—
none.' Then I am in command of ... of transport despatch. I count horses into trains—the Amis bomb the trains, the French steal the horses. I am trained to destroy Josef Stalins, and I count horses—"
("Tough shit," murmurs Sergeant Winston. "I'm trained to blow up blockhouses.")
"Then there is the attentat of the second July—we heard the Führer's voice on the radio that night—I am in Nantes, counting horses . . ."
("Safest place to be," murmurs Sergeant Winston.)
("Shut up," says Second Lieutenant Audley.)
"Then General Olbricht is executed . . . and I am afraid for my brother, that he will be unjustly suspected. And also Admiral Canaris is arrested ... I am afraid for my father too. Even more afraid, for I have heard him speak criticisms, even before the war.
"Then General von Stulpnagel is executed
. And he has been a friend of my father, also from before the war."
("Wow-ee," murmurs Sergeant Winston. "Now it's really getting close to home . . . except that you're just still counting horses' legs and dividing by four, huh?")
"And ... at last I get a letter from my father. It was delivered to me by a man I do not know, but he is an Ahwehr officer I think . . . This is ... maybe two weeks ago. But it is written, the letter, on nineteenth July
—"
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
(Hauptmann Grafenberg is speaking so softly now, almost whispering, that Butler has to move closer to hear his words. The German does not notice this at first, he is speaking to the ground in front of him now; when he finally does he clears his throat and speaks up; but not for long, and soon he is whispering again.)
"He says that if I receive this letter—when I receive it—he will be dead. And my brother too.
"But to tell me that is not the reason for which he writes, it is to tell me that I must go north to Normandy with the next convoy—that I can do that easily because I am the transportation officer, and I have the necessary documentation. And when I am in Normandy I must pass through the lines and surrender myself to the first Americans I meet—"
And after that they had gone, with Audley setting the pace as though he was determined to outmarch them all.
And then the endurance test became a nightmare.
The side of Butler's head had started to ache again and his toes began to itch inside his boot. He could also feel with every other step the impression which his Sten had punched into his buttock, where he had fallen on it in the staff car.
All of which was compounded by the confusion of his feelings over the German—
(Bayonet practice: What the fucking hell are you doing, son—yoking that sandbag like you were sorry for it? That's not a sandbag, son— that only looks like a sandbag. THAT'S A BLOODY GERMAN, THAT
IS! He'll rape your mother, he'll rape your sister, AND BY GOD IF YOU DONT WATCH OUT HE'LL
RAPE YOU! So you're here to stick your hayonet in his guts and your butt plate in his teeth and your boot in his balls, and I want to hear you yell with joy when you do it—AND DON'T YOU DARE BE
SORRY FOR HIM OR I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO BE SORRY ABOUT!)
"But why didn't you get out while you could, then?" Audley had asked. "Why did you wait for the Gestapo to come for you?"
"You heard what the man said," Sergeant Winston had answered for the German. "Because he hadn't done anything—he'd counted his horses, like a good little boy—"
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
Not true, Butler thought. Or not the whole truth.
The whole truth was that when the utterly unbelievable happened ordinary blokes didn't believe it, not until it was too late. The only thing they could think of doing was nothing at all—they just stood around like bullocks waiting their turn outside the municipal slaughterhouse.
He'd stood in the mist that way, back on the riverbed, even after he'd heard the major sentence him to death—heard him with his own ears. Because if it had been Sergeant Purvis who had come out of the mist behind him, and not Corporal Jones, whom he already hated and distrusted in his heart... if it had been Sergeant Purvis, not Corporal Jones—then he would have been one of the bullocks.
There came a time when all he wanted to do was to stop and lie down. But while he was deciding how many steps he would take before he would do that—fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred?—the effort involved in making the decision became greater than the effort required in not making it.
And then the nightmare became a dream.
He was inside E. Wilmot Buxton's blue and gold Story of the Crusades, marching between the general and his father, because that way they couldn't argue with each other about whether Winston Churchill had really ordered the troops to fire on the miners during the General Strike—
The exhausted remnant of the crusading host, now much reduced, took the road to the Holy City, the end of all their endeavours— He was half aware that the Chateau Le Chais d'Auray was not the Holy City, and that it was certainly not the end of all their endeavours. But for the time being it would do, it would do.
There was a scrunch of boots on gravel in the shadows thrown by the trees in the moonlight on the road.
"Psst!" Winston hissed from the next row of vines. "Here, lieutenant!"
Audley tiptoed out of the shadow across the pale line of the road and threw himself down on the earth beside them.
"Anybody at home?"
Audley breathed out. "There isn't a sound, and not a light either— I've been right round the house and the buildings. Not a sound . . . but they're there."
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
"How d'you know?"
Audley picked up a handful of the dry earth and squeezed it out. "Not a weed to be seen. Another month, then they'll be harvesting these grapes." He reached out towards a bunch of grapes on the vine near him.
"I wonder what the vintage of '44 will be like. ... It would be nice if it was a really great one, to remember us by, wouldn't it!"
"Shit! The hell with the grapes! How d'you know they're there?"
The subaltern's face was white in the moonlight. "Because the grapes are here, Sergeant. As they've been for a thousand years, since they learnt the art of pruning—you know that, Sergeant? They learnt the art of pruning here. The donkeys of the Abbey of Marmoutier got into the vines, and ate them. And when the vines grew again the ones they'd eaten gave the finest grapes—that's the one miracle of St Martin of Tours that they remember here. So you can drink a full pitcher of Loire wine and not hurt yourself, that's what they say—"
Not true, thought Butler.
Or perhaps it was true. If he hadn't drunk a full pitcher, and been sick as a dog—maybe that was another miracle of St. Martin of Tours—
"So what do we do?" grated the American. "Drink a pitcher of Loire wine, and not hurt ourselves?"
"That would be nice. But no . . ." Audley peered around him. "Corporal Butler, are you there?"
"Sir!" said Butler. He had known one fraction of a second before Audley had spoken that the subaltern would say 'Corporal Butler,' because that was what he would have said.
Because not being a bullock was what life was all about, even right outside the slaughterhouse. And especially right outside the towers of the Holy City.
Obedience was duty. But duty was free will—the soldier's free will, which was the last and best free will of all. The general had tried to teach him that, but he'd never understood until now what the general had meant. But now he knew.
"Sir."
Audley looked into the shadow where he lay. "We'll go in and find out. You'll cover me." He turned to the sergeant's patch of shadow. "You wait with Hauptmann Grafenberg. If there's trouble, then you're on your own. Just get to blazes out of here—"
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
"Hell, no—"
"Hell, yes! This is our show. So if it's a balls-up then it's our balls-up." Audley's voice softened. "Don't worry, Sergeant. My thumbs tell me we're okay. If my thumbs are wrong, there'll be nothing you can do about it. But then somebody's got to survive, otherwise we've done all this for nothing, don't you see?"
Done all what? Butler asked himself. He really didn't know any more what it was they were doing. They were chasing the major, of course. But what he was doing, and what they would do if they ever caught up with him, that had somehow ceased to be of any real importance. It was the doing, not the objective, that mattered.
"Okay, Lieutenant." Winston conceded the point doubtfully. "But then I do what I want—right?"
"Okay. Just so long as the chateau isn't full of Panzer Grenadiers—" Audley caught the words.
"Hauptmann . . ."
The vines stirred. "Lieutenant?"
"We're going to have a look at the chateau, the corporal and
I—you understand?"
"I understand. You have my word."
"But I want you to understand something else, Hauptmann. We are not fighting your chaps now."
"I understand. You are escaping."
"No. For Christ's sake—" Audley stopped short, suddenly at a loss. "Oh, damn it, Sergeant, you tell him ... if you can. I'm past caring almost. . . come on, Corporal—"
The muscles in Butler's legs were double-knotted, he could feel them twist with each step.
"I'm absolutely buggered, you know, Jack," said Audley conversationally. "It is Jack—isn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes . . ." Audley nodded to himself. "I thought that was it. Is that short for John or James, I never have worked out which?"
"John, sir." Butler wanted to say more, but couldn't think of anything to say.
"John, is that it?" Audley nodded again. "You know, the first time I walked down this road—or Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
whatever you'd call it—I was nine years old. And there are forty-eight trees in this road, from the main road to the chateau—twenty-four each side."
"Yes, sir?"
"Twenty-four each side. The first time I made it forty-nine, and the second time forty-seven. But there are actually forty-eight. Would you I have guessed as many as that?"
"I don't rightly know, sir."
"Well, of course, you can't really see in the dark." Audley pointed towards the house. "I had a room up there, near the tower. I had a feather bolster instead of a pillow—I never could get used to it. That, and not having porridge for breakfast."
They came off the compacted surface of the roadway onto a side square of loose gravel in front of the house—gravel which crunched noisily under their boots, much more loudly than the scatters of small stones on the roadway.
There was the rattle of a chain, faint but sharp in the dark ahead of them, and a dog began to bark inside the house, each bark echoing and re-echoing as the animal roared against itself furiously.
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