Colonel Butler's Wolf

by Anthony Price

  But Butler knew that it damn well wasn’t in the least funny—least of all as it concerned young Daniel McLachlan. The man Alek was loose somewhere out there and young McLachlan was happily swinging his croquet mallet, and if they ever came within range of each other then he, Butler would be to blame and must answer to himself for it. He had undertaken to see to the boy’s safety and he had let himself offer the boy to Audley—like any damn black-coated, pin-striped politician

  he had mortgaged away his honour to conflicting requirements. It was duty’s plain need and he would do it again, but that didn’t make him dislike it less. Nor was it reassuring to tell himself that Audley and Richardson had accepted responsibility for watching over the action outside Castleshields House. Richardson’s attitude was too cavalier by half, and Audley’s skill lay more in making things happen and then drawing his own clever conclusions than in preventing them. Even so, all these were surface worries. Beneath them was an atavistic disquiet, the caveman’s instinct that warned him of danger when his fourth sense had failed him.

  “Colonel—hullo there!”

  Polly Epton waved at him vigorously from behind a miniature bar. No danger in Polly!

  “I’m duty maid this afternoon, Colonel, so you’ve got nothing to worry about. Daddy, Colonel Butler’s here.”

  A kaleidoscope of images. Young men and young-old men, long hair and open shirts, eyes bold and appraising. More brains, more potential, packed in this panelled room than in any regimental mess, more even than in Staff College.

  Polly’s voice opened up an avenue in them to where Epton himself stood, cup in hand.

  No small talk, Epton. Not much, anyway. Left-wing, sociologist—blue-blooded intellectual—you know the type, Colonel. Doesn’t like the Yankees, but he dam well doesn’t trust the Russians either—had a bellyful of them when he was with the International Brigade in Teruel in ‘37. If you wonder how he sired a filly like Polly, just remember Teruel. And they think the world of him, the students do —he doesn’t talk down to them, or round them either …

  He must have been a mere baby in the Spanish Civil War, thought Butler, looking up again into the grey, gaunt face above the outstretched hand. But Richardson confirmed Stacker: Epton was a man to be wary of. No traitor, but no establishment man either.

  “Glad you could make it, Butler.”

  Grunt. The man would keep his mouth shut even though it might be the ruin of him, which was what a sudden demo out of Castleshields House might well be.

  “We’re looking forward to hearing what you’ve got to say about Belisarius. I’m afraid most of us only know what Robert Graves wrote about him in that novel of his.”

  “Hah!” That one at least he could parry. “Graves lifted it all from Procopius of Gaesarea, and maybe some from Agathias. But I’m more interested in the purely military implications.”

  “And are the purely military implications of any relevance for today?”

  The new voice had a slight upward inflection of challenge that had been absent from Epton’s—for all his lack of small talk, Epton was still the host in the house that had once been his, and that blue blood would tell no matter what he thought of the strange colonel who had been foisted on him. Whereas this young puppy—

  “Oh, hell, Terry—don’t start pitching into the Colonel as soon as he’s arrived.”

  Polly materialised at his elbow with a cup for him in her hand. “You mustn’t mind about Terry. He’s got a bee in his bonnet about the military. Which is jolly funny because Terry’s about the most militant civilian you’re likely to meet up here.”

  Terry—?

  Terry Richmond—if there’s anything going he’ll be in it, you can bet on that. Not a Communist, he wouldn’t give the Russians the time of day, not since Prague. And he was over in Paris in ‘68, and he got the message then because I’ve heard him talk about ‘communist racism’ among the old-timers. He’s bloody bright, but he does believe in action and he was damned lucky not to get sent down in his first year at Oxford …

  If this was Richardson’s Terry Richmond, then it would be as well for the brutal Colonel Butler to keep his cool.

  He smiled at Polly—it was very easy to smile at Polly.

  “Nothing unusual about hating the military, Miss Epton,” he said, deliberately letting a touch of Lancashire creep into his voice. “Old Wully Robertson’s mother—Field-Marshal Robertson’s mother—said she’d rather see him dead than in a red coat when she heard he’d joined up. And my Dad said much the same thing when I told him I wanted to make a career of it. The old attitudes die hard, you know.”

  “They’re not the only things that die,” said Terry.

  “No, Mr—“ Butler looked questioningly at the young man, but received no enlightenment.

  “Richmond is his name,” said Polly. “You are a bore sometimes, Terry!”

  “No, Mr Richmond. Soldiers also die. In fact, they die quite often. But we are only the extension of the civil arm, you know—we are your fist, no more.”

  “Not in Greece or Portugal—or Vietnam.”

  “I’d question Vietnam, but we’ll let that pass. I’m only a British soldier, so I obey your orders.”

  “Even when you don’t approve of them?” Epton cut in softly.

  “Quite often when I don’t approve of them. To be quite honest, I find civilians too bloodthirsty for my taste—the more incompetent, the more bloodthirsty. I’ve lost a number of friends that way. And there was a sergeant I knew—he was shot down in a street in Cyprus, with his little son by his side. Two or three years old the little boy was, and the crowds in the street stood and watched him cry while his father bled to death. They didn’t lift a finger, Mr Epton. They were civilians, of course, and he was only the son of a British soldier.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “But you still obey your orders,” said Terry. “Even when you don’t like them. Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Well, you see, Mr Richmond, that’s what I promised King George VI to do in the first place—“ Butler closed his eyes “—‘And We do hereby Command you to observe and follow such Orders and Directions as from time to time you shall receive from Us, and any your superior Officer, according to the Rules and Discipline of War, in pursuance of the Trust hereby reposed in you’.”

  “That’s what the King laid down, and in my reckoning it would be much more dangerous if I decided that I knew better than my lawful government, because that’s how you get military juntas and dictators. Would you prefer me to be that sort of colonel?”

  “Oh, for goodness sake!” exclaimed Polly. “You’re all looking so serious, and this is supposed to be Rest and Recreation Hour. Mike—come and rescue us!”

  “Rest and Recreation my fanny!” The rich tones of the American mid-west sounded from behind Butler. “This is always Drink and Dissension time, and you know it darned well, Polly-Anna.”

  “Well, just rescue us anyway, Mike—they’re arguing about—“

  “I heard good what they’re arguing about,” the American edged his way into the circle. “And believe me it’s all been said before, way back we know enough if we know we are the king’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes out the crime of it for us. As usual William S. got there before us.”

  Butler looked down into the ugly, bespectacled face. It was an earnest face that fitted the serious voice, and yet there was a self-mocking twinkle behind the thick-lensed glasses.

  “So you think Shakespeare gets all soldiers off the hook?”

  Richmond grinned at the American with something suspiciously like friendship in his expression.

  “I think he cuts us all down to size. The Colonel’s got you on the hip when he says he only does what the civilians tell him to do, seein’s as how in a democracy the people are the king—

  Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls,

  Our debts, our careful wives, -

  Our children, and our sins lay on the king!
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  We must bear all. O hard condition!

  Poor old King Harry—and poor old us.”

  “Don’t you ever think for yourself, Mike?”

  “Don’t have to, Terry—not when there’s someone sharper done it all for me. But you don’t get off scot-free either, Colonel—the Bard’s got you too. Same play, same act, same scene.”

  “Indeed?” Butler felt himself smiling foolishly, like Richmond. The young American, his accent horribly at odds with the poetry, was making fun of them all, and of himself at the same time.

  “Sure as my name’s Klobucki. You and Lieutenant Galley and Marshal Ney and Julius Caesar—

  Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own !”

  The magnified eyes flashed. “You may be able to beat the rap legally—“

  Michael Klobucki—Pittsburg slum Polish and top Rhodes Scholar his year. A real protester from way back: the Chicago cops scooped him up at the Democratic Convention of ‘68 and he was in the People’s Park business at Berkeley in ‘69, so don’t go sounding off about Law and Order. We’ve got nothing against him, but he hasn’t any cause to love the Government, theirs or ours …

  ”—but there’s still a moral rap to come.”

  Indeed there was, thought Butler. He had read about the People’s Park riot, and his sympathies in that instance were for once wholly on the side of the students. Or, at any rate, it was a classic instance of ham-handed over-reaction of the sort that mocked everything law and order stood for.

  And there was something else that he knew about Klobucki, but from McLachlan not Richardson: “Don’t let him fool you into thinking he’s short-witted as well as short-sighted. Mike’s a poet and he sees better than most of us.”

  “You’re just as bad as the rest of them, Mike,” Polly said severely. “As of now I’m banning politics.”

  “And poetry, ma’am?”

  “Your sort of poetry. Come and watch Cumbria make mincemeat of the King’s, Colonel. Excuse us, Daddy.”

  Butler allowed himself to be shepherded towards the window.

  “I’m sorry about that,” Polly murmured. “Actually they’re all jolly nice if you can keep off current affairs.”

  “It’s current affairs I’m here for, Miss Epton.”

  “Not your first night though.”

  “I’m afraid we may not have a first night to spare. Has Dan anything to report?”

  “Well, I know he wants to see you. He didn’t have time to say what for because Handforth-Jones was just about to drag him off on a seminar.”

  Butler eyed the croquet game. “I’ll try and catch his eye, I think.”

  “Whose eye do you want?” said Klobucki, at his elbow.

  “The Colonel doesn’t want anyone’s eye,” said Polly hastily. “But I want that hound McLachlan.”

  “He won’t thank you for disturbing his game just now, Polly-Anna.” Klobucki turned back to Butler. “You know, sir, when I came to this country I thought croquet was a limey game for old English ladies—tea and muffins and croquet. But I’ve played it and it isn’t like that at all. It’s the most goddam ruthless, cut-throat business you ever saw—“

  “Yes, I’ve heard it’s a—ah—a demanding game,” replied Butler politely, still watching for McLachlan to look up.

  “That isn’t the half of it. It’s a game for managing directors and Obergruppenführers!” Klobucki shook his head. “Say—but if you’re waiting for Dan to spot you, you’ve got a long wait. He’s our only hope, and he plays a real mean game—and when he does something like this he really concentrates on it.”

  Butler sensed that the American was right. That early swipe of McLachlan’s must have been a limbering up stroke, designed to unnerve his opponents; now he was holding his mallet in a different way, swinging it between his legs, as absorbed and watchful as a billiard player in a championship match.

  “Yes, I think you’re right,” he murmured.

  “I am right—I know our Danny,” said Klobucki ruefully. “But what I came to say was—well, I guess I wasn’t all that polite by the bar back there, with the smart-alec quotations. I’ve come to make amends.”

  Butler looked at the young American in surprise.

  “My dear chap, I wasn’t offended. It was an extremely apposite bit of verse. I’m only sorry that I lack the education to answer you in the same way.”

  Polly laughed. “Don’t give him the chance, Colonel. Mike’s got the quote for every occasion—it’s the cross we have to bear for his obsession with English literature.”

  “You can giggle, Polly. I just happen to find other men’s flowers more beautiful than my own. And that’s my cross, not yours, Polly-Anna.” There was no glint behind the spectacles now. “As it happens, there are a few lines for you, Colonel, to put people like me in my place. And I seem to remember they were written about an army of Britishers—

  Their shoulders held the sky suspended;

  They stood and earth’s foundations stay;

  What God abandoned, these defended,

  And saved the sum of things for pay.

  That’s Housman, but I could give you plenty more—Kipling knew it too, and we Americans know how to value him even if you don’t over here.”

  “I don’t know whether Colonel Butler understood a word of what you’re saying, Mike,” said Polly. “But I certainly don’t.”

  “You darned well ought to, honey—living where you do.” Klobucki pointed out of the window, southwards towards the line of crags. “How many times do you think the fat guys down in Londinium—or the Roman-Britishers in the nice centrally-heated villas—how many times do you think they spared a thought for these poor cats up on the Wall? Only when the tax-man came round, I guess—and then they’d curse the over-fed, over-paid, licentious soldiery. Maybe they were all that, too. But they were still all that stood between the central-heating and the barbarians—the barbari.”

  “Well!” Polly looked at Butler, her eyebrows raised. “Mike really is making amends.”

  “Not at all,” Klobucki shook his head vigorously. “Truth doesn’t make amends by itself. My amends are more—more edible.” He turned, peering back into the room. “Sir! Dr Gracey, sir!”

  “Why must you be so formal, Mike?” The voice that boomed in reply was startlingly deep, but with the quality of a bass pipe on a cathedral organ.

  “In deference to your great age and seniority, sir,” replied the American, straightfaced. “And your stature, of course.”

  Stature indeed, thought Butler. The man was even bigger than Audley, and yet without a hint of surplus flesh: simply a larger-than-life man.

  “I’d like you to meet my guest for tomorrow night, sir,” continued Klobucki. “Colonel Butler—Dr Gracey.”

  “Ah, Butler!” Gracey extended a huge, serviceable hand. “Charles Epton has been telling me about you—and so has my godless god-daughter. And I gather you’ve met my old friend Geoffrey Hobson when you were up in Oxford.”

  “Hah!” Butler grunted, gripping the hand and meeting the shrewd eyes in the same moment. He felt the years stripping away from him, leaving him naked and unprotected: Second Lieutenant Butler, green and desperately worried about his Lancashire accent, reporting to battalion headquarters on the edge of the Reichswald, with the rumble of the distant German guns echoing in his empty stomach.

  “And you are the authority on the Byzantine army, I gather, Butler?”

  “Hardly the authority, sir. I’ve made a special study of their siege operations on the eastern front in the 6th century,” said Butter ponderously. “From Belisarius to the Emperor Maurice, you know.”

  “Indeed.” There was a reassuring lack of interest in Gracey’s voice; it would have been altogether too gruesome if he had turned out to be himself an expert in the subject. “Well, the man you want to talk to is our Dr Audley, though he’d tend to take the Persian and the Arab side more than the Byzantine … “ Gracey looked around the room “ … but he d
oesn’t appear to be thirsty this afternoon. Where is David, Polly?”

  “Oh, he phoned to say he’d got hung up somewhere. He probably won’t be back until tomorrow some time—he said for me to apologise to you, but apparently there aren’t any seminars tomorrow anyway.”

  “There aren’t indeed. And there aren’t many senior members either.” Gracey frowned.

  “And Dr Handforth-Jones sent his apologies too—“

  “Ah, I know about Tony Handforth-Jones. He’s in the middle of another of his fund-raising frauds,” Gracey’s gaze returned to Butler. “I trust you haven’t any charitable funds in your gift, Butler. Because if you have, then you’ll have Handforth-Jones after you for a contribution to his archaeological enterprises. I never knew a man who was better at raising money from unlikely sources. And at spending it. He has a passion for hiring expensive machinery.”

  He smiled, shaking his head in mock disapproval, and it struck Butler that Audley’s apparent hold over the archaeologist might well stem from a use of departmental funds never envisaged by the Defense Minister.

  “On the other hand, if nobody’s doing any work tomorrow, that may solve the problem of tomorrow night’s dinner party —eh, Mike?”

  “Sir?” Klobucki cocked his head questioningly.

  “My dear boy, if I’m to honour you with a dinner cooked with my own hand, then I must have something to cook— and something worth cooking. So you’re going to have to work for your supper in the manner of your ancestors in the days when Pittsburg was Fort Pitt.”

  “Sir?”

  Gracey considered the young American gravely for a moment, then shook his head. “On the other hand, I doubt very much whether you could hit a barn door. But as it happens you have anticipated me in your choice of guest. I assume you are a crack shot, Colonel Butler?”

  Butler stared back at him utterly at a loss.

  “I’m a—a tolerable shot,” he spluttered finally.

  “Better than tolerable, I hope! Could you hit a moving target … “ Gracey paused dramatically “ … if your dinner depended on it?”