He raised his gaze to an angle of forty-five degrees.
Major O’Conor’s eyes were a pale, washed-out blue, slightly bloodshot. Or at least one of them was—the kindlier of the two; the other was cold and fishlike in its intensity.
And the major was tall and thin and leathery and grey—grizzled … though the greyness might simply be due to the fine coating of dust that covered him.
And the major was also bleeding from a cut on his cheekbone; as Butler watched a small bright ruby of blood rolled down the major’s cheek, slowing down as it gathered dust until it was caught in the grey stubble on his jaw.
“Hah!” The thin lips, dirt-rimmed where the dust and spittle had mixed, opened to reveal a glittering array of gold teeth. “Nearly got my bloody head blown off—that’s what the sergeant-major’s thinking, isn’t it, Sergeant-major?”
The sergeant-major came into Butler’s range of vision beside the major, half a head shorter and half a body wider.
“Sir!” said the sergeant-major neutrally.
Eyes slitted under bushy eyebrows and a Guards moustache under a squashed-in red nose was all Butler had time to assimilate before the major spoke again—except that the sergeant-major exuded disapproval like body odour. It was going to take more than one lifetime to live down that improperly pointed Sten.
“And quite right too.” The major nodded at Butler. “Nearly did get my bloody head blown off—and serve me jolly well right—the sergeant-major’s also thinking that … eh, Sergeant-major?”
“Sir!” The sergeant-major had obviously perfected that neutral tone over long years of unanswerable questions.
“But …” The major’s left eye blinked while the fishlike right one continued to stare through Butler. “But we do know he really can speak German—we know that now, don’t we, Sergeant-major? And we also know that he can lie in it when he has to, by God!”
This time the sergeant-major let the echo of his previous answer do the work. The major nodded again, but more appraisingly.
“Wouldn’t pass for a German, though—not unless they have Germans in Lancashire.”
Butler’s cheeks burned. He had worked for two years to eliminate that accent, and to have it betray him in a foreign language was galling.
“Lancashire—yes,” repeated Major O’Conor contentedly. “But he wasn’t taught by a Lancashireman—or by a German either, come to that.” He paused, pursing his lips for a moment. “By a Pole, I’d say … Remember that fellow in Mersa—the big chap with the fair hair … can’t recall his name—couldn’t pronounce it if I did—but I never forget a voice.”
“Sir.” There was a fractional variation in the sergeant-major’s own voice.
“I knew you’d remember him. First-rate interrogator. Exactly the same German accent—minus the Lancashire, of course.” The major turned away from Butler at last, towards his sergeant-major. “Stand at ease, Corporal.”
Butler twitched unhappily, unsure of himself. The major had stared at him and spoken to the sergeant-major. Now he was looking at the sergeant-major, but not talking to him.
“Are you hard of hearing, Corporal?” snapped the sergeant-major.
Butler stood at ease so quickly that he almost lost his balance in the mud.
“How old are you, Corporal?” As he spoke the major swung towards him again, his left eye blinking disconcertingly. In anyone else that might have been a wink, but it just wasn’t possible that—
A glass eye—he had a glass eye!
“Are you dumb as well as half deaf?” The sergeant-major paused for a half second. “Answer the officer!”
“Nineteen, sir.” Butler’s voice cracked. “And a half.”
“And a half?” Major O’Conor smiled. “And have you ever fired a shot in anger … other than just now?”
Butler clenched his teeth. “No, sir.”
“How long have you been in Normandy, Corporal?”
“Th-three days, sir.”
“Three days …” Major O’Conor nodded. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with his reflexes, Sergeant-major. He ducked down like a jack rabbit—and came up like a jack-in-the-box. And nothing wrong with his guts, either.”
Butler warmed to the major, all his hatred transferring itself in that instant to the sergeant-major. The major was eccentric, but some officers were eccentric, it was a fact of life. And the major was also old —that grey stubble on his bloodstained cheek was grey with age, not dust—but he was also wise and as sharp as a razor, the insight into his German accent proved that.
His eye was caught by the faded double strip of colour on the major’s left breast: and the major was also brave. The blue-red-blue and white-blue-white which led other ribbons he had no time to distinguish were the badges of courage he coveted and dreamed of and honoured—He had seen them before, on another uniform …
The major had seen service, had fired shots in anger—had led men in battle.
The thing Butler desired above all things stood before him, the thing Butler wanted to be with all his heart.
And to be led by such a man was the next best thing to that, because by observing him he could learn how the thing was done. Learning was no problem—learning was the easiest thing in the world; and learning by example, as he had expanded his German by listening to the Polish sergeant in the NAAFI night after night, was the easiest way of all.
“Except that if I had been a German he’d be dead, of course,” said the major. “Because he popped up in exactly the same spot as he went down, and Jerry would have been waiting for that. But next time he’ll move first, Sergeant-major—he won’t forget that next time, I’m willing to bet, eh?”
“No, sir,” said Butler.
“’Willing to learn by his mistakes’—mark that up, Sergeant-major… . And taught himself German.” Major O’Conor wagged a thin finger at the sergeant-major. “He’ll do. He’ll do.”
At that moment whatever it was the major wanted him to do—whatever it was he had been taken from his friends and his battalion to do, even if it had involved charging a regiment singlehanded—Butler would cheerfully have done.
“Let’s have you out of there, Corporal,” said the major, leaning forward to offer Butler a hand.
In the instant that Butler reached for the hand with his own free left hand—the bottle of gentian violet was still palmed in the right one —he remembered his purple feet. But there was no possible way of rejecting the bony fingers which fastened on his wrist in the very next instant; all he could do was to try and hold that one good eye with his own, and let himself be heaved up the bank.
Even that was a failure: the major released his hand and looked him up and down—down to his feet.
And then up again—
“All right, then. Get yourself cleaned up, and we’ll be on our way again.” The major nodded and turned away as though there had been nothing to see, leaving Butler with his mouth open.
The sergeant-major leaned forward. “Get that carbine of yours unloaded, Corporal,” he hissed. “And don’t you ever point it at me again—unless you intend to shoot me with it. … Is that clear?”
“Yes, Sergeant-major.” Butler fixed his eyes on an imaginary block of concrete three inches above the sergeant-major’s head.
“I hope so—for your sake, Corporal.” The sergeant-major’s gaze moved inexorably downwards, his nose wrinkling. It could be the cow to begin with—the poor rotting beast seemed to have ripened measurably in the last quarter of an hour. But at the end it would be the feet, thought Butler despairingly.
“And get those feet of yours cleaned up … on the double!” concluded the sergeant-major.
Butler looked down at his feet in surprise. They were encased in thick brown mud.
CHAPTER 2
How the corporal missed the battle of Normandy
THERE HADN’T been much room in the back of the jeep even before Butler had added himself and his belongings to its cargo, but that didn’t worry him; in exchange for the privileg
e of not having to march he was prepared to adjust himself to almost any discomfort. What shocked him now was not the amount of the cargo but its nature: it looked most suspiciously like plunder.
Then shock became instant embarrassment as the major swiveled in his seat to catch the expression naked on his face.
“Not for us, Corporal, I’m sorry to say. Not for us.” The major shook his head and grinned at him, the gold of his smile matching exacdy the gold of the serried ranks of botde tops. “Besides … it wouldn’t taste very good in this heat, you know. Chilled is the only way to drink it.” Butler stared fascinated at the bottle tops. Champagne, it must be, and that was one drink he’d never had the opportunity of trying. Or, to be honest, one of the many drinks; he’d not even had the chance of any of the cider for which this bit of France was supposed to be famous, like Somerset back in England—He felt the major’s eyes on him. “Yes, sir.” He found himself automatically copying the sergeant-major’s impassivity. “No, sir.”
“No—“ The jeep jerked forward sharply and widiout warning under the sergeant-major’s hands, cutting off the major’s sentence and nearly dislocating Butler’s neck with the whiplash. As with men, so with machines, he thought critically: both were there to be driven hard. But with the major it would be different.
“No, indeed.” The major had the trick of riding the sergeant-major’s driving, rolling easily with each jar and bump. “You see, Corporal, this is a trading mission we’re on now. And these”—he patted the champagne bottles—“these are the trade goods for our next port of call.”
The sergeant-major grunted—it was the most eloquent sound he had made yet—and swung the jeep regardlessly off the track onto the main road in a cloud of dust, tyres squealing, missing by a full yard the burnt-out hulk of a Sherman which had been shunted into a gateway almost opposite the junction. In the very nick of time Butler tensed himself and leaned into the swerve, pressing against the side of the jeep to counteract the force which threatened to hurl him at the Sherman. He had just been getting the hang of the major’s easy riding technique—Trading mission?
The major took in his bafflement. “He wants to know what we’re trading in, Sergeant-major,” he murmured. “The old merchandise, that’s what—the old merchandise … not sandalwood and cedarwood, or emeralds and amethysts … or cheap tin trays either … just the old merchandise, the perishable goods, that’s what.”
He flicked another quick glance backwards, and then shrugged away a second before Butler could find his wits and give him some sign of recognition.
With a cargo of ivory
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood,
and sweet white wine—
He flushed with annoyance at his slowness in meeting the challenge, even though it wasn’t fair expecting him—expecting anyone—to pick up poetry straight off in this place, at this time—
Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir—
The verses, hard-learned under the eagle eye of the Third Form English master at King Edward’s, came back now to mock him as he stared at a German Mark IV stranded in the cornfield just ahead on his left, its long gun drooping submissively. That corn had been harvested after the tank had been knocked out, he could see that from the thin screen of standing stems along its side: the farmers had come back after the battle and—
It wasn’t fair. And it was doubly unfair because he wasn’t used to being talked to like this by anyone, least of all by an officer—and a field officer too, a major.
But that was this officer’s way of going about things, he told himself grimly, to test men with the unexpected to gauge their capabilities. Where the sergeant-major was looking for the exact performance of a man’s duties, the major was looking for something more.
Looking—and not bloody well finding this time, he thought bitterly.
He had been tested once, in oral German, and he had passed by the skin of his teeth. But he had failed the cultural test and the major would have him tagged as a German-speaking clod with quick reflexes. And it was far too late now—and he was far too shy anyway—to tap the officer on the shoulder and say “John Masefield, sir, that was, sir.” All he could do was to learn his lesson and be ready for—
Ready for what?
Detached for Special Duties.
The words had made him gawp at the RSM for a moment like a recruit who didn’t know his left foot from his right. And then, in sinking through to the first layer of his understanding, they had made him do something which two moments before he would never have dreamed of doing in his wildest fantasy: he had questioned the RSM’s order.
“What duties, sir?”
He heard the question after he had spoken it, it had hung in the air between him and the RSM, surprising both of them.
The RSM had looked at him, and he had the feeling that he was really being looked at by the RSM for the first time as a person, not as 944 Butler J., Corporal, “B” Company.
The RSM sighed. “Corporal … ask me no questions, son, and I’ll tell you no lies.” And then he had paused, and had looked down at the papers on the table as though to recall himself to the matter in hand.
“Ten minutes—you have ten minutes to get your kit together and report back here on the double—ten minutes. And then regimental transport will take you to a point one mile south of—of”—he looked down again uncertainly—“Meznil—lez—Bockage … that’s it—Meznil-lez-Bockage … where you will rendezvous with a Major O’Conor at precisely eighteen hundred hours.” He had looked up at Butler, eyes opaque. “Is that clear, Corporal?”
It had been all too clear then; it had been appallingly clear; it had been Detached for Special Duties.
“But, sir—“
“Ten minutes. By which time the relevant documentation will have been completed.”
The finality of the RSM’s voice had broken through the final layer. The words on that piece of paper were chiselled in stone.
“Away from the battalion?” It hadn’t really been a question, and it certainly hadn’t been addressed to the RSM; Butler had simply been talking to himself.
But it had been spoken aloud.
“Away—?” The RSM had started to speak sharply; but then, as the cry from the soul had registered, his expression had changed. Loyalty to the battalion was something he took for granted, but it was still not a quality to be spurned. It was something which merited an answer.
“Now then, son …” The RSM had struggled briefly with the problem. “You do speak German—you are proficient in that language, aren’t you?”
Butler swallowed, unable to deny what he was so proud of. “Not … I wouldn’t quite say that, sir.”
“Proficient.” The RSM held on to the word. “That is what the record says … and there is a requirement for a German-speaking noncommissioned officer.”
Butler’s heart had beaten faster then. The requirement was not for him—not for 12048944 Butler J., Corporal, 2nd/4th Royal North-East Lancashire Rifles. Nor was it for a red-haired soldier suffering in secret from Epidermophyton inguinale, who had been born in Jubilee Street, Blackburn, nineteen and a half years before. It was just for an NCO who could speak in German. And that could be—anyone.
“With respect, sir—I’d like to stay with the battalion, sir.”
The RSM had frowned at that “What you’d like—and what you don’t like—don’t come into it, Corporal.”
The frown had frightened Butler. But the prospect of what was proposed for him had terrified him beyond fear: his instinct made him fight before his reason had time to instruct him otherwise. “I’ve been with the battalion for two years, sir.” The frown had deepened. Two years or ten minutes—two years and ten minutes—it was all the same to the RSM. He needed a better reason than that.
“The battalion’s just about to go into action, sir,” he had said. Slowly the frown had cleared, until the face was expressionless again.
“My … my father was with the regiment in 191
6, sir.”
Now there was an expression, but he couldn’t identify it. “Aye, I know, son.” The RSM had nodded slowly. “And he was RSM, 1st Battalion, at Ypres in ‘18.”
It had been Butler’s turn to frown then. Because that knowledge had been just too exact, too precise. It had been all very well for “the record,” whatever it was, wherever it was, to note that he could speak German. He had never concealed that—he had been proud of it. But how could the RSM—?
The question answered itself before he had finished formulating it in his mind. Somewhere, wherever that record was, probably far away back in the regimental depot, there was a sheet of that thick white writing paper which General Sir Henry Chesney always used … he could almost see the beautiful copperplate writing on it There was a sheet of the same paper, with the same copperplate, in his pocket now—
Dear Jack,
By the time you receive this letter I expect you will be in the thick of it—
It would be like the general to do his best for him, unasked, with just such a letter of recommendation. And it was—what was the word, “irony” was it?—an irony if that recommendation was now taking him away from the battalion.
Unless—the thought had come out of nowhere and he had clutched it desperately—unless they were now giving him a chance to distinguish himself, perhaps?
In that instant he had stopped fighting and had started to think about a Major O’Conor who required a German-speaking NCO for Special Duties.
His eyes had met the RSM’s. “I’ll get my kit, sir,” he had said then.
Ready for what?
They were driving steadily southwards; or perhaps, from the position of the earty evening sun, south inclined a few degrees eastwards. But then the road had twisted and turned so many times that they could just as easily have drifted westwards first … the three-tonner which had carried him away from battalion headquarters had certainly left Caen—or the rubble that had once been Caen—on a more or less southwesterly route.
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