The '44 Vintage

by Anthony Price

  “So the only question is—how quickly can you get us to Pont-Civray? Because the way things are, we probably don’t have much time.”

  Now there was an emotion in De Courcy’s face: he looked at Butler incredulously. “You think it is easy to get to Pont-Civray?”

  “Hey, Jack—“ Winston began.

  “No!” snapped Butler, without looking at the American. ‘We’ve been buggered around enough—now there’s going to be no more buggering around … and the answer to that is—yes, sir. You’ve been running an escape route in these parts for three or four years. If you can move men around under the noses of the Germans and the French police, then you can move us to Pont-Civray, which is only just down the road from here, somewhere. So the answer is yes, sir—for you it is easy. All you have to do is to state your terms.”

  “My—terms?”

  “Yes, sir. You said yourself that innocence isn’t the game to play. So —with respect—I suggest you practise what you preach.”

  “My terms …” De Courcy left the question mark off the words this time. “What makes you think I have … terms?”

  Butler turned to Audley. “Do you want to take over, sir?”

  Audley was smiling at him, really smiling, as he shook his head. “You’ve got the ball, Jack—you make the touchdown.”

  “Very good, sir.” Butler tightened his grip on the Sten as he turned back to the Frenchman. Like MacDonald wheeling his battalions and batteries, he knew that it could only be done if it was done right. And it wasn’t a small thing that Audley was doing himself, trusting him to do it.

  He looked down over the stubby barrel at the Frenchman.

  “You didn’t never believe”—he stumbled over the grammar—“you never did believe we killed those men, sir. If you had believed it then you wouldn’t be here—you’d have turned us in, as the sergeant said. Or if you didn’t want to turn Mr. Audley in, for old times’ sake, then you still wouldn’t have wanted to help us—and you certainly wouldn’t have come down here by yourself to tell us to our faces that we were murderers, and we could stew in our own juice. You’d have sent M’sieur Boucard maybe, but you wouldn’t have come yourself.”

  “What makes you so sure of that?”

  Butler lifted the Sten. “This does, sir. Because if I’d killed four Frenchmen then a fifth one wouldn’t worry me—because if Mr. Audley says ‘shoot’ then I shoot.” He shook his head. “But you came—sir—“

  “That at least is true.”

  Butler felt a small knot of anger tie itself inside him. “Aye, and there’s not much bloody truth round here, either.”

  “Steady, Jack,” said Audley.

  “Yes, sir.” Butler stepped back from his anger. “But instead of being straight with us you’ve been playing your own little game.”

  “And what game is that?” asked De Courcy.

  The question sounded casual—almost insultingly casual, and certainly condescending. A day or two back a question like that would have thrown him, thought Butler. Even a few minutes ago it might have put him off his stroke, because he hadn’t understood the rules of the game. But now it was different.

  “Why—sir—you’ve told us that yourself.” He gave the Frenchman back a common corporal’s surprise in return for the condescension. It wasn’t a game, of course, and they both knew it. But the trick was to behave as though it was—it was as simple and easy as that. He had taken a long time to learn that rule, but he had learnt it in the end.

  “Pardon?” De Courcy’s English accent slipped. “I told you?”

  “Oh yes, sir.” It wasn’t difficult to insult a man if you knew how. “Your man-eating tigers—the men who are after us—they didn’t really want to know why we were here, and what we were doing. So happens they knew that.” He grinned innocently. “What they wanted to know is where we were going—that was what they didn’t know.”

  “Bravo!” encouraged Audley softly.

  “But you, sir—you know where we’re going, because M’sieur Boucard’s told you. And you know what we’re going to do as well—because he’ll have told you that too. What you don’t know is the why—and that’s your game, sir.”

  “Man—but Boucard will have told him that too,” said Winston. “No, Sergeant,” said Audley quickly. “Not the real why. Not—well, not the tiger’s why. They couldn’t possibly know what we are planning to do, and it wouldn’t worry them if they did know—Englishmen hunting Englishmen—what do they care about that? What they’re after is what the major is after, don’t you see!” He swung towards Butler, “Right, Corporal?”

  Butler swelled with pride. “That’s it, sir—right bang on the nose.” He nodded to the American. “We’re the pig in the middle, Sarge. But there’s more than one on each side of us, that’s what we haven’t realised.” Suddenly the pride dipped as it occurred to him that he wasn’t sure what sides there were among the French.

  “The Communists versus the Free French—General de Gaulle’s people,” Audley supplied the answer. “Good for you, Corporal!”

  “Yes, sir.” Butler adjusted his expression to one of knowing approval. One thing his own general had been dead wrong about was that a soldier didn’t need to know much about politics.

  Winston stared from one to the other of them. “But … but we don’t—“ he bit the end of the sentence off. “Shit!” he said feelingly.

  Audley laughed—a little too shrilly for Butler’s peace of mind. “That’s exactly right, Sergeant: we don’t—and shit is the appropriate reaction.” The laugh caught in his throat and he stifled a cough. “I’m sorry—but it would be really rather funny if it wasn’t happening to us, of all people!” He shook his head helplessly.

  “Funny?” The American growled, looking to Butler for support. “You think it’s rah-ther funny, Jack—re-ally rah-ther funny?” He stared at Butler menacingly. “Does it seem funny to you?”

  Butler didn’t think it was in the least funny. The remembrance of what had happened on the banks of the Loire was still a raw wound in his mind, and the murderously efficient Frenchmen in the wood—the men who were hunting for him now—were all frightening, not funny. He didn’t wish to be disloyal to Audley, but there was certainly nothing there which could conceivably be regarded as even faintly amusing. Even the game he’d just learnt to play was no joke, for all that the winning of it was intensely satisfying.

  But Audley was still giggling—

  And now, what was worse—much worse, was that the American sergeant’s face was breaking up too: even as he stared at Butler he was losing control of it—he was smiling foolishly—he was beginning to laugh.

  He was laughing, now.

  “Shit!” The American suddenly draped his arm on Audley’s shoulder familiarly. “We don’t know—but they think we do! But we don’t—“

  He broke down feebly, shaking his head.

  Butler looked around desperately, catching first the blank look on Hauptmann Grafenberg’s face, and then the equally questioning expression on the doctor’s.

  “I’m sorry—I really am—“ Audley began.

  “Re-ally,” echoed Sergeant Winston. “Doc—it’s just that you’re a horse trader—“

  “A horse trader?” De Courcy frowned. “What is—a horse trader?”

  “Aw—they come in all shapes and sizes. But mostly crooked.”

  Winston finally managed to control himself. “You want me to tell him, Lieutenant?”

  “Be my guest.” Audley gestured towards the doctor.

  “Okay.” Winston bowed to Audley, then to the doctor. “It’s just … we don’t have anything to trade. No horses, no mules—not even a goddamn donkey! All we’ve got is our boots—and Corporal Butler’s gun.”

  De Courcy stared at them. “What do you mean?”

  “He means”—Audley’s voice was at last serious—“that we haven’t the faintest idea what the loot is. If the Communists got us—or the Gestapo got us—even if the Spanish Inquisition got us—it wouldn’t do
them one damn bit of good. Because we don’t know.”

  De Courcy continued to stare at them, though now there was a hint of something else in his face; perhaps the beginning of either puzzlement or disbelief, Butler couldn’t decide which.

  Winston shook his head at Audley. “I don’t think we’re getting through … and maybe that’s not surprising when you think about it, Lieutenant. Because we have to be crazy to want to go to Pont-Civray, seems to me. Which means … unless he’s crazy too there’s no way we’re going to convince him we’re on the level. No way at all.”

  It hadn’t been real laughter, Butler realised belatedly as Audley’s eyes shifted from the American to him: it had been something much closer to hysteria. However much the subaltern pretended that all this was more to his taste than tank warfare in the bocage—he might even believe that it was—he was near to the end of his resources.

  And, what was more, the American was right: it was crazy, what he had been leading and driving them to do, this mad compulsion to catch up with the major. What would they do if they did catch up with him, the three of them? The odds would still be hugely against them.

  But then perhaps that was what he wanted.

  Perhaps it wasn’t so much a case of But now I want to know why, don’t you see? as If they think they’re going to get me back inside a tank, they’re going to have to carry me kicking and screaming.

  It wasn’t fair—to be caught up in something like this.

  It never had been fair—to be taken away from his battalion and his company, and from his platoon and his section—just because he spoke a few words of German.

  With a Lancashire-Polish accent.

  It wasn’t bloody well fair.

  Audley was looking at him as though he expected a clever answer to a question which had no answer at all. And although he was sorry for Audley … although he was sorry for Audley in the same way that he was sorry for Hauptmann Grafenberg … he knew that he wouldn’t have given him an answer even if he could think of one.

  And then Audley wasn’t looking at him any more; or, rather, not at him, as much as at his battle-dress sleeve, with its corporal’s stripes.

  He looked down at the stripes himself. The stout thread he had used to sew them on had come loose, so that one end was lifting away from the sleeve. He must have snagged them on something, probably a tree branch during their panic flight through the wood near Sermigny—

  “Two reasons,” said Audley, turning suddenly back towards Dr. de Courcy. “There are two reasons why you should believe us.”

  “Two reasons?”

  “Or six, if you like.” Audley glanced quickly at the American sergeant, then back once again to De Courcy. And he was smiling now. “Or a dozen, even—take your pick, Doctor.”

  “One would be enough, David.” Curiously, the doctor sounded almost relieved.

  “One then.” The smile was gone from Audley’s face as he reached across his chest to touch the pip on his left epaulette with his index finger. “This one will do well enough.”

  De Courcy frowned. “That is—a reason?”

  “Oh yes, it’s a reason. It’s a good reason—in fact it’s the best damn reason in the world!” Audley’s voice was bitter. “I said we didn’t know what the major was after, but that’s not strictly true. We know the damn thing’s valuable—we know it’s top secret. And you know what we are?” The finger tapped the pip. “Second lieutenant.” The finger left the single pip and pointed towards Butler’s stripes. “And a corporal”— and then at Winston—“and a sergeant.” He paused just long enough to take a fresh breath. “And you know what that makes us, Doctor? I’ll tell you: it makes us the lowest form of animal life.” The bitterness was almost passionate. “Second lieutenants don’t have to think, Doctor —so they don’t have to know. Who’s going to tell us top secrets? Not the Colonel Clintons of this world, that’s for sure. And as for the major —he didn’t intend us to get this far, we were just a bit of window dressing to keep the colonel happy, that’s all. So telling us why wasn’t necessary. We weren’t damn well going anywhere!”

  The subaltern’s vehemence took Butler aback, coupled as it was with the extraordinary reason for it. Anger at being betrayed by one’s own comrades was one thing—he had felt that himself. But to get angry because one’s superior officers didn’t explain all the whys and wherefores of their orders, that was ridiculous. A bullock might just as well expect the slaughterman to explain why he was turning it into beef!

  “Colonel—Clinton?” De Courcy’s mouth opened and closed.

  “Of Intelligence, so-called,” said Audley scornfully. “He was supposed to be running this show—he could give you the answer to your question. Or he could have. But we can’t.”

  It really was not knowing why that enraged Audley, thought Butler. In one breath he admitted being the lowest form of animal life, but in the next was objecting to it, and the objection marked him for what he truly was: a mere civilian in uniform.

  But the rage also gave his words sincerity—the proof of that was plain on Dr. de Courcy’s face.

  “Could have?” said De Courcy. “What do you mean—could have?”

  “Hell, Doc—the major had the same plans for the colonel as he had for us.” Sergeant Winston drew his finger across his throat. “The colonel was strictly surplus to requirements.”

  De Courcy stared at them all, then gestured abruptly as though gathering them to him. “Come!” he commanded.

  “To Pont-Civray?” Audley snapped the words out.

  “To Pont-Civray.” De Courcy repeated the gesture more urgently. “Those four men weren’t the only … casualties I saw yesterday, apart from those of Sermigny. There was also a British officer my people brought in—a colonel. From near a village not far from here, seven or eight kilometres. But there was no identification on him.”

  “Dead?” said Audley.

  “Not dead. But left for dead. He had a bullet in his back, David.”

  Winston looked at Audley.

  “Sounds like the major’s style.”

  “Hmm … yes.” Audley rubbed his chin. “And it also sounds as though we may be too late, I’m thinking. If the major was as close to Pont-Civray yesterday as we are now …”

  “No.” De Courcy shook his head. ‘We are not too late”—he drew a gold watch from his fob pocket—“perhaps not quite too late. But we must hurry now.”

  “How d’you know we’re not too late?” said Audley.

  “Because the Gestapo are not due to leave the chateau until midday today, that is how I know.”

  “But the major won’t know that. Or even if he does he may not choose to wait—he’s got some tough men with him, Doctor, and he won’t like hanging around.”

  “Perhaps not. But they also have some tough men with them, the Gestapo: they have a Waffen-SS motorised company to escort them. Also they have made it very plain that they are leaving, and that if there is the least attempt to hinder them they will turn Civray St. Michel into another Oradour-sur-Glane.” De Courcy gave Audley a hard look. “You know what happened at Oradour, David?”

  “There was a massacre of some sort there, wasn’t there?”

  “A massacre of some sort?” De Courcy’s voice harshened. “The SS herded all the men into a barn, and the women and children into the church, and then they burnt the barn and the church and the whole village … yes, David—there was a massacre of some sort at Oradour-sur-Glane. And that is why you can depend on the people of Civray St. Michel to make very sure that your major knows that the Gestapo are leaving the chateau. And that if he wants to attack the Germans he will have to fight Frenchmen first.”

  Sergeant Winston looked at the doctor suspiciously. “Seems to me you know one hell of a lot, what’s going on round here, Doc—for a simple country doctor. Like even what the krauts are doing.”

  De Courcy shrugged. “I told you—they have made no secret of it.” Then suddenly he straightened up. “You do not believe me, Sergeant?”


  “You’re damn right, I don’t believe you!” Winston traded one hard look for another. “Like Jack here said, we’re the goddamn pig in the middle. But that was when you were playing hard to get, and now you’re saying ‘Come on down, boys—Pont-Civray here we come!’ So now I’m saying … you know so much, you just prove we’re not the pig that’s being taken to market, huh?”

  Butler looked at De Courcy and thought on that instant that the sergeant was right: he didn’t look like a country doctor any more. On him the neat black suit and the Homburg hat and the gold watch and chain seemed as much a disguise as Second Lieutenant Audley’s battle dress and pistol.

  “Very well, Sergeant—if you wish for frankness, then I will be frank.” The corner of De Courcy’s mouth lifted. “I will be français too.”

  “That’s okay by me. like the lieutenant said—be my guest”

  “No. You are my guest—all of you.” De Courcy swept a hand to include them all. “You are here in France with your guns and your tanks —American, British, and German. But you are here en tourists. You are merely passing through France … I know so much, Sergeant, because it is my business to know—because it is my country, not yours.” He stared proudly at Audley. “And this thing you British want so badly—it is better that it stays hidden until we can decide to whom it belongs, I think.”

  “But—“ Audley began, “but it belongs to us.”

  “No, David. You say it belongs to you. But you do not even know what it is. And the Communists—they intend that it shall belong to them. And your major … he plans that it shall belong to him. But I say it came out of Paris in 1940, and I do not trust any of you.”

  Sergeant Winston chuckled suddenly. “Yeah—well, I go along with you there, Doc.” He grinned at Audley. “Don’t get me wrong, Lieutenant—I think you’re on the level. And Jack here … But your top brass could be as crooked as a three-dollar bill.” He nodded encouragingly at De Courcy. “You can count me in so far, Doc—we give the loot to its owner, that’s dealing from the top of the deck. But just how do you plan on doing that?”