A New Kind of War (33 page)

‘And soldiers.’

‘And soldiers. But you are no longer a soldier.’

‘I’m not?’ Fred looked down on himself, past his tarnished brasses and crumpled and muddy battledress trousers to his disgracefully dirty boots. It was true that he looked unsoldierly: he hadn’t looked as dishevelled as this since Italy. Or, at least, since Osios Konstandios. ‘Aren’t I?’

‘You still wear the uniform. But that’s only because it suits the time and the place. And me, of course. Civilians don’t have much clout here in Germany. But that will change very soon. And when it does, then you will change.’

Fred looked up again. Things were already changing, but they were doing so far too fast, from a taken-for-granted present to an indefinite future which threatened to stretch even beyond the war’s far off and bloody end in Japan sometime next year, if they were lucky.

‘So there are no King’s Regulations between us now,’ Clinton continued before he could speak. ‘And no Rules of War or Geneva Conventions either. Nothing but our bargain, freely entered into on both sides—“bargain” is also your uncle’s word. But the exact word doesn’t matter so long as we both understand its meaning.’

‘But … I’m not sure that I do understand it.’ Fred’s voice sounded thick to his ears. ‘Whatever the word may be.’

‘In what respect do you not?’

Fred cleared his throat. ‘The war must end soon.’

‘Very soon.’ Clinton shook his head. ‘But
our
war will not end soon.’

Our
war? ‘I have a Release Number which says mine will.’

‘You have no Release Number any more—as of this moment.’

This time he wasn’t going to say that he didn’t understand. ‘But … you said I am “a free man”. How do I exercise my freedom?’

‘Very simply.’ Clinton undid the top button of his battledress blouse and drew a long buff-coloured envelope from his inside pocket. ‘This is my side of the bargain, major. It contains a special release from His Majesty’s service, properly signed and officially stamped. Your demobilization papers, in fact—go on, major—take it!’

Fred’s right hand refused to move. Instead he felt his good fingers clench into a palm which was unaccountably sweating.

‘Go on—take it.’ Clinton sounded almost dismissive. ‘Have you got a pen?’

‘A pen—?’ The envelope seemed to hang in the air between them.

‘It’s undated. So if there comes a day when you cannot obey my orders, then all you have to do is date it from that day. All my officers have a similar document—except young David Audley of course.’

Of course? The words repeated themselves stupidly inside Fred’s brain. But, then, young Audley had said he was an exception to all the rules, of course.

‘The King hasn’t had his money’s worth out of that boy yet. And neither have I.’ Clinton paused. ‘But for the rest … I have no uses for any man who has no use for me. For my work I need free men, nothing else will serve. Otherwise I cannot do the work and neither can they. And, also, I should very soon become a mirror-image of my enemy. And then the work would not be worth doing.’

The envelope was still in mid-air. And Fred was remembering that old feeble joke, which he’d first heard in 1939, on Salisbury Plain, and thereafter at intervals, through bitter Italian winters and the last time in a gun-pit within sight of the Acropolis in Athens on Christmas Day (the real Christmas Day, not Scobiemas)—

‘
There was this squaddie, see
…
an’ ‘e’d ’ad enough
…
an‘ ’e reckoned to work ‘is ticket by pretendin’ ‘e was a looney
—’

(‘He’s mad,’ David Audley had said; and ‘All my officers are mad,’ Colonel Colbourne had replied—)

‘—so
ev’ryfink ’e touches, or picks up
… ‘
e sez “No! That’s not it!” Like it might be ’is rifle, or ‘is boots, or ’is bleedin‘ mess-tin
—
’e sez “No! That’s not it”
…
Until, in the end, after the doc ‘ad seen ’im, an‘ the padre an’ all, they reckoned that ‘e really was a looney
—
’

(And, also, hadn’t Clinton himself said: ‘All sappers are mad’?—)

‘—
so they give ’im ‘is discharge. An’, as ‘e grabs it, ’e sez: “Gor‘ blimey! THAT’S IT!”’

It had never been very funny, that joke—and not least because it had always been told and re-told in situations of extreme unfunniness. But it had never been more unfunny than now, as he stretched out and accepted the long-dreamed-of manumission.

‘Why do I need a pen?’ He heard himself reject his freedom even as he touched it, as though from far away.

‘It’s August 7th today.’ The Brigadier re-buttoned his blouse with his newly-freed hand. ‘You can date it from today if you wish. Although Major de Souza will have to process it, and arrange transport. But that will only be a formality, for he has all the necessary Army Instructions to hand.’

The bloody man was so bloody-sure of himself that Fred was tempted for a fraction of a second to put him to the test. But then he remembered that his pen was dry, and he’d lost his indelible pencil. And it would be no joke to face Amos de Souza, who possessed the same document, even as a joke, anyway—any more than he could face Uncle Luke if it hadn’t been, damn him—
damn him, and damn them all
!

He transferred the envelope to his good left hand and began to fumble with his own top button, forcing his clumsy promoted second finger to do its new work in default of its useless superior.

‘So—’ It pleased him absurdly that his bad hand obeyed him faultlessly with the Brigadier watching it ‘—what are my first orders then … Freddie?’

The Brigadier stopped watching his hand and met his eyes. But now, at least, he was truly ready for that steel to rasp down his own. Which was wonderfully more exciting than anything which had happened to him for a very long time—

‘Good.’ Clinton seemed to take his victory for granted, without pleasure. ‘But they’re not simple ones. You may not like them.’

Fred felt the weight of the envelope inside his blouse, against his heart. ‘That doesn’t surprise me one bit.’ All he had to do was think of that weight as
freedom
—
then he could accept it. Because freedom ought to be heavier than servitude. ‘Who are you hunting now?’

Clinton’s stare became blank. ‘What makes you think I’m hunting anyone?’

Fred knew he was right. ‘Kyri—Colonel Michaelides … he said you were a man-hunter. Isn’t that what TRR-2 has been doing: hunting Germans?’

‘Yes.’ Clinton paused. ‘But I am not hunting a German now, major. It’s an Englishman I want now, I’m sorry to say.’

The Price of Freedom
In the Teutoburg Forest,
Germany, August 8, 1945

DOWN IN THE CASTLE
courtyard below, someone started singing in a high, sweet voice, quite destroying Fred’s concentration in an instant.

‘Als die Romer frech geworden,
Zogen sie nach Deutschlands Norden,
Vorne beim Trompetenschwall
Ritt der Generalfeldmarschall,
Herr Quinctilius Varus—’

For a moment the very sweetness of the sound, rendered crystal-clear in the morning air by some acoustic accident even within his bedroom, deceived him. Then the meaning of the words registered.

‘Doch in Teutoburger Walde
Hu, wie pfiff der Wind so kalte;
Raben flogen durch die Luft,
Und es war ein Morderuft
Wie von Blut und Leichen!’

That was quite enough, thought Fred vengefully, throwing back the sheet and starting towards the window across the bare boards.

‘Plotzlich aus des Waldes Duster
Brachen krampfhaft die Cherusker
Mit Gott fur Furst und Vaterland—’

Far below him, foreshortened by the angle of sight, there was a German soldier—or, anyway, a man in field-grey overalls and German steel helmet—washing the Brigadier’s Humber Snipe as he sang. But as Fred opened his own mouth there was a sharp knock on the door behind him.

‘Come in!’ He turned from the window quickly.

‘Mornin’, sir.‘ The soldier who had swept away all his clothes and equipment the night before appeared in the doorway. Trooper Leighton—
char
up, sir. An’ your bath’ll be ready in ten minutes—I ‘ave to bring the ’ot water up, ‘cause the pipes broke on this floor, so I’m your
bheesti
, sir —’

‘Weh! das war ein grosses Morden!
Sie erschlugen die Kohorten—’

‘I’ll take the major’s tea, Lucy.’ David Audley appeared from behind the man, fully-dressed and with a cup of tea already in one hand. ‘You go and fill his bath.’ He grinned at Fred. ‘Bloodthirsty, isn’t it! “Woe! There was a great killing!” Morning, Fred.’

Although he very carefully hadn’t drunk too much the night before there was a small knot of pain just above Fred’s left eye. ‘Where’s my uniform? Where are my clothes?’ he snapped at the trooper.

‘Get the major’s things first, Lucy.’ Audley supplemented the question unnecessarily as he lifted the steaming mug out of the man’s hand. ‘
Juldi.’
He grinned again as the man scuttled away. ‘Lucy started his army service as a band boy in India, so he prefers to be addressed in Urdu. But you don’t need to worry about your stuff—it’ll be superb. Caesar Augustus insists on nothing less: he says that a Guards turnout impresses the Germans—or “the Cherusci”—“
die Cherusker”
—
as he calls them. One of Hermann’s tribes, that is … And the Redcaps too, when they catch us “fraternizing”. Saves trouble, he says.’

Fred frowned. The almost-falsetto song was even now recounting the massacre of the Roman Army by the Cherusci in grisly and ill-omened detail, and somehow Audley’s early morning cheerfulness made it worse.

‘You’re not late, don’t worry. It’s just that I’m an early bird.’ Audley misread his expression as he handed over the cup. ‘I’ve only dropped in to apologize if I disturbed you in the night.’

‘Disturbed me?’ He took a gulp of the scalding tea, and it instantly started to perform its daily miracle. ‘You didn’t disturb me, David.’

‘Oh good!’ Audley blinked. ‘It’s just … I’m next door … and I shout in my sleep, so I’m told. I have these nightmares about a tank I once briefly occupied which was absolutely full of flies—big, fat greeny-black ones. But I don’t have ’em so often now. They’re going away—like my stutter. It’s the th-therapeutic effect of the soft life we now lead, the MO says. But I think it’s the absence of tanks from my life. I
never
liked them, you know—‘ He took two long steps past Fred and leaned out of the window ’—SHUT UP, OTTO! “FLUCH AUF DICH” TO YOU, TOO—YOU BLOODY CHERUSKER! SHUT UP!‘ He turned back, grinning widely again. ’He always sings his Teutoburger song when he’s washing the cars, and it really gets on my nerves. I think he only does it to remind us that victorious armies can come unstuck in Germany if they don’t watch out, too—he’s a caution, is our Otto! A man of many parts.‘

Fred looked down into the courtyard, where the silenced Otto had moved on to Major McCorquodale’s French limousine. ‘He sings as though he’s lost two of them.’

‘Lost two of them?’ Audley followed his glance. ‘Oh, I see! Yes—the Crocodile did say something about “castrati” singing when he first heard him. But the way old Otto gets on with the local girls suggests quite the opposite, if Hughie is to be believed.’

‘Yes? And where did we get him from—did you tell me?’ The golden elixir of British Army life had quite dissolved the pain over his eye, and he felt suddenly benevolent towards the young dragoon. Besides which, of course, there was the boy’s pristine innocence.

‘Do you know, I’m not quite sure.’ Audley sounded a little surprised with himself. ‘I think he just turned up one day, and made himself useful. Maybe he brought one of his wild boars with him—that would certainly have been a passport to acceptance in this mess!’ He thought for a moment. ‘But you’ll have to ask Amos—or Hughie. One of ’em’s sure to know, if the other doesn’t.‘

Amos de Souza
, thought Fred with a pang of doubt verging so closely on disbelief that it was painful: if he had to stake his life on one officer in this unit he would have hazarded it cheerfully on Major de Souza. But, in spite of his instinct—and in spite of the night before last, which would have added circumstantial proof to that instinct until Brigadier Clinton had reinterpreted those events for him … in spite of all that, Major de Souza’s name was on the Brigadier’s list, and high up, too—second only to that of Colonel ‘Caesar Augustus’ Colbourne himself.

Damn and damn and damn and damn
! he thought, remembering his own troubled sleep. This was going to be bad, one way or another, if Clinton was right and if Otto Schild had sung a true song—

Yet, in the Teutoberg Forest
Cold blew the wind,
And the ravens flew above.
There was an air of doom,
As of blood and corpses …

‘You’ll catch cold if you stand there in the window. This isn’t Greece, you know.’ Audley swung his arms. ‘God knows what it’ll be like in winter! Always supposing the Crocodile hasn’t got me posted to a tank landing-craft for the invasion of Malaya!’

Fred realized that he had shivered. ‘Oh, I don’t think there’s much chance of that, David.’ He forced a reassuring grin. Audley was a loyal young man as well as a clever one, if Clinton’s judgement could be relied on; and it was an irony that he was the only unfree man among them. But … (and brave too, Clinton had said: ‘foolishly and suicidally brave, according to his CO’; but that was no more than had been expected of very young officers, wasn’t it?) …
but
it was no real consolation, among all these other veteran officers, to have to rely on the least-veteran, and most callow and awkward, if push came to shove today.

‘You don’t?’ After searching his grin for a long moment Audley seized on his reassurance eagerly. But then the look became calculating. ‘And you
are
a friend of the Brigadier’s, aren’t you! And a bloody dark horse, therefore … at least, according to Hughie, anyway!’

Poor boy! ‘I wouldn’t put too much store on that … ’ A dull thump at the door stopped him from continuing to qualify his statement. ‘Come in!’