The '44 Vintage (35 page)

Butler drew a sharp breath. It hadn’t occurred to him that he would be given the assassin’s job, but he realised instantly that it made sense, however unwelcome the task. Whatever the defects of the Sten for the role, its rate of fire made it better than Audley’s revolver and the Luger the American had picked up from the road after the ambush. Only experts could hit anything with handguns at more than point-blank range.

All the same he looked at Audley doubtfully. “A Lee-Enfield would be better, sir. Over fifty yards you can’t be dead sure with a Sten, sir. We’ll just have to let them get right up close, that’s all.”

Dr. de Courcy smiled suddenly, and bent forward to reach under the bunk. “Then perhaps I can help you there, too. Not with a Lee-Enfield”—with an effort he slid a battered tin box out from beneath him—“but with something just as good.”

The lid of the box carried a large red cross, and the box itself was full of bandages and rags. De Courcy plunged his hand into them and lifted a rifle into view.

“With the compliments of the French Army, Corporal—a Lebel from the ‘14-‘18. It will shoot Englishmen just as accurately as Germans, I think.”

Butler reached down towards the rifle, but Audley’s hand snaked past his to grasp it first.

“Sir?” Butler looked at him questioningly.

“Mine, I think, Corporal,” said the subaltern. “You’ll need the Sten to cover the bridge afterwards.”

Butler frowned. “But, sir—“

“My job, too.” Audley sounded almost relieved. “Don’t worry, Corporal. Even second lieutenants can fire rifles—they do teach us some useful skills.” He turned to the American. “All right with you, Sergeant?”

Winston looked at the subaltern curiously. It wasn’t exactly an expression of approval, Butler decided, but it was as close to that sentiment as he had come since he had first climbed into the driving seat of the jeep on the road beside the Loire. “Hell, Lieutenant—I wouldn’t dream of cramping your style. If you British got a rule that only officers can shoot officers, that’s okay by me. Just so you hold it nice and steady when the time comes …” He shrugged, and then grinned. “Maybe we’re due for a good break at that, I guess.”

The American’s good humour reassured Butler’s own doubts. If it was suddenly too easy—too good to be true—then perhaps that was only what they deserved after so much bad luck. Not so much the bad luck that had enabled them to get so far against all the odds; that might qualify as good luck. But the bad luck which had taken all three of them away from the safety of the real war, where a man knew what he was supposed to be doing.

He stared at Hauptmann Grafenberg, sitting quiet and withdrawn on the floor in the corner, almost unnoticed. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would travel across France with a German prisoner in his baggage. And yet, when he thought about it, it was only the German who had derived the good luck from their misfortunes: without them he might have been dead by now, or on his way to death. Winston followed his gaze. “Yeah … So what do we do with him, eh?” He threw the question at Audley.

As he spoke the ambulance slowed suddenly, with a squeak of ancient brakes, and then lurched to a halt. De Courcy twisted on his bunk and slid back a panel in the partition which divided them from the driver’s compartment.

“
Qu
’
est-ce qui se passe, Gaston
?” he hissed urgently. The mutter of French was lost to Butler in the sound of a bicycle wheel skidding on gravel and a breathless treble voice, not one word of which he could catch through the narrow gap in the partition.

At length De Courcy turned back to them. “There are German vehicles on the main road ahead of us—the Civray road. We must wait until they have passed.”

“Are we far from the chateau?” asked Audley.

“Very close,” De Courcy shook his head. “We cross over here, onto the Marigny road. There is a bridge over the river, two kilometres perhaps, then the turning to the West Lodge is just over the bridge. Do not worry—Jean-Pierre will tell us when the way is clear.”

“That’s … the kid that we heard just now?” Winston’s nose wrinkled at the idea of depending on a child’s judgment. “A kid?”

The doctor regarded him equably. “Jean-Pierre is small for his age, but he would not thank you for the description. This morning he is a Frenchman, Sergeant.”

“How old a Frenchman?”

“Eleven years. And before you decide eleven years are too few I should tell you that his younger brother Louis-Marie is watching the main gate of the chateau just up the road.”

“Jee-sus!” The American’s eyes widened. “Haven’t you got any
men
, Doc? I thought your side was going to take over here after the krauts lit out—you going to use the kindergarten to keep the Commies in line?”

The doctor’s expression hardened. “In two weeks from now General de Lattre de Tassign’s army will be here, Sergeant—the French army which is landing in southern France at this moment.”

Sergeant Winston scratched the end of his nose. “Great. Except so far as we’re concerned that’s going to be just about two weeks too late, don’t you think, Doc?”

Before the Frenchman could react to the jibe, Second Lieutenant Audley intervened. “I can see that children do make good road-watchers, Doctor. In fact, I remember my father and the other chaps in the Home Guard in 1940 planning to use them if the Germans landed … but… but where
are
your people? I mean, not the escape-route people, like old M’sieur Boucard—but the proper Maquis types? If we had a few of them we wouldn’t need—
this
.” He lifted the old Lebel rifle.

The hard look on the Frenchman’s face creased up like a celluloid mask on the Guy’s face writhing in the flames of a November Fifth bonfire. He spread his hands in a gesture of despair—Frenchmen could say more with their hands than some Englishmen could say with their mouths, thought Butler.

But the gesture was lost on Sergeant Winston. “I guess it suits them better if we take the risks, Lieutenant,” he murmured.

The hard mask returned instantly. “It does not suit me at all—it suits me very badly,” De Courcy snapped. “A week ago we had men in this area, both sabotage teams working with British and American officers, and our own combat units. But since then we have been moving them every night to the southwest, to the German supply routes, to support the invasion of the South. When Boucard’s messenger reached me during the night …” The hands rose again. “You are not far from the truth, Sergeant. Children and greybeards—they are the best men I have at short notice. Children and greybeards!”

“And the Communists?” Audley made the question sound oddly polite.

“They are not … amenable to orders. But there were not many of them here—until two days ago.” De Courcy looked at Audley candidly. “A week ago we could have prevented the arrival of the larger group. And when they did arrive … we thought they were moving in support of our own units—to the south.”

“Huh!” Sergeant Winston crammed a world of bitterness into a small sound. “A week ago you could keep them out—and in two weeks’ time you expect the French Army. Looks like they hit the motherlode first time, the only chance they got!”

De Courcy stared at Audley. “I do not think it was luck: they were here before you arrived. I fear they have an agent in your Intelligence operation, David.”

Audley closed his eyes. “And I fear—I fear it’s worse than that, sir. Or at least more humiliating.” He sat back, opening his eyes and staring into space. “Much more humiliating.”

“What d’you mean?” Winston turned towards him. “Humiliating for who?”

“For our Intelligence. They’ve been fooled right down the line— that’s my guess.”

“What’s new about that? Jesus, Lieutenant—half the guys that buy it out here, it’s because some clever sonofabitch back in headquarters wasn’t clever enough. They got a man in your outfit somewhere and they knew you were coming. Surprise, surprise.”

“No, I don’t mean that—and I don’t think that was quite how it was.” Audley shook his head. “I think these French Communists—or whoever’s running their show—I think they boxed smarter than that.”

“In what way—smarter?”

Audley sat forward. “It’s the timing of the thing. It never did seem quite right, even at the beginning.” He glanced at Butler. “You remember when Colonel Clinton briefed us in the barn—‘speed and surprise, and no truck with the French’?” Butler nodded.

Audley nodded back. “It started to smell then, but I smelt the wrong answer. I thought the French knew where the loot was, and we were simply making sure we got in first to take it.”

“Yeah—but they don’t know where it is,” said Winston.

“Quite right. Or at least they don’t know exactly. … It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if they knew it was somewhere in the Pont-Civray chateau—“

“Uh-uh.” Winston shook his head. “You’re forgetting the reception committee in the wood. They didn’t know where we were going.”

“So they
said
. But they could just as easily have been there to make sure we got through—to keep the Germans off our backs and to help us on our way. While keeping a discreet eye on us, of course.” Audley paused. “But all that’s beside the point … which is the whole timing of the Chandos Operation.”

Winston frowned at the subaltern. “What’s with the timing?”

“It’s all wrong, Sergeant. If this loot is so damn well hidden that the Germans didn’t find it in four years of occupation, sitting right on top of it, and the French Communists don’t know exactly where it is themselves, then what the blue blazes are we doing trying to unearth it now, when so many things could go wrong? We’re like the chap who insisted on trying to make love to his host’s daughter standing up in a hammock in broad daylight, when all he had to do was to wait until night came and he could crawl into her bed in comfort. We could have waited a fortnight—or a month—or a year, and it would have been perfectly safe. But we had to go and try it now!”

In the moment of silence which followed Audley’s bitter complaint Butler heard the swish of bicycle tyres skidding on gravel once more. Jean-Pierre had returned.

Winston shrugged. “So you timed it wrong. But the jails are full of guys who did that—and the morgues.”

Audley shook his head. “I don’t think we timed it at all, Sergeant. I think the Communists timed it for us—I think they just simply fed our Intelligence with the false information that they already knew where the loot was, and they were getting all set to pick it up themselves as soon as the Germans had moved out. Then all they had to do was to sit back and wait for us to turn up—“

There came a crunch of footsteps on the road outside, followed by a heavy blow on the rear doors of the ambulance.

“
Patron?
”

“
Attends un moment
,” commanded De Courcy. “Go on, David.”

“
Patron
!” the voice insisted.

“
Je te dis d
’
attendre!
”
shouted De Courcy. “Go on.”

“That’s really all there is to it. Our job may have been to lead them to it, I don’t know. But what they’re waiting for is for us to find it—to actually find it. All they’ve done is to make sure we do that at exactly the right moment for them, when they have the muscle to take it off us.”

“
Patron
!” The fist banged on the door again, and this time the urgency in the voice overrode any possibility of refusal.

“Which makes it all the more important that your major dies before he can betray his secret,” said De Courcy harshly. “In the meanwhile—
Excusez-moi
.”

He rose from his seat and pushed past them to the doors. “
Qu
’
est-ce que c
’
est
, Gaston—Jean-Pierre—
Louis-Marie, qu
’
est-ce que tu peux bien faire ici
?” He unbarred the door and stepped out of the ambulance, closing the door behind him.

Winston stared for a moment at the closed door. “You don’t think maybe you were taking a risk, talking in front of that guy, Lieutenant?”

“Dr. de Courcy?” Audley shook his head. “No, Sergeant. The doctor’s a good republican, not a Communist. And besides, if he had switched, then he wouldn’t have bothered with us once he knew we couldn’t find the loot for him. All we can do is stop anyone else finding it—and he knows that.” He shook his head again. “Our problems will start when we’ve dealt with the major … You know what we’ve got ourselves into?”

“One hell of a mess, Lieutenant—that’s for sure.”

Audley stared into space. “An understatement. When I think about all the trouble they’ve been to—the Communists planting false information on us … our side setting up a special operation at short notice— with a hand-picked bunch of professional thugs—hand-picked because they had no connection with the French, too … then I begin to wonder just what it is that we’re trying so hard not to find.” He switched back to Winston, and then suddenly to Hauptmann Grafenberg. “I owe you an apology, Captain.”

The German straightened up in surprise. “
Bitte
?”

“I should have left you with the Boucards. But I had a plan to use you to get into the chateau. It would have been as dangerous for you as for us”—He shrugged apologetically, almost like a Frenchman—“but it was all I could think of. Fortunately it isn’t necessary now.”

The young German stared at him blankly. “I am at your service, Herr Leutnant.” Then an odd flash of recognition animated his face. “I understand that you have … a difficult duty to perform. And I understand also that I am in your debt for the risk you took on my behalf.”

“Yeah. And I guess you understand also that we’ve stopped fighting Germans too, huh?” murmured Winston.

“Yes.” The German gave a quick nod. “That too, I understand.”

The American gave a short laugh. “That’s right, mein Herr—welcome to World War Three.”

Audley sat up sharply. “My God, Sergeant! You’re exactly right: World War Three is what it is—the first skirmish of World War Three! What a perfectly
bloody
prospect!”