Soldier No More (6 page)

That was in 1940?”

“That’s right. He was killed just before Dunkirk.”

And the mother died before that.”

“Yes. She died when Audley was very small. But fortunately for him she’d taken out an education insurance policy for him, otherwise the house would have had to go. It was that tight.” Stocker paused. “But since then he’s had the house repaired, and he’s even bought back some of the land. So he’s picked up quite a lot of hard cash from somewhere, that’s for sure.”

“He writes books though, doesn’t he? And articles for magazines?”

History books—and learned magazines.” Stocker wrinkled up his nose at culture. “And I doubt there’s much profit in the early Middle Ages. You’ve seen the list of his works?”

Roche nodded. “Hardly best-sellers, I agree.”

“Best-sellers? You couldn’t rent a council allotment with
The Influence of Islamic Doctrines on Iconoclasm in 8th Century Byzantium
. He bought two hundred acres of Sussex farmland last year.”

“So he makes his money some other way.” The more Roche thought about Audley’s finances, the less he liked leaving such loose ends untied behind him. Stocker’s facts had merely whetted his appetite for opinions the Major seemed incapable of giving. “There are still ways of making quick money if you’re clever. And he’s clever.”

“Meaning dishonest?”

Stocker regarded him dispassionately. “Very well, I’ll go on digging. But I can’t promise quick results there.”

Roche sighed. “So what are you promising me … sir?”

Stocker nodded out of the bar towards the dining room. “Lunch first.”

And then?”

“Half-an-hour’s drive. We should reach Immingham just after the pub closes.”

“Immingham?”

St. Martin
’
s School, Immingham, 1938-42
…

“That’s right. You want to know what sort of man Audley is. Wasn’t it Wordsworth who said ‘the child is father of the man’, eh?” Stocker looked at his watch. “If that’s true, then I think there’s someone at Immingham who may be able to help you, Captain Roche.”

THE RUGGER POSTS
of the St. Martin’s School, Immingham, 1st XV pitch stood tall and very white against their backcloth of Sussex landscape, on a vivid green field of late summer grass, dwarfing the two figures beside them.

Roche rounded the corner of the pitch and turned towards them at last, along the goal-line. But although he knew that they had seen him the moment he had appeared from behind the pavilion, they still took not the least bit of notice of him.

“… ah, well you may have it your way, Major Willis, sir—“

God! Another major!

“—but I say it’s in good heart, and if we leave it alone it’ll be right enough with no more fussing, if we get a drop of rain.”

“But will we get that, Mr Badger? You want to put your trust in God, and I say that God helps those who help themselves.” Major Willis bent down and examined the grass at his feet. “I don’t know … I don’t think it’s as vigorous as it ought to be for the time of year—“ he straightened up abruptly “—so let’s have a third opinion, eh?”

“Eh?” The groundsman frowned at him, and then at Roche, since there was no other possible opinion in sight.

The schoolmaster also turned towards Roche. He was a slightly-built man, with a ferrety look which reminded Roche of Field Marshal Montgomery.

“Captain Roche, is it?” he inquired peremptorily.

“Major … Willis?” And also the Field Marshal’s rather nasal voice. But not, judging by the smell of Scotch whisky, the Field Marshal’s celebrated abstinence, thereby confirming Stocker’s intelligence work. “My—ah—my colleague, Major Stocker, phoned you, I believe, sir.”

“So he did—jolly good! Now then—“ Willis gestured to the great open expanse of playing field “—are you a sportsman? Of course you are, I don’t need to ask, do I!”

Roche felt that he had been warned, yet insufficiently forewarned nevertheless.

“So what d’you think of it, then? Am I right—or is Badger here right?”

It was all just grass to Roche, and rather lush, if anything. “My game was hockey, actually.” It might be a risk, admitting that, but it was less risky than remaining on the subject of grass.

“Hockey?” Willis frowned at him. “What club d’you play for?”

None, at the moment. I haven’t played for some years—the last time I played was in Malaya, actually.”

Willis nodded. “For the Army?”

“Yes.” That was stretching the truth, but if sporting prowess was the way to Major Willis’s heart then so be it.

Willis nodded again. “They’re rather good, aren’t they—the Malays?”

Damn good,” said Roche heartily. “But it was a scratch game—we were on the way to Korea at the time. That was the main fixture just then.”

Willis stared at him for a second. “Ah … yes, I see what you mean—the main fixture, what!” He nodded once more, and then turned to the groundsman. “Well, Mr Badger, we’ll let it wait until the weekend—right?”

“If you say so, Major Willis, sir,” the groundsman nodded lugubriously, and stumped away down the goal line.

“He knows he’s in the wrong—and he just doesn’t want to do the work—he knows damn well that I know it, too!” Willis shook his head at Mr Badger’s departing figure. “The trouble is, it’s no good knowing better than other people these days—I’ve been suffering from that all my life, and I ought to be used to it by now, I suppose …” He swung back to Roche in another of his abrupt Montgomeryesque movements. “Now then, Captain—what’s this ‘matter of national interest’ with which it is alleged I can help you, eh? Let’s have it straight, with no frills—identity card first— right?”

Roche watched him scrutinise the identity card.

“Seems okay. ‘David Roche’? Can I call you David?”

“Yes, Major—“

“And we’ll put a stop to that, for a start. Badger calls me ‘Major’ because he served in the same battalion with me for most of the war, and he knows it annoys me. He was an idle sergeant and I was an unpopular major, so we made a good pair, both civilians at heart… But you don’t have to ‘major’ me. The boys call me ‘Wimpy’ now, so you can do the same—right?”

Right…” Or it would be right if he could get a word in edgeways. “Right, then! Suppose you tell me about this national interest of yours? But I should warn you—you’ll have to make a damn good case if you want me to help you. I’m not in a giving frame of mind these days, you know.”

Roche looked at him questioningly. “I beg your pardon?”

And so you should. Since Suez, my lad—when I was of a mind to go to the Canadian Embassy, or whatever they call it, and ask them if I could emigrate, except they would probably have told me they didn’t want old buffers like me…And then we came a cropper—
et penitus toto divisos orbe Britannos
, as Virgil put it. So where was ‘the national interest’ when we invaded Egypt, then—eh?”

“I didn’t have anything to do with Suez—“

“Naturally. Like when Field Marshal Haig said to the poor squaddie ‘Where did you start the war, my man?’ and the poor fellow replied ‘Christ, sir—I didn’t start it!’ But is that a sufficient answer, I ask you? So where is the national interest now, Captain Roche?”

The plain white envelope in Roche’s breast-pocket began to make its weight felt.

“
Only in the last resort
,” Stocker had advised him. “
Use it if he positively won
’
t talk. Fred Clinton doesn
’
t want it used, but you
’
ll have to exercise your best judgement there
.”

“Well—spit it out, man! Don’t just stand there,” Willis exhorted him.

“Yes, sir—“ Roche floundered.

“ ‘Wimpy’. You call a man ‘sir’—or ‘Major Willis’, for that matter—and you’re halfway to making an issue of it. But if you call him ‘Jack’, or ‘Harry’, or ‘Wimpy’, then you can get away with insulting him to his face,” said Willis, of a sudden half-conciliatory, almost friendly. “Don’t be put off by my bark—it’s only a concealment for a total lack of bite, dear boy. I talk too much, that’s my trouble. It’s part natural—the way I’m put together—and part guilt-complex that there are still young fellows like you, having to look to the ‘national interest’ a dozen years after we won the war, which we’d never have had to fight in the first place if we’d stood up for what was right and in the national interest—
audiet pugnas v
itio parentum, rara iuventus
…
but I don’t suppose you’ve had time to study the Classics—‘how they fought shall be passed on to a younger generation smaller because of their parents’ crimes’—the context was different, but the sense is there, I’m sorry to have to admit…”

Stocker had described him as being ‘mildly eccentric’, especially on the subjects of sport and the classics, and therefore unpredictable; but reputedly benevolent after his lunch time sessions—out of term, naturally—with his cronies in the local pub; and a formidably good teacher, and a ladies’ man, but a bachelor—and, for God’s sake, what did all that add up to?

“Well, David?” said Willis. “The national interest, then?”

It added up at the moment to the reduction of David Roche almost to a tongue-tied Sixth Former with doubtful prospects in Higher Cert.

“Yes … Well, I’m told you were one of the executors of the will of Major Nigel Alexander George Audley, Mr Willis—“

Note i.
Father, ed. Eton and Balliol College,
Oxford; major, Prince Regent
’
s Own South Downs Fusiliers (T.A.), killed in action, France, May 1940
.

“—and Legal Guardian of David Longsdon Audley—“

Audley, David Longsdon
—

Willis looked at him blankly for a moment. “What?”

“You’re David Audley’s legal guardian?” repeated Roche.

“I
was
, yes.” The schoolmaster emphasised the past tense.

“You were a friend of his father’s?”

Willis nodded. “Yes.”

“And you taught the son—at his prep school?”

Another nod. “Yes.”

“And here at Immingham?”

“Yes.”

Roche waited in vain for something more than that third successive ‘yes’, until it became obvious that in spite of being self-confessedly talkative Willis was now determined to be monosyllabic.

“So you knew him quite well?”

Willis bent down to examine the grass, probing it with his fingers as though he was looking for something. And so he was, of course, thought Roche. But it wasn’t in the grass.

“Who?” Willis didn’t look up, though.

“The son.”

Willis straightened up slowly. “Why do you want to know?”

“The national interest, Major.”

Willis faced him. “I told you, I don’t like being called ‘Major’—and particularly at this precise moment, I think.”

“Why not—at this precise moment particularly?”

“Because I suspect it’s to remind me that I once held the King’s Commission—‘Right trusty and well-beloved’, and all the rest,
Captain
.”

The envelope would be required. Stocker had known that all along.

“Don’t think that I’ve forgotten that allegiance,” said Willis. “It’s simply that there are other allegiances—like that of a legal guardian, for example. And a teacher’s too … ‘in loco parentis’ covers both—‘in the place of a parent’, if you have no Latin, Captain.” Willis paused. “How would you say ‘in the national interest’ relates to ‘in loco parentis’, morally speaking?”

Roche waited. The briefly monosyllabic Willis had been a little unnerving, but now that the man had started to talk again he could afford to wait. “I concede the classical precedents. It would have presented no problem to a Roman father, and certainly not to a Spartan one … But nowadays they encourage children to inform on their parents behind the Iron Curtain, and we regard that as an attribute of barbarism. And I don’t see why the boot shouldn’t be on the other foot as well, in all honesty.”

The whole drift of Willis’s soliloquy was fascinating, in that he’d taken it for granted Audley was the subject of a security investigation of some kind. But what was surprising was that Willis himself didn’t seem in the least surprised.

“What makes you think I want you to ‘inform’ on him, as you put it?” he inquired innocently.

Now Willis did seem a touch surprised. “My dear fellow, I can’t imagine you want me to ‘inform’ on his father! Apart from the fact that Nigel’s been dead these sixteen—seventeen—years, I hardly think his … gentlemanly activities, such as they were—his gathering of rosebuds—were ever likely to be of the slightest national interest, or of any other sort of interest, except perhaps sociological, as a footnote to the 1930s. So that only leaves young David, and you clearly wish me to ‘inform’ on him—even so unworldly a person as myself can see that!”

But—“

Willis raised a hand. “And I must tell you that on mature consideration I don’t think I will, and for two reasons … Of which the first is that I doubt that I have anything of the slightest importance to impart, since I haven’t clapped eyes on him for several years, and we correspond but rarely with each other … And the second, and to my mind much stronger reason, is
that
… as his former guardian and teacher, not to mention the friend and brother-officer of his father … I’m not prepared to sneak on him— certainly not without a very much better reason than anything so vague as ‘the national interest’. Indeed—whose ‘national interest’? Not that of those who conceived the Suez landings of last year as also being ‘in the national interest’, I can tell you!”

Roche nodded deprecatingly. “I do take your point, sir—“ he could no more bring himself to call the man ‘Wimpy’ than he could have called the terrifying Johnnie ‘Genghis Khan’ to his face “—but I don’t think you quite understand why I’m here … why we need your help, that is …”

“Indeed?” Willis regarded him with an expression of polite but absolute Misbelief.

“We want David Audley to help us,” said Roche.

“ ‘With your inquiries’?” murmured Willis. “Isn’t that the phrase: ‘A man is helping the police with their inquiries’? But I do understand that, my dear fellow. I understand it perfectly. And nothing you say is going to stop me understanding it.”