The '44 Vintage (13 page)

They stared at each other in silence. Away somewhere, far to the north, there came a distant drone of aircraft engines.

“In fact, for the last hour I have been regaled with a c-catalogue of your … vices, Corporal,” continued Audley. “Including a … warning that you were probably on the b-bottle again by now.”

Butler was outraged. It was Corporal Jones, for sure it was Corporal Jones.

“That’s a lie, sir,” he spluttered. “A rotten lie!”

And it must have been Jones who had given Sergeant Purvis the bottle, too; which was a filthy trick, though perhaps understandable as revenge for what he’d done the night before. But what wasn’t understandable—what was unforgiveable—was that Jones should then have betrayed him to an officer.

“Yes, I rather think it was,” said Audley.

The drone of the engines was louder now. And there was activity along the shadowy line of vehicles. One of the men in the jeep just ahead of them had lifted a small, square box from the back of the vehicle. He bent over it and for an instant his face was illuminated with a ghastly green light.

“Now that’s interesting,” said Audley. “Marker lamps.” He swivelled in his seat to stare up into the lightening sky. “I think we have friends up above.”

The drone had turned into a steady beat. It seemed to come slightly from the right now, but as the green lamps went on it appeared to turn towards them.

In a flash Butler understood. “The river’s just ahead of us, sir,” he said. “They’re going to cover the sound of our engines with the plane, I think, sir.”

Someone in the distance shouted “Start up!” and the call was taken up ahead of them.

“I think you’re right, Corporal,” said Audley. “Full marks. And it is rather comforting to know that somebody’s got himself properly organised.”

“That’ll be Major O’Conor, sir,” said Butler.

“Yes, I think you’re right again. The major did strike me as being”— Audley started the jeep—“a downy bird.”

“’Downy,’ sir?”

“Downy—yes.” Audley launched the jeep with a jerk that reminded Butler of the sergeant-major. “You must forgive my bad driving. I completed the carrier and light tank course at Sandhurst with a Grade Three pass, which is the lowest one available—I never got round to telling them that I’d never actually learnt to drive … I presume Sergeant What’s-‘is-name didn’t get round to asking you whether you could drive either, Corporal?”

“No, sir.” Butler warmed to the young officer.

“Well, that’s the Army for you. Round pegs and square pegs, and square holes and round holes. And the Army just hits the pegs until they fit the holes. It’s a splendid system if you don’t weaken… . How far to the river, did you say?”

“Four or five miles. We come off a ridge of some sort, and then there’s a flood plain … and then a flood embankment of some sort.”

Audley nodded. “Yes, that’s the Loire right enough… . Did you know, Butler, that there are two rivers hereabouts with the same name, almost? … There’s
Le
Loir, which is masculine and not very big, and
La
Loire, which is feminine and can be a perfect bitch in flood—never mind the Germans. Which only goes to show that the female of the species can be more dangerous than the male, eh?”

It was funny that he wasn’t stuttering at all, thought Butler. “It isn’t in flood now, sir. And there aren’t any Germans behind it, so I’ve been told.”

Audley braked sharply as the jeep ahead loomed up close. They were beginning to drop off the ridge, Butler sensed.

“No Germans?” Audley twisted the wheel. “I’ll believe that when I’m the other side of the river… . And what makes you think there are no Germans, Butler? Who told you that?”

“A Yank, sir. One of their motorbike MPs.”

“He did? And what did you tell him in exchange?”

The question floored Butler. “I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Did he ask you any questions? Like where you were going?”

Butler blinked. “Yes, he did. But I don’t know where we’re going.”

“Ah-hah!” The noise of the plane was so loud Audley almost shouted the sound.

“He said they’d reconnoitred the other side, sir,” shouted Butler. “They’ve patrolled about five miles, and there weren’t any Germans. He said we’d have an easy crossing.”

The light was growing. He could make out fields and even occasional buildings, dead and shuttered as diough they were derelict for all that the fields had a carefully tended look about them. And there were tall trees with strange black balls in them which reminded him of the swarm of bees which had once settled on one of the general’s apple trees … except that they couldn’t all be bee swarms, and they were too big anyway.

“So they’ve reconnoitred the crossing for us … Let’s hope they know their business,” shouted Audley.

Tanks ahead, canted on the side of the road. And beyond them American half-tracks … and American soldiers, groups of them, some smoking, some squatting—one of them even waved a jaunty thumbs-up sign at Butler. This must be part of the 921st the MP had spoken of. He was sorry for them, that they just had numbers instead of proper names like the British Army; surely they’d much rather go into battle with the pride of a known locality to support them instead of a number … Texans and New Yorkers, say. And then the thought of his own regiment, somewhere back on the river Orne a million miles away, twisted inside him—the Lancashire Rifles, which was the best regiment in the Army, with battle honours to prove it from Busaco and Ciudad Rodrigo and Waterloo to Mons and the Somme and Ypres—and Normandy. Except that once upon a time the Rifles had only had a number too, which was there on their cap badge still, and maybe these Yanks didn’t all come from the same country—and when he thought about it there were Riflemen who came from Scodand and even Ireland, and didn’t know Blackburn from Bolton—

The jeep tilted up steeply and he could see the line of a great embankment sweeping away to disappear among the trees on his left. Then came a wide road snaking along the top of the embankment, which they left immediately for another slip road, narrower and unmetalled, on the river side. But there was no river to be made out in the half-light, only a tangle of undergrowth mosdy made up of tall willows which rose out of a lattice of their own fallen branches. The night was making its last stand in the undergrowth, but a pale mist was already replacing the darkness up the track ahead.

River mist, thought Butler gratefully—that must be what the major was relying on to cover the crossing. Noise up above and mist below as a double precaution in spite of the American patrol’s report.

Suddenly the jeep ahead braked to a halt, and the tyres of their own vehicle slithered on the loose sand under them as Audley jammed his foot down. Someone came striding back down the track, pausing at each jeep. It was Sergeant Purvis.

The sergeant halted beside Audley. “Fifty yards ahead, sir—sharp left and you’re down on the river bed. Bank’s a bit tricky, so you better take it easy there, but the going’s good after that. Follow the jeep in front to the next lot of trees and then switch off the engine—there’ll be someone to direct you.”

“What’s happening, Sergeant?” said Audley.

Sergeant Purvis looked at the subaltern irresolutely for a moment, then up and down the line of jeeps as diough he was weighing the delay to his orders against the possible consequence of telling a second lieutenant what to do with his curiosity.

“Sergeant?” Audley prompted Purvis with a sharpness which suggested to Butler that he had met the same problem in the dragoons and didn’t intend to let it spread to Chandos Force.

“Sir …” Purvis just managed to prevent himself shrugging. “The major put three recce patrols from the advance party across the river about an hour ago.”

“I thought the Americans were patrolling the other side.”

Purvis shuffled his feet. “They have been, sir. But the major wanted to look-see for himself, like we always do.”

“When are they due back?”

This time Purvis did shrug. “I dunno, sir—pretty soon, I’d say. But you’ll have to ask the major.”

Audley accepted that with a nod. “Righty-ho, Sergeant. Carry on.”

Purvis swung away and Audley turned to Butler. “So he doesn’t trust our American friends, then. And come to that, he probably doesn’t trust anyone else much either … a downy bird, as I said, Corporal.” There was just enough light now for Butler to see that he was grinning. “ ‘Downy’ meaning ‘crafty’—you don’t remember your Kipling, then?”

“Only
Kim
and
The Jungle Book
, sir—and some of the poetry, like
If
… and the
Barrack-Room Ballads
, sir.” This time Butler was determined not to be thought an illiterate, even at the risk of seeming to show off.

“Good man! But this is from
Stalky,
”
—
Audley reached towards the gear lever as the jeep in front started to move—“you should read that. There’s a touch of Stalky about the major, I’d like to think.”

The sergeant’s fifty yards seemed more like two hundred, but at length the vehicles in front turned sharply before a wall of tangled branches. As Audley followed, Butler saw a wide expanse of open ground walled in by mist in which he could make out the vague outlines of men and vehicles.

“Hold tight,” said Audley.

The front wheels of the jeep fell away into nothing and they half-drove and half-slithered down a steep, sandy bank already deeply rutted by other wheels. For a moment or two the tyres spun sand, lost their grip, found it again, lost it, and finally pulled forward onto a firmer track between two brackish lakes of green-scummed water. As they moved out into the open, Butler saw a line of jeeps drawn up nose to tail, and behind them tree tops growing out of the mist. They must now be in one of the dry channels of the river, behind one of the islands the American MP had spoken of.

Audley followed the jeep ahead into the line and switched off the engine. Behind them the last two jeeps pulled into position. Chandos Force was on its start-line at last, thought Butler. Now the worst time would begin, the waiting time.

A figure materialised out of the mist ahead of them, tall, thin, and unmistakable.

It paused at the jeep in front. “Morning, Bassett—morning, Mason … stretch your legs, have a bite to eat. We’ve a few minutes in hand, so make the most of them.”

“Morning, sir.”

“Yes, sir.”

Major O’Conor advanced towards them, grinning broadly. “Ah, the modern languages section!
Bonjour, David—guten Morgen, Oberjager Butler
.” He raised his ashplant stick in salute.

“
Bonjour, mon commandant
,” said Audley.

Butler couldn’t bring himself to play silly games. “Sir,” he said. “Good morning, sir.”

The major nodded. “Well, so far it does look like a good morning, I’m happy to say. We’ve had three patrols on the other side, and so far two have reported a clear run, so we shall probably go in about fifteen minutes.” He looked up into the lightening sky, from which the noise of engines had now diminished to a distant hum. “When we shall summon back our RAF friend, don’t you worry.”

“Do we have any air support today, sir?” asked Audley.

“Oh yes. If we get into real trouble—which we won’t—but if we do, we’ve access to a limejuice strike of our very own, David.”

Audley took a deep breath. “Well, that’s a relief, sir—limejuice saved our bacon several times back in Normandy.”

“Oh, we shall be all right, don’t you fret,” the major reassured him. “The Hun’s thin on the ground, where we’re going—plenty of back roads, thick, wooded country. We’ve operated in far worse than this … Anyway, stretch your legs while you can, both of you. Just don’t stray too far. Wouldn’t want to lose you just when the fun’s beginning, eh?”

They watched him move on down the line, silent for a moment. Then Audley took another deep breath. “Phew! Looks as if we’re playing for the First Fifteen after all, with a limejuice of our own, by God!”

“’Limejuice,’ sir?”

“Rocket-firing Typhoons—ground-strafing experts. When we ran into anything we couldn’t handle—which was anything bigger than a German with a pea-shooter in a biscuit tin, if the FOOs couldn’t get their guns on it they’d give us a limejuice.” Audley’s face clouded suddenly, and he seemed to be staring at something in the mist beyond Butler’s right shoulder. “Last time they did it, it went wrong. The Germans shot down our spotter plane, and the Tiffies couldn’t find the target … and then the Germans made mincemeat of us.” He swallowed, shook his head and focussed on Butler again. “That’s water under the b-b-b-bridge now, anyway. So let’s stretch our legs like the man said, Butler.”

“Yes, sir.” Butler stepped out of the jeep and was reminded immediately by his left foot of just how he ought to be making the most of these last precious minutes. This was not only the last opportunity he might get but also the last time he might have anything like privacy for what had to be done. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute or two, sir—“

“Okay, Corporal.” Audley had produced a dog-eared paperback book from inside his battle dress and a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles from his breast pocket. He looped the spectacles over his ears and settled them far down his nose—presumably he was farsighted—and then started to walk up and down, oblivious of everything and everyone around him.

Butler strolled down the line of jeeps. The bandits seemed to have taken the major’s advice in a variety of different ways: several of them were brewing up on a small primus stove; one was pumping up the tyres of one of the bicycles which were among the unit’s stranger items of equipment, while another loaded a big .50 Browning machine gun. At the end of the line a man was shaving.

Rubbing his hand over his own chin, Butler felt a fine sandpaper of stubble. It wouldn’t show yet, that was one small advantage of his red hair. But even if it had been black as night he wouldn’t have wasted any of his precious water on it—that was reserved for his treacherous foot. It was a pity there was no acceptable water close to hand, but the river (which he supposed lay on the other side of the island) was hardly safe, and he didn’t fancy the slimy green pools he had passed a few minutes earlier.