‘Ah! . . .’ Audley managed something between a wave and a clenched fist gesture, which he rendered even more equivocal by ending up scratching the back of his neck ‘. . . well, they’re not exactly . . . prisoners, Mr Levin. But never mind . . .’ he trailed off humbly.
‘As you wish, Mr Audley – sar!’ The RSM pronounced the words like a formula dissolving all but the inescapable links between himself and the author of that parody-of-a-salute. ‘If-you-will-permit-me-to-return-to-my-duties-then – sar!’
‘Why . . . yes, of course, Mr Levin. Do carry on, please.’
‘ Sar!’ The RSM swept past them down the track. And as sure as dummy4
God made little apples he would see where the Mendip corporal had pissed on the rear wheel of that lorry, thought Fred. So there were two stripes gone for a Burton.
‘Well . . . that was Mr Levin!’ murmured Audley, to no one in particular. ‘We just don’t seem to hit it off ... I had a much better relationship with my old troop sar-major in the Wesdragons. But, of course, Mr Levin was a peace-time soldier before the war . . .
and my old sar-major ran our local garage at Steeple Horley.’ He shook his head sadly, as though in another world. ‘But he’s dead, of course . . . and now he’s really dead.’ He stared at Fred suddenly. ‘Funny to think of that – isn’t it? Becoming really dead?’
The question caught Fred by surprise. ‘What d’you mean?’
‘He means . . . now that your war is nearly finished, then the dead can become properly dead,’ snapped Kyriakos harshly. ‘And the survivors can become properly alive at last.’
Fred was shocked by the Greek’s intensity. ‘Our . . . war?’
Kyriakos nodded at Audley. ‘Your war is almost finished – no Germans here – not in Greece any more. And now, if the truce holds ... if you are both lucky, then your war is finished. So you will go home – ’ He switched to Fred ‘ – to your merchant banking
– ’ Back to Audley again ‘ – and you to ... Cambridge, was it?
Girls in punts, and the odd lecture?’ He showed his teeth in a wolfish grin. ‘I was up at Cambridge in ’39. My father called me home in October – we thought it was just your war.‘ The grin became unnaturally fixed. ’We thought the Balkan Mercantile Bank and the Aegean Mutual Trust stood to make a lot of money out of you British, one way or another. And now my father is dead, dummy4
and my two brothers are dead . . . But my war is not finished –
perhaps it is only just beginning. So that makes a difference – yes?‘
‘Yes.’ Audley nodded stupidly, like a ventriloquist’s dummy.
‘You’ve b-b-b . . . bloody got it: they’re not d-d- dead yet, quite?
Because you can still join them – right?’ He stopped nodding.
‘You’re the first one I’ve met who knows what I’m talking about –
would you believe that?’ Fred felt anger stir, beyond shock and unreality and incomprehension, as they both blocked him out with their private joke, which was no joke at all. But pride refused to let him show how he felt: they each understood too well what the other was saying for him to admit that he didn’t measure up to their insight, whatever it was they shared. So he couldn’t say anything.
The Balkan Mutual Trust?‘ Audley found another joke. ’I w-wouldn’t have thought that there was m-much m-mutual . . .
trust . . . anywhere in the b-b-bloody Balkans?‘
Kyriakos raised his chin arrogantly. ‘ Aegean Mutual Trust –
Balkan Mercantile Bank, Mr Audley, – sar!’ He grinned at Audley, under the arrogance. ‘How about letting us both return-to-our-duties, eh? Like . . . you could talk a jeep out of your adjutant, to take us to Itea, maybe?’ He carefully didn’t look at Fred. ‘How about that, then?’
Audley looked at Fred, nevertheless. ‘You know each other because your families are both in merchant banking – ? The Fattorini Brothers – the Mutually Trusting Balkans? But how did you both end up ... back there, on the path – “lurking”, was it?’
Kyriakos tossed his head. ‘As you said – “Fattorini” isn’t a dummy4
common name in the British Army.’ He gave Fred a quick glance.
‘I was with the Canadians last year, and we were stalled on this river, over which your engineers were throwing this Bailey bridge.
And I heard someone shout for “Captain Fattorini” . . . and my family’s bank has acted for the Fattorini bank in Greece ever since the First World War.’
Fred nodded. ‘That’s right – ever since his father met my uncle –
Uncle Luke – in Salonika, in the Military Hospital, in 1918. They were two young bankers in adjoining beds, each with Bulgarian bullets in them. So they exchanged addresses.’
‘And then they did business. Out of which came the first Aegean Mutual Trust.’ The Greek took his cue. ‘And last year I saw this appalling mud-covered apparition. But I thought . . . “Fattorini”
isn’t a common name in the British Army. So I gave it an address in Athens, where I intended to be.’
‘Coincidence,’ agreed Fred. ‘Just like you swanning up in your jeep back there, Dave Audley – and thinking that “Fattorini” isn’t a common name in the British Army. So when I finally reached Athens – ’
‘Okay! Okay!’ Audley surrendered. That’ll do fine. In fact, it couldn’t be better ... And I’ll get you transport –Itea, was it?‘
The youth’s sudden confidence pricked Fred’s curiosity. ‘What’s so fine about it?’
‘Oh ... it was fine all along, actually.’ Audley grinned disarmingly.
‘It was?’ Fred’s curiosity overweighed his irritation.
‘Why?’
dummy4
The Brigadier will like you, even if my Colonel doesn’t.‘ The grin twisted. The Brigadier may not go much on coincidences, but he does love rich men. And bankers – merchant bankers . . . one merchant banker –good . . . two merchant bankers – you’ll brighten up a bad day for him, I shouldn’t wonder, by golly!’ He pointed through the trees. ‘Come on! You’re just what I need!’ He stepped out ahead of them. ‘ Two bloody bankers – !’ Kyriakos raised his shoulders eloquently, and rolled his eyes at Fred. But then he moved quickly after Audley. ‘But why – why does he like rich men?’
Fred accelerated after them. Five wasted years – three of boredom, one-and-a-half of discomfort and terror, plus an aggregation of odd months of other experiences, including disillusion and, during the last hour, more terror – those years ought to have inured him to anything the army could imagine for his further education. But Lieutenant Audley and his Brigadier were something beyond the ordinary lunacies.
‘Rich – men.’ panted Kyriakos, in Audley’s wake. Through the last scatter of trees Fred saw the ruins more clearly, and remembered what Kyriakos had said a lifetime earlier: this was the little monastery the Turks had smashed up, presumably in revenge for Markos Botsaris’ escape up that cliff just behind it. ‘Bankers – ?’
Kyriakos tried again, breathlessly. This was the sharp end of the operation, the sounds of which they had heard on the other side of that cliff, Fred saw at a glance. Not only were the soldiers here alert, and very different from the smokers and pissers down below, but there was a line of groundsheeted corpses, with their protruding dummy4
feet indicating their origin: three good pairs of army-issue boots, and then a dozen anonymous pairs, scuffed and pathetic – no . . .