there were two feet at the end, encased in jack-boots, or something like –
‘Bankers?’ Audley finally registered the question, but then dismissed it as a figure ducked out from a narrow monastic doorway. ‘ Amos! Is the Brigadier in there?’
‘He is, dear boy.’ The figure straightened up, and became a captain in a Very Famous Regiment who gazed past Audley at Fred and Kyriakos with mild astonishment. ‘Are these your prisoners? But, dear boy, they can’t be –they positively can’t be!’ The gaze, with one eyebrow delicately raised, flicked from Fred to Kyriakos, finally coming back to Fred. ‘He’s expecting a couple of desperadoes . . . But you’ve got a Sapper there . . . and I know that Sappers are notoriously eccentric . . . But this is preposterous –
quite preposterous!’ He returned to Audley, shaking his head.
‘He’s not at all pleased, I warn you, David, dear boy. I should run away if I were you –that’s what I’d do.’ His voice was quite conversational as he returned to Fred. ‘I admit that you look like one of ours . . . But are you?’
Before Fred could answer, or even open his mouth, Audley jumped in. ‘Of course he is! And you’re quite wrong, Amos: I’m just about to become quite p-p-p-pop-pop-pop –’
‘Pop-popular?’ The man’s eyes didn’t leave Fred. ‘I doubt it very much. But who am I to keep you from a posting to Burma?’ The eyes pinned Fred for another second, and then the languid captain smiled ruefully.
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‘It is evident that Mr Audley is not going to introduce us, captain.
So ... I am Amos de Souza, formerly of the Guards but now fallen upon hard times. But nonetheless at your service, captain.’
The man’s smile was as infectious as his good manners were comforting after the horrors of the last hour. ‘Fattorini – Brigade RE, Captain de Souza. Also fallen on hard times, apparently.’ He grinned at de Souza. ‘I wish I knew what was going on. Perhaps you can enlighten me?’
‘My dear fellow – I wish I could!’ The rueful smile twisted. Then de Souza frowned slightly and cocked his head. ‘Fattorini . . . not the banking Fattorinis, by any chance?’
Fred felt that he ought to be able to place the Guards de Souza, who had plainly been as anglicized over so many generations as the banking Fattorinis, and with blood that was even more blue.
But to his shame he couldn’t. ‘Yes, Captain de Souza.’
‘Ah!’ Captain de Souza didn’t bother to explain his own secret.
Instead he switched to Kyriakos. ‘And this gentleman?’
‘Michaelides – Captain.’ Kyriakos stopped there.
‘Yes?’ De Souza waited until he was sure nothing more was coming. ‘Regular Greek Army? Or National Guard?’ Suddenly Fred was aware of the seconds ticking away, as the Greek failed to rise to what was clearly intended as a provocation. Somewhere nearby Lieutenant Audley’s Brigadier must be fuming. And down the rocky path the RSM would be approaching those lorries and the slovenly Mendips like the wrath of God. And, without looking up, he knew those bloody birds would still be circling, waiting in vain dummy4
for the meal under those groundsheets which would now be denied them.
‘Neither, actually, old boy.’ Kyriakos drawled, packing all his years of British education into his accent. ‘Banking too, actually.’
‘Ah!’ Captain de Souza permitted himself a well-bred snigger.
‘Now I understand!’ He wagged a finger at Audley. ‘What a sly fellow you are – bagging a brace of bankers for the Brigadier! I really must stop underestimating you, David: you have the precious gift of luck which Napoloen Bonaparte admired so much, in preference to vulgar cleverness.’ He jerked his head towards the little arched doorway. ‘Go on, dear boy – go and take your gifts to him without delay. If you cheer him up we shall all be better off –
go on!’ He turned from Audley, favouring Fred and Kyriakos with the slightest of bows as he began moving towards the bodies. ‘And leave me to my ghoulish tasks . . . gentlemen, I confide that we may meet again in happier circumstances . . .’
Fred was torn between following de Souza and watching Audley bend almost double to enter the ruins. But then he remembered Kyriakos.
‘Are they all m – ?’ He bit off the word as the Greek shook his head, and followed the direction of his friend’s gaze instead.
Captain de Souza had thrown back the groundsheet from the body with the jackboots and was stripping it methodically.
‘ Mad?’ he whispered.
‘No!’ Kyriakos whispered back without looking at him. ‘Not mad.’
The languid captain from the Very Famous Regiment was dummy4
examining the corpse’s jacket with all the distaste of a man who knew from bitter experience that all andartes were flee-ridden and lousy. But his examination was nonetheless careful, pocket by pocket, seam by seam.
‘Not mad?’ He watched de Souza cast the jacket aside, and apply himself to one of the boots.
‘No!’ Kyriakos repeated the word out of the side of his mouth as de Souza unwound a piece of rag and then let the foot fall back to earth while he felt inside the boot.
Yuk – urch! Fred imagined the sweaty-clamminess of the inside of that boot. ‘What’s he doing?’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ murmured Kyriakos, almost contemptuously.
Captain de Souza added the boot to the jacket and pulled at the second boot, and went through the same process, letting the second dirty white foot fall back, jarring the corpse with a false shudder of life.
‘Good boots, those.’ The Greek turned to Fred suddenly. ‘Do you remember where we last saw boots like that? And a rag instead of socks?’
‘No.’ He watched the careful examination of the second boot before it joined its comrade. But as the slender, fastidious fingers began to unbutton the corpse’s fly-buttons he decided that he had had enough of de Souza’s duty, and could more usefully pick over the contents of Kyriakos’s brains. And that concentrated his memory. ‘Yes. That Russian officer – the liaison fellow we had to put to bed – ?’
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That’s right.‘ Kyriakos returned his attention to the corpse-stripping as he replied. ’So ... now you know, eh?‘ Something almost approaching a smile, albeit a terrible one, lifted half the Greek’s mouth, under his moustache. ’It’s actually very comforting, old boy.‘
‘Comforting – ?’ Against his will and better judgement, Fred’s attention was drawn back to de Souza’s duty. And, although he instantly regretted the impulse, he was hypnotically held by the image which comforted Kyriakos, of Captain de Souza emptying the trouser pockets first –scrutinizing their pathetic contents, and then throwing them on the already checked pile . . . clasp-knife, coins, filthy handkerchief – and then ripping at the lining savagely.
That was a skill his Guards regiment had never taught him, and those hairy white legs, and the raised shirt above them exposing the dark bush of pubic hair and genitals, had never been included in his Army Training Instructions. ‘Comforting?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Kyriakos was hardly listening to him: his fascination was absolute as the trousers joined the pile. Instead he murmured something in Greek, which Fred wouldn’t have understood even if he heard it.
‘What’s that – ?’ He couldn’t not look now, even if he hadn’t wanted to look, as de Souza straddled the body, and turned it over, face in the dirt, arms flopping obscenely as gravity shifted their dead weight. ‘What was that you said – ?’
‘I said . . . “Go on – do it properly!”’ Kyriakos paused, as de Souza began to do something so revolting that Fred couldn’t believe his eyes. ‘ Ah – that’s right!’