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‘No –’
‘No. His name was on a bullet, not a pill.’ Fred was simultaneously pleased and ashamed of passing himself off as a hardened veteran.
‘So what?’
‘Ah!’ Kyriakos pounced on him. ‘But you have missed the point, old man – missed it by a mile – ’ As he spoke, David Audley ducked out from the little doorway again‘ –by a mile!’ He repeated the distance for Audley’s benefit. ‘Would you not agree, Mr Audley, David?’
‘How’s that again – by a mile?’ David blinked at him. ‘Missed ...
the point? What point?’
‘Your Russian friend, old man.’ Kyriakos gestured towards the line of corpses without disengaging his attention from Audley.
Audley followed the gesture and grimaced, his natural ugliness contorted by whatever Captain de Souza was now doing. But then, as he came back to them, his face composed itself into tell-tale innocence. ‘Russian? Well –that’s news to me, Captain Michaelides. But . . . friend – whoever he was, he was no friend of mine, so far as I am aware.’ Much too late, the false innocence became polite enquiry. ‘What point would that be, which Captain Fattorini – or Fat-O’Rhiney – has missed by a mile?’
Kyriakos’s white teeth showed below his moustache. ‘You didn’t shoot him. Friend or enemy, you didn’t shoot him.’
‘No?’ The innocence increased. ‘Yes – well, you’re right. Because I certainly didn’t shoot him, Captain Michaelides. But then I am notoriously incapable of shooting people. Given a large enough dummy4
gun, in a tank, I can sometimes hit buildings, though. In fact, I once demolished an entire church, you know.’
‘I didn’t mean you, old man.’ Kyriakos gestured dismissively.
‘No?’ Audley came back quickly, with an edge to his voice.
‘But . . . well, I can tell you, captain, that our chaps are damn good, even if I’m not.’ He nodded at the corpse line, and then frowned at the Greek. ‘The bastards got three good men with their first burst.
But that’s because they must have got wind of us. And that’s all they got – all the rest were ours. And our chaps deserve the credit for it, I’d say.’
Fred started to warm to the young man, but then remembered the Greek’s warning and that falsely innocent expression. So all Audley was doing was drawing Kyriakos out in his own way, most likely.
‘No. Not all.’ Suddenly Kyriakos spoke mildly, without emphasis.
‘Your chaps didn’t shoot your Russian friend. Not unless they shoot other . . . chaps ... in the back of the neck.’ He paused.
‘Which I’m sure they don’t – being decent chaps.’ Mild still. ‘And certainly not on this occasion.’ Cold, hard voice, suddenly: the voice of Captain Michaelides Mark II. ‘Because your Russian –
friendly or unfriendly to you, old man . . . he was shot by his own side, from behind.’ If possible, the voice became harder and colder.
‘These last few weeks I’ve seen quite a lot of wounds like that, courtesy of Hellenikos Laikos Apelefteroikos Stratos . . . and some understandable reprisals by the men I have the honour of trying to command, I’m sorry to say.’ The voice was ultimately frozen now.
‘So I know what a man’s face looks like when he’s been shot in the dummy4
back of the neck while lying down. So do not argue with me, lieutenant.’
Fred stared at Kyriakos. He had started off watching the young dragoon, to see how he reacted to the Greek’s mild disagreement.
But then Captain Michaelides Mark II had taken over. And finally, at the last, it hadn’t been Captain Michaelides Mark II either: it had been a complete stranger.
For a moment Audley didn’t reply, which drew Fred back to him to observe what he felt might well be a mirror-image of his own expression, although on a very different face.
‘I w-w-wouldn’t dream of arguing with you, Captain M-Mmm – ’
Audley shook his head and scowled as his impediment got the better of him. ‘You can g-g . . . go and argue with the B-B-B – ’
‘I will do just that, yes.’ The Greek drew himself up.
‘In there – ’ Audley pointed towards the low doorway in the ruins ‘
– he’s w-waiting to mmm-meet you both.’ He tore his attention from the Greek to Fred, and instantly relaxed. ‘I’ve told him all about you, and he’s jolly keen to make your acquaintance, he says.
And – ’ The boy just managed to avoid looking at Kyriakos again ‘
– and the good news is that I’m to find you some transport, if possible – ’
‘No,’ said Kyriakos.
They both looked at him.
‘I shall go and see the Brigadier by myself first.’ Kyriakos ignored Audley. ‘Im sorry, old boy. But that’s the way it is. Because this happens to be my country.’
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He gave Fred a nod, and then ducked into the doorway without another word.
‘And he’s b-b-bloody welcome to it, if you ask me,’ murmured Audley. Then he looked inquiringly at Fred. ‘Bloody Greek Secret Police!’ Then he frowned. ‘And he’s a friend of yours – ?’
‘Yes.’ It was true. Or it had been true.
‘And you really did break down – and all that?’
The innocent look was back. And if Kyriakos hadn’t warned him he would have believed it. But now he didn’t believe either of them. ‘Yes.’
Audley breathed in deeply. ‘Well . . . you’ve got some funny friends, then. So you’d better watch out, if you ask me – if you’re stuck here.’ He breathed out slowly. Thank God we’re posted elsewhere after this, to where the real war is! Not that we’ll see much of it, more’s the pity!‘ He grinned at Fred. ’I never thought I’d ever say that, you know!‘
Was he being led on? Fred wondered. ‘What d’you mean – “the real war”?’ If he was, then he’d be safer among questions than answers.
Audley glanced nervously at the doorway. ‘Well . . . this isn’t the real war, is it?’ The glance came back to Fred, but then went past him, towards whatever Captain de Souza might be doing now, if he was still at work among the bodies behind them; but whether he was or wasn’t, Fred wasn’t tempted to find out. Yet he felt the presence of the dead at his back nevertheless.
This isn’t war – ?‘ He almost felt that he was putting the question dummy4
on behalf of those nearby who could no longer ask it.
Audley shrugged. ‘If it is, then it’s a different kind of war. And don’t ask me what kind.’ Then he looked past Fred again. ‘An “in-the-back-of-the-neck” war? A most unkind war, I’d call that – eh?’
PART TWO
The Unkind War
On the Roman Frontier,
Germany, August 6, 1945
I
The moment he set eyes on the driver, Fred was sure that he’d seen him before somewhere, sometime. But then, in the next moment, he knew that it couldn’t be so. And it wasn’t just one of those tricks which the very anonymity of uniform perversely played on occasion: it was a simple case of wish-fulfilment brought on by intense loneliness. For nothing, not even changing boarding-schools (and certainly not leaving home itself), was more inner-desolation making than being torn untimely from the bosom of one’s own unit, and from long-time friends and comrades. He had started to feel it in the very second that the adjutant had shown him the order, this loneliness. And he had felt himself as utterly forlorn and abandoned as Alexander Selkirk on his desert island among dummy4