“Our country, right or wrong” with him, so he landed up on the right side by accident-of-birth, you might say.’ The terrible mirthless smile returned. ‘Up until August ’39 he always half suspected that I was a damned Red. But then Stalin made his pact with Hitler, and he gave me the benefit of the doubt after that. And, in a queer way, he was quite right of course – as well as being quite wrong. Quite wrong, that is, because I’m not a patriot, major. You may choose to insult me in any way you like, but I’d be obliged if you would avoid making that mistake.‘
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They had got past 1937, to reach 1940. But now they seemed to have returned to 1939; the truth was that Fred didn’t know where he was, except that he wasn’t in the real world of 1945 any more.
‘The best news I ever heard was the German-Soviet Pact in ’39.‘ Clinton was so wrapped up in his own unpatriotism that he missed Fred’s quiet desperation.
’Both the Beasts of Spain were suddenly on the same side, which I’d never hoped for in my wildest dreams.‘
He turned away from Fred and Hermann both, to look out into a gap between the trees, over the dull grey-green German landscape. ’Of course, I was younger then, and I didn’t realize how far the rot had gone in France. And I thought the Americans would be pulled in sooner than they were, so that we’d be back in 1918
before long . . . Foolish! Foolish! The old idiocy of making pictures of what I wanted to see!‘ He swung back to Fred unexpectedly, catching him with his mouth open. ’But you went to America in 1937, and not to Spain as some of your friends wanted you to do?
Now . . . why was that, major? New York instead of Barcelona. And the Grand Tetons instead of the Ebro –
why?‘
Why – ?
There had been a ferment then, not just in Oxford, but with the word coming from Cambridge and elsewhere, as that summer term had ended. But then Uncle Luke dummy4
had appeared out of nowhere, with his membership of Vincent’s Club and held in surprising esteem there, on the basis of some great and unexpected Oxford sporting triumph over The Other Place in the distant past, which was still remembered by the Steward as a famous victory.
‘Actually, it was my uncle – Uncle Luke.’ At such short notice, and with his back to Hermann, Fred could only present the truth by way of an explanation. ‘He’d got an invitation from the Schusters for me.’ But that wasn’t the whole truth; and he owed that to himself too in retrospect, as well as to Uncle Luke. ‘We talked a bit about Spain, actually – ’ But, when it came to the crunch he couldn’t bring himself to go further than that. ‘I don’t really remember much of it.’ He could only shrug now. ‘But . . . he’s a persuasive old devil.’
‘He told you to keep your powder dry. He said it took five minutes to put cannon-fodder into the line, but nine months to train an infantryman who wasn’t a danger to others as well as himself – and eighteen months for second-lieutenant. By which time the war would be over. So if you wished for a useful death as well as a glorious one, you might as well join the OTC, and then the TA, and get your degree meanwhile. And then there’d be plenty for you to do, wearing the right uniform at the right time, in the right place.’
That was exactly what Uncle Luke had said. But dummy4
Brigadier Frederick Clinton couldn’t have been there in Vincent’s that night, either as himself or as a fly on the wall, because he had been in Spain. So that pointed to an almost-certainty, because there had been only one other person there halfways sober enough to recall those words so accurately. ‘You’ve talked to him –
obviously – ? Uncle Luke, I mean? About me?’
‘Talked to him? My dear Fred . . . your “Uncle Luke”
and I go back longer than the odd talk about you! Don’t you know that the Fattorini Brothers have useful Spanish contacts – just as they have a hand in Colonel Michaelides’ Balkan Mercantile Bank, and the so-called “Aegean Mutual Trust” – ?’ Clinton stopped as he saw Fred’s face. ‘You must forgive me. I’m sorry – ’
‘Don’t be.’ Feeling foolish in a retrospect stretching back to the late 1930s might well be a burden the Brigadier could bear now. But his own failure to put two-and-two together was of a much more recent date, and its taste was bitter. ‘I think – ’
‘No. I spoke out of turn. And that was unpardonable –
quite unpardonable.’ After sharply pulling rank with that first interruption, Clinton seemed almost embarrassed. ‘Besides which ... I would not have you think ill of your Uncle Luke, of all men.’
‘I don’t.’ A small revenge offered itself. ‘You couldn’t make me do that. . . sir.’
‘Good! I’m relieved to hear it.’ Clinton’s confidence dummy4
and authority returned instantly: he sounded more relieved by Fred’s sound judgement than by the news that there was nothing to forgive.
‘But I am a little surprised that you didn’t mention him the first time we met, though.’ Fred decided to push his luck. ‘You gave me quite a hard time in Greece, I seem to remember. “Gallivanting in hostile territory without a thought” – was that it? And you never said you knew my uncle.’
‘No.’ Clinton gave him a hard look. ‘Your Uncle Luke is a remarkable man in his way, major. A good man, even.’
That was no answer. ‘I know that he’s a good banker.’
The lack of answer had been contemptuous. But that somehow goaded him into wondering where else the old firm had ‘useful contacts’. Rome, certainly . . .
But . . . Berlin? And Moscow? ‘And you like bankers –
I know that, too.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘Does it matter?’ What mattered suddenly was that all the ramifications of the Fattorini Brothers in general, and the Brigadier’s long-time friendship with Sir Luke Fattorini in particular, accounted for the involvement of the unfortunate ci-devant Captain Frederick Fattorini in this murky business, thought Fred. Or, when added to the pure mischance of his own friendship with Kyri, dummy4
it did . . . Except that, even there Uncle Luke and the old firm were at the heart of the accident too. So ... was he never to have free will – even to be a victim?
‘It was that young blackguard Audley!’ Clinton came up with his own correct answer. ‘I’ll bet it was!’
‘Does it matter?’ Fred came to the point of decision not so much to save Audley as to assert and save himself.
‘You’re quite right, of course – about Uncle Luke, I mean.’ He paused for a fraction of a second. ‘But you’re also wrong.’
The possibility that he could be wrong about anything that he didn’t already know of brought the Brigadier up short. ‘What d’you mean, major?’
That had saved Audley. Now he had to save himself.
‘He did talk to me in Vincent’s – he was afraid I might go to Spain, of course.’
‘With Sebastian Cavendish – yes?’ Clinton asserted his own knowledge cruelly. ‘Who was killed on the Ebro –
uselessly.’
‘With Bassie Cavendish.’ There would have been a time when he would have hit the bastard for that, Brigadier or not. ‘And I regretted not going for a long time after that. Almost . . . almost until very recently, actually. And then I remembered something else Uncle Luke said . . . which, in a way, you’ve also said now, you see.’
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The Brigadier plainly didn’t see. (So Uncle Luke’s memory of that night in Vincent’s hadn’t been quite word-perfect, then!) But this time Clinton had the wit not to interrupt.
‘I didn’t much like what was happening in Greece, sir.
Not even after I’d realized that the Communists had always planned it that way . . . only, they hadn’t bargained on us fighting them. But . . . but, anyway, they’d planned to make a clean sweep of the other side.