‘And soldiers.’
‘And soldiers. But you are no longer a soldier.’
‘I’m not?’ Fred looked down on himself, past his tarnished brasses and crumpled and muddy battledress trousers to his disgracefully dirty boots. It was true that he looked unsoldierly: he hadn’t looked as dishevelled as this since Italy. Or, at least, since Osios Konstandios. ‘Aren’t I?’
‘You still wear the uniform. But that’s only because it suits the time and the place. And me, of course.
Civilians don’t have much clout here in Germany. But that will change very soon. And when it does, then you will change.’
Fred looked up again. Things were already changing, but they were doing so far too fast, from a taken-for-granted present to an indefinite future which threatened to stretch even beyond the war’s far off and bloody end dummy4
in Japan sometime next year, if they were lucky.
‘So there are no King’s Regulations between us now,’
Clinton continued before he could speak. ‘And no Rules of War or Geneva Conventions either. Nothing but our bargain, freely entered into on both sides –
“bargain” is also your uncle’s word. But the exact word doesn’t matter so long as we both understand its meaning.’
‘But . . . I’m not sure that I do understand it.’ Fred’s voice sounded thick to his ears. ‘Whatever the word may be.’
‘In what respect do you not?’
Fred cleared his throat. ‘The war must end soon.’
‘Very soon.’ Clinton shook his head. ‘But our war will not end soon.’
Our war? ‘I have a Release Number which says mine will.’
‘You have no Release Number any more – as of this moment.’
This time he wasn’t going to say that he didn’t understand. ‘But . . . you said I am “a free man”. How do I exercise my freedom?’
‘Very simply.’ Clinton undid the top button of his battledress blouse and drew a long buff-coloured envelope from his inside pocket. ‘This is my side of the bargain, major. It contains a special release from His dummy4
Majesty’s service, properly signed and officially stamped. Your demobilization papers, in fact – go on, major – take it!’
Fred’s right hand refused to move. Instead he felt his good fingers clench into a palm which was unaccountably sweating.
‘Go on – take it.’ Clinton sounded almost dismissive.
‘Have you got a pen?’
‘A pen – ?’ The envelope seemed to hang in the air between them.
‘It’s undated. So if there comes a day when you cannot obey my orders, then all you have to do is date it from that day. All my officers have a similar document –
except young David Audley of course.’
Of course? The words repeated themselves stupidly inside Fred’s brain. But, then, young Audley had said he was an exception to all the rules, of course.
‘The King hasn’t had his money’s worth out of that boy yet. And neither have I.’ Clinton paused. ‘But for the rest ... I have no uses for any man who has no use for me. For my work I need free men, nothing else will serve. Otherwise I cannot do the work and neither can they. And, also, I should very soon become a mirror-image of my enemy. And then the work would not be worth doing.’
The envelope was still in mid-air. And Fred was dummy4
remembering that old feeble joke, which he’d first heard in 1939, on Salisbury Plain, and thereafter at intervals, through bitter Italian winters and the last time in a gun-pit within sight of the Acropolis in Athens on Christmas Day (the real Christmas Day, not Scobiemas) –
‘ There was this squaddie, see ... an’ ‘e’d ’ad enough . . . an‘ ’e reckoned to work ‘is ticket by pretendin’ ‘e was a looney –’
(‘He’s mad,’ David Audley had said; and ‘All my officers are mad,’ Colonel Colbourne had replied – )
‘ – so ev’ryfink ’e touches, or picks up ... ‘ e sez “No!
That’s not it!” Like it might be ’is rifle, or ‘is boots, or
’is bleedin‘ mess-tin – ’e sez “No! That’s not it” . . .
Until, in the end, after the doc ‘ad seen ’im, an‘ the padre an’ all, they reckoned that ‘e really was a looney
– ’
(And, also, hadn’t Clinton himself said: ‘All sappers are mad’? –)
‘ – so they give ’im ‘is discharge. An’, as ‘e grabs it, ’e sez: “Gor‘ blimey! THAT’S IT!”’
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It had never been very funny, that joke – and not least because it had always been told and re-told in situations of extreme unfunniness. But it had never been more unfunny than now, as he stretched out and accepted the long-dreamed-of manumission.
‘Why do I need a pen?’ He heard himself reject his freedom even as he touched it, as though from far away.
‘It’s August 7th today.’ The Brigadier re-buttoned his blouse with his newly-freed hand. ‘You can date it from today if you wish. Although Major de Souza will have to process it, and arrange transport. But that will only be a formality, for he has all the necessary Army Instructions to hand.’
The bloody man was so bloody-sure of himself that Fred was tempted for a fraction of a second to put him to the test. But then he remembered that his pen was dry, and he’d lost his indelible pencil. And it would be no joke to face Amos de Souza, who possessed the same document, even as a joke, anyway – any more than he could face Uncle Luke if it hadn’t been, damn him – damn him, and damn them all!
He transferred the envelope to his good left hand and began to fumble with his own top button, forcing his clumsy promoted second finger to do its new work in default of its useless superior.
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‘So – ’ It pleased him absurdly that his bad hand obeyed him faultlessly with the Brigadier watching it ‘
– what are my first orders then . . . Freddie?’
The Brigadier stopped watching his hand and met his eyes. But now, at least, he was truly ready for that steel to rasp down his own. Which was wonderfully more exciting than anything which had happened to him for a very long time –
‘Good.’ Clinton seemed to take his victory for granted, without pleasure. ‘But they’re not simple ones. You may not like them.’
Fred felt the weight of the envelope inside his blouse, against his heart. ‘That doesn’t surprise me one bit.’
All he had to do was think of that weight as freedom –
then he could accept it. Because freedom ought to be heavier than servitude. ‘Who are you hunting now?’
Clinton’s stare became blank. ‘What makes you think I’m hunting anyone?’
Fred knew he was right. ‘Kyri – Colonel Michaelides ... he said you were a man-hunter. Isn’t that what TRR-2 has been doing: hunting Germans?’
‘Yes.’ Clinton paused. ‘But I am not hunting a German now, major. It’s an Englishman I want now, I’m sorry to say.’
PART FOUR
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The Price of Freedom
In the Teutoburg Forest,
Germany, August 8, 1945
1
Down in the castle courtyard below, someone started singing in a high, sweet voice, quite destroying Fred’s concentration in an instant.
‘Als die Romer frech geworden,
Zogen sie nach Deutschlands Norden,
Vorne beim Trompetenschwall
Ritt der Generalfeldmarschall,
Herr Quinctilius Varus – ’