He accelerated ‘. . . God rest his black and shrivelled soul – like his black and shrivelled body – ’ He gave Fred a sidelong look ‘ – you know how you come out of a brewed-up Cromwell – ? About the size of a bloody chimpanzee, actually –’
‘But what have you actually been doing?’
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‘Ah . . . well, among other things, I’ve done a bit of scouting round the Teutoburg Forest, to see if any Roman artefacts have turned up here and there in the last few years, with the bombing and all that, as per my orders.’ Audley sat back as comfortably as he could in the confined space. ‘Not that there is anything here.
Because the Romans never settled here – or hereabouts: they just got massacred. And the local lads . . . alias the Cherusci, and the Chauci, and the Chattii, who were the German equivalent of the Sioux and the Black Feet and the other Red Indians . . . they all carried off the loot, rejoicing, just like the Indians did after General Custer had stood his Last Stand. So there wouldn’t be anything, would there?’ Another shrug. ‘All the good Roman stuff will have surfaced over on the other side of the Rhine – ’
‘Don’t play games with me, David.’
‘I’m not playing games. It’s the truth, Fred.’ Knowing at last that he was playing some sort of game, Audley played it innocently and well. ‘Those Germans in the picture I showed you – the picture I showed you when I thought you didn’t know what was happening . . .
they operated in Roman Germany, not here. But when we arrived back there in March, after we were pulled out of that Greek raid of ours, we did fuck-all most of the time. At least, I did. Because I was on transport.
And every time I got hold of a decent car, some senior dummy4
bastard took it off me. Like the egregious Crocodile did with my French car, for example. Which is why I ended up with this little dodge-’em – ‘ he caught his tongue quickly as he felt Major Fattorini stiffen beside him. ’All-right-all-right- all-right! So ... we were after the Jerries in the picture: is that what you want me to say?‘
‘You could start in Greece, David.’
‘ In Greece? God – that was the scene of our first debacle – ’ Audley swung the wheel to avoid an old woman in black who was pulling a cart round a heap of rubble regardless of him: they were on the edge of a ruined town now. ‘But you were there yourself, damn it!’
‘But what were we after?’ The lying ‘we’ had a distinctly bitter taste. But he had to keep the upper hand.
Audley took a breath. ‘I don’t see why I should tell you what you already know – and better than I do, too.’
‘Tell me, all the same. If you want the rest of it, David.’
‘Oh . . . shit!’ But the boy craned his neck again as they turned out of the ruins. ‘That’s another one – ? I think the MPs are all on strike today –’
‘ Tell me!’
‘Okay, okay! Clinton was trying to bring out one of his own men, is what I think now. Although all I knew dummy4
then was that we had to get him alive – and we didn’t.’
He looked at Fred. ‘Is that it?’
‘It is.’ After the stick, it was time for a carrot. ‘And that put him back almost three months, David.’
‘It did?’ Audley seized on the information eagerly.
‘We first got that picture in ... May, yes – ? That would be about three months.’
‘And what do the people in it have in common?’ He couldn’t resist the extra question.
‘Oh . . . that’s easy.’ The prospect of more answers dissolved Audley’s caution.
‘Yes?’
‘Not bloody Roman remains, for a start!’ Audley crashed the gears down joyfully as the car began to climb.
‘No?’
‘No!’ Audley tossed his head. ‘Colonel “Caesar Augustus” Colbourne may be a looney. But our Freddie isn’t into Roman history – no!’
Fred waited, half expectantly, but also somewhat irritated. Maybe it was the boy’s recent military experience, when he had been forced to listen to other people’s stupidities in obedient subaltern silence, which now invariably tempted him to hear his own voice saying clever things. But whatever the reason, if he were to remain a useful member of TRR-2 in the dummy4
future, he would have to learn to hide his bright light more prudently.
‘I got it wrong first, actually – ’ Audley steered the little car regardlessly across a succession of potholes in the track which had succeeded the road surface ‘ – not understanding about Greece, of course.’
‘You did?’
‘Yes.’ The mockery bounced off Audley’s arrogance.
‘I thought . . . “cushy billet, those Jerries have got for themselves – pottering round the ruins of all the old German cities . . . Roman cities, rather: Confluentes, Moguntiacum, Colonla Claudia Ara Agrippinensis . . .
picking up this and that after the fires had cooled down, and after their ARP people had carted off the bodies, and long after the jolly old RAF had departed –
a real cushy billet!’ He pulled the car to a halt off the track under a stand of great beech trees through which a bright green meadow was visible, falling away on their right. ‘Very German of course, all the same. Great scholarship as well as great military prowess – too damn great military prowess for my liking . . . But great scholars too, they are. And they’ve always been fascinated with classical history – hence all the famous stuff in their museums. And hence that Roman fort we were billeted in, and the one the Kaiser rebuilt on the same line . . . and that bloody great statue in the woods not far from here . . . So it was a damn good cover, as dummy4
well as a cushy billet –but cover for what, eh?’ Audley stared at him for an instant, then began to unwind himself out of his seat.
Fred followed suit, staring through the trees as he stretched his legs. Not far ahead there seemed to be a great grey cliff rising up from the grass of a wide forest clearing.
‘ Nazis, I thought – ’ Audley towered over the car ‘ –
bloody Nazis taking cover in a nice, respectable job, hoping that we wouldn’t look for them in Roman Germany, dressed in scholars’ gowns. At least, that would be their second line of defence, anyway, if we did trace them. Because it was pretty clear they’d all dispersed and gone to ground long before we appeared on the scene. Which meant they knew they had something to hide.’ Audley pointed towards the cliff.
‘Shall we walk? The RV is just down the track from here, by the rocks – ’ He looked at his watch ‘ – but we’re still in good time.’
Fred fell into slow step beside him.
‘But then we started to uncover facts as well as names and dates. And then it didn’t seem to work so well, my theory. Because some of them really were pretty distinguished scholars and not Nazis at all. Like old Professor Schmidt, for example. And Langer, who was at Oxford. Although he wasn’t a classicist, or an archaeologist. He was a very smart scientist, so I dummy4
discovered – quite by accident . . . And Enno von Mitzlaff – he was an archaeologist, young and up-and-coming. And then he was a damn good soldier, until he lost his arm in the desert. But he wasn’t a Nazi – he certainly wasn’t a Nazi, by God!’
Audley was looking at the cliff now. And yet, it wasn’t a cliff: it was an extraordinary limestone outcrop ... or, rather, a series of outcrops, some rising up like great blunt fingers into the grey morning sky above the forest.