‘Did they?’ De Souza stared up the path. ‘I wonder, now.’
Fred followed the man’s stare. The RSM had dismissed Audley’s men, and was now standing alone at the top of the track, studying the circumference of his world in a series of jerky movements, as though his head were fixed immovably on his neck.
‘Almost everything we’ve done in the past hasn’t gone right,’ said de Souza softly. ‘We’ve found men who couldn’t help us much – and we’ve lost the ones who could. But this time we were very clever, and we got our man. But, what I’ve been thinking is ... perhaps that was what someone intended we should do. And that makes you very vulnerable in this place this morning – if it’s true. So today I have taken certain extra precautions, without orders.’
A cold hand squeezed Fred’s guts. ‘Is that why – ’ But then the sharp snap-crunch of the RSM’s hobnailed boots on the broken road surface silenced him.
‘ Sah! ’ Having stamped himself to attention, the RSM
scorned any further explanation of a completed order.
‘Thank you, Mr Levin.’ De Souza accepted this information.
‘Arrgh-hmm!’ The RSM cleared his throat formally, dummy4
but did not withdraw.
‘Yes, Mr Levin?’ De Souza interpreted this signal interrogatively.
‘ Sah! There are two persons now approaching in the distance – civilian persons – upon the roadway, from the direction of Detmold. German civilians, I take them to be, by their dress.’ Faint disapproval crept into the RSM’s voice, as though tatterdemalion natives really had no right to disturb the British Liberation Army in its lawful business in the Teutoburgerwald this grey August morning. ‘They appear to be in no hurry . . .
sah.’
Fred looked up the path. From where the RSM had stood he would have had a good clear view.
‘Arrgh-hmm!’ The RSM cleared his throat again.
‘Shall I now attend to Captain Audley . . . sah?’
‘Attend?’ Fred’s attention snapped back to de Souza.
‘What d’you mean “attend”?’
‘Do that, Mr Levin.’ De Souza nodded. ‘Disarm him and bring him up here.’
‘ Sah.’ The RSM stamped a backward pace before moving forward again.
‘What the blazes – ?’ Fred didn’t need to act any part.
‘Merely a precaution.’ De Souza raised a soothing hand. ‘You can rely on the RSM to be as civil as the circumstances permit. He has his orders. And young dummy4
David is used to obeying him . . . And there’ll be a gun on him now if he isn’t quite what we’ve taken him to be, all these months.’
Fred stared at the RSM’s fast-receding ramrod back.
Typically, the RSM carried an issue-Sten, rather than the more exotic foreign weapon.
‘I hope I’m wrong, Major Fattorini. But if I’m not . . .
then it has to be someone inside the unit,’ murmured de Souza. ‘I’ve known something wasn’t right . . . oh, for a long time, I suppose.’ He sighed. ‘But ... it goes against the grain, rather. Because they are all Clinton’s picked men, after all.’
The cold hand inside Fred squeezed even harder. If Audley was right about Amos de Souza . . . then things were going wrong before they had a chance to do so in a way Clinton had intended them to do, and in a manner which neither of them had foreseen. But he still couldn’t be sure of that, so he must still play the game.
‘All except Audley.’ He turned deliberately back to de Souza.
‘All except Audley.’ But de Souza echoed him without nodding. ‘Except that I don’t think he’s our man, actually. Even though he fits well enough – and he’s a smart boy, I would agree.’
‘He fits ... well enough?’ Watching de Souza was more important than watching the boy’s humiliation. ‘All the dummy4
way from Greece, you mean?’
‘Yes. And he’s a bit too thick with the man Schild, who is really a most equivocal character.’ De Souza’s voice tightened. ‘And whose whereabouts I do not at this precise moment know, as it happens.’
‘But . . . isn’t Otto Schild the Colonel’s man?’ A faint echo of Schild’s Teutoburg song came nastily to mind.
‘In a sense – yes. But he’s also not what he seems, the RSM says.’
‘I thought he was ... a butcher – a civilian butcher – ?’
‘A butcher, maybe. But Mr Levin thinks not a civilian one.’
Colbourne, thought Fred. And this was his place – the Externsteine! ‘Where is the Colonel this morning?’
De Souza’s lip curled slightly. ‘He’s seeing a man about a plane – an RAF spotter-plane, at Gutersloh – to try and spot Roman marching camps east and south-east of here. Which I gather was your idea, major?’
The lip tightened. ‘I lent him my driver, as a matter of fact. Just to make sure.’
Everything was going wrong – one way or the other.
‘And . . . the other officers – M’Corquodale?
Kenworthy – ?’ De Souza looked past him suddenly, up the tracks again. ‘Don’t worry, major. The RSM has this place well staked-out, by arrangement with the Military Police and our local Fusilier battalion. So your dummy4
civilians have got in easily enough. But they won’t get out unless you are accompanying them, believe me – ’
He straightened up perceptibly. ‘And now here they are, anyway. So I take it you’d rather I withdrew somewhat, while you have your little chat? Would that make you feel more at ease?’
Not de Souza? Fred could no longer make his mind up there; only, although he experienced a certain amount of satisfaction about that, it was instantly swallowed up by the realization that, if he was innocent, then Amos had nevertheless very likely ruined Clinton’s plans with his over-intelligent innocence, by scaring off whoever wasn’t innocent with his unscheduled precautions.
‘That might be advisable, Amos.’ His mind raced ahead, trying to predict how their unknown traitor might adjust to this new situation. In such a last resort, all that was left was an ambush on the way back to Schwartzenburg Castle – which had always been a dangerous possibility in the back of Clinton’s mind.
‘The sooner we’re away from here, the better.’
Amos de Souza nodded. ‘I couldn’t agree more.’ He glanced around quickly. ‘This is a damn stupid spot for a meeting. I don’t know what’s got into the Brigadier today – it isn’t like him . . .’ He came back to Fred.
And nodded again. ‘But don’t worry. Because Mr Levin and I will watch your backs here as best we can.
dummy4
And Mr Levin has arranged a sufficient escort to pick you up just down the road to take Number 16 back safely after that.’
‘Yes?’ That was the final irony: Amos had thought everything through, to amend his superior’s defective planning. And not de Souza was certain now, since he would hardly have needed to do as much, even apart from this otherwise risky warning, if he had been the traitor. ‘Well . . . thank you.’
‘Okay.’ Amos looked over his shoulder, at the fast-approaching figures of David Audley and the RSM.
‘And Audley – ?’
Audley’s outraged voice arrived before Fred could answer. ‘ Fred –’
‘Hold on, David.’ He was simultaneously aware of the two Germans hovering discreetly, and of the RSM
behind Audley, just as discreetly trying to hide whatever he had used to disarm the boy. And of Audley himself, his ugly features aflame with anger and humiliation.
‘ But, Fred– ’ The outrage became almost plaintive.
‘Shut up, David.’ At least Audley’s face wasn’t white with fear, as his own might have been: it was ugly with rage! ‘Thank you, Amos – Mr Levin . . . But you stay here, David.’