Roche shivered involuntarily at such a deliberate foot-fall on his grave, but before he could react to it Audley turned towards him.
"My dear fellow! Forgive me—I shouldn't have said that, to you of all people!" He raised his hand to forestall a reply.
"And when I should be grateful, too! Quite unpardonable!"
"Grateful?" Roche stumbled on a tussock, almost measuring his length.
"That's right." Audley caught his arm to steady him. "Aren't you about to tell me that you'll put in a good word for me up above, with your controller—or whatever they call them now?
That I'm ready and willing? That I've seen the error of my ways? That they won't ever again have recourse to Section Nine—or Section Ten, or whatever it is today?"
"Section Nine?" managed Roche.
"Or whatever. It was Section Nine in the 1914 Manual of Military Law I inherited. Of course, they never actually dummy5
threw it at me, not in '46... but it was an awful thing I did—
they must have felt like M'Turk did in Stalky, when Colonel Dabney's keeper took a shot at the vixen: 'It's the ruin of good feelin' among neighbours—it's worse than murder'. And quite right too, they were, that's the pity of it."
Somehow the opening Roche had expected seemed to be eluding him. "But I don't see what was so terrible, about refusing in the way you did—"
"You don't? Then you damn well ought to!" Audley had no mercy on himself. "It was the moment of truth, and I fluffed it. It's . . . it's like the specimen charge in the back of the Manual, for Section Nine: The accused, Captain D. L. Audley
—name, rank, number and regiment. . . how do the words go?
—is charged with, when on active service, disobeying a lawful order given personally to him by his superior officer in the execution of his office—I think I've left out something about 'disobeying in such a manner as to show a wilful defiance of authority'. . ."
"But you didn't disobey anyone—you refused to come back in, that's all," interrupted Roche quickly.
"I refused in '51." Audley raised a finger. "I disobeyed in a wilfully defiant manner in '46 ... when personally ordered to take up his rifle and fall in did not do so, saying 'You may do what you please, I will soldier no more' —and that's exactly what I told them . . . I'll soldier no more! " Audley threw him another of his characteristic half-bitter, half-mocking smiles.
"For them—the unpardonable crime. So don't waste your dummy5
time with me, old boy," concluded Audley. "I'm out. And that's that."
No," said Roche. "You're quite wrong."
Audley looked at him again, sidelong, one eyebrow raised, which seemed to split his expression into two, half of it curious to know why he was wrong, the other half contemptuous of that possibility.
"They want you back," said Roche. "That's why I'm here."
The raised eyebrow dropped back into position, but otherwise the man's face suddenly became blank, as though shutters had been lowered behind his eyes.
"They want you back," repeated Roche.
Audley took two or three more paces, and then stopped so abruptly that Roche's own stride carried him on down the hillside for two more, and he had to check himself and swing round.
"Oh yes?" said Audley, and his voice was as blank as his expression. "Third time lucky." Roche was reminded of what Oliver St. John Latimer had said about Audley; and then it occurred to him that although he had been thinking of the man in Jekyll-and-Hyde terms, perhaps only now was he witnessing the true Hyde metamorphosis. "Oh yes?" Audley looked through him.
Latimer was right, yet he mustn't let that daunt him. It was the Hyde-Audley he wanted, not the Jekyll-Audley or the self-pitying show-off from last night.
dummy5
But he couldn't afford to jolly the Hyde-Audley—that had been an error. He must take the whip to the Hyde-Audley.
"Does the name Avery mean anything to you?"
Avery?"
"Sir Eustace Avery."
Audley shook his head. "Never heard of him."
Clinton, then?"
Audley studied him for a long moment, then he relaxed his mouth into some sort of smile. Stage Two with Audley would be when he realised that to show no expression at all might be identified as a sign of weakness, and although he couldn't control his eyes he could do something with his lips.
"Colonel-Frederick-Clinton." Audley worked on his face to give it back to Jekyll. As with Genghis Khan, that name wasn't just ringing one bell, but a tocsin strong enough to shake the bell-tower. "Yes, I remember him. He was one of the organ-grinders . . . and I was one of the monkeys. I remember him—yes. "Audley nodded. "I remember him. . .
rather well."
Good. Now—"
"You are one of his monkeys, is that it?"
This wouldn't do at all, to have Audley remembering the dark past when he should be rejoicing in the happy present and the exciting future.
"There's a new department being formed, Audley. I'm here to offer you a place in it. A senior place. In fact—"
dummy5
" You. . . are saying that he . . .wants me. . . back?"
"Sir Eustace Avery—"
"Bugger Sir Eustace-bloody-A very! Clinton wants me back?"
It had been a mistake to let the big man get above him on the hillside; with the extra couple of inches he had on the level he towered over Roche now. Roche set his teeth. "I told you.
There's a new department starting up—"
Bugger the new department too! You asked me if I remembered Colonel Frederick Clinton—Colonel Frederick J.
Clinton—J for Joseph— Joseph of the coat-of-many-colours, that's what I remember. So ... why does he want me?"
The trouble with that, thought Roche, was that it was a very fair question. "He scares you, does he?" He recalled Genghis Khan's sarcasm.
"Yes. He does." Audley brushed the gambit aside.
"You've changed your tune since last night. If I recollect correctly—"
“No! I haven't moved an inch. Last night Mahomet wanted to go to the mountain. But now the mountain has come to Mahomet. And Mahomet mistrusts miracles, Captain Roche
—that's all."
Roche lost his last doubts about David Audley, and about Clinton and Avery at the same time. Last night had made it a little too easy, like another miracle—which he also ought to have mistrusted. But Clinton had known, even in knowing that Audley was wide-open for recruitment, that it wouldn't dummy5
be so easy.
"Or, shall we say ..." Audley started, and then trailed off "...
shall we say that I'm beginning to put things together?
Things . . . and people?"
Now that he thought about it, Roche understood that Audley was running exactly true to form, and that any other reaction would have been out of character. So what he would expect in return was the authentic crack of Clinton's whip. Nothing else would do.
"We want the papers d'Auberon gave you for safe-keeping, naturally."
“Of course!" Audley's smile acknowledged. "And that's my dowry, isn't it? I sell you 'Tienne—my old friend 'Tienne—you know all about him, naturally!"
Roche nodded. The truth was that he didn't know enough about any of them for safety, but there was no time left for the normal precautions, only for half-truth and bluff.
"Naturally."
"You know he saved my bacon?" Audley came back to him from miles I away. "You know ... I was stuck in the middle of France in '44—and wet behind the ears, and hotter than a chestnut in a charcoal brazier . . . But 'Tienne helped to get me out, via the good Madame Peyrony and her private army.