even Bill had been worried—
"Have another drink—to your next report on the incidence of scurvy in the French Mediterranean Fleet, say? The Froggies may hate us now—and the Yanks may distrust us even more than before—and the rest of the world may despise us for being a third-rate bunch of paper-hangers . . . but I can play Dr Pangloss to your Candide, young David, for this is still the best of all possible worlds, and I feared very much that it wasn't going to be—I was very worried that it wouldn't be!"
"What d'you mean, Bill?"
"I mean, young David, that we are alive and drinking, and not taking part in the Third World War—Leibnitz was right, and Voltaire was wrong. So I shall retire and teach dummy5
metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology in my old age, like Pangloss. Because, for our sins, we have been delivered from war and pestilence and famine—but chiefly war."
"War?"
"Ah—but of course you've been away, on that smart course of yours—so you missed all the fun. Suez saved us, young David
—Suez and Hungary together! So it was all for the best in this best-of-all-possible-worlds."
"How, for God's sake, Bill?"
"Why, very simply, dear boy. If there hadn't been any Suez—
if Hungary had blown up when everything was sweetness and light between us and the Americans—us and the French and the Americans . . . with what those CIA fellows were up to in Budapest—Christ! It could have been Poland in '39
again!. . . . Instead of which we took our chance at Suez, and offended the Yanks . . . and left the Russians a free hand in Hungary, thank God! But it was much too close for comfort, the Third World War. Much too close!"
"Over Hungary, Bill? Not over Suez?"
"Who'd want to die for Suez? Not the Russians. But they would have fought us over Hungary, no question—it's the one thing they're bound to fight over, to hold that frontier of theirs in the West, come hell or high water—that's why I was so bloody worried, young David. Because I've done my share, and I want to see old age and come safe home. And now at least I'll see peace in my time—"
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Yet even shrewd old Bill had only seen the half of it, through the rose-tinted spectacles of a grateful survivor.
He had seen it all as a marvellous slice of luck—the Joint Russian Intentions and Policy sub-committee feeding back the vital and authentic information which had nerved the British and the French to chance their arm in Egypt in the certain knowledge that the Russians would only bark, and not bite, because of what was happening in Eastern Europe . . .which, in turn, was happening precisely at the time of an American presidential election.
But it hadn't been a slice of luck at all, it had been stage-managed from start to finish.
Because, turned round, it was Suez and the collapse of the Western alliance—however temporarily—which had been perfectly timed for the Russians, giving them the free hand they needed to bring the East Europeans to heel. . .
Even, now he thought about the final bungling efforts of Rakosi to suppress dissent. . . even that could have been stage-managed to coincide with Suez—turning the inevitable explosion into a controlled blast.
They'd all been set up— the British and the French and the Americans. . . and the poor bloody Hungarians, who had been shot down in the streets by the thousand, most of all!
"David. . ."
"Yes?" He didn't raise his head to look at her this time, dummy5
because the thing was still continuing inside his brain, like a film which refused to end after the denouement.
"I'm sorry, David. I shot off my big mouth again." That wasn't the end of it: he was part of it now—part of the continuation of the screwing process.
No wonder Genghis Khan was so pleased, and so determined to help Captain Roche to do his duty: he wouldn't only be placing the said Captain Roche—Major Roche to be—right inside Sir Eustace Avery's operation as a trusted officer who had proved his worth, he would also be planting a source of deliberately-leaked information at the highest level, an unimpeachable source as proved and trusted as the new Major himself!
The possibilities were endless—and irresistible—
"David..."
Damn the girl! Just as he was getting into his stride!
He raised his head and looked at her, and melted again immediately. And after all, he could afford to melt, for he had it all now, with the crowning opportunity of making a deal with the British which they couldn't resist either.
"Lexy?"
At least ... he had it all if Genghis Khan and Audley now did their different jobs right. That thought brought him down to earth again with a bump.
"You're angry with me. I can see it in your face. But I don't dummy5
blame you—I shot my stupid mouth off." She stared at him contritely. "I told you I was stupid."
"I'm not angry." That wasn't what she'd seen in his face: it was the face of treachery-in-doubt that she'd seen, poor kid.
"And you're not stupid." And anyway. . . there was no reason why both men shouldn't do their jobs right: they each had sufficient incentive, by God!
"You looked black as thunder."
"I was thinking dark thoughts, that's why. But not about you." Once again, she relaxed his over-stretched nerves. And, in preparation for what was to come, they needed relaxing. "I couldn't think dark thoughts about you."
"What sort of thoughts—damn! I'm doing it again, aren't I!"
"Doing what?" He surrendered to the game.
"Sowing ideas. And I usually reap—or rape, as David Audley says— where I sow. But I'm tired of reaping and raping, even though I can't seem to stop sowing. So don't let's bother with thoughts, David darling."
"No bother. Sad, maybe . . . but no bother—my thoughts about you."
"Sad?"
"Unattainable, let's say." Because he had just been thinking of Bill Ballance, who had left half his right hand by the roadside between Nijme-gen and Arnhem in '44, the war came to his rescue. "Speaking as a soldier . . . a bridge too far
—or several bridges, possibly."
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Me? Unattainable?" Her eyes widened.
Her humility irritated him. It hadn't been the loss of Julie which had brought him to this pass—he could have lost her in any one of a hundred ways, and still not been vulnerable to the Comrades' offer after her death .... It was the waste of Julie which had been unforgivable—it was for that he had wasted his own life in an empty and foolish protest.
A ball splashed into the water, a yard from where he lay, where a sluggish back-current from the fierce flow in the centre caught it, turning it slowly.
A small boy, thin and brown as an Indian, tripped across the stones on small feet which made light of discomfort, to retrieve it. The boy picked up the ball and looked shyly at Roche. "Pardon, m'sieur!" Roche nodded dismissively.
"M'sieur—la-bas—" the boy spoke breathlessly, nodding towards the trees on the bank beyond the expanse of stones on the flood-plain of the river and trying to keep his voice down to an urgent whisper at the same time "—M'sieur Galles vous attend!"
Roche stared back at him for a moment, observing that he held the ball one-handed now to keep whatever coin Galles had given him safe.
He nodded again, but solemnly this time, to keep the great secret between them intact, so that the coin would be fairly earned.
The boy looked back at him for another moment, huge-eyed dummy5
with surprise that he hadn't immediately followed the direction of the nod, and then scampered away across the stones.
Roche looked at his watch on the towel beside him, and then slid it back on to his wrist. It was later than he had imagined, and he was glad of that because time had dragged on him, ticking away too slowly to H-Hour. Training and racial memory from a thousand battles in which he had never fought had prepared him for action at dawn, but never for combat over an early evening drink. But in the end God disposed the minute of the hour, and for the purposes of this great battle Genghis Khan was God, with Audley and Raymond Galles attending to the details in all innocence.