'Too much? Is he a weakling then?'
'Far from it. He's a tough boy.' Butler searched for the image of Daniel McLachlan as he was and found only the image of what he would be in a few years' time: there was a submerged hardness about the boy
—a maturity beneath the immaturity—which in a subaltern would make him as a man worth the watching, a man for responsibility soon, and beyond that eventual command far above the regiment.
That 'unless' was the stumbling block. In war there was always the necessary risk to be taken when the McLachlans were blooded, the risk of the malevolent chance bullet that missed all the empty heads and spilled the brains out of the bright one. But this wasn't McLachlan's war.
Or was it?
'He's quick and he's bright,' said Butler, coming to an instant decision. 'He'll do right enough.'
If Hobson's theory held water, then it was McLachlan's war more than anyone's: he was already in the front- line.
'If there's anything in the South African angle he's just the chap for us,' Richardson said eagerly. 'With his background he's a dead cert to be in on anything that's cooked up.'
Audley nodded slowly, still eyeing Butler. 'How does that sound to you, Jack?'
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'He's no firebrand politically. But—aye, if he could be stirred up by anything it'd be that. From what he said I'd say he feels pretty deeply about it. It's mixed up with the bad time his father gave him too.'
'Does that check out with you, Peter?'
'On the nose!' Richardson's dark curls bobbed. 'Old man McLachlan sounds a right swine for anyone's money. Inherited a farm at Fort Hawes, somewhere down south in Mashonaland—enough to keep him in whiskey and comfort for a few years. The boy was OK while his mother was alive, but after she died he was packed off as a boarder down to the Orange Free State, to the J. P. Malan Government School in Eenperdedorp, no less—real backwoods agricultural area that's 99 per cent Afrikaans. What our South African section describes as 'the absolute bloody end'.'
'Not the place for Mama's little liberal boy?'
'You can say that again! Of course, the section hasn't any first-hand account of life in Eenperdedorp—
reading between the lines I reckon it took 'em an hour or two to find the ruddy place on the map. But McLachlan junior must have been a stout chap to survive it in one mental piece.' Richardson turned towards Butler. 'Is he much of a sportsman?'
'He was in the running for a rugby blue at Oxford last year.'
'Ah! Well that might account for it. It seems they'll put up with quite a lot even from a bleddy Ingelsman if he can do that sort of thing.' Richardson grinned at Audley, his spirits effervescent again.
'As a rugger type he ought to be right up your street, David. But as he let friend Zoshchenko pass himself off as his old pal Boozy Smith, I don't see how he can be quite as sharp as Colonel Butler here says he is.'
'Smith wasn't his old pal,' snapped Butler. 'He was two years McLachlan's senior at Eden Hall, and they hadn't seen each other for maybe four or five years. You said yourself they'd matched him up reasonably accurately.'
'True enough,' Richardson conceded. 'And Smith must have been pretty confident to go out of his way to meet him again—so I guess we're both right after all.'
'Never mind Smith, Peter,' said Audley. 'If McLachlan's father was such a bastard, how did the boy get out of Africa to Oxford?'
'The suggestion is that they made some sort of deal—that's according to the Notting Hill Gate crammer who prepared him for his Oxford scholarship papers. You see, the mother left what money she had to her son, not to the husband, and by the time the boy was through school his father'd begun to run short again.'
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'So it seems young Daniel bought his freedom with half of his inheritance, or something like that. What he told the crammer was he'd left his old man enough cash to drink himself to death in maybe three or four years, and bloody good riddance!' Richardson shook his head disapprovingly. 'Not a happy family, the McLachlans.'
No, thought Butler, but it would account for the coldness with which young McLachlan was already calculating life. He had taken its first blows young and learnt how to bargain his way from survival to success. There might very well be an element of calculation in the act of volunteering to help avenge his friend Smith—he might have seen and grasped the chance of proving his discretion in matters of state security.
If it were so, then the calculation was a shrewd one, even shrewder than McLachlan himself might have guessed. For if all went well, he would start his career with some influential men in his debt, Audley and Sir Frederick among them. And even if things went badly (which seemed a likelier probability at the moment) it would not count against him; he would be safely marked as a youngster ready to do his duty.
'Hmm . . .' Audley looked into space meditatively. 'He certainly sounds as though he's possessed of the right credentials for us. It's a wonder Fred hasn't got him on the 'possible' list already. In fact—'
A sharp knock at the door cut him off in mid-sentence. He looked at his watch and then at Butler before continuing.
'Time's getting on. Just how much does McLachlan know?'
'Nothing of value. I let him believe that Smith's accident wasn't accidental. He already suspected something wasn't quite right up here from the warning hints Hobson's been dropping.'
'Hah! So the Master
