Colonel Butler's Wolf

Butler grunted to himself and drew his head back inside the house. It was well enough to risk one's own precious skin and perfectly proper to hazard a subordinate like Richardson, who should know the score.

But it was a hard thing to send an innocent into danger, and a risky thing too, no matter how well the thing could be justified.

Audley didn't care, because he'd done it before and because deep down he liked doing it. And Richardson didn't care because as far as Butler could see Richardson didn't care very deeply about anything: life was just a joke to him, because it had never been a struggle.

But Butler knew that it damn well wasn't in the least funny—least of all as it concerned young Daniel McLachlan. The man Alek was loose somewhere out there and young McLachlan was happily swinging his croquet mallet, and if they ever came within range of each other then he, Butler would be to blame and must answer to himself for it. He had undertaken to see to the boy's safety and he had let himself offer the boy to Audley—like any damn black-coated, pin-striped politician he had mortgaged away his honour to conflicting requirements. It was duty's plain need and he would do it again, but that didn't make him dislike it less. Nor was it reassuring to tell himself that Audley and Richardson had accepted responsibility for watching over the action outside Castleshields House.

Richardson's attitude was too cavalier by half, and Audley's skill lay more in making things happen and then drawing his own clever conclusions than in preventing them. Even so, all these were surface worries. Beneath them was an atavistic disquiet, the caveman's instinct that warned him of danger when his fourth sense had failed him.

'Colonel—hullo there!'

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Polly Epton waved at him vigorously from behind a miniature bar. No danger in Polly!

'I'm duty maid this afternoon, Colonel, so you've got nothing to worry about. Daddy, Colonel Butler's here.'

A kaleidoscope of images. Young men and young-old men, long hair and open shirts, eyes bold and appraising. More brains, more potential, packed in this panelled room than in any regimental mess, more even than in Staff College.

Polly's voice opened up an avenue in them to where Epton himself stood, cup in hand.

No small talk, Epton. Not much, anyway. Left-wing, sociologist—blue-blooded intellectual—you know the type, Colonel. Doesn't like the Yankees, but he dam well doesn't trust the Russians either—had a bellyful of them when he was with the International Brigade in Teruel in '37. If you wonder how he sired a filly like Polly, just remember Teruel. And they think the world of him, the students do —he doesn't talk down to them, or round them either . . .

He must have been a mere baby in the Spanish Civil War, thought Butler, looking up again into the grey, gaunt face above the outstretched hand. But Richardson confirmed Stacker: Epton was a man to be wary of. No traitor, but no establishment man either.

'Glad you could make it, Butler.'

Grunt. The man would keep his mouth shut even though it might be the ruin of him, which was what a sudden demo out of Castleshields House might well be.

'We're looking forward to hearing what you've got to say about Belisarius. I'm afraid most of us only know what Robert Graves wrote about him in that novel of his.'

'Hah!' That one at least he could parry. 'Graves lifted it all from Procopius of Gaesarea, and maybe some from Agathias. But I'm more interested in the purely military implications.'

'And are the purely military implications of any relevance for today?'

The new voice had a slight upward inflection of challenge that had been absent from Epton's—for all his lack of small talk, Epton was still the host in the house that had once been his, and that blue blood would tell no matter what he thought of the strange colonel who had been foisted on him. Whereas this young puppy—

'Oh, hell, Terry—don't start pitching into the Colonel as soon as he's arrived.'

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Polly materialised at his elbow with a cup for him in her hand. 'You mustn't mind about Terry. He's got a bee in his bonnet about the military. Which is jolly funny because Terry's about the most militant civilian you're likely to meet up here.'

Terry—?

Terry Richmond—if there's anything going he'll be in it, you can bet on that. Not a Communist, he wouldn't give the Russians the time of day, not since Prague. And he was over in Paris in '68, and he got the message then because I've heard him talk about 'communist racism' among the old-timers. He's bloody bright, but he does believe in action and he was damned lucky not to get sent down in his first year at Oxford . . .

If this was Richardson's Terry Richmond, then it would be as well for the brutal Colonel Butler to keep his cool.

He smiled at Polly—it was very easy to smile at Polly.

'Nothing unusual about hating the military, Miss Epton,' he said, deliberately letting a touch of Lancashire creep into his voice. 'Old Wully Robertson's mother—Field-Marshal Robertson's mother—

said she'd rather see him dead than in a red coat when she heard he'd joined up. And my Dad said much the same thing when I told him I wanted to make a career of it. The old attitudes die hard, you know.'

'They're not the only things that die,' said Terry.

'No, Mr—' Butler looked questioningly at the young man, but received no enlightenment.

'Richmond is his name,' said Polly. 'You are a bore sometimes, Terry!'

'No, Mr Richmond. Soldiers also die. In fact, they die quite often. But we are only the extension of the civil arm, you know—we are your fist, no more.'

'Not in Greece or Portugal—or Vietnam.'

'I'd question Vietnam, but we'll let that pass. I'm only a British soldier, so I obey your orders.'

'Even when you don't approve of them?' Epton cut in softly.