Colonel Butler's Wolf

'Okay, Colonel,' Klobucki said firmly. 'And just how do you figure on stopping them?'

Butler drew a deep breath. Then, as the incongruity of it hit him, he smiled to himself despite his misgivings. In the ancient past, when the tumble of stones behind him had been the greatest military work in Europe, there had been perhaps a platoon here, and a whole regiment within shouting distance.

And now he had one man, two youths and three shiftless layabouts and a girl to hold the Gap which had once belonged to Hadrian's Own Lusitanians.

'You on the causeway with me, Richardson. And you—' he pointed to the largest of the Irishmen '—

with us. And Mr Klobucki behind us in reserve. Then one of you covering the ditch on each side.'

'And I want you, Miss Epton, up on the crest of Low Crags—you'll be out of our sight, but it doesn't matter. I want you to keep an eye for a stranger—about my size, but grey-haired. Round face, gold-rimmed spectacles. If you spot anyone, then head back here as fast as you can. Otherwise stay there until I come for you.'

'And I want you on High Crags, McLachlan. Same job— if you spot anyone then come back and tell me.'

Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, son of Hrethel.

Well, that remained to be seen!

XVIII

'THIS IS WHEN one of us should say, 'It's quiet, Sergeant'.'

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Butler frowned at the American. 'I beg your pardon?'

'In the movies,' Klobucki explained patiently, 'the young trooper always says 'It's quiet, Sergeant', and the sergeant says 'Too quiet, son'—and then the whole Apache nation comes over the ridge at them. It happens all the time.'

'I see,' murmured Butler abstractedly, watching McLachlan disappear over the brow of the first false crest of High Crags. The wind rushed along the cliffs, driving the jackdaws soaring before it. But there was the faintest touch of rain in it now, like a spider's web brushing against his face.

'Taking a bit of a risk, aren't you—sending Dan up there on his own? I mean, if that Russian of yours is really going to show up?'

'Maybe.'

That was what Richardson had thought too—the doubt had been written clearly on his face, although he had held his tongue then and was still holding it. And that was another point to young Richardson, proof not only of self-control but also of that indefinable instinct that told him the game had got ahead of him and the time to argue was past.

He caught himself staring at Richardson, who seemed to read his thoughts with embarrassing ease.

'It's no good trying to draw him, Mike.' Richardson grinned and shook his head at Klobucki. 'We're just the ruddy cannon-fodder—ours not to reason why!'

Klobucki's expression twisted wryly. 'Don't quote Tennyson at me, Limey. This—' he gestured theatrically '— this isn't a Tennyson set-up. It's pure Thomas Babington Macaulay—

Now who will stand on either hand

And keep the bridge with me?

If you're going to quote at me you gotta get the right quotation.'

Richardson chuckled. 'Phooey ! It's all the same, anyway— fearful odds and the rest of it. It'll all be over soon, anyway, so don't you fret.'

'Oh, sure ! It's okay for you,' Klobucki said bitterly. 'You aren't goin to kiss your liberal reputation goodbye when Teny turns up. But I am, and I'd sure as hell like to know what I'm doing it for.' He eyed Butler doubtfully. 'Is this really what old man Hobson's been warning us about—and what Dan's got so steamed up about?'

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Butler regarded him curiously. Sharp—they were all too damned sharp for mere boys. They probed and questioned more than he had ever dreamed of doing at their age, accepting nothing but their own skepticism.

'What makes you think it isn't?'

The American shrugged. 'I don't really know. It isn't that I didn't think there was going to be some sort of trouble—not with the way Dan's been prophesying doom. But I kind of thought the Russians didn't go in for this James Bond stuff in real life—guys with guns in the rocks up there, that sort of thing.'

'We could be deceiving you, eh?'

'The thought did cross my mind.' Klobucki regarded Butler candidly. 'The trouble is I don't really think you are, though. I guess I could be wrong there—but maybe you're wrong instead. That's the other possibility.'

Butler felt another twinge of admiration: sharp again. Without knowing why, the boy had got close to the heart of the matter. And there was something of a debt here, too, owing to this young foreigner, of all people.

'Aye,' he nodded soberly. 'In a way you're quite right about the deceit. But it isn't our deceit, you know.'

'I don't get you,' Klobucki said, frowning. 'You mean this isn't for real? No bullets for—what's his name

—the Portuguese guy Negreiros?'

'Oh, they'll be real enough. That is, if your friends meet General Negreiros down there at Ortolanacum, they'll be real enough then.'

'Hell—now you've really lost me, sir.'

'What I mean, young man, is that the Russians are not really concerned with the general—and certainly not with your fire-eating friends.'

Klobucki's face screwed up in puzzlement. 'Well, sir, they've sure got a funny way of not being concerned. Who the heck are they concerned with?'