'Why, with us, of course. What you call the fuzz. And with themselves—with themselves most of all.'
Butler felt the words swell up in his throat as the American stared at him, bewildered. For once he felt he wanted to talk—
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I could tell you a tale, boy!
A tale of two operations—three now—and how they all failed. Maybe four if we let those young idiots through now—
Audley looked for Russians under your bed, but he didn't find any. Because there weren't any, that's why.
But that poor devil Zoshchenko tried to demobilise himself out of his own operation because he was in love with Polly Epton—and in love with being Neil Haig Smith too.
And when he cracked, then the KGB had to cover up for him, so they tried to give Audley just what he was looking for.
Tried and failed.
All for nothing, boy: an old man's nightmare and a young man's dream of freedom are about to coalesce here in Boghole Gap, and come to nothing—
'They're comin'!' Arthur came stumbling down the track beside the Wall, stabbing northwards with his finger. Butler looked across the causeway. They were coming.
'Not much of a demo there if you ask me,' murmured Richardson contemptuously. 'There can't be more than a couple of dozen, if that.'
It was true enough. In the confined space of the common room and the dining room of Castleshields House there had seemed enough of them, but in this wide open wasteland they were lost: a pathetic straggle of innocents in a cold and barren landscape.
'I make it twenty-five to be exact,' said Klobucki. 'With Dan and me on this side that means there were only seven who didn't succumb to Terry's eloquence. He didn't do so badly.'
'Ah, but half of 'em are only coming for kicks. It's the hard-core ones we've got to worry about. We'll soon sort the sheep from the goats, mark my words, Mike old lad. Besides, isn't Terry supposed to be non-violent?'
'So he darn well is.' The mid-western accent thickened as irritation rose to its surface. 'But if you think he hasn't got any guts—he's got a whole heap of guts, Terry has.'
Richardson shrugged. 'So long as they're non-violent guts—'
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'That's enough of that,' Butler snapped angrily.
He had sensed the natural antipathy which lay between the American and the Englishman—between the Transatlantic Slav and the Anglicised Latin—but this was no time to let them indulge it. Not when he needed them both, Richardson because he was trained for trouble and Klobucki because his very presence on this side of the ditch would confuse the demonstrators.
'It sure doesn't mean he won't try to get past if we try to stop him.' Klobucki spoke to Butler, ignoring Richardson. 'Saying 'Stop' to Terry just puts him on his mettle. He'll come on, he'll come on—you can be damn sure about that.'
Butler ran his hand over the stubble on his head, staring at the American. He could feel the damp on his palm; imperceptibly the gossamer-fine rain on the wind was building up to wetness. If only it would deluge down. But the bloody weather never closed in when you needed it, only when you didn't. That was always when rain stopped play.
'Then what can I say to him? What would you say?'
'You could try the truth, I suppose.' Klobucki cocked his head, testing the idea. Then his shoulders lifted, acknowledging the uselessness of it. 'But I guess that isn't really on. And he probably wouldn't believe it if you could tell it... I just don't know, Colonel. I just don't know. I don't have the gift of the gab.'
Neither do I, thought Butler bitterly. Maybe David Audley could have swung it, could have found the right formula of words. But all Jack Butler knew was how to command and to obey. To wheedle and argue and convince had never figured among the required skills.
He turned back towards the causeway.
'All right, then.' He looked left and right, injecting confidence into his voice. 'You all know what to do.
Close up behind me if they come on, and then just stand your ground. But no undue violence. Push 'em back, don't hit 'em. Like a rugger scrum—'
'Rugby Union, not Rugby League,' murmured Richardson. 'No rough play except when the ref's looking t'other way. No eye-gouging, rabbit-punching or swinging on each other's testicles in the loose ruck, or boring like David Audley used to do when he was the Saracen's prop forward. Just good clean dirty play . . .'
Butler caught the younger man's eye for one fraction of a second and saw in it the wish that was his own
—the wish that it was Audley in charge here now, not Butler.
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With that flash of insight the anger came welling up in his throat like vomit: to dither in the face of a handful of students was despicable, gift of the gab or no. One got on with the job that was to hand, whatever it was, without crying. And this was his job now.
He locked his eyes on Terry across the fifty yards which was all that separated them and stepped forward on to the causeway.
Five more paces brought him abreast of the ditch. He stopped.
'That's far enough, chaps,' he called.
The tone was right, more a request than a command, and the distance made shouting unnecessary. But that 'chaps' had been the wrong word, false even to his own ears. Too late to unsay it though.
But they were slowing down all the same.
'You can't come any further.' He managed to hold most of the neutrality in his tone, but with a suggestion of finality in it, as though it was a friendly warning that somewhere behind him, just out of sight, lay a far greater obstacle, impassable and far more hostile.
