The '44 Vintage

more to do with his success than E. Wilmot Buxton.

He thought irrelevantly how very blue the general's eyes were for such an old man. Snow-white hair—

and bushy white moustache in the middle of a brick-red face. But bright blue eyes. Except that red, white, and blue were proper colours for a general.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

And that red, white, and blue ribbon.

'Here we are,' said Major O'Conor.

3. How Colonel Sykes lost his rugby team

The major was right: this Norman Switzerland wasn't at all like the real thing, or not like the full-page colour photographs of it in the Q to Z volume of his father's Illustrated Encyclopaedia of World Geography; if anything, it reminded Butler of the foothills of the Lake District at home, where he had camped with the school scout troop in the last year before the war.

There were cliffs, certainly—he could see them rising out of the thick woods across the valley into which they were descending. But there were no snow-capped peaks and the trees weren't Swiss firs. The Orne (presumably it was the Orne, anyway) rippled over its rocky bed just below him now, with a group of Frenchmen fishing in it, quite unconcerned by the jeep's noisy approach. There were even a couple further down watering their horses in the shallows, in the shadow of a high-arched stone bridge which joined the tree-lined road embankment—

A high-arched stone bridge—

The incongruity of the scene suddenly hit Butler. The trees shouldn't have been nodding gently in the breeze, they should have been lying in a tangle across the road ahead, blocking the approach to the gaping ruins of that bridge, the demolished stonework of which should be choking the river twenty feet below; or, at best, the shattered trees should have been bulldozed over the embankment to make way for the Bailey bridge across the ruins.

Instead it was all as peaceful as a picture postcard—as peaceful as Switzerland or the Lake District—

with the picturesque bridge, and the fishermen—there were more of them fishing happily from the bridge itself—and the horsemen watering their horses. For a moment the war was a million miles away and it was hard to imagine that this same river flowed through the stinking ruins of Caen to the invasion beaches.

There was a tank under the trees just across the river. And another just beyond it. And another—

The jeep squealed to a halt in the middle of the bridge, beside the first fisherman.

'Second South Wessex Dragoons?' barked the sergeant-major.

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

The fisherman turned, took in the front-seat occupants of the jeep, and straightened up, one hand still grasping his home-made rod. He wasn't likely to catch anything from the bridge, thought Butler—and certainly not with that apology for a fishing rod.

'That's right, sir,' said the fisherman.

'Colonel Sykes, we're looking for,' said the major.

'Sir.' The fisherman turned away to scan the riverbank below him. Suddenly he pointed. 'Down there, sir—just getting off his horse, sir—besides Major Dobson and Mr. Pickles.'

His horse? Butler craned his neck to follow the pointing finger. The two horsemen who had been watering their horses had been joined by a third, who was in the act of dismounting. All three were wearing riding breeches, booted and spurred. Butler goggled at them.

'I see—thank you,' said the major politely. Then he smiled. 'The regiment's getting horsed again, then.'

The fisherman regarded him stolidly. 'Be an improvement if it was, sir,' he observed, unsmiling.

Butler frowned and looked away, back down the river. Beyond the horsemen and the anglers on the bank there was a group of naked soldiers skylarking in the water with a makeshift ball. The Wessex Dragoons evidently weren't taking their war very seriously, so far as he could see.

'Ah—it would that!, sir,' murmured one of the other anglers.

'And where did you acquire the—ah—the remounts?' inquired the major.

'German Army, sir.'

The major nodded approvingly. 'Jolly good. Drive on, Sergeant-major. We'll park down the road there, just after the end of the parapet.'

The sergeant-major crashed the gears brutally, but managed to coax the jeep another twenty yards without mishap.

'Fine . . . Now if you'd guard our other possessions, Sergeant-major . . . and the corporal would help me . . .' the major trailed off. .

Butler looked at the sergeant-major, bewildered.

'Get those cases out of the vehicle, man,' snapped the sergeant-major. 'And don't you dare drop them.'

Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

His eyes dropped from Butler to the boxes with the champagne, and then lifted back to Butler. All was at last revealed in that look, and Butler's faith in both men was restored: trade goods and a trading mission, the major had said, not for us. So if the bottles were plunder they were at least not to be used improperly, but in the line of duty to obtain some necessary item from the dragoons in exchange; and it did look as though they were the right sort of trade goods for such a unit—the major and the sergeant-major might disapprove, but they knew what they were about.

What the old merchandise, the perishable goods were, was not yet clear, but would no doubt be revealed soon enough. What was obvious was that protocol would not permit the sergeant-major to carry the trade goods when there was a junior NCO present to do that work, which meant that the sergeant-major must stay and protect the jeep from the thieving hands of soldiery and civilians, who would strip anything left unattended.

He balanced the cases carefully on top of one another and set out after the major, peering round them as best he could to see where he was going. It was going to be tricky though, getting down the embankment to the