It was no longer the voice of triumph: it was an old man with ashes in his mouth. Ashes which dried up his words.
'How do you know it isn't money, sir?' The sergeant-major's bark cut through the silence.
Audley's glance shifted. 'Because I've been in there, Sergeant-major. And I've seen what's in there.'
The unasked question hung in the sunlight. Butler was aware suddenly that Audley was staring past him at a different angle, and staring with a peculiar intensity.
'You want to know what's in there, Sergeant-major? You really want to know?' said Audley. 'You want me to tell you?'
That was odd, thought Butler: the meaningless repetition of the question, as though Audley had any possible doubt—
And then, just as suddenly, Butler knew exactly where the sergeant-major stood on the steps behind him . . . behind, slightly to the right—slightly to the right, above—
'You really want me to tell you, Sergeant-major?' said Audley again. He was fighting to take the Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
sergeant-major's attention, Butler knew. Or at least to take enough of it to give him that tiny fraction of a second's purchase for what had to be done.
'Well, I'll tell you, Sergeant-major—' Not yet.
Because whatever Audley was going to say he must have judged that it would be enough to give Corporal Butler at least a chance.
And at the moment he had no chance.
'I hope you've got a sense of humour, Sergeant-major. Because you're going to need one—'
Butler knew he was right now: whatever it was coming, it was designed to hurt.
'He was right—money's not worth dying for. Not worth risking men's lives for either, with all the millions they've spent. It always had to be nastier than that—'
Dad had been a sergeant-major: that was a funny thing to think of at a time like this. Sergeant-major Butler!
'Not worth dying at all now, really. We've won the war—'
He would never be a sergeant-major. He would be an officer—or a dead corporal.
'But that's this war. We haven't won the next war yet, Sergeant-major. So that's still worth dying for—
the Third World War—'
The sergeant-major and the major . . . rather like Sergeant-major Butler and Colonel Chesney—General Chesney. The only two people in the world he loved.
Except now there was maybe a third—He hadn't thought of Madeleine Boucard for three whole hours—
Third?
'That's right, Sergeant-major: the Third World War. Do you know we even guessed at it before we got here? What we didn't realise is that they'll have new weapons for the next war—King Tigers'll be as out of date as longbows next time—'
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
Now?
But he couldn't move. He wanted to know what Audley was going to say next.
'And longbows are rather appropriate—you know that? Longbows are what Sir John Chandos had back in the 1350s. Killed a lot of Frenchmen with them, by golly—Agincourt, Poitiers—and Spaniards at Najera too. But he wasn't the top killer of the time, Sergeant-major—he was a real pro,
Plague.
Audley pointed into the hole. 'The boxes in there have INSTITUT ZELLER stamped on them. And Institut Zeller is where they came from. And I don't know what the Zeller Institute was playing with in 1940, but I can make a damn good guess, Sergeant-major—'
Butler stared into the hole in horror. War was one thing, but disease . . . loathsome and invisible, was a nightmare from the pit—
'—because we've been playing with it too, Sergeant-major. A friend of mine in the Sappers had to wire off the beaches on a Scottish island, Sergeant-major—he said an experiment there had gone wrong. So nothing can live there for a hundred years now. It had sheep on it, but they were all dead—dead and rotting, dozens of them. The Sappers weren't allowed near them. They weren't even allowed off the beach.'
Butler's flesh crawled. Dead and rotting—
'Plague?' croaked the major. '
'Maybe not plague. It could be a dozen things. They were working on polio at the Institute—there's no cure for polio. If they found a virulent strain
