The voices were coming back.
'. . . get him put together. He can't travel like that.'
The harsh voice again—he couldn't place it.
Taffy Jones said something he couldn't quite catch. Then— '. . . we can put him in the truck to sleep it off.'
Grunt. 'So long as he don't vomit over the equipment.'
Butler closed his eyes in the darkness. That grunt had been expressive of complete contempt. If there was anything worse than getting what one didn't deserve, it was getting in full what one did deserve, he reflected miserably.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
A flashlight threw his shadow against the wall.
He heard noises, voices.
'Come on, then,' said Taffy Jones. 'Let's be having you.'
Butler sat back on his heels.
'Drink this.'
He was about to protest that he didn't want to drink anything when he felt the heat of the mug which was thrust into his hands.
'Drink it up.'
Not tea but coffee. Scalding-hot unsweetened coffee, black in the light of the torch. It burnt his mouth.
'It's too hot.'
'Shut up—and drink up. We're moving out, man.'
'W-what?'
'Drink.'
Butler drank, feeling the fierce heat course down into him, cauterizing as it spread.
'Get up.'
He was past arguing. The cup was taken from his hands. His equipment was draped over his shoulders.
First the webbing belt was clipped together, then his shoulder flaps were unbuttoned to receive the cross- straps and then buttoned over them. He was being put together again. Finally his Sten was hung round his neck and something was pulled down roughly on his head—whatever it was, it wasn't his steel helmet.
'Come on, then.' A hand propelled him.
'Where are we going?' he asked hoarsely.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
'To the Promised Land. And you're going to travel there in style, boyo. So make the most of it.'
The torch flashed ahead of him and he saw men moving in its beam. Men loaded with equipment.
Engines started up all around him. The light picked out a truck directly in front, a small three-quarter-ton weapons carrier. The tailboard was down and the canvas flaps thrown back to reveal its load of miscellaneous equipment and jerrycans.
'In you go, then,' said Jones briskly, directing the torch beam into a small space between the jerrycans.
The night air and the walk and the coffee were working inside Butler to restore him to the human race.
He could even feel a stirring of anger now; chiefly it was directed against himself for the sort of behaviour he had hitherto observed with contempt in others. It was true that he hadn't set out to drink too much, as they so often did on a Saturday night with such mindless enthusiasm. But it was also true that he didn't even like alcohol very much—and more, that he had been warned against it by both his father and the general, each in his different way. It was the general's more oblique warning which hurt him more now, because in cautioning him to watch out for the untrust-worthiness of men who drank too much the old man had taken for granted that he would never be such a man.
'Go on,' urged Jones, more impatiently, taking his arm.
Butler shook the hand away. A little piece of that anger tarred his father and the general for not warning him more strongly when to beware the demon, but a much larger one blackened Taffy Jones, who had filled him up with wine and then betrayed him.
But there was nothing he could do about that now, when he was in the wrong himself. That accounting would have to wait.
He reached forward and took hold of the side of the truck. As he lifted his leg to lever himself aboard his knee struck the butt frame of the Sten, driving the gun upwards. Somehow the sling had twisted during the walk in the darkness and the movement of the gun tightened it round his neck, half choking him and throwing him off his balance.
'Oh, for Christ's sake!' exclaimed Jones.
Butler untangled the Sten with clumsy fingers in the light of the torch, grasped the side of the truck once more, and attempted to hoist himself up. But this time, just as his foot was settling on the floor, he felt Jones pushing him from behind. His boot skidded along the metal, bounced off a jerrycan and lost its foothold altogether.
Jones gave an exasperated growl. 'For fuck's sake,' he hissed at Butler, 'get into the bloody truck, man!'
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
