Chandos Force was going to war.
'You all right back there?'
Butler grunted and settled himself as best he could among the jerrycans. He wasn't at all sure that he was all right. He wasn't even sure why he had lost his temper with Jones like that; it had been as though there was someone else inside him. That was what drink did to a man, of course: he had remembered that simple question, the one he'd wanted to ask about Sergeant Scott, and—
The truck jerked forward, bumping over uneven ground and then tilting steeply up an incline before turning sharply onto a smoother surface. He watched the jeeps' headlights buck and tilt as they crossed the same ground, then flicker on and off as the trees of the farm track obscured them. They were heading for the main road—
He stared at the lights, hypnotised by the return of his memory. The simple question had not received a simple answer: Taffy Jones had been by turns unwilling to speak, and then frightened, and finally threatening. Yet even before that, when he had been throwing up the contents of his stomach against that stone wall—Spilling the beans?
That harsher voice questioning Jones—the voice he couldn't place at the time, but which now seemed oddly familiar.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
'
What beans?
What did 'we' want?
Who were 'we'?
The truck swung sharply to the left, then slowed as the driver crashed the gears. They had reached the main road.
'Keep it moving, buddy!' shouted a rich American voice.
Chandos Force was going to war.
But there was something very wrong with Chandos Force.
8.
Butler munched an oatmeal block and tried to analyse why he felt much better than he had any right to feel.
It was true that he still felt thirsty, even after having drunk at least a quarter of the precious contents of his water bottle, so that he had decided to forgo the extra pleasure of a couple of boiled sweets from his twenty-four- hour pack, since they were notorious thirst-increasers.
It was also true that he had slept most of the night away in spite of his cramped position, with only the haziest impression of numerous stops and starts, several rumbling Bailey bridge crossings, and shouted American exhortations at intervals to keep closed up and to keep moving.
But the fact remained that when he shook his head vigorously—he shook it again just to recheck the evidence —there was no headache, and the oatmeal block was expanding comfortably inside him.
Indeed, if anything he was feeling rather better than he usually did before he had had the chance of a wash and a shave.
Maybe it was because he didn't feel as awful as he deserved that he was feeling better. But it was more likely, he decided dispassionately, that he had been lucky enough to be very sick before all the alcohol in Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
that deceptively innocent wine could infiltrate his bloodstream. In fact he could recall now (and too late) that according to the hardest drinker in the platoon at the Depot the secret of heavy drinking lay in the proper defensive preparation of the lining of the stomach. Once the alcohol had advanced through that lining into the bloodstream then resistance was in vain, according to Rifleman Callaghan, who was accustomed to fortify himself in advance with a huge, greasy fry-up of sausages and chips before drinking all comers under the table—a sovereign recipe he claimed to have had from a quartermaster who had devoted a lifetime to the study of the subject.
That problem resolved to his satisfaction, Butler felt ready to tackle two more pressing ones.
Viewed from the vantage point of a clear head after several hours' sleep, the previous evening had the unreal shape of a nightmare. What was certain was that he owed an abject apology to Corporal Jones, who had encouraged him to be sick and whom he had rewarded with weird suspicions and physical assault, the very memory of which now made his flesh creep with embarrassment.
He swallowed the last of the oatcake and decided not to eat another. Instead he took an extra swig of water.
So the first thing to do was to apologise to the Welshman.
The second thing was to find a private place and treat his left foot with gentian violet. He could already feel the sharp irritation between the toes—after missing the treatment for a full twenty-four hours it was noticeably worse, not very far from being actually painful; which was hardly surprising since regular application was the key to the treatment
He leaned forward and parted the canvas flap. The pitch blackness of the hour before dawn had passed, and he could feel the coming of daylight even though he couldn't yet see the division between land and sky. He sniffed at the air, but there was no strange smell other than exhaust fumes and warm rubber, which were familiar now. Yet there was still something disquieting to his senses.
Suddenly he knew what it was. Beyond the sound of the engines of the truck and the jeeps there was
No flashes either—he stood up and twisted his neck to get a look ahead—and no flashes in that direction. He had had the distinct impression during the moments of half-consciousness on the journey that they had been
