And the sound of those engines wasn't in his head.
Automatic reflexes took over. His hands buckled his belt, straightened his equipment. His feet carried him limping across the sand to where Jones lay . . . one boot off, one boot on.
His bayonet was a black plug in Jones's side: his hand plucked it out, eight bright shiny red inches to be wiped in the sand and slid back into the scabbard. Then there was Jones's gun, the best little gun, and the knife, four razor-sharp unblooded inches of it ...
Jones was no weight at all; such a little man to cause such a lot of trouble. But no trouble in the end when dragged feet first to the overhang, just a scuffed trail in the sand.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
He threw the best little gun and the knife onto the body and picked up his sock and his gaiter and his boot, and last of all his Sten. Then he reached up and sank his fingers into the soft earth. He felt the lip of the overhanging bank tremble as he rocked his hands back and forward.
The voice was pitched high and urgent, somewhere away to his left. He heaved desperately at the overhang.
A wide section of the overhang tore away, falling soundlessly onto the body, spreading over a face on which in the last instant before it was covered he saw that there were still flakes of crushed oatmeal.
It wasn't enough—there was still a clenched hand protruding from the debris—but there was no time for anything more.
He prised his foot into his boot, picked up the sock and the gaiter and the Sten, and ran towards the voice.
Audley loomed out of the mist ahead of him. “For Christ's sake, man —do you want to miss the boat?'
'I'm sorry, sir.' Butler adjusted his cap-comforter from the rakish angle Jones had pushed it in his last spasm of life.
'Didn't you hear me calling?' snapped Audley.
Butler swallowed. 'Yes, sir—sorry, sir. But you . . . you caught me at a disadvantage, sir.'
'What d'you mean—at a disadvantage?'
'Well, sir . . .' The truth flared up impossibly in front of Butler:
How could he possibly say that?
'Yes?' said Audley irritably.
It was hopeless: there was no way he could say that without Audley taking him for a raving madman—
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
no possible way. At least, not now and not yet and not here.
'Yes, sir ... well, with my trousers down, like, sir.' The lie blossomed on his tongue effortlessly. That must be how murderers lied, with the blood still wet on their hands.
He looked at his hands involuntarily. There was a vivid purple stain on the left thumb and forefinger, and on the palm too, but no spot of blood anywhere to be seen. It was a proper murderer's weapon, that eight-inch spike, and no mistake.
'Oh,' said Audley.
A solitary jeep loomed up ahead. It was their jeep, but now it was surrounded by a group of American soldiers who were examining a Bren gun which lay on the top of its load of equipment.
'You don't get a goddamn move on'—an American with no visible badges of rank addressed Audley familiarly —'you're gonna be late for your own goddamn funeral, buddy.'
'Oh . . . righty-ho,' said Audley. He grinned encouragingly at Butler across the jeep. “We mustn't miss that, must we, Corporal? It just wouldn't be the same without us.'
The jeep lurched forward, its wheels spinning furiously as Audley put his foot down. Butler hung on, his mind spinning just as furiously as the wheels. He had tried many times to imagine what this moment would be like, the crossing of the last line into enemy country. But never in his darkest dreams had he conceived it would be like this —that he would be riding into it with death at his back more certain than any danger ahead, and the only incentive for going forward that horrible thing he had left behind him half covered with sand.
'Funny thing . . .' Audley spun the steering wheel as the jeep skidded out of the deep ruts he was following '. . . back in medieval times the French used to call the English soldiers 'goddamns' '—he spun the wheel in the opposite direction—'because that was their favourite swear word—'
There were more Americans ahead of them, and more American vehicles too—jeeps, half-tracks, and a couple of strange-looking lorries. A heavily built soldier in a soft field cap pointed decisively to the left and signalled them urgently in the same direction with his other hand, like a traffic policeman.
'—but now that's an Americanism, and our favourite word is quite different.'
They were swinging round the end of the island.
'And it's a good thing the French don't call us by
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
