The '44 Vintage

'Go on, Corporal,' said Audley. 'What did the major say then?'

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

Kill him with the others—

They listened in silence right to the end—or at least to the edited end Butler found himself fabricating, with that one unendurable fact omitted.

And then for what seemed an age they continued in silence, until he began to feel a different fear spreading within him over the hard lump of panic that already constricted his chest.

They didn't believe him . . .

Finally Audley turned towards him again.

'Jones tried to stab you . . . you were kneeling, and he told you to turn round. But you jumped him, and you knocked him cold—that's right?'

Butler nodded wordlessly. Put like that—and put like that after his report of the conversation between the major and the sergeant-major—he hardly believed himself.

'And you had a fight with Jones the night before—that's last night?' said Sergeant Winston.

'Yes . . . but—' Butler saw with horror how those two separate but connected events could be rearranged to make a very different story. 'But that was why they wanted to—to kill me,' he said desperately.

'Uh-huh.' Winston nodded at the road ahead. 'And just how cold did you knock this guy Jones? Very cold, maybe?'

Butler looked wildly at Audley. 'Sir—he tried to stab me—he did stab me—I felt him stab me—'

'Well, you sure as hell don't sound stabbed to me, man,' said Winston.

Butler looked down at himself disbelievingly, his hands open.

Audley stared at his left hand. 'No blood . . . not unless you've got purple—' He stopped suddenly, the stare becoming fixed on Butler's midriff. 'Just a moment though . . . let's have a closer look at you, Corporal.'

He reached down and lifted one of Butler's ammunition pouches up so that he could see the bottom of it.

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

'Well, well!'

'What is it?' asked Winston quickly.

Audley dropped the pouch back into place. Butler seized it and tried to twist it, but the Sten magazines inside prevented him from seeing what Audley had stared at. All he could make out was the beginning of a dark purple stain on the edge.

'He's got a one-inch slit on the bottom of the pouch,' said Audley. 'And . . .'

'And . . . ?'

'This webbing of ours is extremely tough, Sergeant. It takes quite a lot of force to go through it.'

'Like a knife, huh?'

'Like a knife. And then a couple of Sten mags and a bottle of what's-it . . .' Audley looked into Butler's eyes. 'Well, well!'

Winston glanced quickly at Audley. 'You're thinking maybe . . . ?'

'I'm thinking a lot of things, Sergeant.'

'Like what?'

Audley didn't reply. Instead he rubbed his hand over his face as though he was wiping cobwebs from it.

As he reached his mouth his hand stopped.

'Like what?' Winston repeated.

'Like . . . like limejuice was pretty quick off the mark this morning just now. . . . We used to reckon on ten minutes at the least, and that was one hell of a lot closer to their forward landing strips than we are here.'

'But they got a standing patrol, you said.'

'So I did. But he said he wasn't expecting any trouble at the crossing —it was going to be a piece of cake.'

'He could be just careful?'

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

'That's exactly what I'm thinking—he could be just very careful indeed. As the corporal said, he could prefer certainties to odds, Sergeant.'

This time Sergeant Winston didn't reply.

'And there was something damn queer about the way he acted back there . . .' Audley's hand rubbed his stubbly chin. 'When we were jumped on the river ... by a German patrol—when you made that memorable observation of yours. 'Horseshit' was it?'

Winston grunted. 'He had his goddamn patrols out, for Christ's sake.'

'That's right. And if there's one thing about this crew of desperadoes it's that they're highly professional at smelling out Germans. Because they've been keeping one jump ahead of them for months in Jugoslavia.'

'So they fouled this one up, you mean?'

'Or maybe they didn't foul it up—also as Corporal Butler says. . . . Or maybe they did foul it up, at that!'