'I see.' The sergeant sat forward again. 'Well, don't mind me if I wave a different flag—'
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
'That's fair enough.' Audley's voice sharpened.
'I haven't quite finished, Lieutenant.' Winston's voice sharpened to match. 'I don't know whether you can take your major or whether you can't. But I'm pretty sure if he suspects you're on to him, you're gonna cramp his style if you disappear from under him—that'll make him think twice, whatever he's planning, not knowing what you're up to, huh?'
There was even more sense in that, thought Butler—the addition of the American sergeant to their strength was beginning to look like a greater blessing merely than his jeep-driving expertise.
He glanced hopefully at Audley. In his experience second lieutenants could not be relied on for anything but the simplest reaction to events, since that was all that was expected of them. But one day he hoped to do better than that himself, and now he prayed that Audley might live up to his CO's estimation.
'Looks like another halt ahead,' said Winston. 'So think it over, Lieutenant'
The jeeps slowed down as before, pulling into the side of the road under the shadow of the trees with a gentle rise stretching ahead of them to the crest of the next ridge.
But this time, to Butler's relief, it was Sergeant Purvis who came back towards them.
'Sir'—Purvis sounded breathless, but cheerful—'the major's compliments, and we shall be going through a village very soon. Nothing to worry about—I've had a look-see myself and I've put two men over the top of the hill beyond the village. The major's in there now, asking around if there's any suspicious persons been seen in the vicinity— won't take my word for it yet, like he used to for poor old Taf . . .' He grinned suddenly at Butler, with the ghost of a wink. 'Now if you were to lend me the corporal there—I hear tell he's got a bit of a nose, like Taf had— Corporal Jones, that is . . .'
'I'll think about it, Sergeant,' said Audley. 'Are we halting in the village?'
'Lord—no, sir! Never stop inside a place, we don't. Too many prying eyes, there are . . . not unless it's been okayed by the partisans, and we don't know any of them here.' Purvis shook his head. 'No sir, we'll go straight through, and in four separate groups—that way if there is anyone watching that shouldn't be he'll likely get the wrong idea about our strength. You two'—he waved his hand to include the jeep behind— 'are the rear guard, with me as tail-end Charlie.' He grinned again. 'Just go straight across the village square and there's a sign to St. Laurent-les-Caves. Then up the hill till you meet up with the rest.'
'All right, Sergeant,' Audley nodded. “We'll manage.'
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
'Of course you will, sir. Just take it nice and steady—not too fast and not too slow. But don't stop for anyone, no matter who . . . and do keep an eye out for the kiddies, sir—if you catch them on the wrong side of the road from their mothers they'll like as not run across in front of you in a flash.'
There was something infinitely comforting about Sergeant Purvis, decided Butler. And not the least element in that comfort was his capacity for worrying about other people, even about small French children in a village in the middle of nowhere. If there was anyone they could risk trusting in Chandos Force, Purvis was the one.
Also, he was beginning to get the hang of Major O'Conor's operating rules, which seemed to be a variation on the hallowed principle of fire-and-movement. Very skilful reconnaissance—what Sergeant Purvis would no doubt describe as “look-see'—and movement had obviously kept them alive and operational for months in the far more hazardous conditions of occupied Jugoslavia.
It was a pity—indeed, it was also almost beyond his understanding— that the major had somehow gone to the bad.
And it was a pity also that the very blindest chance had made Audley and himself—and the colonel and Sergeant Winston—the innocent victims of his villainy.
He frowned at the back of Sergeant Winston's neck. The American's bad luck was enough to rattle even a man of such evident common sense and efficiency, which all senior NCOs in the engineers appeared to share: to be cut off from his unit among foreigners, was bad enough. But to be cut off among villainous foreigners in enemy territory . . .
He realised that all three of them were wrapped in thought, but that the thoughts must be very different.
And the heaviest burden lay on the broad but utterly inexperienced shoulders of the young dragoon subaltern, with his stutter and his bruises and his Cambridge scholarship which was of as little use to him now as a packet of fish and chips. Indeed, a packet of fish and chips would be a lot more use, he thought, feeling hungrily in his haversack. His fingers closed on the familiar oatmeal block.
And then he knew that he could never face a mouthful of oatmeal again, not even if he was starving, not even if it was the last edible thing in the whole world. There had been oatmeal in Jones's eyes and in his eyebrows and in his nostrils.
He munched a bar of ration chocolate and tried to think of something else.
Loot. . . the colonel had called it 'valuable property,' but the major had called it
Oatmeal.
So the major must know what it was—obviously he knew what it was, or he wouldn't be planning to Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
do ... but what was he planning to do? And, come to that, what had the colonel himself been planning to do?
Oatmeal.
He reached inside his battle-dress blouse for his pocket watch. It was still incredibly early; everything seemed to have happened this morning on a time scale of its own, outside ordinary time. Back home at this hour his father would be having his breakfast, or maybe getting a proper shine on his boots before setting out for work. And the general . . .
He opened the watch case a little more—james butler 15-5-42 from h.g.c. 6.9.91—if anyone came into possession of this watch they would take those two dates for birthdays, he thought wryly, and not the days on
