The '44 Vintage

The words had made him gawp at the RSM for a moment like a recruit who didn't know his left foot from his right. And then, in sinking through to the first layer of his understanding, they had made him do something which two moments before he would never have dreamed of doing in his wildest fantasy: he had questioned the RSM's order.

'What duties, sir?'

He heard the question after he had spoken it, it had hung in the air between him and the RSM, surprising both of them.

The RSM had looked at him, and he had the feeling that he was really being looked at by the RSM for the first time as a person, not as 944 Butler J., Corporal, 'B' Company.

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

The RSM sighed. 'Corporal . . . ask me no questions, son, and I'll tell you no lies.' And then he had paused, and had looked down at the papers on the table as though to recall himself to the matter in hand.

'Ten minutes—you have ten minutes to get your kit together and report back here on the double—ten minutes. And then regimental transport will take you to a point one mile south of—of'—he looked down again uncertainly —'Meznil—lez—Bockage . . . that's it—Meznil-lez-Bockage . . . where you will rendezvous with a Major O'Conor at precisely eighteen hundred hours.' He had looked up at Butler, eyes opaque. 'Is that clear, Corporal?'

It had been all too clear then; it had been appallingly clear; it had been Detached for Special Duties.

'But, sir—'

'Ten minutes. By which time the relevant documentation will have been completed.'

The finality of the RSM's voice had broken through the final layer. The words on that piece of paper were chiselled in stone.

'Away from the battalion?' It hadn't really been a question, and it certainly hadn't been addressed to the RSM; Butler had simply been talking to himself.

But it had been spoken aloud.

'Away—?' The RSM had started to speak sharply; but then, as the cry from the soul had registered, his expression had changed. Loyalty to the battalion was something he took for granted, but it was still not a quality to be spurned. It was something which merited an answer.

'Now then, son . . .' The RSM had struggled briefly with the problem. 'You do speak German—you are proficient in that language, aren't you?'

Butler swallowed, unable to deny what he was so proud of. 'Not ... I wouldn't quite say that, sir.'

' Proficient.' The RSM held on to the word. 'That is what the record says . . . and there is a requirement for a German-speaking noncommissioned officer.'

Butler's heart had beaten faster then. The requirement was not for him—not for 12048944 Butler J., Corporal, 2nd/4th Royal North-East Lancashire Rifles. Nor was it for a red-haired soldier suffering in secret from Epidermophyton inguinale, who had been born in Jubilee Street, Blackburn, nineteen and a half years before. It was just for an NCO who could speak in German. And that could be—anyone.

'With respect, sir—I'd like to stay with the battalion, sir.'

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

The RSM had frowned at that 'What you'd like—and what you don't like—don't come into it, Corporal.'

The frown had frightened Butler. But the prospect of what was proposed for him had terrified him beyond fear: his instinct made him fight before his reason had time to instruct him otherwise. 'I've been with the battalion for two years, sir.' The frown had deepened. Two years or ten minutes—two years and ten minutes—it was all the same to the RSM. He needed a better reason than that.

'The battalion's just about to go into action, sir,' he had said. Slowly the frown had cleared, until the face was expressionless again.

'My ... my father was with the regiment in 1916, sir.'

Now there was an expression, but he couldn't identify it. 'Aye, I know, son.' The RSM had nodded slowly. 'And he was RSM, 1st Battalion, at Ypres in '18.'

It had been Butler's turn to frown then. Because that knowledge had been just too exact, too precise. It had been all very well for 'the record,' whatever it was, wherever it was, to note that he could speak German. He had never concealed that—he had been proud of it. But how could the RSM—?

The question answered itself before he had finished formulating it in his mind. Somewhere, wherever that record was, probably far away back in the regimental depot, there was a sheet of that thick white writing paper which General Sir Henry Chesney always used ... he could almost see the beautiful copperplate writing on it There was a sheet of the same paper, with the same copperplate, in his pocket now—

Dear Jack,

By the time you receive this letter I expect you will be in the thick of it—

It would be like the general to do his best for him, unasked, with just such a letter of recommendation.

And it was—what was the word, 'irony' was it?—an irony if that recommendation was now taking him away from the battalion.

Unless—the thought had come out of nowhere and he had clutched it desperately—unless they were now giving him a chance to distinguish himself, perhaps?

In that instant he had stopped fighting and had started to think about a Major O'Conor who required a German-speaking NCO for Special Duties.

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

His eyes had met the RSM's. 'I'll get my kit, sir,' he had said then.

Ready for what?