They were driving steadily southwards; or perhaps, from the position of the earty evening sun, south inclined a few degrees eastwards. But then the road had twisted and turned so many times that they could just as easily have drifted westwards first . . . the three-tonner which had carried him away from battalion headquarters had certainly left Caen—or the rubble that had once been Caen—on a more or less southwesterly route.
Butler's head swam with the effort of trying to work out where he was and where he was heading. He had studied a map of Normandy carefully back in England only a week before, but that seemed a very long time ago, and it hadn't been this part that he'd concentrated on—at least, so it seemed to him now, because the names on the signposts were all strange and new to him.
And the places themselves, they were all the same, most of them fearfully knocked about, some of them no better than Caen itself; blank empty windows and smashed-up churches with holes punched methodically into their towers where the snipers had been.
And the civilians ... he had half expected, even more than half expected, that there would be cheers and flowers for liberation, or at least that some pretty girl would wave at him. But he hadn't heard a cheer or seen an arm raised, never mind a pretty girl. Half the time they didn't even look at him, any of them, and he didn't blame them a bit now for that, with their homes in ruins.
But, one thing, the country was different here. Not flat and open, but closed into small fields with high earth banks out of which the trees and hedges sprouted, and rolling up and down into deep litde valleys full of trees.
And the fighting, although it had passed now—away almost due east, so far as he could judge the sound
—it had been bad here. In one place they passed three British tanks, Cromwells all of them, blackened and burnt and shunted into a twenty-yard stretch of ditch; and he caught a glimpse of others, one with its turret lying beside it, through a gap in the earth bank on his left.
'Getting warm,' said Major O'Conor. 'Take the left fork at the next junction, Sergeant-major. If there's a sign it'll be for St Pierre-sur-Orne, most likely.'
Butler blinked and stared at the weatherbeaten back of the major's neck. The Orne flowed northwards into the sea from Caen, but before that . . . where did it come from?
And now the sound of the distant guns seemed to be coming more from the southeast than the east . . .
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
Butler shivered. Whatever it was doing, it wasn't getting warm at all, it was almost chilly. Or maybe the sight of those burnt-out Cromwells had chilled him.
The major twisted in his seat. 'Been admiring the scenery, Corporal?'
'Yes, sir,' said Butler.
'Quite right too. Lovely countryside, and we're just getting into the best of it. And you know what they call it?'
Butler thought of the Cromwells again, and then with a start realised that he was about to be told where he was.
'No, sir.'
'La Suisse Normande, Corporal—'the Norman Switzerland.' Actually, it's nothing like Switzerland, but it's the nearest thing they've got, and the food's a lot better.' The major looked around proprietorially.
'Not a place to fight in, of course ... if you've got to do the attacking, that is ... but fortunately, Jerry has pressing business elsewhere and other things in mind, so we don't have to worry about that.'
So the Germans really were retreating, thought Butler. All the rumours were true after all.
'Sir?' he inquired hopefully.
The major smiled. 'Another five or ten minutes, and you'll be able to stretch your legs. And then after that I fancy you'll be able to travel more comfortably too.'
He turned away, leaving Butler not very much the wiser. La Suisse Normande might be anywhere; it certainly wasn't a name he'd seen on any map. But the Germans had retreated through it, and the major obviously wasn't contemplating attacking them.
Yet in the last second before he turned away, the major's medal ribbons had again caught his eye. Blue-red- blue, white-blue-white, and then faded red-white-blue—he knew them all, and they did leave him wiser, and not a little confused.
The major was a proven soldier, they told him that, the first two of them—a fighting soldier for sure with that white-blue-white to prove it. But the faded red-white-blue, faded and fading off into each other, that also made him an
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
It was strange how he could never think of either of them now without the other intruding almost immediately.
No, 'intruding' was the wrong word, he decided. They had become inseparable antagonists inside his head, just as they were in real life, but he could never make them act out of character there.
Sometimes he had tried hard to imagine them arguing over him, about what he was resolved to do with his life. He had done—or tried to do—this not because he wanted it to happen (the very thought of it doing so was painful to him), but because it seemed to him that if he could eavesdrop into such a fantasy he might be able to understand better why he felt the way he did.
But not even in his imagination could he make them say anything more to one another than he had heard them do in reality.
The general would always speak first: 'Good morning, Mr. Butler,' he would say politely, with just a touch of briskness, raising his bowler hat as he did so.
'Good morning, sir,' his father would reply, just as politely, touching his cap in a gesture of recognition to the raised bowler.
