The '44 Vintage

Sergeant Winston stirred restlessly. 'Seems to me, ma'am, you know a lot more than you're telling.' He gave Audley a thoughtful glance. 'But then you're not the first person we met today like that.'

'No.' Audley shook his head. 'My godmother's just a very good guesser. She always was.'

'Uh-huh? So she still is.' Sergeant Winston regarded Madame Boucard speculatively. 'But I'd still be obliged to know how you guess so good, godmother.'

The expressive eyebrow lifted again. 'Is it of so much importance to you, Sergeant—to know how an old woman guesses?'

Winston shook his head. 'Normally, ma'am—no. I had a grandma could see clear through me and a brick wall both, so it's no surprise you can figure us. But then it was just my ... backside was at risk. This time it's my skin. And the way things have been happening to us today —I guess I'm more suspicious than I was yesterday, even of godmothers.'

Both eyebrows came down into a frown. 'The way things have been happening to you?'

'Uh-uh.' The American grinned and shook his head. 'I got my question in first, ma'am. So I get my answer first.'

For an instant she looked at him severely, but then the corner of her mouth lifted. ' Vraiment... I can see why your grandmother kept her eye on you, Sergeant. But—very well. When a man says there is something he may have to do, then it is usually something he doesn't want to do. And when the man wears a uniform and protests that he is also only doing his duty, then that is even more certainly the case

—for then he is about to do something either very brave or very wicked. Or perhaps both ... or perhaps he doesn't know which, even.'

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

She paused to look for a moment at Audley. 'Now ... my godson there—your lieutenant—if he was here to blow up a bridge or destroy a railway line ... if there are still such things left in France that have not already been destroyed ... he would not need to explain that it was his duty. It would not even occur to him to explain it ... nor would he need a witness to it.

'Nor, I think, if he was merely engaged in killing Germans'—she gave Hauptmann Grafenberg a grave little bow—'would he need to justify such an action, any more than our guest would need to explain why he was forced by his duty to kill Englishmen and Americans. . . .

'And also my godson is not so insensitive that he would invite a German officer to witness such . . .

duty. Which really leaves us with only one possibility.' She looked for the first time towards her husband.

'Which we have already foreseen, my husband and I—a sad but necessary duty, which we will not hinder.'

Butler frowned at Audley, suddenly mystified.

Audley's face was a picture—a mirror image of his own mystification. And then suddenly it was transformed by understanding and relief.

'My God, maman! Is that what you think we're here for?'

Boucard shook his head. 'Not the British, my boy—or not the British by themselves. But we realise that General de Gaulle and the Allies are not going to let the Communists take over, and ever since they have started to move Popular Front units into this area we've been expecting a countermove of some sort from the Free French and the Allies—particularly after today's news from the south.'

'You know about the landing?' Audley said quickly.

Boucard smiled. 'The Americans captured St. Tropez this afternoon, and their paras are already closing in on Draguignan . . . yes, we know. But what matters to us now is what happens here.'

'Jee-sus Christ!' Winston exploded.

'Sergeant!'

'I'm sorry, ma'am—but'—Winston appealed to Audley—'what the hell are they on about?

Communists?'

Audley grinned wryly at him. 'Welcome to Europe, Sergeant. They think we're here to kill Frenchmen—

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

and French Communists for choice.'

Butler found himself staring at Hauptmann Grafenberg—he didn't know why, but perhaps it was because of all the faces at the table the young German officer's was the most completely bewildered.

Except that the German was also staring at him.

A few minutes before he had felt sorry for his enemy, because he had seen in his painful confusion the bitter truth that there was more to losing a war than just being beaten in fair fight by the stronger side.

But now he himself was discovering that winning a war was more complicated than beating the enemy—

that when one enemy was beaten there were suddenly more enemies and new enemies. Enemies stretching away into infinity—Germans killing Germans.

Frenchmen killing Frenchmen.

'Hell, ma'am—for once you really guessed wrong,' said the American. 'We're not here to kill Frenchmen. We're here to kill the goddamn British.'

It was perfectly logical, thought Butler.

Or, if not perfectly logical, it had five years' blessing, all but a couple of weeks, behind it. And that was how Dad would have argued it, first with the other union officials round the kitchen table, then with the bosses—

Custom and practice.

“We have the custom and practice of the shop floor behind us. There's no getting away from that,