. which just goes to show how deceptive appearances can be, you know.'
Amen to that, thought Butler. But surely that couldn't be true about everyone?
'In fact I know just why he thought that.' Audley turned towards him again. 'And I'll tell you why—it makes a rather nice cautionary tale in its way.'
Butler stared at him.
The white blur shook up and down. 'Yes ... I think I must have just the merest touch of claustrophobia—
or cold feet as they call it in the Mess—but I couldn't bear to batten down inside my tank. I liked to have as much of me outside the steel coffin as possible, no matter what. Much easier to bail out if you get brewed up too . . .' He fell silent for a few seconds. 'Besides, the last tank I had, the previous commander had his head blown off— his body slipped down inside . . . whole thing was swimming in blood, and you wouldn't believe how difficult it is to clean out a tank. In fact you can't clean it out—and you know what happens then, eh?'
Butler couldn't think of anything to say.
'Flies,' said Audley. 'Bloody thing was full of flies—great big fat things. Couldn't get rid of them.
Which was another reason I never battened down—I can't bear flies. Especially flies full of blood belonging to a friend of mine. That's what I dream about—flies.' He paused again. 'When I get home I'm going to buy myself the biggest fly-swatter you ever saw, and ten dozen flypapers, and I'm going to declare total war on the blighters. . . .'
He seemed to have lost the thread, but Butler was loath to recall him to it, whatever it was.
'Yes . . .' Audley's voice strengthened. 'So there was me, with my head and shoulders always sticking out of the top, because otherwise I'd get the screaming ab-dabs—and that's how all the really brave chaps like to ride, and damn the snipers. 'Proper cavalry spirit'—that's what the CO called it—'standing up in the stirrups to look.' Except I was so scared into a blue funk, I was more frightened of the flies than the snipers . . . and that last time, when the Tiger jumped three of us—we were the last one he got—I was out of the turret two seconds before he pressed the tit, not blown out but bailed out, and knocked myself out cold in the process. Which is what they found when they came to pick up the pieces: three brewed-up Cromwells and one heroically concussed cornet of dragoons.' His voice cracked. 'And the Tiger knocked out by a Firefly posting an AP up his back-passage ... so don't let anyone ever tell you about the victors and the vanquished, Jack. In war there are only the dead and the survivors, and the dead don't win anything. But if they think they're going to get me back inside a tank again, they're going to have to carry me kicking and screaming—and stuttering too. Because that's where I got that bloody Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
stutter of mine . . . and the farther away from the regiment I got, the farther away from my stutter—isn't that a funny thing, now?'
Butler stared and stared into the darkness, and was glad of it because it hid whatever expression he was wearing on his face—whatever it was, it felt hot as though he was blushing, though whether that was for himself or for Audley he couldn't make out.
'Phew!' Audley breathed out. 'They say confession is good for the soul, and I feel better for that already. But it must be somewhat less reassuring for the recipient, I should think, eh?'
Butler swallowed. 'No, sir.' He reached feverishly into his imagination. 'I think—I think you're no different from me—when I said it was luck, not wits, that counts. What people see, that's the truth for them.'
'Uh-huh? 'Beauty is only skin-deep, but it's only the skin you see'? But I don't think that's really a very sound basis for action, I'm afraid.'
Butler reached out again, and Rifleman Callaghan came to his rescue. 'I dunno about that, sir. But there's a man in my platoon who always says it's better to be lucky than beautiful... I reckon we're both lucky, it looks like.'
There was no point in adding that Rifleman Callaghan was referring to his conquests in the ATS
quarters, not to matters of life and death in France; and that in his victories it was not survival but a clean pair of heels that mattered.
'You may be right—I hope you are,' Audley mused. 'On the other hand . . .'
Butler reached out for one last time, despairingly. Things had gone quite far enough, and he didn't want to go into the fight today with any more of Audley's burdens on his back. Also, if there was such a thing as good luck, and they still had it, he didn't fancy listening to Audley try to take it to pieces to see how it worked, as though it was a cheap watch. It was one thing to take a watch to pieces, but a very different thing to make it work again afterwards. 'There's one thing I'd like to know, sir,' he said.
It took Audley a moment to shake himself free from his own thoughts. 'Yes . . . ? Well, what's that?'
What was there that he'd like to know? Butler asked himself desperately. He'd exchanged one problem for another.
He'd like to know what had been carried out of Paris in that ambulance four years before, to the Chateau de Pont-Civray. But Audley didn't know the answer to that, so he could only ask such a silly question as a last resort.
Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
What would Rifleman Callaghan have done in such a fix? 'I don't really know how to ask it,' he temporised.
'You don't?' Audley gave a short laugh. 'Then I bet I know what it is.'
Well, that was one for Callaghan's book, thought Butler: by a pure fluke he'd reversed the question, and what he was going to get now was what Audley himself would like to know. “The major,' said Audley.
The major?
'Yes, sir.' Butler controlled his voice with an effort. 'The major.' It was growing lighter; he could just begin to make out Audley's features, though not yet his expression. Which was a blessing, because it meant that Audley couldn't see him either.
'I know . . .' Audley nodded. 'Because I've been thinking about him too. Ever since maman spelt it out last night I've been thinking about him off and on.' Butler decided to say nothing.
