Audley looked at him for a moment, and then turned away again to stare at the wood, in which the trees nearest them were just beginning to emerge as individual shapes.
'It's funny ... I knew from the second we decided to go after him that if we did catch up with him we'd have to kill him. Not only because it's the only thing
Audley shook his head at the trees. 'I've never killed a man before ... I mean, I've never killed a man I knew— in cold blood like this. Maman was quite right, as usual: the word is 'assassinate'—God knows how she guessed, but that's what it is. Just one step up from murder, really.'
Butler cleared his throat. 'I don't see that, sir. Not so as to worry about it anyway. Not after what we've been through.'
'Oh—it doesn't worry me, not at all. Quite the opposite actually. As I say, it's funny . . . but the last twenty- four hours or so I've been really almost happy for the first time since I landed in Normandy.'
'Happy?' Butler repeated the word incredulously.
'I said it was funny, didn't I?' Audley rocked forwards. 'I suppose being away from . . . from the regiment has something to do with it Away anywhere. Even here.'
There came a sudden sound of flapping wings from the wood, making Butler sit up sharply in alarm.
'It's all right,' Audley reassured him. 'He's just gone on his morning patrol. If it'ud been anything else Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
he'd have sounded his danger call.'
Butler stared at the young officer curiously, wondering suddenly how much guilty truth and how much honest battle fatigue there had been in the story of the fight with the Tiger. What was certain was that too much brains and too much imagination could be an extra burden in the front line: Audley was like a racehorse down a coal mine, desperately pretending to be a pit pony.
The wood was quiet again.
'I didn't think much about the major, anyway,' Audley took up the thread once more. 'The best part of yesterday ... I suppose the problem of catching him seemed more important than doing what we had to do when we did catch him—if we ever did. But now . . .' he trailed off.
Butler felt strangely protective. 'We'll just do what we have to. Duty isn't a problem, sir.'
Audley turned towards him. 'Yes—but now I want to know
'Why what, sir?'
'Why Major O'Conor's gone rotten on us, man—wasn't that what you wanted to ask in the first place?'
Butler blinked. 'Oh . . . yes, sir—it was. But I didn't think you'd know the answer to that, of course.'
'But maybe I do.'
'You do?' Butler's surprise was genuine.
'I said 'maybe.' The trouble is I know so little about him, really—just what they said . . . and what he said too ... in the Mess last night.' Audley paused. 'No, I mean the night before last. It seems only last night . . . and yet it also seems a hell of a long time ago.'
So Audley was having trouble with time too, thought Butler. 'Yes, sir?'
Audley nodded. 'He wasn't just in the show from 1940 onwards. He was in the first lot, in 1918—did you know that?'
Butler nodded back. 'Yes, sir. I recognised the ribbons.'
'Yes, of course—I hadn't thought of that. . . . Well, he was a second lieutenant. Won the MC up beyond Ypres somewhere, right at the end of things. And he wanted to stay on afterwards and make a career of it, but they wouldn't have him—that's what he said. I can't imagine why anyone in his right mind should Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage
want to do that, but I think he did—very much.'
Butler opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come out.
'It's pretty remarkable that he got back in at the sharp end in 1939. He'd been a schoolmaster or something like that—maybe he was a Territorial officer, I suppose. That might be it. But it's still remarkable.'
There was a lump in Butler's throat. 'If a man wants something enough, sir . . .'
'But he wanted it enough in 1918—or 1919. Anyway he did get back in—France in '40, then the Middle East— Greece and Crete. North Africa and then Italy. And finally Jugoslavia as a weapons adviser to a big Partisan outfit —a DSO for that, so he must have been damn good. It seems incredible, doesn't it?'
'That he should go wrong on us?' Butler found himself staring at the trees. It did seem incredible. It even required an effort of will to recall the voice and the words he had heard spoken just above him on the island in the Loire, even though both were etched deep into his memory. 'Yes, it does, sir.'
'And yet it was there, the night before last.'
It was there? 'What was there, sir?'
'Something wrong. He kept asking me what I was going to do after the war. Like, did I really want to go up to Cambridge.'
'They asked me that too, sir. What I wanted to do after the war. The . . . Corporal Jones did. And Sergeant Purvis.'
