The '44 Vintage

Somehow Sergeant Purvis's treachery seemed the blackest of all. The major was an Olympian figure, a being from another world, to be admired or hated rather than understood—and it was difficult to hate what he didn't understand. But Sergeant Purvis—and the sergeant-major too —had been men he knew and trusted as the backbone of the British Army. The major was like the general, his idol. But they were no different from Dad, and that made their treachery worse and killing too good for them, the buggers.

'They did?' Audley gave him a knowing look: he could see that now and he'd have to watch his own face. 'Yes . . . well, I suppose they were checking us both for the same thing. The other two chaps were from Intelligence— Colonel Clinton's men. That's why the major got rid of them. Maybe he hoped to recruit us into the plot—at least for the time being, anyway ... I don't know. But that's the key to it, I think.' His mouth twisted. 'In fact, when I think about it, he as good as said as much, by golly! Do you know that, Jack?' Jack. Equals.

'No. What did he say?'

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

They were equals. Mr. Audley and Corporal Butler were just for the time being. He would learn and he would catch up because he had learnt. And he would be a better officer than Audley because of that 'He said things would be rough after the war.'

'They said that too.' He couldn't quite bring himself to say David. That would only come with friendship, if not equality.

'Huh! He said the war was won, but we hadn't won it—we'd just fought it. He said the Yanks and the Russians had won, we'd lost. At least, the British had lost. But there was still a chance for individual chaps to grab what was going and get something out of it—did they say that to you, Jack?'

The lump was there again. 'More or less.'

Audley nodded. 'I gave him the wrong answer too. I said everything I wanted was at Cambridge, waiting for me—'

He was only one breath away from asking what was waiting for Corporal Butler to keep him on the straight and narrow road, thought Butler. And he had to be headed off from that question. 'What did he say to that, sir?' he said hastily.

'Oh, he sheered off. He said he was glad I'd got myself a cushy billet. And then he said something I thought was rather clever: he said that the difference between wise countries and wise men was that wise countries prepared for war in peacetime, whereas the wise man was the one who prepared for peace in wartime.' He gave Butler a twisted grin. 'The laugh is—I thought he was talking about me. But actually he was referring to himself, I suppose: kill everyone who gets in the way, grab the loot, and keep going, that's his formula.'

'Keep going where?'

Audley shrugged. 'Switzerland, I guess. That's where I'd go if I was him.'

'But what about everyone else? They'd know, I mean.'

'If there is any 'they' after he's finished. With the sergeant-major and that sergeant of his, plus whoever else is in on the scheme—with the Germans retreating and the French settling their private scores, there should be enough chaos for him to remove the eyewitnesses. And even if he isn't quite as cold-blooded as that—well, maybe most of the chaps don't even know what he's up to, so he can go missing and stand a good chance of being listed as a dead hero.'

Put like that the risk the major was taking wasn't really so risky as that, thought Butler. The only real Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

hazard was the Germans, but now that they were retreating all the major had to do was to keep out of their road, and that was precisely where his special skill lay. Otherwise, a couple of jeeploads of British soldiers were more likely to be welcomed and helped on their way than questioned. France would be wide open to them.

'That doesn't answer the why, but it does spell out the how,' said Audley. 'And maybe the two add up to the same thing, anyway: it was his last and best opportunity of getting rich—he simply couldn't resist the opportunity.'

There was more to it than that, Butler's instinct told him. Audley might be right about the temptation—

he probably was. But there was also the long bitterness of those civilian years which the major had endured. Audley would never understand that, even though he had half suspected it, because it didn't make sense to him.

But he, Jack Butler, could understand it very well indeed. He could almost sympathise with it.

He could even guess at how it might rust a man's soul, the thought of the might-have-been, the lost comradeship and wasted youth, the thwarted skills and ambitions. Not even the opportunities of this war would have made up for all that; they might even have made it worse when the major saw the luckier subalterns of 1918 now commanding brigades and divisions all around him, while he was only a superannuated major teaching guerrillas how to shoot, somewhere in the back-of-beyond of the Jugoslav mountains.

And he knew he was right because he could still feel the ache in his own guts where his stomach had turned over with fear at the news that the war was ending quickly—too quickly, just as it had once done for the major. Indeed, the fear was still there, twisting inside him.

Except that it wasn't going to happen to him, the same thing. He wasn't going to let it happen, one way or another. But he couldn't tell Audley any of that.

'You're probably right, sir,' he began coolly. 'He must—'

'Sssh!' Audley held up his hand to cut him off, turning an ear towards the wood as he did so.

Butler couldn't hear a sound other than the swish of the stream. 'Someone's coming,' whispered Audley.

The only noise Butler could hear was still that of the water, but the conviction in that whisper was enough for him. He twisted sideways and reached inside the doorway for his Sten.

'On the path, down by the stream— there!' Audley hissed, pointing towards the fringe of trees to the left of them.

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

'I've got him,' Butler whispered back, his eyes fixed on the flicker of movement in the stillness while his fingers