The '44 Vintage

The Frenchman hadn't answered yet, and that was a good sign.

'Sir?' he enquired politely.

'Yes.' The answer was accompanied by a frown.

'So you do know our objective, sir?'

The doctor's lips tightened. 'I know what I have been told,' he said curtly. 'Yes.'

'That's fine, sir. Then you know our objective.' Butler nodded, listening in his inner ear to the sweet sound of the bugles at Omdurman.

'So the only question is—how quickly can you get us to Pont-Civray? Because the way things are, we Price, Anthony - [David Audley 08] - The '44 Vintage

probably don't have much time.'

Now there was an emotion in De Courcy's face: he looked at Butler incredulously. 'You think it is easy to get to Pont-Civray?'

'Hey, Jack—' Winston began.

'No!' snapped Butler, without looking at the American. 'We've been buggered around enough—now there's going to be no more buggering around . . . and the answer to that is—yes, sir. You've been running an escape route in these parts for three or four years. If you can move men around under the noses of the Germans and the French police, then you can move us to Pont-Civray, which is only just down the road from here, somewhere. So the answer is yes, sir—for you it is easy. All you have to do is to state your terms.'

'My—terms?'

'Yes, sir. You said yourself that innocence isn't the game to play. So —with respect—I suggest you practise what you preach.'

'My terms . . .' De Courcy left the question mark off the words this time. 'What makes you think I have . . . terms?'

Butler turned to Audley. 'Do you want to take over, sir?'

Audley was smiling at him, really smiling, as he shook his head. 'You've got the ball, Jack—you make the touchdown.'

'Very good, sir.' Butler tightened his grip on the Sten as he turned back to the Frenchman. Like MacDonald wheeling his battalions and batteries, he knew that it could only be done if it was done right.

And it wasn't a small thing that Audley was doing himself, trusting him to do it.

He looked down over the stubby barrel at the Frenchman.

'You didn't never believe'—he stumbled over the grammar—'you never did believe we killed those men, sir. If you had believed it then you wouldn't be here—you'd have turned us in, as the sergeant said.

Or if you didn't want to turn Mr. Audley in, for old times' sake, then you still wouldn't have wanted to help us— and you certainly wouldn't have come down here by yourself to tell us to our faces that we were murderers, and we could stew in our own juice. You'd have sent M'sieur Boucard maybe, but you wouldn't have come yourself.'

'What makes you so sure of that?'

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

Butler lifted the Sten. 'This does, sir. Because if I'd killed four Frenchmen then a fifth one wouldn't worry me— because if Mr. Audley says 'shoot' then I shoot.' He shook his head. 'But you came—sir—'

'That at least is true.'

Butler felt a small knot of anger tie itself inside him. 'Aye, and there's not much bloody truth round here, either.'

'Steady, Jack,' said Audley.

'Yes, sir.' Butler stepped back from his anger. 'But instead of being straight with us you've been playing your own little game.'

'And what game is that?' asked De Courcy.

The question sounded casual—almost insultingly casual, and certainly condescending. A day or two back a question like that would have thrown him, thought Butler. Even a few minutes ago it might have put him off his stroke, because he hadn't understood the rules of the game. But now it was different.

'Why—sir—you've told us that yourself.' He gave the Frenchman back a common corporal's surprise in return for the condescension. It wasn't a game, of course, and they both knew it. But the trick was to behave as though it was—it was as simple and easy as that. He had taken a long time to learn that rule, but he had learnt it in the end.

' Pardon?' De Courcy's English accent slipped. 'I told you?'

'Oh yes, sir.' It wasn't difficult to insult a man if you knew how. 'Your man-eating tigers—the men who are after us—they didn't really want to know why we were here, and what we were doing. So happens they knew that.' He grinned innocently. 'What they wanted to know is where we were going—that was what they didn't know.'

'Bravo!' encouraged Audley softly.

'But you, sir—you know where we're going, because M'sieur Boucard's told you. And you know what we're going to do as well—because he'll have told you that too. What you don't know is the why—and that's your game, sir.'

'Man—but Boucard will have told him that too,' said Winston. 'No, Sergeant,' said Audley quickly.