The '44 Vintage

fire made it better than Audley's revolver and the Luger the American had picked up from the road after the ambush. Only experts could hit anything with handguns at more than point-blank range.

All the same he looked at Audley doubtfully. 'A Lee-Enfield would be better, sir. Over fifty yards you can't be dead sure with a Sten, sir. We'll just have to let them get right up close, that's all.'

Dr. de Courcy smiled suddenly, and bent forward to reach under the bunk. 'Then perhaps I can help you there, too. Not with a Lee-Enfield'—with an effort he slid a battered tin box out from beneath him

—'but with something just as good.'

The lid of the box carried a large red cross, and the box itself was full of bandages and rags. De Courcy plunged his hand into them and lifted a rifle into view.

'With the compliments of the French Army, Corporal—a Lebel from the '14-'18. It will shoot Englishmen just as accurately as Germans, I think.'

Butler reached down towards the rifle, but Audley's hand snaked past his to grasp it first.

'Sir?' Butler looked at him questioningly.

'Mine, I think, Corporal,' said the subaltern. 'You'll need the Sten to cover the bridge afterwards.'

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

Butler frowned. 'But, sir—'

'My job, too.' Audley sounded almost relieved. 'Don't worry, Corporal. Even second lieutenants can fire rifles —they do teach us some useful skills.' He turned to the American. 'All right with you, Sergeant?'

Winston looked at the subaltern curiously. It wasn't exactly an expression of approval, Butler decided, but it was as close to that sentiment as he had come since he had first climbed into the driving seat of the jeep on the road beside the Loire. 'Hell, Lieutenant—I wouldn't dream of cramping your style. If you British got a rule that only officers can shoot officers, that's okay by me. Just so you hold it nice and steady when the time comes . . .' He shrugged, and then grinned. 'Maybe we're due for a good break at that, I guess.'

The American's good humour reassured Butler's own doubts. If it was suddenly too easy—too good to be true —then perhaps that was only what they deserved after so much bad luck. Not so much the bad luck that had enabled them to get so far against all the odds; that might qualify as good luck. But the bad luck which had taken all three of them away from the safety of the real war, where a man knew what he was supposed to be doing.

He stared at Hauptmann Grafenberg, sitting quiet and withdrawn on the floor in the corner, almost unnoticed. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would travel across France with a German prisoner in his baggage. And yet, when he thought about it, it was only the German who had derived the good luck from their misfortunes: without them he might have been dead by now, or on his way to death. Winston followed his gaze. 'Yeah ... So what do we do with him, eh?' He threw the question at Audley.

As he spoke the ambulance slowed suddenly, with a squeak of ancient brakes, and then lurched to a halt.

De Courcy twisted on his bunk and slid back a panel in the partition which divided them from the driver's compartment.

' Qu'est-ce qui se passe, Gaston?' he hissed urgently. The mutter of French was lost to Butler in the sound of a bicycle wheel skidding on gravel and a breathless treble voice, not one word of which he could catch through the narrow gap in the partition.

At length De Courcy turned back to them. 'There are German vehicles on the main road ahead of us—

the Civray road. We must wait until they have passed.'

'Are we far from the chateau?' asked Audley.

'Very close,' De Courcy shook his head. 'We cross over here, onto the Marigny road. There is a bridge over the river, two kilometres perhaps, then the turning to the West Lodge is just over the bridge. Do not worry—Jean-Pierre will tell us when the way is clear.'

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

'That's . . . the kid that we heard just now?' Winston's nose wrinkled at the idea of depending on a child's judgment. 'A kid?'

The doctor regarded him equably. 'Jean-Pierre is small for his age, but he would not thank you for the description. This morning he is a Frenchman, Sergeant.'

'How old a Frenchman?'

'Eleven years. And before you decide eleven years are too few I should tell you that his younger brother Louis-Marie is watching the main gate of the chateau just up the road.'

'Jee-sus!' The American's eyes widened. 'Haven't you got any men, Doc? I thought your side was going to take over here after the krauts lit out—you going to use the kindergarten to keep the Commies in line?'

The doctor's expression hardened. 'In two weeks from now General de Lattre de Tassign's army will be here, Sergeant—the French army which is landing in southern France at this moment.'

Sergeant Winston scratched the end of his nose. 'Great. Except so far as we're concerned that's going to be just about two weeks too late, don't you think, Doc?'

Before the Frenchman could react to the jibe, Second Lieutenant Audley intervened. 'I can see that children do make good road-watchers, Doctor. In fact, I remember my father and the other chaps in the Home Guard in 1940 planning to use them if the Germans landed . . . but. . . but where are your people?

I mean, not the escape-route people, like old M'sieur Boucard—but the proper Maquis types? If we had a few of them we wouldn't need— this.' He lifted the old Lebel rifle.

The hard look on the Frenchman's face creased up like a celluloid mask on the Guy's face writhing in the flames of a November Fifth bonfire. He spread his hands in a gesture of despair—Frenchmen could say more with their hands than some Englishmen could say with their mouths, thought Butler.

But the gesture was lost on Sergeant Winston. 'I guess it suits them better if we take the risks, Lieutenant,' he