Soldier No More

with surprise that he hadn't immediately followed the direction of the nod, and then scampered away across the stones.

Roche looked at his watch on the towel beside him, and then slid it back on to his wrist. It was later than he had imagined, and he was glad of that because time had dragged on him, ticking away too slowly to H-Hour. Training and racial memory from a thousand battles in which he had never fought had prepared him for action at dawn, but never for combat over an early evening drink. But in the end God disposed the minute of the hour, and for the purposes of this great battle Genghis Khan was God, with Audley and Raymond Galles attending to the details in all innocence.

But he had to do it right: custom decreed that, and with Lexy there, almost at arm's-length, custom and inclination both—

and even something more than that, maybe even Audley's Kipling-bred, self-denying honour. He looked at his watch again, and still didn't look at the trees on the bank—he didn't need to look at them, he knew Galles was there waiting for him—but looked instead at Lexy.

The unattainable Lady Alexandra Mary Henrietta Champeney- Perowne, pink-and-blonde in her unsuitable scarlet bikini: she had heard what the little boy had said to him in that childish treble whisper, which mocked the secrecy he had been trying to achieve for half-a-crown in francs. Probably she had already looked where the boy had nodded, and she wasn't stupid, no matter what she said.

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She didn't know—couldn't know the tenth of it, never mind the half of it. But it didn't matter now, whatever she guessed, or didn't guess, because he had nothing to lose now, anyway.

The last thought armoured him against any reaction she could have against what he was about to say, because he was at last truly angry with her.

He raised himself up on the towel.

'I've got to go—I've got work to do. You go back to the Tower

—don't worry about my car, I'll collect it later—you go back and tell Audley I'm getting what he wants, and he's to wait for me there. Do you understand?'

Yes, David.' She sat up to match him, hair every-which-way, and busting-out-all-over-like-June, and cornered by realities she couldn't possibly comprehend; but neither subservient, nor concerned to vex him with silly questions about anything

—least of all about herself.

'Your trouble, Lady Alexandra, is that you're selling yourself cheap, to clever bastards like Audley—and cheapskates like me. What you want to do is to sell yourself dear, to someone who understands your true value, damn it—if you want to be dear to anyone, then force the price up ... be as expensive as you really are, Lady Alexandra!'

He turned from her, grabbed his clothes and headed for the gap in the trees, beyond the parked cars, towards which the little boy had nodded.

There was no one there, but he saw the little grey corrugated dummy5

Citroen parked just off the track further down, near the main road, yet half-hidden by bushes.

So Galles was at pains not to advertise himself more than necessary now. But perhaps that was understandable, after what had happened to Miss Stephanides last night.

He looked at his watch again, trying to judge minutes against distances. As usual on such occasions, time was behaving erratically: it had gone slowly at first, and then it had speeded up while Lexy had taken his mind off it. But it was still too early for his final contact with Genghis Khan, and that was what mattered. Unless and until he could be sure that the man had superimposed his own plan on Audley's, he had to take things easily.

So ... trousers first, and then socks and shoes . . . because a man without trousers couldn't face the world, and a man without shoes couldn't run away from it.

Then shirt and tie: shirt to make him respectable, tie to add formality, because a man in a Royal Signals tie was ready for anything and anywhere, even Le Chateau du Cingle d'Enfer.

He slung his coat over his shoulder, feeling the comforting weight of passport and wallet (a man with those could run faster and further), tucked his bastide- book and notes under his arm, and advanced in Full Service Marching Order towards the Citroen.

The engine was already running.

He bent down to the window. 'What's all the hurry?'

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Galles scowled at him. 'Get in the car, m'sieur.'

The little Citroen eased forward slowly, protesting at the potholes on the track, laboured up the incline on to the road, and then slammed him back in the seat as it accelerated away.

'What's all the hurry?' repeated Roche.

'No hurry, m'sieur.' Galles had his foot down on the floor.

'M'sieur Audley wishes me to say that he has telephoned M'sieur d'Auberon, and that M'sieur d'Auberon awaits your visit with the keenest interest, at 6.30 if that is convenient.'

'Are we being followed?' inquired Roche, even though the question was superfluous, since Galles was already staring fixedly into the wing mirror.

'M'sieur Roche—' Galles continued to study the mirror '—I have been followed ever since I picked you up at the station yesterday. And I should guess that you have also been followed. Have you not noticed?'

'By whom?' Roche ignored the question of his own inadequacy.

'I do not know. To my shame, I failed to remark upon the coincidences until this morning. It... has been a long time, since the old days, m'sieur. I am not as suspicious as I once was.'