Soldier No More

might have done to him, and by the time either of them started to smell a rat he'd be long gone to ground, and ready dummy5

to deal for his survival—

Long gone, Julie—

And long gone, Lexy—

And long gone, all the rest of them—the man on the beach in Japan and all his successors down to Genghis Khan; and the man in the British Embassy in Tokyo, and all his successors down to Sir Eustace Avery and Colonel Clinton; and David Audley and Etienne d'Auberon—and the hell with all of them!

No more self-pity, just self-interest and the future—no longer the past or the might-have-been, no more deluding himself with silly ideas—there was no more time for any of that—

In the stillness he heard the door under Solum perfectum me attrahit close again behind him in the distance, through the arched gate-house and the courtyard.

Raymond Galles, and whoever else was there to witness the transaction, was still watching him. And the only thing that worried him was the faintest suggestion of doubt which had been in d'Auberon's eyes as he turned away.

'Here you are, Captain Roche—one brief-case!'

Roche's left hand, feeling in his pocket among his loose change, closed over the key. It was the same case, and there hadn't been time for anyone to pick the lock, even if anyone had had reason to pick it.

His right hand took the case for Galles to see. He had entered the chateau without it, but now he was leaving with it— and dummy5

d'Auberon had given it to him.

The thing was done—and if anyone else was watching, it could only be Genghis Khan's man who had witnessed it, he decided. And that would just give him even more time.

'Just one thing—'

Another thing? He looked at d'Auberon questioningly, the case weighing down his arm to his side, but there was something else weighing down his mind at the same time.

'Why did you really come to see me, Captain Roche?'

'I beg your pardon?' He heard the lack of conviction in his own voice.

'It's simply that . . . I've never seen a man more nervous than you, Captain—underneath the polite civilities, that is.'

D'Auberon smiled— half-smiled—at him. 'But of course you don't have to tell me ... though you make me nervous too, because now I come to think of it, there is one man you remind me of: he despatched me into the Chausse Mejean in

'43, to work with the Bir Hakim maquis when things were bad

—and that only makes me more nervous.'

'Why?' He knew what the other thing was: it had been there in the back of his mind ever since the plan had taken shape.

'Why? Well ... I think he thought the Germans were waiting for me. And so they were . . . but the drop went wrong—there was low cloud and we never saw the dropping zone, so I jumped almost blind, and broke my ankle five miles away, falling through a pigsty roof outside Brassac. A fortunate dummy5

disaster . . . but he didn't know that when I jumped, you see.”

Roche hardly heard him. He was trapped by his own knowledge of what the Comrades must do next.

Up until now they had had no incentive to do anything about Etienne d'Auberon, with his secret already safely in their possession; if anything, he was more useful to them alive than dead. But now ... it was always possible that sooner or later the British would get round to checking Captain Roche's story, just to be on the safe side, in spite of Galles' eye-witness account of the transfer. Then it would be his word against d'Auberon's, but even if they took his word there would always be a niggling doubt—and there would be no place for any niggling doubts in Sir Eustace Avery's operations.

'What is your work in Paris, Captain?' D'Auberon weakened enough to ask directly the question which must have been uppermost in his mind from the start.

Simply, they couldn't afford to leave the Frenchman alive now. They wouldn't do it today or tomorrow—they'd allow just enough time to allow Roche to win his spurs, but not a minute more—maybe the day after tomorrow, trusting that the French themselves would handle the problem of the other two copies. But they would do it.

'I shouldn't be here.' He felt strangely relieved to hear his own voice. 'I shouldn't be here . . . but we owe you.'

'You owe me?' D'Auberon seemed puzzled.

dummy5

'Audley does, anyway.' He'd promised not to mention Audley's role in this, but he hadn't promised anything else.

'From the war.'

'Mon Dieu! He doesn't still remember that, does he!'

D'Auberon reacted as Audley had predicted he would do at the mention of his name.

'It doesn't matter. The fact is, the Russians know what you've got. So you'd best go to ground somewhere safe—at once.'