Soldier No More

'Good.'

But then he moved away into the smoky darkness, knocking clumsily on obstacles and crunching on debris.

'What are you doing?' cried Roche.

'I'm scavenging for weapons.' The light searched the wreckage. 'All we've got is Mike's gun, but there are two here somewhere. . .and the man you clobbered still has a full magazine . . . which is more than Mike has. . . Ah!'

He would see the brief-case.

'Now for the other one,' murmured Audley. 'Got it!'

'What the hell's happening?' said Roche.

'Yes. . . you may well ask!'Audley picked his way back. 'It would seem . . . that we made a rather serious error of judgement somewhere along the line. . . a most regrettable error . . .'He knelt down beside Roche. 'How is she?'

Roche looked down. Above the mask of blood her eyes were closed again, but he could feel her chest rising and falling under the pressure of the sodden handkerchief.

'Was there an exit wound? I don't think there was...' Audley stuffed a huge pistol into his waistband alongside a smaller one, and felt gingerly under the girl. 'No . . . fortunately it was your man who had the cannon, and you were just too quick for him . . . but unfortunately we don't really know the dummy5

angle of entry, and that's what matters . . . Still, the Perownes all have constitutions like cart-horses—they bleed a lot, but they're notoriously difficult to kill off.'

Roche stared at him speechlessly for a moment. 'Damn you, Audley!'

Audley returned the stare. 'Damn me if you like—but don't go soft on me, that's all. There are too many fellagha out there for that, and—'

'Fellagha?'

'That's right. Didn't you look at the man whose brains you beat out? There's a whole bloody faoudj of Algerian FLN out there—and they're not planning to go away empty-handed ...

I take it that you did get the thing from d'Auberon?'

'But—' Roche's brain whirled '—but it's got nothing to do with them!'

'You try telling them that! I did—when they came in to wait for you—and I got a clout across the face for my trouble.'

Audley touched his cheek.

'But why, for Christ's sake?'

'For Christ's sake—not for Allah's sake—d'Auberon was working on the Morice Line plans when he resigned. And with the Israelis here, sniffing around him—man, they've put two and two together and made five, that's what they've done

—'

There might be some other people who could misunderstand the situation—the scales fell from Roche's eyes at last.

dummy5

A most regrettable error of judgement—there had indeed been that, and it had been his own as well as Audley's . . . and Genghis Khan's too—or maybe Genghis Khan had more likely realised exactly who had killed Steffy, but had reckoned on the Comrades' ability to rein in the Algerians—and had also misjudged that situation.

'But we can't piss around with politics—we haven't the time,'

said Audley harshly. 'An hour from now—or less if they've already got the stuff to hand—they'll blow in that door with a bit of plastique. And then it's just routine house-clearing—a grenade first, then they'll be in down here . . . and then they'll fire through the floor up above with automatic pistols. It isn't difficult, house-clearing . . . I've seen it done, believe me ...

and half these fellagha have been trained in the French Army to do it, what's more. All they need is darkness, and they'll have that soon.' In an hour from now Raymond Galles would come back. Or maybe two hours—and Galles wouldn't be expecting a pitched battle . . . Roche felt hope extinguish within him.

'Give them the bloody brief-case, then.' The words tumbled out, but they were the right words. The girl in his arms was worth more than the brief-case.

'No.' Audley's rejection was uncompromising. Roche's mouth dried up. 'It isn't worth fighting for.'

“It's worth fighting for.'

Roche moved his arm slightly beneath Lexy's shoulders. If he dummy5

stood any chance of jumping Audley he'd have to put her down first, and he wanted to do that as gently as possible. .

But the movement betrayed him. Audley lifted the larger of the two pistols from his waistband quickly. 'Don't be silly, Roche.'

It seemed to Roche that he had been silly all his life, and it was a bitter pain inside him that now at last, when he had stopped being silly, he had fluffed the transformation.

But there was still one last chance to make amends. 'It isn't worth anything.' It was like the old soldiers said: no plan, however clever, survived its first encounter with real life.