Soldier No More

Clinton had known all along that the d'Auberon papers were useless— except for the damage they would do to Avery. But Avery himself hadn't known that—any more than he'd known that Audley was already Clinton's man . . . 'on a private feudal arrangement'! 'So what's happened to Avery?'

He resigned four days ago,' said Audley.

All along Clinton had been gunning for Avery, and the Comrades had supplied him with the ammunition he needed.

'Full of honours, and with several succulent jobs on well-paid boards in the City,' continued Audley. 'But just in time, before they sacked the bugger . . . What did you expect?'

Roche tried hard to look wiser than he was. But of course it wouldn't be a bullet-behind-the-ear for Sir Eustace Avery, whatever it might be for Genghis Khan. It was Captain Roche who had had all the luck, even though he still didn't quite know why. .

'So we're under new management now: F. J. Clinton, sole proprietor— and Sir Frederick in the next New Year's Honours, if I'm any judge of the government's well-placed gratitude for hushing things up.'

A lot could happen between the Queen's birthday and the New Year— Bill Ballance always used to say that.

'Which, to do him justice—and the government justice—is dummy5

fair enough. Because he'll be a damn good sole proprietor, not like Useless Eustace . . . And also because the bloody Russians need taking down a peg—which you of all people ought to understand, Major Roche—eh?'

Roche thought of the Comrades as Russians—not for the first time, but more clearly: Russians, not Comrades . . . not with their union of socialist republics, but with their groaning colonies stretching from Hungary to the deserts of Asia and the Himalayas, where Kipling had played his game once upon a time, and Audley had learnt Kipling's rules.

And he also recalled Genghis Khan's confidence, at the prospect of fooling the stupid British again: as much as anything—as much as F. J. Clinton's clever plans—that over-confidence had confounded the Russians. 'You do, don't you?' Audley read his expression. 'They've done so bloody well of late that they're chancing their arm too far for comfort

— that's what Clinton relied on. But some of the things they've been doing have been positively dangerous, and that was my best argument for not using you to play games with them—better that we should call a halt, and shut them up for a bit, so we can both catch our breath. Better to clear the board and start again from scratch.'

That put the record straight, but it hurt nevertheless. 'And that's why I'm getting off the hook, is it?'

'With a medal—and a disability pension, Major?' Audley's lip curled. 'Free and clear? Don't be ungrateful, Major!!'

The Major twisted in the wound, and so did free and clear, dummy5

he might become the former, but even if he found a place to teach e tre and avoir, and the kings and queens of England, he would never free himself from what he had been.

'But not just that.' Audley stared at him for a moment, and then rose from the chair and moved towards the window.

Roche waited, watching Audley peer outwards and downwards at the lawns and flower-beds which he had never seen, which lay below the tree-scape he could see from his bed.

'Madame Peyrony sends her regards to you . . . Her regards, but no apologies for the mortar-barrage... I rather think she takes the view that if the Choosers of the Slain didn't have your name, then it's no business of hers. She's seen a lot of men die in her time, has Madame ...'

That was the truth, and maybe more so than Audley imagined.

'But she thinks well of you . . . Whereas I don't think I can go so far as that.' Something below him seemed to have caught Audley's attention, from the way he craned his neck to observe it. 'In my book a traitor is a traitor.'

The broad back-row-of-the-scrum rugger-playing back gave away nothing.

'On the other hand a debt is also a debt.'

Roche experienced a curious deja-vu feeling, but this time from inside the van, with his own wasps buzzing him.

'Because you did come back to us, at the Tower . . . and I dummy5

didn't think you would...'

He could feel the cobweb-touch of wasps on his hand, where it lay on the coverlet like an old man's, with the veins raised on it.

'If I could have squeezed out through that damned hole, then I would have . . . But I couldn't, so I didn't have any choice . . . But you had a choice,' said Audley to the garden.

Roche realised that Audley was talking about a debt of his own, not something Major Roche had left unpaid behind him.

'Also you warned d'Auberon. And I know that because I phoned him later that night, to tell him to lie low . . . But you'd already warned him. And you didn't have to do that either . . .'

Roche felt light-headed. 'But you don't like d'Auberon—'

'No . . . Or, more accurately, we don't like each other—there's too much history between us, ancient as well as modern . . .