Soldier No More

' 'With your inquiries'?' murmured Willis. 'Isn't that the phrase: 'A man is helping the police with their inquiries'? But I do understand that, my dear fellow. I understand it perfectly. And nothing you say is going to stop me understanding it.'

Roche took the envelope out of his inside breast-pocket and handed it to Willis.

'What's this, then?' Willis looked at the blank envelope suspiciously.

'It's for you, sir.'

'It's not addressed to me. It's not addressed to anyone!'

'It's for you, sir, nevertheless,' insisted Roche, aware that he was quite as curious about the contents as Willis must be.

He watched the schoolmaster take a spectacle-case from his pocket and perch a pair of gold-rimmed half- glasses on his nose, and then make a nervous hash of splitting the stiff white paper, which was definitely not Government-issue.

The single sheet of paper inside matched the thickness of the envelope: it was slightly curved from its carriage inside Roche's breast-pocket, but not crumpled, and it gave a dry parchment-like crackle as Willis opened it.

Handwriting, that was all Roche could make out.

'Good God!' exclaimed Willis. 'Good God!'

dummy5

It was going to work, whatever it was, thought Roche.

Everyone had a key to them somewhere, and Clinton had obtained Willis's somehow.

'Well I never!' murmured Willis. 'Good God!'

It was a pity that Audley's key wasn't so readily available.

But, for a guess, Audley didn't have a simple key, but more likely a combination of numbers; and one or more of those numbers was apparently locked up in Willis's head—and some more numbers might be locked up in some numbered account in Zurich or Beirut as well. But this was a start, and he ought to be grateful for that. Because only in opening up Audley could he gain access to sufficient funds with which to bargain for his own freedom, and be shot of the lot of them.

But Willis had read his letter, and was now looking at him with a new expression in his eyes. 'You work for him—that foxy beggar?'

Clinton's features broke through the mists in Roche's mind—

the high colour, which had nothing to do with blood pressure but only with blood, and the sharp features, sharper even than Willis's ferrety-Montgomery look— foxy would do very well for them, even though the hairline had receded back and down to reveal the freckled skin stretched tight over the skull, leaving only a tide-mark of that once-red hair above the ears. No beauty now, Clinton . . . and the foxy look was inside now, radiated rather than apparent.

But Clinton, for sure—

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'I'm very much inclined to agree with you, Oliver. Audley is a tricky blighter. And, what is more germane to our present problem, there was an attempt made to recruit him again shortly after he came down from Cambridge. And it failed abysmally—it was bungled, wouldn't you say, Fred?'

'It was none of my doing.' Clinton pointed his muzzle at Roche. 'This time we must know what we are about, Roche

—'

'The hair's all gone now,' said Roche carefully.

'It has?' Willis flicked a glance at him, and then returned to the far distance. 'That'll be the effect of the sweat, I shouldn't wonder . . . I've seen the same thing with some of our old boys, coming back for Reunion Night— crowning glories smooth as billiard balls—yes! And what is he now—a full general? He was just Major Clinton then —'Freddie' to his betters ... or his elders, anyway, if not his betters ...'

Another major. The whole world was full of majors today: majors gone up, like Clinton; majors in the balance, like Stocker; majors long dead, like Nigel Audley, cheated of his destiny; and majors ossified in wartime memories, like this little schoolmaster before him. And even one other potential major too!

And yet . . . once upon a time this garrulous schoolmaster had crossed Clinton's path, which neither he nor Clinton had dummy5

forgotten; though there was nothing remarkable in that, any of it, for Clinton must have made a lot of men sweat over the years, and he hadn't finished yet.

'He's not a general. . .'He left the end of the statement open, as though there was more to come.

'Doesn't matter. I'll bet he tells the generals what to do! He wasn't above telling 'em a thing or two when—' Willis stopped suddenly, cocking his head knowingly at Roche '—

but that's another story . . . It's a small world, though—a small world ... All those years ago, and now this— out of the blue—a damn small world!'

He lifted the paper, but didn't offer it to Roche. Instead he fumbled in his pocket, producing first a pipe, which he stuck between his teeth, and then a gunmetal lighter.

'And he's still foxy, too,' he muttered, snapping the lighter and applying the flame to the edge of the letter. When it was well alight he looked up at Roche, the twist of a smile lifting the opposite corner of his mouth to that which held the pipe.

'Instructions!'

Roche watched the flames consume the paper right down to the last finger-hold, which the schoolmaster abandoned just in time. The charred remains floated to the ground, where they lay for a moment still in two