Soldier No More

'How d'you mean different?' said Roche cautiously.

'Because they wanted him in '49, or whenever it was, after Cambridge. But now they need him, that's the real dummy5

difference.' Wimpy nodded again. 'Because something's happened, and they've damn well got to have him, one way or another—isn't that the strength of it?'

And that was even more disconcerting: by whatever reasoning, the little schoolmaster had reached the same conclusion as Genghis Khan, that Audley's recruitment was not an end in itself, but a means to some other end.

'You could be right,' Roche admitted.

'I usually am, though it's never done me much good.' The smile came back as suddenly as it had disappeared. 'But don't worry! On this occasion it's at least to your advantage.

It's high time my David was gainfully employed, as I've already said.' Wimpy gestured down the goal line. 'So come on, then . . . and 'you shall come and go and look and know where I shall show'. Though I can't guarantee that you shall know neither doubt nor fear in the end, as Puck promised.'

“Puck?'

'Kipling— Puck of Pook's Hill.' Wimpy began to move down the line. ' Puck and Stalky & Co are your two set books for this examination, my dear fellow. My young David was brought up on those two books, when the world was also young . . . Kipling and the rugger field . . . and then the battlefield—so which was illusion and which was reality, eh?

And then the cold war after the hot war to add disillusion, maybe?'

I'm not sure I understand you,' said Roche.

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'I'm not sure I understand myself. But he's there somewhere, in the middle of it. And if you want to understand him you've got to go there yourself first, I think.'

'Where?'

'Where indeed!' Wimpy thought for a moment. 'A place first, yes. And a person too, I think—yes!'

'Where?' Roche abandoned the idea of why. 'And who?'

'Someone who makes the best fruit cakes in Sussex,' said Wimpy.

V

'WILL YOU HAVE another piece, sir?'

Roche studied the last third of the fruit cake, rearguards of guilt offering token resistance against greed. It was the best fruit cake in Sussex, beyond doubt; and very probably the best fruit cake in England, and consequently the best one in the whole world, almost certainly . . . and was would be the operative word for it if she carved them two more of her gargantuan slices, like those they had already consumed. But the opportunity was far too good to be missed.

He looked up from the fruit cake to meet Ada Clarke's gaze, trying to feign a moment's indecision for conscience's sake.

'But. . . what about your husband's tea, Mrs Clarke?'

Wimpy emitted a short, unsympathetic chuckle. 'To hell with Charlie! Speaking for myself, Clarkie —'

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'And you always do, sir, Mr William—' she cut back at him, quick as a flash, but smiling '—if I may make so bold as to say, sir—'

'You may, Clarkie—you may! And I always do—I admit it, I admit it frankly and unashamedly . . . for if I do not speak for myself, then who will speak for me?' Wimpy accepted the state of affectionate war between them with evident delight.

'Not you, Clarkie, not you. . .therefore. . .speaking for myself, I will quote first that fine old French saying—which covers any claim Charlie may or may not have on that cake—'he who is absent is always in the wrong', Clarkie. In which case—'

'But I wasn't offering it to you, sir. I was offering it to—to—'

Mrs Clarke blinked at Roche uncertainly: she had forgotten his name.

'To Captain Roche—of course! Who guards us ceaselessly, so that we may sleep safely in our beds—a thoroughly deserving case, Clarkie. Hardly less deserving than myself, a poor bachelor schoolmaster .... Cut the cake, Clarkie—bisect it into equal portions, and stop arguing!'

Mrs Clarke shook her head at him in despair, and turned back to Roche.

'You mustn't mind him, sir, Captain Roche—you must take no notice of him. Now...'

But she was already dividing the cake. She had known from the start that he would succumb to temptation, that her cake would reduce them both to greedy schoolboys.

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'And don't worry about Charlie, sir. I always make two cakes at a time . . . it's habit, really: one for Charlie and one for Mr David, like in the old days. Only now Charlie eats both of them, that's all.'

'Well . . . thank you, Mrs Clarke.' Roche accepted his half-of-one-third. Poor old absent Charlie—half-witted, shell-shocked Charlie—was on to a damn good thing, whatever his handicaps.

A damn good thing: the little cottage smelt bewitchingly of cake and cooking and cleanliness, scrubbed and polished and apple-pie-ordered. The black kitchen range, out of which the paradisal cake had come, glistened with use and elbow grease; above it, on the mantelpiece, a line of cheap commemorative mugs caught his eye—the Queen's Coronation cup from five years back, then King George VI's, and Edward VIII's premature celebration, and so on through other coronations and jubilees to Queen Victoria herself.

'Interesting, aren't they?' murmured Wimpy. 'You had the end ones from your mother, didn't you,