Soldier No More

'She brought him up, in effect—Mrs Clarke?' The question followed the thought.

'David?' Wimpy nodded. 'In effect—I suppose she did. In association with St. George's and Immingham and Rudyard Kipling, you might say— they brought him up too, just as much, no matter how much he resisted them.'

'He . . . resisted them?'

Wimpy twisted a smile at him. 'Not on the surface. One thing a boarding-school teaches you . . . is to conform or go under.

And yet the saving grace of the British system is that it always manages to throw up a percentage of eccentrics and rebels nevertheless, to leaven the lump. So they have the great potential for good or evil...'

Bloody-minded, remembered Roche. That had been Latimer's assessment, and since Latimer was a product of the same system he should know a fellow spirit.

'I'm not sure that David has decided which horse to back,'

continued Wimpy. 'Perhaps you'll be the catalyst—you're the man he could be waiting for. Freddie Clinton could be right.'

Roche frowned. 'What d'you mean? Right about what?'

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Wimpy walked in silence for a time. 'What do I mean? I think I mean. . . if you could recruit David—if he came to you of his own free will this time, not as a conscript, like in the war—'

'They don't conscript people into Intelligence.'

'Wrong word? It was Intelligence or back to regimental duty, but after what he'd seen in Normandy that wasn't a choice . . . No, what I mean is, if you can'get him to give you his loyalty freely just once, then that'll be it. 'Whether she be good or bad, one gives one's best once, to one only. That given, there remains no second worth giving or taking'—

Pertinax in Puck, once again. I don't think he's given his best yet, to anyone or anything. That's all.'

It was more than enough to Roche: it was dust and ashes bitter in his mouth. No one was a greater authority on the second best than he: he had spent years giving it, ever since Julie. Whoever Pertinax was, he was right.

'We're getting close to the house. It's just round the curve ahead, through the trees,' said Wimpy. 'It really is a fascinating old place—'

'What was wrong between Audley and his father?' asked Roche.

'Nigel?' Wimpy half-stumbled, tipping the topmost of his share of the parcels into the trackway ahead of him. 'Damn!

Mustn't damage the merchandise. Can you rescue that book for me, old boy? You're not so heavily laden as I am.'

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The division of the parcels had appeared equal to Roche, but it seemed churlish to refuse the request. He set down his own burden—of books also; all the parcels contained books by the shape and feel of them—and set about recovering the fallen volume, which had half emerged from its torn wrapping.

He couldn't resist the temptation to examine it—it would be a history book, something to do with Visigoths or Islamic doctrines, for a bet—

But it wasn't. Or rather, it wasn't quite: the garish dustcover illustrated the head of a warrior as though picked out in stained-glass, one-eyed and bearded and helmeted— The Twelve Pictures, by Edith Simon. Letting the remnants of the wrapping drop, he opened the book.

' The Twelve Pictures' is a novel as rich and wonderful as a medieval tapestry— a tapestry of beauty and terror. . .

'Interesting?' inquired Wimpy politely.

Roche looked up at him. 'It's an historical novel—about Attila and the Huns.' He couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice.

'Is it, indeed?' Wimpy reflected the surprise back at him. 'I wouldn't have thought that would be quite his style of light reading—not these days ...'

That was it exactly. Oxford and Cambridge were notoriously addicted to whodunits and mysteries—they were even given to writing the things. But historians (and although Audley wasn't an academic he was certainly an historian) were dummy5

surely the last people to indulge in third-class relaxation in their own chosen subject.

'Let's have a look at the others,' exclaimed Wimpy, his eyes alight with mischief and curiosity. 'We shouldn't. . . but I can never resist temptation, old boy!'

It was hardly the place to start tearing open parcels, in the middle of a leafy lane, but the little schoolmaster had set down his parcels and was ripping at them before Roche could suggest as much.

'Here's another one— The Restless Flame, by Louis de Wohl. . . about St. Augustine of Hippo. And it's second-hand, so he must have ordered it—yes, it's from old Evan White in Guildford, of course! A damn good bookseller—he doesn't overcharge for the Loebs I've been extracting from him . . .

And here's another one—Jack Lindsay's The Barriers Are Down . . . let's see . . . 'Gaul during the break-up of the Roman Empire'. And a new Penguin—Graves' Count Belisarius. I read that in hardcover before the war, I bought it for the school library in fact—'

They were all historical novels, new and second-hand; there wasn't a serious history book among them.

'Alfred Duggan— Winter Quarters,' concluded Wimpy. 'I must get that for the school library, I didn't know he'd got a new one out—a damn fine writer. I was arguing with Steve Bates, our sixth form History man, just not long ago that his hopefuls could learn more about the First Crusade from Duggan's