Soldier No More

and the library, and maybe a study; the other way to a dining room, and a breakfast room, and then the kitchen and the pantries, and the servants' quarters; though with an old hodge-podged place like this, which already seemed vastly bigger inside than it had from the outside, full of unsuspected space, such regularity might well be a bad guess. He could only tell by looking for himself.

Left or right? Roche peered down the left-hand passage, undecided, his eye lifting to the flaking white-washed vaulting above the panelling. For sure this part of the house, dummy5

which had survived the great fire on the day of Elizabeth Tudor's death, had in any case been the older wing. Wimpy had said—

The recollection of what Wimpy had said died unthought as he turned towards the right-hand passage, which was identical with the left-hand one, except that the door at the end of it was open, and that there was someone standing in it staring at him.

Christ! He hadn't heard that door open—there hadn't been a sound after his own footfalls on the flagstones which had carried him through the porch and the archway of the original door into the hallway—

Christ! He hadn't heard that door open because it hadn't opened: the man had been standing there, staring at him, ever since he had entered the house, watching him silently, as soundless as the house itself!

An insect crawled back up Roche's spine as he returned the stare. This right-hand passage wasn't exactly identical ... or ...

or it was, but the wisteria overhung the low window recessed into the thickness of the wall on this side, deepening the shadow with a green cast.

It had to be Ada Clarke's Charlie—it was either Ada Clarke's Charlie or it would vanish in the instant he addressed it—

'Hullo there?' Somewhere between the intention and the final articulation the words lost their planned heartiness, and echoed hollowly down the passage instead. 'Good afternoon dummy5

—Mr Clarke, is it?'

That was better. The figure moved, shifting its feet so that the sound of hobnails scraping on stone released Roche from fear. Ghosts didn't wear hobnailed boots; or, if they did, the phantom hobnails wouldn't scrape like that; and ghosts weren't so substantial, and Charlie Clarke was nothing if not substantial: he filled the doorway, all of six-foot-three, with long arms and huge hands in proportion.

Also, the collarless striped shirt, the Fair Isle knitted pullover and the shapeless corduroy trousers was no uniform for any self-respecting spectre in this setting. Doublet-and-hose, or satin breeches, or even Mr Nigel's well-pressed battle-dress—any of those might not be out of place in The Old House, but not a Fair Isle pullover. Not even the faintly green-tinged light which filtered into the passage through a window half-obscured by wisteria could make a convincing ghost of Charlie Clarke on second glance.

But if second glance stripped the supernatural from Charlie it did nothing to lessen the hostile vibrations which eddied round Roche as they stared at each other—the same sensation his sixth sense had picked up moments before, but had ascribed to the house itself. And there was something no less creepy about the sensation now that its source had become tangible: the way both Wimpy and Mrs Clarke had spoken of Charlie, the man was at best a simpleton, but at worst— in his downhill phase—perhaps something more dangerous. And the confirmation of that lay not only in the dummy5

gorilla-length arms and meat-plate hands, but also in the way those addled brains had been able to transmit a signal before Roche had set eyes on the signaller. Which, by any standards, was strong magic to beware of, not to ignore.

'It's 'Charlie', isn't it?' said Roche tentatively. 'Charlie, my name's Roche—David Roche.' The giving of names freely was an old ritual of peaceful intentions.

The words unlocked Charlie's legs, but not his tongue. He took two slow steps out of the doorway, and then stopped.

But that short advance carried his face out of deep shadow into enough light for Roche to make out the little pig-eyes and heavy chin separated by a button nose and tiny mouth in a brick-red expanse of face. The sum total was so close to being classically oafish, if not actually brutish, with no spark of anything in the eyes, that the contrast between Charlie and his wife was not so much surprising as painful.

Roche licked his lips. 'I was. . . I was hoping to meet Mr. . .

Master. . . David—your Master David, Charlie,' he lied nervously. 'Is he home?'

The mention of Audley appeared to take Charlie by surprise, his eyes almost disappearing into the frown which descended on them.

Charlie took a deep breath. 'Not 'ere—' the words came from deep down, through layers of gravel '—what are you doin'

'ere?'

It was a good question, but altogether unanswerable. More dummy5

than ever, Roche wished that Wimpy was at his side.

'I came here with Mr Willis, Charlie.' However dim and downhill Charlie might be, he couldn't forget Wimpy. No one could forget Wimpy, he was supremely memorable.

'You know Mr Willis, Charlie.' Whatever the Germans had done to Charlie at Dunkirk seventeen years before, they had done thoroughly. ' Major Willis—Master David's guardian.'

Charlie's baffled expression cleared magically. ' Captain Willis, you mean,' he growled.

'Captain Willis,' he agreed hastily. Captain Willis?

'Arrragh!' The gravel rattled in Charlie's throat. 'Captain Willis is 'D' Company, an' Mr Nigel, that's Major Audley—