Soldier No More

well-tipped attendant in time for Les Eyzies (expense no object—that was heady and frightening at the same time, and it had already been his undoing in the restaurant at Domme), and with Raymond Galles meeting him at the station in his own battered old Volkswagen, which had been driven down from Paris yesterday by some poor nameless bastard.

God! He mustn't go to sleep: he must think of his bastides, Beaumont and Monpazir, Villereal and sun-baked Domme, and the rest of them on the list—all that Anglo-French history he had sweated and frozen over during his Manchester days, in those ghastly wind-swept, bomb-swept open spaces around the University and the History Faculty, which were dismal even when it was dry, like a piece of East dummy5

Berlin authentically reproduced in England, no expense spared—

Roche shivered at the memory, coldly wakened by it, and twisted sideways on to one elbow, blinking against the glare, the better to observe the lunatic swimming Frenchman.

He was still there, breasting the current in the same yard of river, hauling himself forward and instantly being carried back by the force of the water, and then hauling himself forward again, only to be carried back again in a perfect display of useless determination.

All that history . . .

The afternoon sun rippled on the broken water rushing by the swimmer. Perhaps it wasn't a useless exercise: maybe the man was stretching his sinews in preparation for some Marathon swim, across the Channel or the Hellespont, where tides and currents were hostile; and this way he could take his punishment at full stretch without ever losing sight of his little pile of clothes and belongings on the stony strand ten yards from him?

All that history had seemed just as useless, just as much mental energy equally pointlessly expended on the past when it was the present which had lain waiting in ambush for him in Korea and Japan, and if he'd understood more about that then perhaps he wouldn't be lying here now, not knowing any more whose side he was on.

And yet now all that history had become a qualification for dummy5

something at last, at least in part, though in a way neither he nor his teachers had ever envisaged—

'That's everything then, I think—,' said Clinton, pushing the buff-coloured envelope across the table. 'Ticket to Paris, a little spending money . . . Raymond Galles will have more for you when he meets you at Les Eyzies on Thursday morning.

And Galles will have fixed your transport too—he's a good man, a born and bred Perigourdin, knows the country, knows the people. Been on our books since '41—would have been since '40, only it took him eight months to extricate himself from a PoW camp . . . Not used him much since '44, but you can trust him right down the line. A good man, he'll look after you . . . Thompson'll meet you in Paris, of course, with the cover material all written up —most of it you'll know, some of it you must re-write in your own fist, to make it look authentic, just in case anyone gets nosey—and your train ticket. Gare Austerlitz, 2150, all the way, arrive just before breakfast—time to refresh your memory and get some kip.

Very convenient. Any last questions?'

'What historical material, sir?' He hadn't expected to be finally briefed by Clinton himself.

Shrug. 'I honestly don't know, Roche. Thompson's choosing something appropriate to the area, naturally— something worth being there for. But he won't give you any of Audley's specialities, they're too damn esoteric, so I gather.' Smile.

'According to Master Oliver St.John Larimer, anyway.'

dummy5

A singularly obscure aspect of Byzantine religious history certainly rated as esoteric, thought Roche uneasily.

'Don't worry, man!' Clinton picked up the unease. 'You'll be able to hold your own.'

'I didn't get a First at Cambridge.'

'Balls to Cambridge—and to Oxford.' Clinton's jaw tightened. 'There's too much Oxbridge in the service. That's one of its troubles.'

So much for Oliver St. John Latimer— and Sir Eustace Avery!

'But you want me to recruit Audley nevertheless, and he's Cambridge sir.'

'Audley's a maverick.' Clinton shrugged off the inconsistency. 'And there's nothing wrong with the Manchester School of History.'

'In which I got a shaky Second.'

'Which should have been a First, according to your professor.' Clinton leaned forward, frowning. 'And your flat in Paris is full of books—'

'Yes, but—'

' We chose you for this, Roche,' Clinton overbore him. 'I told you before—we chose you very carefully—we chose you particularly—get that into your head, and don't ever forget it. You, and no one else, Roche.'

Roche opened his mouth, and then closed it quickly. After The Old House and its secret he was consumed with curiosity dummy5

about Audley, so that he almost wanted the assignment for its own sake.

'Because you can do the job, that's why.' Clinton sat back.

'When you learn more about David Audley—you may understand . . . but you ought to know one thing already, from what you heard in the Admiral's Room—'

Sir Eustace's room, under the Sargent portrait, where the Admiral's eyes had screwed into his soul, seeking out its innermost treachery: how could Clinton miss what the long-dead Admiral saw so clearly?

'—if we sent Master Latimer, with his Oxford First in P.P.E.—