Soldier No More

'You must have caught a touch of the sun, darling,' said Lexy dummy5

solicitously.

'Yes, I think I must have done,' agreed Roche, who had never caught a touch of the sun in his life. 'Mad dogs and Englishmen, and all that. . .' Maybe he had, though: a little sun and a lot of terror, and a Lexy Special: that was surely enough to turn the strongest stomach.

'Well, then—it doesn't matter about Steffy bedding down with her mysterious boyfriend for extra time! You can't possibly go to the orgy like this, David—' Lexy's solicitude was positively enthusiastic '—Jilly can go on her own, and I'll stay and mop your fevered brow,' she beamed at him.

'Ah. . . no—no, I must go,' said Roche quickly. Whatever Lexy had in mind—ministering genuinely, or even something much more attractive, he had to go to the orgy. In another life the opportunity would have been irresistible, but this life left no room for self-indulgence. 'I have to go. And I'm okay now, anyway.'

Lexy appeared crest-fallen. 'But, David darling. . . it'll be so boring— if you're feeling a bit fragile ... I mean, David—David Audley—spouting endlessly on—on barbarians and things ...

on history, and Arabs, and Russians, and . . . and on whatever comes into his head . . . and they'll all get drunker and drunker . . . and I shall go to sleep, and my mouth will fall open and I shall snore horribly—and Jilly and Steffy will become even more intelligent . . . and then you'll never speak to me again, and I shall be desolate!'

Lexy had cooked her own goose. In that other life . . . but this dummy5

life belonged to David Audley, and especially David Audley drunk and talkative—that was a particular Audley he needed for his collection, and perhaps even the final one he required to complete the set. Even if he'd been half- dead he couldn't have missed such a chance.

'Lexy, I'm sorry. But I've got to sleep somewhere eventually, remember. And I am okay now, really.' He grinned at her. 'I don't want to be a bother, either.'

'Oh—phooey!' She rejected the grin. 'The trouble with nice men is, they always have to be noble and unselfish and brave, damn it!'

'I'm not being any of those. I'm only being logical.' And the trouble with women, thought Roche, was that (all except Julie) they were none of those things. 'Besides which, Jilly said Madame Peyrony wouldn't like me to hang around you three ladies.'

'Huh! That's just where you're wrong! We've just had a message from the old witch about you—La Goutard's already been on the phone and La Peyrony is desperate to meet the young English colonel—'

'I'm not a colonel, for God's sake! I'm only a captain—'

'Well, she made you a colonel, so you jolly well have to stay promoted while you're here . . . And I made you a paratroop colonel too, with a chestful of medals—'

'But—'

'But nothing! Those two old witches have both got nephews dummy5

serving with the paras in Algeria, under some colonel or other who appears to be a cross between Napoleon and Joan of Arc, the way they talk about him ... so she's promoted you and I've—what's the word Father uses?—seconded?— I've given you a parachute, anyway,' she shrugged, utterly unabashed. 'So you'll have to jump now, when you meet La Peyrony.'

Roche regarded her reproachfully. 'You didn't have to make me a paratroop colonel—that's overdoing it a bit.'

'Not at all! 'Never tell a little fib if you have to lie', Father always says. Tell a whopper and make a proper job of it'—

that's what he says.' Lexy brushed at her hair, and then turned the gesture into a vague, unrepentant wave. 'You're lucky I didn't make you a general—French para generals jump with their men, Etienne says.'

'Etienne?'

'A friend of David's—Etienne d'Auberon—or d'Auberon-Something-Something, terribly aristocratic ... I mean, not like me, but really aristocratic, like from St. Louis and the Crusades, and all that. . .' Lexy turned the vague wave into an even vaguer sweep, as though 'all that' included the ownership of everything in sight, with the appropriate feudal rights and privileges. 'A French friend of David's,' she added unnecessarily. 'Anyway, you'll probably meet him tonight, if you're set on going to the Tower. He often turns up ... mostly to argue with David about the Hundred Years' War, so far as I can make out ...' she trailed off, apparently losing the dummy5

thread of her own butterfly monologue.

Etienne d ' Auberon-Something-Something? That would be another name for Genghis Khan, when he could get Jilly to decode the 'Something-Something' part of the Frenchman's name anyway, thought Roche grimly. Because, as of now, everyone connected with the Tower was under suspicion of being an enemy until proved otherwise, even Frenchmen. It was their country, after all.

Meanwhile mild interest was in order. 'Lives round here, does he, this Etienne?'

'He does now. I mean, he always did, after a fashion, in the family chateau—like Mummy and Daddy retire to freeze in the Cotswolds from time to time . . . But he used to live in Paris, in a fearfully smart flat near the Bois, when he was working for the Government there. . . Only then he had this absolutely frightful row over something—Algeria, I expect. . .

they're always having rows over Algeria—but it was one of those awful rows the French have, all about honour and France, and things like that—honestly, you wouldn't credit it!

I mean, can you imagine Jilly rowing about honour! Or Cousin Roland pitching into his Minister about England? But they do—the French—honour and France, and probably Liberty, Equality and whatever the other one is ... Fraternity, that's it! Fraternity my eye! According to David . . . 'Tienne was all set for fraternal pistols at dawn in the Bois over