Soldier No More

trying to understand David— nobody does! It'd take a lifetime, and I'm certainly not volunteering for the job—' Her voice faded as she drew away from him. 'I don't have a lifetime to spare, anyway—'

And neither did poor bloody Roche, thought Roche.

Depending on how much lifetime he had left, of course . . .

X

'WE'RE NOT GOING to wait for Steffy,' announced Lady Alexandra. 'I'll just get my bag, and then David can escort us through the Wild Wood by the short-cut. With him along we shalln't have to worry about those swarthy rapists.'

Roche frowned at her. 'What rapists?'

'No rapists,' said Jilly. 'Honestly, Lexy—you're the limit!'

'Well, they could be rapists for all you know.'

'Rapees, more like, if you have anything to do with them!'

Jilly turned with a shake of her head from Lexy to Roche.

'There are these gypsy-types we've spotted in the wood—'

'Saw them again yesterday, too—skulking up behind the old dovecote, down towards David's place,' said Lexy firmly.

'And I've seen them further afield, too.'

'They won't be the same ones,' snapped Jilly.

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'They were the same ones. It was when Steffy and I were collecting the bread. I saw them.' Lexy didn't budge.

'And they were following you?'

'That I can't say, they were stationary at the time. But they were the same ones, because they've got an old motor-bike and a couple of battered old pop-pop mopeds they swan around on.'

Jilly sighed. 'Well, they're a bit slow, getting down to the job then! We've each been on our own here often enough!'

'They're casing the joint,' said Lexy airily. 'I think we ought to tell La Peyrony—or, better still, David Audley. He'll sort them out!'

'I've no doubt he would! And you're the sort of person who gets innocent youths lynched during the sorting process.'

Jilly turned to Roche again. 'They look about sixteen years of age, and they're about half Lexy's size put together—and a quarter of David Audley's—and a hundredth as dangerous.

And they're probably from down south, just looking for casual work and living rough meanwhile, poor kids.'

Another thing about Jilly, thought Roche, was that she didn't scare easily. Although she hardly came up to Lady Alexandra's shoulder, it wasn't Jilly who needed protection, it was Lexy.

But it was also Lexy for whom he was supposed to be making a play, although he had not done much with his opportunities so far, he remembered.

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He looked around the area of the cottage with a suitably protective air. The steep-pitched dark-grey slate roof of the Peyrony mansion could be seen through the trees to its left, but otherwise it was enclosed by thick woods on either side of the roadway. As a holiday-house it had a Perrault fairy-tale look, with its browny-pink pantiles and tiny windows set in dormers and thick stone walls. But as a refuge for three pretty girls in a foreign country, with strange young males in the woods roundabout, it had its disadvantages: other than the Peyrony place, there didn't seem to be another house in sight.

'You are rather isolated, aren't you?' he said gently, trying not to take sides too obviously.

'Oh no, David darling,' said Lexy lightly. 'We're within easy screaming distance of Madame Peyrony, who is not a day older than seventy . . . and old Angelique . . . and there's Gaston, who undoubtedly remembers Waterloo, if not the battle of Agincourt—'

'Gaston's as tough as an old boot, and as strong as an ox,'

protested Jilly.

'Gaston?' queried Roche.

'La Peyrony's wrinkled retainer—old Angelique's antique brother,' explained Lexy sweetly.

'Younger brother,' corrected Jilly. 'He's Madame's handyman-gardener—'

'Younger . . . meaning he was a hero of Verdun, or dummy5

somewhere, in the First World War, darling.'

'That's right! And with a chestful of medals—David Audley says he was the finest trench-mortar-man in the whole French Army— and the Cross of the Liberation too.' Jilly turned to Roche. 'Back in 1944 he sat on the ridge above Brivay and held up a German column for six hours with his mortar, David says.'

'Yes. And he's still got his private arsenal up in the stable, above his bedroom,' Lexy mocked her friend. 'But now he's got a gammy leg and he's rather short of breath with his asthma, and you have to shout at him to make him hear . . .

But there's always little Gaston, his grandson—or maybe great grandson—little Gaston can always let him know when we start screaming. So we've got nothing to worry about....

Not that I really care, anyway. What's a fate worse than death between friends?'