Soldier No More

it's a perfectly good body, but I prefer Lexy's, it's more pneumatic and more my size, as well as being more available— but bodies are two-a-penny these days, and have been ever since '39 ... it's your mind I want to get into— if you can open that to me you can hold a penny tight between your knees for as long as you like!' And ... that's how it all started, anyway.'

'Is that agreed and understood?' said Audley. 'That I am in the chair tonight?'

'In the chair?' Jilly echoed him inquiringly, mock-dummy5

innocently. 'But if you fall out of the chair are you still in it, David?'

That might be an explanation of the slight slur in Audley's voice, for all that the grammar and the syntax were still clear enough. But Roche had never heard that voice before, and so could not judge the degree of slur against previous experience, even if the rugger players of Cahors were as alcoholically inclined as their English counterparts.

'In—or on—or out—or off ... or under or beside ... I am still in it tonight, until cock- crow or the wine runs out, whichever comes first,' said Audley defiantly. 'And I say that he's summoned—and he plays. Right?'

Still he didn't look at Roche, and still Roche couldn't decide whether or not the faint slur was public-school- and-army-drawl or a sign that the speaker was loaded over the Plimsoll line. But it didn't matter, because Roche would play now whatever the game was—because now he had the chance of playing for what he needed to win the real game.

'He plays!' He lifted his glass towards Audley. ' Moriturus te saluto!'

'And a classicist too, by God! Bravo!' Audley's teeth also caught the lamplight. 'Fill the man's glass again, Lexy . . .

The wine of Cahors, Roche—they sent Cahors wine to Rome in classical times, did you know that?'

'I'm not a classicist. Just a soldier.'

'Huh!' murmured Lexy, tipping the bottle inexpertly.

dummy5

'But not merely a soldier—if I heard a-right?' Audley cocked his head.

'I told you . . . he's a sort of historian,'said Lexy vaguely.

' Bastides and things...'

'So you did!' Audley wasn't letting go. 'University?'

'Manchester,' said Roche.

'A good school of history,' Audley nodded patronisingly.

'I'm afraid barbarians are a bit out of my line, though.'

Roche swallowed his pride. 'Not my specialist field.'

'That's what they all say.' The Israeli spoke across the table to the American. ' 'Not my field'. He's a historian right enough!'

'It all depends on what you mean by 'barbarians', as Professor Joad would have said,' interposed Jilly. 'We have to define our terms first.'

'Latin— barbarus, barbari— a stranger, a foreigner . . .

anyone not a Roman or a Greek.' The Israeli's voice carried an edge of bitterness. ' 'Jews need not apply', even though they lived in cities before Rome and Athens were villages of mud huts.'

'Oh, come now—that's a bit hard on the Romans,' said Audley. 'Roman citizenship spread wider than the mud hut circuit. The Jews were just . . . difficult, let's say.'

'I hear tell they still are,' said Bradford from the floor.

Stein swept a glance over them, the light catching the dummy5

surprising gold of his hair—the crazy contrast of the blond Jew and the dark, swarthy American, whose identities Roche had immediately confused, struck him again.

'Yes?' inquired Audley politely, yet insultingly. It was a game, Roche reminded himself. At the moment they were playing to bait each other with their opening moves.

'I'd say you've got a lot to learn,' said Stein mildly. 'We haven't half started yet.'

'Yeah...' The American's dark head nodded. 'I also hear tell you're in with the French on the nuclear testing site at Reggane in the Sahara, so you don't need to labour the point.'

'I agree all this is barbarous' said Jilly. 'But I don't see how it connects with barbarians.'

'Quite right, dear.' Audley bowed in Jilly's direction. 'We have digressed—and just as Stein very properly related the barbari to Hillard and Botting!'

'Hillard and who?' The American reached for one of the bottles on the table.

' Botting, Bradford, B otting. Or maybe North and Hillard. Or A. H. Davis, MA, of revered memory. And if you were in receipt of their royalties—if you could write that sort of best-seller you'd be living high on the hog in Monte Carlo, swilling Chateau Latour with a bevy of starlets.'

'What? Botting? North . . . ? What have they written?'