Yet he had to leave the man an honourable escape route. “The Americans know. But this is your territory.”
“Yes.” Audley faced reality with traditional British phlegm. Or dummy1
perhaps, thought Benedikt, he had recognised it at the first mention of Aloysius Kelly. “You’re quite right.”
“Who is your chief?” He hoped his expression was impassive.
“Colonel Butler?”
Audley smiled painfully. “Yes. Jack Butler.”
“He will be angry?” He pretended to think about Colonel Jack Butler. “But he is a good man, is he not?”
The smile twisted. “Yes—and yes.”
Benedikt searched for the right words. “We have no choice. But not much time, I think.”
Audley studied him. “Not much time is right. But I still have a choice.”
Benedikt frowned. “What choice?”
Audley continued to study him. “Duntisbury Chase should hold for a few more hours. But how far can I trust you, Captain Benedikt Schneider?”
“Me?” Had he betrayed something?
“Yes. I need to talk to Jack Butler face to face. But I need someone I can trust in the Chase—someone who won’t make Michael Kelly run. But can I trust you?”
He had betrayed something, but Audley didn’t know what it was.
And the only way the man’s dilemma could be resolved would complicate his loyalties even more, by adding Audley’s to them.
Yet there was no alternative. “Would my word-of-honour help you?” He managed to avoid sounding quite humourless. “My dummy1
father’s used to be good enough for your people in the war.”
For a moment Audley’s face recalled Mr Smith’s. Then, like Mr Smith, he relaxed. “Yes, of course.” The big man looked around.
“We need another car for you, so that you can get back with those boys ... No need to hurry back—take them to lunch somewhere, and then round about, to be in the Chase by tea-time—four or five . . . And tell Becky I phoned my wife and she called me home
—say my daughter’s sick, and they can get me at home—” Audley was leading him through the tanks towards the entrance “—I’ll be allegedly in the bath when she phones—if she checks up—and my wife will know where I really am, so that I can phone back . . .
Okay?”
They were passing through a line of modern giants, a British Chieftain and an early German Leopard among them. The entrance ahead of them was empty, except for one of the armoured corps NCOs standing guard in it.
“I want a car, Corporal.” Audley didn’t mince matters. “For the captain here—quick as you can. Hire it or borrow it, I don’t mind.
Major Kennedy will help you.”
“Yes, sir.” The Corporal rolled his eyes at Benedikt, but reacted like any intelligent NCO to a clear and concise order delivered by someone whom he recognised as being in a position to give such orders. “Right away, sir ... Quarter of an hour, sir?”
“That would do well. I shalln’t be here when you come back. The Captain will be in charge of the boys.”
“Right, sir.” The Corporal very nearly saluted, but restrained dummy1
himself with an effort before striding off.
Audley looked at Benedikt. “They could give you a hard time—or young Benjamin could, anyway . . . Darren should be full of tanks, but young Benjamin is a Kelly-admirer and will stick to his orders . . . Tell him more or less who you really are, and that you’ve agreed to help Miss Becky and Gunner Kelly and me—that should give him something to chew on ... And when you get back latch on to Kelly and try not to let him out of your sight—
interrogate him as much as you like, he’ll expect you to ... And if you’re sticking your neck out, you’ve got a right to, after all.”
“But you’re not expecting anything to happen ... for the next few hours?”
Audley nodded. “That’s right. They only acquired their walkie-talkie radios this morning, and they’re reckoning on a practice run tonight. Mrs Bradley’s boy, Peter, at the village shop, has been
‘larnin’ ‘em’, as Old Cecil puts it—he’s a CB radio enthusiast . . .
There’s a lot of quite unlooked-for expertise in Duntisbury Royal, and not just the ancient village skills . . . from Peter in the shop to Blackie Nabb, who was a Royal Marine Commando in Korea.”
The Englishman’s voice was quietly proud. “Blackie was one of Drysdale’s men who fought their way up Hellfire Valley to link with the American marines south of the Chosin Reservoir—the Falklands was a Sunday stroll compared with that . . . Besides which, anyway, it’s Gunner Kelly who knows how to summon up the demons on his tail—he won’t do that until the Chase is ready for them.” He half smiled at Benedikt. “You were an altogether unexpected test of our defences, you know . . .”
dummy1
“And I did not get far?” Benedict completed the sentence. “True.
