A New Kind of War

that things were as bad as they seemed. ‘David Audley, is it?’

‘It was them Yanks, Mister David – it must uv been them,’ whined the little man. ‘I ’ad to leave the major’s car, for a minnit – ‘

‘It is. Or what’s left of him.’ Audley struggled with his umbrella.

‘Captain Fat-O’Rhiney, well met!’ He gave the little man a quick sidelong glance. ‘Hughie, I told you most particularly not to leave the car – remember?’ He came back to Fred. ‘Bad trip, was it?’ He gave Fred a friendly grin. ‘We’ve been expecting you these last three hours ... At least, the CO has been.’

‘I ’ad to meet the major – I couldn’t let ‘im carry ’is bag now, could I?‘ The little man rolled an eye at Fred, hope and fear mixed in it equally.

‘It was a bumpy one.’ Faced with the truth, Fred temporized. ‘It’s not good flying weather. We went round three or four times before landing.’

Strangely, as he felt the rain on his face – or perhaps not strangely, as he observed Audley’s relative dryness –the need for truth evaporated. ‘But I’ve no complaints about my reception. And we certainly didn’t hit anything coming up here. Not even that bloody-great tank of yours, back there.’

dummy4

Audley’s face contorted, from friendliness to its natural ugliness.

‘Not mine – yrrch!’ He drew a deep breath through his nose. ‘King Tigers . . . them I don’t need reminding of!’

The little man bobbed his head at Fred, and then at Audley. ‘I’d best take the major’s bag now, ’adn’t I, sir – so as Trooper Lucy can settle ‘im in, like?’ He wiped the rain from his face. ‘An’ the major is gettin‘ rather wet, sir . . . ’im bein‘ out in the open, like

– ?’

‘What?’ Audley looked from one to the other of them quickly.

‘Oh . . . very well, Hughie – ’ He ended up looking at Fred ‘ – you do that . . . and I will extemporize great lies about the Americans for the benefit of Major McCorquodale, if I must. And Major Fattorini will confirm them – right?’ He fixed his glance on Fred.

‘Shall we go in, out of the rain, Major Fattorini?’ He gestured towards the doors in the building directly ahead of them, which Driver Hughie – Hewitt, Fred remembered now –had indicated earlier. ‘Shall we go – ?’

Fred followed him, and as Audley deflated his umbrella and opened one of the doors he caught sight of the three pips on the young man’s shoulders. ‘Congratulations . . . Captain Audley.’

Audley swung the door open, gesturing him through it.

Temporary ... but paid, thank God!‘ He grinned at Fred. ’Twenty-three shillings a day, plus sundry allowances – riches beyond the dreams of avarice, which are supposed to sunder us from all other temptations in Occupied Germany in A-U-C 2-6-9-8 – two thousand, six hundred and ninety-eight, God help us!‘

‘What?’ Inside the doorway it was darker, and he couldn’t see dummy4

Audley so clearly now. ‘A-U-C – ?’

‘ “Ab Urbe Condita” – “From the Founding of the City of Rome”

– ?’ Audley shook the rain from his furled umbrella on to the stone-flagged floor ‘ – he put us all up in rank in Germany, to help us on our way, did Colonel Caesar Augustus Tiberius Germanicus Colbourne: lieutenant to captain, in my case – ’ he looked up, from the umbrella to Fred ‘ – and captain to major, in your case.’ He grinned. ‘If you ask your friend, Driver Hewitt . . . who is unpromotable, actually . . . Driver Hewitt will say: “Take the money, and run . . . sir!” ’ The grin twisted. That is, if he remembered to say “sir” . . . because Hughie takes a somewhat jaundiced view of officers. Although, as you have already lied so nobly for him, he may treat you differently, of course.‘

They had moved across the stone flags as Audley had been speaking out of deeper darkness, faintly yellowed by a hurricane lamp hanging from a bracket, into the grey-ness of an inner courtyard with pillared arcades on all four sides, like a monastic cloister in the middle of which the rain still deluged from above, catching the faint light of other lamps at its other corners.

‘That way – ’ Audley pointed to the left, towards an open doorway, moving as he did so ‘ – Amos? Are you in there?’ He peered into the doorway.

‘David?’ The voice from inside was sharper, just as the light was brighter. ‘What do you want?’

‘Major Fat-O’Rhiney has arrived, Amos.’ Audley gestured to Fred.

‘Oh . . . Christ!’ A chair scraped on stone. ‘I’d given him up for dummy4

lost, damn it! Where is he?’

‘I’m here.’ Memory reanimated him as he took up Audley’s invitation: beyond Driver Hewitt, and Audley himself, there was a nastier memory of de Souza being busy. ‘Captain de Souza – ?’

‘ Major de Souza, Major Fattorini.’ Audley hissed the inflated rank in his ear as Fred advanced past him. ‘Go on – go on!’ He pushed Fred forwards.

From within, the little room didn’t seem so bright as it had done from outside, in spite of its two pressure- lamps; and its typical temporary military furniture – two folding tables on thin metal legs, and two collapsible canvas chairs – somehow made it even emptier. One of the tables was furnished with a large typewriter and all the paraphernalia of its absent clerk – in-tray, out-tray, and a pile of files. And there were more files on the other table, which was set below the room’s single window – a curiously shaped opening, heavily latticed and set well above eye-level. But judging by this quantity of paperwork neither the adjutant nor his clerk would have much time for looking out of any window, thought Fred –certainly not if this was the load Colonel Colbourne’s band of brothers carried with it in the field, in a temporary billet.

‘Fattorini, my dear fellow – ’ Major de Souza came out of the shadows on his right, round the room’s only other piece of furniture, which Fred had missed at first glance ‘ –glad you could join us. Good of you to come.’