A New Kind of War

good! So let’s go, then – ?’

The going was easier, just as David Audley had predicted. Or maybe, as the last clouds hurried away eastwards (as the American major had also forecast, who was still droning away in the distance), it was just that the darkness lightened even as his night-vision returned, and he no longer felt so lost and dependent.

Yet that did not make for confidence. There were too many questions out there, unasked and unanswered –

not only unasked, but unaskable, which was worse . . .

even infinitely worse, because he had some inkling of what the answers must be, almost certainly now, after young Audley’s indiscretions . . . but even before that; and even long before that, from Kyri’s warnings long ago –

Kyri . . . who was the antithesis of the ancient Greek virtue of moderation in all things: fatalistically brave, dummy4

totally cynical and coldly cruel (it had come as a cold-water shock to learn after Osios Konstandinos how Colonel Michaelides was hated and feared by his enemies on the Left) . . . but also a wholly honourable man, unshakably loyal and honest with friends –

And Kyri had said afterwards: ‘ Don’t get mixed up with these people, Fred: they are not for you! Go back home, to your safe green England, and be a good Englishman and a good capitalist: make money . . .

and find a good wife – and if you cannot find one in England, then you come to me . . . understood? – and make good sons, and better daughters, like my own father did . . . I have a little sister, in truth . . . No! But stay away from this man Clinton –’

Clinton –

He could see the loom of David Audley ahead of him: Audley moving fast and confidently on those great long legs of his, to make up time lost carelessly and obstinately, half in protest at this dirty business –

The Brigadier had been a surprise – almost a shock – in the ruined monastery of Osios Konstandinos, after David Audley and Amos de Souza, so that even now it wasn’t difficult to remember him: a surprise not dummy4

because of the searching questions beneath his surface apologies after Colonel Michaelides had finished with him –

Clinton – a Brigadier, but not quite a gentleman, was it –?

‘Major – sir!’ Devenish’s voice came from just behind him, urging him on.

‘Yes – of course!’ Fred realized that the memory of Brigadier Frederick Clinton had slowed him down in the bottom of Audley’s Roman ditch. ‘I’m sorry –’ He started to move again.

‘That’s all right, sir.’ There was room for Devenish to come up beside him now. ‘You don’t want to worry about Mr Audley – Captain Audley, as I should say –

you don’t need to worry about him, sir.’

At first Fred found himself worrying that Audley should hear his confidence. Then he realized that the young dragoon was already well ahead of them. ‘No, Sergeant Devenish?’

‘No, sir.’ The man’s voice was perfectly pitched not to carry beyond them. But, much more arresting than that, it was confiding. ‘He’s a good officer.’ Devenish bit his tongue on that, as though momentarily undecided about continuing. ‘It’s just he talks too much, that’s all.’

That was true. And it was also true that Devenish did dummy4

not share that fault. ‘Why does he do that, Mr Devenish?’

No reply. So whatever message the man had wished to impart had been imparted. But that wasn’t really good enough. But, then again, getting more out of the man wouldn’t be easy. ‘I suppose he is very young.’ Fred pretended to speak to himself. ‘He’s much younger than the other officers . . .’

No reply. So what had sparked that curious confidence in defence of the young Audley? Was it just loyalty?

And yet, after praising the boy as ‘a good officer’, Devenish had plainly suggested that he’d been talking nonsense.

‘Yes, sir.’ Devenish agreed suddenly. ‘He is that.’

‘Of course.’ Fred matched the agreement encouragingly. It was nothing less than the truth, after all: apart from Colbourne himself (who must be forty if he was a day), neither McCorquodale nor Macallister would ever see thirty again; and such other officers as he had noticed in the gloom of the mess and across the candlelit dining table had all been older than he himself was; and, at a guess he had five or six years over Audley himself. And those years, lengthened by the rigours of war, made for self-confidence. ‘So I expect he’s a bit nervous, eh?’

‘Yes, sir.’ No delay this time. ‘I’m sure you’re right, sir: nervous is what he is. He had a bad time in dummy4

Normandy. And –’

‘ Fred! Are you there?’

Damn!‘ Just as Devenish had been about to open up!

’We’re here, David.‘

‘Thank Christ for that! I thought I’d lost you for a moment!’ Audley’s voice came down to a whisper.

‘We’re almost there, I think. Jacko – if you’d go forward now. And two clicks if Major de Souza is in place – okay?’

‘Sir!’ Devenish lifted his own whisper, against the drone of American engines.

Audley waited until they were alone. ‘What were you two gassing about?’