A New Kind of War

on with it!’

So this was Audley beside him, with Devenish just ahead to the right; and the American in his distinctive pot- helmet had dropped down to Amos de Souza’s left

–of all the figures, de Souza’s was the only one in the open, and the other big silhouette, which he had assumed to be Audley’s, must be the major’s accompanying escort, whom he had not yet encountered.

‘What are we waiting for?’ Audley’s nervousness infected him. ‘Amos – ?’

Two new silhouettes intruded from the rear left, half-crouching and half-walking, and distinctively American both by their helmets and the rich flow of invective which they trailed. More Americans – ?

One of the Americans was unreeling a line. The other offered something to Major de Souza. And, as he did so, a sudden crackling noise, unnaturally loud – a fish-fried-in-batter sound, multiplied a thousand-fold –

overlaid the roar of the searchlight generators.

Another flare ignited, high up in the now-impenetrable blackness above, making all the shadows around them dance madly as a loud and hopelessly-distorted gibberish of words started up against the ‘Fish-frying-tonight’ crackling.

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‘Oh – bloody-wonderful!’ exclaimed Audley. ‘Makes you wonder how we won the war!’

‘Do shut up, David – there’s a good fellow.’ By one of life’s mischances the crackling had stopped just as the young dragoon had started speaking, so that his opinions were as clearly audible as Major de Souza’s flattening rebuke.

‘Sorry, sir.’ Yet, against all odds, Audley didn’t sound flattened. ‘But . . . Amos ... if that’s Caesar Augustus calling on the Germans to surrender – ’ the boy started to shout as the crackling began again ‘ – they’re not going to –’

‘Shut up, David!’ De Souza waved away the nearest American, who was offering him a megaphone, and stood up,and looked around him.

‘Major Hunter?’ He addressed the American officer beside him almost conversationally, without urgency.

‘If you would be so good as to follow Sergeant Huggins, after me . . . Shall we go then?’

That was the way to do it, of course, when it had to be done: matter-of-fact, and prosaic, and quietly confident . . . not with young Audley’s edge-of-disaster nervous tension, right or wrong. When it was done right, it always sounded the same, whatever happened afterwards –

Always the same! Fred felt disembodied then, as he dummy4

always had done in the past, when whatever was going to happen wasn’t going to happen to him – not this time –next time, maybe, but not this time!

All the different silhouettes rose. Even the two recent Americans stood up, after their recent useless journey, although they didn’t move forward with the rest: for a moment they were ahead of him, and then he was beyond them, running forwards by the majority decision through the last trees, into the open.

But . . . it wasn’t the same, nevertheless! he reassured himself: those were not real Germans out there, in that false daylight – if this was another nightmare, it was a different bloody nightmare, for a different bloody exam!

He saw the cluster of buildings, clearly, at last –

Just a bunch of alien buildings, shuttered at ground-level, blank-windowed above, without any sign of life in them –

(In Italy, they said, most of the Germans will be up above, with a clear field of fire, and ready to drop grenades on you if you reach the outside walls; and the civilians will be in the cellar, if there is one, if they’re still there, hoping that you won’t toss a grenade down among them, just in case!)

They were coming in from the back: he was running behind Devenish now, towards a tangle of bushes, out dummy4

of which rose a black-leafed tree – no, those weren’t black leaves ... it was a holly-tree – a black holly-tree without berries, because it was a long way from Christmas –

Scobiemas!

They were converging on the bushes, towards a gap –

towards a back-door in the gap – and de Souza was trying the door – trying it once, almost perfunctorily, as though he didn’t expect it to open, then springing back from it to one side, to let the big soldier behind him get at it.

The soldier backed up, and Fred saw that he was a giant: not only was de Souza insignificant beside him, but even David Audley was diminished, at his shoulder; and, for a moment out of time, he watched the giant balance himself before delivering the full force of the heel of his boot accurately alongside the door handle.

The door splintered inwards with a tremendous concussion, and he saw a sliver of wood cartwheel into the light, and then disappear as Audley ducked to avoid it; and then, in the same slow-motion timelessness, he saw the giant – sergeant’s stripes, rain-darkened leather jerkin –swing sideways almost gracefully to let de Souza go in ahead of him, as any gentleman might do who had opened a door for his lady.

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Then time speeded-up, making up for lost time: de Souza moved, and then the American major tried to move, and so did Audley. But both of them were shouldered aside unceremoniously as de Souza’s sergeant reversed his original swing in order to follow closely behind his officer. The American cannoned off the bigger man into Audley, who staggered back against Devenish, who stepped back smartly and trod heavily on Fred’s foot.

‘ Ouch!’ Fred saw Devenish’s sub-machine gun, which was an Italian Beretta with a solid walnut stock – an officer’s customized model now rendered even more useful with a flashlight neatly taped to its delicate barrel –then he felt the pain of Devenish’s full weight.

‘Sorry – sir!’ Devenish plunged into the doorway behind the American.