A New Kind of War

And-

They knew where they were going! They had known long before they had smashed down the back-door –

‘ This is just going through the motions, sir!’ – and all that had been for the American major – they knew where they were going!

He accelerated after Devenish, with the canvas bag flying out behind him spinning off the wall on one side, and then off the banisters on the other.

And they were the real assault group, too! That was obvious now, not simply because no else had burst in ahead of them, from the front of the building, but for a dummy4

crowd of other good reasons which should have occurred to him, from the composition of the group –

Amos de Souza as its brains, and Sergeant Muggins, David Audley and Sergeant Devenish as its brawn – to the simple clinching detail that he was carrying the bag

—

‘Whoa there, sir!’ Devenish restrained his headlong progress at the top of the stairs, his flashlight beam arcing over an ancient collection of trophies of the chase fixed high up on the wall above them: moth-eaten antlered stag’s-heads and yellow-tusked boars drooling cobwebs from gaping dusty mouths. ‘Steady now! Let the dog see the rabbit, then!’

Crash! Huggins had put his boot through another door, just down this new passage to the right, that explosion announced.

Boom! This time the concussion reverberated from behind and beneath them, echoing through the building just as Amos began his formula ahead down the passage: Colonel Colbourne’s assault on the main door below had commenced belatedly, even as they were deep inside the building.

Boom! It sounded as though they were using a battering ram.

‘If you’d just like to come this way a bit, out of the road, sir.’ Devenish addressed him politely. ‘They’ll be coming up behind us – Major Macallister’s party. But dummy4

they’ll be going the other way, like.’

Boom-CRASH! The main door had come off its hinges in one piece, it sounded like. But Fred’s attention was drawn to his left in the same instant by Devenish’s torch, to a collection of tattered white- faced ghosts which was milling in the other passage, crying out in terror.

‘ GET BACK THERE!“ Devenish roared, blinding the leading ghost even as the hallway below filled with the noise of Major Macallister’s party.

Crash! Another door splintered ahead of them! ‘This way – up the stairs!’ Major Macallister’s shout from below reminded Fred unbearably of his old games-master, with its half-hectoring, half- encouraging note only a hair’s-breadth from falsetto. ‘Captain Hornyanski – are you with me? Sergeant Little – see to the American officer!’

So Major Macallister had his attendant American too: Fred looked quickly up their own passage, where torch- beams were flashing in between the silhouettes of moving figures. Was this good honest allied co-operation, or well-founded allied mistrust? Much more likely the latter!

‘Just hold it, sir.’ Devenish restrained him again. ‘Any moment now – get back there!’

With the heavy clump of Major Macallister and his dummy4

minions on the stair below him, Fred resisted the urge to move. But looking to the left he saw that the flock of ghosts were shrinking back into their own darkness under the combined threat of Devenish’s gun, the major’s shout, and that metal studded tread, and felt a pang of sympathy for them: whatever they were, innocent or guilty, they were the conquered – and vae victis – the conquered had no rights!

Crash! Another door caved in –

Fred abandoned the ghosts, with the metallic taste of powder in his mouth and the old excuse in his brain, which he remembered all too well from Italy and Greece: We didn’t start this – and we didn’t make the rules . . . so hard fucking-luck, then!

‘Come on, sir – this way!’ Even with the sound of Major Macallister at his back Fred also remembered the snappy reply from the ferret-faced drunken gunner captain to that anodyne disclaimer: Then what’s the difference between us and your average Jerry, then?

So . . . they obey their orders – right? Hic! And we –

hic – we obey orders too!

‘For Christ’s sake, sir! Come on!’

Fred let himself be pulled, with all the commotion of Major Macallister meeting the ghosts behind him, beyond the first and second doors down the passage.

And then Devenish was pushing past him into the third door, without deference, leaving him no choice but to dummy4

follow.

Once again, the concentrated sweaty-clothes-and-cabbage smell assailed him, stronger in the confined space of the room than outside, even before he could sort out its contents in the combined light of Devenish’s and Audley’s torches. And then for a moment Audley and Devenish seemed themselves to be the main contents, well- armed, well-fed and well-washed in the centre of their stage, and dominating the room’s occupants huddled in its furthest corner.

There were five of them, he saw: all males – and somehow it was a merciful relief that there wasn’t another naked painted-and-smudged child like down below – all males, in varying states of dishevelled undress and standing