A New Kind of War

‘Germans.’ But then what the devil were they doing in Greece on the Eve of Scobiemas? So that answer wasn’t quite adequate. And then he remembered the group picture Audley had shown him – and, much dummy4

more vividly, ‘Corporal Keys’ inability with a simple uniform. ’Civilians – scientists – ?‘ But then he remembered the heavily-laden lorry. ’But also machinery, too – equipment.‘ But then he thought also of what Audley had said. ’But that may be a cover. Is it?‘

‘Partially. But not wholly. And, in fact, our chief cover has been Colonel Colbourne’s celebrated obsession with him – ’ Clinton pointed upwards ‘ – and with the final resting place of General Quinctilius Varus and the men of the XVIIth, XVIIIth and XIXth Roman Legions . . . whose bones are most likely scattered over many square miles of the Teutoburgerwald.’

‘And they – the Americans – actually believed that?’

‘For a time, perhaps. They, the Americans. And also they, the French. And they, the Russians, major.

Because it happens to be a real obsession of Colbourne’s – an obsession in an otherwise extremely clever and well-balanced man. And one shared by a great many otherwise clever and well-balanced German professors and scholars down the years, also.

But there’s nothing strange in obsessions, major – a lot of us have them. And at least Colbourne’s is an innocent one, which doesn’t hurt anyone.’

Coming from such a cold fish, that was a surprisingly warm defence. Or maybe there was more to Brigadier Clinton than met the eye? ‘It just makes them – us – a dummy4

laughing-stock – ? But that was what you wanted, of course!’

‘Yes.’ Clinton looked up at Hermann for a moment, who was safely frozen in stone, before coming back to Fred. ‘Except that it didn’t require Augustus Colbourne’s private obsession to make a laughing-stock of us. Us, the British. Because we were that already, in this particular field of operations.’

Lucky Hermann! ‘We were – ?’

‘And not just among our loyal allies. Among the Germans, too – perhaps among them, above all ... our defeated enemies, major. The only difference is that their laughter must be bitter as well as incredulous, watching us make such fools of ourselves.’

That was what the Crocodile had said. But he hadn’t really understood it then, and he didn’t now. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘Yes – of course.’ Clinton cocked an eye at him.

‘You’ve been too busy disporting yourself happily at Vouliagmeni beach with Colonel Michaelides’ cast-off mistresses.’ The eye became knowing. ‘I know all about you, major’, it reminded him. ‘Well, we haven’t had much time for that in Germany. Because we’ve been discovering just how clever the Germans really were, major, you see.’

‘I never thought they weren’t clever, sir – ’

dummy4

‘I don’t mean German sappers.’ Clinton paused.

‘Although they did have some new plastic explosive which might have surprised you unpleasantly . . . But then they were way ahead of us in so many fields –

synthetics, and optics, and radar and rocketry, and aircraft design – I’m told that even their aircraft-testing technology was years ahead of ours ... In fact, I don’t think some of our chaps really understand what they’re looking at half the time –like a bunch of savages trying to make sense of a screwdriver. And that isn’t the end of it – and don’t, pray don’t, say to me now, as one very senior officer did quite recently, “By George, Freddie! If half you say is true, then we ought to have lost the jolly old war! But we didn’t now, did we.’

‘I wasn’t about to say such a thing, sir.’ Fred hastily amended his thoughts. ‘I was going to say . . . but we are here anyway.’ He remembered the lorry again.

‘Huh!’ For the first time Brigadier Clinton emitted something like the sort of explosive sound brigadiers usually made in Fred’s experience of them. ‘That is the other half of it, Major Fattorini: too late and too little, as well as too incompetently, is our story. I can’t call it a “policy” – it would be bad enough if it was an actual policy . . . But there isn’t any policy, so far as I can discover. So we’re actually ten times worse than even the Americans, at picking up German technology and the men who can explain it to us. And they’re slower dummy4

than the Russians, and Americans are . . . because the Yanks have some Jewish officers, and some Jews in their State Department, who are at least decently concerned about shaking hands with Nazis who haven’t yet even had time to wash the blood off theirs

– that is at least understandable . . . Or, it would be if the Russians weren’t making deals with everyone they can lay their hands on – which is easy enough for them, because their deal is “Work for us, and we’ll look after you, and your family, and no questions asked ... or we’ll shoot the lot of you . . . except your daughter, who is pretty.” In which case, it isn’t too difficult to reach a sensible decision . . . And the French – they have an even better sales story: “Come and live in France, where it is warmer, and much more civilized . . . and serve your time with us, like a soldier in La Legion etrangere, also with no questions asked, but with better pay and better food, and finally become a Frenchman like us!” And who would refuse that offer, in Germany in 1945? Would you, major – if you were hungry, and had a Nazi record as long as my arm?’

After that ‘huh’ . . . that was the longest and most uncharacteristic speech Fred had heard from any senior officer, anywhere, in all his years in uniform. But then this brigadier’s experience of Germans went back longer than most, he remembered: he had been sucking dummy4

German eggs since . . . 1937 – ?

So he could afford to jump the obvious answer. ‘So what are we doing then, sir?’

‘You may well ask, major – you may well ask!’

Clinton stared at Hermann’s inscription this time: