A New Kind of War

‘Mornin’, sir.‘ The soldier who had swept away all his clothes and equipment the night before appeared in the doorway. Trooper Leighton – char up, sir. An’ your bath’ll be ready in ten minutes – I ‘ave to bring the ’ot water up, ‘cause the pipes broke on this floor, so I’m your bheesti, sir –’

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‘Weh! das war ein grosses Morden!

Sie erschlugen die Kohorten – ’

‘I’ll take the major’s tea, Lucy.’ David Audley appeared from behind the man, fully-dressed and with a cup of tea already in one hand. ‘You go and fill his bath.’ He grinned at Fred. ‘Bloodthirsty, isn’t it! “Woe!

There was a great killing!” Morning, Fred.’

Although he very carefully hadn’t drunk too much the night before there was a small knot of pain just above Fred’s left eye. ‘Where’s my uniform? Where are my clothes?’ he snapped at the trooper.

‘Get the major’s things first, Lucy.’ Audley supplemented the question unnecessarily as he lifted the steaming mug out of the man’s hand. ‘ Juldi.’ He grinned again as the man scuttled away. ‘Lucy started his army service as a band boy in India, so he prefers to be addressed in Urdu. But you don’t need to worry about your stuff – it’ll be superb. Caesar Augustus insists on nothing less: he says that a Guards turnout impresses the Germans – or “the Cherusci” – “die Cherusker” – as he calls them. One of Hermann’s tribes, that is ... And the Redcaps too, when they catch us “fraternizing”. Saves trouble, he says.’

Fred frowned. The almost-falsetto song was even now recounting the massacre of the Roman Army by the dummy4

Cherusci in grisly and ill-omened detail, and somehow Audley’s early morning cheerfulness made it worse.

‘You’re not late, don’t worry. It’s just that I’m an early bird.’ Audley misread his expression as he handed over the cup. ‘I’ve only dropped in to apologize if I disturbed you in the night.’

‘Disturbed me?’ He took a gulp of the scalding tea, and it instantly started to perform its daily miracle. ‘You didn’t disturb me, David.’

‘Oh good!’ Audley blinked. ‘It’s just . . . I’m next door . . . and I shout in my sleep, so I’m told. I have these nightmares about a tank I once briefly occupied which was absolutely full of flies – big, fat greeny-black ones. But I don’t have ’em so often now. They’re going away –like my stutter. It’s the th-therapeutic effect of the soft life we now lead, the MO says. But I think it’s the absence of tanks from my life. I never liked them, you know – ‘ He took two long steps past Fred and leaned out of the window ’ – SHUT UP, OTTO! “FLUCH AUF DICH” TO YOU, TOO – YOU

BLOODY CHERUSKER! SHUT UP!‘ He turned back, grinning widely again. ’He always sings his Teutoburger song when he’s washing the cars, and it really gets on my nerves. I think he only does it to remind us that victorious armies can come unstuck in Germany if they don’t watch out, too – he’s a caution, is our Otto! A man of many parts.‘

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Fred looked down into the courtyard, where the silenced Otto had moved on to Major McCorquodale’s French limousine. ‘He sings as though he’s lost two of them.’

‘Lost two of them?’ Audley followed his glance. ‘Oh, I see! Yes – the Crocodile did say something about

“castrati” singing when he first heard him. But the way old Otto gets on with the local girls suggests quite the opposite, if Hughie is to be believed.’

‘Yes? And where did we get him from – did you tell me?’ The golden elixir of British Army life had quite dissolved the pain over his eye, and he felt suddenly benevolent towards the young dragoon. Besides which, of course, there was the boy’s pristine innocence.

‘Do you know, I’m not quite sure.’ Audley sounded a little surprised with himself. ‘I think he just turned up one day, and made himself useful. Maybe he brought one of his wild boars with him – that would certainly have been a passport to acceptance in this mess!’ He thought for a moment. ‘But you’ll have to ask Amos –

or Hughie. One of ’em’s sure to know, if the other doesn’t.‘

Amos de Souza, thought Fred with a pang of doubt verging so closely on disbelief that it was painful: if he had to stake his life on one officer in this unit he would have hazarded it cheerfully on Major de Souza. But, in spite of his instinct – and in spite of the night before dummy4

last, which would have added circumstantial proof to that instinct until Brigadier Clinton had reinterpreted those events for him ... in spite of all that, Major de Souza’s name was on the Brigadier’s list, and high up, too –second only to that of Colonel ‘Caesar Augustus’

Colbourne himself.

Damn and damn and damn and damn! he thought, remembering his own troubled sleep. This was going to be bad, one way or another, if Clinton was right and if Otto Schild had sung a true song –

Yet, in the Teutoberg Forest

Cold blew the wind,

And the ravens flew above.

There was an air of doom,

As of blood and corpses . ...

‘You’ll catch cold if you stand there in the window.

This isn’t Greece, you know.’ Audley swung his arms.

‘God knows what it’ll be like in winter! Always supposing the Crocodile hasn’t got me posted to a tank landing- craft for the invasion of Malaya!’

Fred realized that he had shivered. ‘Oh, I don’t think there’s much chance of that, David.’ He forced a reassuring grin. Audley was a loyal young man as well as a clever one, if Clinton’s judgement could be relied on; and it was an irony that he was the only unfree man dummy4

among them. But . . . (and brave too, Clinton had said:

‘foolishly and suicidally brave, according to his CO’; but that was no more than had been expected of very young officers, wasn’t it?) . . . but it was no real consolation, among all these other veteran officers, to have to rely on the least-veteran, and most callow and awkward, if push came to shove