A New Kind of War

‘We first got that picture in ... May, yes – ? That would be about three months.’

‘And what do the people in it have in common?’ He couldn’t resist the extra question.

‘Oh . . . that’s easy.’ The prospect of more answers dissolved Audley’s caution.

‘Yes?’

‘Not bloody Roman remains, for a start!’ Audley crashed the gears down joyfully as the car began to climb.

‘No?’

‘No!’ Audley tossed his head. ‘Colonel “Caesar Augustus” Colbourne may be a looney. But our Freddie isn’t into Roman history – no!’

Fred waited, half expectantly, but also somewhat irritated. Maybe it was the boy’s recent military experience, when he had been forced to listen to other people’s stupidities in obedient subaltern silence, which now invariably tempted him to hear his own voice saying clever things. But whatever the reason, if he were to remain a useful member of TRR-2 in the dummy4

future, he would have to learn to hide his bright light more prudently.

‘I got it wrong first, actually – ’ Audley steered the little car regardlessly across a succession of potholes in the track which had succeeded the road surface ‘ – not understanding about Greece, of course.’

‘You did?’

‘Yes.’ The mockery bounced off Audley’s arrogance.

‘I thought . . . “cushy billet, those Jerries have got for themselves – pottering round the ruins of all the old German cities . . . Roman cities, rather: Confluentes, Moguntiacum, Colonla Claudia Ara Agrippinensis . . .

picking up this and that after the fires had cooled down, and after their ARP people had carted off the bodies, and long after the jolly old RAF had departed –

a real cushy billet!’ He pulled the car to a halt off the track under a stand of great beech trees through which a bright green meadow was visible, falling away on their right. ‘Very German of course, all the same. Great scholarship as well as great military prowess – too damn great military prowess for my liking . . . But great scholars too, they are. And they’ve always been fascinated with classical history – hence all the famous stuff in their museums. And hence that Roman fort we were billeted in, and the one the Kaiser rebuilt on the same line . . . and that bloody great statue in the woods not far from here . . . So it was a damn good cover, as dummy4

well as a cushy billet –but cover for what, eh?’ Audley stared at him for an instant, then began to unwind himself out of his seat.

Fred followed suit, staring through the trees as he stretched his legs. Not far ahead there seemed to be a great grey cliff rising up from the grass of a wide forest clearing.

‘ Nazis, I thought – ’ Audley towered over the car ‘ –

bloody Nazis taking cover in a nice, respectable job, hoping that we wouldn’t look for them in Roman Germany, dressed in scholars’ gowns. At least, that would be their second line of defence, anyway, if we did trace them. Because it was pretty clear they’d all dispersed and gone to ground long before we appeared on the scene. Which meant they knew they had something to hide.’ Audley pointed towards the cliff.

‘Shall we walk? The RV is just down the track from here, by the rocks – ’ He looked at his watch ‘ – but we’re still in good time.’

Fred fell into slow step beside him.

‘But then we started to uncover facts as well as names and dates. And then it didn’t seem to work so well, my theory. Because some of them really were pretty distinguished scholars and not Nazis at all. Like old Professor Schmidt, for example. And Langer, who was at Oxford. Although he wasn’t a classicist, or an archaeologist. He was a very smart scientist, so I dummy4

discovered – quite by accident . . . And Enno von Mitzlaff – he was an archaeologist, young and up-and-coming. And then he was a damn good soldier, until he lost his arm in the desert. But he wasn’t a Nazi – he certainly wasn’t a Nazi, by God!’

Audley was looking at the cliff now. And yet, it wasn’t a cliff: it was an extraordinary limestone outcrop ... or, rather, a series of outcrops, some rising up like great blunt fingers into the grey morning sky above the forest.

‘But, then it looked like none of them were Nazis. And they’d been on the job for years, some of them. In fact, it all really started before the war, as a sort of Romano-German encyclopaedia, and the bomb-damage rescue and recovery part of it was almost an after-thought, even though it became their main work eventually.’

Audley continued to stare at the rocks. ‘You know that this was a place of pilgrimage in medieval times?

Some bright religious entrepreneur had a replica of the Holy Places in Jerusalem carved into the caves at the bottom. And he may even have hired a Byzantine sculptor to do the job –possibly a PoW from the Crusades. Or a local man who’d been out east, maybe.

Because it isn’t straight Romanesque carving . . . And then he fleeced the pilgrims, I expect . . . But Caesar Augustus says it goes back a long way before that as a holy place – all the way to the pagan times of his dummy4

Cherusci, Chauci and Chattii – who worshipped rocks and trees. And he may actually be right, because my old Latin master, who is a proper old pagan . . . only he doesn’t worship rocks and trees, it’s Plato and rugger with him . . . he says it’s an old Christian trick to set up shop on other gods’ shrines –’

‘They weren’t Nazis?’ He still wasn’t sure whether Audley digressed deliberately or out of habit. ‘So what were they?’