A New Kind of War

‘Ah ... no, they weren’t Nazis. But I still had this strange feeling that it was a cover of some sort.’ The boy gave him an uncharacteristically shy sidelong look.

‘It was really the old Croc who put me straight, in what passes for one of his more civilized moments . . .

accidentally, of course ... if I’m right, that is – ?’

‘Go on, David.’

‘Yes . . . Well, it was when he was rabbiting on about his favourite subject one night – the Germans, and what we’re doing to them . . . and what we should be doing to them, and all that. And someone – the Alligator most likely – because he likes baiting the Croc – he said that it was no more difficult than sorting apples: you kept the good ones and threw away the bad ones. And the Croc says, quick as a flash, “Och – but what is a guid Geairr-man?’” Audley grinned hugely as he exaggerated McCorquodale’s slight burr. ‘“It’s nae guid simply saying it’s those that fought with us dummy4

against the wee man Hitlerrr. Because there’s many a guid decent man that disliked the both – an’ the more so when yon bluidy bastard in the Kremlin comes into the picture, as he was bound to do soonerrr or laterrr!”‘

The smile vanished. ’And he’s right, of course.‘

Right, of course! And so Major McCorquodale seemed then to be Brigadier Clinton’s man to the life, too. But Major McCorquodale was on the Brigadier’s list, too!

‘And I was right also, in a way . . . even when I was wrong –’ The look on Fred’s face halted Audley ‘ –

wasn’t I? Am I – ?’

Fred controlled his disquiet. ‘Right about what?’

‘They were taking cover. Only not just from us – but also from the Nazis – ’ The boy lifted his hand ‘ – from both of us, is what I mean, Fred – ’

‘Why?’ The boy wasn’t just clever: he was too damn clever. ‘Why did they have to hide?’

Audley stared at him. ‘They weren’t nonentities. Old Schmidt was a very well-respected academic. And von Mellenthin was a biologist, or a bio-chemist, or something – in the Croc’s field. Which includes his celebrated anthrax trials. And Langer would have been a top man in poison gases . . . And the word is that the Yanks have found some bloody-terrifying new gas the Germans were making, down south somewhere – tons of it.’ He shivered. ‘And . . . these chaps . . . they didn’t dummy4

want to help Hitler brew the stuff up, to use on us. But they also didn’t want to help us ... to maybe brew it up ourselves, and then serve it back on their own people, if things came to the crunch – if all Hitler’s other secret weapons started to bite – ’ He looked at Fred questioningly ‘ – am I right?’

‘So why did they run, at the last?’ He had to find out how much else the boy had worked out. ‘After we’d won?’

‘It wasn’t at the last.’ Audley blinked. ‘That threw me for a bit. But then I found out all about Colonel von Mitzlaff – he was mine because he was a Panzer specialist. And also not a scientist: just a poor damned would-be archaeologist who was put into a tank, like I’m a poor damned would-be historian who suffered the same fate – ’ Now a grimace ‘ – only his tanks had better guns and better armour than mine did, Fred.’

‘But you were a lot luckier, in the end.’ The memory of what Audley had said about von Mitzlaff’s fate after the Hitler bomb-plot harshened his voice.

‘Not luckier. Just braver.’ A muscle moved in Audley’s cheek. ‘But . . . unlucky, too – yes. But he also broke the rules, too–I think.’

‘What rules?’

‘What rules?’ Audley looked past him towards the vehicles on the brow of the track behind them, at dummy4

Devenish and Hewitt. ‘Should I get those two under cover somewhere, do you think?’

Softly now! thought Fred. ‘It wasn’t in their orders this time, was it?’

‘No.’ Audley turned his attention to the rocks again, then to a wide lake out of which the furthest of them rose precipitately, and finally across the broad meadow to the dark, encircling woods. ‘But I don’t like this place. I never have.’

Fred looked at his own watch. They still had plenty of time. ‘Why not? You’ve been here before?’

‘Oh yes. It’s one of Caesar Augustus’s favourite spots.

He brought me here a couple of times to help with his measurements.’

Professor Schmidt’s rules could wait for a moment.

‘Measurements for what?’

‘He wants to drain the lake.’ Audley pointed. ‘See how the land falls away? It could be done with the right equipment.’ He gave Fred a lop-sided grin. ‘In my innocence, I did rather think that was why he’d recruited you, before I learnt better: as an officer of engineers, to advise on lake-drainage, you see.’

‘Why does he want to do that?’

‘Oh . . . it’s all to do with “saltus Teutoburgiensis” –

how Tacitus described the Varus disaster . . . “saltus”, meaning “forest pass”, or “glade”, or some such.’

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‘He thinks the battle was here, you mean?’

‘No, not exactly. Because it wasn’t actually a battle. In any sort of proper battle the Romans would have licked the pants off the Germans. It was more like a series of cumulative ambushes over miles and miles of trackless