Johnny and the moments when he might brood in solitude were denied him. Pace and camaraderie were the order of the moment.
For Carter the atmosphere stretched back his memories to the days when he had been young and a new recruit of the Service and attached to Special Operations Executive in the last years of the war, when he had worked with men to be parachuted into occupied Europe. Thirty-five years later, 35 years of continental peace and nothing changed. The same tensions, the same belly flutters and loud laughter, the same fear of failure and the willing hopes of success. That was how Carter had learned to cosset and protect an agent, that was how he had acquired the knowledge of when to pamper and when to bully. They were all frightened, the young men who would suffer the abrupt snapping of the umbilical link, they all wanted their hand gripped by Henry Carter. This lad would not be pitched out of a swaying, slow running Mosquito bomber on a clouded night. He would take the train at 2 in the morning from Hannover… Didn't matter a damn, didn't alter the basics of the mission. Whether by parachute, whether by second class rail ticket, Johnny was going into enemy territory. There wouldn't be many who would recognise that destination. They wouldn't know, and fewer would care, that a young man was flirting with his life because he had been chosen to journey on their behalf. You're a maudlin old bugger, Henry Carter would say to himself.
It was going to be a hell of a show, one of the best.
Well, it had to be, didn't it?
They had all worked so bloody hard for this one, all of them.
Early in that week Carter drove Johnny to Aldershot. They went in the late afternoon, skirted the garrison town and presented themselves at the Guard House of the Parachute Regiment depot. Carter had parked in front of the lowered barricade across the camp entrance and slipped into the building to present his letter of introduction and to have his credentials inspected. A lance corporal in para smock and with the distinctive maroon beret jauntily worn had come with him to sit in the back of the car and act as guide to the range.
Carter and Johnny walked from the car towards the warrant officer who waited for them. They were led to a brick built hut, the formal army rectangle and on a chair was a smock and a pair of denim trousers, and on the floor was the weaponry. Johnny changed quickly. A long time since he had worn khaki and camouflage. Something stabbed at him, something from the far past, and the sweat ran a little on his forehead.
Carter noticed and battered Johnny on the shoulder, won a slow and distant smile.
The warrant officer held a dark, paint chipped handgun, the outline frame of a metal shoulder stock, and in his other hand there dangled a cloth bag tied fast at the neck. Carter and Johnny followed him out onto the open ground and towards the firing zone. A red flag whipped high on a shaved larch post. Not a smart and neat and tidy place. Divoted ground, the wheel ruts of turning Land-Rovers, few trees, rough and worn grass.
To the front there loomed a sloping wall of sand, fenced with long cut logs, and rising proudly before the wall was the blackened cardboard cutout in the shape of a human torso.
They stopped 50 yards from the target.
'Were you ever on a range before, sir?'
'Yes,' said Johnny, little more than a whisper.
'Military or civilian?'
'Military.'
'General or individual firing?'
'Both.'
'You are familiar with the procedures?'
' I know the procedures.'
The warrant officer lifted the gun for display and speedily screwed on the shoulder stock, then reached down to the bag and pulled clear three loaded stick magazines. He talked with a calm competence, a man familiar with his trade. 'They asked us to provide a Stechkin, had to get one out of the museum and re-arm it. We had one from the NLF in Sheik Othman back in the Aden days when One Para snaffled it. I've fired it myself and it works, won't blow your head off. The Soviet military don't use it now but it's available to the security police throughout the Warsaw Pact. Automatic, fires as long as the ammo lasts while the trigger's depressed. It's a blow back mechanism with the option of selective firing
…'
'I've read about it.' Johnny wanted to feel a weapon in his hand again.
'There are some RGD 5s as well, we'll come to them later. Do you want wool for your ears?'
'No,' said Johnny.
Carter drew back, separated himself from the pair as they closed and Johnny bent to watch the loading of the pistol. Half a lifetime since Carter had handled a gun. Something vulgar about them, something crude that was abrasive to the modes of the Service.
Over 15 minutes Johnny emptied the three magazines into the target.
Standing aimed shots, crouched on one knee and with both fists clamped on the weapon for steadied marksmanship, diving and rolling and firing in a whirl of movement, running on the spot for 15 seconds and then at the shout of the warrant officer the pivot to blast at the torso. All the drills, all the routine. Single and automatic. Planned and spontaneous.
And then the grenades and Carter was waved by the warrant officer into the observation tower with its shrapnel pocked walls and it didn't interest him to watch through the viewing slit as Johnny threw and dived to the ground.
When it was quiet Carter came down the steps and saw the warrant officer examining the firing target and from that distance he could read the cheerfulness on Johnny's face. The man who had eclipsed some personal barrier, won back some trifle of respect, and Johnny was talking, animated and fast… But it was against all the rules to take a gun. The team would have to live with that because Johnny was the one who was travelling, Johnny was going to Magdeburg.
Johnny loped away and headed for the hut. Carter and the warrant officer walked after him.
'What's he like?' Carter asked with diffidence.
'If it's one to one then he'd survive, perhaps with a bit to spare. I'm taking it that this isn't just a refresher, I'm reckoning that the next time would be for broke. Well, he'd be all right. It would be an unlucky bastard that faced him.'
'Thank you.'
'But don't forget that I said one to one.' The warrant officer's stare beaded into Carter's face. 'Not one to three, not one to four. The best men don't win then.'
'It won't come to that.' The doubt swam at Carter's mouth.
The warrant officer made no reply. Carter was anxious to be gone, to get clear of this place and back to the house at Holmbury. He waited at the door of the hut for Johnny to come out dressed again in his civilian clothes, and then they were in the car and away towards the main road.
Carter drove fast, hammering the accelerator more than was usual for him.
Johnny turned in his seat towards Carter. 'I want to go a couple of days early, spend a couple of days in West Germany on my own.'
'Why?'
' I want to talk German again, just for a couple of days.'
'We can get people down to Holmbury for that.'
'That's how I want it. I think it's important. Just a couple of days, just for listening. I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it was necessary.'
'It's a bit bloody late to be mucking things — why didn't you speak earlier?'
'Before, I didn't think it necessary, now I do.'
'It's ridiculous, you swanning about over there just for language — bloody daft.'
'It's my neck in Magdeburg, Mr Carter, not yours.'
'I'll talk to Mawby.' Bloody contract man, thought Carter, not the same as if it had been a staffer.
They were back at the house in time for dinner. Johnny was in good form that evening, even chatty, even making jokes. And he asked for a whisky before he went to bed.
'… What happened when you were called to the Tweedle household, Potterton, and the things that you subsequently heard do not fall, in my judgment, under the heading of police business,' the Chief Constable intoned.
