Soldier No More (7 page)

Roche took the envelope out of his inside breast-pocket and handed it to Willis.

“What’s this, then?” Willis looked at the blank envelope suspiciously.

“It’s for you, sir.”

“It’s not addressed to me. It’s not addressed to anyone!”

“It’s for you, sir, nevertheless,” insisted Roche, aware that he was quite as curious about the contents as Willis must be.

He watched the schoolmaster take a spectacle-case from his pocket and perch a pair of gold-rimmed half-glasses on his nose, and then make a nervous hash of splitting the stiff white paper, which was definitely not Government-issue.

The single sheet of paper inside matched the thickness of the envelope: it was slightly curved from its carriage inside Roche’s breast-pocket, but not crumpled, and it gave a dry parchment-like crackle as Willis opened it.

Handwriting, that was all Roche could make out.

“Good God!” exclaimed Willis. “Good
God!
”

It was going to work, whatever it was, thought Roche. Everyone had a key to them somewhere, and Clinton had obtained Willis’s somehow.

“Well I never!” murmured Willis. “Good God!”

It was a pity that Audley’s key wasn’t so readily available. But, for a guess, Audley didn’t have a simple key, but more likely a combination of numbers; and one or more of those numbers was apparently locked up in Willis’s head—and some more numbers might be locked up in some numbered account in Zurich or Beirut as well. But this was a start, and he ought to be grateful for that. Because only in opening up Audley could he gain access to sufficient funds with which to bargain for his own freedom, and be shot of the lot of them.

But Willis had read his letter, and was now looking at him with a new expression in his eyes. “You work for him—that foxy beggar?”

Clinton’s features broke through the mists in Roche’s mind—the high colour, which had nothing to do with blood pressure but only with blood, and the sharp features, sharper even than Willis’s ferrety-Montgomery look—
foxy
would do very well for them, even though the hairline had receded back and down to reveal the freckled skin stretched tight over the skull, leaving only a tide-mark of that once-red hair above the ears. No beauty now, Clinton … and the foxy look was inside now, radiated rather than apparent.

But Clinton, for sure—

“I’m very much inclined to agree with you, Oliver. Audley
is
a
tricky blighter. And, what is more germane to our present problem, there was an attempt made to recruit him again shortly after he came down from Cambridge. And it failed abysmally—it was bungled, wouldn’t you say, Fred?”

“It was none of my doing.” Clinton pointed his muzzle at Roche. “This time we must know what we are about, Roche—“

“The hair’s all gone now,” said Roche carefully.

“It has?” Willis flicked a glance at him, and then returned to the far distance. “That’ll be the effect of the sweat, I shouldn’t wonder … I’ve seen the same thing with some of our old boys, coming back for Reunion Night—crowning glories smooth as billiard balls—yes! And what is he now—a full general? He was just Major Clinton then—‘Freddie’ to his betters … or his elders, anyway, if not his betters …”

Another major. The whole world was full of majors today: majors gone up, like Clinton; majors in the balance, like Stocker; majors long dead, like Nigel Audley, cheated of his destiny; and majors ossified in wartime memories, like this little schoolmaster before him. And even one other potential major too!

And yet … once upon a time this garrulous schoolmaster had crossed Clinton’s path, which neither he nor Clinton had forgotten; though there was nothing remarkable in that, any of it, for Clinton must have made a lot of men sweat over the years, and he hadn’t finished yet.

“He’s not a general…”He left the end of the statement open, as though there was more to come.

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll bet he tells the generals what to do! He wasn’t above telling ‘em a thing or two when—“ Willis stopped suddenly, cocking his head knowingly at Roche “—but that’s another story … It’s a small world, though—a small world … All those years ago, and now
this—
out of the blue—a damn small world!”

He lifted the paper, but didn’t offer it to Roche. Instead he fumbled in his pocket, producing first a pipe, which he stuck between his teeth, and then a gunmetal lighter.

“And he’s still foxy, too,” he muttered, snapping the lighter and applying the flame to the edge of the letter. When it was well alight he looked up at Roche, the twist of a smile lifting the opposite corner of his mouth to that which held the pipe. “Instructions!”

Roche watched the flames consume the paper right down to the last finger-hold, which the schoolmaster abandoned just in time. The charred remains floated to the ground, where they lay for a moment still in two complete and almost recognisable pieces; then the breeze shivered them, and lifted them, and finally broke them up, drifting them away across the field.

Willis put his pipe back in his pocket. “Maybe I should be a little bit frightened, instead of merely obedient—and very grateful he didn’t order me to chew it up and swallow it instead. It would have been most uncommonly indigestible.”

Whatever there had been between them, it was wind-blown ashes now, and all that could be recovered from it was whether or not it had served its purpose, decided Roche philosophically. It would have been nice to know more, but it didn’t really matter apart from that.

Willis looked at him again. “Very well, then—I think your last meaningful question was ‘Did I know David Audley quite well?’ And the answer to that is ‘Yes, as well as anyone did, and probably better than most’—and certainly a lot better than Nigel Audley ever did, although that’s not saying much, in all conscience—so,
yes
is the answer to that one, David Roche.”

So the paper had been the right key, and doubly the right key, if they were right about Audley—

“This time we must know what we are about, Roche,” said Clinton. “Because some fool, whoever it was, went at it bald-headed last time, in ‘49—you’re right…” He nodded at Sir Eustace.

“Yes …” Sir Eustace accepted the nod and passed it on to Roche. “Bad psychology … and probably bad timing too—too soon after the war. Too many scars not properly healed, most likely.”

“I don’t know about that,” St. John Latimer demurred. “He didn’t have a bad war.”

Clinton looked at Latimer without speaking, and for a moment his eloquent silence monopolised the debate.

“What I mean is, by the time he got into it, we were winning—“ Latimer plunged forward again “—and in any case that’s not quite the received wisdom, according to Forbes at Cambridge—the war-weary hero explanation. What Archie Forbes seems to think is that he had other fish to fry at the time, that’s all.”

“His academic work, of course,” agreed Sir Eustace, whose attitude towards the Clinton-Latimer cold war appeared to be one of indifference, if not ignorance. “He had a research fellowship of some sort, didn’t he?”

“He did, yes—a minor one.” Latimer sniffed.

“And that was the fish, Oliver, was it?”

Latimer scowled. “Forbes wasn’t too sure about that. The truth is, so far as I can make out, they regarded Audley himself as a bit of a queer fish.”

“Queer?” Sir Eustace raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t mean
queer
—“ Latimer waved a pudgy hand irritably “—the one thing you can’t accuse the fellow of is being queer. I mean
odd
—“

“Eccentric?”

“Not that either…” Latimer’s scowl deepened as he searched in vain for the word he wanted.

Sir Eustace examined the file in front of him. “Well, there’s nothing out of the ordinary here … certainly not down to ‘49 … nothing at all.”

Latimer nodded. “That’s right. There’s nothing strange at all. And maybe that’s what’s so strange, I don’t know … But they didn’t like him, anyway. Or they didn’t trust him, might be more accurate. And no one seems to know why, not even Archie Forbes, who was his tutor and supervisor.”

“And our talent scout,” murmured Sir Eustace. “Which is why they didn’t elect him to a fellowship after the research grant ran out, I take it, Oliver?”

“That’s the way it seems to have been.” Latimer’s face wrinkled with distaste. “But the precise reason why … eludes me still, I’m afraid.”

Evidently, the fact that Audley was arrogant, selfish, indisciplined, bloody-minded, ruthless and cunning—not to mention generally
tricky
, in summation—did not count in St. John Latimer’s estimation of the reckoning of any collection of Cambridge dons, as debarring Audley from election to a college fellowship. There was some other bar, but he did not know what it was.

“You don’t happen to have a nice fellowship in your gift by any chance, Eustace?” The distaste was still etched into Latimer’s face, if anything even deeper.

“For Audley?”

“Uh-huh.” And that of course was the reason for the Latimer expression—soliciting a plum for a man he detested. Or maybe
envied
would be more accurate? “I suppose Oxford would do as well. He’d probably turn his nose up at a redbrick place.” Latimer flicked a glance at Roche.

“You think that might interest him?”

Latimer scratched his head. “It might. But after having been turned down once … I don’t know, I just don’t know … but with this fellow I can’t believe it’ll be as easy as that.” He looked directly at Roche. “And I wish I knew why.”

Colonel Clinton grunted. “Which is why—
this time
—we must know exactly what we are about, Roche—“

“—so,
yes
, I knew him, David Roche,” said Willis, nodding at Roche, but then looking away from him towards the distant rugger posts at the far end of the pitch. “And yet, the answer could just as well be
no
for all the good it’ll do you.”

Yes
—
and no
—had said Major Stocker.

Roche looked up at the rugger posts towering above him, and began to suspect even more strongly from his own inadequate knowledge of the game that Willis was kicking for touch, not so much to gain ground as to win time in which to let the defenders get in position.

“David Audley was in the war, wasn’t he?” As of now, if the dialogue was going to go off at a tangent, it would be David Roche’s tangent.

“The last half, yes,” agreed Willis coolly, taking the change in his stride, his defenders ready. “He was in Normandy about the same time as I was, actually.”

“In an armoured regiment?”

“Yes. Yeomanry lot, dashing about the place in Cromwells, to the west of us—we were poor bloody infantry.”

“He did quite well, I gather?”

“He didn’t let the side down, no,” agreed Willis. “And they did have a pretty rugged time in that neck of the woods, the tank chaps—bad country for them, that bocage. Good anti-tank country—we’d have loved it. Badger had a bloody field day in it, with his PIAT! But of course
they
were on the receiving end, trying to push south, past Caumont towards Flers and Conde, to take the heat off the Yanks at the time of the break-out.” He smiled at Roche. “Lovely place for a holiday—marvellous food—but a rotten place from which to winkle hard-bitten Jerries with the Fuehrer’s stand-fast order in their pockets.” He paused, and nodded to emphasise his military judgement. “He did all right, did young David, even if he was a bit over-sized for his tank—he performed satisfactorily, anyway … And, more to the point, he survived, which in itself indicates a certain skill. Mere longevity is a considerable virtue, in peace as well as war, don’t you think?”

Stripped of all its verbiage, and allowing for the fact that the schoolmaster had a tongue like a cow-bell, there was more there than old soldierly memories. Willis had known exactly where his ward had gone into battle, and the long odds against his survival unscathed; and if it was all a gentle joke now, casually thrown off, it wouldn’t have been a joke then—no joke at all.

“There’s a lot to say for surviving, I agree.” He returned Willis’s smile. “But his father didn’t do so well there, did he!”

“Ah …” For one fraction of a second the change in direction caught Willis unprepared. “Yes … that is to say, no—he didn’t—“ The eyes clouded as the defences were adjusted “—though, again, perhaps it wasn’t altogether ill-timed, in so far as being killed can ever be considered well-timed—but Tacitus did say it of Agricola, after all—
felix opportunitate mortis
, and all that, eh?”

“What?” exclaimed Roche, totally outflanked.

“A charming fellow, Nigel Audley—quite delightful … manners, breeding, grace—and guts … everyone liked him, everyone admired him. Good-looking, and clever with it—
the expectancy and rose of the fair state
—he had that rare quality of perfection which prevented lesser mortals envying him his silver spoon, he was too far above the rest of us for that, we were simply grateful for knowing him—that’s the simple fact of it, David Roche.”

Roche was struck speechless by this panegyric: David Audley’s father was too impossibly good to be true.

Willis regarded him tolerantly. “Ah—I know what you’re thinking:
de mortuis nil nisi bonum
, and all that. But it’s not true, you can ask anyone who knew him, and every man-jack of them—and every woman too—will bear me out.”

Roche waited for him to continue, but he seemed to have run out of steam with surprising suddenness.

“He was killed in 1940, wasn’t he?”

“What?” Willis turned towards him, frowning. “Why do you persist in asking me questions to which you already know the answers?” he asked sharply.

And that was uncharacteristic too, thought Roche, taken aback by the sharpness. If the defences around David Audley were well-sited, those protecting his father were in even greater depth, and suspiciously so for such a paragon.

“Do you always ask your pupils questions they’re not sure of—or do you lead them from what they know to the more difficult ones?” he countered as gently as he could.

Willis stared at him, at first vaguely then focussing exactly. “T
ouche
…
” he nodded, accepting the rebuke. “You made me remember things I’d forgotten—I’m sorry—you’re quite right, and you have your job to do … Yes, in 1940, when the skies were falling in on us—in 1940, in France.”