A New Kind of War (40 page)

‘Mr Levin!’ He felt life within him fight against logic: in killing de Souza, Levin had burnt his boats, and there was no deal left to him. But he had to fight against logic.
But how?

‘Steady, sir.’ Levin didn’t even look at him: Levin knew the score just as well as he did.

‘Mr Levin … this doesn’t make sense—’ His tongue was thick in his mouth, hindering the words.

‘No, sir.’ Still Levin didn’t look at him. ‘I don’t suppose it does, to you, sir. And I am sorry for that, believe me, sir. But that’s the way of it.’

The man’s politeness clogged his brain. And, more than such insane politeness, there was bitterness and regret and loss; and he wanted to use them all to save himself, but he didn’t know how to do it because he didn’t understand what was happening to him. ‘Mr Levin …
why
, Mr Levin—?’

‘Sah!’ For an instant Levin became his old self again. ‘
Sah
—’

‘
Heinrich
—
now there is no choice, truly! We must go with him
—
’ He heard Zeitzler argue common sense and survival in the distance—

‘Mr Levin—’ Fred tried to receive different messages simultaneously ‘—what—’

‘This is not how I wished it to be,
sah
—
’

‘There is always a choice, Ernst. Do you not remember
—’

‘It was Mr Audley who was to be the example, sah—not the major—’ Levin drew a huge breath ‘—
never
the major—’ The long silenced barrel swung slightly, and then steadied on the young dragoon beside Fred, who stood swaying and twitching, almost beyond reason and sense, waiting to be loosed.

‘But, Ernst-’

‘Steady, David!’
Survival was what mattered now
! ‘You are taking us prisoner now, are you, Mr Levin?’

Another deep breath. ‘If I can, then I will.’ Levin took in the woods again, almost desperately. ‘Because there is a message I wish Colonel Colbourne to receive … if you would be so good as to deliver it …
sah
—
?’

‘Yes, Mr Levin—?’ Fred steadied the question, so as not to grasp at his own life too humiliatingly, even as he welcomed it and despised himself for his cowardice. ‘What is your message?’

‘
Heinrich
—
’
Suddenly Zeitzler leaped into incomprehensible German.

‘
In English, you bugger
!’ Levin snarled the order.‘
What was that
—
?’

For a moment they were inside a huge silence. ‘Do you promise my friend’s life? And the lives of these British officers?’ Number 16 issued his demand in a flat and uncompromising voice, almost arrogantly.

The RSM stared at Fred, ‘Yes.’

‘On your honour?’ The German stretched his arrogance insultingly, leaving ‘
for what that may be worth’
unspoken, transcending insult. ‘Is that your word?’

‘Yes.’ Still the RSM stared at Fred, with a dead blankness as treacherous as Clinton’s, which scorned forgiveness, accepting only final responsibility, true or false. ‘Don’t believe him!’ Audley snarled. Tell him to go to hell! Tell him—‘

‘Shut up!’ Fred nodded to the German. Take the offer, sir. And we’ll take our chances.‘

The German looked at Levin. ‘Very well, then.’

Still that stare. So, their only hope left was that message to Colonel Colbourne. ‘Yes, Mr Levin? What is it you want me to tell the CO?’

‘Yes.’ The man focused on him. ‘Tell Colonel Colbourne that I have joined another army now—now that his army has won its war …
His
army—?’ Levin’s concentration outranked his own. Tell him to remember Bum-Titty Bay, at Haifa, after El Alamein—tell him
that
, major—?‘

Bum-Titty Bay
? At …
Haifa
—
? He couldn’t understand that—

‘Tell him that, major—Bum-Titty Bay? Then maybe he’ll understand.’ Levin fixed him for an instant, and then dismissed him as he looked away, through Number 16 and Zeitzler, towards the meadow and the woods. ‘
Tell him that
—’

Bum-Titty Bay
—
? The faint obscenity of it, which he still couldn’t place, delayed him for a moment, even as he was drawn towards the woods, as the RSM relaxed slightly—

Christ! The woods were no longer empty
—
Christ!

‘Time to go, sir.’ Levin’s voice, which had been close to conversational as he transmitted his final message for Colonel Colbourne, became suddenly quite matter-of-fact, beyond argument. ‘So … no trouble now, if you please, sir—?’ Almost as it could never have been in any other age of the world, Regimental Sergeant-Major Levin’s voice pleaded with Major Fattorini not to take issue with him: not to go against Number 16’s acceptance, or Professor Zeitzler’s advice—never mind any foolishness
Captain
Audley might be tempted to, now that Major de Souza’s own foolishness had been demonstrated—

Time to—‘

As Fred stared at RSM Levin, accepting the inevitable, the RSM seemed to toss his head
—

Fred felt his mouth open, without knowing what he was going to say, as he saw what he had never seen before, and had never imagined seeing, as the movement continued, and the bright red spot over the RSM’s eye flowered, and the RSM’s side-hair lifted, and his beret with it, and blood-and-brains, and beret-and-side-hair, exploded with it, outwards with the killing bullet
—

The
crack
of the bullet overtook the nod, and the RSM’s eyes rolled with the impact, and the black barrel of the Sten whirled upwards as the man fell away from them.

‘
Fred.’
Audley pointed at the advancing figures in the meadow, and then threw himself towards the fallen weapon.

Christ! thought Fred, as the figures began to run. ‘Shoot, David!’ he shouted, clawing at his own holster feverishly as he did so. But then he saw the two Germans frozen behind him, like waxwork figures. ‘
Run, for God’s sake.’
he screamed at them. But they didn’t seem to understand, and it came to him in a moment of exasperation that not all Germans were the world’s natural soldiers: that these were only ordinary middle-aged men confused by madness—

But at last Audley had the RSM’s Sten: there came a succession of increasingly-loud
thumps
as the boy discharged it wildly, more or less in the right direction, just as the enemy opened fire with an honest ear-splitting rattling
bang-crack-bang-crack
which deafened him as it echoed and re-echoed over the valley around him. ‘
Run
!’ He directed the shout at Zeitzler, in the vague hope that the German had a more recent memory of murder, even while he saw Audley savagely trying to re-cock the RSM’s Sten. ‘
Shoot, David
!’

Audley looked up at him, apologetically. ‘Oh …
fuck.’
He made a face at Fred. ‘I never was very good with these things. So you’d better run too, Fred, I think—’ He turned towards the Russians, raising the sub-machine gun to them. ‘Come
on, you bastards
!’

Fred managed to extract his own revolver at last, and turned it and himself to the enemy, in despair of anything better.

It wasn’t the whole Russian Army, of course: it was no more than half a dozen men; and none of them were in any recognizable uniform—that one abortive fusillade of Audley’s seemed to have spread them out, left and right, sorting the brave men from the cowards; but the brave men were too bloody close for comfort now, all the same—

He managed to get an inadequate finger to the trigger. But it pulled the pistol down, and then the remaining fingers couldn’t hold the weapon steady as he fired at the nearest of the Russians, who was trying to take a steady aim, but not at him—

Bang!

The pistol bucked, just as the Russian fired. And then Fred fired again—and again, with the same terrible clumsiness, as uselessly as before; and saw the man steady himself again, this time bringing up his weapon deliberately, even as David Audley ran forward towards him, brandishing the Sten and screaming like a Highlander, beyond reason.

Taking his cue from the Russian’s action, Fred clamped his good left hand to his right wrist to attempt a steadier aim just as the Russian turned to meet the boy’s insane charge. But before he could squeeze the trigger the man crumpled and fell, and Audley’s scream turned into a shout of triumph as he bounded over the final yards and threw himself on his unresisting victim, flailing at him with the Sten.

The Russian’s sudden fall confused Fred for a second. Then it came to him in a flash that the sniper who had killed Levin was finding new targets, and hope blazed within him as he squeezed off his next shot quite deliberately at the nearest surviving Russian, knowing that he would miss, and that he now had only three rounds left; and saw the man flinch at the sound of the bullet, and then turn towards him instinctively, steadying his own automatic pistol and turning himself into a statue for an instant, just as his comrade had done.

Shoot
, prayed Fred to the invisible sniper as he jinked sideways—
shoot, for Christ’s sake
!

The Russian fired, and God only knew where the bullet went. But then one of his comrades was shouting at him—and Audley was shouting, too. And as Fred brought up his own pistol again both the Russians started to run—
but not towards him, away from him
—
what
—
?

He observed Audley on his knees beside his victim: the boy had recovered the man’s pistol and was emptying it wildly at the retreating enemy, shouting his wild dragoon war-cry. And then he swivelled and waved at Fred, pointing past him—

‘JACKO! TALLY-HO! TALLY-HO! AFTER THE BASTARDS!’

Fred turned, and saw not just Sergeant Devenish: Sergeant Devenish was in the lead, but with him there were half a dozen Fusiliers—more now, with the jaunty red and white hackles in their berets bobbing as they came out of the trees on either side of the track, rifles at the high port—

And—
oh God, no
!

‘
GO ON! GO ON
!’ Audley’s voice cracked, but with triumph as the line of Fusiliers reached them. ‘
TALLY-HO! GO ON, JACKO!’

The boy was oblivious to everything else around him, and not least to the two civilian figures on the ground, the one on his knees cradling the other in his arms—two nondescript civilians, patched and shabby—
oh God! Which was which
?

His knees felt oddly stiff as he covered the dozen yards, past the bodies of Amos de Souza and the RSM.
None of this was how it was meant to be
, he thought:
not Amos, not the
RSM,
and not
—

‘Ernst—?’ Number 16 held Number 21 close to him:
Sweet-Sixteen-and-Never-Been-Kissed
held
The-Key-to-the-Door
—
Corporal Keys
, and the blood dribbled out of the corner of Number 21’s mouth, and down his chin on to his tightly-knotted tie and frayed shirt-collar, just as it had done from another mouth so recently, only bright red now, not black—

‘
Ernst
—
!’ Suddenly Number 16 looked up at Fred, his face grey with anguish. ‘When they fired,
he stood in front of me
! Do you hear me? He stood in front of me! Why would he do that? Why did he have to do
that?’

Number 21 opened his eyes suddenly, and looked directly at Fred also.

‘Ernst
—’

Number 21 arched his back, and the breath rattled in his throat and finally went out of him in a rush of blood from his mouth.

‘Oh, my God!’ Audley’s voice came from just behind him. ‘Which one—
ahh!’
As the boy saw the expression on Fred’s face his lip drooped apologetically. ‘Sorry. But … well—?’

Something behind Fred took his attention, and Fred’s with it. And there suddenly on the path was Driver Hewitt, blinking nervously and fidgeting with the seams of his battle-dress trousers with callused thumbs.

‘Yes, Hughie?’ Audley accepted the diversion gratefully.

Driver Hewitt took in the Germans without emotion, but then rolled his eye over the scatter of bodies beyond. ‘Cor bleedin’ ‘ell!’ The eyes blinked, and the wizened monkey-face screwed up. Then Driver Hewitt remembered his officers again, and gave Audley an oddly philosophic sidelong glance. ‘You bin lucky again then, Mr Audley—aintcha?’

The boy had followed the little driver’s glance, but seemed unable to tear himself away from it now. For a moment silence flowed around them, but then there came a distant rattle of small-arms fire out of the woods, and a flock of birds rose from the trees on the crest of the ridge.

Audley sighed. ‘Yes, Hughie—I suppose we could say I bin lucky again.’ He turned to the little man at last. ‘What d’you want, Hughie?’

Driver Hewitt screwed up his face again. ‘Nothin’ really, sir, Mr Audley—Captain Audley … Except, it’s Mr Schild, sir—Otto, like, sir—?‘

‘Otto Schild?’ Audley frowned at him. ‘What about him?’

‘’E’s back with the vehicle, sir. ‘E … wants to give hisself up, ’e says.‘

Audley studied the man. ‘What are you talking about, Hewitt?’

‘Yes, sir … Well … like, ’e’s got this ‘untin’ rifle of ‘is wiv ’im, wot ‘e shoots ’is pigs with. Only—‘ Driver Hewitt drew a deep breath ’—‘e says ’e’s shot Mr Levin with it this time. After Mr Levin shot the major. An ‘e was only obeyin’ orders, anyways …
sir
.‘ The words tumbled out in three quick bursts. ’Only … ‘e thinks it’ud be better for ’im if you was to take ‘im into custody now, just in case—’ The little man cocked an eye back down the path ‘—’cause there’s a lotta Redcaps comin‘ up the road now … So I put ’im in your car, sir.‘

Audley looked at Fred. ‘He was only obeying orders? Whose orders. Major Fattorini?’