For the Good of the State (32 page)

Audley found a grin somewhere. ‘Well, if you do that I guess I can’t grumble. And if Panin’s telling the truth, then you don’t have too much to worry about.’

But that only reminded Tom of his own unanswered question. ‘I mean, is he telling the truth—about Zarubin’s father, David?’

‘Hah!’ Audley wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘Well, at least
that
could be true—yes!’ Audley started to swing away from him again. ‘Let’s go! He’s going to get to the next rendezvous before us as it is, damn it! How far is it—to this place of his, where the Eagles have landed—?’

‘I don’t know—’ Audley was past him already ‘—until I see the map in the car … But, David—“
Dunsterforce”—
what was that?’

‘Huh! You may well ask, boy!’ Audley half-chuckled, half-growled over his shoulder. ‘That’s a thing of beauty, that is—fact improving on fiction, and heaping irony on the top of it: the only reason no one remembers
Dunsterforce
today is because no one combines all the talents of Kipling and Buchan and Le Carre … God! But I’d have loved to be there!’ Sniff. ‘Or probably I wouldn’t, with the way the Cabinet chickened out—chickened out after Wilson chickened out, admittedly, in spite of Cabot Lodge doing his best … ’

‘Wilson?’ Tom was half-breathless again. ‘Harold Wilson—?’

‘Jesus Christ, no!’ Audley’s stride lengthened again. ‘
President
Wilson, I’m talking about—1919, 1920ish … 1920, it would have been. The idea was to get the Americans into the Black Sea, after the Russian Revolution, rather as we got them into Greece after the last war … Bryce—Lord Bryce—put it to Cabot Lodge, and Cabot Lodge swung the Senate. But Wilson wouldn’t play. So poor old General Dunsterville was left out on a limb down in the back of beyond, on the Caspian Sea. Which, of course, he’d always expected to be—lovely man, Lionel Dunsterville! Spoke even more languages than you do, Tom … But I suppose I can hardly expect you to know anything about his romantic little fiasco—not while your Polish ancestors were beating the daylights out of Trotsky outside Warsaw, anyway.’

Tom’s confusion increased. Panin’s parting aside about ‘Dunsterforce’ had gone over his head, and now Audley’s ‘Dunsterville’ merely followed it.

And he was falling behind again—

‘David—’

‘It’s all true, though—“Dunsterforce”—’ It was as though the old man had five-league boots ‘—however unlikely it sounds. In fact, that’s almost certainly where the Navy story comes from, which sounds apocryphal but is probably just as true—about the fish jam … long before my time, or yours … Long before my father’s time—more like my grandfather’s time!’

Tom had just managed to reach his shoulder, but breathlessness and fish jam left him speechless.

‘The trouble is … yes, the
only
trouble is—’ A growling note entered Audley’s voice ‘—that that bastard son-of-a-bitch back there knows all too damn well that I, of all people, am most likely to swallow any Dunsterforce story—fish jam and all—’ He pointed ahead. ‘But there’s the car, anyway.’ Once again he stopped without warning and faced Tom. ‘So what do we do, then? No time for your beloved back-up now, not even if I agreed to it. Which I don’t.’ He grinned unhelpfully.

A memory came to Tom, but equally unhelpfully, of Willy’s golden head on the pillow next to his. Willy had ‘had help’, she had said, in getting into his room last night. And the Company would never have sent her so far from home alone, that wasn’t their way—that way, at least, they were careful. So Willy and her Help were maybe ten miles away, and maybe half-an-hour, from Farmer Bodger’s farmyard at this moment; and that was the nearest thing he had to any sort of back-up. But neither Audley nor Jaggard would thank him for calling the 7th Cavalry out on Exmoor.

‘Panin hasn’t left us any time, David. I’m not sure that I like that.’

‘Hmm … But then he wants to keep everything low key and strictly non-violent … ’ Audley moved his head in a curious circular motion, which was neither a shake nor a nod. ‘And in his state of professional health that has a certain logic to it. Because he can no more afford a scandal than I can … not to put too fine a point on the situation.’ Audley wiped his nose thoughtfully.

‘Yes.’ Tom hid behind unwilling acceptance of the old man’s own logic while actually noting that for the first time Audley had conceded the truth of what everyone else had been saying: that he himself was no longer invulnerable. But then he also saw the flaw in the logic. ‘But yesterday wasn’t non-violent, was it?’ And … better to be brutally explicit. ‘Your bullet and Basil Cole weren’t low key, David.’

‘Hmm … My bullet certainly wasn’t.’ Audley sniffed. ‘And I wish to God I had Old King Cole at the end of a phone now—we’d know what we were about then—you’re damn right there, Tom! Topping Basil was just too-damn neat … it
smells
of Panin, no matter how many times he swears to the contrary.’ Nod. Then a succession of small nods. ‘Yes … in the Great Patriotic War he might have been an NKVD hood, but he was also a working staff-officer. So he’d know how blind the front-line is when they can’t get any intelligence briefings about what’s ahead and on the flanks … So I’ll bet he knows I’m running blind as well as scared now, in spite of all the bull-shit I’ve fed him to the contrary. Huh! But we still go on, eh?’

Once again, in spite of all the other bull-shit which he’d received, Tom warmed to Mamusia’s ancient Beast. Because, for all his pride and bloody-mindedness and plain awkwardness, the old Beast was scared underneath, as he had every right to be. But, in spite of all that, the old Beast intended to go ahead—that was obvious. And in that the old Beast wasn’t disappointing; even, he could see how Colonel Butler might be tempted to return the trust and loyalty which he had received this day—even if it was Audley’s own peculiar variety of trust and loyalty—in exchange for such cavalryman’s courage.

‘
Huh.
’ The old man had completed his logic-versus-flawed-logic process. ‘But we don’t have any choice in the matter, young Tom: there’s always a risk, but we’re in the risk-taking business—we’re the poor-bloody Hotspur nettle-pluckers— “Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.” Are you game for that, boy?‘

Tom didn’t like being called ‘boy’, any more than ‘Darling boy’. But one half of him (and maybe Mamusia’s half, too) shrugged off the diminutive. ‘Yes.’ Only there was still the other half (which was Father’s cautious English half, but in which Jaggard also still had the controlling interest). ‘But I’d like to make a phone-call first, David.’

‘A phone-call?’ Audley frowned at him, then at the car, then back at him. ‘To whom?’

‘I want to know what they’ve got on your bullet, from yesterday.’ It was reasonable, but there was no harm in making it more so, so he grinned at Audley, and knew to his shame that it was a boyish grin. ‘Besides which … they’ll be expecting me to phone in. But don’t worry: I won’t tell them that we’re about to behave stupidly—I agree that we don’t have any choice.’ Instinct and inclination suddenly combined. ‘You would have done okay in my grandfather’s regiment, David—in … my mother’s father’s regiment, the Ulyani Lancers: they never could resist charging the machine-guns, when it came to the crunch.’

‘Hah!’ Audley was plainly delighted with the insult. ‘And you would have done well enough in the old Wesdragons, Tom: The West Sussex Dragoons … Because they were thick as two planks, too!’ Nod. ‘In fact, my old CO … “Kit” Sykes—or
Bill Sykes
to his friends, of whom I was never one—
he
used to say … rather like Marshal Foch, of whom he’d certainly never heard, because he boasted that he’d never opened a book in his life, and he hated all Frenchmen as a matter of principle …
he
used to say, “
Don’t worry about the flanks—God only knows where they are, and they aren’t your business anyway. And don’t worry about the rear, because I shall be breathing down the back of your unwashed neck, and there’s nothing behind us except cooks and bottle-washers, anyway. Just go and find out whether there’s anything up ahead between us and the cocktail bar in the Adlon Hotel in Berlin, there’s a good fellow! And if there isn’t, then order six bottles of their best Champagne on my account—understood?”
’ The old man’s pleasure in his old soldier’s memory was like a hot bottle in a cold bed in mid-winter. ‘Understood, Tom?’

‘Understood, David.’ Only he needed to take his speculator’s profit on a favourable market. ‘But I still need to make my phone-call —I want to know what the cooks and the bottle-washers have been doing—okay?’

Audley shrugged, and started to move again. ‘No harm in that, I suppose … just so you don’t tell ’em anything. No point in worrying ‘em—old Jack particularly. He worries about me a lot when I’m out of his reach, you know—’ The rest was lost, half-mumbled at an increasing distance, leaving Tom momentarily rooted to his spot by an onrush of sympathy for Colonel Butler, who must surely be as long-suffering as he was remarkable in other respects.

Then he remembered
Dunsterforce
, which he would need very soon to explain to Jaggard. The trouble was … getting any sort of straight answer out of the old man in his present elliptical mood (or probably in any mood, come to that) didn’t lend itself to speed; and the last thing he wanted was a lecture on post-World War One Anglo-American policy in the Near and Middle East—he’d had enough of the 1985 results of that old impossible tangle, for Christ’s sake!

Besides which—

‘Wait for me, David!’ But Audley took not a blind bit of notice.

Besides which what
was
he going to tell Jaggard? (Audley was already halfway to the car, his raincoat flapping around him like a pair of pale wings; and that reminded him of his original job, and also that he was getting careless: because that almost-white raincoat stood out too much for safety against the faded green of the landscape; and because Henry Jaggard hadn’t told him the half of it—because Henry Jaggard was up to something, and Henry Jaggard couldn’t be trusted!)

He had no time to tell Jaggard about Willy. And could he tell Jaggard what Audley was doing, when Audley himself still didn’t really know what Panin was up to?

Bloody Dunsterforce
! First things first. (Audley, large and white, had reached the car—and the sooner he was safe inside it, the better. That ought to have been ahead of first: that was more carelessness!)

He broke into a run, forgetting everything for a moment—

Audley gave up trying to wrench the car door open and stood waiting for him, getting larger and whiter by the second.

He reached the car himself finally, breathless and careless, and happily ridiculous. ‘Sorry, David. I locked it.’ The gun under his arm felt huge.

‘I know you locked it. But do you really think anyone would steal a heap like this—from a muddy farmyard?’ The-old man regarded him pityingly.

‘Just habit.’
Beirut habit
, thought Tom, and it was a disturbing thought. But it was a thought he had unthought too easily until
now
. ‘Go and stand over there, by the end of the barn.’

‘Just unlock the door, there’s a good fellow.’

Tom sighed. ‘Just go and stand by the barn—round the corner of it.’

‘What the devil—?’ The old man’s shoulders slumped suddenly. ‘For God’s sake … you don’t really think … ?’ Then he straightened up again. ‘Or are you trying to frighten me? Because you’re succeeding, you know.’

‘Good.’ Tom pointed towards the barn. ‘Don’t be difficult, David. I won’t take long.’

‘I should hope not! I have wet feet and a cold. And I’m past my prime.’ Audley held up his hand and started backing away. ‘All right, all right—just don’t do yourself an injury. Your dear Mother would never forgive me … ’

Tom waited until the old man was out of sight. ‘Actually, this isn’t going to be very difficult—can you hear me?’

‘Yes—’ Sneeze ‘—no?’

‘We parked on nice mud … just hoofprints and our footprints, I think—nice distinctive prints, too!’

‘Of course,’ agreed Audley. ‘Like Shakespeare said.’

Tom opened the passenger’s door gingerly. Then he leaned across to the driver’s. ‘What d’you mean—Shakespeare?’ He unlocked the bonnet. ‘Shakespeare?’

‘Henry V, dear boy. The night before Agincourt.’

Nothing anywhere there. Look in the boot. Look under the seats. ‘The night—’ Nothing anywhere: false alarm? ‘— ’before Agincourt?‘

‘Uh-huh. Like young Harry said: “
Every subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s soul is his own.”’
Sneeze. ‘Joke, Tom: sole, not soul … Not very good, but the best I can manage in the circumstances: you said “footprints”, and I said “sole”—okay?’

‘Very good.’ Check everything again, was the rule.

‘Not really. Not in these circumstances, actually, it occurs belatedly to me—
bad
joke, in fact. Is there a bomb in our car?’

‘You can come out now.’ Tom drew a deep breath. ‘False alarm, David.’

Audley squelched across the yard. ‘But with good intent.’

‘Yes.’ Tom knew he was smiling like an idiot. ‘It was a good joke.’

Audley shook his head, unsmiling. ‘Not if you remember the bit that comes before, where the soldier says that the king has a heavy reckoning to make “
when all those legs and arms and heads, chopt off in battle, shall join together at the latter day, and cry all, ’We died at such a place‘.”
’ He shook his head again. ‘Bad joke. Forgive me, Tom. I apologize.’

‘No need to.’ He had never seen the old man so serious, not even after the news of Basil Cole’s death. ‘I have been getting careless.’

‘And I have been worse than careless: I have been playing my little games maybe a little too thoughtlessly of late—Panin’s right. And that gives him the edge on me now.’ He looked at Tom sadly. ‘It’s like my wife has said on occasion: “How can such a clever man as you so often end up being too clever by half?” ’ Sniff. ‘My trouble is … as you get older there are things you can’t do any more, Tom. So sometimes I get a little bored. And then I make a little excitement for myself. So … now I am justly served, perhaps. But you are not.’