Other Paths to Glory (21 page)

‘How?’

‘You can do it very easily. Just look at the last picture in that book of yours.’

Mitchell thumbed through the photographs. The Briggs family, the 1914 volunteers, Cafe Beige, the tanks, the SDP men in billets, the line of killers -
Blighty: No. 8 Military
Hospital at Rouen -

The nurse in the picture was unmistakably Nikki MacMahon.

SO THAT’S THE
famous Butte de Warlencourt. Audley craned his neck sideways, his large body obviously uncomfortable in the low-slung car seat.

‘The tomb of a Gallic chieftain slain by Caesar, according to Charles Edmonds - am I right?’

‘I don’t know about Gallic chieftains,’ replied Mitchell. ‘But there are a hell of a lot of Durham Light Infantry buried hereabouts.’

‘And Germans - and Dutch and Spaniards, I shouldn’t wonder,’ murmured Audley. Mitchell heard a rustle of silk behind him. ‘Dutch and Spaniards, Dr Audley?’

Audley looked over his shoulder at Nikki MacMahon.

‘It’s your frontier, mademoiselle - you’ve been fighting here for a long time, long before Germany was reinvented by old Bismarck. I don’t know much about the Hindenburg Line, but I remember your Marshal Villars drew his ‘Ne Plus Ultra’ Lines through this place back in 1711, and our Marlborough broke through them near Vimy Ridge. And we fought the Germans at Arras again in 1940, come to that. And came through Amiens again in ‘44 - if blood makes the corn grow it should stand shoulder-high in these fields.’

It was the longest speech Audley had addressed to her since they had met just after breakfast. In fact until now he had been so nearly monosyllabic that Mitchell had been unable to decide whether this was the correct attitude to be maintained between professionals in the field, or whether the man was rather shy of attractive young women. But then Nikki had been just as formal with him too since their midnight telephone conversation, with no more prickly Franco-Irish nationalism to put him off his guard.

‘We must be getting close to Hameau Ridge,’ said Audley. ‘We’re almost on it. The turn-off is just ahead, but we’re approaching from the German side and the rise in the land isn’t so obvious from the north.’

Audley nodded.

‘I see - it’s rather like Monte Cassino. When you come down the autostrada from Rome it isn’t nearly so obvious either. But going north you can’t miss it, it’s looking down on you for miles and miles. You can understand why our people hated it.’

There was a moment of silence, and then Nikki spoke.

‘I don’t quite understand - ‘ she paused diffidently ‘ - what is so terrible in being looked down on … if the man on the hill can see you, you can also see him - he is stuck on the hill for all to see.’

Audley grunted.

‘Yes, but stuck on his hill in a dugout with a telephone. And when he sees you move he simply murmurs a map reference into the phone and a battery of guns miles behind the line opens up on you.’

Or whistles up a couple of police motor-cyclists, thought Mitchell, she certainly ought to understand
that.
And maybe that was still part of Bouillet Wood’s virtue, whatever was going on there now.

Which, with any luck, they were about to discover at last.

‘It was an artilleryman’s war, Nikki,’ he said, slipping into Captain Lefevre’s character instinctively. ‘If their gunnery spotters could see you and your own spotters couldn’t see you - then you were dead. In 1917 two whole battalions disappeared that way up at Monchy - just vanished off the face of the earth.’

‘Vanished?’ She spoke incredulously.

The first straggling houses of Hameau village were just ahead now, squat and ugly, with peeling brown paint. He could see a tractor towing a trailer-load of sugar beet in a field away to his left. Somewhere not far from where the beet had been planted, grown and harvested - maybe on the very ground - the greater part of the 9th North Berks Fusiliers had all vanished just as completely. They had passed over the crest of the ridge just ahead of the Poachers in the half-light, out of sight and out of recorded history. Only a lucky few of the handful who had lost their way and had joined the Poachers in the assault on the wood had survived.

She didn’t really believe him, or she thought he was exaggerating, and he no longer had the heart to argue the point. It had all happened a long time ago, and the Fusiliers were part of the same clay as Marlborough’s dragoons and grenadiers.

He drove on in silence through the village, past a trio of police motor-cyclists standing beside their machines at the crossroads outside the church - the lovingly rebuilt replica of the monstrosity which the British gunners had pulverised in 1916 - and turned on to the straight road which ran along the axis of the ridge.

Audley leant forward intently.

‘This would be the German line.’

Mitchell turned the wheel slightly to avoid two black-clad grandmothers shuffling along, fresh loaves cradled in their arms.

‘That’s right.’

‘And Bouilletcourt Farm is just ahead, then.’

As the high banks of the road sank away on each side of them the blank brick walls of the farm appeared on the left: a fortress below ground in 1916, it had been rebuilt like a fortress above ground, inward-looking except for a gateway fronting the road - in which another
two
motor-cyclists sat astride their machines. The arm of the state was much more evident this peaceful morning than it had been the previous evening. Then they were on the open ground again, with the lower ridges rolling away to the south, the land a jigsaw of green and pale brown fields, autumn woods and little clustered villages, very tranquil in the sunlight.

Mitchell was disappointed to see that the unhelpful SDP man of the day before, alias Corporal Manson, was no longer on duty; small-mindedly, he had been looking forward to witnessing Captain Lefevre’s entrance as an invited guest. Not that even invited guests were allowed to enter without precautions: after the gates had been opened by the new man - a character out of the same mould as his predecessor, but not one of the gallery in the Cambrai tank book, Mitchell noted - the car was instantly checked by red and white bars like a miniature railway crossing barrier, the existence of which he had overlooked the day before and which penned them in effectively until their credentials had been checked. Even then the gate was locked behind them before the barrier lifted, triggered apparently by the gatelocking mechanism.

Audley eyed the fences with undisguised interest before turning to Nikki.

‘A double fence … I take it there are dogs loose in no-man’s-land at night - or is it sown with nasty little mines?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid I haven’t the least idea, Dr Audley.’

‘Hmm …’

Audley stuck his head out of the car and scrutinised the roadside as they moved forward.

‘Dogs for choice, I’d guess - ‘ Something caught his eye and he sniffed with distaste ‘ - in fact dogs for sure. Large and unfriendly dogs with eyes as big as soup-plates, radio-bleepers in their collars and murder in their hearts.’

Suddenly Audley had become quite talkative, quite jovial even, as he had been the night before after the decisive phone call had been made. But Mitchell found it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying as they drew closer to the wood: the vague tangle of greens and browns and black, resolving itself into distinct trees and bushes, dragged his attention from the words.

He could see clearly now that the fence erected beyond the furthest overhang of the trees had tubular metal uprights that were crowned with downward shaded lights. He saw too that there were no wires visible, so the electric cables must be buried underground, running up the hollow of the uprights. Altogether, with the fences and the lights, the men and the dogs - and heaven only knew what other invisible devices - Bouillet Wood had once again become a heavily defended strongpoint.

He drove slowly along the edge of the wood to where, as he remembered from the old days, the entrance had been. That also was gated now, and had another dark-suited keeper. But the gate was open and the keeper waved them inside.

The curving drive within was much as it had been, the gravel better weeded and the grass somewhat trimmer. In the gaps between the trees he could see the unevenness of the wood itself, not much changed in surface outline from when Leigh-Wood-house had led his Poachers through it, for nothing but time itself had happened to the ground since then. Twice afterwards the war had swept over the ridge, first the Germans pushing south in their March offensive, then the British pursuing them northwards again; but neither side had attempted to stand on this bloody strip - each had maybe had enough of it in 1916.

They were getting near the house now, the open clearing in front of it lightening the woodland ahead. He caught a momentary ripple of white facade between the trees –

‘Stop the car,’ said Audley.

Obediently Mitchell pulled the car to the left, into the mouth of one of the rides which cut at right angles through the undergrowth. As he did so he caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye.

As the movement registered on his brain his foot went down harder on the brake pedal in an involuntary reaction, so that they were all jerked forward. Sergeant Ogilvie was in conversation with Corporal Manson a dozen yards down the ride from them.

‘Ted - good to see you again.’

‘My David. Always the early bird!’

They shook hands with all the warmth of old friendship. Ollivier’s gaze shifted directly to Mitchell, candid and appraising.

‘And Captain Lefevre - good morning to you.’

The hand was cold and firm.

‘Monsieur Ollivier.’

‘A better morning than the night before, Monsieur Ollivier.’

‘Shall we go on up to the house, my David? I was on my way to receive you there.’

Audley looked around him.

‘If it’s all the same to you, Ted, I’d prefer to stretch my legs. I’ve been so cooped up these last few weeks a bit of your country air would do me a power of good.’

Ollivier smiled.

‘But of course! Not enough exercise is the curse of our age - and
our
age particularly.’

He struck his stomach with his fist.

‘All that rugger-playing muscle wishes to retire and turns itself into fat, it betrays us both.’

He nodded to Corporal Manson.

‘Tell them we shall make our way in at our leisure, Pierre.’

‘M’sieur.’

‘And perhaps Mademoiselle will chaperone me,’ went on Ollivier, acknowledging Nikki MacMahon’s presence at Mitch-ell’s shoulder. ‘And so we will walk … undisturbed.’

‘Undisturbed is right,’ murmured Audley. ‘You’ve got yourself a fine and private place, Ted.’

They fell into step, four abreast.

‘We like it - we like it.’

‘A rare thing these days, privacy.’

‘A jewel beyond price.’

‘Which someone now wants to steal from you.’

Ollivier gave Audley a side-glance.

‘You think so?’

‘Not think - know.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘Because there are too many damn bodies around for comfort, for one thing. We’ve got three -‘

‘
Three!
’
Ollivier stopped abruptly. ‘Who?’

‘The man you wanted us to talk to, Emerson. And his research assistant, a young man named Mitchell. And an old soldier.’

Audley faced Ollivier squarely, all the friendship draining out of his voice.

‘Three innocent men, Ted. Your privacy’s too expensive for us. We can’t afford it.’

‘
Three!
’
Ollivier blew his cheeks out. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘Tell you? You gave us a bit of map and a name - man, you haven’t been exactly open and above board with us. What the devil do you expect?’

‘Did you talk to Emerson?’

‘Talk to him?’ Audley gave a derisive grunt. ‘Everyone we want to talk to has an accident before we reach him. You want to watch out, you’re the first living person we’ve met who’s got any answers. You’ve got your dogs and your infrared scanners - ‘

Infra-red scanners? Mitchell switched back to the fences. As always, he had seen but not seen everything.

‘I’m sorry, David.’ Ollivier cut the big man short. ‘I have erred -‘

‘Damn right, you’ve erred. You’ve got trouble. You wanted me and you’ve got me. But I need some answers first.’

‘Give me the questions.’

‘This is a neutral house - right?’

‘
Yes.
’

‘Who’s due to meet here?’

Mitchell woke up with a start. A neutral house?

‘I can’t tell you, David. That’s absolutely classified. I don’t even know myself, I promise you.’

A neutral house?

‘My men start to hand over today - this afternoon,’ said Ollivier urgently. ‘You know the rules.’

Audley knew - had known from the start - just what was happening in Bouillet Wood.

‘What is a neutral house?’ said Mitchell.

‘Stay out of this, Paul,’ Audley snapped.

It was the moment of truth and decision.

‘No.’

‘That’s an order.’

‘There aren’t any orders for me. You asked me a question last night. Now you can choose your answer.’

Audley turned towards him. There was a strange blank look on his face for an instant. Then it softened into something Mitchell couldn’t place. It seemed almost as though they were meeting again after having met long before and learnt to know each other, and now were meeting again at last.

Then he smiled.

‘All right, Paul … It’s quite simple, really … if the chairmen of two big companies, say, have got a mutual problem, something that’s going to put a lot of people on the breadline if they don’t handle it quickly, it doesn’t always do for one to march straight up to the other. Because too many other people have big ears and big eyes - not just their rivals and competitors, and not just the wheeler-dealers on the stock exchanges, but on their own side maybe. What they need is somewhere safe and private, where they can slip in and out with nobody the wiser.

‘It’s the same with countries. You have a summit meeting in public, with the TV cameras and the political commentators, and too many people want to know why - and who won … That’s the curse of open diplomacy - one side’s got to be seen to win or lose, and if neither does then it’s just as bad. So the first thing they came up with was the hot line, which was a big step in the right direction. Except that when it’s a matter of life and death nothing beats face-to-face talking.’