Soldier No More Read Online Free Page B

“He is an interesting man, I think.”
    “He interests me even more. Because I have to report back to him, and you don’t.”
    Genghis Khan, refusing to be Johnnie, inclined his head fractionally to accept the truth of that. “Maybe later. But not yet—not now. You tell me about Audley now, David.”
    That was probably as much as he could expect to get about Clinton, decided Roche, since Clinton was evidently a wild card in the pack. But Audley was another matter.
    “I thought you would be able to tell me about him.”
    Genghis Khan almost looked disappointed, as near as he was able to indicate any emotion.
    “I gave you his name,” said Roche.
    “So you did. But what do you expect us to do—to go asking questions?” The head moved again, this time interrogatively. “And we ask the wrong question in the right place—or the right question in the wrong place, which is no better—and then what? Someone asks questions about us—and then someone asks questions about you, maybe? And is that what you want, eh?”
    “I didn’t mean that. I mean … you must have something on him, damn it!”
    “On Audley? But why should we have anything on Audley?”
    Roche frowned. “But Sir Eustace said—“
    Sir Eustace said —
    “How long have you been in Paris then, David?” Sir Eustace Avery asked.
    “Nearly three years, Sir Eustace. Two years and ten months, to be exact.”
    “To be exact? You sound as though you’ve been marking the calendar.” Sir Eustace sat back, raising a cathedral spire with his fingers. “Don’t you like it there?”
    “It’s … a lovely city.” Roche decided to push his luck. “And the food’s good.”
    Sir Eustace regarded him narrowly. “But the work’s dull—is that it?”
    Chin up, Roche. “Mine certainly is.” Dull, dull, dull!
    “Even though liaison is an integral part of intelligence work?” The finger-tips at the point of the spire arched against each other. “And you’re in charge of communications too—“ Sir Eustace looked down at the open file in front of him “—and communications are your special skill, aren’t they?”
    My file , thought Roche despondently: aptitudes, test marks, assessments, with more bloody betas and gammas than alphas.
    But that wasn’t the point. The point was that the Eighth Floor didn’t muck around with communications—or with communications experts.
    “I mean, we got you from the Royal Signals, didn’t we?” Sir Eustace continued, looking up at him again. “In Tokyo, wasn’t it? During the Korean business?”
    Since it was all down there in front of him, in black and white, the questions were superfluous to the point of being both irritating and patronising.
    “I put down for the Education Corps, sir,” said Roche. “I was posted to the Signals.”
    “Indeed?” Sir Eustace raised an eyebrow over the file. “Let’s see … you’d already been to university … Manchester?” He made it sound like Fort Zinderneuf. “Where you read History—that was before you were called up for your National Service?”
    “French history mostly, actually.”
    “French history?”
    “It’s a well-established qualification to the Royal Corps of Signals,” said Roche, straight-faced.
    “It is?” Sir Eustace gave him an old-fashioned look. “But you volunteered for the RAEC nevertheless—did you want to be a schoolmaster, then?”
    “No, Sir Eustace.” Roche cast around for a respectable reason for joining the RAEC while not intending to go into teaching after demobilisation. He certainly hadn’t wanted to be a teacher then —that had been Julie’s idea later. Then … he hadn’t particularly wanted to be anything; and a degree in History, and more particularly a knowledge of French history, had equipped him with no useful qualification except for transmitting that otherwise useless interest to the next generation. And so on ad infinitum , from generation to generation—that bleak conclusion, as much as anything else,