Soldier No More by Anthony Price Page B

and turned back to Roche.
    “You mustn’t mind him, sir, Captain Roche—you must take no notice of him. Now…”
    But she was already dividing the cake. She had known from the start that he would succumb to temptation, that her cake would reduce them both to greedy schoolboys.
    “And don’t worry about Charlie, sir. I always make two cakes at a time … it’s habit, really: one for Charlie and one for Mr David, like in the old days. Only now Charlie eats both of them, that’s all.”
    “Well … thank you, Mrs Clarke.” Roche accepted his half-of-one-third. Poor old absent Charlie—half-witted, shell-shocked Charlie—was on to a damn good thing, whatever his handicaps.
    A d amn good thing: the little cottage smelt bewitchingly of cake and cooking and cleanliness, scrubbed and polished and apple-pie-ordered. The black kitchen range, out of which the paradisal cake had come, glistened with use and elbow grease; above it, on the mantelpiece, a line of cheap commemorative mugs caught his eye—the Queen’s Coronation cup from five years back, then King George VI’s, and Edward VIII’s premature celebration, and so on through other coronations and jubilees to Queen Victoria herself.
    “Interesting, aren’t they?” murmured Wimpy. “You had the end ones from your mother, didn’t you, Clarkie?”
    “That’s right, sir. Mine begin with the coronation of King George that was King Edward’s brother—King Edward that married that American lady, or the Prince of Wales as he’ll always be to me. He was a lovely boy, the Prince. I saw him once, at the races, when Charlie and me went to attend to a party the Master, Mr Nigel, was putting on—he gave me a lovely smile, like he knew me, as I took round the tray with the champagne on it, the Prince did … ‘Course, I was younger then, only a slip of a girl.” She nodded knowingly at Roche. “And he had an eye for the girls, he did, did the Prince of Wales.”
    Roche glanced covertly at her. She was little and dumpy, with cheeks reddened by all weathers and the heat of that black kitchen range. But those tight pepper-and-salt curls had once been blonde, and the sparkle in the blue eyes was still bright.
    “So he did,” agreed Wimpy. “And that, you might say, was his undoing in the end, eh?”
    “And that Prince Philip—he’s a lad!” Mrs Clarke warmed to what was clearly one of her favourite subjects. “Of course, he gets that from having been a sailor, like his Uncle, that was Lord Louis when I was a girl—I met him too. And Lady Louis—“ she nodded proudly at Roche “—Edwina Ashley, she was, and beautiful like in those magazines, you should have seen her!”
    Wimpy caught Roche’s eye for a fraction of a second. “But that mug from the Silver Jubilee in 1935 ought to be yours too, Clarkie, surely? You were in service then?”
    “So I was, sir. But so was Mother—and I broke mine, so that’s hers, that one.” She grinned at Roche. “To tell the truth, sir, Captain Roche, I got tiddly that night—all because of the Master, Mr Nigel, and his champagne …”
    “A tradition of the house,” agreed Wimpy, shifting his attention from Mrs Clarke to Roche as he spoke. “On great occasions the wine flows in the Old House—in the appropriate receptacle, naturally.” He nodded at the line of mugs on the mantelpiece.
    “That’s right, sir,” said Mrs Clarke, nodding at Wimpy and Roche as she spoke. “Filled to the brim with champagne, that was the rule. No wonder we all got tiddly!”
    Roche reached up towards the nearest mug, fascinated.
    “You look at it, sir,” Ada Clarke encouraged him, “and see for yourself how much it takes. That was Master David’s favourite, that one, he liked it because of all the writing on it.”
    Wimpy gave a derisive snort. “Absolute rubbish, Clarkie! He liked it because it was bigger than the others—it held more champagne, that’s why. And he was drunk as a lord on both occasions as a result.”
    “He