The Hour of The Donkey (20 page)

Please let me know if you have received the string vests I sent to you, but you must not put them on until the Autumn—

‘Captain … Bast-abell?’

Bass-tabel or Bast-abell
, there wasn’t any denying that— not with Mother’s letter, and with what they had taken out of his pockets, in their hands.

He nodded. The war had ended here for Captain Bastable.

‘Of … the Prince Regent’s Own Fuziliers?’

That wasn’t in the book of words. Name, rank and number was all he had to give—Wimpy had said as much.

Bastable held his head steady on
name
and
rank
.

The German pointed to his shoulder. ‘Die Abuzsleine—die …. Abuzsleine … the string, Hauptmann—Captain!’

Bastable glanced sideways. His shoulder strap was undone, where his equipment had been stripped off him, and his lanyard was half-way down his aim. The disarray of his appearance added to his humiliation, contrasting as it did with the smartness of the German officer’s uniform under its coating of dust. With clumsy fingers he buttoned the blouse together, as well as he could—half the buttons had gone—and pulled up the lanyard on to his shoulder again.

‘That is right—die Abuzsleine, Captain,’ said the German.

Bastable looked down at the lanyard in his hand, the proud primrose-yellow and dove-grey which had once taken the Prince Regent’s fancy all those years ago.

Which every man wears as of right, as a South Downs Fusilier — the symbol of pride in his regiment and in himself for being privileged to wear it—
Major Tetley-Robinson’s words echoed out of the grave.

The lanyard marked him for what he was: he could no more deny being an officer of the PROs than he could fly to heaven with RAF roundels on his wings and claim they were swastikas.

He frowned up at his captor. So the enemy had identified his unit; but since his unit no longer existed that was hardly of any consequence to the German Army now.

‘I must protest, sir!’ said Wimpy. ‘This officer is injured!’

‘Your protest is noted, Doctor,’ the German cut him off.

Doctor? Bastable looked at Wimpy in baffled surprise.

‘Under the Geneva Convention, sir—‘ Wimpy refused to be overawed ‘—under the Geneva Convention this officer cannot be interrogated.’

The German officer continued to look at Bastable. ‘Under the Geneva Convention, Doctor, atrocities are punishable by death … Captain Bast-abell—you are an officer of the Prinz Regent’s Fuziliers?’

Bastable blinked at the German. The pain in his head hammered on his brain.

‘You are an officer of the Prinz Regent’s Fuziliers,’ said the German, dropping the question mark.

‘Sir—!’ exclaimed Wimpy.

‘Be silent, Doctor. Do you know an officer named Willis, Captain Bast-abell? Captain W. M. Willis?’

Bastable rolled his eyes helplessly from the German to Wimpy, and then back again to the German.

‘Captain—W. M.—Willis?’ The German officer repeated the name carefully.

‘I told you—Captain Willis is dead,’ said Wimpy quickly. ‘Captain Bastable and I were trapped in this cellar during the bombing and the attack on Colembert—we went to treat a wounded fusilier—it took us half the night to dig our way out—Captain Willis was killed in the bombing—‘

‘
Doctor
!’ The German officer’s voice cracked with exasperation. ‘One more word from you and I shall have you placed under arrest in spite of your status, Captain Saunders!’

God!
The battledress blouse—
Captain Saunders’s blouse—
Wimpy had been wearing it
! thought Bastable feverishly.

Atrocities?

What had Wimpy done?

Captain W. M. Willis?

But—

Wimpy had told him, in that breathless pack of lies a moment ago, what he must say. But he could never stand up to any prolonged interrogation in support of it—what cellar, where? What fusilier?

What had Wimpy done?

But—

‘Captain Bast-abell—do you hear me?’ The German officer leaned over him. ‘Do-you-hear-me?’

Bastable groaned realistically, and heard himself groan, and reflected that the sound was convincing because most of it was made up of genuine pain and fear and bewilderment.

‘Bastable . .. Captain … 210498,’ he whispered feebly. ‘Bastable … Captain … 210498 …’ and closed his eyes.

One of the other Germans spoke, snapping out harsh words which sounded uncomfortabiy like disbelief in his performance.

‘He can’t tell you anything about atrocities,’ said Wimpy sharply. ‘
But I can
.’

For a moment no one spoke. Bastable didn’t dare open his eyes, but he could feel the pressure on him lifting.

‘What?’

‘I can tell you about the atrocities,’ said Wimpy. ‘But you won’t like what I have to tell.’

‘What do you mean, Doctor?’ The German officer seemed to have forgotten his earlier threat. But then Wimpy had side-stepped that neatly, and not only with that promise to tell all, thought Bastable admiringly. For by also telling the blighter that what he had to say contained an unpleasant surprise he had challenged him to listen to it.

‘I thought you would already know—when you asked me about Captain Willis I thought you knew,’ said Wimpy. ‘But when you mentioned … atrocities … I realized at once that you didn’t know.’

There was a pause. Bastable wondered fearfully whether Wimpy wasn’t overdoing the mystei’y.

‘Know what, Doctor?’ The suggestion of irritation was there, but the German had it well under control.

‘Who is it that wants to interview the late Captain Willis so badly … sir?’ Wimpy remembered his military manners belatedly. Bastable opened one eye wide enough to examine the German officer more carefully. The man looked hard as nails, no longer young but still in the prime of life, and carried an air of authority which established his seniority as surely as the badges on his collar. There was also something else about him which eluded Bastable for a moment—it was almost a touch of Nigel Audley … an indefinable touch of
class
, if the Germans had such a thing.

Or perhaps it was simply that his present silence was reminiscent of Audley’s self-control when he was beginning to get angry. With Audley it was often the quieter, the angrier.

‘Not the fellows with the skull-and-crossbones and the zigzag lightning flashes, by any chance… sir?’ enquired Wimpy almost casually.

‘Doctor…’ now the self-control was like a danger-signal.

‘They would.’ Suddenly Wimpy was grim. ‘And I can guess why they want to lay their murdering hands on every man who wears that lanyard—‘ he pointed at Bastable’s shoulder, ‘—every man who wears that lanyard and who’s still in the land of the living—because they don’t want one of them to live to tell the tale, that’s why!’

One of the other German officers, a fresh-faced young man, said something then, and there was a brief instant of silence. But when the young man opened his mouth again the senior German officer cut him off with a raised, leather-gloved hand.

‘You want to know about an atrocity, sir—‘ Wimpy plunged straight into the gap. ‘—well, I can show you one! It’s just down the road, in Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts—by God! if you want to know about an atrocity, I can show you one! My battalion—the battalion in which I was medical officer …’ he stumbled over his mistake, suddenly incoherent, lifting a hand which Bastable saw was skinned and bloody from contact with the road ‘
…
my
battalion—
my
battalion, sir—‘ his voice lifted ‘—we are the battalion now. There’s no need to send us back to the skull-and-crossbones brigade. You can shoot us both here, by the roadside, and have done with it. At least we’ll have been shot by soldiers, not bloody butchers!’

Bastable sensed that everyone was listening to Wimpy, the soldiers beside the lorries as well as the knot of officers in front of them. And that, he supposed, was what Wimpy intended, if Wimpy was still play-acting: to make what he was saying as public as possible, for all to hear and remember.

If Wimpy was still play-acting—

‘Control yourself, Captain Saunders!’ said the German officer sharply. ‘There is no question of your being shot. You are a prisoner-of-war—and a medical officer—‘

Wimpy gestured eloquently, almost insultingly, with his bloody hand. ‘So were my orderlies in Colembert—medical orderlies in the battalion aid post. And they’re dead. And there’s a barn full of prisoners-of-war in Colembert—and they’re dead too. They’re
all
dead—shot down in cold blood!’

He wasn’t play-acting, Bastable decided. He might have been to begin with, but he wasn’t now. He was mixing lies with truth, but he wasn’t play-acting any more: he was speaking for the real Captain Saunders, RAMC, as Captain Saunders might have spoken, to the life—to the death. The clever lies were blotted out by the fouler truth. Wimpy was Doc Saunders now.

The German officer stared at him, stone-faced. ‘You … you saw this, Doctor?’ He paused. ‘You saw it happen?’

Wimpy stared back at him uncompromisingly. ‘If I had seen it happen I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it. But it’s there for you to
see
… sir. In Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts. Just down the road from here.’

The challenge hung between them, unarguable.

‘We were in the cellar,’ said Wimpy, recalling himself to his original story. ‘We had to dig ourselves out.’

The young German officer stirred uneasily. ‘Prisoners . .. haf.. . haf been known to … to try to escape, Hauptmann Saunders,’ he said with slow concentration on his English.

‘Prisoners?’ Wimpy echoed the word contemptuously. ‘And my wounded in the battalion aid post? Most of them couldn’t walk a yard.’ He let the words sink in. ‘They threw grenades into the aid post—it was in a cellar … They threw gtenades down the stairs.’

Silence.

‘It’s there for you to see,’ Wimpy spoke only to the young officer, as though they were alone together. ‘The cellar is there—and my wounded are there. They are not going to escape, I assure you.’

My wounded
was a brilliant touch, thought Bastable. It was so brilliant that, if it hadn’t been true for Doc Saunders, it would have been an obscene lie for Captain Willis—

Captain W. M. Willis?

The senior German officer drew himself up, taking back the control of the situation which he had momentarily lost. The other Germans stiffened instinctively.

The senior German officer addressed the young officer. The young officer clicked his heels.

‘Captain Saunders … you have made a very serious allegation. There will be an immediate investigation of that allegation. A report will be made.’

Wimpy drew a deep breath. ‘Thank you, sir.’

The German nodded. ‘Also … you are a prisoner of the Wehrmacht—the German Army. If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to fear. You have my word on that. And that applies also to this officer.’ He pointed at Bastable.

‘Th-thank you sir.’ Wimpy swallowed almost audibly.

In the circumstances, Wimpy took that well, thought Bastable. But they were both still in the deepest trouble, that word-of-a-German-officer meant.

‘You will remain here, for the time being, while we remain here.’ The German nodded, saluted, and turned away.

Bastable closed his eyes and relaxed himself on to the grass verge. There was nothing he could do any more to shape his destiny, he was as.helpless and as useless as little Alice in her pram, a prisoner not only of the
Wehrmacht
, but also of circumstances and events he could no longer control. Truthful lies and lying truth held him like a web in the midst of his enemies.

The cold touch of the damp rag on his forehead aroused him again. ‘That’s the ticket,’ murmured Wimpy. ‘Look as though you’re dying, old boy!’

If you could have died according to orders, and mingled with the roadside dirt, that at least would have solved all his dilemmas and swallowed up all his fears, thought Bastable miserably.

‘You’re not really crocked, are you, old boy?’ murmured Wimpy gently in his ear. ‘No broken bones, or anything?’

Bastable opened his eyes to gaze at his tormentor. ‘You’re the bloody doctor—you tell me,’ he hissed.

Wimpy was sitting down beside him. ‘Can you feel your toes and your fingers? No pain anywhere?’

‘Only in the neck,’ said Bastable.

‘In the neck?’ For a second Wimpy sounded solicitous, then he got the point. ‘Jolly good … because … I thought I did that rather well, actually.’

There was no denying that, temporary though their survival might be: the ex-schoolmaster had run away just as quickly as the ex-businessman, but he had talked them both out of a very tight corner brilliantly for the time being.

He nodded, and Wimpy nodded back.

‘Yes … the trick is to twitch the rear wheel to the left and put the front wheel over and send the bike on ahead of you, instead of getting hit by it from behind … that’s how most silly blighters get themselves crocked, you know,’ confided Wirnpy in a self-satisfied whisper. ‘It’s quite violent, but it doesn’t really require a lot of skill. You just skate off on your own, with abrasions— and I’ve certainly got them, on my hand and my arse . .. but my elbows are okay, and I haven’t quite dislocated my thumbs, though damn nearly … though it does feel as though I’ve sprained my ankle, which is a bit of a bind … But I’ve never done it with a pillion passenger … Are you sure you’re okay, Harry?’

Bastable could only stare at him. In the midst of their troubles … in the midst of everything, here was Wimpy congratulating himself on his skill in surviving motor-cycle accidents, for God’s sake!

‘You probably have got a touch of shock,’ said Wimpy. ‘You came off harder than I did.’

‘I’m all right,’ said Bastable. ‘I’ve just got a headache, that’s all …’

Wimpy looked at him apologetically. ‘I couldn’t do anything else. They had this staff car alongside a lorry, right in the middle of the road—I couldn’t get between them.

Bastable’s head throbbed. He wasn’t at all interested in the circumstances of their crash; but what he needed most desperately was some explanation of the incomprehensible events which had followed it, yet somehow he couldn’t find the right question to start with.