The Hour of The Donkey (39 page)

‘—but it won’t do—with only two bullets … it won’t do. Being brave isn’t enough—we have to think—‘

It wasn’t being brave at all—that was what Harry Bastable was thinking.

Wimpy shook his head. ‘We can’t risk it, that’s all. He’s coming here, so we’re staying here.’

Think—

Wimpy looked at him. ‘The Destined Will, Harry—you thought of it first. You always think of everything first! And when there wasn’t a chance in hell of getting here, you still thought of it.’

But that wasn’t it at all! Or, if he had, then he had thought of it when he thought it couldn’t happen.

Think—

He saw the child staring at him with her solemn eyes out of her dirty face. What would happen to the child? ‘What about her?’ She had always helped him: she would help him now! ‘You can’t look after her—you can’t bloody well walk, Willis!’

Wimpy looked at him, and at the child, and then back at him, and smiled—that was the first glimpse of that terrible obstinate serenity.

‘Harry, Harry … trust you to get it wrong, old boy!’

‘What?’

The serene smile. ‘That’s the point, Harry—trust you to want to do it!’

Do it?

‘I can’t get away—that’s the whole point—the jolly old Destined Will, old boy, eh?’

‘What d’you mean, Willis?’

Wimpy pointed towards Les Moulins. ‘The Brigadier—our own special Fifth Columnist, the bastard—has to come up
that
road, to
this
bridge—
there—
‘
he pointed to the middle of the road, at the mouth of the bridge ‘— while Jerry trots along from his side side—from Carpy—eh?’

Bastable stared down the empty road towards Carpy, and then back to Wimpy.

Serene smile. ‘And since when could you ever hit a barn door—at point-blank range, Harry old boy? Since when?’

Since never. The only shot he’d ever fired in anger—two shots— had been at point-blank range, at the German soldier two yards from the Brigadier’s shoulder, and God only knew where they had gone, but they certainly hadn’t hit anything.

‘Since when?’ challenged Wimpy.

A smaller part of Bastable wanted to deny the truth. But only a smaller part.

‘We wait here until the Brigadier turns up—you take the child and the cart and snug ‘em down in the wood there first—‘ Wimpy pointed into the undergrowth ‘—and then we wait until he comes in view—‘ Wimpy pointed down the road to Les Moulins’—and you scarper and keep the child quiet… and
bang-bang!—
you lie low until the coast is clear again right?’

Logical.

Wimpy couldn’t run away.

Wimpy couldn’t run anywhere.

‘And if I can’t hit a barn door— you take the child and head for home, and tell ‘em what happened. Which makes you the small print on the bottom of the Destined Will, old boy. Like … an insurance policy, eh?’

It did seem a very good idea—

‘Logical?’ suggested Wimpy serenely.

Very logical. A very good idea, and also logical.

‘So … you take the child—and the chariot—and tuck ‘em away out of sight … and come back and have a bit of a kip until eleven-hundred hours, or thereabouts—‘ Wimpy consulted the Frenchman’s watch—because you’ll need all the rest you can get—off you go then, there’s a good fellow.’

He watched Wimpy survey his surroundings critically.

‘An absolutely ideal spot … plenty of cover right up to the roadside … if I crawl around from the back, without disturbing the front—I can see up and down the road for half a mile too! Ideal!’

Unarguably logical. So why argue with it?

Wimpy turned back to him. ‘Look, Harry—I know what you’re thinking. But you don’t have to prove anything to me, my dear fellow … It’s simply that this makes sense, that’s all.’

So it did, of course.

It isn’t as though you’ll be running away—it’s just as vital that someone gets through with the information as it is that someone else puts the kybosh on the bastard. Swopping jobs … that would be a nonsense.’

And so it would be, of course.

Wimpy half-smiled. ‘I always used to tell my boys that nonsense must be wrong—all they had to do was to think logically, because Latin is a logical language.
Patriam amamus: eam servabimus—
illustrating the use of the pronoun—so I’ll do the job. End of lesson—class dismissed, Harry.’

Class dismissed.

The nettle stings throbbed as Bastable turned away from the railway line, back to the contemplation of Wimpy’s black-suited back half-shrouded by the tall grass and nettles in which he lay.

He had slept without dreaming at all, but before he had slept he had recalled something which until that moment he hadn’t remembered for half his lifetime.

Mr Voight had promised Form Vc, the bottom French division of no-hopers, that the last class before the exam would be painless—he would read them Maupassant’s
La Dernière Classe
(‘classe’ feminine—‘dernière’
e-accent grave-e)
.

Not that Vc cared a toss for accents—but wasn’t Maupassant that writer of sexy stories who had died of the clap practising what he preached … ? Good for Old Voighty!

Except that he hadn’t understood a word of the story; and even those who had puzzled out some of it had dismissed it as a shameless ‘have on’; because it wasn’t
about filles de joie
(Vc knew about them) at all, but about boys like themselves having a last French class before the Prussians conquered Alsace-Lorraine and abolished the French language there—and Good for the Prussians was Vc’s considered verdict on that!

Only now, by the bridge from Carpy half a life later, Harry Bastable remembered what Henry Bastable had instantly forgotten—the difference Old Voighty had painfully taught them between
la classe dernière
and
la dernière classe
!

Only now it was Wimpy who was teaching him the difference: Wimpy’s very last lesson—the last lesson he would teach anyone—wasn’t about logic, or about Latin. It was about what sort of man Harry Bastable really was—that was what it was about.

‘Give me the gun, Willis,’ said Harry Bastable.

‘They’re a bit late,’ said Wimpy. ‘What?’

‘Give-me-the-gun.’

Wimpy looked at him quickly. ‘Don’t let’s go through all that again, Harry.’ And turned away.

Bastable crawled alongside him.

‘There isn’t time to fuck about now,’ said Wimpy.

‘Give me the gun.’

‘Don’t be an idiot.’

‘I’m the senior officer.’

‘Balls!’

‘Give
me
the gun, Willis. That’s an order.”

‘Balls.’

‘I’m taking the gun, Willis.’ Bastable reached out through the nettles. ‘Give it to me.’

‘No you’re not—there isn’t time.’

‘I’m taking it!’

‘Watch out! Christ, man! It’ll go off— mind what you’re doing!’ hissed Wimpy.

Bastable had the barrel, but Wimpy still had the butt. They wrestled with each other silently, each pushing against the other, fighting for control of the revolver.

‘It’ll go off!’ gritted Wimpy.

‘Then let go of it!’

‘No!’ Their cheeks rasped against one another, sandpaper against sandpaper. ‘Don’t be a fool, man!’

Bastable dug his heel into the ground to anchor himself. It occurred to him that Wimpy couldn’t do that, not with his bad ankle. In fact … all he had to do was to kick at that ankle with his other foot—

Suddenly, Wimpy relaxed against him. He didn’t let go of the revolver—he still held it as firmly as ever—but he relaxed, as though the fight had gone out of all of him except that one hand which held the weapon.

‘G—‘

‘Sssh!’ whispered Wimpy. ‘Sssh!’

Bastable held himself rigid. For ar instant he coud hear only his own heart thump inside his chest. And then—

A faint crunching? Was it?

The crunching faded, and then became more distinct.

I
am an idiot
, thought Bastable. He’
s quite right—

Wimpy was staring at him: their faces were so close that he could see every detail of Wimpy’s features with microscopic sharpness, sweat beaded among the bristles, dirt ingrained into the lines crinkling the skin, the crater of a pock-mark on the cheek-bone—eyes huge with surprise questioning him.

‘Sssh!’ Wimpy’s free hand pressed down on his back.

There was something wrong—something more wrong than just that Wimpy was looking at him like this, and not fighting any more. Even his hold on the revolver was weakening.

‘They’re…’ Wimpy’s mouth opened on the word so softly that it was more like a breath than a whisper ‘ … not … on the road … they’re … in … the cutting—
Harry
!’

In the cutting.

At the bridge—but not
on
the bridge.

Under the bridge.

Logic, thought Harry Bastable emptily.

The line ran north-south. The Germans were advancing to the north. It was a good place to meet, under a bridge, out of sight.

Oh, shit! thought Bastable. The matter had been settled for them by the Germans.

‘Take good care of the child, Willis,’ he whispered.

The revolver came out of Wimpy’s hand—Wimpy wasn’t even holding it.

Crunch-crunch-crunch
…
from below them.

He rolled sideways silently, and then crawled the last yard or two to the fringe of grass-and-nettles at the edge of the cutting.

There were three of them: one in German uniform, and two in brown leather coats, belted at the waist, and dark snap-brim hats—civilians of some sort—German civilians. This was the German end of the tunnel under the bridge.

The soldier halted, saluted someone under the bridge, and disappeared from view.

The civilians also disappeared from view.

Logic.

Oh, shit! thought Harry Bastable, and then stopped thinking.

He got up and stepped over the edge of the cutting, steadying himself for the first second with his free hand on the brickwork as he dropped into space.

He was conscious in the same second of several physical sensations: the surprising warmth of the bricks under his palm, and their roughness against the nettle-stings; the brightness of the sunshine in the cutting beneath him; the sound of an aeroplane engine droning somewhere up above him.

The cutting was very steep, but not altogether vertical: it was a green cliff layered in a succession of narrow terraces; and beside the bridge itself, between the terraces, a series of crude footholds had been trodden into slopes.

His body, not his mind, was in charge of movement and balance. Nevertheless, the fall of the cutting was too great, the terraces too narrow and the footholds too smooth and sloping for him to be in full command of his descent; he could only try to beat gravity by denying it the chance of betraying him—since he was unable to descend slowly he had to do so in a succession of extraordinary leaps, far beyond his normal capabilities.

The last leap almost jarred the breath out of him as his boots crashed into the granite chippings beside the railway lines. Yet his body had been already turning in the air as it fell, and his legs straightened again, driving him into the shadow of the arch above him before the shock-wave could register.

Someone shouted—

He had expected the tunnel to be dark— it had seemed pitch-black from the angle above— but it wasn’t dark at all; it wasn’t a tunnel at all—it was only a high-arched bridge, with the sunshine streaming into it—

There were men left and right of him, staring at him in astonishment. He swung the revolver left and right, searching for khaki-and-red-tabs—but encountering only a brown leather coat: it fell away from him is though it had been jerked from behind—but there was no khaki-and-red-tabs that side—Christ! there was no khaki at all—only civilians—
Christ!—

‘What the devil—?’ began the Brigadier angrily.

The Brigadier was wearing a pork-pie hat, and a sports jacket, and a striped tie.

‘Traitor!’ shouted Bastable, and pointed the revolver at the Brigadier, stiff-armed across the railway lines, and shot him twice in the
face
.

The force of the bullets hurled the Brigadier backwards into the civilian behind him. Bastable’s head was filled with a loud ringing noise, but he was aware of the other brown coat coming at him. He dodged sideways and threw the empty revolver at the German soldier, who was standing in his way—
and ran—

Sunlight burst around him.

And ran—

He was twenty yards—thirty yards—out into the cutting before any shred of thought came back to him.

He was running, his boots crashing and crunching into the granite chippings beneath him. The silver railway lines stretched away ahead of him, shimmering into infinity—there was a small concrete hut recessed into the side of the cutting just ahead, which he didn’t recognize—it was alongside—he had passed it—

He had run right through the bridge, and now he was heading north, towards, the British lines! Towards safety!

The cutting was coming to an end; he could see the edge of it dropping, and the land opening up on each side—

There was someone running behind him!

The air pounded in his chest painfully—
he must go on running—if he could only go on running—he had run away before—he had escaped before
!

But he was weaker now. All the weary miles and hours, and the lack of sleep and proper food, and all the fears which had sapped his strength, were accumulating in his legs now, slowing him down.

He looked from one side of the shallower cutting to the other, to the lines of the embankment ahead: on this side was open country, but there were trees and there was undergrowth on the other. His pursuer would run him down in the open, but in those bushes—perhaps—
perhaps—

‘Stop!’

The bushes were nearer. Just a few more yards, and he could cross the line and throw himself into them—down the embankment—

‘Stop … or I fire!’

— only ten yards away. Nothing in the world was going to stop him now—
not lead nor steel
—