The Hour of The Donkey (25 page)

In the bright sunshine of the harsh world outside the truck it wasn’t difficult to simulate false injury. Bastable discovered; there were awful internal wounds, to his pride and his self-respect and his very soul, which made him lurch and stagger like a drunken man.

This was the true face of defeat—

They were on the edge of a courtyard, flanked by the brick buildings he had glimpsed from the truck, tall on two sides and wrecked by bombing or shell-fire on the third, and there were German soldiers all around them, standing in groups—officers and men—waiting, talking, but all animated by the same sense of excitement and purpose, dusty and dirty and rumpled, yet for all the world like men on an outing … or—the image pierced Bastable’s heart— like a rugger team at half-time in a game they were winning.

Oh God
! It was the face of defeat because it was the face of victory!

Wimpy grunted with pain as Bastable leaned against him. For a moment neither was supporting the other, and they teetered unsteadily as Bastable’s boots skidded on the pavé. Bastable found himself staring into the face of a passing German soldier as he fought to get his arm under Wimpy’s armpit: the expression on the man’s face was neither hostile nor sympathetic, it was simply incurious, as though they were debris of war to be avoided or stepped over, but not human beings.

‘Damn!’ groaned Wimpy, throwing his weight back at Bastable, ‘Bloody ankle—‘

The blanket slipped from Bastable’s shoulders and he felt his knee buckling in the opposite direction. But then, just when he was within an ace of collapsing altogether, a strong arm came out of nowhere to support him.

‘Coom on, sar—had oop noo! Aah’ve got yew!’ a strange voice close to his ear encouraged him deferentially. ‘Aaah’ve got yew noo!’

The voice was almost unintelligible, but it was British—and the arm was khaki-clad and undubitably British too—and each in its different way recalled Bastable to his duty, reminding him that he mustn’t let the side down in the midst of the enemy.

‘Aye, that’s reet, sar—tek it aisy noo, aah’ve got yew.’

One of the guards appeared in front of them suddenly, snapping angry words and making threatening gestures with his rifle.

The British soldier at Bastable’s side made a rude gesture at the rifle. ‘Why man—wee the fukken hell d’ye think ye are? Haddaway and shite!’ he snapped back, and then transferred his attention to Bastable again. ‘Divunt tek ainy notice uv him, sar—had oop noo—that’s champion!’

Another figure loomed up: it was the young German officer who had attended the Colonel at the roadside where they had been captured.

‘Hauptmann—Doctor .. .’ He exhibited exactly the same degree of irritated concern Bastable himself would have felt if charged by his commanding officer with such a mission, which had to be done properly but which was a great waste of valuable time.

‘Right-oh!’ said Wimpy through clenched teeth. ‘Let’s go then, Harry.’

They lurched forward towards the main door of the building ahead, their five good legs producing an erratic crablike motion which made precise steering difficult. For the greater part of the journey the Germans they encountered took not the least notice of them, even when stepping aside to let them through; it was only when they had almost reached the doorway that they came upon a group of officers who evinced any interest in them.

First, it was borne on Bastable that this group was not going to give way, and that the crab would have to navigate round it. Then a quick glance terrified him: one of the officers carried the lightning zig-zag of the dreaded SS on his collar, and he was accompanied by a civilian in an oddly-cut leather driving jacket who frowned at them with sudden curiosity which made his heart miss a beat.

For a second he was undecided as to which way to manoeuvre the crab. Then his mind was made up for him by Wimpy, who had hitherto allowed himself to be pulled or pushed without demur, but who now changed direction with a sudden and wholly unexpected burst of energy to propel the crab past the obstacle.

‘Halt!’ shouted a voice from just behind them.

‘Keep going!’ hissed Wimpy into Bastable’s ear.

‘Halt!’ repeated the voice.

‘
Keep going
!’ repeated Wimpy urgently. ‘Pretend you haven’t heard—
keep going!
’

The main door was only two more steps ahead of them. Almost against his will, in deadly fear of being shot from behind Bastable was swept through it by the combined efforts of a suddenly desperate Wimpy and their rescuer, who apparently needed no encouragement to disobey German commands. The swing doors banged open and then swung shut behind them, cutting of the sunlight. Wimpy swivelled on his good leg to look back through the shattered glass panes.

‘Thank Christ— the Jerry subaltern’s talking back to them!’ Wimpy turned to the British soldier. ‘Who are you?’

‘Adwin, sir. First Tyneside Scottish—‘

‘Is there a way out of here, Adwin?’

‘Hadwin, sir.’

‘
Hadwin—Hadwin
, is there a way out of here? Quickly now!’

‘Sar?’ The soldier goggled at him. ‘A way oot?’

‘In ten seconds from now those SS blighters are coming through that doorway, and they’re going to shoot us, Hadwin. Now—
is
there a way out?
’

The Tynesider continued to goggle at him, and so did Bastable.

Wimpy pointed. ‘Your bloody lanyard, Harry—you’ re still wearing it. And they saw it, by God, too—if we don’t get out of here right now, Hadwin, the two of us, we’ve had it. Is there a way out, man?’

Bastable looked down in horror at the treacherous yellow-and-grey snake on his shoulder. How could he have been so stupid as to forget it?
Die Abuzsleine—
how could he have been so criminally stupid! Feverishly, he tore at his epaulet to get the thing off.

‘There’s mebbe a rood oot, if yah ganna tek a chance, sar,’ said the Tynesider. ‘Mind, it’s oonly ‘aff a chance, aah’m tellin’ yew, sar—‘

‘We’ll take it,’ snapped Wimpy.

‘Reet, sar. Coom oon, then!’ The Tynesider led the way down the debris-littered passage ahead.

They followed him down the narrow passage, Wimpy hopping painfully, supporting himself with one hand on the wall, until they reached a door.

The room beyond was a slaughter-house at first glance. At second glance … it must have been a wash-room or a laundry-room of some sort once, with large stone sinks beneath antique brass taps … but at second glance it was still a slaughter-house, with its huge table stained with blood—there was blood everywhere—and the floor was thick with blood-stained bandages and dressings.

‘Aye,’ said the Tynesider, nodding at Wimpy, ‘yew’ll nah this place reet enough, Doctor. They patched oop some ov thor aan, but it were mostly wor lot, more’s the pity. The buggers cut us to bits, theer fukken tanks did, cut us to fukken ribbons. Mind, they did thor best for wor lads, aa’ll say that for thum — trayted us the same as theer aan.’ He pointed to the outside door. ‘But the garden’s full uv them they could dee nowt wi’ them that was ower far gone, sar.’

‘Where are the German medical people?’ asked Wimpy.

‘Buggered off and left iz this moirnin’, sar, wi’ the fukken tanks. Left iz in charge, wi’ one uv theers an’ ine, an’ one uv wor aan from the Durhams—tha’ wi’ the poor wounded in the front rooms noo, waitin’ ter be moved oot.’

The front door banged in the distance.

‘Quick, man!’ exclaimed Wimpy. ‘They’re coming!’

‘Get oonder the tebble, sar!’ Hadwin pointed under the huge operating table. ‘Twa stretchers—yew lay yorsels doon on them, an’ aah’ll cover yew wi’ blankets, an’ the tebble wi’ a shayet. Then if they see yew they’ll think yor joost twa more deed ‘uns, like them poor buggers oot there, mebbe.’

‘Harry—‘ Wimpy began. But by then Bastable was already half-way on to his stretcher under the table.

‘That’s reet, sar—that’s reet!’ The Tynesider arranged a blanket over him. ‘Noo—leave yer byuts sticken’ oot the end thar, an’ cover yer face—there, that’s champion! Noo, divunt mek a noise, an’ aah’ll coom back for yew when aah can. Mayntime, aah’ll gan oot th’ back way—‘

For a moment, there was silence, but then Bastable heard the beating of his heart, his tell-tale heart, which he must still somehow.

This was the second time that he had been dead, and with his boots showing too— passing for dead among the dead once again, except that this time he knew what he was doing and was not at all sure he could act the part with the conviction it required if the Germans looked under the table.

The blanket against his face wasn’t soft, it was strangely stiff, almost like cardboard.

At first he had hardly understood a word the Tynesider had said, it had almost been a foreign language. But then, quite suddenly, he had understood every word, every
fukken
word.

In the silence he could still hear the distant
pop-pop-pop
of machine-guns, and the heavier
poop—
it was not a rumble, but merely a gradation up from the
pop-pop-pop—
the
poop
of heavier guns.

And now the crunch of footsteps in the passage, much closer.

It seemed that all he had left was his sense of hearing—

The blanket against his face was stiff with blood, of course. But he could no longer feel that, it was the knowledge inside his head, mixed with equally sickening fear.

The door cracked open.

German voices. Once again Bastable experienced the humiliation of hearing only guttural sounds, without the least understanding of what they meant. Wimpy would be lying there beside him, making sense of those sounds, while all he could do was to lie like a block of wood, like a dead man, like a donkey—like a dead donkey—and understand nothing.

He forced himself to listen to the harsh voices. It was incredible that this was the same language as in the German
lieder—
those meaningless, but heart-wrenchingly beautiful songs Mother loved to play—the language of Goethe and Bach and Beethoven, about whom he knew next to nothing except that they were great men like Shakespeare and Milton and Newton, and that it would be in their language that the orders for his death might come in the next moment.

He knew that he was trying to keep sane, and to stop screaming with terror in protest that he hadn’t been born and brought up with love and gentle kindness, and trained and educated, to lie under a blood-stiffened blanket in a French laundry on a summer’s afternoon with the fear of death sweating out of him through every pore—this wasn’t Harry Bastable at all—it was a stranger, because this couldn’t happen to Harry Bastable—

Bastable!

One of the Germans had said his name—

Bast-abell-
schwisser-glutzig-aben-geruber-begegen-schlikt-wollen-nachtvice-
Bastabell
-gabble-gabble-gabble-
abuzsleine
-gabble-gabble-gabble-gabble-
Willis—

Willis!

There was more than one voice, in fact there were three voices: there was the subaltern’s voice, which was now deferential, almost scared, with only the shreds of obstinacy left in it—the voice of a junior officer— who knew his orders, but also knew that he was overmatched; then there was a bullying voice, before which the subaltern’s voice retreated; and finally there was a third voice, softer than the bullying one, yet somehow more frightening, because it seemed to require no loud threats to make its points—it was this voice which finally reduced the subaltern to heel-clicking obedience.

After that the door opened and shut again. But just as Bastable was about to breathe out a full shuddering lungful of relief the second voice started up again, only more conversationally, as deferential as the young officer’s had been.

The third voice replied, and as Bastable caught his own name and Wimpy’s he became conscious again of the fear that had been pulsing through him all the time. He could also feel the lanyard, which was screwed up into a sweaty ball in his right hand, which he had had no time to get rid of—
the
symbol of his pride in his regiment and in himself for being privileged to wear it
, which had become the mark of Cain for every man who wore it, the insignia of death in primrose-yellow and dove-grey.

The voices droned on and on, back and forth, until finally the door banged open again and heels clicked.

The bullying voice challenged the heel-clicker.

The heel-clicker spoke, and it was the young officer again, only now he wasn’t scared, he was terrified.

For a second neither of the SS officers replied. In the stifling darkness under the blanket Bastable heard the pop-popping of the machine-gun once more, and because of the sudden silence in the room—and also presumably because the door was still open—it sounded much louder. And then, in the last fraction of that same second, he knew why the young officer was frightened, and also why the SS officers had been struck momentarily speechless, and even what was going to happen next, all these thoughts travelling through his brain with the speed of light to fill the slow-moving instant of silence with time to spare in which his own terror was transformed into panic.

The bullying voice roared out in exactly the tone of incredulous rage that he had expected—that he even recognized from his own experience of bullying senior officers, so that although every word was still unintelligble to him he knew their sum total down to the last syllable.

‘
What the bloody hell d
’
you mean—
“
they
’
ve gone
”
?
’

He lost the rest in the tide of hopelessness which engulfed him. They had vanished—they had passed through the main door into the field hospital, and their guards simply hadn’t thought to follow them, and now they couldn’t be found so the Germans would search for them more thoroughly, and in no time at all they would be found again without difficulty. All they had to do was to look under the table—