The Hour of The Donkey (3 page)

Nobody denied this aggressive interpretation of Allied strategy. Rather, there was an appreciative nodding of heads and a fierce murmur of agreement; and no one nodded more vigorously or murmured more approvingly than Bastable himself to cover the panicky butterflies which the mention of Peronne had set fluttering in his stomach.

‘Only this time it’ll be a Marne with another difference,’ announced Major Tetley-Robinson expansively. ‘Because this time the PROs will be “Up Front” with any luck, eh?’

He ran his eye round the table, until it reached Captain Willis. To his credit, Captain Willis met the eye bravely.

‘Hah! Now … as to your drill, Wimpy … just what was it you wanted to substitute for your spot of drill? As I recall it you were dying to tell us all what you would rather be doing than drill—?’

Major Audley took out his cigarette-case, clicked it open and offered it to Captain Willis. ‘Smoke, Wimpy?’ he enquired.

‘No thank you, Nigel.’ Captain Willis smiled nervously at Major Audley, then erased the smile. ‘Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts has two bridges, sir. D Company, of which I am commander—‘

‘Acting-commander,’ corrected Major Tetley-Robinson.

‘Acting-commander … D Company has the southern bridge. I think the bridge should be wired for demolition, but we have no demolition charges.’ Willis paused, swallowed. ‘And even if we did have we don’t have anyone who knows how to set them.’

Major Tetley-Robinson nodded gravely. ‘I see. And against whom are you proposing to blow your bridge, Wimpy?’

‘Against any enemy forces who might approach from that direction, sir,’ said Captain Willis tightly.

‘From the south?’ The Major’s lip curled. And then he glanced at Bastable, and Bastable knew what he was thinking.

If any enemy—Fifth Columnists in strength, or possibly some roving armoured cars which might conceivably infiltrate the French army by the web of minor roads which covered France—if any enemy approached Colembert, it would be from the west; and it was Captain Bastable’s C Company which was supposed to be covering Colembert’s western bridge. But it had never occurred to Captain Bastable to prepare his bridge for destruction. Lines of Communication (even to nowhere) had nothing to do with Plans for Demolition. And, in any case, demolition was for the Royal Engineers.

Yet he ought to say something—

Major Tetley-Robinson flicked another split-second glance at him.

Or, on second thoughts, nothing.

‘Mr Davidson says there’s an RE detachment at Belléme, where the 2nd Royal Mendips are, sir,’ said Captain Willis. ‘I was going to request permission to take the carrier, with PSM Blossom of the Pioneer Platoon, and obtain some demolition charges, with sufficient instruction in placing them …’ He faltered under the Major’s increasingly basilisk stare. ‘And …’

‘Yes, Captain Willis?’ The Major’s voice was glacial.

‘I have two Boys anti-tank rifles. We were issued with them when we landed at Boulogne the day before yesterday. None of my men have ever fired a Boys rifle, sir. We have only eight magazines of ammunition—twenty rounds, sir. But in any case it’s only practice ammunition—full charge, but with aluminium bullets. It’s bloody useless.’

Major Tetley-Robinson raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Well, practise with them, Captain Willis. See the RSM—he’s fired the Boys. And try not to kill any French civilians, or French livestock, for that matter. Is that all?’

Captain Bastable knew that it was not all. No one had trained on the Boys, but the horrors of its pile-driving, shoulder-dislocating recoil were widely known and feared. Other than the RSM, whose claim to have fired the weapon was generally discounted, no soldier had yet been traced who had operated it and lived to tell the tale. But even that was not the point.

‘I’m in the same position, Charlie,’ said Major Audley pleasantly. ‘Except I haven’t got a bridge—I’ve got a double line of nice thick trees, and they’re all partially axed ready to block the road, I can tell you.’

‘What!’ exlaimed Tetley-Robinson.

‘It’s those infernal Boys rifles that are the trouble,’ continued Audley. ‘Same situation as Wimpy—exactly.’ He glanced at Captain Bastable. ‘And you too, Bastable, I suppose?’

Bastable nodded unhappily.

Tetley-Robinson shook himself free from the implications of Major Audley’s unauthorized tree-felling preparations, to which the Anglophobe Mayor of Colembert would certainly take almost as great exception as to Captain Willis’s ambitious bridge-demolition plans.

Captain Saunders pushed away his plate and wiped his hands on his napkin. ‘And I’ve got good news for you too, Major,’ he said. ‘Twelve more cases of mumps this morning. Three in B Company, four in C and five in D. Making a grand total of eighty-one—all ORs, no officers—excluding those in A, the whereabouts of which an informed guess would now place in Colembert, between Boulogne and St Omer, I agree. So I have commandeered a bus and despatched the new cases to the base hospital at Boulogne, in charge of Corporal Potts, who was one of yesterday’s cases. Bringing our total fighting strength—if that, is the appropriate term … which I doubt… to three hundred and thirty-five. Before long we’ll probably have more officers than other ranks.’

Audley regarded the Medical Officer with interest. ‘You’re sending cases of mumps to the Base Hospital, Doc? But I thought mumps was a … a childish disease? I mean—a few days in bed, and then up again and at ‘em?’

‘In young children—yes, Nigel. But in the case of adults … alas! Corporal Potts is—or was—a failed first-year medical student, and he has incontinently passed on his knowledge of Orchitis to the rest of the battalion, I’m afraid. So I’ve sent the sick to Boulogne to keep up the morale of the healthy.’

‘Orchitis?’

‘The Black Death would have been preferable to Orchitis.’ Captain Saunders swung from Audley to Major Tetley-Robinson. ‘Orchitis is an adult complication of mumps which inflames the testicles and can cause sterility. As a result of which the men are scared stiff for fear of having their balls swell up like melons, and then deflate for ever.. . And when Corporal Potts gets back from the Base Hospital I’ll have his stripes off him if it’s the last thing I do.’

One of the newest subalterns, a boy so new that Bastable couldn’t even place his face, never mind think of his name, coughed politely.

‘Sir … Sir, you said—or you implied, sir—that it’s the ORs who are getting it … the mumps … not the officers. Why is that, sir?’

Captain Saunders stared at the child for a moment or two. ‘Where were you a year ago, Mr—Mr—‘

‘Chichester, sir.’

‘You were at Chichester?’

‘No, sir. I was at King’s, Canterbury.’

‘Ah-hah! And King’s, Canterbury, is a public school, I take it, Mr Chichester?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Just so! Boarding cheek-by-jowl with other little boys —living in a perfect breeding ground for contagious and infectious diseases. So you have had mumps, Mr Chichester—‘

‘Yes, sir—‘

‘And measles, and German measles, and chicken-pox —you may well have braved scarlet fever and diptheria and cholera and heaven only knows what other foul contagions,’ As Captain Saunders leaned across the table towards the astonished Mr Chichester, Captain Bastable picked up the strong aroma of brandy. He had not hitherto tagged the MO as a drinking man, but then (to be fair) the delivery of a French man-child, at least after the event, would not have been an abstemious event, he reasoned.

‘You, Mr Chichester—‘ the MO stabbed a finger at the subaltern,’— are a product of natural selection. And the same almost certainly holds true for the rest of you—you are all inoculated by privilege and good fortune, unlike the other ranks of this exclusive unit.’

It was not the moment for the Adjutant to reappear, but the Adjutant had a knack of appearing when he was not wanted.

The MO swung round towards him as the door banged.

‘I bet you’ve had mumps, Percy,’ said the MO.

Captain Harbottle had no answer to that.

‘They’ve got a problem with the Boysh anti-tank rattle, too,’ said the MO. He turned back to Major Audley. ‘Just what is your problem, Nigel? You’re the only one here who ever talks straight—except Willis there, and he talks too much. Whereas you don’t talk enough.’

Major Audley grinned at the MO. ‘I think you could say that our anti-tank weapons have contracted Orchitis, Doc,’ he said.

The MO frowned at him. ‘They’ve—
what?
’

‘They’ve got no live ammunition,’ said Audley. ‘Twenty-four magazines of soft-nosed aluminium practice rounds between us—no armour piercing. If we meet any German tanks we might as well throw snowballs at them.’

Captain Harbottle decided to cut his losses. ‘Company Commanders to Headquarters at once,’ he said. And then, to be merciful to everyone else, ‘We’ve got two staff officers from GHQ. They say everything’s going well.’

A not-so-distant rumble of exploding bombs at Belléme seemed to contradict this statement, but breakfast was plainly over, Bastable decided.

‘BASICALLY, IT’S
a predictable situation, gentlemen,’ said the CO in his best nasal military voice. ‘The French have rushed in, and the Boche has given them their usual bloody nose —1914 and all that.’

So Major Tetley-Robinson was vindicated. Bastable covertly examined the staff officers who had confirmed this predictable Scene One, Act one, of World War Two. The younger of the two was a mere captain, fair-haired and ruddy-faced, but sharp-featured and sharper-eyed with it. He reminded Bastable of the up-and-coming area manager for Kayser-Bondor with whom he had had dealings just before the war—a clever grammar-school boy who had been to Oxford, or Cambridge, and was obviously destined for a seat on the board of directors by sheer force of intelligence; not quite a gentleman yet, to be asked home to dinner, but in four or five years’ time he would have learnt all the tricks and would pass muster; and in another four or five years after that he might well be running the whole show.

Bastable had no objection to such men so long as they knew their place at each stage in their career. Success in business was a healthy turnover, a fair profit margin for everyone and satisfied customers whose goodwill represented next year’s turnover and next year’s profits. His own particular innovation to that formula was the creation of a loyal, well-trained and adequately-remunerated staff, which in his opinion in turn created the conditions for successful management. The recruitment of a trainee-manager like this young staff officer must be one of his post-war priorities if Bastable’s of Eastbourne was to compete with Bobby’s of Eastbourne successfully; and there would IDC plenty of men like this one looking for jobs then, no doubt.

He started guiltily. He hadn’t been giving the CO his full attention.

‘. . but fortunately the French have plenty of men, and their tanks are generally superior to the Germans’—our information is that many of the German tanks are in fact light Czech machines, which proves that their numbers are not as great as rumour would have it.’ The CO nodded to the senior staff officer, as though that had been a point he had been specially asked to make.

‘
Which proves no such thing
,’ murmured Major Audley
.
‘
It
’
s a non-sequitur.
’

‘What’s that, Nigel?’ barked the CO.

‘I said “I hope we get some some of them on our sector,” sir,’ said Major Audley. ‘Czech tanks … just the thing for our Boys anti-tank rifles!’

The older of the two staff officers gave Major Audley a very sharp glance. Unlike his junior colleague, he had ‘class’ stamped distinctively all over him, from the cut of his uniform to the immense beak of a nose which dominated his face below the bushy iron-grey eyebrows which overhung pale-blue fanatical eyes. It was, indeed, very much a foxhunting, chairman-of-the-magistrates, lord-of-the-manor, High-Sheriff face, and Captain Bastable was damn glad it was now directed towards Major Audley and not himself, but concentrated on making himself as inconspicuous as possible just in case, behind the Adjutant’s bulky shoulder.

Major Audley coughed politely. ‘What is the present position of the German advance units, sir?’ he enquired of the beak-nosed Brigadier.

The Brigadier’s expression became belligerent. ‘That information is classified as secret, Major,’ he said witheringly.

Major Audley refused to wither. ‘Then they’re not at Peronne, sir? Which, according to our non-secret information, they are alleged to be.’

The CO began to speak, but the Brigadier cut him off with a decisive gesture.

‘Major—?’

‘Audley,’ supplied Major Audley.

‘Hmm .. . Major Audley —‘ The Brigadier filed the name for future reference. ‘—Major, enemy Fifth Columnist and some light motorized units … are motorcycle patrols and a few armoured cars … are deliberately ranging over wide areas, causing as much alarm and despondency as they can—choking the roads with civilian refugees, for example, and damaging communications … But I had not expected to find such alarm in any unit of the British Army, I must say!’

Bastable sensed a change of temperature in the room, and cowered lower. Even the unspeakable Willis, he observed, was maintaining an unusually low profile behind Dickie Davidson.

The Colonel said: ‘Hah—now, well … ‘

Major Audley looked unblinkingly at the Brigadier, and when he spoke it was characteristically slowly and deliberately. ‘With respect, sir … there is no alarm whatsoever in the Prince Regent’s Own South Downs Fusiliers. And except for an outbreak of mumps in the ranks there is no despondency either. But if I may be allowed to speak for the fusiliers under my command, in my company, as senior company commander … I would like to know … what exactly we are supposed to be doing in Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts … which I have just discovered—by accident—at breakfast—is not where we are supposed to be. Which is presumably why the local brigade refuses to accept us as one of its battalions .. . sir.’

The Brigadier stared back at Audley for a moment. ‘I shall make allowances for the fact that you are a Territorial officer, Major.’