The Hour of The Donkey (40 page)

He altered direction slightly, to leap across the lines.

First one line—the sleepers were black and greasy-looking, and he judged their distance to match his running strides, to avoid them .. Now the other one—he heard the shot behind him as he leaped, and knew that it had missed him a fraction of a second before the toe of his boot caught the edge of the line. For the following fraction he was airborne, legs lost behind him; then he crashed headlong into the granite chippings, their sharp edges tearing into his chin and his palms and his knees.

He tried to get up, scrabbling at the chippings, but his leg gave way under him.

‘Halt! Don’t move!’

The voice was at his back. He stared at the bushes in front of him with utter despair.

‘Are you hit? Did I hit you?’

Bastable sank sideways on to one buttock and one hand, and looked his pursuer in the face.

Sandy hair—no hat—double-breasted grey suit, bad ly cut, with a foreign look, but the voice was unmistakably British.

The sharp-faced staff captain
, remembered Bastable belatedly.
He wasn
‘
t there in the farmyard with the Germans so I forgot all about him! I should have saved the second bullet for him
! But now it was a million years too late.

‘English?’ Sandy-hair was sweating, red-faced and breathless.

He didn’t have to answer. It was all the same now. It was finished. It didn’t matter what he said.

‘Get stuffed!’ he said.

Sandy-hair nodded. ‘English. Who are you?’

Damn! He should have held his tongue.

‘Ten seconds.’ Sandy-hair pointed the pistol.

Bastable was disappointed to discover that he was still very frightened, even though it didn’t matter any more. On the other hand, maybe it did matter: if the swine was still on the look-out for Wimpy—for Captain W. M. Willis—there was one thing he could do that might help. One last thing.

‘Willis,’ he said.

Sandy-hair’s jaw dropped. ‘Willis?’

Bastable nodded. ‘W. M. Willis. Captain, Prince Regent’s Own South Downs Fusiliers,’ he said defiantly. He was rather pleased with his own cleverness; it was satisfying to know that he had done one clever thing, worthy of Wimpy himself, even if it was the very last thing he did.

Now all he had to do was to keep his mouth shut, so as not to give himself away. But as he usually didn’t know what to say that shouldn’t prove difficult.

Sandy-hair was frowning at him. ‘Willis?’ he repeated to himself as though he couldn’t believe his ears. And then he looked quickly down the track and held up his hand. ‘Go back! It’s all right—go back!’

He looked at Bastable again. ‘Willis?’

It was as good a name as any other to die under.

‘My God!’ murmured Sandy-hair. And looked down the line again quickly—and back to Bastable again.
‘
Fall—
like you’re dead—
now
!’ He raised the pistol. ‘Now! Willis—
now!
’

The order was so categorical that Bastable obeyed it without thinking, letting himself fall flat on his back. And before he could question his own irrational obedience the pistol jerked above him with a loud cracking sound—the blast from its muzzle hit his face and granite chips struck his ear like stinging nettles. He flinched at the shock and tensed himself against the impact of the bullet he would never hear.

‘
Lie still.
’
Sandy-hair hissed, bending over him, fumbling at the buttons of his denim jacket. ‘Where’s your identification?’

Identification?

He had no identification—

‘For God’s sake—where’s your identification?’

‘Trouser pocket!’ Bastable heard himself say to the blurred red face and blue sky above him, without knowing what he was saying.

The hands left his chest: they patted the pockets of his denim trousers, and felt a lump in one of them—a knotted lump which, until this confusion of light and thought in his brain, hadn’t been in any conscious reckoning there.

Sandy-hair retrieved the lump—the lump unravelled itself above Bastable as Sandy-hair stood up, into the primrose-yellow-and-dove-grey lanyard of the Prince Regent’s Own South Downs Fusiliers—
the symbol of pride and privilege
!

‘Lie still. ..’ Sandy-hair looked down at him again—and then away again, and waved down the track. ‘. .. stay dead until I come back … if I come back … or we’ll both be dead, Willis—
savvy
?’

Bastable heard the chippings crunch once more, away into a distance of sound made up of aeroplane-drone and the blood in his own ear-drums.

He had been dead so many times that being dead was no longer a burden, it was a memory drilled into him by long practice and experience. So many pieces of him had died along the way, during these last hours, that another piece made no difference. One piece lay under the carrier, and another was among the Tynesiders and Germans on the grass behind the field hospital, where he had dropped the lanyard—and picked it up; and another piece remained in the attic, with his uniform, where he had consciously-uncon-sciously transferred the lanyard from one pocket to another—the last surviving piece of his identity as himself.

And now even that was gone. He was stripped bare to the bone in the sunlight, full of separate pains—hands and knees and face stinging, the unyielding stones beneath him digging into his aching back.

Yet the pains were as nothing compared with the utter bewilderment he was experiencing; rather, they were the spur to an awareness that he was still alive, when he should be finally dead at last. For although he could otherwise have argued with himself that some fragment of consciousness might still continue after death-that the brain might continue kicking and twitching with thoughts as darkness closed in—he could not reconcile such an imagining with the ordinary discomfort he continued to feel.

He was alive, when he ought to be dead.

Sandy-hair had quite deliberately spared him, when that should have been the coup-de-grace—

And more, and more confusing than that: Sandy-hair had quite deliberately
pretended
to kill him—

‘
Lie still! Stay dead until I come back!
’

It didn’t make sense.

For it had been Sandy-hair who had fired at him from behind, as he had jumped the rails; and it had been that which had made him miss his footing and fall.

But then Sandy-hair had fired that second time—but to miss—

It didn’t make sense, and the nonsense of it made his head ache with the effort of thinking about it.

And now Sandy-hair had returned to his German friends, to complete whatever treason he was transacting with them …

It didn’t make any sense at all.

Time was passing.

He toyed with the idea of seizing this opportunity to start running again—to spring to life and start running— but finally rejected it as unsound. He dare not move to test the strength of his leg, which he had damaged in his fall, but he could add its likely weakness to the greater tiredness and lassitude which enveloped him, and to the doubts within him; and the addition told him that if he ran he would not run far before they caught him.

And, also, if he ran he would be disobeying Sandy-hair’s explicit instruction:
Lie there! Stay dead until I come back
—
or we
’
ll both be dead. Savvy
?

So he lay there, and stayed dead, even though he didn’t
savvy
at all. Because it didn’t make sense at all.

Eventually he heard the familiar crunching footfalls again, far away but coming closer.

He thought:
Now it will make sense
, and the thought so filled his mind that there almost wasn’t room in it to be frightened.

He closed his eyes and held his breath.

‘Don’t move,’ murmured Sandy-hair above him. ‘They’ve gone, but I said I’d dispose of you, and it’s not safe in the open, so that’s what I’m going to do— for appearances’ sake … I’m going to drag you off the line into the bushes— right?’

If it was right it was also decidedly uncomfortable as Bastable felt his wrists being seized and his arms stretched, and his boots bumped and scraped over the granite chip-pings of the railway track. But at least he knew what was happening to him.

Then the going became softer, and the light penetrating his eyelids was shadowed.

He opened his eyes, and beheld a nightmare, and closed them again instantly because the nightmare was impossible.

Bushes swished around him, and twigs cracked underfoot ahead of him.

He opened his eyes again fearfully, and saw that he was in a small clearing enclosed by bushes.

The bushes parted and the nightmare came back, scowling frightfully at him.

The Brigadier was alive.

‘SIT UP, WILLIS!’
said the sandy-haired staff officer.

Bastable stared up through a tracery of leaves at the blue sky far above. He didn’t want to sit up. He wanted to die.

He had failed.

‘Sit up!’ repeated Sandy-hair sharply.

He had not merely failed: he had failed miserably and shamefully and impossibly. He had failed at point-blank range.

‘Don’t play silly buggers with me, man!’ rasped the Brigadier. ‘Sit up this instant!’

Harry Bastable raised himself on to his elbows and faced his failure.

Its extent was printed on the Brigadier’s face, across his cheek and the side of his neck in a fiery red powder-burn—and also in the ferocious expression of anger on the rest of the Brigadier’s face.

And finally in the pistol in the Brigadier’s hand which pointed unwaveringly at his heart across the little clearing in which they lay.

‘Now then—‘ The Brigadier spoke through clenched teeth, as though his face hurt him. ‘Now then—‘

‘Sir!’ The sandy-haired staff officer raised his hand. ‘If it’s all the same to you, sir—he’s mine.’

‘Yours?’ The Brigadier started to turn towards Sandy-hair, and then winced as the movement creased his powder-burn. ‘Well… he’s certainly your responsibility, Freddie—I grant you that. Because when you deceived Obergruppenfuhrer Keller you risked both of us getting the kybosh. God only knows what you would have said if he’d decided to examine the corpse!’

‘I should have said that I wanted to interrogate him myself, sir—without delay and without interference,’ said Sandy-hair suavely.

‘And you think Keller would have let you?’

‘Our need is greater than his, sir—he isn’t going straight back to British lines, and we are. So it’s our risk .. . Besides which, Keller’s got a far-more-urgent job than interrogating British agents; the sooner he gets the details of Operation Dynamo back to Berlin, the better.’

‘Hmmm … well, I’m glad you didn’t have to put that theory to the test. Keller’s awkward enough as it is.’ The Brigadier lifted his arm to bring his wrist-watch level with his eyes. ‘And we’ve not got a lot of time, anyway.’

The railway line will be safe until thirteen-thirty hours, sir. Keller was positive about that. We’ve a clear thirty minutes.’

‘If you say so … But I wouldn’t like to come a cropper at the last fence.’ The Brigadier lowered his arm. ‘Very well—he’s yours. Only just remember that my vote is for shooting him here and now. Better to be safe than sorry is my motto.’

His wish was going to be granted, thought Bastable bleakly: they were going to kill him.

‘But he did try to shoot you, sir,’ said Sandy-hair. That’s pretty strong evidence on his behalf.’

‘True.’ The Brigadier fixed his fierce pale eyes on Bastable. ‘But he missed.’

‘Only by a hair’s-breadth.’

‘Also true.’ The Brigadier lifted his free hand to touch his neck gingerly. ‘It undoubtedly wasn’t for lack of trying …’ The eyes bored into Bastable. ‘You’re a monstrously bad shot, whoever you are.’

‘Willis, sir,’ said Sandy-hair quickly. ‘Captain, Prince Regent’s Own—those Terriers at Colembert, remember?’

‘Yes. The ones the Huns scuppered.’ The Brigadier’s eyes flickered. ‘I remember.’

‘Do you recognize him?’

The eyes ran up and down Bastable, chilling him. ‘Never saw him before in my life, so far as I can recall, Freddie. Looks a damned ugly customer—doesn’t look like a British officer to me, even a Territorial. They used to be fairly presentable.’

‘He’s not the one who took a shot at you in the yard at Beaumont Farm, then?’

Again the eyes flickered. ‘Can’t honestly say for sure, you know—it all happened rather quickly, as I recall. It was a British officer—captain’s pips … and a fancy lanyard like the one you showed to Keller back there under the bridge, right enough. But he had his tin hat tipped over his eyes and the strap across his chin … Could be him, I suppose—and he was a damn bad shot too, that’s a similarity if you like! But I can’t say for sure, Freddie … my eyes aren’t what they were . ..’ He squinted at Bastable. ‘But you say he’s Willis?’

‘He says he’s Willis.’

‘And you’re inclined to believe him? Hmmm … Keller would have found out quickly enough, with his experience from Poland. And Spain …’ He started to nod again, and caught himself just too late. ‘Damn! Just get on with it, Freddie—that’s all!’

Sandy-hair stared at Bastable. ‘You are Captain Willis?’

Bastable stared back at him sullenly. The Brigadier seemed older and tireder, and far less formidable, but the sandy-haired staff officer had become larger and foxier, and infinitely more dangerous. And yet together they were outwardly a typical enough pair of British officers, and somehow that made their treason infinitely more despicable.

‘Go to hell!’ he croaked, before he could stop himself.

Sandy-hair continued to stare at him. ‘How did you get here, Willis?’

It was a silly question, and its silliness surprised Bastable. Of all the things which might matter, the fact of his arrival at the bridge between Carpy and Les Moulins mattered least. And then it struck him that if Sandy-hair—Freddie—wanted to know the answer, then it couldn’t be a silly question; it was simply that Harry Bastable was too stupid to see its significance.