The Hour of The Donkey (8 page)

Also, its high banks prevented ready observation of the land on either side except at the cost of regular side-scrambles, which further delayed the reconnaissance; and as Wimpy’s scout through the wood must necessarily be more quickly completed, and the sooner they were on their way again the better, Bastable contented himself with cautious peerings round each blind bend after the first few hundred yards, with Batty crunching along stolidly five paces behind him.

At length, however, they began to get closer to the trees at the top, and through the thick spring vegetation Bastable made out the shape of what must be farm buildings.

The last turning revealed these as presenting a solid blank wall, topped by an orange-red tiled roof in a sorry state of repair, along some seventy-five yards of empty roadside—a barn, or stable, or collection of covered pens of some sort opening on to an inner courtyard, decided Bastable. He had seen run-down farms like this, more or less, on the outskirts of Colembert, unwelcoming from the front but with an entrance round the side. And in this case that entrance must be at the far end, judging by the lack of any side track through the trees at this end. It would be at the far end, too, that he would most likely get a view of the plain—or the next empty undulation—beyond.

But now, quite clearly, was the moment of maximum danger, if there was any. Which there probably wasn’t, because he could still hear no other sounds than the distant rumble of bombs and drone of aircraft engines which were as natural and unremarkable now as the birdsong in his own garden, and the raucous squawking of the gulls in Devonshire Park in the morning.

The memory was suddenly painful, as he longed for those other long-lost sounds, and smells, and all the sensations of England, Eastbourne, Home and Beauty —even girls with fat legs.

He turned back towards Fusilier Batty Evans and put his finger to his lips, and pointed to the scatter of weeds and coarse grass and young stinging nettles growing under the barn wall alongside the road, which would deaden their footfalls. Then he set out along the side of the wall.

Half-way along he thought he’d caught the sound of voices, but a renewed rumble from the east… or maybe it was from the north, he couldn’t mate out … overlaid the sound before he could confirm it in liis mind. But at least it served to draw his attention to the emptiness of his hands.

He unbuttoned the flap of his webbing holster and drew out the Webley.

This, it occurred to him, was the first time he had ever drawn the weapon in what might loosely be called ‘anger’, though now it was happening ‘trepidation’ seemed a more appropriate word.

Yet, oddly enough, it was not trepidation—damn it! that was only jargon for windiness
—fear—
fear of what might be round the next corner, but only of not doing things
right
, according to the book, and thereby making an ass of himself.

The book came vividly to mind: Lesson 2 of it, complete with diagram of British soldier in battledress ready for action—
Fig 6—Point-blank range—

Drill cartridges will NOT be used in this lesson. The common faults in firing are
…

He peered round the end of the building. There was a track here, between the end of the barn-like building and the next belt of trees, but it was quite empty.

And, as he stepped out on to the empty track, he could see that there was an opening in the farm wall—a gateway about ten yards down, opposite another gateway into a field, at the end of the trees.

So …so he would go down and peer into the gateway in the wall, and satisfy himself that the farmyard was empty. And then he would use Wimpy’s field-glasses, which hung awkwardly on top of his respirator, to scan the countryside on the other side of the track, through the farm-gate of the field, which promised a fine view of the countryside below and beyond.

But, as it turned out, he didn’t do things in that order at all.

As he came abreast of the farmyard gateway, edging cautiously along the wall, a flash of light from the sun on glass or metal drew his attention into the open gap of the field gateway.

The gap—the gate itself lay flat and crushed—did fulfil its promise of a fine view of the countryside below and beyond the farm buildings.

Bastable stared at the fine view with disbelief.

Rank upon rank of German tanks and vehicles were drawn up, motionless, in field after field for as far as he could see—as far as he could imagine—beyond his furthest imagining, because he had never seen so many vehicles at one time.

It wasn’t possible that they could be there, his brain told him—without his having heard them—without everyone knowing it—or
someone
knowing it —

—
it wasn
’
t possible—

The sun flashed again on the same metallic surface, on a tank far down the valley, and suddenly it
was
possible, and Bastable graduated from disbelief to belief, and from belief to absolute panic.

He turned to run, and saw what was behind him.

In the centre of the farmyard was the Humber staff car he had seen that morning outside battalion headquarters. And he knew it was the same car because the same beak-nosed brigadier who had barked at them that morning was standing beside it.

He had found the Germans right enough.

Or, since he was talking to two of them, they had found him —

As Bastable observed the tableau of the car and the Brigadier and the Germans talking to him in that split-second, one of the Germans raised his arm in the Hitler-salute he had seen in dozens of newsreels and photographs, and the Brigadier also raised his arm —

He had to rescue the Brigadier, it was his plain duty —The Webley came up automatically.

‘Hands up!’ shouted Harry Bastable. ‘Brigadier—‘

The three men turned towards him, thunderstruck. A German soldier in a steel helmet appeared from behind a farm cart, a rifle in his hands.

Bastable fired at the soldier in the helmet, and knew he’d missed even as he fired. And fired again, and missed again. The German soldier worked the bolt of his rifle feverishly, and the two German officers started fumbling with their holsters. The Brigadier pointed at Bastable and shouted in German to the soldier with the rifle.

Bastable fled back down the cart track towards the road Batty Evans appeared in front of him, rifle at the ready, bayonet fixed.

‘Germans!’ shouted Bastable. ‘Run, Batty!’

Batty looked strangely at him, then threw his rifle up and fired it down the lane past him.

Bastable turned the corner. ‘Run, Batty—follow me!’ he shouted over his shoulder.

There was no time to run back down the road the way they had come. Bastable bounded up the side of the road-bank opposite him and threw himself over the top. The bank was considerably higher on the fieldside than the roadside because of the fall of the hillside, but fear made him as surefooted as a goat and he slid down it accurately on to both feet.

He heard another rifle-shot behind him, then more shots.

The field ahead of him was only a few yards wide at this point, owing to the zig-zag of the road, he supposed, and the next bank ahead of him was low enough to hurdle. Only after his feet left the ground did it occur to him that the drop on the other side into the road might be a painful one if the fall was as great as last time. But it wasn’t the road into which he fell, but only another field, with another beautiful surefooted landing.

He was losing his sense of direction, but there was no time to worry about directions. Wimpy would have heard the shots, and Wimpy would know what they meant.

Not straight across the next field, then—that would only invite a bullet between the shoulder-blades—he would double to his right, under cover of this bank and in the opposite direction from which he had originally come, so far as he could make out any direction any more —

There was a low gap in the field-bank ahead of him, and then—like a crowning gift from God!—a thicket of small trees. He plunged over and into them, caught his foot on a tree-root, and fell sprawling. The fall half-winded him, and for a moment he lay gasping, waiting for sounds of pursuit—gutteral German orders—or, worse still, the shrill squealing, clattering of the tanks.

There came the sound of another shot, but it was not very close to where he lay.

Hundreds of tanks—there were hundreds of tanks behind him!

He stuffed his revolver back into his holster—how he hadn’t dropped it … stupid! it was on its lanyard!—and started off again.

The sound of the shot he had just heard suddenly registered in his brain. Batty was no longer with him, it reminded him.

He leaned against a tree, to get his breath back.

He had left Fusilier Evans behind.

He had abandoned Fusilier Evans.

He had run away in panic, abandoning Fusilier Evans to the enemy—
Captain
Bastable had deserted
Fusilier
Evans!

But no … that wasn’t quite fair. He had ordered Batty Evans to follow him, and if Batty hadn’t obeyed that order it was his look-out. They hadn’t gone up the hill to fight the whole German Army —

The thought of the whole German Army started his legs moving again and stopped him thinking about anything else except the lie of the land ahead of him and behind him. It was mostly flat now, and from the position of the sun, he was moving more or less westwards—the refugee direction. But also the direction in which the German Army was advancing.

He had to get back to the battalion!

Of course, Wimpy would be making for the battalion, and Wimpy had the car, God willing … And also Wimpy was no fool, schoolmaster notwithstanding—in fact Wimpy had smelt danger when he had felt nothing, and had diagnosed a dose of incipient mumps, if not a bad case of windiness. And, by God, he knew what that last felt like now!

But not even Wimpy could take that Austin Seven past a German tank, and then it would be doubly his duty to get back to the battalion —

His head seemed to spin with the effort of thinking things out while steadily putting more distance between himself and the German Army.

There was something else that was his duty—there were probably lots of other things that were his duty. But getting back to the battalion was the first one, the most urgent one, and that meant bearing far more to the south than he was going at present. So bear southwards, Bastable, damn your eyes!

And southwards might even be safer from those tanks, too … The main road, with the refugees on it, would give him his bearings, anyway. But the important thing was to keep moving steadily at the trot, preferably with something solid between himself— dead ground would do best, but any cover was better than none—between himself and all those Germans —

All those Germans didn’t bear thinking about when one was running away from them. And, of course, that was why there had been no one along the route they had innocently and accidentally taken to get to Belléme. Because no one, positively no one, would wait about, milking cows or ploughing fields or preparing supper, right in the path of an army about to advance.

No civilians, that was —

No one, in fact, except the French Army whose job it was to stop the Germans.

But where was that army?

He settled down to another steady run, along the flank of a convenient fold in the ground, and could stop himself trying to think that one out as he ran.

There was still noise and smoke away ahead, to the left, in what must still be the direction of Belléme. But those Germans in the fields hadn’t been heading-or-pointed-in that direction, so they were obviously set to outflank or by-pass that hot-spot, with its regular Mendips and their anti-tank guns. So where were they heading for?

With a growing sense of military inadequacy, he began to realize that in so far as he had tried to imagine the Real War he had envisaged a war of trenches and barbed-wire, and great massed offensives—a war of lines and no-man’s-land.

He was in in a no-man’s-land now, of a sort. But there was nothing to see, just empty farmland.

A sudden roar blotted out nothing, and two German fighter planes, their black crosses plain to see, snarled low across the empty landscape ahead of him—so low that they seemed to skim below the skyline of the ridge. Bastable flung himself flat and hugged the bare earth, cursing his respirator and webbing pouches which prevented him from flattening himself absolutely against the ground as more planes roared directly over him. And more—and heavier ones, by the thunder of their engines, which concussed his eardrums. It seemed to him impossible that they wouldn’t spot him, lying there on the open hillside.

But they wouldn’t stop for one man, they would surely have other, much bigger and more important targets than Captain Bastable.

And they would probably think he was dead, anyway. He was lying as still as death.

Then they were gone, not as quickly as they had come, but droning away more slowly… But gone: nevertheless—he felt he had almost willed them on towards wherever they were going.

Only now there was another noise—a far more frightening and terrible noise which he recognized from way back: the clank and screech and roar of metal tracks. And it was coming towards him, the noise.

God! He could lie there, where he was, then they too just might take him for dead, as the pilots had done, and leave him. Or they might simply roll over him to make sure, saving bullets—no trouble at all, just one more squashed Tommy.

Or he could rise up on his knees and raise his hands in surrender. And because he’d at least given them a good run for their money, if they were sportsmen they might just take him prisoner —

The noise of the tracks was very close now, very loud, almost on top of him.

It stopped beside him.

‘Is the poor bugger dead?’ said a rich West country voice.

‘Naow! ‘E’s shammin’—I just seen ‘im twitch. Get oop, mate!’

Bastable was aleady getting up before he received the order.

‘E’s an orficer!’ exclaimed the second voice.

Bren carrier—of course, that was why the sound had been so recognizable! Bastable cursed himself, his stupidity, his cowardice; yet at the same time he wanted to embrace the machine and to kiss it, and its crew, out of sheer love and gratitude.