The Hour of The Donkey

by Anthony Price

  Do what?

  ‘But—how are we going to get there?’

  ‘By trusting our luck again—and my French, Onri.’ Wimpy wasn’t smiling: the twitch couldn’t be called a smile by any stretch of the imagination, even in the gathering twilight.

  It occurred to Bastable that the German officer had been a decent sort of fellow, doing his duty with a foolish touch of humanity, as he himself might have done.

  Or, as he might have done if he had been winning.

  But losers couldn’t afford to make mistakes, and be decent.

  He must remember that.

  ‘And also by saying “Heil Hitler” at the right moment,’ said Wimpy. ‘As of now, Harry, we’re joining the Fifth Column.’

  XV

  ‘HARRY. WAKE UP, Harry. It’s time.’

  Time?

  Bastable awoke to greenness swimming before his eyes; which, when he blinked the sleep from them, resolved itself into a primeval forest of grass, impenetrably thick and tangled.

  ‘It’s time, Harry.’

  The voice in his ear and the hand on his shoulder were both so gentle as they reclaimed him from sleep that they confused him for a moment. He moved his own hand, which had been resting on his cheek to shield his eyes from the light, and pushed at the grass, only half conscious of what he was doing.

  ‘Harry—wake up, old chap. It’s past eleven hundred—it’s nearly eleven-thirty.’ Not so gentle now, the voice.

  The back of his hand was tingling very strangely—no, not so much tingling as itching … and more than itching—

  Christ! The back of his hand was on fire! The bloody grass was full of stinging nettles, damn it!

  And it was time—dear God!—it was past eleven hundred—Wimpy must have let him sleep on, quite deliberately—and now it was nearly eleven-thirty already!

  He sat up abruptly, looking round about him quickly with the beginnings of panic, at once fully and horribly awake.

  ‘What—‘ He lifted his other hand from the ground quickly, but too late, feeling the crushed nettles bite into his palm. ‘Oh—damn!’

  ‘It’s all right, old boy,’ Wimpy reassured him. ‘There’s nothing moving. A bloke on a cycle about half an hour ago, that’s all. You were sleeping like a baby.’

  ‘Did he see you?’ Caution was second nature now.

  ‘No.’ Wimpy turned back to the corner of the bridge’s brick parapet. ‘I thought it safer to lie very low, just in case.’

  ‘In case of what?’

  ‘We-ell …’ He craned his neck cautiously round the corner to look up and down the road ‘ … just in case he wasn’t as innocent as he appeared to be. We are rather in the middle of no-man’s-land again, it looks like. So Jerry may be indulging in a spot of reconnaissance out of uniform, I don’t know … Anyway, he didn’t see me, so it’s quite all right. Nothing to worry about.’

  It wasn’t quite all right, and there was everything to worry about, thought Bastable desolately.

  ‘Where’s the child?’

  ‘Under the trees, where we left her—with the chariot. Don’t worry. When I last looked at her she was asleep too. Quiet worn out, poor little soul, I’d guess. So just don’t worry.’ Wimpy’s voice was relaxed and strangely distant. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘How’s your ankle!’

  ‘About the same.’

  ‘You can’t walk on it?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Distant, and quite unconcerned.

  ‘You can’t walk on it?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Wimpy peered round the parapet again.

  Not just unconcerned.

  The nettle stings on Bastable’s hands had risen as painful white blotches in the middle of raspberry-coloured stains. It struck him as ridiculous that they should bother him, such little childish pains—Don’t scratch it, Henry, it’ll only make it worse. Wrap a dock-leaf round it—at a time like this.

  Not just unconcerned. Serene.

  His mouth was full of a foul taste, made up of sleep and the stale fumes of alcohol: at some stage last night he hadn’t been quite sober, if he hadn’t actually been drunk.

  Last night—

  The night hadn’t been dark, as night should be. It had been full of greyness, and black shapes and the flicker of war to the north, like distant thunder and lightning.

  And finally the loom of the blacker shape on the road ahead, and the different, slower light of torches—

  ‘Achtung! Achtung! The guttural warning and the torch-beam swung towards him simultaneously, terrifying him and blinding him at the same time. ‘Halt!’ Stop—

  ‘Heil Hitler!’ shouted Wimpy confidently.

  ‘Hände hoch! Halt! Halt!’ Boots scraped on the road.

  ‘Heil Hitler!’ Wimpy shouted again, his voice cracking. ‘Kameraden! Kameraden!’

  The night was now blinding light and blind darkness, and absolute fear though Wimpy had prepared him for it (‘The moment when they’ll be as scared as we are, old boy’).

  ‘Heil Hitler!’ Wimpy positively shrieked out the password this time (‘Would you shoot someone who shouted “God save the King!”, old boy? Would you?’)

  They were about to find out, anyway—once and for all!

  ‘Schprekken zee Franz-oh-sisch? Kameraden—Kameraden?’ shouted Wimpy. ‘Ich bin Froind—ich bin Froind—ja!’

  The boots scraped uneasily, left and right—and closer—in the glare-and-blackness filling Bastable’s brain.

  More German words—but this time they were beyond his script and meant nothing.

  ‘Ja! Ja!’ exclaimed Wimpy eagerly.

  The torch-beam left Bastable’s face in preference for Wimpy’s, dancing the familiar black hat in silhouette in front of him.

  For an interminable moment there was no reply. There was only fear crawling around in the silence, and what made it worse for Bastable was that he knew he was sharing it with the Germans: in their place, in the middle of a hostile country, at night and alone—even if he’d been winning—he would have been petrified and trigger-happy. And what made it worst of all was that he wasn’t in their place: he was at the end of their rifles, and they plainly didn’t know what to do next.

  No—not worst of all! Worst of all was that there was nothing he could do about it, he was harnessed to the cart like a dumb animal.

  ‘Kameraden!’ Wimpy’s voice cut through the silence, and Bastable was astonished at the change in it: it wasn’t pleading, it wasn’t trembling with fear—it was sharp with authority!

  ‘Kameraden!’

  ‘No half-measures, old boy—we’ve got to go for broke—I shall tell the buggers I’m on a Fifth Column mission of the highest importance, delayed by the damned Englanders of Arras—game leg, and all that!—sent by General Rommel in person—signed and sealed by one of his own staff officers — with an order to prove it—piece of bloody bumf, but it’s bloody bumf that makes the world go round! Bumf, and the bloody cheek to go with it, Harry!’

  And Wimpy had both. But would they be enough?

  The torch came towards them.

  ‘Franzozisch—Frong-say?’

  ‘Oui. May-ma-gron-mare-est-dalsass—El-sar-ssich, ja?’

  And Wimpy was even enlisting his Alsatian grandmother to serve with his bit of paper and his bloody cheek …

  The beam of light played over them nervously. ‘Voz papiez, m’sieur?’

  ‘Non. Nicht owsschwhyce—‘ Wimpy produced—produced with a decisive flourish—the magic piece of bloody bumf on which their lives depended, from which all his great lies were stretched.

  The torch illuminated the crumpled piece of paper, and Bastable strained his eyes to make out the rank of the torch-bearer.

  Please God—not an officer … but not a complete fool, please God! Someone in between . .. say, an NCO with a little imagination, but not too much. Say, just enough to see how useful a Fifth Columnist could be to an advancing army—that had been Wimpy’s reasoning.

  The torch-bearer was making heav
y weather of the paper—he was summoning assistance out of the darkness. Assistance also studied the note. And Assistance also had a map.

  ‘Colembert,’ said Wimpy. ‘Entre Sit Omer et Boulogne.’

  ‘Ja—ja…’ said Assistance, midway between irritation and doubt. ‘Colembert—ja!’

  There was something wrong, and it could be any one of a hundred reactions—

  1. A vital mission? Pushing a cart, with a child and the village idiot—in the middle of nowhere? You must be joking!

  2 All the way to Colembert? Do me a favour—The bloody British are still there!

  3. Piss off, you bloody Frog! Or even—

  4. You don’t sound like a Frog to me—you sound more like Captain Willis, of the Prince Regent’s Own. And there’s a ‘Dead or Alive’ SS warrant out on him, I seem to remember—

  Wimpy spoke, and he was answering Number 2, by the sound of it: Take us as far as the St Pol crossroads, and we’ll get another lift there (just so we get as far as possible from Arras and Number 4, Kameraden!).

  ‘Ja . .. ja …’ More doubt than irritation now: Assistance manoeuvred the map and the torch-bearer’s light alongside Wimpy and embarked on what sounded—God! What actually sounded!—like a hesitant question … in a mixture of German and French.

  ‘Oui—oui!’ Wimpy nodded, and bent over the map. ‘Ici—‘ he pointed to the map ‘— nous sommes ici—la!’

  ‘Ah—ach ssso!’ exclaimed Assistance gratefully. ‘Gut! Bon! Bon!’

  The Germans had been lost—hopelessly lost in a darkened France! Lost—just as the Prince Regent’s Own had been hopelessly and fatally lost three days before!

  ‘St Pol?’ said Wimpy. ‘Le carrefour de St Pol?’

  ‘Ja, ja—der Karrefour de St Pol—komm—‘

  It had been easier, after that.

  It hadn’t been less frightening— it had never been less than altogether terrifying for Bastable, even after they had shared one of their bottles of wine with the crew of the lorry, whose relief at discovering their whereabouts was so great that they had shared one of their bottles in return (and they at least had a corkscrew!), which had added to the wine he had already consumed beside the road, in that other middle of nowhere (after having smashed off the top, very unskilfully, with a stone at the roadside); which had added an insufficient measure of dutch courage to his overmastering English cowardice.

  Even, although they had almost ignored him—Wimpy had explained that he was short on wits, and even shorter on words, and one of them had patted his shoulder (‘Doitsches soldarten—Doitsches soldarten ammee!’)—even when they had made much of the child, like family men far from home; very ordinary men—men like his own dead fusiliers—ordinary men who would have killed him a few hours before, and might still kill him, if things went wrong.

  No, it had never been less frightening.

  It had even been more frightening, in the first place where they had stopped, where there had been a great fire burning, illuminating faces and uniforms and vehicles.

  But it had been easier—

  It had been easier because Assistance had assisted them to another vehicle—speaking to another Assister, explaining how they had helped him find his way in the darkness, giving substance to their lies—

  … permitted and assisted …

  — even putting Wimpy’s case to a harassed German MTO in the firelight—

  ‘General Rommel—‘

  ‘Le Gaynayral Rommel—‘

  There were French firemen fighting the fire—in polished brass helmets which flickered red-gold on their heads!

  ‘Kolembert—ja!’

  A German soldier actually helped him to transfer the cart from one lorry to another, snapping instructions at him, while Wimpy stood beside the tailboard, holding the child close to him, supporting himself on her shoulder.

  ‘Kolembert—nine! Frooges—Frooges?’

  ‘Frooges?’ said Wimpy eagerly. ‘Frooges—oui!’

  Easier. But not less frightening.

  For the second leg of their journey had been in silence, and in bumping darkness, with the child wedged in his arms and the sharp edges of things gouging into him—the child shivering at first, cold as death, and then so still and silent that he had shifted himself deliberately once to make her stir to reassure himself that it wasn’t a small, cold death he was cradling in his arms, but only the sleep of exhaustion which he himself had to fight against because there were Germans also in that darkness with him, and he dare not release himself from their presence.

  And then—somewhere else in the limbo of night.

  There was no fire here, only shielded lights. The fire in his memory was a recollection of a happier time—everything which happened was better than what was happening.

  He stood in the darkness with the child in his arms, watching the lights move—flicker—go out—move—flicker … and the German voices, and the sounds … until one of the lights and the sounds came towards him.

  The light flashed into his face. The child turned away from it and he buried his eyes into her hair, lifting her up to block it off.

  ‘Laval—Gaston Laval?’

  ‘Eessee! Laval—say mwa!’ said Wimpy. ‘Heil Hitler!’

  Not less frightening. But there was simply a limit to fear, that was all.

  They stood beside the cart, at the side of a road, against a brick wall, in the darkness, to let the German Army pass by.

  Bastable finally dared to lean against the wall, which seemed a daring action, but which was almost a necessity in the end, as his knees weakened and the petrol fumes filled his head and his lungs. And it was a little easier then.

  Slowly, the shape on the other side of the road ceased to be a shape, and became a building; and then a house, with a shop underneath it; and then a shop with a sign above its front—

  POMPES FUNEBRES EL___ — the last letters of the owner’s or company’s name were obscured by a queer metal-latticed pole at the edge of the pavement, and the vaguer shapes inside its windows provided him with no clue to its merchandise—it could be selling Paris fashions or sanitary-ware for all he could tell, and it would certainly benefit from a lick of brighter paint and a more enticing window-display of the sort that he had introduced to BASTABLE’S OF EASTBOURNE—

  ‘Laval! Gaston Laval!’ snapped a voice.

  The last part was the easiest of all—the most friendly—and the most frightening.

  It was easy because they didn’t even expect him to hoist the cart into the back of the lorry—and because they helped him in after it—took the child out of his arms, and helped him in, and handed her up to him, too.

  But then they tried to talk to him.

  It wasn’t night any more, it was grey half-light, and he looked desperately to Wimpy for support.

  Wimpy tapped his temple meaningfully. ‘Eel ay dum-kopff, miner hairen—dum-kopff!’

  They looked at Blastable with added interest.

  One of them leaned forward until his face was six inches from Bastable’s, and pointed to himself. ‘Oo-see, oo-see—je … swee … dum-kopff!’

  Everyone burst out laughing, including Wimpy. The joke was lost only on Bastable and the French child.

  And apparently also on the speaker himself, who held Bastable’s attention with poker-faced gravity for a moment, and then pointed at his comrades in turn. Too—too lay soldaten—dum-kopff!’

  More laughter. The soldier pointed at Wimpy.

  Bastable looked at Wimpy, and Wimpy stopped laughing.

  ‘Der Foonfter Kolonner—‘ The soldier waved his finger negatively in front of Bastable’s face ‘— nicht Dumkopff!’ The finger pointed at Bastable ‘Ay-byan—voos-nicht-Dumkopff!’

  Even more laughter. They positively fell about—all except the poker-faced soldier, who made great play of disagreeing with them and even of trying to restrain them, shaking his head and waving his hands extra vagantly before squaring up to Bastable again.

  Bastable didn’t know what t
o do. The best thing might well be to laugh, like everyone else. But his face wouldn’t laugh for him, it was frozen stiff with fright.

  ‘Voos—‘ The soldier reached out and tapped him on the chest.

  ‘Voos—‘ The laughter died away and the rest of the audience suddenly became hideously attentive. ‘Voos—‘

  The child in Bastable’s arms gave an explosive sob and then burst into tears, burying her head in his shoulder.

  The effect on the poker-faced soldier was instantaneous: the poker-face fragmented into anguished concern.

  ‘Leebshun! Leebshun!’ But the touch of his hand on her head only increased the weeping to wailing and the same convulsive clutching and burrowing that Bastable remembered from their first coming-together in the attic. The sound filled the back of the lorry for a moment, against the background of the engine and the tyre-hum, and it was the most beautiful music he had ever heard: he opened his ears to it, and closed his eyes to concentrate on it, and hoped that it would go on for ever.

  Much too quickly, the engine-noise came back. But then, to his relief, no one dared to break the silence which the child had created around both of them, protecting them both, until at last the engine-noise itself changed, as the lorry slowed to a snail’s pace.

  Someone in the cab up front hammered on a door-panel.

  ‘Kar-pee! Kar-pee!’

  Carpy!

  The poker-faced soldier, no longer in the least poker-faced, was foremost in helping to unload them, winking encouragingly at Bastable and totally ignoring the officious NCO who tried to hurry them up.

  They were at another crossroads, amidst a scatter of mean houses and a decrepit garage boasting one antique petrol pump. It was almost full daylight at last, but the sky still had its grey early-morning look, and apart from the Germans, there wasn’t a soul in sight, and the only sound was of lorry engines idling.

  Bastable and the soldier between them assisted Wimpy to the cart, and while Bastable held the handles (the familiar aches protested, and then surrendered) the soldier fussed Wimpy into his throne of bundles. It was almost too easy to bear.