The Hour of the Donkey dda-10

by Anthony Price

  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 dummy4

  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 chippings 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.

  XVI

  '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.

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  '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 dummy4

  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.

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  '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?'

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  '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.

  'How did you get here, Willis?' repeated Freddie patiently.

  Therefore... if Freddie wanted an answer, then he wasn't going to get one. Because, in a world of defeat and failure, dummy4

  one thing was certain: Freddie was the enemy.

  And because they were going to kill him anyway—that was another certainty.

  Why they hadn't killed him already was beyond him. But they hadn't turned him over to the Germans, and they couldn't take him with them when they returned to the British lines, and they couldn't leave him here free. So they had no choice in the matter.

  'How did you get here?' Freddie paused. 'Last time, Willis.'

  Bastable was about to say 'Go to hell' again, if he could find enough moisture in his mouth to do so, when it came to him suddenly that he hadn't any choice in the matter either.

  Wimpy and the child were up there somewhere, by the bridge; and they c
ouldn't help him, but he could still do something for them; and, what was more, it was something that he could do.

  All his life he had never—or very rarely—been able to find the right words, the clever words, in an emergency. He could think of them afterwards, but never at the time. But now, in this last emergency, it didn't matter. Because now words could only betray him— or, what was worse, they could only betray Wimpy and the child. So all he had to do was to say nothing. And then, however frightened he was, he would be doing the right thing.

  The Brigadier stiffened. 'Hold on there, Freddie—I know the answer to that one. He must have overheard us at the farm—

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  that was what Keller was afraid of, when he told his chaps to kybosh those poor devils at Colembert. He insisted on fixing the next rendezvous—I didn't think they'd get so far, but he was confident they would, Keller was . . . And when he speaks in English he always shouts at the top of his voice as though I'm deaf—and this fellow, if he's Willis... he was only a few yards away, behind the wall. He could easily have heard. So there's your answer, eh?'

  Freddie gave him a weary look. 'I didn't ask him how he knew where to come, sir. I asked him how he got here.'

  'Same thing. Does it matter?'

  'If he's Willis it does, sir.'

  'Why?' The Brigadier's bushy eyebrows quivered.

  'I le's covered fifty miles—through the whole of the German Second Army Group. And with a price on his head, dead or alive . . . And ... if he went back to Colembert first—and somehow got away from there again—that makes more than fifty miles in less than forty-eight hours . . . sir.'

  The Brigadier gazed at Bastable from under the eyebrows.

  'You mean . . . he's covered a lot of ground, with the Huns crawling all over the place?'

  'Too much ground. He couldn't have done it without help. It isn't possible.'

  'Good point, Freddie!' The Brigadier turned stiffly towards Bastable. 'Well?'

  Stupid old bugger! thought Bastable, anger momentarily dummy4

  driving out fear. Perhaps if he was rude enough, that might finish the thing quicker, before he could disgrace himself— as he surely would. Or perhaps there was an even quicker way—

  if he could summon up enough courage for it.

  'Go to hell!' he said, with all the contempt he could muster.

  Freddie leaned forward. 'We probably will. But I'll make sure you get there first, Willis. Only you'll travel more slowly, that I promise you.'

  Bastable watched him draw his pistol out of his coat, from his gangster's holster. Now there were two pistols, and any movement now would be suicidal.

  'There are a lot of ways of shooting a man, Willis,' said Freddie unpleasantly. 'Painful ways—painful places.'

  The fear came flooding back, but the anger remained: Bastable was too frightened to move, and angry with himself for having put off moving until the fear had come back to unnerve him.

  'G-go to hell!' he whispered. 'F-fucking traitors!'

  The Brigadier made another of his awkward half-turns towards Freddie. 'That's a damn good answer—in his place I'd have said much the same thing, I hope. Short and to the point. So ... I agree with you, and I take back my vote. He's one of ours.'

  He swivelled back to Bastable. 'Here, Captain—if it makes you feel any better—take it!'

  He had reversed the pistol.

  dummy4

  'Take it, man!' The Brigadier leaned forward painfully. 'Go on

  —never refuse a free gift.'

  Bastable took the pistol.

  'Just don't point it at me.' The Brigadier gently deflected the barrel. 'Though I don't know ... I suppose you could still manage to miss me at even this range.'

  Bastable looked down at the pistol in his hand, then back at the Brigadier, unbelievingly.

  'Tell him, Freddie,' said the Brigadier.

  Freddie nodded. 'You want to know what Brigadier Carter's been doing?'

  In default of being able to speak Bastable nodded.

  'He's been handing over the details of the Allied counter-offensive to the Germans,' said Freddie. 'Plus the British order of battle behind the Aa Canal and the French one south of the Somme river.'

  It was dead quiet in the wood. Far away, to the north, there were familiar sounds, and there was the high drone of aircraft engines in the distance. But in the wood around them nothing stirred.

  'There are three full-strength anti-tank regiments dug in behind the canal, at a distance of between five and seven miles. Behind them we have an armoured division equipped with Mathilda Mark IIs, and a French DMI. Plus three fresh infantry divisions, one British, one Canadian straight from the UK, and a French one.

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  'He also told them that the Guards landed at Boulogne yesterday—although as the Germans are on the outskirts of the town they probably know that already and also that two battalions of the Rifles and a tank brigade are landing in Calais today Which they will presumably discover tomorrow . . . Are you with me, Willis?'

  Bastable tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

  'He told them also that once they are fully committed beyond the canal, against us, so that they can't easily disengage, then the whole of the French Seventh Army will attack northwards across the Somme in the south, spearheaded by the Fourth Armoured Division, across their lines of communication.

  And at the same time the British will launch another attack southwards from the Arras area—a bigger one than they launched yesterday, which was merely designed to draw the German armour away from the Somme. Right?'

  Right? Bastable no longer knew which was right and which was wrong.

  The code name for this operation is 'Dynamo'. The British originally wanted to call it 'Waterloo', but the French objected to that on historical grounds.'

  'And I don't blame them,' murmured the Brigadier. 'Do you know your history, Willis?'

  Bastable closed his mouth, which had fallen open.

  'No? Well, the Waterloo campaign began the same way for the Allies. Napoleon humbugged them at Ligny and Quatre dummy4

  Bras, just as Hitler humbugged us on the Dyle and the Meuse. But then Wellington held Napoleon at Waterloo, and the Prussians came from the flank and finished the job. And that was the end of the war.

  'Until now the Hun has found it easy to advance. But that's because we've made it easy for them—because we want them to commit their armour over the Aa Canal, in the waterways there—with the rest of their army strung all the way back to the frontier. It's a trap, Willis.' The Brigadier paused. 'Do you understand?'

  Harry Bastable didn't understand. He felt the weight of the Brigadier's pistol in his hand—and in his chest the greater weight of the black treachery he had been listening to.

  But why were they telling him all this?

  The pistol lifted to point mid-way between the Brigadier and Freddie.

  'That's what the Brigadier has told the Germans,' said Freddie.

  Bastable steadied the pistol.

  'And there isn't a word of truth in it,' said the Brigadier.

  Freddie looked sideways at the Brigadier. 'Actually there is a word or two. The Guards are in Boulogne—and the Rifles are landing in Calais today. And they'll fight there too.'

  'And they'll die there, too,' said the Brigadier.

  'And we did counter-attack at Arras yesterday,' said Freddie.

  'But there aren't any anti-tank guns behind the Aa Canal. Or dummy4

  any tanks—or any fresh divisions. At this moment there isn't a corporal's guard to stop the Germans between Calais and Dunkirk.'

  'And there isn't going to be any great French counterattack across the Somme. Because there isn't any great French army to attack with—the French are finished. The Germans could be in Paris within a week,' said the Brigadier.

  'And in Ostend by this weekend—which is what matters to us,' said Freddie. 'Because then the BEF will be finished—

  they'll be surrounded.'

  'And
then we shall have lost the war,' said the Brigadier.

  'No!' Bastable found his tongue. 'I don't believe it!'

  'Neither do the Germans— that's the whole point, man,' said Freddie.' That's what the Brigadier and I have been doing—

  trying to feed them lies to keep them from realizing it. If we can just delay them for a few days—if Gort can pull the BEF

  back to form some sort of line protecting Dunkirk and Ostend . . . Then maybe the Navy can save some of them. At least if we've got our backs to the sea, we've got a chance.

  Because that's what "Dynamo" is about—the real Dynamo, Willis.'

  'Dynamo?'

  'The evacuation of the British Army from France. We need four days to start it—and at the moment we've only got two before the Germans reach Dunkirk—three at the outside. But as we can't stop them we've got to make them stop of their dummy4

  own accord.'

  The Brigadier grunted. 'For sound military reasons.'

  Bastable grappled With the sound military reasons, but they were too big for him. The French are finished... if Gort can pull back the BEF . . . we need four days . . .

  'And we've given them some sound military reasons, by God!'

  said the Brigadier. 'They've got plenty of their own, but we've given them a better one—we've warned them of a trap which doesn't exist.'

  'But—' Bastable felt the sweat on his forehead.

  'But why should they believe us?' Freddie's lip twisted as he looked at the Brigadier. 'Because we've been supplying them with sound military information since Czechoslovakia was occupied last year—the Brigadier and I, Willis. We've been working for them for over a year—so they think.'

  'What?'

  'Since they broke the Munich agreement,' said the Brigadier.

  'Before that . . .'

  'Before that Brigadier Carter was just a genuine practising Fascist,' said Freddie.

  'No. Not practising—that's not permitted for a serving officer.' The Brigadier eyed Freddie balefully. 'Just convinced.'

  'He didn't like Jews and Communists,' amended Freddie.