The Hour of The Donkey

by Anthony Price

  Paragraph 5. Lance-Corporal Jowett continued. ‘The guards came back a third time. This time they took away an NCO, I think it was Sergeant Heppenstall of B Company, but I’m not sure as he had a bandage round his head. Corporal Pollock came to me and told me that there was a hole in the wall of the barn behind some sacks nearby, and that he intended to try to get through it and make a run for it. He said “I think they’re going to do for us one by one, Bill, and I’m not about to wait and find out.” I said I would go with him. The hole was not very big and Corporal Pollock couldn’t get through it, but when I tried I did get through.’

  Paragraph 6. Lance-Corporal Jowett continued: ‘There were no Germans directly outside the barn by the hole, but there were some standing around a lorry about fifty yards to my right. There wasn’t any cover, so I started running towards the river bank, trying to make for a big clump of reeds to my left. I’d got about half-way when I heard shouts behind me, and looking over my shoulder I saw that two other men had got out, but I don’t know who they were. Then there were shots and screams. I went on running, but just as I reached the reeds I was hit in the upper leg and I fell into the river. The water came up to my chest and it was all red, and I couldn’t stand properly, but I held on to the reeds growing next to the bank.’

  Paragraph 7. Lance-Corporal Jowett continued: ‘I don’t know how long I stood there, it semed a long time. I heard the sound of grenades going off, and then a lot of firing, in bursts, like from an LMG. Then a German soldier finally appeared on the bank above me. He was very young and he had a zig-zag badge on his collar, on a green patch. He looked at me like he was sorry for me, and while he was looking at me there were more shots, single ones, which sounded as if it was further away, but I think they were inside the barn. Somebody shouted something at the soldier and he pointed his gun at me. It was a little machine-gun, with the magazine underneath it which he had to hold on to. He said something to me, and then he fired into the water just alongside me. I don’t know why he did this, but I’m sure it was deliberate, because he couldn’t have missed at that range. So he saved my life—‘

  ‘One good German—even in the SS,’ said Wimpy. ‘But he didn’t, I’m afraid.’

  Bastable swallowed. ‘Didn’t what?’

  ‘Didn’t save Jowett’s life,’ said Wimpy. ‘He stayed there in the reeds until they cleared out, and then he pulled himself onto the bank—God only knows how, he must have been as weak as a kitten, with all the blood he’d lost, with that smashed leg of his …’

  Bastable tried to swallow again, but found he had nothing to swallow. ‘You found him—but you found him—‘

  ‘And he talked, yes.’ Wimpy stared at him, almost belligerently. ‘Some woman found him, actually— And she did what she could for him … I don’t know what hit him, but it wasn’t just one bullet, poor devil. And it wasn’t just in the leg, either.’

  Bastable stared back at him, speechlessly.

  ‘But he talked,’ said Wimpy. ‘He talked—and I shan’t forget what he said.’

  ‘You … left him?’

  ‘Of course I bloody well left him!’ snapped Wimpy. ‘What d’you think I am—a bloody surgeon, complete with an operating theatre? Do you think I carry a needle and thread to sew his leg back on—or a hacksaw to cut it off? Or you think I should have given him a fireman’s lift and put him on the back of the Norton instead of you? Don’t be bloody stupid, Harry—of course I left him. The man was dying—loss of blood, shock, exposure—take your pick, for Christ’s sake! He was dying—and the rest of them are all dead—can’t you get that through your head, man?’

  It wasn’t possible, was all Harry Bastable could get through his head — it wasn’t possible—

  ‘The barn’s a shambles—a slaughter-house … Grenades—and they must have fired machine-guns into it too … And the Aid Post under the Mairie, in the cellar there—‘

  ‘The Aid Post?’

  Wimpy’s expression was frozen. ‘I picked up Doc Saunders’s battledress blouse off the peg at the top of the stairs… It was dark down there, but it smelt—it smelt—Christ! I can still smell it, Harry—they did the same thing there . ..’ He trailed off helplessly. ‘Let’s go—let’s get moving. I can’t be sick again, I haven’t got anything to throw up—let’s go, Harry—‘

  They went.

  If Wimpy had ridden fast before, now he rode furiously, as though all the devils in hell—or all the ghosts in Colembert—were after him, as well as the whole German Army.

  Up, over the brow of the hill, and across the main road.

  The crossroads, which they had passed once before… and he had passed again the previous evening—where he had found Alice bawling weakly in her pram—the crossroads were gone like a dream before he could recognize them properly.

  Never again—

  The motor-cycle bucked and jumped and jarred under them, the noise and the wind deafening and blinding him.

  But why?

  Why?

  Dear God—it had been hard to think before, to do anything but hold on, as though the speed and the incessant bumping jumbled all his thoughts into one indistinguishable porridge of thought where nothing made sense. But now there were too many thoughts, and all of them were out of nightmares.

  The wind stung tears from his eyes, he closed them tight and smelt that same antiseptic smell on the coarse material of Doc Saunders’s battledress blouse.

  Doc Saunders, too—Tetley-Robinson and Captain Harbottle and Chris Chichester and Corporal Smithers and CQMS Gammidge and Nigel Audley—and—and—and—

  Why?

  He had to think however hard it was to think, because there was something in the back of his mind, like a lump in the porridge, and if he could only isolate it he would know what it was. But every time he came close to it some bone-jarring bump and the terrifying wheel-wobble which followed the bump drove coherent thought out of his head, and he could only hear Wimpy cursing and praying as he fought to control the Norton.

  But why—?

  ‘Oh, God!’ said Wimpy suddenly, in a voice quite different from the one in which he had been cursing and praying. The motor-cycle decelerated sharply, began to wobble again—then accelerated again.

  ‘Oh, God!’ repeated Wimpy.

  Again he decelerated, and this time the wobble came close to becoming uncontrollable. As Bastable opened his eyes he caught a glimpse of something huge and grey flashing past them—or they were flashing past it—a vehicle—and white faces—

  ‘We’ve had it,’ said Wimpy, almost conversationally.

  The wobble was uncontrollable now—

  ‘Let’s go!’ shouted Wimpy.

  There was a grating metallic screech, and then a loud bang as they heeled over and the machine seemed to slide out from under them. Bastable bounced on to the road in a great starburst of shock which turned suddenly green.

  Then oblivion—

  X

  THERE WERE shapes, moving—

  And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking. And after that He put His hands upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly—

  But the men he saw clearly were Germans.

  Bastable closed his eyes again.

  This was the reality. It was what had always been going to happen: what had happened since he had left the battalion had only delayed the inevitable. He had escaped the enemy once by the purest fluke, but his plans—his plans and Wimpy’s plans—for escaping them again … for crossing the line of march of a whole army as though it didn’t exist… had been innocent and childish to the point of idiocy. They had had as much real hope of success as two lambs from a scattered flock in the midst of a pack of wolves.

  His head ached abominably. And his soul ached abominably too, with the humiliation and helplessness of failure and defeat and captivity. A tide of misery washed over him and pulled him down into darkness.

  ‘Are you all right, Captain?’ said Wimpy.

  As Bastab
le opened his eyes again something cold and wet touched his forehead. Wimpy was kneeling beside him, wiping his face with a damp rag.

  ‘Don’t move, there’s a good chap,’ continued Wimpy. ‘Just lie still while I check you for broken bones… Captain.’

  Instinctively, Bastable twitched his arms and legs to find out if they were still under his orders.

  ‘I said… don’t move.’ This time Wimpy’s tone had a hint of command in it as he ran his hands over Bastable’s legs. ‘I’m the doctor, remember— and you’re the patient, Captain.’

  ‘I’m all right,’ said Bastable hoarsely. ‘I’m—ouch!’

  ‘So you are, so you are,’ murmured Wimpy gently, in strange contrast with the fierce ungentle squeeze which he had just applied to Bastable’s knee-cap. ‘No bones broken … but just remember that I’m the doctor, and you’re the patient, Captain … So—lie back again—‘

  Before Bastable could protest Wimpy pushed him down flat, placed one thumb on his eye, lifted his eyelid, and bent over him at close quarters.

  ‘Look up … look down …’ Wimpy’s face was two inches from his own. ‘And don’t say anything—up again … not a word more than you have to—and down again—‘ Wimpy’s instructions fluctuated between a barely audible whisper and the unnecessarily loud up-and-down command,’—that’s fine! Now… just you lie still there for a moment or two, Captain. Doctor’s orders—do you understand?’

  Bastable didn’t understand at all, but he nodded weakly. With German soldiers all around him it hardly mattered what he did, in any case.

  ‘Good!’ Wimpy nodded back at him and straightened up, wiping his hands on the damp rag.

  Bastable rolled his eyes to the left and right of him. He seemed to be lying on the grass verge in a gap between two lorries. There were German soldiers sitting in the lorries, and others standing beside the tailboard and around the cabs of the vehicles, but they didn’t seem to be taking a lot of notice of their prisoners. As he watched one group they burst out laughing, as though one of them had cracked a joke. Then, just as suddenly, they stiffened into attention—he could even see, from his worm’s-eye-view, how one of them, who had been smoking, palmed his dog-end between thumb and forefinger into his hand.

  Wimpy cast one quick glance clown at him. ‘Steady the PROs,’ he hissed out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Top brass in sight.’

  The blood rose to Bastable’s cheeks as he glimpsed the newcomers in the gaps between the rigid soldiers. As they reached the open space in front of him one of them spoke conversationally, and Bastable knew what he had said even before the casual words had been translated into a command by an NCO—

  ‘Stand the men easy, Sar-Major!’

  ‘Sir!’ Pause. ‘STAND—EASY!’

  The German soldiers relaxed. The speaker addressed them again, in the same easy voice. For a moment there was silence, then there was a burst of laughter as the soldier with the dog-end realized he was the centre of attention and sheepishly produced what he had hidden.

  So that must have been .. . ‘And Fusilier Arkwright may smoke,’ or something very like … which wouldn’t have happened in Captain Bastable’s company, because he had never been able to make such a joke of Fusilier Arkwright’s weakness; but which just might have happened in Wimpy’s company, or Nigel Audley’s, because they had the gift which he lacked—which, when he had tried to exercise it, had always fallen flat on an unappreciative audience.

  The soldiers laughed again, and Bastable thought: So they’re no different from British soldiers, to be led or driven—no different.

  Then he remembered Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts.

  Misery and despair weren’t the worst things any more: now it was I picked Doc Sounders’s blouse off the peg at the top of the stairs, but it smelt down there—Christ!

  Fear choked Harry Bastable’s throat. He was going to die now—this man with the nice casual voice was about to kill him, as they had killed Major Tetley-Robinson and Captain Harbottle and Sergeant Heppenstall and Corporal Pollock, and all the rest of them—DearGod!—DearGod!—God—Mother! everything that was Harry Bastable was about to be wiped out and extinguished as it lay there in the gutter now, like a dog in the street—

  The fear was paralysing. He felt his muscles relaxing, and knew that if there was anything in his bowels he would be shitting himself now—but instead there was only choking fear.

  ‘Well, Doctor?’

  ‘Sir …’ Wimpy drew a deep breath. ‘This officer is in shock. And he is also mildly concussed—perhaps more seriously in shock as the result of a blow on the head… And under the Geneva Convention he cannot be subjected to interrogation, sir.’

  ‘Cannot, Doctor?’

  ‘Under the Geneva Convention, sir… All that is required of him is his name, his rank and his number. And as a wounded combatant, not even that is required of him, I believe … sir.’

  The German officer looked down at Bastable, and Bastable blinked back up at him in fear and confusion.

  ‘He looks… un-wounded to me, Doctor—if I may say so.’ the German officer paused.”Captain—?’

  ‘Bass-tabell,’ said someone else, out of the group.

  ‘Bass-tabell?’

  The someone—from his peaked cap, another officer—offered the German officer some evidence to support this contention.

  Bastable was aware that he had lost his equipment. His webbing belt and his pouches, and of course his revolver, had all been removed, and his battledress blouse gaped open on his chest.

  The German officer studied the documents—

  My dear Henry,

  I hope you are well. Your Father and I are in the best of health and although business is slow we are in good spirits. Since the ‘Barnhill’ was bombed off Beachy Head (it finally drifted ashore at Langney Point) we have had the cellar strengthened with timbers very kindly supplied by Mr Stone, and when the practice warnings sound Mrs Stone comes to keep me company while your Father does his duty as an ARP Warden, so that I have someone to talk to now that Yvonne has joined the WRNS. Your Father said that Mr Smith, who is the ARP Controller, and Brigadier-General Costello, who is the Chief Warden, think that Eastbourne will not be bombed, because we do not have any War Industries, so you must not worry about us. That is exactly what Mr Taylor said at the Junior Imperial League meeting in the Hartington Hall before the war, and as a Member of Parliament, he should know! But if it happens we are ready!!

  Please let me know if you have received the string vests I sent to you, but you must not put them on until the Autumn—

  ‘Captain … Bast-abell?’

  Bass-tabel or Bast-abell, there wasn’t any denying that— not with Mother’s letter, and with what they had taken out of his pockets, in their hands.

  He nodded. The war had ended here for Captain Bastable.

  ‘Of … the Prince Regent’s Own Fuziliers?’

  That wasn’t in the book of words. Name, rank and number was all he had to give—Wimpy had said as much.

  Bastable held his head steady on name and rank.

  The German pointed to his shoulder. ‘Die Abuzsleine—die …. Abuzsleine … the string, Hauptmann—Captain!’

  Bastable glanced sideways. His shoulder strap was undone, where his equipment had been stripped off him, and his lanyard was half-way down his aim. The disarray of his appearance added to his humiliation, contrasting as it did with the smartness of the German officer’s uniform under its coating of dust. With clumsy fingers he buttoned the blouse together, as well as he could—half the buttons had gone—and pulled up the lanyard on to his shoulder again.

  ‘That is right—die Abuzsleine, Captain,’ said the German.

  Bastable looked down at the lanyard in his hand, the proud primrose-yellow and dove-grey which had once taken the Prince Regent’s fancy all those years ago.

  Which every man wears as of right, as a South Downs Fusilier — the symbol of pride in his regiment and in himself for being privileged to wear it—Major Tetley-R
obinson’s words echoed out of the grave.

  The lanyard marked him for what he was: he could no more deny being an officer of the PROs than he could fly to heaven with RAF roundels on his wings and claim they were swastikas.

  He frowned up at his captor. So the enemy had identified his unit; but since his unit no longer existed that was hardly of any consequence to the German Army now.

  ‘I must protest, sir!’ said Wimpy. ‘This officer is injured!’

  ‘Your protest is noted, Doctor,’ the German cut him off.

  Doctor? Bastable looked at Wimpy in baffled surprise.

  ‘Under the Geneva Convention, sir—‘ Wimpy refused to be overawed ‘—under the Geneva Convention this officer cannot be interrogated.’

  The German officer continued to look at Bastable. ‘Under the Geneva Convention, Doctor, atrocities are punishable by death … Captain Bast-abell—you are an officer of the Prinz Regent’s Fuziliers?’

  Bastable blinked at the German. The pain in his head hammered on his brain.

  ‘You are an officer of the Prinz Regent’s Fuziliers,’ said the German, dropping the question mark.

  ‘Sir—!’ exclaimed Wimpy.

  ‘Be silent, Doctor. Do you know an officer named Willis, Captain Bast-abell? Captain W. M. Willis?’

  Bastable rolled his eyes helplessly from the German to Wimpy, and then back again to the German.

  ‘Captain—W. M.—Willis?’ The German officer repeated the name carefully.

  ‘I told you—Captain Willis is dead,’ said Wimpy quickly. ‘Captain Bastable and I were trapped in this cellar during the bombing and the attack on Colembert—we went to treat a wounded fusilier—it took us half the night to dig our way out—Captain Willis was killed in the bombing—‘

  ‘Doctor!’ The German officer’s voice cracked with exasperation. ‘One more word from you and I shall have you placed under arrest in spite of your status, Captain Saunders!’

  God! The battledress blouse—Captain Saunders’s blouse—Wimpy had been wearing it! thought Bastable feverishly.