The Hour of The Donkey

by Anthony Price

  ‘And when we do start running, remember that it’s every man for himself,’ murmured Wimpy casually. ‘I shan’t worry about you, and you mustn’t look for me—that’ll double our chances of getting away. Agreed?’

  Bastable frowned up at him.

  ‘Agreed, old man?’ Wimpy pressed him, massaging his thumbs again one after another. Once more Bastable observed that his hands were trembling.

  Suddenly, with unbearable clarity, he remembered that Wimpy had complained of a sprained ankle, and he knew exactly what lay behind that casual, selfish-sounding insistence. When it came to running, Wimpy didn’t think that he could make it. But he was doing his utmost to see that his sprained ankle didn’t ruin Harry Bastable’s chances, even though he was scared half out of his wits. The casual voice and the endless chatter concealed the reality and the desperation which the hands betrayed.

  An emotion which was more than mere admiration flooded over Bastable. He himself was too stupid and too unimaginative to know what real fear was like—his pale version of fear was simple self-regarding cowardice. But Wimpy was too intelligent not to recognize his own fear for what it was, and to fight against it for all his worth.

  Up until yesterday, Bastable realized, he had never had any doubts about his own courage—he had taken it for granted, because there wasn’t any choice in the matter. In the battalion, courage was a group activity; the only thing that had frightened any officer was that he might not do his job properly in full view of the CO, or Major Tetley-Robinson, or his own company sergeant-major.

  But courage wasn’t like that at all, and now he knew that he was a coward, and that Wimpy was a brave man.

  ‘Agreed, Harry?’ said Wimpy for the third time.

  Bastable knew that he couldn’t agree, but that he couldn’t not agree—and that he couldn’t let Wimpy know that he knew.

  But he had to say something.

  ‘Why does everyone call you “Wimpy”?’ He plucked the question out of his subconscious in desperation. It still wasn’t the question he wanted answered, but it was the first one to answer his call for volunteers.

  ‘What?’ Wimpy was clearly taken by surprise. ‘Oh… That—that was that old b— ,’ he caught the bastard before it could escape his lips ‘no! De Mortuis nil nisi bonum applies to the late Major Tetley-Robinson, I suppose … I never thought that it would, but it does …’ He cocked his head on one side and gazed thoughtfully at nothing. ‘They must have asked him the ultimate viva voce question!’

  ‘What?’

  Wimpy looked at him. ‘They pulled him out of the barn, Harry. And then I think they asked him where Captain W. M. Willis might be found— at least, that’s what I suspect they asked him, just as they asked you about Captain W. M. Willis, Harry—don’t you remember’?’

  ‘W—?’ This time the idiotic what? stifled itself.

  ‘Poor old bastard!’ Wimpy shook his head sadly. ‘De mortuis and all that, but he was an old bastard … And it must have been the last straw if they did—with the battalion in ruins around him … to be reminded of Captain Willis, of all people! The ultimate viva voce question: even if he’d answered it, they’d probably have shot him. But I’ll bet he didn’t answer it—not him!’

  Wimpy continued to stare at hirn, and through him into the past of yesterday evening, outside the barn beside the stream, beside the bridge, on the edge of Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts, in the middle of nowhere that mattered in the whole of France—

  ‘I’ll bet he told them to get stuffed. So they shot him pour encourager les autres’ said Wimpy. ‘And of course that’s exactly what it did, by God! But not in the way they expected. Because once they’d shot Tetley-Robinson, they got the same answer from the next man—get stuffed— and the next man—‘

  Abruptly he was no longer looking through Harry Bastable, but at him. ‘He coined “Wimpy”, old boy, did Major Tetley-Robinson, because he was a man of limited reading. The Times was much too difficult for him—too many words, and not enough pictures, don’t you know. He pretended to read it but he always preferred the popular papers—the yellow press. Don’t you remember how he used to grab the News of the World in the Mess at breakfast on Sunday, Harry? “Vicar’s daughter tells of Night of Terror” and “Scoutmaster jailed after campfire Orgies”, that was his favourite reading. And first look at Lilliput and London Opinion for the girl with the bare tits? Don’t you remember?’

  Bastable remembered. Everybody in the Mess knew which papers and magazines not to touch until the Second-in-Command of the Prince Regent’s Own South Downs Fusiliers had abstracted them from the array on the huge mahogany table and tossed them down, crumpled and dogeared on the floor beside his chair. Green subalterns had been mercilessly savaged (since, by custom, nobody warned them) for contravening that unwritten law.

  But what did that have to do with ‘Wimpy’? And ‘that ultimate viva voce question’, whatever that meant? And outside the barn at Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts, where it had all ended in senseless bloody murder?

  ‘My dear chap—“Wimpy” is a character in a comic strip in one of those awful rags,’ said Wimpy simply. ‘”J. Wellington Wimpy” is one of Popeye’s friends—he has a weakness for eating some sort of American toasted meat bun—a sort of hot sandwich, I suppose … And for speaking in complete sentences—that was what Tetley-Robinson found so absolutely outrageous in me … Let’s say … let’s just say he thought that I talked too much, old boy, eh?’

  He regarded Bastable with the merest twitch of a smile. ‘Which I do, of course. But then, it comes from being exposed to whole generations of small sullen boys—and larger boys too, I’m sorry to say—who don’t know the subjunctive of amo and haven’t mastered their reflexive pronouns in any recognizable form of the Latin language … I’m afraid that a captive audience of recalcitrant middle-class boys is bound to bring out the worst in a man, he has to fill the silence with his own voice … It isn’t often that one encounters a really clever boy like Nigel Audley’s young David—Latin irregular verbs were a Goliath well within reach of that young David’s slingshot. He had no trouble with them, but then he was an exception—‘ he caught the expression on Bastable’s face ‘—but have I said something wrong now, old boy?’

  ‘No … no …’ Bastable tried not to look at him. That mention of ‘young David’ ‘Nigel Audley’s young David’—my boy David—not my son, not my son—but my boy—took him back hideously to the room in the French lady’s house, and that final bubbling death rattle which had cut off Audley’s last message to Wimpy. But he couldn’t pass that on now, this was not the time and the place for it, if there was ever a time and place.

  Yet now he was in another situation where he had to say something to head Wimpy off from any further question about Nigel Audley, or Nigel Audley’s young David, who had known all the answers to Wimpy’s questions, and was therefore exceptional among his fellow schoolboys—like father, like son, for God’s sake: Nigel Audley had never been at a loss to know what to say—unlike Herbert Bastable’s young Henry, who could never make head nor tail of hic, hoec, hoc and Caesar’s Gallic Wars, any more than he could conjugate être and avoir in all their variation, or handle the Boys anti-tank rifle properly—

  ‘What did you do?’

  It was exactly like Why are you called ‘ Wimpy’, except that it was the real question at last, inadequately phrased but still the one he had been searching for all along in the midst of the other questions.

  ‘What d’you mean—what did I do?’ Wimpy frowned.

  Bastable seized the chance of elaborating what he had said, necessity cancelling out the delicacy of the enquiry. ‘Why do they want… Captain Willis? What have you done?’

  ‘Oh—I see!’ Wimpy’s face cleared. ‘You haven’t got the point, old boy—I thought you had! I haven’t done anything—‘

  ‘What?’

  ‘Not a damn thing! Except run away, that is — and hide in a drain, and a lot of other uncomfortable places, like in hedges and behind dun
gheaps, don’t you know.’

  ‘But—but … ?’

  ‘You haven’t got the point at all. But then neither did I at first… But… it’s you they want, Harry—don’t you see? It isn’t me at all—‘ Wimpy cut off the explanation quickly ‘—now, just lie back and take it easy, Captain—and that’s an order … doctor’s orders, in fact. Right?’

  Bastable was aware that there were Germans in his immediate vision, to Wimpy’s left. He rolled his eyes uneasily to take them in more accurately as Wimpy rose to his feet to face them.

  They were new Germans—or at least not the senior officer and the young fresh-faced one, certainly. With a sudden spasm of fear he searched their collars for the deadly lightning zig-zag which he had first seen on the tunic Wimpy had exhibited as a trophy on the edge of the wood outside Colembert. But these soldiers, he saw with relief, had no such distinguishing marks of death: they were heavily armed, and dusty and dirty like the men lounging among the vehicles a few yards away, but they appeared to be ordinary, run-of-the-mill soldiers.

  Also, they bore themselves deferentially, almost apologetically, not like captors with prisoners but more as other ranks in the presence of officers.

  The foremost one, who was built like a tank and had badges of rank on his arm, came to attention in front of Wimpy, clicking his heels and raising his arm in a military salute.

  ‘Yes?’ said Wimpy sharply, half-lifting his arm to return the salute, and then remembering at the last moment that he was wearing nothing on his head. ‘But nicht … nicht speaken … Deutsch, old boy. Understand—comprenez?’

  Evidently Wimpy was not going to reveal that he had a good working knowledge of German, as well as French and Latin and Greek, so long as that secret might be of service to them.

  The German started to say something, the tone of his voice matching his bearing, but then thought better of it and stood to one side, gesturing to the men behind him. The ranks parted to reveal two men carrying a stretcher.

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ murmured Wimpy.

  The stretcher-bearers advanced towards the ex-schoolmaster and deposited the stretcher at his feet. Bastable lifted himself on to his elbows to get a better view of its occupant.

  The wounded man was a German soldier.

  Bastable craned his neck. The German was dark-haired and white-faced, and very young, and his tunic and trousers were undone, but there was no sign of any wound on him. As Bastable stared at him the boy moved his head and for an instant their eyes met. Then he twisted his head away, as though embarrassed, and at the same time arched his body and gripped the side of the stretcher as if the sudden movement had hurt him.

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ murmured Wimpy again, even more under his breath.

  The German who had saluted and spoken to him launched himself into a pantomime of slowly-pronounced words and exaggerated gestures, such as a white explorer might have used to communicate with an African tribesman, the burden of which seemed to be that his comrade had eaten something that didn’t agree win him and had a bad stomach-ache as a result.

  Wimpy listened and nodded gravely at intervals until the German had completed his description of events.

  ‘Has he been sick?’ He pointed to his mouth. ‘Sick?’

  The German frowned at him. ‘Bitte?’

  ‘Sick—‘ Wimpy pantomimed the act of vomiting.

  ‘Ja, ja!’ said one of the other Germans, nodding vigorously.

  ‘Uh-huh.. .’ Wimpy nodded again A curious change had corne over him: where the usual Wimpy expression was one of casual, almost cynical detachment from the world, as though he found its events somewhat ridiculous and was taking part in them against his better judgement, now he displayed an almost magisterial gravily, with his chin tucked down and his lower lip thrust out.

  ‘Uh-huh …’ He nodded to himself again. ‘Uh-huh!’

  This, decided Bastable, was how Wimpy imagined doctors ought to act, even if it was nothing how Doc Saunders had ever behaved. And, in spite of the awfulness of their situation, it would have been laughable if the hands clenched behind Wimpy’s back hadn’t been trembling as uncontrollably as ever.

  But the effect on the Germans did seem satisfactory: they waited respectfully for Wimpy to pronounce on their comrade.

  Suddenly Wimpy straightened up. He brought his hands out from behind him, held them up in front of him for an instant—one was bloodstained and both were filthy—and then went through the motions of washing them.

  The German sergeant-major—by his stripes that was what he must be—barked out an order to one of his men,

  A tin basin was produced, and a lump of greyish-looking soap. The German NCO uncorked his water-bottle and offered it to Wimpy.

  Wimpy drank from the bottle greedily, and Bastable was aware that he too was horribly thirsty.

  ‘Can I have a drink?’ he said. ‘Can I have some water?’

  Before Wimpy could offer him the bottle, one of the German soldiers came over to him and squatted beside him, uncorking his own water-bottle.

  ‘Wasser, Hauptmann?’ The German soldier held the bottle to Bastable’s lips. The water had a strange chemical taste, but it was marvellous, nevertheless.

  Wimpy had finished washing his hands and was drying them on what looked like a strip of grey blanket.

  He knelt down beside the stretcher. ‘Now, young fella, let’s have a look at you,’ he said confidently, parting the patient’s clothing.

  Bastable watched, fascinated, as Wimpy probed the fishy-white stomach, pressing and tapping as though he knew exactly what he was doing. Several times he saw, by the expansion of the boy’s chest and the in-drawing of his breath, that a tender spot had been touched; and when Wimpy pushed down the boy’s knee, which had been raised, he was rewarded with a grunt of agony.

  ‘Uh-huh!’ Wimpy welcomed the grunt as though he had been expecting it. Then he leant forward over the boy’s face. Without speaking he stuck out his tongue to indicate what he wanted.

  ‘Nasty…’ murmured Wimpy, sniffing at the boy’s mouth. ‘Pooh! Very nasty!’ he sat back on his heels, wrinkling his nose.

  Bastable was aware of a sudden stir in the audience, who had been similarly engrossed in Wimpy’s performance. The ranks stiffened and parted as they had done once before.

  ‘Was ist denn hier los?’ The German colonel appeared in the gap. ‘What is this?’

  Wimpy looked over his shoulder. ‘Ah, Colonel! Just the very man I wanted! Would you be so good as to ask this young chap when the pain started? And you might also ask him when he last went to the lavatory, too.’

  The Colonel took in the scene, and his eye settled on the NCO, who managed to stiffen himself even more rigidly.

  ‘And there’s one more test I’d like to make,’ continued Wimpy. ‘Only it does need some explaining—‘

  The Colonel addressed a sentence to the NCO, who replied at some length while staring at a fixed point slightly above his commanding officer’s head.

  The Colonel nodded finally, and looked down at Wimpy. ‘What is it that you wish, Doctor?’

  ‘When the pain started—how long ago? And when … is he constipated?’

  ‘Constipated?’

  ‘Has he been to the lavatory at all recently?’

  ‘ Ach— so!’ The Colonel addressed the NCO, who evidently found the question extremely embarrassing.

  ‘So… He was in pain last evening, but only now and then … I suspect that he did not report it because he did not desire to be left behind, Doctor. But now the pain is bad … And he has been—how do you say?—constipated… constipated for several days.’

  ‘Good.’ Wimpy nodded. ‘Now… I want to turn him over on his face, Colonel, if you please.’

  The Colonel translated the order, and the sick man’s comrades accomplished the task, though not without pain to the patient as they straightened his right leg again in the process.

  Wimpy moistened his right index finger in the tin basin, pulled down the German’s trousers
v/ith his free hand, and then, to Bastable’s consternation, proceeded to stick the finger up the lad’s back passage.

  He was rewarded with another groan of pain.

  ‘Excellent!’ exclaimed Wimpy, washing his hands again. He nodded to the NCO. ‘You can turn him back right side.’ He fitted a gesture to the words.

  ‘Well, Doctor?’ enquired the Colonel politely.

  ‘Field hospital, as quick as you can, Colonel. He needs surgery, but any of your field hospitals can do it.’ He held up his hands apologetically. ‘I can’t do it here—my hands aren’t up to it after coming off the motor-cycle, anyway. But the pain’s still generalized over the abdomen, and so he should be all right until it localizes over the—ah—the area of the trouble.’

  ‘And … just what is the trouble, Doctor?’

  Wimpy assumed his Aesculapian expression. ‘Simple appendicitis, Colonel. He has all the classical symptoms—the generalized pain is quite normal, and the vomiting … and the furred tongue and the stinking breath—foetor, Colonel, foetor—from the Latin, naturally … and finally I was able to tweak the offending object from the back, of course:. You can’t always do that, sometimes it’s tucked out of the way, but in his case it was just ready and waiting to be tweaked.’ He nodded wisely at the Colonel. ‘I trust you have a field hospital to hand—or a French hospital will do, you should be in a position to insist on immediate surgery. Because if you don’t the lad will die of peritonitis in due course, inevitably. Your medical officer will confirm all this, I’m sure— ‘He frowned suddenly. ‘Where is your medical officer?’

  ‘The British killed him, Doctor,’ said the Colonel. He swung on his heel and snapped an order at the NCO. The stretcher-bearers lifted their burden obediently and trotted down the road, away in the direction from which they had originally come.