The Hour of The Donkey

by Anthony Price

  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, 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 couldn’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—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 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.

  ‘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.

  ‘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 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 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 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. ‘And he made no secret of it.’

  ‘Still don’t. Too many Jew-boys and Reds in high places.’ The Brigadier held himself stiffly. ‘But that doesn’t mean that I’ll betray my country to the first Hun who approaches me.’

  Freddie half-smiled. ‘A reasonable mistake on their part. But a mistake, nevertheless … Because then he came to us. And now he’s fighting for the Jews and the Communists instead.’

  ‘That I’m certainly not!’ snapped the Brigadier.

  ‘Well, maybe not, sir. But you joined us—and I joined you, anyway.’

  ‘To keep an eye on me, eh?’ The bushy eyebrow on the left lifted sardonically. ‘In case I was one of your “doubles”?’

  ‘If you say so, sir. Perhaps at first.’

  The Brigadier scowled at Bastable. ‘They never trust anyone absolutely, his people, it’s their occupational disease. And neither do the Huns, for much the same reasons, only more so. Which is where you came in, my lad!’

  ‘Where? I beg your pardon—?’

  ‘You may even have saved the day at that, in fact.’

  Bastable stared at the Brigadier in astonishment. ‘What?’

  ‘I told you—they never trust anyone. And Obergruppen-führer Keller is no exception to the rule; he simply couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that we were offering him authentic information. Which is hardly to be wondered at, with their front-line commanders wanting to go hell-for-leather up the coast, and telling them there’s nothing in their way … whereas we simply couldn’t give him enough corroborating facts to back our version. Because we’re not running the show, Willis. We’re just mixing what little truth we’ve got in with a lot of damned lies.’

  ‘The Arras attack has shaken ‘em up, I think,’ cut in Freddie. ‘And Boulogne will help.’

  ‘And Calais too—the Rifles’ll die hard—‘ The Brigadier nodded and flinched. ‘But there isn’t enough—or there wasn’t enough until you descended out of nowhere, Willis, like the wrath of God—shouting “Traitor” at the top of your voice—and shot me!’

  ‘And were shot in your turn, too!’ supplemented Freddie.

  The Brigadier just managed to stop himself nodding.

  ‘That’s right. Positively heroic … I suppose it would have been even better if you’d actually killed me … But you did the next best thing, Captain: you did your incompetent best, by God!’

  Bastable licked his lips and looked from one to the other.

  ‘Don’t look so unhappy, my dear fellow,’ said the Brigadier. ‘Don’t you see—you shot me as a traitor. And that does rather suggest that I am a traitor—someone worth killing. And someone worth dying for, too, by God! And that’s about the strongest corroboration you can give to a man’s story, to my way of thinking.’

  Freddie nodded agreement. ‘Keller was certainly a lot more friendly after that.’

  ‘And so he damn well should be!’ snapped the Brigadier. ‘He was supposed to have suppressed Captain Willis—and I told him so in no uncertain terms, the incompetent swine . .. But you, Willis—you just may have tipped the balance our way, that’s the long and short of it. So what do you say to that, eh?’

  Bastable looked down at the pistol in his hand, which he was embarrassed to discover was still pointing more or less at the Brigadier. He lowered it hastily.

  ‘I—I don’t know what to say, sir,’ he said lamely.

  ‘You don’t feel like trying a third shot, then?’ The left eyebrow lifted. ‘While you’ve got the chance, eh?’

  Bastable swallowed.

  The Brigadier reached forward and lifted the pistol out of his hand. ‘Wouldn’t have done you any good if you had. No bullets in it. Freddie prudently removed them.’

  Bastable looked at Freddie.

  And at Freddie’s pistol, which was covering him.

  The Brigadier also looked at Freddie. ‘Well, Major Clinton, I’ve played my last charade for you. But whoever he is, if he won’t press the trigger after what we’ve given him then he can’t be one of your damned Abwehr men—or any other sort of Hun, for that matter, if you ask me.’

  Bastable opened his mouth.
r />   ‘I warned you, Willis,’ murmured the Brigadier. ‘Major Freddie Clinton is no different from Obergruppenführer Keller. He never trusts anyone.’

  Any other sort of Hun?

  ‘You don’t think he made me tell you all this because he liked the cut of your jib, do you?’ continued the Brigadier. ‘I told you—‘

  ‘Do shut up, sir,’ said Freddie, lifting the pistol until its muzzle looked Bastable in the eye. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Thinks you’re maybe a German—doesn’t trust anyone else to make sure,’ continued the Brigadier, quite unabashed. ‘Maybe not SS—but possibly Abwehr … sent to shoot me and double-test him. Or just to kybosh the SS. Never did quite follow his reasoning, but then I frequently don’t. I just do what I’m told. And it’s you who’ve been tested, whoever-you-are, eh?’

  Shut up, Brigadier!’ snarled Freddie. ‘Who-the-hell-are-you?’

  Words deserted Bastable.

  ‘Just don’t tell me that you’re Captain Willis,’ said Freddie. ‘If you’d been Willis then I might well have shot you back there on the line, just to be on the safe side. But Captain Willis had brown hair— brown hair, five-foot-seven, slightly-built—and you don’t fit that description by a mile.’

  ‘A schoolmaster from Sussex.’ The Brigadier nodded at Bastable. ‘First thing the Major did after the Hun picked up those field-glasses—checked up on W. M. Willis, of course … schoolmaster and former classics scholar of University College, Oxford: Willis, William Mowbray. Dominus illuminatio mea—est summum nefas fallere. Funny, really … if you’d been Willis, you’d probably be dead—and if he’d identified you, you’d probably be dead too. But he couldn’t—so now he’s going to shoot you unless you can decline nefas for him, I suppose. There’s an irony there somewhere, don’t you think? Or are you a classicist too?’

  Bloody Latin, thought Bastable wildly.

  And—bloody Latin master!

  ‘Time’s up,’ said the Brigadier. ‘Tempus fugit!’

  The Brigadier talked too much, thought Bastable bitterly, like—