The Hour of The Donkey (22 page)

‘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 ê
tre
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 dungheaps, 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.

The NCO started to move, then stopped in front of Wimpy and gave him a smart salute. Wimpy acknowledged the salute gravely.

‘Accidentally, of course,’ said the German Colonel. ‘One of your bombs—outside Maubeuge.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Wimpy.

‘There is no need to be. It was an accident, as I have said … And we shot down the bomber.’ He flicked a glance at Bastable, then came back to Wimpy. ‘I thank you for your service, Doctor.’

Bastable watched him continue on his way until he passed out of sight between the lorries, followed by his entourage, rippling his men to attention as he passed them. Wimpy could be right about the fellow, at that; what was certain was that it was a good motorized battalion, this one, smart and soldierly and keen—and, what was more, with men in it who weren’t in a hurry to report sick when they had stomachache, who would rather stay and fight… If there were too many battalions like this one, then the Allies were really in trouble.

‘Phew!’ whispered: Wimpy, breathing out deeply and then drawing in his breath again. ‘
Phew
!’

Bastable looked at him for a long moment. ‘Did he really have appendicitis?’

Wimpy raised his eyebrows. ‘How the hell do I know?’

Bastable stared at him wordlessly.

‘At least he had all the symptoms, old boy,’ said Wimpy.

‘Those … were the symptoms?’

‘Of course they bloody were! Did you think I made them up?’

Again, no words presented themselves to Bastable.

‘I had appendicitis when I was young… I can’t remember much about it…’ Wimpy drew another deep breath. ‘But … when I was acting-housemaster at school the year before last, we had a boy go down with it in the middle of the night—I was terrified he was going to die on me… but I remember how the doctor came out to us, and stuck his finger up the poor little blighter’s arse. And he gave me a running documentary on what he was doing, too— I’d clean forgotten all about it… except
about foetor
, he insisted that I should have a smell of it, because I was the boy’s Latin master— they have the smell of shit, on their breath…. And
he
had the same smell too, that’s what brought it all back to me.’

He looked at Bastable in silence for a second or two. Then he half-grinned. ‘If you want my opinion, old boy… I think we were lucky, and that young fellow wasn’t—or maybe he was, at that: I mean, I think my diagnosis was spot on … And if it wasn’t—well, Harry, you could say I’ve inflicted my first casualty on the enemy. Besides which, it isn’t everyone who gets the chance of sticking his finger up a German and lives to tell the tale—eh?’