The Hour of The Donkey (34 page)

He closed his ears to the voices, and concentrated on his own problem to the exclusion of everything else, and the answer to it came to him immediately. There was only one place to take her, because there was only one place where she would wish to be—even though she wished for nothing now, and knew nothing, and felt nothing.

He blundered forward past the hat-stand, down the passage.

This time the parlour door required no brute force to open, he had swept the floor clean behind it when he had put his shoulder to it the first time.

The old man in the chair hadn’t moved, he had only lost his watch-and-chain; and the bowl of artificial fruit hadn’t moved, it still sat in the middle of the table amid a litter of fallen plaster from the ceiling.

Still cradling the old woman, he bent forward and caught the edge of the table-cloth and twisted sideways, dragging the bowl and the debris with him; and then dropped that edge and caught another part of the cloth, and dragged it further, and then repeated the action, until the cloth slid from the table, carrying the bowl and the plaster with it. The bowl fell and splintered, out of sight beneath him, and a cloud of plaster-dust arose from its ruin. He stepped forward quickly and unloaded the little black-clad corpse on to the bare polished surface, which had been swept clean by the slide of the table-cloth across it; and turned and fled from the room before the dust could settle on her, and on her table, and on her husband, slamming the door fiercely behind him, leaving them alone together.

The slam of the door echoed inside his head for an instant, then was lost in other sounds outside him: the insistent far-distant
pop-pop-pop
and
thud
which was still a continuous background to every other sound, but which he instinctively sought to filter out the better to reassure himself with the closer sound of Wimpy’s voice.

He turned his head to look and listen in the same direction, towards the open doorway at the end of the passage. There was no one blocking it now, but the lack of brightness beyond, the pale light outside, suddenly registered the passing of time, of which he had altogether lost track. This endless day was crawling at last out of its long afternoon into its long summer’s evening.

But the doorway was not empty—or, it was empty, the rectangle of its opening, but just within it, pasted against the door itself, stood the child.

So Wimpy didn’t need the child any more. So now she was plainly alone and terrified again; he could see that by the way the poor little mite had flattened herself against the door, her small fists clenched across her chest. And he knew, from his own experience of being held motionless by the equal forces of different terrors, why she couldn’t move. Outside, in the garden and on the road, was all the dust and noise of the whole German Army on the march, a thing beyond her understanding … but inside …
inside
, in her own ruined home, was another nightmare no less daunting to her—less physically terrifying, but surely more unnerving, beyond his ability to imagine.

How had it happened? Had she been in the house, in the parlour, when the old man
’
s breath had rattled that last time, like Major Audley
’
s under the blood-stained blanket, and she hadn
’
t understood, any more than Harry Bastable—the great Harry Bastable—had understood—?

‘
Grandpa? Grandpa?
’

Or in the road? Or in the dust beside the cart, when that other old heart had missed a beat, crushed by the concussion of the bombs, or by fear or by desolation at the loss of home and husband, or by all that addition of calamities, which it was incapable of withstanding—?

‘
Grandma? Grandma? Grandma!
’

It didn’t matter now.

She would get in the way—and that mattered.

She would be a burden. Escaping the Germans was bad enough, but to be saddled with a child as well—he could recall vividly how little Alice had weighed him down, and how glad he had been to be rid of her at last—but to be saddled with a child was an unfair burden. She might be the very difference, the last straw of the burden, which held them back and betrayed them.

But it didn’t matter, because there wasn’t any choice any more than there had been a choice leaving little Alice crying by the roadside. He hated it, and he hated the damned child, and it was stupid, and he despised himself for the irrational sentimentality of it—there must be hundreds of children like this one—bloody hundreds of them— children lost, or left behind, or orphaned—bloody hundreds of them—and this one was only ene more among them … and maybe one of the lucky ones at that, because she was still alive, and because someone would look after her, sooner or later.

So what he was about to do certainly didn’t make any sense.

But it didn’t matter: there still wasn’t any choice.

He couldn’t reach her quickly enough. Even before he was within arm’s reach of her he opened his arms to her. Then she was in them again, and holding him tightly again, and sharing her fear and her need with him.

For a moment her hair was in his face, obscuring the view until he shifted one hand to press her head gently against his shoulder.

Nothing had changed outside. There was Wimpy, standing awkwardly on one-and-a-half feet, and there was the German officer; and beyond them there was the group of officers beside the staff car, still engrossed in their argument; and behind them, on the roadway, the dust and the din rose together from moving vehicles and marching men in an endless single-file.

Nothing had changed
. For an instant Bastable forgot everything else in the sickened realization that this was the enemy—this was the German Army—and that he was still a helpless spectator, a fugitive from a defeated army.

No
! He tightened his grip on the child.
No! It was impossible that it could happen like this. This was only one corner of the battlefield, and he wouldn
’
t believe it—he must force himself not to believe it, never to believe it
!

He could hear the guns in the distance, and his head ached, and he was bone-weary.

The German officer looked at him briefly, just one quick dismissive glance, and then turned back to Wimpy, raising his hand to the brim of his cap.

‘M’sieur—je vous rr-mercy.’

He was turning away—

‘M’sieur!’ cried Wimpy suddenly. ‘Siv-oo-play, M’sieur—Capitaine!’

Please?

The German caught himself in mid-turn, and turned back. ‘M’sieur?’

Was Wimpy mad? For Christ’s sake—the German had been leaving them, and Wimpy had stopped him—for Christ’s sake!

Wimpy hopped forward towards him painfully. ‘M’sieur—Capitaine—‘—and plunged into another stream of French, of which Bastable could only catch the pleading tone.

‘Kommon?’ The German frowned, following the words and the gestures doubtfully—Wimpy gesticulated to himself, and to his bandaged foot as he spoke, and to Bastable himself, and to the child, finally towards the road.

‘Colembert,’ concluded Wimpy.

Colembert?

‘Kolombert?’ repeated the German.

‘Oui, m’sieur,’ Wimpy nodded obsequiously, pointing again. ‘Sate-oh-sood … oon-peteet-vee … va-kilomatre—Co-lem-bear …’ He pronounced the name with appalling clarity. ‘Pray de Belléme.’

The German consulated his map, still frowning. ‘Ko-lem-bear … Ach-so! Kolembert! Oui!’

This time Wimpy really was mad—stark, staring, raving mad! There was no other possible explanation. On the outside he still presented the nervous and voluble servility to be expected of a French civilian in his predicament. But on the inside …

The German officer looked up again from his map, pursing his lip as though he shared Bastable’s doubts. ‘Hmmm …’

The moment of doubt and uncertainty elongated, stretching Bastable’s nerves with it until their tautness became a physical sensation quivering down his back. With the child in his arms, he knew that it would be useless to try and run. But with his knees trembling like this he couldn’t have run if he’d wanted to. And there was still nowhere to run, anyway.

The German stiffened suddenly. ‘Zair-voll—‘ he gave Wimpy an abrupt nod, and reversed the map case ‘—votre nom, m’sieur?’

Wimpy swallowed. ‘Ah—ahem!—Laval, m’sieur—Gaston Laval.’

The German had produced a stub of indelible pencil: he was writing on a piece of greyish paper — on a message pad clipped to the back of the map case.

He nodded towards Bastable. ‘Ay votre fee?’

‘Alys—Alys Dominique Marie Laval—‘

‘Alys… Laval…’ The German looked at Bastable again.

‘Bloch—Onri Bloch,’ supplied Wimpy.

Onri?

Henri
, damn it. Fool?
Half-wit
!

‘Bloch …’ The German continued to write, moistening the tip of the pencil from time to time on his tongue—an action which reduced him from a figure of terrifying menace to one of everyday ordinariness, who had the same problems with army-issue indelible pencils as Harry Bastable himself had experienced.

‘Say sar,’ The German signed the paper with a flourish.

But… Gaston Laval, and Alys Laval—Alys! and
Henri
Bloch—

Onri Block-headed Bastable … what the blue-blazes had the German written?

And now he was handing the paper to Wimpy—and Wimpy was gabbling effusive gratitude, and bobbing and bowing over the scrap of paper in his hand, until the German finally cut him off with a curt ‘M’sieur’, half embarrassed and half contemptuous (or maybe simply scared, like any British officer in the same position, thought Bastable, that he was about to be embraced and kissed on both cheeks by an unshaven, garlic-breathed Froggie).

But whatever it was, it turned him away hastily, and marched him back down the pathway towards the group by
the staff car at the roadside. Bastable watching him
incredulously, aware that he had understood only a tenth of what he had seen with his own eyes, and that even that tenth was unbelievable.

‘Quite a decent fellow, that,’ murmured Wimpy. ‘For a damn Jerry …’

‘W—‘

‘Sssh, old boy!’

The German had reached his colleagues. He presented the map to the most formidable of them and pointed to something on it.

‘Better not show too much interest in the proceedings.’ said Wimpy softly, swivelling awkwardly towards Bastable, trying to keep his weight off his bad ankle. ‘Don’t stare, old boy—come on and get some of the things out of this damn cart, and help me into it—the sooner we remove ourselves from the scene, the better, I shouldn’t wonder.
Don
’
t stare, Harry
!”

Bastable started guiltily, aware that he had been watching the Germans pore over their map with a fascination unbecoming a French peasant.

‘Put the child down—here, give her to me—‘ Wimpy held out his arms.

The limpet was again unwilling to leave Bastable’s arms at first, and Bastable himself was almost as unhappy to surrender her; but with reassuring squeezes and comforting noises the thing was done again at last.

He started to unload the cart.

Leave me something soft to sit on.’ murmured Wimpy at his elbow. ‘And … that parcel there looks like the one in the kitchen—if it’s food, we need it … Is it?’

Bastable tore at the corner of the long package.

It’s bread—leave it in,’ hissed Wimpy. ‘And those bottles of wine—leave them in too.’

Bastable grunted irritably at the unnecessary instructions. The schoolmaster in Wimpy, which was never far below the surface, seemed to have assumed control of both of them. ‘Hurry it up, old boy—hurry it up!’

Damn the man! thought Bastable hotly. There was a welter of unanswered questions in his head, jostling each other furiously for precedence.

What had Wimpy said to the German?

What was written on that piece of paper?

And … Colembert—for Christ’s sake—Colembert!

‘That’ll do. Now … help me in … Not that way, you idiot—‘ Wimpy resisted Bastable’s efforts to manoeuvre him towards the rear of the hand-cart, between the handles on the ground ‘—the front end, man, the front end!’

Bastable frowned at him, and then at the cart. Because of its makeshift construction and its lack of supporting legs at the back, it was canted on to its handles with its body at an angle of sixty degrees.

‘Don’t just stand there!’ Wimpy mouthed desperately at him. ‘I want to get in at the front so I can see where we’re going—I’ll navigate . .. you just push the bloody contraption—right?’ He glared at Bastable. ‘So-just-lift-your-bloody-end … and-let-me-get-in … eh?’

So that was the idea: Harry Bastable was to be the donkey between the shafts, pushing rather than pulling, and Wimpy would hold the reins, and do the thinking. Which, to Wimpy, was the natural order of things.

Bastable sighed, and stepped between the handles, and lifted them. It
was
the natural order of things.

Wimpy clasped the child to him firmly with one arm and hopped painfully round the cart, supporting and steadying himself on it with his free hand.

He looked at Bastable for a moment. ‘Sorry I was rude just then, Harry old boy—‘ the corner of his mouth twitched’— bit of nerves … the old wind-up, eh?’ The twitch was trying to turn itself into a smile. ‘Can’t all be like you, old boy—eh?’

Like me
? thought Bastable, with a bitter pang of self-knowledge. It was hard to accept that Wimpy was a member of the same secret club of cowards, to which he belonged. But then … perhaps the membership was bigger than appearances suggested if they were each so deceived by the other. Maybe everyone belonged to it?

Wimpy looked away suddenly, towards the road, and Bastable followed the glance. Everything was still happening there: the whole German Army seemed to be flowing past, only a couple of dozen yards away, regardless of them. He had been aware of it all the time he had been listening to Wimpy and obeying Wimpy’s orders, he had never been free of the knowledge of it for a second. It was as though that part of his senses which handled such information was full of it, and could handle no more. It was terrifying, but neither more nor less so than it had been at first sight.