The Hour of the Donkey

permitted and assisted— by God! that is "assisted"—

assisted . . . to proceed to Colembert— signed—squiggle-squiggle, staff-captain et cetera ... permitted and assisted—

splendid fellow! If I really was the assistant deputy sub-prefect I'd be halfway to heiling Hitler for this piece of paper

—' Wimpy waved the paper under Bastable's nose '—

wouldn't you, Harry? wouldn't you, by God?'

Colembert?

Bastable goggled at him: the lines of fatigue were twisted into an extraordinary mask of elation, and the fellow was bobbing on his one good leg as though the paper in his hand was the winning ticket in the Irish Sweepstake—

Colembert!

In all the world, from Berlin to Abbeville, Colembert was the very last place Bastable wanted to go to—to go back to. It was unthinkable, and Wimpy was stark, staring mad to think of it.

'Harry—'

'I'm damned if I'm going back to—to Colembert—I'm, damned if I will!'

'Not back, Harry—don't you see?'

Not back?

Harry Bastable didn't see.

'I saw his map—he showed me his map—so I could show him where our chaps were, on the Ridge ... I told him I'd come dummy4

from Calais to collect my daughter from her grandparents—I told him I wanted to take her to my sister at Colembert—to the south, inside the German lines, don't you see? It didn't worry him—he didn't know what's happened there, why should he? And even if he did . . why should he worry?'

Why indeed? thought Bastable bitterly. 'I'm ... not going back to Colembert—and that's final.'

'So . . . where do you want to go, old boy?'

So where did he want to go?

Harry Bastable stared at Wimpy for a moment; and beyond him, to the closing-in distance behind him.

This alien place—this filthy nowhere-in-France—this empty no-man's-land which might as well be that country-of-the-dying with which Wimpy had frightened him yesterday—

'So where do you want to go?' Wimpy looked at him slyly, as though he already knew, lifting his damned scrap of paper again.

'Not to Colembert!'

'No?'

Bastable looked at the child, and then back to Wimpy. He knew now that he hated Wimpy, but that he still needed him more than he hated him—he was so tired that he couldn't think straight, but he needed Wimpy all the more for that reason, to think for him, to make his decisions.

And yet now he had to think for himself, to dissuade Wimpy from returning to Colembert.

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So—why should Wimpy want to go back? Why?

Of all places, Colembert was the last one in which the Germans would look for them now! But even if that was a reason for going back there he still wasn't going back.

The damned paper waved under his nose. Damned paper!

'If anyone catches us with that—anyone other than the Germans—they'll shoot us,' he snapped.

They will?' Wimpy echoed the thought carelessly. 'You think so?'

'They'll take us for Fifth Columnists.' Bastable pressed his point without quite knowing how it might help him.

'They will?' Wimpy looked at the paper. 'I hadn't thought of that . . .'

'You bet your life they will!' Bastable stared at the paper. 'If I caught a damn Frenchman with that—or an Englishman—I'd put him up against the nearest wall.'

'You would?' Wimpy continued to study the paper. 'Hmm . . .'

There were no British troops between where they were standing in a darkening nowhere and the ruins of Colembert, so the execution was purely hypothetical, thought Bastable hysterically. And even if there were, and he was the officer-in-charge, he wouldn't shoot a dog on such evidence, never mind a lame Frenchman with a child in tow.

Or would he?

'Without a second thought, man!' he said, trying to inject dummy4

brutality into his voice. 'The nearest wall. And no damned court martial, either.'

Perhaps he would.

Wimpy looked at him. 'You would too—wouldn't you!'

For his own sake he had to believe it. And . . . damned Fifth Columnists—damned traitors!... he was already more than half-way to believing it. 'Yes. I would, Willis.'

Wimpy smiled at him—and that was the last bloody straw on the donkey's back: weak, stupid Harry Bastable not capable of shooting a damn traitor, the last bloody straw—

'F—'

'I believe you!' Wimpy cut off the obscenity. 'You're a genius, Harry! I'd never have thought of it— and that makes it perfect. .. the reward—and the risk . .. the risk—and the reward . . . absolutely perfect. You-really-are-a-genius!'

'What?'

'To catch a traitor—and that's what it's all about—and it doesn't matter what happens to us ... to catch a traitor—'

Wimpy started to crumple the paper in his fist, and then caught himself doing it, and opened his hand guiltily. 'God!

We mustn't spoil the ticket to Colembert, must we!'

'W-what?'

Wimpy pointed into the cart. 'Get the wine—get the bread . . .

bread and wine for the last communion . . . We have to reach the St Pol crossroads as soon as possible, old boy, and we need to stoke your boiler for pushing me there.'

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The what clogged in Bastable's throat this time.

'There's bound to be Jerry transport moving that way, said Wimpy. 'And there's a road—I saw it on the map—pretended to be short-sighted, and civilian . . . St Pol to Fruges, Fruges to Desevres ... Desevres to Colembert. And then—what's the word?—hitching? No—hitch-catching? To catch a traitor, anyway—eh, Harry?'

The names meant nothing to Bastable—except Colembert; but Wimpy's eyes were feverish; or, it was Wimpy's voice, and he was imagining the look that went with the voice.

'I didn't think we could do it. And maybe we can't... but we can try, Harry—we can try!'

And there was only one traitor.

Damned, bloody traitor!

But not at Colembert—

'But he—he won't be at Colembert, Willis,' he heard himself.

It was what he should have said all along, fuck it!

'Of course not, old boy. If he's anywhere, he'll be on the bridge between Les Moulins and Carpy at noon tomorrow. So let's hope there's only one bridge, and we can be there too—if that's the Destined Will, Harry.'

He was mad. He was insane. They were both insane—in the middle of nowhere.

'The bridge between Les Moulins and Carpy—Carpy's on the map, I saw it. It's just off the Route Nationale from Arras to dummy4

Boulogne—the Germans must think they'll be there by tomorrow.'

'Boulogne?' The insanity was catching—even the Germans had caught it. Boulogne was as unthinkable as ... as Colembert?

Wimpy drew a deep breath. 'I know. It doesn't seem possible . . . But if they've reached Abbeville today—or Amiens today—they can reach Boulogne tomorrow, can't they? Can't they?"

It wasn't insanity any more: it was the terrible logic of defeat struggling against hope. If there had been nothing to stop the Germans from driving all the way across northern France to the Channel, then perhaps there was also nothing to stop them pushing northwards to Boulogne?

But Boulogne!

That wasn't a lost battle—that was the war itself— that was the British Army itself—lost!

And that was impossible: after Boulogne, only Calais was left on the map.

He shrugged the impossibility off. And besides, there was another impossibility to set against it: Colembert was to the south—Wimpy was an idiot—

And that was another impossibility—

Christ! He was the idiot!

There were two Colemberts: the right one and the wrong one—the one he knew and the other one—and the other one dummy4