souvenir—' he raised the weapon close to his eye '—
something d'armes— St Etienne—a souvenir from a left-handed French contortionist!'
There still wasn't a soul in sight. The whole of France might be empty: the long columns of refugees of yesterday—the day before yesterday?—had disappeared like flies in the wintertime of the German Army's advance.
The sound of the lorries was fading into the distance, but there were other sounds now to take their place—the rumble and drone of aircraft ahead of them and away to their right . . . and their left . . .
'But two will have to do.' Wimpy twisted towards him. 'Come on, old boy—right for Les Moulins—at least they've given us that on a plate, thank God!'
Bastable stared at him.
'Les Moulins, Harry—' Wimpy pointed to the right. 'At the bridge between Les Moulins and Carpy'—remember? And, by Christ, if it's forbidden for us to go there, then by golly, that's where it is, Harry—at the bridge between Les Moulins and Carpy, that's where the bastard's going to be, and they're keeping it clear to make sure of it, the crafty swine!'
Bastable thought he saw a curtain move in the house on the right-hand corner of the crossroad. So there was perhaps somebody still alive in France, besides themselves.
Wimpy pointed to the right with the revolver. 'Come on, Harry—no more time to admire the countryside. Just look for dummy4
the next river, old boy—'
But there had been no river.
Bastable looked at Wimpy's back, the stale taste of the alcohol furring his tongue, as Wimpy peered round the edge of the bridge again.
'Still all clear,' said Wimpy over his shoulder, and then consulted the old Frenchman's watch. 'Eleven-forty-two, and all clear!'
Bastable raised himself on his stinging hands and peered down to his left, into the railway cutting. The fall of the bank beside the bridge was much steeper than where the cutting began, so that this side was invisible to him beyond the edge of the thirty-foot drop to the line, and he could only see the cliff on the opposite side, with the rails of the single-track line itself hidden from view where they disappeared under the bridge.
He looked down to the south—so far as he could make out it was north-south that the line ran, with the road crossing it east-west. The further away, the less steep the sides of the cutting, until it ceased to be a cutting and became an embankment: that was the logic of railway building, he remembered, to iron out the rise and fall of the land into a billiard-table; and the smaller the gradients, the more economical the line—that was the logic.
And Wimpy too was very logical . . .
dummy4
It had been Wimpy who had first realized that it wouldn't be a river, but a railway line. Bastable had only known that he was sweating to push the cart upwards on to a plateau, not holding it back from running away into a river valley; and he had drawn no conclusions from that, except that he was sweating.
But then Wimpy had worked it all out, after he had made sure that the roofs and the spire a couple of miles ahead down the road must be Les Moulins, with no other bridge to cross before they could reach it.
Wimpy was very logical.
'If the Germans are in Carpy, then Les Moulins must be still ours—they've left it, to let the Brigadier get to the bridge!'
Was that logic? Bastable's head ached too much to deny it, anyway.
'Which means ... they're coming up, round the coast—Le Touquet, Boulogne—Christ!' Wimpy had trailed off, leaving the implications of that unsaid. 'No wonder they want to know what's up ahead of them!'
It was all beyond him. Or, not quite—
'Then we can go on to Les Moulins—if our chaps are still there. We can stop him there.'
"No, Harry.' Wimpy considered Bastable-Iogic, and rejected it. 'If our chaps are there .. . But if they aren't— if the dummy4
Germans are simply passing him through to talk here—then we'll have had it, by God! All we know is that he's coming here.'
Bastable had lost the thread of it there. Wimpy was too clever for him, too logical, and he was too tired to argue.
'We know he's coming here,' repeated Wimpy.
'We know?'
'I heard it. When we were under the table— the bridge between Carpy and Les Moulins—midday— that's what they said. And this is the bridge, Harry — and all we have to do is wait!
Bastable was too beaten to argue, but not too beaten to want not to go on living when there was still a chance of life.
'But—'
'No, Harry. I know what you want to do—you want to go at everything like a bull-in-a-china-shop—'
That wasn't what Harry Bastable wanted at all. But there wasn't any way of admitting what he wanted, now that what he had dreamed of had actually happened—and had become a nightmare.
'—but it won't do—with only two bullets ... it won't do. Being brave isn't enough—we have to think—'
It wasn't being brave at all—that was what Harry Bastable was thinking.
Wimpy shook his head. 'We can't risk it, that's all. He's dummy4
coming here, so we're staying here.'
Think—
Wimpy looked at him. 'The Destined Will, Harry—you thought of it first. You always think of everything first! And when there wasn't a chance in hell of getting here, you still thought of it.'
But that wasn't it at all! Or, if he had, then he had thought of it when he thought it couldn't happen.
Think—
He saw the child staring at him with her solemn eyes out of her dirty face. What would happen to the child? 'What about her?' She had always helped him: she would help him now!
'You can't look after her—you can't bloody well walk, Willis!'
Wimpy looked at him, and at the child, and then back at him, and smiled—that was the first glimpse of that terrible obstinate serenity.
'Harry, Harry . . . trust you to get it wrong, old boy!'
'What?'
The serene smile. 'That's the point, Harry—trust you to want to do it!'
Do it?
'I can't get away—that's the whole point—the jolly old Destined Will, old boy, eh?'
'What d'you mean, Willis?'
Wimpy pointed towards Les Moulins. 'The Brigadier—our dummy4
own special Fifth Columnist, the bastard—has to come up that road, to this bridge— there—' he pointed to the middle of the road, at the mouth of the bridge '— while Jerry trots along from his side side—from Carpy—eh?'
Bastable stared down the empty road towards Carpy, and then back to Wimpy.
Serene smile. 'And since when could you ever hit a barn door
—at point-blank range, Harry old boy? Since when?'
Since never. The only shot he'd ever fired in anger—two shots
— had been at point-blank range, at the German soldier two yards from the Brigadier's shoulder, and God only knew where they had gone, but they certainly hadn't hit anything.
'Since when?' challenged Wimpy.
A smaller part of Bastable wanted to deny the truth. But only a smaller part.
'We wait here until the Brigadier turns up—you take the child and the cart and snug 'em down in the wood there first—'
Wimpy pointed into the undergrowth '—and then we wait until he comes in view—' Wimpy pointed down the road to Les Moulins'—and you scarper and keep the child quiet... and bang-bang!— you lie low until the coast is clear again right?'
Logical.
Wimpy couldn't run away.
Wimpy couldn't run anywhere.
'And if I can't hit a barn door— you take the child and head for home, and tell 'em what happened. Which makes you the dummy4
small print on the bottom of the Destined Will, old boy.
Like ... an insurance policy, eh?'