It did seem a very good idea—
'Logical?' suggested Wimpy serenely.
Very logical. A very good idea, and also logical.
'So . . . you take the child—and the chariot—and tuck 'em away out of sight . . . and come back and have a bit of a kip until eleven-hundred hours, or thereabouts—' Wimpy consulted the Frenchman's watch—because you'll need all the rest you can get—off you go then, there's a good fellow.'
He watched Wimpy survey his surroundings critically.
'An absolutely ideal spot . . . plenty of cover right up to the roadside ... if I crawl around from the back, without disturbing the front—I can see up and down the road for half a mile too! Ideal!'
Unarguably logical. So why argue with it?
Wimpy turned back to him. 'Look, Harry—I know what you're thinking. But you don't have to prove anything to me, my dear fellow . . . It's simply that this makes sense, that's all.'
So it did, of course.
It isn't as though you'll be running away—it's just as vital that someone gets through with the information as it is that someone else puts the kybosh on the bastard. Swopping jobs . . . that would be a nonsense.'
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And so it would be, of course.
Wimpy half-smiled. 'I always used to tell my boys that nonsense must be wrong—all they had to do was to think logically, because Latin is a logical language. Patriam amamus: eam servabimus— illustrating the use of the pronoun—so I'll do the job. End of lesson—class dismissed, Harry.'
Class dismissed.
The nettle stings throbbed as Bastable turned away from the railway line, back to the contemplation of Wimpy's black-suited back half-shrouded by the tall grass and nettles in which he lay.
He had slept without dreaming at all, but before he had slept he had recalled something which until that moment he hadn't remembered for half his lifetime.
Mr Voight had promised Form Vc, the bottom French division of no-hopers, that the last class before the exam would be painless—he would read them Maupassant's La Dernière Classe ('classe' feminine—'dernière' e-accent grave-e).
Not that Vc cared a toss for accents—but wasn't Maupassant that writer of sexy stories who had died of the clap practising what he preached . . . ? Good for Old Voighty!
Except that he hadn't understood a word of the story; and dummy4
even those who had puzzled out some of it had dismissed it as a shameless 'have on'; because it wasn't about filles de joie (Vc knew about them) at all, but about boys like themselves having a last French class before the Prussians conquered Alsace-Lorraine and abolished the French language there—
and Good for the Prussians was Vc's considered verdict on that!
Only now, by the bridge from Carpy half a life later, Harry Bastable remembered what Henry Bastable had instantly forgotten—the difference Old Voighty had painfully taught them between la classe dernière and la dernière classe!
Only now it was Wimpy who was teaching him the difference: Wimpy's very last lesson—the last lesson he would teach anyone—wasn't about logic, or about Latin. It was about what sort of man Harry Bastable really was—that was what it was about.
'Give me the gun, Willis,' said Harry Bastable.
'They're a bit late,' said Wimpy. 'What?'
'Give-me-the-gun.'
Wimpy looked at him quickly. 'Don't let's go through all that again, Harry.' And turned away.
Bastable crawled alongside him.
'There isn't time to fuck about now,' said Wimpy.
'Give me the gun.'
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'Don't be an idiot.'
'I'm the senior officer.'
'Balls!'
'Give me the gun, Willis. That's an order."
'Balls.'
'I'm taking the gun, Willis.' Bastable reached out through the nettles. 'Give it to me.'
'No you're not—there isn't time.'
'I'm taking it!'
'Watch out! Christ, man! It'll go off— mind what you're doing!' hissed Wimpy.
Bastable had the barrel, but Wimpy still had the butt. They wrestled with each other silently, each pushing against the other, fighting for control of the revolver.
'It'll go off!' gritted Wimpy.
'Then let go of it!'
'No!' Their cheeks rasped against one another, sandpaper against sandpaper. 'Don't be a fool, man!'
Bastable dug his heel into the ground to anchor himself. It occurred to him that Wimpy couldn't do that, not with his bad ankle. In fact ... all he had to do was to kick at that ankle with his other foot—
Suddenly, Wimpy relaxed against him. He didn't let go of the revolver—he still held it as firmly as ever—but he relaxed, as though the fight had gone out of all of him except that one dummy4
hand which held the weapon.
'G—'
'Sssh!' whispered Wimpy. 'Sssh!'
Bastable held himself rigid. For ar instant he coud hear only his own heart thump inside his chest. And then—
A faint crunching? Was it?
The crunching faded, and then became more distinct.
I am an idiot, thought Bastable. He' s quite right—
Wimpy was staring at him: their faces were so close that he could see every detail of Wimpy's features with microscopic sharpness, sweat beaded among the bristles, dirt ingrained into the lines crinkling the skin, the crater of a pock-mark on the cheek-bone—eyes huge with surprise questioning him.
'Sssh!' Wimpy's free hand pressed down on his back.
There was something wrong—something more wrong than just that Wimpy was looking at him like this, and not fighting any more. Even his hold on the revolver was weakening.
'They're...' Wimpy's mouth opened on the word so softly that it was more like a breath than a whisper ' . . . not . . . on the road . . . they're ... in ... the cutting— Harry!'
In the cutting.
At the bridge—but not on the bridge.
Under the bridge.
Logic, thought Harry Bastable emptily.
The line ran north-south. The Germans were advancing to dummy4
the north. It was a good place to meet, under a bridge, out of sight.
Oh, shit! thought Bastable. The matter had been settled for them by the Germans.
'Take good care of the child, Willis,' he whispered.
The revolver came out of Wimpy's hand—Wimpy wasn't even holding it.
Crunch-crunch-crunch . . . from below them.
He rolled sideways silently, and then crawled the last yard or two to the fringe of grass-and-nettles at the edge of the cutting.
There were three of them: one in German uniform, and two in brown leather coats, belted at the waist, and dark snap-brim hats—civilians of some sort—German civilians. This was the German end of the tunnel under the bridge.
The soldier halted, saluted someone under the bridge, and disappeared from view.
The civilians also disappeared from view.
Logic.
Oh, shit! thought Harry Bastable, and then stopped thinking.
He got up and stepped over the edge of the cutting, steadying himself for the first second with his free hand on the brickwork as he dropped into space.
He was conscious in the same second of several physical dummy4
sensations: the surprising warmth of the bricks under his palm, and their roughness against the nettle-stings; the brightness of the sunshine in the cutting beneath him; the sound of an aeroplane engine droning somewhere up above him.
The cutting was very steep, but not altogether verticaclass="underline" it was a green cliff layered in a succession of narrow terraces; and beside the bridge itself, between the terraces, a series of crude footholds had been trodden into slopes.
His body, not his mind, was in charge of movement and balance. Nevertheless, the fall of the cutting was too great, the terraces too narrow and the footholds too smooth and sloping for him to be in full command of his descent; he could only try to beat gravity by denying it the chance of betraying him—since he was unable to descend slowly he had to do so in a succession of extraordinary leaps, far beyond his normal capabilities.