The last leap almost jarred the breath out of him as his boots crashed into the granite chippings beside the railway lines.
Yet his body had been already turning in the air as it fell, and his legs straightened again, driving him into the shadow of the arch above him before the shock-wave could register.
Someone shouted—
He had expected the tunnel to be dark— it had seemed pitch-black from the angle above— but it wasn't dark at all; it wasn't a tunnel at all—it was only a high-arched bridge, with the sunshine streaming into it—
dummy4
There were men left and right of him, staring at him in astonishment. He swung the revolver left and right, searching for khaki-and-red-tabs—but encountering only a brown leather coat: it fell away from him is though it had been jerked from behind—but there was no khaki-and-red-tabs that side—Christ! there was no khaki at all—only civilians— Christ!—
'What the devil—?' began the Brigadier angrily.
The Brigadier was wearing a pork-pie hat, and a sports jacket, and a striped tie.
'Traitor!' shouted Bastable, and pointed the revolver at the Brigadier, stiff-armed across the railway lines, and shot him twice in the face.
The force of the bullets hurled the Brigadier backwards into the civilian behind him. Bastable's head was filled with a loud ringing noise, but he was aware of the other brown coat coming at him. He dodged sideways and threw the empty revolver at the German soldier, who was standing in his way
— and ran—
Sunlight burst around him.
And ran—
He was twenty yards—thirty yards—out into the cutting before any shred of thought came back to him.
He was running, his boots crashing and crunching into the granite chippings beneath him. The silver railway lines stretched away ahead of him, shimmering into infinity—
dummy4
there was a small concrete hut recessed into the side of the cutting just ahead, which he didn't recognize—it was alongside—he had passed it—
He had run right through the bridge, and now he was heading north, towards, the British lines! Towards safety!
The cutting was coming to an end; he could see the edge of it dropping, and the land opening up on each side—
There was someone running behind him!
The air pounded in his chest painfully— he must go on running—if he could only go on running—he had run away before—he had escaped before!
But he was weaker now. All the weary miles and hours, and the lack of sleep and proper food, and all the fears which had sapped his strength, were accumulating in his legs now, slowing him down.
He looked from one side of the shallower cutting to the other, to the lines of the embankment ahead: on this side was open country, but there were trees and there was undergrowth on the other. His pursuer would run him down in the open, but in those bushes—perhaps— perhaps—
'Stop!'
The bushes were nearer. Just a few more yards, and he could cross the line and throw himself into them—down the embankment—
'Stop ... or I fire!'
dummy4
— only ten yards away. Nothing in the world was going to stop him now— not lead nor steel—
He altered direction slightly, to leap across the lines.
First one line—the sleepers were black and greasy-looking, and he judged their distance to match his running strides, to avoid them .. Now the other one—he heard the shot behind him as he leaped, and knew that it had missed him a fraction of a second before the toe of his boot caught the edge of the line. For the following fraction he was airborne, legs lost behind him; then he crashed headlong into the granite chippings, their sharp edges tearing into his chin and his palms and his knees.
He tried to get up, scrabbling at the chippings, but his leg gave way under him.
'Halt! Don't move!'
The voice was at his back. He stared at the bushes in front of him with utter despair.
'Are you hit? Did I hit you?'
Bastable sank sideways on to one buttock and one hand, and looked his pursuer in the face.
Sandy hair—no hat—double-breasted grey suit, bad ly cut, with a foreign look, but the voice was unmistakably British.
The sharp-faced staff captain, remembered Bastable belatedly. He wasn 't there in the farmyard with the Germans so I forgot all about him! I should have saved the second bullet for him! But now it was a million years too late.
dummy4
'English?' Sandy-hair was sweating, red-faced and breathless.
He didn't have to answer. It was all the same now. It was finished. It didn't matter what he said.
'Get stuffed!' he said.
Sandy-hair nodded. 'English. Who are you?'
Damn! He should have held his tongue.
'Ten seconds.' Sandy-hair pointed the pistol.
Bastable was disappointed to discover that he was still very frightened, even though it didn't matter any more. On the other hand, maybe it did matter: if the swine was still on the look-out for Wimpy—for Captain W. M. Willis—there was one thing he could do that might help. One last thing.
'Willis,' he said.
Sandy-hair's jaw dropped. 'Willis?'
Bastable nodded. 'W. M. Willis. Captain, Prince Regent's Own South Downs Fusiliers,' he said defiantly. He was rather pleased with his own cleverness; it was satisfying to know that he had done one clever thing, worthy of Wimpy himself, even if it was the very last thing he did.
Now all he had to do was to keep his mouth shut, so as not to give himself away. But as he usually didn't know what to say that shouldn't prove difficult.
Sandy-hair was frowning at him. 'Willis?' he repeated to himself as though he couldn't believe his ears. And then he dummy4
looked quickly down the track and held up his hand. 'Go back! It's all right—go back!'
He looked at Bastable again. 'Willis?'
It was as good a name as any other to die under.
'My God!' murmured Sandy-hair. And looked down the line again quickly—and back to Bastable again. 'Fall— like you're dead— now!' He raised the pistol. 'Now! Willis— now!'
The order was so categorical that Bastable obeyed it without thinking, letting himself fall flat on his back. And before he could question his own irrational obedience the pistol jerked above him with a loud cracking sound—the blast from its muzzle hit his face and granite chips struck his ear like stinging nettles. He flinched at the shock and tensed himself against the impact of the bullet he would never hear.
' Lie still.' Sandy-hair hissed, bending over him, fumbling at the buttons of his denim jacket. 'Where's your identification?'
Identification?
He had no identification—
'For God's sake—where's your identification?'
'Trouser pocket!' Bastable heard himself say to the blurred red face and blue sky above him, without knowing what he was saying.
The hands left his chest: they patted the pockets of his denim trousers, and felt a lump in one of them—a knotted lump which, until this confusion of light and thought in his brain, hadn't been in any conscious reckoning there.
dummy4
Sandy-hair retrieved the lump—the lump unravelled itself above Bastable as Sandy-hair stood up, into the primrose-yellow-and-dove-grey lanyard of the Prince Regent's Own South Downs Fusiliers— the symbol of pride and privilege!
'Lie still. ..' Sandy-hair looked down at him again—and then away again, and waved down the track. '. .. stay dead until I come back ... if I come back ... or we'll both be dead, Willis—