The Hour of the Donkey

Corporal Smithers cleared his throat. 'Are you going to designate a target, sir?' he enquired.

The bare hillside mocked Captain Bastable. On the crest, on either side of the gap made by the road, there was a thick belt of trees and undergrowth. That would enable the attackers to deploy under cover to fire down on the bridge and its defenders. Viewed from this slit-trench with the jaundiced eye of reality, the western defences of Colembert were a military nonsense as he had laid them out—an act of collective suicide.

'There's a goat on the hillside there, sir,' Smithers pointed a nicotine-stained finger. 'A white goat, by that bush ... See that little shed, down by the stream—eleven o'clock from there, sir—white goat, tethered. Four hundred yards.'

Try not to kill any Frenchmen— or French livestock.

'Excuse me, sir—' said a new voice, hesitantly.

Captain Bastable's finger twitched, then relaxed. It was an dummy4

officer-type voice. He looked over his shoulder.

'Chichester, sir,' said Second-Leiutenant Chichester.

'Yes, Mr Chichester?'

'Second-Lieutenant Watson has the mumps, sir.'

Watson—the face was indistinct, but the name registered—

Watson had been C Company's newest and least distinguished subaltern. But now he had distinguished himself by disproving Doc Saunders's theory, damn him!

'Major Tetley-Robinson has sent me to you as replacement, sir. He says he doesn't need me for Brigade Liaison, sir.'

Captain Bastable swallowed. 'Thank you, Mr Chichester.'

'What would you like me to do, sir?'

Major Tetley-Robinson had done this deliberately, Captain Bastable decided.

Well, then!

'I would like you to watch me fire the Boys anti-tank rifle, Mr Chichester. Observe how I engage the shoulder- piece firmly against my shoulder.'

'Oh—I have fired the Boys, sir. The full course, sir—at Aldershot.'

Captain Bastable knew then exactly how Hitler had felt —or claimed to feel—when his patience had become exhausted with Poland: only a violent act could purge his anger.

The loud crack of the Boys was eclipsed by the tremendous blast-and-flash from the muzzle and the smashing force of dummy4

the padded shoulder-piece, which rammed Captain Bastable backwards in the slit-trench, lifting the slender barrel upwards into the pale blue French sky.

'Jesus-Fucking-Christ!' murmured Corporal Srnithers blasphemously, reverently.

Tears of rage and pain momentarily fogged Captain Bastable's vision.

'Jolly well done, sir,' said Second-Lieutenant Chichester enthusiastically. 'Bull first time!'

'Goat, rather, old boy.' Captain Willis's familiar drawl, coming from just behind him, recalled Bastable to his senses and his duty. 'I say ... I don't know what effect Mr Boys's instrument of torture will have on little Adolf's tanks ... but if he sends goats against us we have nothing to fear, by God!'

Captain Bastable abandoned the instrument of torture and started to twist towards Willis. The pain in his shoulder made him wince involuntarily, but he managed to turn the wince into a grunt of simulated anger.

'What the hell are you doing beside my bridge, Willis?' he growled.

Captain Willis continued to examine the distant hillside through his field-glasses. 'Were you ... pardon the question, if you will, Bastable, old boy . . . were you actually aiming for a head-shot?' he inquired.

Captain Bastable frowned back at the hillside. The goat was no longer on the eleven o'clock line from the small shed dummy4

which had been the centre of Corporal Smithers' fire order—

it lay at about half-past two, apparently undamaged except for its head, which had disappeared.

Second-Lieutenant Chichester leaned forward. 'I've never seen a Boys fired like that before, sir—so accurately,' he said deferentially. 'Our instructors always claimed the prone position was most accurate. Obviously they were wrong!'

'Corporal —' Captain Willis nodded to Corporal Smithers without taking his eyes from the field-glasses. He appeared to be scanning the hillside for other signs of life. 'Corporal, nip across smartly and pick up that animal, and we'll have it roasted for dinner tonight—I've never had roast goat, and it can't be worse than the alleged beef we had last night. . . Oh—

and take a couple of buckets of water and swill the blood away, and find any bits of the head and dispose of them.

With a bit of luck the owner'll think the creature's gone absent without leave. Or at least he won't be able to prove otherwise, and then we won't have to pay for it... Right?'

Corporal Smithers looked at Captain Bastable uncertainly, though whether this was because he was technically under Bastable's orders, not Willis's, or whether he considered that the disposal of the goat belonged more fairly to the marksman who had bagged it than to a mere onlooker, Bastable could not decide. What irritated him much