The Hour of the Donkey

But not idiot alone: because Wimpy had reversed the trick on the German officer—pointing to Colembert-les- Deux-Ports, but intending Colembert-near-Boulogne all along, and getting it on his piece of paper, and no one would know the difference.

Do what?

'But—how are we going to get there?'

'By trusting our luck again—and my French, Onri.' Wimpy wasn't smiling: the twitch couldn't be called a smile by any stretch of the imagination, even in the gathering twilight.

It occurred to Bastable that the German officer had been a decent sort of fellow, doing his duty with a foolish touch of humanity, as he himself might have done.

Or, as he might have done if he had been winning.

But losers couldn't afford to make mistakes, and be decent.

He must remember that.

'And also by saying 'Heil Hitler' at the right moment,' said Wimpy. 'As of now, Harry, we're joining the Fifth Column.'

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XV

'Harry. Wake up, Harry. It's time.'

Time?

Bastable awoke to greenness swimming before his eyes; which, when he blinked the sleep from them, resolved itself into a primeval forest of grass, impenetrably thick and tangled.

'It's time, Harry.'

The voice in his ear and the hand on his shoulder were both so gentle as they reclaimed him from sleep that they confused him for a moment. He moved his own hand, which had been resting on his cheek to shield his eyes from the light, and pushed at the grass, only half conscious of what he was doing.

'Harry—wake up, old chap. It's past eleven hundred—it's nearly eleven-thirty.' Not so gentle now, the voice.

The back of his hand was tingling very strangely—no, not so much tingling as itching . . . and more than itching—

Christ! The back of his hand was on fire! The bloody grass was full of stinging nettles, damn it!

And it was time—dear God!— it was past eleven hundred—

Wimpy must have let him sleep on, quite deliberately— and now it was nearly eleven-thirty already!

He sat up abruptly, looking round about him quickly with the dummy4

beginnings of panic, at once fully and horribly awake.

'What—' He lifted his other hand from the ground quickly, but too late, feeling the crushed nettles bite into his palm. 'Oh

—damn!'

'It's all right, old boy,' Wimpy reassured him. 'There's nothing moving. A bloke on a cycle about half an hour ago, that's all. You were sleeping like a baby.'

'Did he see you?' Caution was second nature now.

'No.' Wimpy turned back to the corner of the bridge's brick parapet. 'I thought it safer to lie very low, just in case.'

'In case of what?'

'We-ell . . .' He craned his neck cautiously round the corner to look up and down the road ' . . . just in case he wasn't as innocent as he appeared to be. We are rather in the middle of no-man's-land again, it looks like. So Jerry may be indulging in a spot of reconnaissance out of uniform, I don't know . . .

Anyway, he didn't see me, so it's quite all right. Nothing to worry about.'

It wasn't quite all right, and there was everything to worry about, thought Bastable desolately.

'Where's the child?'

'Under the trees, where we left her—with the chariot. Don't worry. When I last looked at her she was asleep too. Quiet worn out, poor little soul, I'd guess. So just don't worry.'

Wimpy's voice was relaxed and strangely distant. 'There's nothing to worry about.'

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'How's your ankle!'

'About the same.'

'You can't walk on it?'

'Uh-huh.' Distant, and quite unconcerned.

'You can't walk on it?'

'That's right.' Wimpy peered round the parapet again.

Not just unconcerned.