exhaustion which he himself had to fight against because there were Germans also in that darkness with him, and he dare not release himself from their presence.
And then—somewhere else in the limbo of night.
There was no fire here, only shielded lights. The fire in his memory was a recollection of a happier time— everything which happened was better than what was happening.
He stood in the darkness with the child in his arms, watching the lights move—flicker—go out—move—flicker . . . and the German voices, and the sounds . . . until one of the lights and the sounds came towards him.
The light flashed into his face. The child turned away from it and he buried his eyes into her hair, lifting her up to block it off.
'Laval—Gaston Laval?'
'Eessee! Laval—say mwa!' said Wimpy. 'Heil Hitler!'
Not less frightening. But there was simply a limit to fear, that was all.
dummy4
They stood beside the cart, at the side of a road, against a brick wall, in the darkness, to let the German Army pass by.
Bastable finally dared to lean against the wall, which seemed a daring action, but which was almost a necessity in the end, as his knees weakened and the petrol fumes filled his head and his lungs. And it was a little easier then.
Slowly, the shape on the other side of the road ceased to be a shape, and became a building; and then a house, with a shop underneath it; and then a shop with a sign above its front—
POMPES FUNEBRES EL___ — the last letters of the owner's or company's name were obscured by a queer metal-latticed pole at the edge of the pavement, and the vaguer shapes inside its windows provided him with no clue to its merchandise—it could be selling Paris fashions or sanitary-ware for all he could tell, and it would certainly benefit from a lick of brighter paint and a more enticing window-display of the sort that he had introduced to BASTABLE'S OF
EASTBOURNE—
'Laval! Gaston Laval!' snapped a voice.
The last part was the easiest of all—the most friendly—and the most frightening.
It was easy because they didn't even expect him to hoist the dummy4
cart into the back of the lorry—and because they helped him in after it—took the child out of his arms, and helped him in, and handed her up to him, too.
But then they tried to talk to him.
It wasn't night any more, it was grey half-light, and he looked desperately to Wimpy for support.
Wimpy tapped his temple meaningfully. 'Eel ay dum-kopff, miner hairen—dum-kopff!'
They looked at Blastable with added interest.
One of them leaned forward until his face was six inches from Bastable's, and pointed to himself. 'Oo-see, oo- see—
je . . . swee . . . dum-kopff!'
Everyone burst out laughing, including Wimpy. The joke was lost only on Bastable and the French child.
And apparently also on the speaker himself, who held Bastable's attention with poker-faced gravity for a moment, and then pointed at his comrades in turn. Too—too lay soldaten—dum-kopff!'
More laughter. The soldier pointed at Wimpy.
Bastable looked at Wimpy, and Wimpy stopped laughing.
'Der Foonfter Kolonner—' The soldier waved his finger negatively in front of Bastable's face '— nicht Dumkopff!' The finger pointed at Bastable 'Ay-byan—voos-
Even more laughter. They positively fell about—all except the poker-faced soldier, who made great play of disagreeing with dummy4
them and even of trying to restrain them, shaking his head and waving his hands extra vagantly before squaring up to Bastable again.
Bastable didn't know what to do. The best thing might well be to laugh, like everyone else. But his face wouldn't laugh for him, it was frozen stiff with fright.
'Voos—' The soldier reached out and tapped him on the chest.
'Voos—' The laughter died away and the rest of the audience suddenly became hideously attentive. 'Voos —'
The child in Bastable's arms gave an explosive sob and then burst into tears, burying her head in his shoulder.
The effect on the poker-faced soldier was instantaneous: the poker-face fragmented into anguished concern.
'Leebshun! Leebshun!' But the touch of his hand on her head only increased the weeping to wailing and the same convulsive clutching and burrowing that Bastable remembered from their first coming-together in the attic.
The sound filled the back of the lorry for a moment, against the background of the engine and the tyre-hum, and it was the most beautiful music he had ever heard: he opened his ears to it, and closed his eyes to concentrate on it, and hoped that it would go on for ever.
