The Hour of the Donkey

as far as he could imagine—beyond his furthest imagining, because he had never seen so many vehicles at one time.

It wasn't possible that they could be there, his brain told him

—without his having heard them—without everyone knowing it—or someone knowing it —

— it wasn't possible—

The sun flashed again on the same metallic surface, on a tank far down the valley, and suddenly it was possible, and Bastable graduated from disbelief to belief, and from belief to absolute panic.

He turned to run, and saw what was behind him.

In the centre of the farmyard was the Humber staff car he dummy4

had seen that morning outside battalion headquarters. And he knew it was the same car because the same beak-nosed brigadier who had barked at them that morning was standing beside it.

He had found the Germans right enough.

Or, since he was talking to two of them, they had found him

—

As Bastable observed the tableau of the car and the Brigadier and the Germans talking to him in that split- second, one of the Germans raised his arm in the Hitler-salute he had seen in dozens of newsreels and photographs, and the Brigadier also raised his arm —

He had to rescue the Brigadier, it was his plain duty —The Webley came up automatically.

'Hands up!' shouted Harry Bastable. 'Brigadier—'

The three men turned towards him, thunderstruck. A German soldier in a steel helmet appeared from behind a farm cart, a rifle in his hands.

Bastable fired at the soldier in the helmet, and knew he'd missed even as he fired. And fired again, and missed again.

The German soldier worked the bolt of his rifle feverishly, and the two German officers started fumbling with their holsters. The Brigadier pointed at Bastable and shouted in German to the soldier with the rifle.

Bastable fled back down the cart track towards the road Batty Evans appeared in front of him, rifle at the ready, bayonet dummy4

fixed.

'Germans!' shouted Bastable. 'Run, Batty!'

Batty looked strangely at him, then threw his rifle up and fired it down the lane past him.

Bastable turned the corner. 'Run, Batty—follow me!' he shouted over his shoulder.

There was no time to run back down the road the way they had come. Bastable bounded up the side of the road-bank opposite him and threw himself over the top. The bank was considerably higher on the fieldside than the roadside because of the fall of the hillside, but fear made him as surefooted as a goat and he slid down it accurately on to both feet.

He heard another rifle-shot behind him, then more shots.

The field ahead of him was only a few yards wide at this point, owing to the zig-zag of the road, he supposed, and the next bank ahead of him was low enough to hurdle. Only after his feet left the ground did it occur to him that the drop on the other side into the road might be a painful one if the fall was as great as last time. But it wasn't the road into which he fell, but only another field, with another beautiful surefooted landing.

He was losing his sense of direction, but there was no time to worry about directions. Wimpy would have heard the shots, and Wimpy would know what they meant.

Not straight across the next field, then—that would only dummy4

invite a bullet between the shoulder-blades—he would double to his right, under cover of this bank and in the opposite direction from which he had originally come, so far as he could make out any direction any more —

There was a low gap in the field-bank ahead of him, and then

—like a crowning gift from God!—a thicket of small trees. He plunged over and into them, caught his foot on a tree-root, and fell sprawling. The fall half-winded him, and for a moment he lay gasping, waiting for sounds of pursuit—

gutteral German orders—or, worse still, the shrill squealing, clattering of the tanks.

There came the sound of another shot, but it was not very close to where he lay.

Hundreds of tanks—there were hundreds of tanks behind him!

He stuffed his revolver back into his holster—how he hadn't dropped it ... stupid! it was on its lanyard!—and started off again.

The sound of the shot he had just heard suddenly registered in his brain. Batty was no longer with him, it reminded him.

He leaned against a tree, to get his breath back.

He had left Fusilier Evans behind.

He had abandoned Fusilier Evans.