He had run away in panic, abandoning Fusilier Evans to the enemy—
But no ... that wasn't quite fair. He had ordered Batty Evans dummy4
to follow him, and if Batty hadn't obeyed that order it was his look-out. They hadn't gone up the hill to fight the whole German Army —
The thought of the whole German Army started his legs moving again and stopped him thinking about anything else except the lie of the land ahead of him and behind him. It was mostly flat now, and from the position of the sun, he was moving more or less westwards—the refugee direction. But also the direction in which the German Army was advancing.
Of course, Wimpy would be making for the battalion, and Wimpy had the car, God willing . . . And also Wimpy was no fool, schoolmaster notwithstanding—in fact Wimpy had smelt danger when he had felt nothing, and had diagnosed a dose of incipient mumps, if not a bad case of windiness. And, by God, he knew what that last felt like now!
But not even Wimpy could take that Austin Seven past a German tank, and then it would be doubly his duty to get back to the battalion —
His head seemed to spin with the effort of thinking things out while steadily putting more distance between himself and the German Army.
There was something else that was his duty—there were probably lots of other things that were his duty. But getting back to the battalion was the first one, the most urgent one, and that meant bearing far more to the south than he was dummy4
going at present. So bear southwards, Bastable, damn your eyes!
And southwards might even be safer from those tanks, too ...
The main road, with the refugees on it, would give him his bearings, anyway. But the important thing was to keep moving steadily at the trot, preferably with something solid between himself— dead ground would do best, but any cover was better than none—between himself and all those Germans —
All those Germans didn't bear thinking about when one was running away from them. And, of course, that was why there had been no one along the route they had innocently and accidentally taken to get to Belleme. Because no one, positively no one, would wait about, milking cows or ploughing fields or preparing supper, right in the path of an army about to advance.
No civilians, that was —
No one, in fact, except the French Army whose job it was to stop the Germans.
But where was that army?
He settled down to another steady run, along the flank of a convenient fold in the ground, and could stop himself trying to think that one out as he ran.
There was still noise and smoke away ahead, to the left, in what must still be the direction of Belleme. But those Germans in the fields hadn't been heading-or-pointed-in that dummy4
direction, so they were obviously set to outflank or by-pass that hot-spot, with its regular Mendips and their anti-tank guns. So where were they heading for?
With a growing sense of military inadequacy, he began to realize that in so far as he had tried to imagine the Real War he had envisaged a war of trenches and barbed-wire, and great massed offensives—a war of lines and no-man's-land.
He was in in a no-man's-land now, of a sort. But there was nothing to see, just empty farmland.
A sudden roar blotted out nothing, and two German fighter planes, their black crosses plain to see, snarled low across the empty landscape ahead of him—so low that they seemed to skim below the skyline of the ridge. Bastable flung himself flat and hugged the bare earth, cursing his respirator and webbing pouches which prevented him from flattening himself absolutely against the ground as more planes roared directly over him. And more—and heavier ones, by the thunder of their engines, which concussed his eardrums. It seemed to him impossible that they wouldn't spot him, lying there on the open hillside.
But they wouldn't stop for one man, they would surely have other, much bigger and more important targets than Captain Bastable.
And they would probably think he was dead, anyway. He was lying as still as death.
Then they were gone, not as quickly as they had come, but dummy4
droning away more slowly... But gone: nevertheless—he felt he had almost willed them on towards wherever they were going.
Only now there was another noise—a far more frightening and terrible noise which he recognized from way back: the clank and screech and roar of metal tracks. And it was coming towards him, the noise.
God! He could lie there, where he was, then they too just might take him for dead, as the pilots had done, and leave him. Or they might simply roll over him to make sure, saving bullets—no trouble at all, just one more squashed Tommy.
Or he could rise up on his knees and raise his hands in surrender. And because he'd at least given them a good run for their money, if they were sportsmen they might just take him prisoner —
The noise of the tracks was very close now, very loud, almost on top of him.
It stopped beside him.
'Is the poor bugger dead?' said a rich West country voice.
'Naow! 'E's shammin'—I just seen 'im twitch. Get oop, mate!'
