The Hour of the Donkey

Bastable looked down at Alice. He could do nothing more for her, except to give her away to someone who could give her all the things she needed.

Damn and damnation! The sooner Alice was where she ought to be, the better for her and the better for him —he had other things to do than to think about babies. Much more important things.

'Come on, Harry,' said Wimpy. 'It'll be better for her. And we've got to get that message off, about that Fifth Columnist swine of yours in the red tabs—we've really got to get that off dummy4

double-quick, old man, before he does any more damage.'

Bastable was aware that he was bring quite ridiculous, mooning over a small, damp, rather smelly baby, when the fate of thousands of British soldiers, and French soldiers, and even the war itself, was in the balance.

Little Alice and Harry Bastable counted for nothing in that reckoning.

'I'm coming, I'm coming!' He stepped out smartly down the road, the rabbit's ear scuffing at his chin.

As the trees thinned, at the last corner of the road, where it curved into the long straight stretch at the end of which Major Audley's trees and his company had been waiting for the enemy, Wimpy cautioned him to halt.

Bastable crouched down carefully, so as not to disturb Alice, sinking on to one knee behind Wimpy.

'Place has taken a pounding,' said Wimpy over his shoulder.

'The church spire has gone—but I suppose that was only to be expected . . .' he reached back without taking his eyes off Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts. 'Give me my field-glasses, there's a good fellow.'

Even without Alice in his arms Bastable could not have granted that request.

'Wimpy ... ah ... I'm afraid I've lost them, old chap.'

Wimpy snapped his fingers. 'Field-glasses—quick!'

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'I haven't got them.'

Wimpy turned quickly. 'I'm sorry—I forgot about Alice.

Where are they, my field-glasses?'

Bastable closed his teeth. 'I've lost them. The strap broke when I was running away from the farm—I'm sorry.'

Wimpy frowned. 'Damn!' Then he shook his head. 'Damn—

those were good glasses! My Uncle Tom gave me those glasses—'

'I'm sorry,' said Bastable. 'The strap broke.'

'Damn!' Wimpy swore again, sharply. Then the expected PRO nonchalance-in-adversity reasserted itself. 'Oh, well —

misfortunes of war, I suppose. I don't expect I can ask the German Army if they've seen one pair of field- glasses marked

'W. M. Willis'—and I'm damned certain the British Army isn't going to reimburse me.'

This was the Unacceptable Willis the Schoolmaster. 'As soon as we get home,' said Bastable stiffly, 'I will personally replace your field-glasses, Willis.'

'Nonsense, old boy!' replied Wimpy. 'It's just . . .' He swivelled back to scan Colembert again. 'It's just, I can't see anybody moving there at this distance, that's all.'

Bastable moved up alongside him.

Colembert, what he could see of it, certainly had taken a pounding, that was no understatement. But he could only see the northern and highest fringe of the little town—or large village would have been an equally accurate description of it, dummy4

except that it had a mayor; it had developed on a loop in the stream between its deux ponts, and had only recently spread up the plain above its valley at this point, so there would never have been a lot of it to see from here. Yet . . . this had been the better part of the place, with the bigger houses of the more substantial citizens—a sort of Colembert equivalent of his own Meads at Eastbourne . . . and now he couldn't see any of them, as they had been, only piles of rubble and shattered roofs. Also, the spire of the church—it had been built further down the slope, but the spire had still appeared above the skyline on the northern side—that had gone too, as Wimpy had observed.

'This was the side where they attacked, of course,' said Wimpy. 'It obviously took the brunt of things—you'd expect that.'

Bastable narrowed his eyes. 'There are people moving there.'

'Your eyes must be better than mine! What sort of people?'

'Civilians.' Bastable pointed. 'Over there—alongside the bit of red roof.'

'I've got them. Yes—those are civilians, you're right. No field-grey there, thank the Lord!'

'No khaki, either.'

'No. But our chaps'll be in their slit-trenches, ready for the next attack. If the Germans were there they'd be walking about in the open now.'

'Hmm . ..' Bastable had the uneasy feeling that there was dummy4

something not right about the view. But it was Wimpy who had 'feelings' like this, and clearly he had none at the moment.