The Hour of the Donkey

Wimpy was a skilful rider: the Norton bumped and twisted and swerved, but it never faltered over its obstacle course.

Sergeant Hobday's driver in the carrier had been a skilful man, but that hadn't saved them —

Think of England —

Or, not of England, but his duty, which transcended survival, but survival was essential to it: he had to tell someone in dummy4

authority about the false Brigadier—that was his sole reason for existence.

The Norton negotiated the last scatter of debris; the fallen trees—Audley's trees—were ahead; Wimpy twisted the machine between two empty slit-trenches, out into the open field alongside the road, and opened up the throttle. 'Hold on!'

The wind whipped Bastable's face, sweeping away the smell of Wimpy's sweat and the faint medical smell—so faint that it might only be in his imagination—of Doc Saunders's battledress blouse, which mingled with it.

He held on for dear life. He couldn't look back, and he didn't want to look back, at that hated skyline—that ruined skyline, without its spire, without anything that he wanted to remember —

Alice?

The ugly woman with the bad teeth?

The Norton jumped and jolted his own teeth, so that he rolled his tongue back for fear of biting it, as they swept up on to the road again—he must hold on for dear life, because life was dear— surviving was dear—he had felt that already, because there had so far been his duty to survive—to pass on his message—and he hadn't yet had to make the choice between the one and the other, and he hoped he would never have to make that choice, because —

God! All he had to do now, at this moment, was to hold on dummy4

tight, and hope Wimpy knew what he was doing!

They were in the wood now, bumping over and round the fallen branches he remembered from their original approach to Colembert—and Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts was gone at last—out of sight, out of mind, all the guilt of it!

Never again—never again— he that outlives this day and comes safe home (he had learnt that line somewhere, or heard it somewhere, and it had stuck in his memory in readiness for this moment)— never again!

And if he looked back now it wouldn't be there, thank God!

Wimpy was slowing down, and he didn't want him to slow down. At this speed they were only two hours from the Channel ports—straight down the road for Boulogne, or Calais, or even Dunkirk, and then England—with only the German Army in the way —

Wimpy was slowing down.

He shouted meaningless words in Wimpy's ear, urging him on, but they coasted to a stop, nevertheless.

'What's the matter?' asked Bastable.

'Oak tree,' said Wimpy.

'Oak tree?'

'Batty's oak tree—poor old Batty's oak tree,' said Wimpy.

'Don't you remember?'

Bastable couldn't remember. The last memory of Batty was dummy4

that final burst of firing at his back, when he had run away and left Batty in the lurch, to hold off the whole German Army.

Wimpy pointed to the bare hillside above them. 'The crossroads are ahead—we've just passed Batty's oak tree. So we'd best have a look and see what there is on the main road at the top there, old boy—eh?'

Bastable had no choice but to dismount from the Norton, since that was plainly what Wimpy intended. He stared round him, but saw only the open, empty countryside, so bare of real hedges and trees, unlike his own Sussex landscape. For the first time—but with surprise that it was the first time—he saw it as an alien land, in which he was as much an invader as the Germans. It was not their country, but it was also not his either, and he didn't want to die in it.

Because if, in the next second of time, that same mushroom of smoke and flame enveloped him that had enveloped the young Mendips' subaltern in the carrier, then he would die and rot in foreign dirt, and be lost and forgotten for ever.

Wimpy was staring at him, yet seemed curiously reluctant to meet his eyes. There was something wrong with Wimpy.

'I'll go this time,' said Wimpy. 'My turn, eh?'

He didn't wait for Bastable to agree, he simply went, and Bastable watched him go without protest. At least he didn't have any premonitions about silver rivers and golden bridges this time; and they certainly weren't in that no-man's-land of his, between life and death, either.

dummy4

Nevertheless, there was something wrong with Wimpy. It had been apparent ever since he had returned from his reconnaissance of the lower part of Colembert: he hadn't been Wimpy at all, only a pale, forced copy with the stuffing knocked out of it. Even, he hadn't enthused over the Norton as he ought to have done—Wimpy of all people, whose obsession with motor-cycles was almost childish.

Bastable stared miserably at the big motor-cycle, and thought of Nigel Audley, and Sergeant Hobday of the