The Hour of the Donkey

Wimpy scrambled in after him, and two German soldiers followed Wimpy. The tailboard clanged back into position.

Someone threw a blanket into the truck, into Wimpy's hands, and someone else shouted and banged the side with the time-honoured 'ready-to-go' signal.

The truck juddered forward and Bastable hit his head on the floor, and remembered Batty Evans in an agonizing flash of memory. 'Phew!' exclaimed Wimpy, hugging the blanket to his chest. 'A good German, that one, old boy!'

Bastable thought confusedly of the man who had helped him into the truck, then hit his head again as it lurchedc forward.

'A gentleman, in fact,' said Wimpy. 'I was right about him—

eh?'

Just in time, before the next bump, Bastable cushioned his head with his hand.

Wimpy nodded at him. 'Saved our lives anyway, old boy, I shouldn't wonder—or did his best to, anyway,' he said.

XI

Saved our lives—

dummy4

Saved our lives!

The truck bumped up and down on the road, and the floor bumped Harry Bastable's knuckles, and the shock of the bump transmitted itself to his aching head.

Saved our lives—saved our lives— saved our lives—

'I wonder what this General Rommel he's sending us to is like,' said Wimpy. 'I hope he's a gentleman too—have you ever heard of a Jerry general named Rommel, Harry?'

Bastable had never heard of a German general named Rommel, but then he couldn't recall the names of any German generals at all. Even those of whom he had heard, but couldn't now remember for the life of him, had all had

'von' in front of their names, anyway.

'No,' he said, carefully not shaking his head.

One of the German soldiers, who was cradling a lethal-looking little sub-machine-gun rather as Wimpy held his blanket, pricked up his ears.

'General Rommel?' The harsh G came out explosively.

Bastable stared fascinated at the sub-machine-gun It was a little weapon with a pistol-grip and a straight magazine sticking downwards from the firing chamber, quite unlike the big round drum on the Tommy-gun he had seen a few months before, which Major Tetley-Robinson had dismissed as a gangster's tool.

'General Rommel—ja!' said Wimpy. 'I mean ... that is to say, General Rommel—yes?'

dummy4

Bastable continued to study the sub-machine-gun. He remembered having agreed with Major Tetley-Robinson about the Tommy-gun, but in this German's hands—one on the pistol-grip and one grasping the slender magazine— it looked like a devastatingly effective close-quarter weapon, and he found himself coveting it and wondering why the British Army didn't have anything like it. Of course, the Bren and the Lee-Enfield and the Webley were the best weapons of their kind in the world, but . . .

He wondered whether the Germans had anything like the Boys anti-tank rifle, and hoped fervently that they did.

'General Rommel—' The German plunged into his own language enthusiastically.

Wimpy spread his hands, after having listened carefully.

'Nicht—nicht comprenez, old boy,' he lied apologetically.

The German soldier shrugged. 'General Rommel— goot,' he said, and made what looked like the sign of the cross at his throat with the hand which had grasped the magazine 'Pour le Merite— ja?'

Wimpy nodded. 'Pour le Merite—jolly good!' He leaned sideways towards Bastable. 'He says that General Rommel has got the Pour le Merite—that's the Jerry equivalent of the Victoria Cross, Harry old boy. So he can't be a bad type, what!'

Now it was the German's turn to nod again. 'Victoria Cross—

goot!' he agreed.

dummy4

Bastable felt that something was required of him, and for once what was required was perfectly obvious.

He lifted himself on to his elbows. 'General Gort— goot,' he told the German.

'General—Gort?' The German obviously knew no more about the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force than Bastable did about General Rommel. And Bastable could have wept at his inability to tell the blighter how

'Tiger' Gort had led his Grenadiers through the Hindenburg Line in 1918, winning the medal they had given him three times over if half of what the history books said about him was true—that would put the Jerry in his place, by God, with his references to this General Rommel of his!

'General Gort—Victoria Cross,' he said as clearly as he knew how.

'General Gort—VCT Ah!—ah!' The German bobbed his head in sudden agreement. 'General Gort— gut, gut!' He turned towards his comrade and spouted a stream of German to him.