CQMS
Gammidge, and Nigel Audley and young Chichester, and Dodsworth—
Suddenly he understood what Wimpy had been droning on interminably in his ear about.
He had seen the False Brigadier, in that split-second in the farmyard on the hill.
And, of course, the False Brigadier had seen him, too.
Had seen him—had remembered him—
But hadn't known who he was, of course; he had been just another face among the officers of the Prince Regent's Own South Downs Fusiliers—a nonentity until seen again for that split-second in the farmyard on the hill —
And then the face had had a name as well as a battalion, and a place in which to die.
He opened his eyes and found himself staring into those of the German soldier who was in the act of bending over him.
The German's gun wasn't pointing at him, but for a mad fraction of a second the gun didn't matter anyway, all that mattered was that his enemy was there within his reach. But as he started to move he discovered too late that he was imprisoned in the blanket which Wimpy had tacked around him, so that the movement degenerated into a wild convulsion before he could control it.
The German sprang back in panic, and Bastable's momentary insanity froze into fear as the gun swung towards him.
'Steady there—for Christ's sake!' exclaimed Wimpy in alarm.
'Nein! Nein!'
The German waved the gun menacingly at them, swinging it from one to the other, and barked an order which raised Wimpy's arms into the air like rockets.
'Nein! Nein!' he protested. 'Hauptmann sick—
damn it—verruckt—verruckt, bitte?'
'Eh?' The German regarded Bastable with a mixture of suspicion and apprehension.
'Verruckt.' Wimpy lowered one hand sufficiently to tap the dummy4
side of his head with one finger. 'Mad as a hatter—verruckt!'
The other guard, the more friendly of the two, murmured something in his comrade's ear, and received a growl and an unwilling nod in return.
'And crazy is right,' snapped Wimpy, lowering his hands cautiously. 'Lie back, Harry. They don't want to shoot us, but they will if they have to, so don't push them.'
Bastable lay back in his cocoon and stared miserably at the canvas hood above him. That was another black mark on his record: he could never have reached the German quickly enough, and even if he could have there was still the second one. He had acted without thinking, and all he had achieved was to put their guards on guard.
Wimpy was right again, as usual. Indeed, if he'd been on guard and a German prisoner had thrashed about like that right under his nose, he'd most likely have shot first in a blind panic and that would have been that. In fact, probably the only reason why that hadn't happened just now was because those men had been specifically ordered to deliver their prisoners to General Rommel's headquarters, and German soldiers were proverbially exact in carrying out their officers' commands to the letter. So once again he had been lucky as well as stupid.
But he couldn't continue to rely on his luck—he had to learn to
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Wimpy had put most of the pieces together for him.
From the moment he had seen the False Brigadier, the Battalion had been doomed.
They had chased him—or maybe they hadn't chased him at all, but had chased Wimpy by mistake and Wimpy had got away.
Only they had found Wimpy's field-glasses, with his name on them — that was the only way they could have learnt his initials.
And the False Brigadier had reasoned quite correctly that the only place Captain W. M. Willis could go was back to his battalion, the precise whereabouts of which—and the distinguishing mark of which—he already knew. So one quick radio message had directed the nearest German unit to Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts.
And that had been the SS unit, which had been given a bloody nose for its over-confidence.
After which, however, there had come the devastating Stuka attack, and then the Panzers, who had made no mistake about the job.
And then the SS unit—probably the same one, and in a vengeful mood—had set about finding Captain W. M.
Willis ... in their own way.
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