The Hour of the Donkey

After that the door opened and shut again. But just as Bastable was about to breathe out a full shuddering lungful of relief the second voice started up again, only more conversationally, as deferential as the young officer's had been.

The third voice replied, and as Bastable caught his own name and Wimpy's he became conscious again of the fear that had been pulsing through him all the time. He could also feel the lanyard, which was screwed up into a sweaty ball in his right hand, which he had had no time to get rid of— the symbol of his pride in his regiment and in himself for being privileged to wear it, which had become the mark of Cain for every man dummy4

who wore it, the insignia of death in primrose-yellow and dove-grey.

The voices droned on and on, back and forth, until finally the door banged open again and heels clicked.

The bullying voice challenged the heel-clicker.

The heel-clicker spoke, and it was the young officer again, only now he wasn't scared, he was terrified.

For a second neither of the SS officers replied. In the stifling darkness under the blanket Bastable heard the pop-popping of the machine-gun once more, and because of the sudden silence in the room—and also presumably because the door was still open—it sounded much louder. And then, in the last fraction of that same second, he knew why the young officer was frightened, and also why the SS officers had been struck momentarily speechless, and even what was going to happen next, all these thoughts travelling through his brain with the speed of light to fill the slow-moving instant of silence with time to spare in which his own terror was transformed into panic.

The bullying voice roared out in exactly the tone of incredulous rage that he had expected—that he even recognized from his own experience of bullying senior officers, so that although every word was still unintelligble to him he knew their sum total down to the last syllable.

'What the bloody hell d'you mean—'they've gone'?'

He lost the rest in the tide of hopelessness which engulfed dummy4

him. They had vanished—they had passed through the main door into the field hospital, and their guards simply hadn't thought to follow them, and now they couldn't be found so the Germans would search for them more thoroughly, and in no time at all they would be found again without difficulty.

All they had to do was to look under the table—

The door banged and boots stamped and scraped metallically on the stone floor within inches of his ear.

Now they were going to be discovered. It was impossible that they could escape, it had always been impossible—he might just as well throw back the blanket himself, rather than wait to have it ripped off him, and surrender to the inevitable with dignity and courage . . . except that it wouldn't be dignity and courage, it would be in the fear and horror of death, shaking like the coward he was—he could feel his hands shaking at the very thought of it and his body turning to water in physical rejection of what was about to happen to it.

Oh God— he 'd wet himself! He could feel the uncontrollable spasm of the muscles in his penis as they relaxed, and the warm damp spread in his trousers as his bladder emptied itself, the warmth turning colder even as he tried unavailingly to stem the flood.

Oh, God— oh, God—oh, God—

Now he couldn't stand up even if he wanted to. If he stood up now they would see a great dark patch in his trousers, and they would know he had wet himself— the great dark hateful badge of shame—

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'Listen to me carefully—'

An English voice—? Bastable's senses reeled with the shock of it.

'I will ask you a question. You will answer it.'

Not an English voice: it was too perfect—each word was too distinct and complete in itself, not like the related parts of a whole sentence, but like carefully chosen samples picked deliberately from a rack in order to make a sale to a customer who didn't really know his own mind.

And he knew the voice, too—

'If you do not answer .. . correctly . . . truthfully ... I will have you taken out and shot—do you understand? Shot—do you understand that?

No answer.

'You do understand.'

Not a question, but a promise. And with such pure and careful English, without either accent or passion, it was impossible not to understand.

'Two of your soldiers entered this building— officers. You assisted them. One of them was wounded, the other was an officer of your medical . . . corps.'

Not questions, but facts, the words stated.

'Now ... and think correctly before you answer—remember that which I have told you . .. that if you do not answer . . .

truthfully . . . you will be shot. Yes?'

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Not a sound. But then, the question had not been asked yet.

'Where-are-those-officers?'

The cold feeling round Bastable's crutch spread upwards.

'I ask one more time. Where—'