The Hour of the Donkey

For a second or two he could hear only the sound of air flooding into him. Then there was the endless intermittent pop-pop-pop, pause, pop-pop-pop, far and near, which was so much part of his existence now that he couldn't tell whethei it was inside his head, an echo louder than the reality, or on Vimy Ridge—

Vimy Ridge! On Vimy Ridge—

Arras —

Bastable sat up, jerked into life by Arras.

The garden was empty again, except for the rows of British dead.

Life and determination flared up in him— he was alive and free again, against all the impossible odds— he didn't know why, but he didn't care— Harry Bastable was alive, and that was all that mattered!

He leapt to his feet and swung towards the door—

Wimpy?

But Wimpy could only hobble. Wimpy would hold him back, damn it! Without Wimpy he could run like the wind —to Arras

—

'Harry—wait for me!'

Damn! The door was open, inviting him through it. And the dummy4

field beyond, at second glance, was much more promising than his original glimpse of it had suggested: there was a farm cart parked in the middle of it, and the thick grass—or maybe it was young corn of some sort— hid the wheels up to their axles. A dozen yards into that, and a man could drop down and be invisible, and crawl to his heart's content!

All the man had to do was get there.

'Harry!' Wimpy appealed again from behind him. 'Wait for me, Harry!'

Damn the bloody man! thought Bastable savagely. He'd said when we get the chance, it's every man for himself, but now, when the chance was here, it was Harry, wait for me, damn it!

He cast a last despairing look at the field, and then turned back to Wimpy.

'Come on, then,' he said brusquely, offering his hand.

Wimpy caught the outstretched hand in a fierce grip, his face screwed up with pain. 'Thanks, old boy—but listen—did you hear them back there? Did you understand what they said?'

'Who said—where?' Bastable slid his hand round Wimpy's back, under his arm, to support him. 'Come on —'

'Back there—in the house,' Wimpy cut him off urgently.

'About the Brigadier—did you understand?'

Bastable understood only that Wimpy was talking when he should have been hopping, and nothing else mattered.

'Come on!' he snapped, propelling Wimpy forward through dummy4

the doorway.

'No, listen— aargh!' Whatever Wimpy wanted to say about the Brigadier was lost in the pain of his damaged ankle, which collapsed under him as Bastable dragged him out into the dusty road.

But now Bastable was merciless: pity for Wimpy's aches and pains was blotted out by the sound which shrieked at him from the far end of the track, to his left—the powerful engine-roar and the unmistakable squeal- and-clatter of a tank.

He wanted to drop Wimpy and run, but Wimpy's arm was wound round him too tightly, and at the same time his own panic infected Wimpy, so that they rolled drunkenly against each other in the middle of the track, cursing incoherently at each other, like the losers in a three-legged race.

And they had lost the race—oh, God! they had tost the race—

It wasn't a tank—Bastable was transfixed by the sight of it—it was a weird half-tank, the like of which he had never seen before, with wheels at the front, and tracks at the back, and Germans on the top—

He urged Wimpy forward, knowing that it was hopeless, and they were finished. And doubly, finally finished: there were tanks—real tanks—issuing out of the trees on the far side of the field directly ahead of them, dust and debris rising from their tracks as they jerked and swivelled on to a diagonal course across the field to cut off their escape. The shallow dummy4

ditch by the roadside, on the edge of the field, was at his feet, but it might as well have been a thousand miles away, on the other side of the Channel, in another world lost for ever now.

Wimpy had been right—

He let go of Wimpy, no longer conscious of his weight, as the leading tank halted abruptly a few yards from the abandoned farm cart. Its gun began to traverse towards him.

Wimpy had known from the start, instinctively: they had been dead from the start, back in the little wood beside DPT

912, but they had been a long time dying, that was all. How didn't matter, only when. And when was now, and that was the end of it at last.