The Hour of the Donkey

'W—!' Wimpy staggered on one leg, reaching for the support of the wall. 'I say—steady on, old boy!' he protested.

Bastable shouldered the second door open without bothering to try the door-handle.

This was the kitchen.

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Pots and pans, a sink with a hand-pump for water, a great black range—there was still a fire smouldering in it.

They had left it too long, they had left it too long and too late, the old couple had! They had been too old to take the road—

too old and too foolish and too afraid—and too late. . .

Or... this had been all they had, everything they had in the world, and they hadn't wanted to leave it, couldn't bring themselves to leave it— the barometer and the hat-stand and the artificial fruit and the pots and pans—

And the British had gone, anyway.

And the Germans had come — God! Maybe they could remember another time, the old couple—maybe they had been here that other time, when the British hadn't gone, and the Germans hadn't come—but this time the British had gone, and the Germans had come, and they had been safe after all, because not even the Germans would bother about an old couple in their ugly little house on the edge of the village.

And then the British had come back and it had been too late.

God damn and blast it all to hell!

'The old boy's dead too, poor old bugger,' said Wimpy from the doorway behind him.

Bastable turned towards him.

'Is that a parcel of food on the table there?' Wimpy pointed with one hand. In the other hand, with the gold chain dripping down between his fingers, was the old man's watch.

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'And what's in that jug?'

'What are you doing with that watch?'

'It's still going—is that milk, by any chance?'

'What-are-you-doing-with-that-watch?'

'Don't shout, Harry—the Germans took my wrist-watch—we need a watch ... Is that milk?' Wimpy frowned at him. 'Don't be a fool. Harry— he doesn't need it. And we do.'

The blood stopped drumming in Bastable's head. He had been about to make a fool of himself by losing control, like the coward he was, while Wimpy was behaving like a soldier.

There was an untidy parcel on the green-and-white chequered oil-cloth which covered the kitchen table, and a tall white jug beside it—all in the inevitable litter of plaster.

He reached forward and picked up the jug. There was plaster also on the thick yellow cream, and a large black fly moving feebly in it, drowning slowly in the midst of plenty.

He stuck a dirty finger into the cream and flicked the fly out of the jug, and lifted the jug to his lips.

The milk under the cream and plaster was thin and sour, and marvellously, gloriously cool and refreshing as it ran down his sandpaper throat, and out of the corner of his mouth down his chin. He had never drunk anything so beautiful in his life, it was all the drinks he had ever drunk, on all the occasions when he had been thirsty, rolled into one blissful quenching.

'Hold on, old boy—leave some for me then,' said Wimpy dummy4

reproachfully, reaching across the corner of the table.

Bastable looked down into the jug, and found that he had drained two thirds of it already.

'Thanks—' Wimpy hopped round and grabbed the jug from him '—thanks a lot—' he tipped the jug against his face, the watch-chain swinging from one hand in a spatter of overflowing milk.

Well, fuck you too, old boy, thought Bastable unrepentantly, aware that he was still thirsty—and there was the pump at the sink, just waiting for him!

For the first dozen strokes the thing only squeaked and wheezed as he banged the handle up and down with increasing fury. Then he felt the pressure draw and pull against the plunger, and in the next instant a powerful stream of water splashed into the sink beside him.

He lowered his face into it, still pumping with one hand; this was better than the sour milk even—it went into his mouth and on to his cheeks and into his eyes and down his neck, slaking his thirst and washing away mud and sweat at the same time, making him alive and almost human again.

He was aware that Wimpy was waiting his turn, but Wimpy could bloody-well wait his turn, and that was that —he managed to get his neck under the jet, and felt the delicious coldness spread across his scalp, soaking in and saturating, and driving everything out of his head with the relief of it, even the awareness—just for a moment, the awareness —

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that the whole bloody world was full of dead people—dead Fusiliers—dead officers and dead men—and dead Mendips and dead Tynesiders, and dead Germans, and old women dead in the dusty road and old men dead in the chairs— dead fucking everyone, except him and Wimpy, who ought to have been dead ten times over, but weren't, but were alive—

alive—

In the end, he let Wimpy have his turn under the pump, starting him off and then fastening his hand on the pump-handle as he also spluttered and porpoised with relief under the deluge.

He was hungry now—dripping wet, and with his uniform still caked with mud—but too hungry to care about