The Hour of the Donkey

Wimpy had already stripped himself down to a filthy string vest, and was unbuttoning his trousers.

'What is it?' Wimpy frowned at him.

'I mean ... is this . . . wise?'

What did he mean? He searched in his confused thoughts for what he meant, that would make sense to Wimpy.

'If we're not in uniform they can shoot us, I mean.'

The frown became pitying. 'I rather thought that was their general idea anyway, old boy.' Wimpy transferred his attention to removing his collar studs from his shirt and attaching them to the civilian shirt. When he had completed that task he rummaged again in the trunk and finally produced a collar-box.

Bastable watched him with a growing sense of desperation.

In another moment it would be too late, he felt.

'Out of hand, I mean—Willis!'

'Eh?' Wimpy upended the box and selected a stiffly-starched wing-collar. 'Out of hand? Yes ... I haven't worn one of these dummy4

since Repton ... And one size too big, I'd guess—but better too big than too small. . . Yes, well that's what I meant too, Harry—out of hand or in hand, it amounts to the same thing now that we've done a bunk, I shouldn't wonder.' He looked up at Bastable. 'Frankly, old boy, I don't believe we've got a prayer together—in uniform. But out of uniform.. .as civilians

—as refugees—the Jerries don't give a damn for refugees, they're too busy winning the war . . . out of uniform, maybe we do have a chance still—that's what I mean.'

'But—I can't speak a word of French—'

'Then don't speak at all. Let me do the talking—I'll say you're dumb.' Wimpy gave him a calculating look. 'I'll say you're a half-wit too, if you like, old boy.'

That was too close to the bone, and Bastable had a shrewd idea that it was intended to be so. 'You think you can pass as a Frenchman, then?' He tried to infuse sarcasm into the question.

'Not among Frenchmen—no. But to a German, Harry—could you tell a French-speaking German from a French- speaking Frenchman? Because I'm damned if I could.' So saying, Wimpy pulled the civilian shirt over his head and plunged his arms into its sleeves, as though to leave unsaid but clearly stated that the matter was over, the conversation ended and the decision made.

Bastable eyed the faded work-clothes on his lap. Wimpy had set aside a smart black coat and pin-striped trousers for himself, which, with the wing-collar, was the universal dummy4

uniform of the bank manager and the senior civil servant—

which, taken all together, must have been the old man's very best suit for formal occasions, presumably—while leaving him, Harry Bastable, with the role of the dumb servant, the stupid peasant, the half-wit!

It was a damnable, downright offensive thing to do without consultation. But the bitter truth which he had to face, although it was nonetheless insulting for being true, was that if this was what they were going to do, then this was the way it had to be done: without one word of French he was no better than an idiot—he had learnt that already. And, what hurt even more, was that beneath that humilitation there was a dark suspicion about his own lack of sense and courage, which the last twenty-four hours had raised within him.

He closed his eyes and stripped off his battledress blouse and shirt—ripped them off, rather, spilling buttons and feeling the filthy sweaty material tear, hating what he was doing and what he was about to do with equal misery.

Harry Bastable was dying again: just another death to add to all those previous deaths he had submitted to, on the way to that one real, inevitable one, waiting for him somewhere ahead—

'That's better ... a bit big, maybe, but I can hitch them up as high as possible—not bad, though ... not bad at all—'

Wimpy was mumbling to himself in the background, against another background of the noises of war which were still all dummy4

around them, but which the pounding of his own head blotted out as he fumbled with the buckles of his gaiters and tore his mud-caked trousers down over his equally muddy boots.

Damn, damn and damn! Where Wimpy's borrowed clothes were too big, his were almost too small: one heavily-patched knee, the stout material thinned down by a thousand wash-days, stretched and split under the pressure, to reveal the dirty white leg beneath—damn! And the final buttons of the trousers were impossible, and even though the gap was covered by the tunic, which was mercifully designed for a looser fitting, there were three full inches of hairy wrist sticking out of the sleeves.

'Ooof!' Wimpy exclained. 'My-bloody-ankle!'

Bastable stopped looking at the travesty of a French working-man which was himself, and looked at Wimpy.

He knew, as he looked, that there had been one part of his mind which had been chattering in the background all the time while he had been stripping off his own uniform and cramming himself into the denim tunic and trousers . . .

which had been chattering all the time What will Willis look like? What will Willis look like? because this mad scheme depended on what Wimpy looked like, and because he knew in his heart that there was no chance, no possibility, that Wimpy in an ill-fitting black coat and pin-striped trousers and wing-collar could look anything other than . .. ridiculous and laughable and utterly impossible.

dummy4

And yet, it wasn't so—even standing there without his boots on, balancing himself on one leg in his stockinged feet, it wasn't so—