The Hour of the Donkey

locomotion from hands-and-knees to hands-and-bottom, sliding from tread to tread with his bandaged foot and ankle stuck out stiffly ahead of him and carrying small avalanches of fallen plaster along with him, the dust of it rising all around.

'Willis!'

It was too late. Even as he cried the name Wimpy reached the ground floor of the hall, grasped the newel-post, pulled himself upright and started to hop towards the open front door. Four desperate hops brought him within arm's length of the door; steadying himself on one jamb he began to wave the white square of linen frantically with his free hand.

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The die was cast, Wimpy had cast it, and there could be no going back to the attic now. This was still madness, but it was madness without choice—he had been conscripted into it and was part of it, and could only go forward with it.

He crunched hurriedly across the landing and on to the main stairs. At least they were less steep than the ones which led to the attic—

The attic! He had forgotten to hide their uniforms in the attic! Their battledress blouses, with their captains' pips plain to see, and their trousers and their gaiters— they were still lying there in the middle of the floor, for the first German to recognize—oh, God!

Panic swirled around him half-way down the stairs, starting the sweat all over him. It was too late— he couldn't go back now, he had to join Wimpy at the door— it was too late, but the first German into that attic . . Oh, God!

'Good man!' murmured Wimpy out of the corner of his mouth. 'Now—hold the child for them to see and wave the jolly old white flag so they can't mistake us.'

They?

Bastable's awful knowledge of his failure to hide the uniforms thumped simultaneously inside his head and in his chest as he stared out of the doorway.

They were there, unimaginably, in the road outside—in the very garden itself— men and vehicles, only a few yards away.

And in the attic above, also just a few yards away—

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'Wave it, old boy—wave it,' murmured Wimpy.

Bastable stared hypnotically at the Germans. 'We've got to get away,' he hissed.

Wimpy nodded, and continued to wave his white square.

'I mean right now!'

'Soon . . . soon,' murmured Wimpy reassuringly.

'Now!'

Wimpy didn't look at him. 'I-can't-walk-Harry...' his lips hardly moved as he spoke ' . .. we'll have-to-wait. . . to-get . . .

the-cart.'

Bastable focused on the hand-cart in the gateway, with its scatter of bundles and belongings. Not ten yards from it a large grey open car was parked in the track,with a group of German officers in and around it. A long file of soldiers was threading its way along the track, past the car. From behind him, coming from the open fields behind the house, he could hear the roar-and-squeal of tanks.

He was aware of being squeezed by two equal fears, each the more terrible for its inevitability.

They would come . . . and they would search the house, and they would find the battledress . . . which he had left, which he had left. And that would be the end of it, then.

That was inevitable. It would happen.

Therefore, because that was his fault—the end of it ...

therefore he had to get the cart first— now.

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That was also inevitable: he would make it inevitable because he would do it, because he had left himself no choice but to do it. Now—

'I'm-going-to-get-the-cart,' he whispered to Wimpy. 'You . . .

take-the-child.'

The little limpet held on to him like grim death, as he had known she would, tightening matchstick arms and legs convulsively round him and sobbing wordlessly s he prised them loose.

'Harry—' Wimpy began doubtfully.

' Take-her-damn-you!'

At last he was free of her. For a final instant he met Wimpy's eyes across her shoulder.

'Harry ... act stupid—dumb . .. and frightened, Harry—'

Bastable turned away, towards the garden and the enemy, lifting both arms above his shoulders, the square of white linen dangling from one hand.

His legs felt weak, yet stiff at the same time, and the sweat lay cold on his face. He could hear all the sounds around him, each one an individual sensation, but they were all meaningless: only what he could see ahead of him mattered.

The hand-cart was nearer.