The Hour of the Donkey

The soldier grounded his rifle hastily and pushed back the hand-cart, revealing the little old Frenchwoman, who had lain almost hidden among the fallen bundles on the far side of it.

The German soldier bent down and gathered her up into his arms, her head cradled in the crook of one arm, her legs hanging down limply from the other. As he lifted her, one of the carpet slippers dropped to the ground. He looked questioningly at his officer, who nodded towards Bastable.

The soldier marched stiffly round the cart and presented the tiny black-clad corpse to Bastable, extending her as though she was weightless.

Indeed, she was a mere featherweight. The child he had held in his arms a few minutes ago had more substance to her, so it seemed, though perhaps that had been an illusion created by the limpet-grip and the beating heart. Either way, he had dummy4

no experience on which to draw other comparisons, this was his first dead grandmother, just as little nameless Alice had been his first live baby. All he could think of was that, of all the experiences he had tried to imagine, and to steel himself against these last months, no wildest dream had prepared him for such realities.

'Ay be-an, m'sieur,' said the German officer, nodding again at him. 'Noos aliens parlay aveck votrer patron.'

Parlay?

Speak.

Bastable didn't want to speak.

He wanted the hand-cart.

He lowered the corpse of the old woman into the cart and swung the handles to point it towards the house, ignoring the Germans—

And stopped abruptly, as he saw that the German officer was already ahead of him, striding purposefully up the pathway towards the doorway, towards Wimpy.

XIV

Wimpy had acquired a hat from somewhere. When he had got it, Bastable had no idea; but now it was on Wimpy's head

—the old Frenchman's Sunday hat, something like an Anthony Eden homburg, but a French version of it from an earlier era, with different proportions of brim and crown.

dummy4

The trouble was, it suffered from the same defect as the suit itself: it was just one full size too big, so that it came down low on Wimpy's forehead and appeared, indeed, to be resting on his ears; and the net effect of the whole outfit turned Wimpy into a preposterous figure, out of a Charlie Chaplin two-reeler.

But Harry Bastable was a million miles away from the back stalls of the Tivoli Cinema and laughter, as the German officer advanced towards this travesty; half of him wanted to run away, but didn't know where to fun, and the other half wanted to help Wimpy, but didn't know how to do it.

Yet he had to do something, because he couldn't just stand there holding the cart with the old woman on it.

He had come for the cart, and he had got the cart. Only now he had also got the old woman, because that was what the German officer had assumed he had come for. So now he had to behave as the German officer would expect him to behave

—he had to behave as the man he was supposed to be would behave!

The decision was like a spark igniting him into action, releasing him from indecision. One moment the cart was stationary, the next it was almost running away with him: it lurched and bucked as its unsprung bicycle wheels rebounded off unseen obstacles. The old woman lost her second carpet-slipper, bouncing up and moving horribly as though she was alive again before settling finally among the bundles on which she lay. The German officer heard the dummy4

sound of the cart behind him just in time to jump out of its way, almost losing his balance in a clump of delphiniums.

'Onri! Onri!' cried Wimpy. 'Non! Non!'

Bastable pulled back at the cart's momentum, swinging it broadside in front of the doorway, almost tipping its contents at Wimpy's feet—he was aware simultaneously as he fought to hold the handles down that the child was struggling in Wimpy's arms on one side of him and the German officer was trampling down the delphiniums in an effort to keep his footing on the other, and that the old woman's black arm had swung out of the cart and was entangling itself in the spokes of the wheel.

For an instant everything was moving. Then everything stopped: the child, imprisoned in Wimpy's arms, the officer, steady in the flower-bed, and the cart stationary, dusty black arm and limp white hand, veined and mottled with old age, hanging down against the wheel.

He caught his breath and stared at Wimpy anxiously, beginning now to doubt the wisdom of his impetuous action.

He didn't know what he ought to do next, and—what was worse—he didn't know what Wimpy was going to do either, and it was too late to ask, with the German officer here beside them—which was worst of all.

'Onri, Onri,' murmured Wimpy, shaking his head.

'Onri' was what he had cried out before, but Bastable hadn't the faintest idea what the word meant in English.

dummy4

'M'sieur.' The German officer stepped out of the flowerbed on to the gravel path lifting his hand in salute.

'Onri—' Wimpy loosened one arm from the child and pointed towards the cart'—gabble-gabble-gabble madame gabble-gabble-gabble.'

Bastable regarded him with appalled incomprehension, sensing the German officer's scrutiny at the same time, and knowing only that the German understood what had been said to him, but that he did not. He lowered the cart handles to the ground gently, to avoid bringing the old woman to life again, and wiped his sweaty hands nervously