The Hour of the Donkey

Towards the British Army.

That was a thought arousing pain, not fear.

It was painful because, wherever he was going (and at the moment that wasn't a matter of choice and decision), he was going away from the British Army—away from the certainty and comfort and safety of khaki uniforms and English voices . . . and that was a desolate pain beyond anything he had experienced, like the home- sickness of the first, lost night at boarding school multiplied by an infinitely greater loneliness which he felt now—

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He was aware of laughter again, and suddenly the pain was fear, because of the realization that there was no more any certainty and comfort and safety in France, even where there was khaki, even where there were English voices—

They were laughing at him, and at Wimpy in his ridiculous hat, with his legs dangling ridiculously over the front of the ridiculous orange-box cart.

But they were really not laughing at him at all: they were laughing because they were winning.

No. Damn it—no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no—

Yes. All those tanks, in the field.

All those bombers—those bloody bombers—and he hadn't even seen an RAF plane ... he hadn't even heard an RAF

plane, let alone seen one—all those bloody planes—

All those tanks, in the field—

The field—The farm— The Brigadier!

Bastable raised his eyes from the old Frenchman's black hat on Wimpy's head, which he had been staring fixedly at, and not seeing at all, and forced himself to look into the faces of his enemies.

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And saw only the Brigadier.

The damned, treacherous, false, murdering, Fifth Columnist, fucking- bastard-swine-shithouse Brigadier.

He had forgotten—

It seemed impossible that he should have forgotten, even for a second. He had forgotten, and then remembered, and then forgotten again, and then been reminded—reminded by Wimpy, too—and then forgotten again.

It seemed impossible, but it had happened.

But now it would never happen again. Even when he was thinking of other things it would be there, like a great hoarding erected inside his head advertising what he would never forget again—never, never, never.

Everything that had happened to him was because of that damned traitor— Traitor?

'I shall make allowances for the fact that you are a territorial officer, Major—'

(The crushed, bloody thing under the blanket: that was another thing to remember.)

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No German, German-born, could achieve that accent, that ultimate Englishness!

Traitor.

Everything that had happened to him, and to that crushed thing under the blanket, and to the PROs—every humiliation, every agony, every death—was because of that damned traitor.

Traitor, traitor, traitor, traitor—

He looked down again. The sound of the word inside his brain was superimposed on all the other sounds, just as the face had been superimposed on all those faces which were passing him. He could still hear all those sounds, and he had seen the faces—

Big, thrusting nose ... bushy eyebrows... fierce pale-blue staring eyes: the face of authority, staring him down even when it wasn't turned towards him—it had only been turned towards him once, for one surprised instant, in the farmyard

—

Traitor!

All those other faces... young faces and older faces; tired, incurious faces looking through him; eyes looking at him, dismaying him with their curiosity; pale faces and swarthy faces ... all different faces, with different expressions, but all the same face, all the faces of his enemies, all German faces.

But that face— that face was different from all them: that face dummy4

was the face of his enemy!

He was sweating.

Traitor!

He could feel the sweat swimming on his forehead, gathering and soaking up on the damp-greasy line of the Frenchman's cap across his brow, except at one place on the left where it escaped and ran down the side of his