The German grinned at him and breathed a mixture of alcohol and garlic into his face. 'War over, Tommy!' said encouragingly. 'Goot—yes?'
Whatever it was, it wasn't goot, thought Bastable desperately. But he could feel the thought weakening him, dummy4
that he was still alive when so many others were dead, and that being alive was immeasurably better than being dead—
yet when he thought that he would be a total prisoner, and as good as dead, and that would add treason to cowardice.
"Thank you,' he said stiffly.
Wimpy scrambled in after him, and two German soldiers followed Wimpy. The tailboard clanged back into position.
Someone threw a blanket into the truck, into Wimpy's hands, and someone else shouted and banged the side with the time-honoured 'ready-to-go' signal.
The truck juddered forward and Bastable hit his head on the floor, and remembered Batty Evans in an agonizing flash of memory. 'Phew!' exclaimed Wimpy, hugging the blanket to his chest. 'A good German, that one, old boy!'
Bastable thought confusedly of the man who had helped him into the truck, then hit his head again as it lurchedc forward.
'A gentleman, in fact,' said Wimpy. 'I was right about him—
eh?'
Just in time, before the next bump, Bastable cushioned his head with his hand.
Wimpy nodded at him. 'Saved our lives anyway, old boy, I shouldn't wonder—or did his best to, anyway,' he said.
XI
Saved our lives—
dummy4
Saved our lives!
The truck bumped up and down on the road, and the floor bumped Harry Bastable's knuckles, and the shock of the bump transmitted itself to his aching head.
Saved our lives—saved our lives— saved our lives—
'I wonder what this General Rommel he's sending us to is like,' said Wimpy. 'I hope he's a gentleman too—have you ever heard of a Jerry general named Rommel, Harry?'
Bastable had never heard of a German general named Rommel, but then he couldn't recall the names of any German generals at all. Even those of whom he had heard, but couldn't now remember for the life of him, had all had
'von' in front of their names, anyway.
'No,' he said, carefully not shaking his head.
One of the German soldiers, who was cradling a lethal-looking little sub-machine-gun rather as Wimpy held his blanket, pricked up his ears.
'General Rommel?' The harsh G came out explosively.
Bastable stared fascinated at the sub-machine-gun It was a little weapon with a pistol-grip and a straight magazine sticking downwards from the firing chamber, quite unlike the big round drum on the Tommy-gun he had seen a few months before, which Major Tetley-Robinson had dismissed as a gangster's tool.
'General Rommel—ja!' said Wimpy. 'I mean ... that is to say, General Rommel—yes?'
dummy4
Bastable continued to study the sub-machine-gun. He remembered having agreed with Major Tetley-Robinson about the Tommy-gun, but in this German's hands—one on the pistol-grip and one grasping the slender magazine—it looked like a devastatingly effective close-quarter weapon, and he found himself coveting it and wondering why the British Army didn't have anything like it. Of course, the Bren and the Lee-Enfield and the Webley were the best weapons of their kind in the world, but . . .
He wondered whether the Germans had anything like the Boys anti-tank rifle, and hoped fervently that they did.
'General Rommel—' The German plunged into his own language enthusiastically.
Wimpy spread his hands, after having listened carefully.
'Nicht—nicht comprenez, old boy,' he lied apologetically.
The German soldier shrugged. 'General Rommel— goot,' he said, and made what looked like the sign of the cross at his throat with the hand which had grasped the magazine 'Pour le Merite—ja?'
Wimpy nodded. 'Pour le Merité—jolly good!' He leaned sideways towards Bastable. 'He says that General Rommel has got the Pour le Merité—that's the Jerry equivalent of the Victoria Cross, Harry old boy. So he can't be a bad type, what!'
Now it was the German's turn to nod again. 'Victoria Cross—
goot!' he agreed.
dummy4
Bastable felt that something was required of him, and for once what was required was perfectly obvious.
He lifted himself on to his elbows. 'General Gort— goot,' he told the German.
'General—Gort?' The German obviously knew no more about the Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force than Bastable did about General Rommel. And Bastable could have wept at his inability to tell the blighter how
"Tiger" Gort had led his Grenadiers through the Hindenburg Line in 1918, winning the medal they had given him three times over if half of what the history books said about him was true—that would put the Jerry in his place, by God, with his references to this General Rommel of his!
'General Gort—Victoria Cross,' he said as clearly as he knew how.
'General Gort—VCT Ah!—ah!' The German bobbed his head in sudden agreement. 'General Gort— gut, gut!' He turned towards his comrade and spouted a stream of German to him.
Wimpy bent over Bastable, spreading out the blanket as he did so.
Do be a good fellow and stop talking about the Fat Boy, and try to look as though you're dying, Harry,' he murmured conversationally.
'What d'you mean "the Fat Boy"?' said Bastable, outraged.
'That's what they call him—our esteemed and revered C-in-C
dummy4
—"Fat Boy",' said Wimpy. 'Didn't you know?'
'But—but he isn't fat—' Bastable moved from certainty to doubt in one bound as he tried and failed to recall General Gort's measurements from the newsreel and newspaper pictures which were the closest he had come to his commander '—is he?'
'Don't ask me, I don't know. But that's what they call him, according to Nigel Audley anyway.' Wimpy started to push him back ungently.
'But—'
'Forget about him. Lie back—' Wimpy increased the pressure on his chest and lowered his voice to a whisper '—lie back and be a casualty, for God's sake!'
Bastable surrendered to the urgency in the whisper rather than to the awful possibility that his tiger might be... portly.
It was probably only a nickname, anyway: lots of people had nicknames, and the names were not always accurate, as Wimpy's was—they were often deliberate reversals of the truth, like that which had been fastened on one of his own fusiliers, a six-foot-six beanpole of a man who answered more readily to 'Shorty' than to his own name. Indeed, nicknames could also be signs of affection and good fellowship among equals (unlike Wimpy's). In his own heart of hearts he had always hankered after one like that as a sign that his brother officers accepted him as one of them, and because he could then reassure himself that he was not a dull nonentity.
dummy4
'That's better,' continued Wimpy softly, pretending to busy himself with making his patient comfortable. 'I don't think either of these two fellows can understand English, but I'm not prepared to bet my life on it.'
Bastable looked up at him questioningly.
'We've got to get out of this quam celerrime—' Wimpy seized Bastable's wrist and went through the motions of taking his pulse'—because I do rather suspect we're in a damn tricky situation, Harry old boy. In fact, I'm bloody sure of it!'
'What?' Bastable floundered. 'But why—'
'Ssh! No need to shout.' Wimpy's lips hardly moved. 'Why d'you think our good Colonel shunted us off double-quick to this tame general of his? Who is by way of being an old friend-of-the-family, if I've understood our talkative guard's obscure German dialect aright... Can't you guess, old boy?'