'Bon . . . chocolat—bon?' Their eyes were almost on the same level. Hers were huge and round and dark, looking at him and yet not looking at him—not properly focused on him.
Her hair was black, under a coating of dust and small fragments of plaster—blacker even than his own. It was unusual to see a child with such black hair . . . not that he had ever been in the habit of staring at children, or even noticing them. But that was the sort of hair which would shine like a raven's wing with proper brushing.
He was being stupid, offering her his chocolate at this distance, a yard beyond her reach. Even if she wanted it, she wasn't going to move.
But it would be a mistake to stand up, above her.
Why was he doing this?
It would be a mistake, therefore he must crawl that yard, through the wreckage of her grandmother's linen sheets, through the tangle of her grandmother's wedding dress—her mother's wedding dress?—which she would never wear in her turn.
Mustn't take his eyes off her, either.
He moved on knees and one hand, the other still extended towards her.
'Chocolat?'
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She was focusing on him, and the little clenched hands moved as the flat chest behind them inflated with a long fearful breath.
Poor little mite, thought Harry Bastable— poor little mite and poor Harry Bastable, both equally stretched beyond endurance!
The chocolate was disgusting—revolting—a dead man's possession; he flung it to one side with a twitch of his wrist and stretched out both arms to her, opening his hands to offer her the only thing he had that was his, the comfort of his own loneliness, his own confusion and fear.
She was in his arms.
'Good man!' said Wimpy. 'I knew you could do it, old boy.'
'What?' Bastable moved his head just enough to take Wimpy in, without disturbing the child more than was necessary.
'I said "I knew you could do it"—you've got a way with them, Harry—that's all. But now we must go.'
'What?'
'We must go—downstairs—on the double, too—'
'Why?'
'The fields are crawling with Jerries., old boy—tanks and infantry—crawling with the blighters . . . what we want is ...
something white to wave—' Wimpy bent down and picked up the remains of the torn linen sheet '— this'll do fine.'
'Why?' With the child hanging on to him so desperately, dummy4
Bastable was unwilling to move from the safety of the attic.
Wimpy tore savagely at the sheet. 'I told you—the Jerries are all around . . . and if they start searching the houses for our chaps before we can get outside, then I want to be ready for them, old boy. That's why!'
'But . . . won't we be safer here?'
'I wouldn't like to bet on it—here, take this strip—' Wimpy thrust a large square of sheet into ore of Bastable's hands '—
wave that as you go out—'
' Out?' The word squeaked.
'That's right—out. Now's the time to go through them, if there's ever going to be a time—before they've got themselves organized, don't you see?' Wimpy examined the piece of sheet he had torn for himself. 'If I could attach this to a stick or something . . . Now's the time: we'll just be civilians running away—with a bit of luck they won't bother about us, they must have seen thousands of civilians trying to beat it out of the line of fire. The sooner we get out of their way, the better—for them as well as us—don't you see?'
Bastable saw. But now, he also saw, things were different.
The little limpet which was attached to him made them different.
'But what about the child?'
'We take her with us—of course.' Wimpy frowned at him. 'It was your idea in the first place, Harry—and a bloody good idea, too, by God!'
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'My—idea?' Bastable stroked the little girl's back with his empty hand, feeling the back-bone through her dress, quietening the sobs to an irregular trembling.
'With the baby—our little Alice that was.' Wimpy peered down the trap-door opening. 'The child will take Alice's place, that's all.'
'What?'
'She's part of our disguise, don't you see?' Wimpy looked up at him. 'Come on.'
Bastable tightened his own hold on the limpet protectively.
'No, Willis. I won't have it! We can't risk her.'
'We won't be risking her. The Germans won't shoot a child.
They're not savages.'
'No, damn it!'
'She'll double our chances... They'll not look twice at two civilians with a child.' Wimpy shook his head in surprise.
'You took the baby, Harry—what's the difference taking the child?'
Bastable blinked at him. 'I ... I couldn't leave the baby—on the road . . . ' He trailed off, baulking at the truth.
'Then you can't leave her— here.' Wimpy gestured round the attic. 'What'll happen to her if our chaps counter-attack again? For God's sake, Harry—what'll happen if they don't counter-attack, come to that? Do you want to leave her behind?'
Whatever they did would be wrong. To stay here was out of dummy4
the question. But to take her with them ... or to leave her behind . . . each of those alternatives was equally monstrous, the way Wimpy had put them to him. If there had been no Germans outside he would surely have reversed his argument, but so long as there were Germans to be bamboozled the child wasn't an encumbrance—she was the best part of their disguise.
And Wimpy was right, of course—as always.
But that didn't make it right—
'Harry ...' Their eyes met, and Bastable understood that Wimpy already knew exactly what he was doing, and why he was doing it, and the price of the doing. 'Remember the Brigadier, Harry. We've still got a job to do—remember?'
Bastable remembered, and was ashamed and angry with himself.
He had forgotten again. He had been so busy saving his own skin, so preoccupied with his own fears, he had forgotten that the mischief the false Brigadier could do far outweighed this little life in his arms, however defenceless and innocent.
'I'll go first,' said Wimpy.
'No—' It was all academic, anyway. He couldn't stay here, and he couldn't prise the limpet loose.
'Yes.' Wimpy swivelled awkwardly beside the trap-door opening, and sank to his knees above the top step. 'I'll have to go down backwards ... my bloody ankle, and all that.'
Bastable watched him descend on hands and knees, towards dummy4
the curtain at the bottom of the steep stair, and was doubly ashamed.
He had always regarded Wimpy as a slightly ridiculous figure as well as an irritating blighter: the archetypal talkative, know-all schoolmaster, full of useless information and Latin tags, over-critical of his seniors and prone to lecturing his equals—equals like Harry Bastable, who had made their way in the real world of business and commerce where there was no captive audience of small boys to tyrannize over and punish ... a ridiculous figure, too clever by half but often not half clever enough, and never more ridiculous than now.
backing down a dusty stair on his hands and knees in ill-fitting black coat and pin-striped trousers and wing-collar.
But the better man, nonetheless: not only cleverer than Harry Bastable, but also braver and more resourceful and more resilient—quite simply better, and never more obviously better than now, in the old Frenchman's Sunday best, half-crippled but still leading the way, damn it!
'Okay, then!' Wimpy rose to one foot, steadying himself on the wall with one hand and clasping his white flag in the other, at the bottom of the stair. He looked up at Bastable.
'Now, Harry—give me a minute or two on the other side of the curtain . .. and if nobody starts shooting, then come on down and join the party—okay?'
Bastable watched him disappear through the curtains. The sound of gun-fire in the distance was as continuous as ever, but it was definitely in the distance, he noted with mixed dummy4