The torch came towards them.
'Franzozisch—Frong-say?'
'Oui. May-ma-gron-mare-est-dalsass—El-sar-ssich, ja?'
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And Wimpy was even enlisting his Alsatian grandmother to serve with his bit of paper and his bloody cheek . . .
The beam of light played over them nervously. 'Voz papiez, m'sieur?'
'Non. Nicht owsschwhyce—' Wimpy produced—produced with a decisive flourish—the magic piece of bloody bumf on which their lives depended, from which all his great lies were stretched.
The torch illuminated the crumpled piece of paper, and Bastable strained his eyes to make out the rank of the torch-bearer.
Please God—not an officer . . . but not a complete fool, please God! Someone in between . .. say, an NCO with a little imagination, but not too much. Say, just enough to see how useful a Fifth Columnist could be to an advancing army—that had been Wimpy's reasoning.
The torch-bearer was making heavy weather of the paper—he was summoning assistance out of the darkness. Assistance also studied the note. And Assistance also had a map.
'Colembert,' said Wimpy. 'Entre Sit Omer et Boulogne.'
'Ja—ja...' said Assistance, midway between irritation and doubt. 'Colembert—ja!'
There was something wrong, and it could be any one of a hundred reactions—
1. A vital mission? Pushing a cart, with a child and the village idiot—in the middle of nowhere? You must be joking!
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2 All the way to Colembert? Do me a favour—The bloody British are still there!
3. Piss off, you bloody Frog! Or even—
4. You don't sound like a Frog to me—you sound more like Captain Willis, of the Prince Regent's Own. And there's a
'Dead or Alive' SS warrant out on him, I seem to remember
—
Wimpy spoke, and he was answering Number 2, by the sound of it: Take us as far as the St Pol crossroads, and we'll get another lift there (just so we get as far as possible from Arras and Number 4, Kameraden!).
'Ja . .. ja . . .' More doubt than irritation now: Assistance manoeuvred the map and the torch-bearer's light alongside Wimpy and embarked on what sounded—God! What actually sounded!—like a hesitant question ... in a mixture of German and French.
'Oui—oui!' Wimpy nodded, and bent over the map. 'Ici—' he pointed to the map '— nous sommes ici—la!'
'Ah—ach ssso!' exclaimed Assistance gratefully. 'Gut! Bon!
Bon!'
The Germans had been lost—hopelessly lost in a darkened France! Lost—just as the Prince Regent's Own had been hopelessly and fatally lost three days before!
'St Pol?' said Wimpy. 'Le carrefour de St Pol?'
'Ja, ja—der Karrefour de St Pol—komm—'
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It had been easier, after that.
It hadn't been less frightening— it had never been less than altogether terrifying for Bastable, even after they had shared one of their bottles of wine with the crew of the lorry, whose relief at discovering their whereabouts was so great that they had shared one of their bottles in return (and they at least had a corkscrew!), which had added to the wine he had already consumed beside the road, in that other middle of nowhere (after having smashed off the top, very unskilfully, with a stone at the roadside); which had added an insufficient measure of dutch courage to his overmastering English cowardice.
Even, although they had almost ignored him—Wimpy had explained that he was short on wits, and even shorter on words, and one of them had patted his shoulder ('Doitsches soldarten—Doitsches soldarten ammee!')— even when they had made much of the child, like family men far from home; very ordinary men—men like his own dead fusiliers—
ordinary men who would have killed him a few hours before, and might still kill him, if things went wrong.
No, it had never been less frightening.
It had even been more frightening, in the first place where they had stopped, where there had been a great fire burning, illuminating faces and uniforms and vehicles.
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But it had been easier—
It had been easier because Assistance had assisted them to another vehicle—speaking to another Assister, explaining how they had helped him find his way in the darkness, giving substance to their lies—
. . . permitted and assisted . . .
— even putting Wimpy's case to a harassed German MTO in the firelight—
'General Rommel—'
'Le Gaynayral Rommel—'
There were French firemen fighting the fire—in polished brass helmets which flickered red-gold on their heads!
'Kolembert—ja!'
A German soldier actually helped him to transfer the cart from one lorry to another, snapping instructions at him, while Wimpy stood beside the tailboard, holding the child close to him, supporting himself on her shoulder.
'Kolembert— nine! Frooges—Frooges?'
'Frooges?' said Wimpy eagerly. 'Frooges—oui!'
Easier. But not less frightening.
For the second leg of their journey had been in silence, and dummy4
in bumping darkness, with the child wedged in his arms and the sharp edges of things gouging into him—the child shivering at first, cold as death, and then so still and silent that he had shifted himself deliberately once to make her stir to reassure himself that it wasn't a small, cold death he was cradling in his arms, but only the sleep of exhaustion which he himself had to fight against because there were Germans also in that darkness with him, and he dare not release himself from their presence.
And then—somewhere else in the limbo of night.
There was no fire here, only shielded lights. The fire in his memory was a recollection of a happier time—everything which happened was better than what was happening.
He stood in the darkness with the child in his arms, watching the lights move—flicker—go out—move—flicker . . . and the German voices, and the sounds . . . until one of the lights and the sounds came towards him.
The light flashed into his face. The child turned away from it and he buried his eyes into her hair, lifting her up to block it off.
'Laval—Gaston Laval?'
'Eessee! Laval—say mwa!' said Wimpy. 'Heil Hitler!'
Not less frightening. But there was simply a limit to fear, that was all.
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They stood beside the cart, at the side of a road, against a brick wall, in the darkness, to let the German Army pass by.
Bastable finally dared to lean against the wall, which seemed a daring action, but which was almost a necessity in the end, as his knees weakened and the petrol fumes filled his head and his lungs. And it was a little easier then.
Slowly, the shape on the other side of the road ceased to be a shape, and became a building; and then a house, with a shop underneath it; and then a shop with a sign above its front—
POMPES FUNEBRES EL___ — the last letters of the owner's or company's name were obscured by a queer metal-latticed pole at the edge of the pavement, and the vaguer shapes inside its windows provided him with no clue to its merchandise—it could be selling Paris fashions or sanitary-ware for all he could tell, and it would certainly benefit from a lick of brighter paint and a more enticing window-display of the sort that he had introduced to BASTABLE'S OF
EASTBOURNE—
'Laval! Gaston Laval!' snapped a voice.
The last part was the easiest of all—the most friendly—and the most frightening.
It was easy because they didn't even expect him to hoist the dummy4
cart into the back of the lorry—and because they helped him in after it—took the child out of his arms, and helped him in, and handed her up to him, too.