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Synopsis
24 May 1940: Why did Hitler stop the Panzers and allow the British Army to escape to Dunkirk? Anthony Price provides an answer in this brilliant, compulsively listenable thriller of two young officers pitchforked into the chaos of war. The German advance strands them behind enemy lines, where they witness an extraordinary scene: a high-ranking British officer consorting with Nazis. The possible explanations are shattering, not only for them but for the fate of the whole British Expeditionary Force.
Release date: September 6, 2012
Publisher: Audible Studios
Print pages: 400
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The Hour of the Donkey
Anthony Price
PROLOGUE
Saturday, 10 May 1940, to Tuesday, 20 May
‘On the morning of Saturday, 10 May 1940, at 5.35, the German Army invaded the Low Countries, ending the “Phoney War” which had lasted in Western Europe since
the outbreak of hostilities the previous September.
‘Holland was overwhelmed before any help could reach her, but as in 1914, the Allies advanced hurriedly into Belgium, the French 1st Army and the British Expeditionary Force coming up
alongside the Belgian Army on the line of the River Dyle in an attempt to protect Antwerp and Brussels.
‘In fact, nothing could have suited the Germans better, for it was to the south, into France herself, that their decisive thrust was aimed. Having negotiated the supposedly impassable
terrain of the Ardennes they burst like a thunderbolt on to the banks of the River Meuse in the region of Sedan on 13 May. Without waiting to concentrate their forces (as military prudence
dictated), they at once launched a daring assault on the French defences across the river; and, having smashed through those defences, they then departed further from the rules with an act of even
greater daring: instead of securing their breakthrough by attacking the broken flanks of the French line their armoured forces drove straight forward into France on a narrow front.
‘Just as treason never profits because when it does so it ceases to be treason, so what seemed like military foolhardiness was transformed by success into military genius: the eruption of Hannibal’s elephants out of the snowbound Alpine passes on to the plains of Northern Italy was scarcely a greater shock than the appearance of German tanks in the open
country of Northern France. Preceded by the screaming dive-bombers which acted as their artillery – and also by equally unnerving rumours of their numbers and invincibility – these
tanks now advanced with astonishing rapidity. While the cream of the Anglo-French armies were still closely engaged deep in Belgium, the German armoured divisions to the south did not so much drive
back the French frontier defenders as simply leave them behind.
‘Nor, to complete the surprise, did the Germans then seek either to threaten Paris or to swing eastwards to take the great defensive works of the Maginot Line in the rear. Herding
thousands of panic-stricken refugees ahead of them to choke the roads and further demoralize Allied counsels, they swept irresistibly westwards, towards the English Channel.
‘By the morning of Tuesday, 20 May, their exact whereabouts were unknown to the Allied commanders. In fact they had already – and incredibly – passed the line of the Canal du
Nord, between Cambrai and Peronne. All that lay between them and the sea, some sixty miles distant, was a rolling peaceful countryside which, although strongly garrisoned by the dead of the
1914–18 War, was now only weakly held by the living soldiers of a handful of unprepared and unsuspecting British lines-of-communication units.’
– from The Dunkirk Miracle, by Sir Frederick Clinton
(Gollancz, 1959)
‘Mad,’ murmured Captain Willis at the Adjutant’s departing back. ‘Quite mad.’
Everyone at the breakfast table pretended to take no notice, except Captain Henry Bastable, who disliked Captain Willis almost as much as he did Hitler.
‘Quite mad.’ Now that the Adjutant was out of earshot Willis spoke louder. ‘Probably certifiably mad, too.’
One day, when the war had been won and the washing hung on the Siegfried Line, and the Prince Regent’s Own South Downs Fusiliers returned to its proper and more agreeable amateur status,
there was going to be a new breakfast rule at the annual Territorial Army camp, Bastable vowed silently to himself: to the existing Officers will not talk shop, it would add and at
breakfast officers will not talk at all.
‘Mad as a bloody hatter’, said Willis, more loudly still.
It was wrong to hope that Willis would be the first PRO battle casualty of the Second World War. And anyway, Willis would probably bear a charmed life, he was that sort of person. So that new
rule would be needed to shut him up. But in the meanwhile, the best Bastable could do was to glower at him over his crumpled copy of The Times, and grunt disapprovingly in the hope
that Major Tetley-Robinson would notice, and take the appropriate action.
‘Drill!’ exclaimed Willis, in a voice no one could pretend to fail to hear.
‘Eh?’ Major Tetley-Robinson looked up for a moment from the piece of bread which he had been examining, but then looked down again at it. ‘You know, we’ll never get
decent toast from this stuff, the composition’s all wrong. We’ll have to find a way of baking our own.’
‘I said “drill”,’ said Willis clearly. ‘“Drill”.’
‘Eh?’ Major Tetley-Robinson looked up again, but this time at Lieutenant Davidson. ‘No more of this damn Froggie stuff, Dickie – I won’t have it! It’s all
crust and air, and you can’t make toast out of crust and air.’ He switched the look to Willis at last. ‘Talking shop, Wimpy? Or did I mishear you, eh?’
Bastable was disappointed to observe that Tetley-Robinson was trying to let Willis off. Normally the Major could be relied on to savage Willis at every opportunity, his dislike of the man dating
from the discovery that Willis’s fluent French stemmed from the possession of a French grandmother, and from Alsace moreover, which was dangerously close to the German frontier. ‘Fellow
doesn’t look like an Alsatian – more like a cross between a greyhound and a rat,’ the Major had observed sotto voce on receiving this intelligence. ‘Probably
runs like a greyhound too.’
But now the prospect of action appeared to have mellowed this enmity, for the Major was regarding Wimpy with an expression bordering on tolerance.
Willis returned the look obstinately. ‘No, I said “drill”. My company – ’
‘I heard.’ The Major lifted his chin and looked down his nose at Willis. ‘Shop – and you know the rule.’ He leaned back in his chair and half-turned towards the
mess waiter without taking his eyes off Willis. ‘Higgins – fetch Captain Willis’s steel helmet.’
Willis licked his lips. ‘My company – ’
‘Not until you’re wearing your steel helmet, if you please, Wimpy,’ snapped the Major. ‘Then you can talk as much as you like, if you can find anyone to listen to
you . . .’ He pointed down the table. ‘Pass me the marmalade, will you, Barstable?’
Bastable’s blossoming joy turned instantly into dismay. The pot of Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade in front of him was his own, his very own, his private pot and his only pot – and
possibly the only pot in the whole British Expeditionary Force, if not the only pot in France. And also a bitter-sweet reminder of his mother, who had given it to him.
But Major Tetley-Robinson outranked Mother in this company, and Bastable watched helplessly as the Major spooned out a huge dollop of Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade on to his plate, and
proceeded to consume it in the proportion of three parts of marmalade to one of French bread.
Fusilier Higgins reappeared with the steel helmet, which he offered rather apologetically to Captain Willis. But to Bastable’s surprise, rather than bow to the pressure of the mess rule,
Willis put it on his head and returned to the fray.
‘Drill – ’ he began.
‘Hah!’ Tetley-Robinson assumed an enquiring expression. ‘Very well then, Wimpy . . . since you choose to attire yourself so strangely at table . . .
“drill”?’
Willis set his jaw. ‘My company – what there is of it – is under orders to drill this morning, Charlie – ’ the use of the christian name was permitted, but it
always made the Major wince when Willis used it, ‘ – orders from the CO, relayed by the Adjutant just now, Charlie!’
‘So I gathered.’
‘It’s bloody mad – drill, Charlie!’
‘Nothing wrong with drill, my dear chap. When you can fight as well as the Guards, then you can stop drilling, I always say – and your fellows have become a shower, an absolute
shower. Worse than Barstable’s there, even.’ Major Tetley-Robinson nodded at Bastable, noticed the marmalade pot again, and helped himself to another spoonful. ‘Apart from
which, drill used to be a PRO speciality – we’ve always drilled like regulars, not Territorials. And . . . if you ask me, that’s why we’ve been sent out here, to France,
when other chaps are still kicking their heels in Blighty. Because a smart soldier is a good soldier – ’
Bastable raised his copy of The Times quickly to cut off the view. It wasn’t that he disagreed with the Major, but he couldn’t bear to see the Major finish his marmalade.
‘ – team-work, self-confidence . . . not having to think, because one already knows – ’
Bastable tried to concentrate on his Times. It was nearly a week old, and he had already been through it twice, from cover to cover, so now he was rationing himself to one column per
breakfast, nodding or shaking his head in exactly the same places and greeting remembered names like old friends.
‘ – and although most Territorial units are downright slovenly, we’ve always been different – ’
Major Tetley-Robinson was moving inexorably into the History and Traditions of the Regiment of which he was the acknowledged custodian.
‘ – we do not bear the royal honour of “The Prince Regent’s Own” for nothing – ’
He was coming to the famous parade of 1811, when the Regent had reviewed the new regiment in the skin-tight uniforms of his own design – red coats with primrose-yellow facings and
dove-grey pantaloons, snowy pipe-clay and glittering brass and leather; the only pity was that the Prince had subsequently taken his custom to Brighton, which was a rather vulgar town, in
preference to Captain Bastable’s own native Eastbourne; but, to its credit, the regiment had done its best to correct that aberration in later years.
‘ – this lanyard, which every man wears as of right as a PRO – ’ the primrose-yellow-and-dove-grey lanyard always formed the peroration of the Major’s pep talk
‘ – is the symbol of his pride in his regiment and in himself for being privileged to belong to it. Which, as an officer of the regiment, you ought to know, Wimpy, by God!’
‘But I do know that, Charlie,’ protested Captain Willis wearily. ‘Prinnie granted it to us on account of the exceptionally stylish cut of our uniforms – it wasn’t a
battle honour, it was a fashion honour, for heaven’s sake.’
Tetley-Robinson raised an admonitory finger. ‘But we wore that lanyard at the Somme, man – and at Gommecourt and Ginchy and the Transloy Ridges . . . aye, and on the Scarpe and
Tadpole Copse and Picardy and the Sambre! By God, man! Where’s your sense of history?’
‘Yes, I do know – ’ Captain Willis still seemed set on holding his indefensible salient, ‘ – but – ’
‘And they tried to take it away from us, too . . . Said it identified us – Huh! “So much the better!” says the Colonel. “Let the Hun know what he’s in
for!” Wrote to the Colonel-in-Chief, and he wrote to the King, who happened to be a relative of his in a manner of speaking. So that was the last we heard of that –
after we returned their damn bit of paper marked “Kindly refer all future correspondence on this subject to His Majesty the King-Emperor” – that settled their little
hash.’
‘Yes, Charlie, I know – ’
‘So this lanyard means that we’re different, Wimpy – and don’t you ever forget it.’
‘I won’t, Charlie – I promise you faithfully that I won’t.’ Captain Willis drew a deep breath and looked up and down the table presumably in the hope of finding a
little moral support somewhere, and found none. ‘But, you know, in a way that is precisely the point I am trying to make. I mean . . . drill . . . at a time like this. That’s not just
different, that’s a clear case of deus quos vult perdere, dementat prius.’
‘What’s that?’ At the furthest end of the table Major Audley roused himself from the copy of The Field in which he had hitherto been buried. Of all the officers in the
regiment, Major Audley was usually the most elegantly silent. At the same time, nevertheless, he had established a reputation for possessing vast knowledge, both military and general, of the sort
which could only be acquired by a perfect balance of practical experience, expensive education and natural-born intelligence.
‘I said deus quos – ’ began Captain Willis.
‘Heard you. Euripides, Joshua Barnes’s translation is the best one.’
It didn’t surprise Captain Bastable that Major Audley could instantly identify Captain Willis’s Latin quotation, which his own eight agonized years of Latin had left him incapable of
translating. Indeed, it surprised him less than the quotation itself, though as a former schoolmaster Captain Willis was full of quotations, and as he had been a classics master, most of them were
in Latin or Greek, and all of them might just as well have been in Swahili for any sense Captain Bastable could make of them. (It was an added coincidence, and the only virtue he had yet found in
Willis, that the man had numbered Major Audley’s only son amongst his pupils, and had spoken glowingly of the boy’s intellectual capacity; but that had merely confirmed Captain
Bastable’s views on heredity – like father, like son, was the natural order of things; he himself, and the success and prosperity of Bastable’s of Eastbourne, was proof of
that.)
Major Audley squinted down the breakfast table. ‘That pot . . . Cooper’s?’ he enquired.
‘It is,’ said Major Tetley-Robinson obsequiously. ‘Help yourself, Nigel. Here, Barstable – push it on down. There’s still a good scraping in it, round the
sides.’
Major Audley scrutinized the faces round the table. ‘Whose pot?’ he enquired.
Bastable examined the crumbs of bread on his plate. It was certainly true that the mess cook’s attempts to turn French bread into toast had been disastrous. But the bread itself, although
strange and foreign, was quite tasty when untoasted. It seemed to him (although he knew he would never dare advance such a suggestion in public) that it was a mistake to attempt to convert French
food into English food: when in Rome – even though the thought smacked of Captain Willis – it would be more sensible to eat as the Romans did. Or in this case the French, deplorable
people though they were in most other respects.
‘Yours, Bastable?’ asked Major Audley.
Bastable blushed to the roots of his hair: he could literally feel the blush suffuse his face. But he forced himself to look Major Audley in the eye because he did not wish the Major to think
him a coward. ‘Do please help yourself, Nigel,’ he croaked, wondering only for a moment how Major Audley had identified him from the rest. But of course, Major Audley had identified him
because Major Audley was Major Audley. The question contained its own answer, simply.
‘Thank you, Bastable.’ Major Audley applied the last of the marmalade to his bread. ‘Since I assume the rest of you gentlemen have consumed Bastable’s delicacy, then his
drinks in the mess tonight are on you.’ He lifted the piece of bread in Bastable’s direction. ‘Meanwhile . . . your continued health, Bastable . . . the condemned man eats his
hearty breakfast.’
‘Hah!’ said Captain Willis, with immense feeling, as though Major Audley had vindicated his protest. ‘Precisely!’
Bastable experienced an indigestible mixture of conflicting emotions. Major Audley had acknowledged his existence, and in a most generous and gentlemanly fashion; yet he had done so in more
words than were seemly, at least for him; and (what was worse) there had definitely been something in those words – a mere suggestion, perhaps, but an undoubted suggestion nevertheless
– that his inclination was to support Captain Willis against Major Tetley-Robinson.
Bastable frowned at his plate again. Beyond the fact that Willis didn’t want to drill his men he wasn’t at all sure what it was which was so aggravating the ex-schoolmaster. The
majority of the recent replacements were little better than civilians in uniform, notwithstanding their yellow-and-grey lanyards, and drill was something they could do straight away which at least
might make them feel more like soldiers.
He clenched his fists under the table and nerved himself to speak.
‘What is it that you want to do, Willis?’ He couldn’t bring himself to give the man the inexplicable nickname which had attached itself to him. Everybody in the mess had either
a christian name or a nickname to distinguish him socially from the formal military world of ‘sirs’ and ‘misters’ outside – everybody, that was, except himself, who
had somehow become frozen into ‘Bastable’ in the mess (and usually the more insulting variant rhyming with barstard); which was a source of constant, nagging, irritating,
bewildering and unfair pain to him. ‘What’s mad about drill, man?’
Captain Willis looked at him in surprise, as though he hadn’t expected the faculty of speech in Captain Barstable, but before he could reveal his heart’s desire the burly
figure of the battalion medical officer filled the doorway beside him.
‘I don’t know what you want to do, Wimpy – and frankly I couldn’t care less,’ said Captain Saunders. ‘But I want my breakfast – Steward! Ham and eggs
– three eggs – and don’t toast the bread . . . And send across to the café over the road for a large pot of coffee on the double – and say it’s for
“M’sieur le médicin”, don’t forget that – a large pot!’
Captain Willis chuckled dryly. ‘Trust the medical profession! I take it you have been feathering your nest with the locals, Doc? Touching up les jeunes demoiselles as part of the
Anglo-French entente cordiale?’
Captain Saunders reached across the table and tore a six-inch hunk from one of the long French loaves. ‘I have delivered a French baby – male. “Class of 1940” I suppose
they’d call the poor little devil, when they finally call him up . . . in 1958 . . . which they probably will.’ He ate a piece of bread from the hunk without benefit of butter.
‘And the Germans are across the Somme, at Peronne.’
For a moment no one at the table spoke, or even moved. The medical officer’s words seemed to hang in the air, like an unthinkable wisp of smoke over a dry cornfield on a still day.
‘What?’ said Major Tetley-Robinson.
‘Where?’ said Captain Willis.
‘Who said?’ said Major Audley simultaneously.
‘Nonsense!’ said Major Tetley-Robinson.
Captain Saunders munched his mouthful of bread. ‘That’s what the French say – the people I’ve just been talking to.’
‘Refugees,’ said Major Tetley-Robinson contemptuously. ‘We’ve heard enough rumours from them to keep us going for a year. If we start believing what they say,
they’ll have the bloody Boche in Calais next week, queuing for the cross-Channel ferries.’
Captain Saunders continued munching. ‘A week is right – ’ he nodded ‘ – they say the Germans’ll be on the Channel coast in a week. Hundreds of tanks, driving
like hell – that’s what they say . . . Actually, they said “thousands”, but that seemed to be stretching it a bit, I thought.’ He nodded, but then turned the nod into
a negative shake. ‘These weren’t refugees though, Charlie. It was the station-master’s wife’s baby I delivered. He had it from an engine-driver – the information, I
mean, not the baby. And all the lines are down now, he says – to Peronne.’
‘Fifth Columnists!’ snapped Tetley-Robinson. ‘A lot of those refugees that came through on the main road, to the south, yesterday . . . they looked suspiciously able-bodied to
me.’
‘Peronne . . .’ murmured Major Audley. He turned towards Lieutenant Davidson. ‘You’re alleged to be our IO, Dickie – so where the devil were the Germans supposed to
be as of last night?’
Lieutenant Davidson squirmed uncomfortably. ‘Well, sir . . . things have been a bit knotted-up at Brigade – or they were yesterday.’
‘What d’you mean “knotted-up”, boy?’
‘Well . . . actually . . . things seem to be a bit confused, don’t you know . . . rather.’ Lieutenant Davidson manoeuvred the crumbs on his plate into a neat pile.
‘No, Dickie,’ said Major Audley.
‘No, sir – Nigel?’ Lieutenant Davidson blinked.
‘No, Dickie. No – I don’t know. And no, I’m not confused. To be confused one must know something. But as I know nothing I am not confused, I am merely unenlightened. So
enlighten me, Dickie – enlighten us all.’
‘Or at least – confuse us,’ murmured Willis. ‘What does Brigade say?’
‘Well, actually . . .’ Lieutenant Davidson began to rearrange the crumbs, ‘. . . actually, Brigade says we don’t belong to them at all. So they haven’t really said
anything, actually.’
‘What d’you mean, “don’t belong to them”?’ asked Major Audley.
‘They say we should be at Colembert, sir – Nigel.’
‘But we are at Colembert, dear boy.’
‘No, sir . . . That is to say, yes – but actually no, you see.’ Lieutenant Davidson tried to attract Major Tetley-Robinson’s attention.
‘Ah! Now we’re getting somewhere,’ Major Audley nodded encouragingly. ‘Now I am beginning to become confused at least. We are at Colembert – but we’re not.
Please confuse me further, Dickie.’
Lieutenant Davidson abandoned the crumbs. ‘This is Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts, sir. But apparently there’s another Colembert, with no ponts, up towards St Omer. It seems the MCO at
Boulogne attached us to the wrong convoy, or something – that’s what Brigade says – ’
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Major Audley. ‘But St Omer’s miles from here – it’s near Boulogne.’
‘Yes . . .’ nodded Willis. ‘And that would account for Jackie Johnson and the whole of “A” Company being absent without leave, of course . . . Only poor old Jackie
didn’t lose us after all – he just went off to the right Colembert . . . and we lost him, eh?’
But Major Audley had his eye fixed on Major Tetley-Robinson now. ‘So what the hell are we doing about it, Charlie?’
Major Tetley-Robinson almost looked uncomfortable. ‘The matter is in hand, Nigel. That’s all I can tell you.’
Willis smiled. ‘ “Theirs not to reason why – theirs but to do and die”, Nigel. Same thing happened to the jolly old Light Brigade.’
‘Same thing happens in hospital,’ observed Captain Saunders wisely, nodding to the whole table.
‘What same thing, Doc?’ enquired Willis.
‘Wrong patient gets sent to surgery to have his leg cut off. Always causes a devil of a row afterwards. Somebody gets the push, somebody else gets promoted. Hard luck on the patient. And
hard luck on us if the Huns are in Peronne, I suppose.’
Major Audley considered Captain Saunders for a moment, and then turned back to Lieutenant Davidson. ‘Are the Germans in Peronne, Dickie? What does Brigade say?’
Lieutenant Davidson looked directly at Major Tetley-Robinson. ‘Sir . . .?’ he appealed.
‘Harrumph!’ Major Tetley-Robinson brushed his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘That would be telling!’
‘It would indeed, Charlie,’ said Major Audley cuttingly.
‘They must be in touch with the French,’ said Captain Willis. ‘The French are supposed to be north-west of us here, and Peronne is . . .’ he frowned, ‘. . . is
bloody south-west, if my memory serves me correctly – bloody south-west!’
Willis’s memory did serve him correctly, thought Bastable uneasily. In fact, Peronne was so far south as to be impossible; there just had to be two Peronnes, in the same way as there had
been two Colemberts.
‘What does Brigade say, Dickie?’ Willis pressed the Intelligence Officer.
‘Well . . . actually, we’ve lost touch with – ’
‘That’s enough!’ Major Tetley-Robinson snapped. ‘The disposition of the French Army – and the enemy – are none of our business at the moment.’
‘I hope you’re right, Charlie,’ said Captain Willis.
Major Tetley-Robinson glared at him. ‘We are a lines-of-communication battalion. Company commanders and other officers will be briefed as necessary – at the proper time.’
‘Hmmm . . .’ Major Audley exchanged glances with Willis, and even spared Bastable a fleeting half-glance. ‘Well, I shall look forward to that, Charlie.’ He extracted a
cigarette from his slim gold case. ‘I shall indeed.’
Major Tetley-Robinson brushed his moustache again. ‘There’s a lot of loose talk going around, Nigel. Damned loose talk.’
Captain Saunders stopped eating. ‘Are you referring to me, by any chance? Or to my friends the station-master and his engine-driver colleague?’
‘I didn’t mean you, Doc,’ said the Major hastily.
‘No?’ Captain Saunders pointed with his knife. ‘Well, Major, my friend the station-master is a man of sound commonsense, and pro-British too, however contradictory those two
conditions may appear to be at this moment, diagnostically speaking.’
Major Tetley-Robinson’s expression changed from one of apology to that of bewilderment. ‘I don’t quite take your meaning, Doc.’
‘But I do,’ said Major Audley. ‘Did the station-master see the Boche, Doc? At Peronne?’
‘No. Not with his own eyes – that’s true,’ Captain Saunders shook his head. ‘But he spoke to the driver who claims to have taken the last train out of Peronne. And
he claimed to have been machine-gunned by tanks with large black crosses on them.’
‘Tanks or aeroplanes?’ Audley leaned forward intently. ‘They’ve been bombing all round us the last couple of days, remember. We seem to be the only place they’ve
missed out on, for some reason . . . But their dive-bombers will have been making a dead set on trains, for sure – could it have been planes, not tanks?’
For a moment Bastable was tempted to speak, to explain why Colembert – Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts – had been missed, if not overlooked, by the German Luftwaffe. Simply (which one
glance at the map had confirmed) it was not worth attacking – a small town in the middle of a triangle of main roads, the destruction of which would block none of those roads. It had struck
him as odd at the time that a Lines-of-Communication unit should have been despatched to a place on no line of communication. But he had assumed that the high command knew its business much better
than he did, and that assumption was still strong enough in him to dry up his private opinion.
‘Planes, for sure,’ snapped Major Tetley-Robinson. ‘It’s just possible they could have pushed the French back over the Sambre-Oise line.’ He nodded meaningfully at
Lieutenant Davidson, as if to give his blessing to that admission. ‘But that means they’ve already come the deuce of a way from the Dyle-Meuse line – their tanks’ll be
running out of fuel – the ones that haven’t broken down . . . and their infantry’ll be dead on its feet by now. And that’s the moment when the French will counter-attack, by
God! It’ll be the Marne all over again!’ He glanced fiercely up and down the table. ‘The Marne all over again – only this time we’ll make a proper job of
it!’
Nobody denied this aggressive interpretation of Allied strategy. Rather, there was an appreciative nodding of heads and a fierce murmur of agreement; and no one nodded more vigorously or
murmured more approvingly than Bastable himself to cover the panicky butterflies which the mention of Peronne had set fluttering in his stomach.
‘Only this time it’ll be a Marne with another difference,’ announced Major Tetley-Robinson expansively. ‘Because this time the PROs will be “Up Front” with
any luck, eh?’
He ran his eye round the table, until it reached Captain Willis. To his credit, Captain Willis met the eye bravely.
‘Hah! Now . . . as to your drill, Wimpy . . . just what was it you wanted to substitute for your spot of drill? As I recall it you were dying to tell us all what you would rather be doing
than drill – ?’
Major Audley took out his cigarette-case, clicked it open and offered it to Captain Willis. ‘Smoke, Wimpy?’ he enquired.
‘No, thank you, Nigel.’ Captain Willis smiled nervously at Major Audley, then erased the smile. ‘Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts has two bridges, sir. D company, of which I am
commander – ’
‘Acting-commander,’ corrected Major Tetley-Robinson.
‘Acting-commander . . . D Company has the southern bridge. I think the bridge should be wired for demolition, but we have no demolition charges.’ Willis paused, swallowed. ‘And
even if we did have we don’t have anyone who knows how to set them.’
Major Tetley-Robinson nodded gravely. ‘I see. And against whom are you proposing to blow your bridge, Wimpy?’
‘Against any enemy forces who might approach from that direction, sir,’ said Captain Willis tightly.
‘From the south?’ The Major’s lip curled. And then he glanced at Bastable, and Bastable knew what he was thinking.
If any enemy – Fifth Columnists in strength, or possibly some roving armoured cars which might conceivably infiltrate the French Army by the web of mi
Saturday, 10 May 1940, to Tuesday, 20 May
‘On the morning of Saturday, 10 May 1940, at 5.35, the German Army invaded the Low Countries, ending the “Phoney War” which had lasted in Western Europe since
the outbreak of hostilities the previous September.
‘Holland was overwhelmed before any help could reach her, but as in 1914, the Allies advanced hurriedly into Belgium, the French 1st Army and the British Expeditionary Force coming up
alongside the Belgian Army on the line of the River Dyle in an attempt to protect Antwerp and Brussels.
‘In fact, nothing could have suited the Germans better, for it was to the south, into France herself, that their decisive thrust was aimed. Having negotiated the supposedly impassable
terrain of the Ardennes they burst like a thunderbolt on to the banks of the River Meuse in the region of Sedan on 13 May. Without waiting to concentrate their forces (as military prudence
dictated), they at once launched a daring assault on the French defences across the river; and, having smashed through those defences, they then departed further from the rules with an act of even
greater daring: instead of securing their breakthrough by attacking the broken flanks of the French line their armoured forces drove straight forward into France on a narrow front.
‘Just as treason never profits because when it does so it ceases to be treason, so what seemed like military foolhardiness was transformed by success into military genius: the eruption of Hannibal’s elephants out of the snowbound Alpine passes on to the plains of Northern Italy was scarcely a greater shock than the appearance of German tanks in the open
country of Northern France. Preceded by the screaming dive-bombers which acted as their artillery – and also by equally unnerving rumours of their numbers and invincibility – these
tanks now advanced with astonishing rapidity. While the cream of the Anglo-French armies were still closely engaged deep in Belgium, the German armoured divisions to the south did not so much drive
back the French frontier defenders as simply leave them behind.
‘Nor, to complete the surprise, did the Germans then seek either to threaten Paris or to swing eastwards to take the great defensive works of the Maginot Line in the rear. Herding
thousands of panic-stricken refugees ahead of them to choke the roads and further demoralize Allied counsels, they swept irresistibly westwards, towards the English Channel.
‘By the morning of Tuesday, 20 May, their exact whereabouts were unknown to the Allied commanders. In fact they had already – and incredibly – passed the line of the Canal du
Nord, between Cambrai and Peronne. All that lay between them and the sea, some sixty miles distant, was a rolling peaceful countryside which, although strongly garrisoned by the dead of the
1914–18 War, was now only weakly held by the living soldiers of a handful of unprepared and unsuspecting British lines-of-communication units.’
– from The Dunkirk Miracle, by Sir Frederick Clinton
(Gollancz, 1959)
‘Mad,’ murmured Captain Willis at the Adjutant’s departing back. ‘Quite mad.’
Everyone at the breakfast table pretended to take no notice, except Captain Henry Bastable, who disliked Captain Willis almost as much as he did Hitler.
‘Quite mad.’ Now that the Adjutant was out of earshot Willis spoke louder. ‘Probably certifiably mad, too.’
One day, when the war had been won and the washing hung on the Siegfried Line, and the Prince Regent’s Own South Downs Fusiliers returned to its proper and more agreeable amateur status,
there was going to be a new breakfast rule at the annual Territorial Army camp, Bastable vowed silently to himself: to the existing Officers will not talk shop, it would add and at
breakfast officers will not talk at all.
‘Mad as a bloody hatter’, said Willis, more loudly still.
It was wrong to hope that Willis would be the first PRO battle casualty of the Second World War. And anyway, Willis would probably bear a charmed life, he was that sort of person. So that new
rule would be needed to shut him up. But in the meanwhile, the best Bastable could do was to glower at him over his crumpled copy of The Times, and grunt disapprovingly in the hope
that Major Tetley-Robinson would notice, and take the appropriate action.
‘Drill!’ exclaimed Willis, in a voice no one could pretend to fail to hear.
‘Eh?’ Major Tetley-Robinson looked up for a moment from the piece of bread which he had been examining, but then looked down again at it. ‘You know, we’ll never get
decent toast from this stuff, the composition’s all wrong. We’ll have to find a way of baking our own.’
‘I said “drill”,’ said Willis clearly. ‘“Drill”.’
‘Eh?’ Major Tetley-Robinson looked up again, but this time at Lieutenant Davidson. ‘No more of this damn Froggie stuff, Dickie – I won’t have it! It’s all
crust and air, and you can’t make toast out of crust and air.’ He switched the look to Willis at last. ‘Talking shop, Wimpy? Or did I mishear you, eh?’
Bastable was disappointed to observe that Tetley-Robinson was trying to let Willis off. Normally the Major could be relied on to savage Willis at every opportunity, his dislike of the man dating
from the discovery that Willis’s fluent French stemmed from the possession of a French grandmother, and from Alsace moreover, which was dangerously close to the German frontier. ‘Fellow
doesn’t look like an Alsatian – more like a cross between a greyhound and a rat,’ the Major had observed sotto voce on receiving this intelligence. ‘Probably
runs like a greyhound too.’
But now the prospect of action appeared to have mellowed this enmity, for the Major was regarding Wimpy with an expression bordering on tolerance.
Willis returned the look obstinately. ‘No, I said “drill”. My company – ’
‘I heard.’ The Major lifted his chin and looked down his nose at Willis. ‘Shop – and you know the rule.’ He leaned back in his chair and half-turned towards the
mess waiter without taking his eyes off Willis. ‘Higgins – fetch Captain Willis’s steel helmet.’
Willis licked his lips. ‘My company – ’
‘Not until you’re wearing your steel helmet, if you please, Wimpy,’ snapped the Major. ‘Then you can talk as much as you like, if you can find anyone to listen to
you . . .’ He pointed down the table. ‘Pass me the marmalade, will you, Barstable?’
Bastable’s blossoming joy turned instantly into dismay. The pot of Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade in front of him was his own, his very own, his private pot and his only pot – and
possibly the only pot in the whole British Expeditionary Force, if not the only pot in France. And also a bitter-sweet reminder of his mother, who had given it to him.
But Major Tetley-Robinson outranked Mother in this company, and Bastable watched helplessly as the Major spooned out a huge dollop of Cooper’s Oxford Marmalade on to his plate, and
proceeded to consume it in the proportion of three parts of marmalade to one of French bread.
Fusilier Higgins reappeared with the steel helmet, which he offered rather apologetically to Captain Willis. But to Bastable’s surprise, rather than bow to the pressure of the mess rule,
Willis put it on his head and returned to the fray.
‘Drill – ’ he began.
‘Hah!’ Tetley-Robinson assumed an enquiring expression. ‘Very well then, Wimpy . . . since you choose to attire yourself so strangely at table . . .
“drill”?’
Willis set his jaw. ‘My company – what there is of it – is under orders to drill this morning, Charlie – ’ the use of the christian name was permitted, but it
always made the Major wince when Willis used it, ‘ – orders from the CO, relayed by the Adjutant just now, Charlie!’
‘So I gathered.’
‘It’s bloody mad – drill, Charlie!’
‘Nothing wrong with drill, my dear chap. When you can fight as well as the Guards, then you can stop drilling, I always say – and your fellows have become a shower, an absolute
shower. Worse than Barstable’s there, even.’ Major Tetley-Robinson nodded at Bastable, noticed the marmalade pot again, and helped himself to another spoonful. ‘Apart from
which, drill used to be a PRO speciality – we’ve always drilled like regulars, not Territorials. And . . . if you ask me, that’s why we’ve been sent out here, to France,
when other chaps are still kicking their heels in Blighty. Because a smart soldier is a good soldier – ’
Bastable raised his copy of The Times quickly to cut off the view. It wasn’t that he disagreed with the Major, but he couldn’t bear to see the Major finish his marmalade.
‘ – team-work, self-confidence . . . not having to think, because one already knows – ’
Bastable tried to concentrate on his Times. It was nearly a week old, and he had already been through it twice, from cover to cover, so now he was rationing himself to one column per
breakfast, nodding or shaking his head in exactly the same places and greeting remembered names like old friends.
‘ – and although most Territorial units are downright slovenly, we’ve always been different – ’
Major Tetley-Robinson was moving inexorably into the History and Traditions of the Regiment of which he was the acknowledged custodian.
‘ – we do not bear the royal honour of “The Prince Regent’s Own” for nothing – ’
He was coming to the famous parade of 1811, when the Regent had reviewed the new regiment in the skin-tight uniforms of his own design – red coats with primrose-yellow facings and
dove-grey pantaloons, snowy pipe-clay and glittering brass and leather; the only pity was that the Prince had subsequently taken his custom to Brighton, which was a rather vulgar town, in
preference to Captain Bastable’s own native Eastbourne; but, to its credit, the regiment had done its best to correct that aberration in later years.
‘ – this lanyard, which every man wears as of right as a PRO – ’ the primrose-yellow-and-dove-grey lanyard always formed the peroration of the Major’s pep talk
‘ – is the symbol of his pride in his regiment and in himself for being privileged to belong to it. Which, as an officer of the regiment, you ought to know, Wimpy, by God!’
‘But I do know that, Charlie,’ protested Captain Willis wearily. ‘Prinnie granted it to us on account of the exceptionally stylish cut of our uniforms – it wasn’t a
battle honour, it was a fashion honour, for heaven’s sake.’
Tetley-Robinson raised an admonitory finger. ‘But we wore that lanyard at the Somme, man – and at Gommecourt and Ginchy and the Transloy Ridges . . . aye, and on the Scarpe and
Tadpole Copse and Picardy and the Sambre! By God, man! Where’s your sense of history?’
‘Yes, I do know – ’ Captain Willis still seemed set on holding his indefensible salient, ‘ – but – ’
‘And they tried to take it away from us, too . . . Said it identified us – Huh! “So much the better!” says the Colonel. “Let the Hun know what he’s in
for!” Wrote to the Colonel-in-Chief, and he wrote to the King, who happened to be a relative of his in a manner of speaking. So that was the last we heard of that –
after we returned their damn bit of paper marked “Kindly refer all future correspondence on this subject to His Majesty the King-Emperor” – that settled their little
hash.’
‘Yes, Charlie, I know – ’
‘So this lanyard means that we’re different, Wimpy – and don’t you ever forget it.’
‘I won’t, Charlie – I promise you faithfully that I won’t.’ Captain Willis drew a deep breath and looked up and down the table presumably in the hope of finding a
little moral support somewhere, and found none. ‘But, you know, in a way that is precisely the point I am trying to make. I mean . . . drill . . . at a time like this. That’s not just
different, that’s a clear case of deus quos vult perdere, dementat prius.’
‘What’s that?’ At the furthest end of the table Major Audley roused himself from the copy of The Field in which he had hitherto been buried. Of all the officers in the
regiment, Major Audley was usually the most elegantly silent. At the same time, nevertheless, he had established a reputation for possessing vast knowledge, both military and general, of the sort
which could only be acquired by a perfect balance of practical experience, expensive education and natural-born intelligence.
‘I said deus quos – ’ began Captain Willis.
‘Heard you. Euripides, Joshua Barnes’s translation is the best one.’
It didn’t surprise Captain Bastable that Major Audley could instantly identify Captain Willis’s Latin quotation, which his own eight agonized years of Latin had left him incapable of
translating. Indeed, it surprised him less than the quotation itself, though as a former schoolmaster Captain Willis was full of quotations, and as he had been a classics master, most of them were
in Latin or Greek, and all of them might just as well have been in Swahili for any sense Captain Bastable could make of them. (It was an added coincidence, and the only virtue he had yet found in
Willis, that the man had numbered Major Audley’s only son amongst his pupils, and had spoken glowingly of the boy’s intellectual capacity; but that had merely confirmed Captain
Bastable’s views on heredity – like father, like son, was the natural order of things; he himself, and the success and prosperity of Bastable’s of Eastbourne, was proof of
that.)
Major Audley squinted down the breakfast table. ‘That pot . . . Cooper’s?’ he enquired.
‘It is,’ said Major Tetley-Robinson obsequiously. ‘Help yourself, Nigel. Here, Barstable – push it on down. There’s still a good scraping in it, round the
sides.’
Major Audley scrutinized the faces round the table. ‘Whose pot?’ he enquired.
Bastable examined the crumbs of bread on his plate. It was certainly true that the mess cook’s attempts to turn French bread into toast had been disastrous. But the bread itself, although
strange and foreign, was quite tasty when untoasted. It seemed to him (although he knew he would never dare advance such a suggestion in public) that it was a mistake to attempt to convert French
food into English food: when in Rome – even though the thought smacked of Captain Willis – it would be more sensible to eat as the Romans did. Or in this case the French, deplorable
people though they were in most other respects.
‘Yours, Bastable?’ asked Major Audley.
Bastable blushed to the roots of his hair: he could literally feel the blush suffuse his face. But he forced himself to look Major Audley in the eye because he did not wish the Major to think
him a coward. ‘Do please help yourself, Nigel,’ he croaked, wondering only for a moment how Major Audley had identified him from the rest. But of course, Major Audley had identified him
because Major Audley was Major Audley. The question contained its own answer, simply.
‘Thank you, Bastable.’ Major Audley applied the last of the marmalade to his bread. ‘Since I assume the rest of you gentlemen have consumed Bastable’s delicacy, then his
drinks in the mess tonight are on you.’ He lifted the piece of bread in Bastable’s direction. ‘Meanwhile . . . your continued health, Bastable . . . the condemned man eats his
hearty breakfast.’
‘Hah!’ said Captain Willis, with immense feeling, as though Major Audley had vindicated his protest. ‘Precisely!’
Bastable experienced an indigestible mixture of conflicting emotions. Major Audley had acknowledged his existence, and in a most generous and gentlemanly fashion; yet he had done so in more
words than were seemly, at least for him; and (what was worse) there had definitely been something in those words – a mere suggestion, perhaps, but an undoubted suggestion nevertheless
– that his inclination was to support Captain Willis against Major Tetley-Robinson.
Bastable frowned at his plate again. Beyond the fact that Willis didn’t want to drill his men he wasn’t at all sure what it was which was so aggravating the ex-schoolmaster. The
majority of the recent replacements were little better than civilians in uniform, notwithstanding their yellow-and-grey lanyards, and drill was something they could do straight away which at least
might make them feel more like soldiers.
He clenched his fists under the table and nerved himself to speak.
‘What is it that you want to do, Willis?’ He couldn’t bring himself to give the man the inexplicable nickname which had attached itself to him. Everybody in the mess had either
a christian name or a nickname to distinguish him socially from the formal military world of ‘sirs’ and ‘misters’ outside – everybody, that was, except himself, who
had somehow become frozen into ‘Bastable’ in the mess (and usually the more insulting variant rhyming with barstard); which was a source of constant, nagging, irritating,
bewildering and unfair pain to him. ‘What’s mad about drill, man?’
Captain Willis looked at him in surprise, as though he hadn’t expected the faculty of speech in Captain Barstable, but before he could reveal his heart’s desire the burly
figure of the battalion medical officer filled the doorway beside him.
‘I don’t know what you want to do, Wimpy – and frankly I couldn’t care less,’ said Captain Saunders. ‘But I want my breakfast – Steward! Ham and eggs
– three eggs – and don’t toast the bread . . . And send across to the café over the road for a large pot of coffee on the double – and say it’s for
“M’sieur le médicin”, don’t forget that – a large pot!’
Captain Willis chuckled dryly. ‘Trust the medical profession! I take it you have been feathering your nest with the locals, Doc? Touching up les jeunes demoiselles as part of the
Anglo-French entente cordiale?’
Captain Saunders reached across the table and tore a six-inch hunk from one of the long French loaves. ‘I have delivered a French baby – male. “Class of 1940” I suppose
they’d call the poor little devil, when they finally call him up . . . in 1958 . . . which they probably will.’ He ate a piece of bread from the hunk without benefit of butter.
‘And the Germans are across the Somme, at Peronne.’
For a moment no one at the table spoke, or even moved. The medical officer’s words seemed to hang in the air, like an unthinkable wisp of smoke over a dry cornfield on a still day.
‘What?’ said Major Tetley-Robinson.
‘Where?’ said Captain Willis.
‘Who said?’ said Major Audley simultaneously.
‘Nonsense!’ said Major Tetley-Robinson.
Captain Saunders munched his mouthful of bread. ‘That’s what the French say – the people I’ve just been talking to.’
‘Refugees,’ said Major Tetley-Robinson contemptuously. ‘We’ve heard enough rumours from them to keep us going for a year. If we start believing what they say,
they’ll have the bloody Boche in Calais next week, queuing for the cross-Channel ferries.’
Captain Saunders continued munching. ‘A week is right – ’ he nodded ‘ – they say the Germans’ll be on the Channel coast in a week. Hundreds of tanks, driving
like hell – that’s what they say . . . Actually, they said “thousands”, but that seemed to be stretching it a bit, I thought.’ He nodded, but then turned the nod into
a negative shake. ‘These weren’t refugees though, Charlie. It was the station-master’s wife’s baby I delivered. He had it from an engine-driver – the information, I
mean, not the baby. And all the lines are down now, he says – to Peronne.’
‘Fifth Columnists!’ snapped Tetley-Robinson. ‘A lot of those refugees that came through on the main road, to the south, yesterday . . . they looked suspiciously able-bodied to
me.’
‘Peronne . . .’ murmured Major Audley. He turned towards Lieutenant Davidson. ‘You’re alleged to be our IO, Dickie – so where the devil were the Germans supposed to
be as of last night?’
Lieutenant Davidson squirmed uncomfortably. ‘Well, sir . . . things have been a bit knotted-up at Brigade – or they were yesterday.’
‘What d’you mean “knotted-up”, boy?’
‘Well . . . actually . . . things seem to be a bit confused, don’t you know . . . rather.’ Lieutenant Davidson manoeuvred the crumbs on his plate into a neat pile.
‘No, Dickie,’ said Major Audley.
‘No, sir – Nigel?’ Lieutenant Davidson blinked.
‘No, Dickie. No – I don’t know. And no, I’m not confused. To be confused one must know something. But as I know nothing I am not confused, I am merely unenlightened. So
enlighten me, Dickie – enlighten us all.’
‘Or at least – confuse us,’ murmured Willis. ‘What does Brigade say?’
‘Well, actually . . .’ Lieutenant Davidson began to rearrange the crumbs, ‘. . . actually, Brigade says we don’t belong to them at all. So they haven’t really said
anything, actually.’
‘What d’you mean, “don’t belong to them”?’ asked Major Audley.
‘They say we should be at Colembert, sir – Nigel.’
‘But we are at Colembert, dear boy.’
‘No, sir . . . That is to say, yes – but actually no, you see.’ Lieutenant Davidson tried to attract Major Tetley-Robinson’s attention.
‘Ah! Now we’re getting somewhere,’ Major Audley nodded encouragingly. ‘Now I am beginning to become confused at least. We are at Colembert – but we’re not.
Please confuse me further, Dickie.’
Lieutenant Davidson abandoned the crumbs. ‘This is Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts, sir. But apparently there’s another Colembert, with no ponts, up towards St Omer. It seems the MCO at
Boulogne attached us to the wrong convoy, or something – that’s what Brigade says – ’
‘Good God!’ exclaimed Major Audley. ‘But St Omer’s miles from here – it’s near Boulogne.’
‘Yes . . .’ nodded Willis. ‘And that would account for Jackie Johnson and the whole of “A” Company being absent without leave, of course . . . Only poor old Jackie
didn’t lose us after all – he just went off to the right Colembert . . . and we lost him, eh?’
But Major Audley had his eye fixed on Major Tetley-Robinson now. ‘So what the hell are we doing about it, Charlie?’
Major Tetley-Robinson almost looked uncomfortable. ‘The matter is in hand, Nigel. That’s all I can tell you.’
Willis smiled. ‘ “Theirs not to reason why – theirs but to do and die”, Nigel. Same thing happened to the jolly old Light Brigade.’
‘Same thing happens in hospital,’ observed Captain Saunders wisely, nodding to the whole table.
‘What same thing, Doc?’ enquired Willis.
‘Wrong patient gets sent to surgery to have his leg cut off. Always causes a devil of a row afterwards. Somebody gets the push, somebody else gets promoted. Hard luck on the patient. And
hard luck on us if the Huns are in Peronne, I suppose.’
Major Audley considered Captain Saunders for a moment, and then turned back to Lieutenant Davidson. ‘Are the Germans in Peronne, Dickie? What does Brigade say?’
Lieutenant Davidson looked directly at Major Tetley-Robinson. ‘Sir . . .?’ he appealed.
‘Harrumph!’ Major Tetley-Robinson brushed his moustache with the back of his hand. ‘That would be telling!’
‘It would indeed, Charlie,’ said Major Audley cuttingly.
‘They must be in touch with the French,’ said Captain Willis. ‘The French are supposed to be north-west of us here, and Peronne is . . .’ he frowned, ‘. . . is
bloody south-west, if my memory serves me correctly – bloody south-west!’
Willis’s memory did serve him correctly, thought Bastable uneasily. In fact, Peronne was so far south as to be impossible; there just had to be two Peronnes, in the same way as there had
been two Colemberts.
‘What does Brigade say, Dickie?’ Willis pressed the Intelligence Officer.
‘Well . . . actually, we’ve lost touch with – ’
‘That’s enough!’ Major Tetley-Robinson snapped. ‘The disposition of the French Army – and the enemy – are none of our business at the moment.’
‘I hope you’re right, Charlie,’ said Captain Willis.
Major Tetley-Robinson glared at him. ‘We are a lines-of-communication battalion. Company commanders and other officers will be briefed as necessary – at the proper time.’
‘Hmmm . . .’ Major Audley exchanged glances with Willis, and even spared Bastable a fleeting half-glance. ‘Well, I shall look forward to that, Charlie.’ He extracted a
cigarette from his slim gold case. ‘I shall indeed.’
Major Tetley-Robinson brushed his moustache again. ‘There’s a lot of loose talk going around, Nigel. Damned loose talk.’
Captain Saunders stopped eating. ‘Are you referring to me, by any chance? Or to my friends the station-master and his engine-driver colleague?’
‘I didn’t mean you, Doc,’ said the Major hastily.
‘No?’ Captain Saunders pointed with his knife. ‘Well, Major, my friend the station-master is a man of sound commonsense, and pro-British too, however contradictory those two
conditions may appear to be at this moment, diagnostically speaking.’
Major Tetley-Robinson’s expression changed from one of apology to that of bewilderment. ‘I don’t quite take your meaning, Doc.’
‘But I do,’ said Major Audley. ‘Did the station-master see the Boche, Doc? At Peronne?’
‘No. Not with his own eyes – that’s true,’ Captain Saunders shook his head. ‘But he spoke to the driver who claims to have taken the last train out of Peronne. And
he claimed to have been machine-gunned by tanks with large black crosses on them.’
‘Tanks or aeroplanes?’ Audley leaned forward intently. ‘They’ve been bombing all round us the last couple of days, remember. We seem to be the only place they’ve
missed out on, for some reason . . . But their dive-bombers will have been making a dead set on trains, for sure – could it have been planes, not tanks?’
For a moment Bastable was tempted to speak, to explain why Colembert – Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts – had been missed, if not overlooked, by the German Luftwaffe. Simply (which one
glance at the map had confirmed) it was not worth attacking – a small town in the middle of a triangle of main roads, the destruction of which would block none of those roads. It had struck
him as odd at the time that a Lines-of-Communication unit should have been despatched to a place on no line of communication. But he had assumed that the high command knew its business much better
than he did, and that assumption was still strong enough in him to dry up his private opinion.
‘Planes, for sure,’ snapped Major Tetley-Robinson. ‘It’s just possible they could have pushed the French back over the Sambre-Oise line.’ He nodded meaningfully at
Lieutenant Davidson, as if to give his blessing to that admission. ‘But that means they’ve already come the deuce of a way from the Dyle-Meuse line – their tanks’ll be
running out of fuel – the ones that haven’t broken down . . . and their infantry’ll be dead on its feet by now. And that’s the moment when the French will counter-attack, by
God! It’ll be the Marne all over again!’ He glanced fiercely up and down the table. ‘The Marne all over again – only this time we’ll make a proper job of
it!’
Nobody denied this aggressive interpretation of Allied strategy. Rather, there was an appreciative nodding of heads and a fierce murmur of agreement; and no one nodded more vigorously or
murmured more approvingly than Bastable himself to cover the panicky butterflies which the mention of Peronne had set fluttering in his stomach.
‘Only this time it’ll be a Marne with another difference,’ announced Major Tetley-Robinson expansively. ‘Because this time the PROs will be “Up Front” with
any luck, eh?’
He ran his eye round the table, until it reached Captain Willis. To his credit, Captain Willis met the eye bravely.
‘Hah! Now . . . as to your drill, Wimpy . . . just what was it you wanted to substitute for your spot of drill? As I recall it you were dying to tell us all what you would rather be doing
than drill – ?’
Major Audley took out his cigarette-case, clicked it open and offered it to Captain Willis. ‘Smoke, Wimpy?’ he enquired.
‘No, thank you, Nigel.’ Captain Willis smiled nervously at Major Audley, then erased the smile. ‘Colembert-les-Deux-Ponts has two bridges, sir. D company, of which I am
commander – ’
‘Acting-commander,’ corrected Major Tetley-Robinson.
‘Acting-commander . . . D Company has the southern bridge. I think the bridge should be wired for demolition, but we have no demolition charges.’ Willis paused, swallowed. ‘And
even if we did have we don’t have anyone who knows how to set them.’
Major Tetley-Robinson nodded gravely. ‘I see. And against whom are you proposing to blow your bridge, Wimpy?’
‘Against any enemy forces who might approach from that direction, sir,’ said Captain Willis tightly.
‘From the south?’ The Major’s lip curled. And then he glanced at Bastable, and Bastable knew what he was thinking.
If any enemy – Fifth Columnists in strength, or possibly some roving armoured cars which might conceivably infiltrate the French Army by the web of mi
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The Hour of the Donkey
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