Read Online Behind the Lines by W. F.; Morris - Free Book Online Page A

andthere. At this hour it seemed that Amiens provided only one amusement for the stranger within her gates.
    He found his way back to the now darkened yard of the hotel and sat in the silent car and smoked pipe after pipe. When at last the other two men did appear, he was warned of their approach by the hearty voice of Rumbald singing the Robbers’ chorus from Chu Chin Chow . Penhurst was as mournful as his companion was cheerful. He started up the engine sullenly and switched on the headlights. Rumbald fooled round the car and began working the Klaxon horn violently like a mischievous urchin.
    Penhurst turned on him in cold fury. “Stop that bloody row for Christ’s sake!”
    Rumbald desisted after one more provocative wail. “Must get your lousy old ’bus going, Pen,” he said cheerfully. And he began to move violently every lever and switch within reach. The engine coughed and was silent.
    Penhurst, who had one foot on the running-board, seized Rumbald savagely by the cross strap of his Sam Browne. “I’ll twist your flaming neck if you don’t keep your blasted hands off things,” he hissed.
    Rawley dragged them apart. “You come in the back with me, Rumbald,” he said. Rumbald did not want to go in the back seat; he wanted to drive. “Not if I know it,” cried Rawley.
    There ensued a lot of drunken foolery on the part of Rumbald, and a stream of blood-curdling invective from Penhurst, till Rawley lost all patience. He hauled and pushed Rumbald into the back seat. “My God!” he cried inexasperation. “Tight as you are, I swear I’ll slog you both if you don’t shut up.”
    He was very doubtful of Penhurst’s ability to drive, and he was relieved and a little surprised when they reached the outskirts of the city without disaster. But Penhurst, though not sober, was competent; and once on the open road he drove with a cool, suppressed fury at a pace that would have been suicidal had he been either less sober or less drunk. Occasionally the lime-washed cottages of a village leapt up white in the headlights, walling the road narrowly for a few seconds, to fall away as suddenly as they had arisen, leaving windy darkness on either hand, and the racing pool of light ahead chequered with the shadowed inequalities of the road.
    Rumbald made one sudden effort to gratify his wish to drive, and was repulsed by an icy douce of vituperation from the fell Penhurst, and was urgently dragged back into his seat by an exasperated Rawley. He complained almost tearfully of their unkindness, but fell asleep in the middle of his jeremiad.
    The familiar buildings at the cross-roads leapt up in the headlights and were gone, and a second later it seemed Penhurst brought the car to a standstill in the village. The now maudlin Rumbald was bundled out and Rawley followed. Penhurst called “Goodnight,” turned the car dexterously, the headlights in their swinging arc revealing for a second the white walls and shining windows of sleeping cottages, guns and limbers standing beneath cardboard scenic trees, and a silent sentry with white faceand glistening eyes and bayonet, and then the darkness rushed in again and he shot like a rocket back the way he had come.
    Rumbald began to sing mournfully, but the words ended in a gasp as an elbow drove into his body. “Shut up, you fool,” whispered Rawley hoarsely. “We don’t want the sentry to know you are bloody drunk. Shut up!” He put his arm round the huge, sagging body and piloted it towards his billet.
    By the meagre light of a candle stuck in the brass cottage candlestick on the marble-topped chest of drawers Rawley pulled off Rumbald’s boots as he lay like a stranded whale on the square French bed. They were field-boots and required much tugging before they came off and lolled drunkenly together by the low wooden valance of the bed. And all the time Rumbald talked sentimentally, though