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

mysteriously, “Like to come in with me tomorrow?”
    Rawley thought it would be worth doing if it could be managed.
    Rumbald shut one eye and nodded mysteriously. “So you shall then,” he said. “I’ve fixed it all up. A nice little dinner and the sights of the town. Like me to tackle the Major for you?”
    â€œOh no, I’ll ask him,” said Rawley. “He won’t object. He’s awfully decent about that sort of thing when we’re in rest. But how are we to get there? It must be over thirty kilometres.”
    Rumbald winked again mysteriously. “Trust your Uncle Sammy,” he said. “Know Penhurst?”
    â€œThat’s the M.T. fellow at the cross-roads, isn’t it?”
    Rumbald nodded. “Yes. Well, he’s going to take us in his car tomorrow afternoon.”

CHAPTER V
    I
    Penhurst of the A.S.C. arrived on the following afternoon to take Rawley and Rumbald into Amiens. Rawley was in a sight-seeing mood and was anxious to be off. Rumbald, however, insisted upon a preliminary drink, and they retired to the mess and shouted for the mess corporal. Rawley disliked drinking whisky on a hot afternoon, but his objections were overruled by Rumbald, whose persuasive, hail-fellow-well-met manner was always difficult to resist.
    â€œCome on, Pete,” he said. “You must have just one little spot. You can’t see Amiens properly unless you’ve had at least one drink first. Isn’t that so, Penhurst?”
    Penhurst nodded agreement.
    â€œWell, so long as I don’t see two cathedrals,” murmured Rawley doubtfully.
    â€œThat’s right,” boomed Rumbald. “A good stiff whisky for Mr. Rawley, corporal. Puts you in the right mood to appreciate architecture or any other sort of beauty.” This with a wink at Penhurst. And so they all settled down into chairs, and it was two drinks later in the case of Rumbald and Penhurst or twenty minutes before they went out into the sunlight and started up the grey Vauxhall car.
    They drove along the now familiar shady road into Doullens and turned south past the old grass-covered citadel up the straight, steep Amiens road that climbedover the bare downs. Penhurst drove, and he drove fast, so that Rawley had little opportunity of seeing the country as he would have wished to do, and he absorbed only a vague impression of a straight white road switch-backing over corn-covered downs, hedgeless and treeless, except for a wood-shrouded village here and there on a hill top, and punctuated by villages with hideous new red-brick churches which changed later to picturesque though poverty-stricken wattle-and-daub cottages girdled with fruit trees.
    Then the car shot over the low crest of a hill, and he saw the city below him straddling the green Somme valley, a wide sweep of jumbled roofs and chimneys and trees glimmering silver-grey in the sunlight, and the great cathedral, with its long, grey roof and pinnacles towering cliff-like from the tree-shaded quays and bridges where the glassy Somme was shivered into a number of gleaming canals. The view was lost a moment later as they swept into a suburb down a long, straight pavé road bordered by trees and broad sidewalks on which dirty urchins played and bedraggled women filled cracked ewers at the stand-pipes spaced before dreary flat-fronted houses. The road narrowed suddenly, and canals, stone quays, and markets opened to right and left. The western towers of the cathedral soared above the houses terraced on the slope ahead. The car bumped over two or three narrow bridges and climbed a steep, winding cobbled street.
    They left the car in the courtyard of the Hôtel de la Paix and walked back across the Place Gambetta.
    â€œWhat’s the programme?” asked Rumbald.
    â€œWell, I think that Charley’s Bar is indicated.”
    â€œOh Lord!” groaned Rawley. “We are not going to spend the whole day on a pub crawl,