Kindling by Nevil Shute Read Free Book Online

of his bread in the middle of the day; the remainder crumbled in the pockets of his ulster.
    He got to Bellingham at about five o’clock after walking for eight hours or so; he covered the last mile in semi-darkness. He was very weary physically, and that same weariness gave him an easy mind; he knew that if he got a decent bed he would sleep naturally that night. Moreover, he was far too tired to think, and that to him was relaxation and relief. He found an inn in thevillage, where they looked at him askance, wet and unshaven, dirty and with no luggage.
    “Aye,” said the landlord, “we’ve got beds. Maybe you’ll find the house a bit expensive. We charge ten shillings deposit for them as comes without bag or baggage.”
    “Seems reasonable enough,” said Warren. He produced his note-case and put down the money; the man’s manner altered for the better.
    “We has to be careful,” he explained apologetically, “or you’d be getting some queer company. I never see so many on the roads as there are this year.”
    “Out of a job?” asked Warren.
    “Aye, walking the roads. They say there’s more work in the south these days, but I dunno. This is your room. I’ll bring up some hot water in a minute.”
    He washed and went downstairs to a high tea of ham and eggs, and marmalade, and cherry cake. In the coffee room there was nothing to read but a few copies of the motoring journals of the previous summer, and a queer paper about cattle-breeding that he could not understand. He was tired and disinclined to sit and gossip in the bar with the landlord and his cronies. He went to bed at about half-past seven, leaving his ulster and suit to be dried before the kitchen fire.
    He slept in his underclothes, a thing he had not done since the War. It had the pleasure of novelty for him, brought back old times and made him feel a subaltern again. He slept soundly for about five hours, got up and had a drink of water, and then slept again till dawn.
    His clothes were stacked outside his door when hegot up. The suit had shrunk a little and the ulster was no longer the fine fleecy garment it had been; Warren smiled quietly at his reflection in the glass. He did not mind, in fact he rather welcomed, the change; it made him look a little less conspicuous. He went down to his breakfast with a lighter heart than he had had for some months.
    Again he was not hungry, and ate very little.
    It was a better morning, cold and raw, but fine. He paid his bill and set out on the road again. Again he kept to moorland tracks all day, trending north-east; now and again he passed through tiny hamlets in the folds of the black hills, or crossed a road. It was better going; from time to time a watery sun lit up the barren country, and was lost again in racing cloud.
    Warren walked steadily all through the day. He was not feeling fit; a stale, tired feeling dulled his pleasure in the exercise. Again he had no lunch except a mouthful of bread from his pocket, and did not feel the need of any. Towards sunset he came out on a hill-top; the sky had cleared and over to the east, some ten or fifteen miles away, he saw a grey line of the sea.
    He left the hill and dropped down to the valley, where the smoke of houses rose among the trees. Getting over a gate into the main road he dropped down heavily, and in an instant he was wrung with the same stabbing, muscular pain that he had two days before in the office. He sank down on the grass verge of the road and lay there gasping for a moment, white and shaken; slowly the sharpness of the pain eased, and left only a dull ache behind.
    “God, but I’m soft,” he muttered to himself. “I’ll never let myself get down like this again.”
    After a time he got up from the grass and walked slowly for the half mile to the village. Again he put up at the inn; he felt rested and refreshed after his tea, and went out to the village cinema.
    That night he stripped and examined his abdomen with care, thinking of