Читать книгу Death on the Riviera - Ernest Elmore - Страница 4

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Once off the quayside Bill realized that the small hours of a bitter February morning was not the ideal time to weave one’s way out of Dunkirk. Presumably there had been roads between the rubble heaps and undoubtedly, before the holocaust, they’d led somewhere. But now there was nothing but a maze of treacherous, pot-holed tracks meandering aimlessly between a network of railway-lines and flattened buildings.

After a bit, utterly flummoxed, Bill braked up and studied his map. The first sizeable place on his route was Cassel. But how the devil was he to break out of this shambles on to the appropriate road? So far he hadn’t noticed a single sign-post. He remembered that road all right. The long hellish strip of pavé down which the disintegrated but undaunted B.E.F. had jerked its way towards salvation. Sitting in his pre-war but still serviceable Stanmobile Ten something of the desperate hopelessness of that nightmare returned to haunt him. The scars of memory never really healed, he thought.

There was a screech of brakes and a small black “sports” slithered to a stop beside him. A head thrust itself out from beneath the hood.

“Pardon, M’sieur... à Cassel?”

Bill, no linguist himself, was swift to recognize a fellow sufferer. He chuckled:

“Don’t ask me! I’m heading for the same road. Not a damned signpost anywhere.”

“English, eh? Got a map?”

“Sure,” said Bill.

“Same here. Let’s take a look at the darn thing in our headlamps.”

Bill glanced at the man who joined him on the road—tall, athletic, aquiline features, something decisive in speech and movement that marked him down as a man of action. A reliable fellow in a tight corner, he thought. His companion, hatless, in belted raincoat, a muffler slung round his neck, was far younger though equally well-built. He seemed to treat the elder man with the respect that was due from a subordinate to a superior.

Barely had they gone into a huddle, however, when an early workman in a shabby overcoat and the ubiquitous blue beret, evidently intrigued by the set-up, jumped from his bicycle and crossed over to them.

“Est ce que je vous aide, Messieurs?”

Bill explained in halting French that they were anxious to get on to the road to Cassel.

“Ah! That is simple, M’sieur. Follow me. I will ride ahead. You keep me always in your headlights.”

Ten minutes later the good-hearted fellow, who had been pedalling like a madman, slowed down and indicated with a violent wave of his arm the route they were to take. Bill leaned out and yelled his thanks, glancing back to see if the second car was following. A few hundred yards farther up the road it drew abreast and for a brief time the two cars ran level.

“O.K.?” shouted Bill.

“Yes, thanks.”

“Where are you making for?”

“Paris!” came the answering yell. “And you?”

“Rheims first stop. After that down the Rhone valley to the Cote d’Azur.”

“Well, I hope it keeps fine for you. Good hunting.”

“Thanks. And the same to you.”

With a lifting drone the little black “sports” suddenly drew ahead and a few seconds later vanished behind an enormous camion that was lumbering with infuriating complacency down the very centre of the highway.