his own line.
Howard crossed the road to him, leading Ronnie by the hand. 'Morning,' he said. 'Mr Roger Dickinson, isn't it?'
The man turned quickly, cloth in hand; he had been cleaning off the windscreen. Recognition dawned in his eyes. 'I remember,' he said. 'In the Wanderers' Club...'
'Howard is the name.'
'I remember.' The man stared at him. 'What are you doing now?'
The old man said: 'I'm on my way to Paris, but I'm hung up here for a few days, I'm afraid.' He told Dickinson about Sheila.
The newspaperman said: 'You'd better get out, quick.'
'Why do you say that?'
The newspaperman stared at him, turning the soiled cloth over in his hands. 'Well, the Germans are across the Marne.' The old man stared at him. 'And now the Italians are coming up from the south.'
He did not quite take in the latter sentence. 'Across the Marne?' he said. 'Oh, that's very bad. Very bad indeed. But what are the French doing?'
'Running like rabbits,' said Dickinson.
There was a momentary silence. 'What did you say that the Italians were doing?'
'They've declared war on France. Didn't you know?'
The old man shook his head. 'Nobody told me that.'
'It only happened yesterday. The French may not have announced it yet, but it's true enough.'
By their side a little petrol flooded out from the full tank on to the road; one of the men removed the hose and slammed the snap catch of the filler cap with a metallic clang. 'That's the lot,' he said to Dickinson. 'I'll slip across and get a few brioches, and then we'd better get going.'
Dickinson turned to Howard. 'You must get out of this,' he said. 'At once. You'll be all right if you can get to Paris by tonight - at least, I think you will. There are boats still running from St Malo.'
The old man stared at him. 'That's out of the question, Dickinson. The other child has got a temperature.'
The man shrugged his shoulders. 'Well, I tell you honestly, the French won't hold. They're broken now - already. I'm not being sensationalist. It's true.'
Howard stood staring up the street. 'Where are you making for?'
'I'm going down into Savoy to see what the Italians are doing in that part. And then, we're getting out. Maybe Marseilles, perhaps across the frontier into Spain.'
The old man smiled. 'Good luck,' he said. 'Don't get too near the fighting.'
The other said: 'What are you going to do, yourself?'
'I don't quite know. I'll have to think about it.'
He turned away towards the hotel, leading Ronnie by the hand. A hundred yards down the road the mud-stained, green car came softly up behind, and edged into the kerb beside him.
Dickinson leaned out of the driver's seat. 'Look, Howard,' he said. 'There's room for you with us, with the two kids as well. We can take the children on our knees all right. It's going to be hard going for the next few days; we'll be driving all night, in spells. But if you can be ready in ten minutes with the other kid, I'll wait.'
The old man stared thoughtfully into the car. It was a generous offer, made by a generous man. There were four of them already in the car, and a great mass of luggage; it was difficult to see how another adult could be possibly squeezed in, let alone two children. It was an open body, with an exiguous canvas hood and no side screens. Driving all night in that through the mountains would be a bitter trial for a little girl of five with a temperature.
He said: 'It's very, very kind of you. But really, I think we'd better make our own way.'
The other said: 'All right. You've plenty of money, I suppose?'
The old man reassured him on that point, and the big car slid away and vanished down the road. Ronnie watched it, half crying. Presently he sniffed, and Howard noticed him.
'What's the matter?' he said kindly. 'What is it?'
There was no answer. Tears were very near.
Howard searched his mind for childish trouble. 'Was it the motor-car?' he said. 'Did you think we were going to have a ride in it?'
The little boy nodded dumbly.
The old man stooped and wiped his eyes. 'Never mind,' he said. 'We'll wait till Sheila gets rid of her cold, and then we'll all go for a ride together.' It was in his mind to hire a car, if possible, to take them all the way from Dijon to St Malo and the boat. It would cost a good bit of money, but the emergency seemed to justify the expense.
'Soon?'
'Perhaps the day after tomorrow, if she's well enough to enjoy it with us.'
'May we go and see the camions and the chars de combat after dejeuner?
'If they're still there we'll go and see them, just for a little.' He must do something to make up for the disappointment. But when they reached the station yard, the lorries and the armoured cars were gone. There were only a few decrepit-looking horses picketed beneath the tawdry advertisements for Byrrh and Pernod.
Up in the bedroom things were very happy. La petite Rose was there, a shy little girl with long black hair and an advanced maternal instinct. Already Sheila was devoted to her. La petite Rose had made a rabbit from two of Howard's dirty handkerchiefs and three little bits of string, and this rabbit had a burrow in the bedclothes on Ronnie's side of the bed; when you said 'Boo' he dived back into his burrow, manipulated ingeniously by la petite Rose. Sheila, bright-eyed, struggled to tell old Howard all about it in mixed French and English. In the middle of their chatter three aeroplanes passed very low over the station and the hotel.
Howard undid his parcels, and gave Sheila the picture-book about Bahar the Elephant. Babar was an old friend of la petite Rose, and well known; she took the book and drew Ronnie to the bed, and began to read the story to them. The little boy soon tired of. it; aeroplanes were more in his line, and he went and leaned out of the window hoping to see another one go by.
Howard left them there, and went down to the hall of the hotel to telephone. With great difficulty, and great patience, he got through at last to the hotel at Cidoton; obviously he must do his best to let Cavanagh know the difficulties of the journey. He spoke to Madame Lucard, but the Cavanaghs had left the day before, to go back to Geneva. No doubt they imagined that he was practically in England by that time.
He tried to put a call through to Cavanagh at the League of Nations in Geneva, and was told curtly that the service into Switzerland had been suspended. He enquired about the telegraph service, and was told that all telegrams to Switzerland must be taken personally to the Bureau de Ville for censoring before they could be accepted for despatch. There was said to be a very long queue at the censor's table.
It was time for dejeuner; he gave up the struggle to communicate with Cavanagh for the time being. Indeed, he had been apathetic about it from the start. With the clear vision of age he knew that it was not much good; if he should get in touch with the parents it would still be impossible for him to cross the border back to them, or for them to come to him. He would have to carry on and get the children home to England as he had undertaken to do; no help could come from Switzerland.
The hotel was curiously still, and empty; it seemed today that all the soldiers were elsewhere. He went into the restaurant and ordered lunch to be sent up to the bedroom on a tray, both for himself and for the children.
It came presently, brought by the femme de chambre. There was much excited French about the pictures of Babar, and about the handkerchief rabbit. The woman beamed all over; it was the sort of party that she understood.
Howard said: 'It has been very, very kind of you to let la petite Rose be with la petite Sheila. Already they are friends.'
The woman spoke volubly. 'It is nothing, monsieur -nothing at all. Rose likes more than anything to play with little children, or with kittens, or young dogs. Truly, she is a little mother, that one.' She rubbed the child's head affectionately. 'She will come back after dejeuner, if monsieur desires?'
Sheila said: 'I want Rose to come back after dejeuner, Monsieur Howard.'
