Behind the Lines (35 page)

She squeezed his arm. “But, Peter, is it safe?”

He laughed at her fears. “Why, I've fed in some place or other here every night for a fortnight or more. But I don't think we will go to the Godbert tonight. Somewhere quieter, where we can talk.”

He took her to one of the less-known hotel restaurants that was patronized more by the native French themselves than by British officers. It was quiet, and their table in the corner was situated far enough from the other diners
to give them privacy of conversation. And the food was excellent, but their eyes sought each other so persistently across the table that they had little time to notice what was on their plates.

Berney sipped her wine thoughtfully, and then she slowly put down her glass, and looked up. “Peter, I've got a simply wonderful idea!”

He nodded, gazing hungrily at her glowing cheeks and eyes sparkling in the shade of her hat. “Which is?”

“I'm supposed to be going to England tomorrow. I'm leaving the C.C.S. I have been posted to an ambulance column with the Royal Berks Hospital at Reading, but they have given me a fortnight's leave before I have to report.”

He nodded his head slowly.

She fingered the stem of her glass and then looked at him with starry eyes. “Peter, can't we get married and have a fortnight's honeymoon!”

He reached for her hand across the table and laughed unsteadily at the dazzling prospect she opened up. “But, Berney darling, where could we go?”

She had laid her other hand on his and went on eagerly. “To your cellar. It would be such dear, delicious fun. Alf could find another place for the time being. You said there were lots of dug-outs and things near, and. . . .”

“Berney, Berney dear, I couldn't let you do that even if it were possible—which it isn't.”

“But why?” she protested.

“How could we get married, dear?” he said gently. “I'm what I am. No padre would do it.”

She nodded her head slowly. “Um—I had not thought of that. But you do want to marry me, Peter?” she asked after a moment's silence.

“Berney!” he exclaimed with an eloquent look.

She fiddled with the stem of her glass and went on without looking up. “It isn't our fault we can't get married, is it? We would if we could. Peter—Peter, couldn't we—couldn't we have the honeymoon, anyway?”

He made some inarticulate sound, and she went on quickly and earnestly. “Life is so—so uncertain, Peter. I know a man who wanted to marry a girl at home on his last leave. Her people said it was too short—ten days. And so they didn't and he went back and he was killed. Now she is heartbroken. Why shouldn't we take happiness while we can? There is no certainty for anybody of anything—except the moment, and I am so greedy of life and joy and happiness. And we couldn't love each other any more even if we were married.” Her eyes fell. “Peter, am I very wicked?”

“Wicked!” he exclaimed with an unsteady little laugh that was strangled by a gulp. “Berney, you're . . . you're an angel.” He knit his brows and rested his head on his hand like one crazed. “But I should be wicked,” he faltered like one repeating a lesson, “I . . . should be . . . wicked if . . . I let you . . . do it.” He raised his head suddenly and defiantly. “No, no, no, you must not do it. I'd be a cad to let you.”

She was silent, but her eyes were fixed on his, appealingly. “And besides,” he went on lamely, “it would not be any easier at the end.”

“But we should have had our fortnight,” she said, in a low voice.

He looked at her with imploring eyes. “Berney, Berney darling,” he cried miserably, like a drowning man. “I cannot argue about it. You would beat me in two minutes. God knows I'm holding out against myself only by a hair. I can't hold out against you, too. But I
know
I ought not to consent, and I'm clinging to that blindly—clinging to my last shred of decency. If I loved you a little less I should have given in already. Berney—Berney, help me.”

She squeezed the hand that held hers. Her eyes were misty. They turned again abruptly to their food and ate fiercely and in silence.

IV

It was getting late when they left the restaurant, but they did not take the shortest way back to the l'Univers They moved slowly through the dark, narrow streets, and found themselves again on the quay by the canal. Both were silent with the thought of the parting that was so near. They sat down on the bench beneath the plane-tree.

“Peter,” she whispered. “You will see me off tomorrow?”

He nodded miserably.

“My train leaves a little after ten. You—you want me to go by it?”

He nodded without speaking.

“Two weeks,” she said softly, as though speaking to herself. “Two little weeks of happiness out of—perhaps a whole lifetime. It seems such a little to ask of life.”

He felt his strength of will slipping from him. He struggled blindly to resist, but with her arms around his neck, her body in his arms, and her cheek against his, it was a losing battle he fought, and he knew it. His denials became less vehement and ceased. He consented.

Now that the cloud of separation was lifted from their minds they were eager and radiant. They talked of practicalities. It was settled that he was to go to the l'Univers in the morning and have breakfast with her; then he would go out to the cellar and make ready for her. Meantime she would do some shopping and would jump a lorry so as to arrive in Albert in the neighbourhood of five o'clock. He would meet her there, and together they would walk back through the dusk to the cellar.

At the top of the deserted Rue Lammartine they parted. For a few wonderful moments he held her again in his arms, and then, with a whispered “Till tomorrow, Peter darling,” she crossed the Rue de Noyon and disappeared into the Hôtel de l'Univers opposite.

V

Back in his billet, he undressed and got into bed, but sleep did not come to him. He lay staring into the darkness, while his active brain rehearsed the events of the evening, and made plans for the morrow. Already
with Berney he had superficially discussed practicalities and, in their joyous enthusiasm, they had joked and made light of difficulties; but now, as he lay alone in the darkness, without the intoxicating pressure of her hand on his arm, going soberly over the mundane essentials of bare existence in the devastated area, subconsciously the conviction grew that he was acting selfishly and like a cad. And as he lay tossing in the darkness, while the fight went on with the nagging voice that would not let him enjoy that which he so ardently desired, a new thought came to disturb his peace. It came as a suspicion and grew to be a certainty: she did not intend to go at the end of the fortnight. She intended to sacrifice herself for him and share his outlawry and hunted existence to the end.

Filled with a new strength and resolution he switched on the light and climbed out of bed. He filled four or five sheets of a ruled block with writing. Read them through, tore them up, and began again. The final draft covered less than a sheet. It read:

“Berney darling,—If we lived together for a thousand years we could not be happier than we have been tonight, or love each other more. It was only here, alone in my billet, that I realized what you intend, and what your sacrifice means. But even now I know that, were your dear eyes on mine and your lips pleading, I should give in. And so, like a coward I am running away. For your own sake I dare not see you before I go. When your dear eyes are reading this I shall have left
Amiens, and it will be useless and only dangerous for us both to try to find me.

“Berney, you are angry with me, perhaps, but if ever you doubt my love, read again this letter. Darling, I am very, very sad, but very, very happy, and you must be very happy, too.

“In my thoughts I shall be with you always, always, darling, whatever happens.

“P
ETER
.”

He went back to bed, but slept only fitfully. He had left a shutter open, and was up with the first streaks of dawn. He dressed hurriedly and without shaving. He packed his immediate necessities in a haversack, and his other kit in the valise. Then he put on his trench coat and went out. He found Bull shaving in his billet, and he gave him orders to get the valise out to the Albert road as soon as possible. Then he set off briskly through the town.

A sleepy old waiter in a baize apron was sweeping the doorway of the Hôtel de l'Univers. Rawley handed him the letter with instructions to give it to Miss Travers as soon as she came down. He walked on round the corner into the Place de la Gare and entered a café. The café was not yet officially open for the day, but the matronly proprietress took compassion on him and brought hot coffee and rolls. Opposite him was the great glass front of the station, and the slope that led down to it, and he wondered which pavement Berney would choose when she passed that way a few hours later. He envied the walls
that would see her pass though he could not. But he wasted little time on vain sentimentalizing. He finished his breakfast and walked down the Boulevard Alsace towards the Albert road.

As he crossed the bridge over the river a lorry overtook him. It was going to Bapaume, the driver said, and Rawley climbed up beside him. At the T roads at the end of the Boulevard, Private Bull, a cigarette in his mouth, was sitting on the valise. The lorry stopped and the valise was taken on board. Rawley said goodbye to Bull, and the lorry rumbled on its way. An hour and a half later it rumbled through Albert and out along the Bapaume Road. He left it in a deserted spot in the neighbourhood of Poizières, and shouldering the valise, tramped towards the cellar. He was in no mood for Alf's primitive conversation, and was relieved to find the cellar empty; but fearing that its owner would return shortly, he dumped the valise in a corner and went back up the steps.

CHAPTER XXIII

I

It was late afternoon when he returned from a long tramp across country. Alf had returned and was glad to see him. “I saw your posh kit, chum, so I knew you was back, and that it wasn't just an afternoon tea call.”

“I'm back for keeps,” said Rawley. “There's a spy hunt starting in Amiens tomorrow, and I thought it healthier to clear out before it began.”

“Too ruddy true,” agreed Alf. “But look 'ere, mate, you've turned up at an awkward moment.” He ran his fingers through his tousled hair. “You see, it's like this, I turned up as large as life at the M.T. Quarter's stores to draw three days' rations this morning—and the shysters 'ad gorn. A bloke what I saw peelin' pertiters said they went yesterday. Anyway, they're gorn and,” he spread out his hands in exaggerated French gesture. “No more ruddy rations—compree?”

Rawley rubbed his stubbly chin. “Um! That's awkward. I've brought nothing with me either—though there's a whole canteen of stuff back in Amiens. I hope to get it out here in a few days, but I dare not go back for it now.” He sat down on the edge of Alf's wire bed. “What other units are there in Albert now?”

“Only odds and ends. I tried to cadge a dixie of stew from the bloke what was peelin' pertiters, but he wasn't
'aving any. Yer see we ain't got nothing in the 'ouse 'cept a couple o' biscuits—mark IV bomb proof.”

“And I've got two francs left in the wide,” said Rawley, jingling the coins together.

“Well, we'll 'ave to go on the scrounge again, I reckon,” said Alf. “And I know a place where we can scrounge all right. I've been lookin' round all day trying to win a bite o' something. I went right into Bapaume on a lorry, but there weren't nothin' there; but jes' the other side I come across a camp. There weren't no one in the camp 'cept a couple o' P.B. blokes, and it looked to me as though the troops had jes' gone out of it. Anyway, I come across a canteen. It was shut up, but I looked in the winders, and there was the stuff all piled in boxes ready to take away. I reckon them blokes got orders to move in a hurry, an' they're sendin' a limber for that stuff tomorrow, so if we go up tonight, we'll get there fust.”

Rawley grimaced. “My luxurious life in Amiens has spoiled me for this sort of thing,” he said with a wry smile. “Still, I suppose it has got to be done. A couple of P.B. men, you say?”

“There may be more, but I only saw a couple.”

“Can we get up to the place under cover?”

“Sure. There's a deep ditch run right alongside the hut.”

“Full of mud, too, I expect,” commented Rawley.

“It ain't too clean,” admitted Alf.

Rawley glanced down at his clean tunic. “If I spoil this, bang goes our chance of drawing rations again.”

Alf nodded. “We'd better take our posh togs off and put on our old civvies for this job,” he suggested.

II

They set out soon after dark, dressed in their disreputable peasant clothes. Each carried a sack slung across his shoulders, and Alf carried a rifle. A slight mist was rising, and as their clothes made it unsafe for them to use the road, the going across that uneven, shell-torn country was necessarily slow. They trudged along silently side by side. The mist thickened as time passed, and they had difficulty in distinguishing objects at five yards distance. The occasional muffled report of a gun gave them the direction of the Line, but they were uncertain of their exact whereabouts. They turned half-left, hoping to strike the road, but another hour went by and the same impenetrable grey vapour surrounded them, and there was the same uneven ground underfoot.

They had hoped to reach their objective a little before midnight, but midnight was now past and they had not yet located Bapaume. They rested on a hummock of chalk. “We are lost,” said Rawley. “We have been walking in circles probably. Our only chance is to find the main road; and when we do find it we had better go straight back, or we shall have daylight upon us. Then if the mist suddenly rises and we find ourselves in the middle of a camp, we shall be in the soup.”