Jonah and Co Part 72

It was Roland.

So soon as he saw us, he stopped and threw out his clutch.

"I say, you know, I am mos' distress' about your lunch to-morrow. When you ask me----"

"Roland," I cried, "Roland, will you lend me your car?"

"But 'ave I not said----"

"Now--at once--here--to drive to Bordeaux?"

Roland looked up at my face.

The next moment he was out of his seat.

"Yes, but I am not going with you," he said. Then: "What is the matter? Never mind. You will tell me after. The lights are good, and she is full up with gasolene. I tell you, you will be there in three hours."

"Make it two and three-quarters," said I.

The day's traffic had dwindled to a handful of home-going gigs, and as we swung out of the _Rue Montpensier_ and on to the Bordeaux road, a distant solitary tram was the only vehicle within sight.

I settled down in my seat....

A moment later we had pa.s.sed the _Octroi_, and Pau was behind us.

Piers crouched beside me as though he were carved of stone. Once in a while his eyes would fall from the road to the instrument-board.

Except for that regular movement, he gave no sign of life. As for Berry, sunk, papoose-like, in the chauffeur's c.o.c.kpit in rear, I hoped that his airman's cap would stand him in stead....

The light was good, and would serve us for half an hour. The car was pulling like the mares of Diomedes. As we flung by the last of the villas, I gave her her head....

Instantly the long straight road presented a bend, and I eased her up with a frown. We took the corner at fifty, the car holding the road as though this were banked for speed. As we flashed by the desolate race-course and the ground on which Piers had alighted two hours before, I lifted a grateful head. It was clear that what corners we met could be counted out. With such a grip of the road and such acceleration, the time which anything short of a hairpin bend would cost us was almost negligible.

As if annoyed at my finding, the road for the next five miles ran straight as a die. For over three of those miles the lady whose lap we sat in was moving at eighty-four.

A hill appeared--a long, long hill, steep, straight, yellow--tearing towards us.... We climbed with the rush of a lift--too fast for our stomachs.

The road was improving now, but, as if to cancel this, a steep, winding hill fell into a sudden valley. As we were dropping, I saw its grey-brown fellow upon the opposite side, dragging his tedious way to the height we had left.

We lost time badly here, for down on the flat of the dale a giant lorry was turning, while a waggon was creeping by. For a quarter of a precious minute the road was entirely blocked. Because of the coming ascent the check hit us hard. In a word, it made a mountain out of a molehill. What the car might have swallowed whole she had to masticate. She ate her way up the rise, snorting with indignation....

A mile (or a minute, Sirs, whichever you please) was all the grace she had to find her temper. Then the deuce of a hill swerved down to the foot of another--long, blind, sinuous. The road was writhing like a serpent. We used it as serpents should be used. Maybe it bruised our heels: we bruised its head savagely....

We were on the level now, and the way was straight again. A dot ahead was a waggon. I wondered which way it was going. I saw, and we pa.s.sed it by in the same single moment of time. That I may not be thought in.o.bservant, forty-five yards a second is a pace which embarra.s.ses sight.

A car came flying towards us. At the last I remarked with a smile it was going our way. A flash of paint, a smack like the flap of a sail, and we were by.

A farm was coming. I saw the white of its walls swelling to ells from inches. I saw a hen, who had seen us, starting to cross our path.

Simultaneously I lamented her death--needlessly. She missed destruction by yards. I found myself wondering whether, after all, she had held on her way. Presently I decided that she had and, anxious to retrace her steps, had probably awaited our pa.s.sage in some annoyance....

We swam up another hill, flicked between two waggons, slashed a village in half and tore up the open road.

The daylight was waning now, and Piers switched on the hooded light that illumined the instrument-board. With a frown I collected my lady for one last tremendous effort before the darkness fell.

She responded like the thoroughbred she was.

I dared not glance at the speedometer, but I could feel each mile as it added itself to our pace. I felt this climb from ninety to ninety-one.

Thickening the spark by a fraction, I brought it to ninety-two ...

ninety-three.... In a quiet, steady voice, Piers began to give me the benefit of his sight.

"Something ahead on the right ... a waggon ... all clear ... cart, I think, on the right ... no--yes. It's not moving.... A bicycle on the left ... and another ... a car coming ... all clear ... no--a man walking on the right ... all clear...."

So, our narrowed eyes nailed to the straight grey ribbon streaming into the distance, the sea and the waves roaring in our ears, folded in the wings of the wind, we cheated Dusk of seven breathless miles and sent Nature packing with a fork in her breech.

Sore at this treatment, the Dame, as ever, returned, with Night himself to urge her argument.

I threw in my hand with a sigh, and Piers switched on the lights as we ran into Aire-sur-l'Adour.

I heard a clock striking as we swung to the left in the town....

Eight o'clock.

Two more hours and a quarter, and a hundred and nineteen miles to go.

I tried not to lose heart....

We had pa.s.sed Villeneuve-de-Marsan, and were nearing, I knew, cross-roads, when Piers forestalled my inquiry and spoke in my ear.

"Which shall you do? Go straight? Or take the forest road?"

"I don't know the Roquefort way, except that there's pavement there.

What's it like?"

"It's pretty bad," said Piers. "But you'll save about fifteen miles."

"How much pavement is there? Five or six miles?"

"Thirty about," said Piers.

"Thanks very much," said I. "We'll go by the forest."

I think I was right.

I knew the forest road and I knew its surface was superb. Thirty miles of pavement, which I did not know, which was admittedly rough, presented a ghastly prospect. The 'luxury' tax of fifteen precious miles, tacked on to the way of the forest, was really frightening, but since such a little matter as a broken lamp would kill our chances, I dared not risk the rough and tumble of the pavement upon the Roquefort road.

At last the cross-roads came, and we swung to the right. We had covered a third of the ground.

I glanced at the gleaming clock sunk in the dash.