"Perhaps these ladies would come down and try their cars after lunch?"
he suggested, and lunch being over they walked with him through the
winding streets. At the gates of a great yard he paused and a sentry
swung them open. Behind the gates lay a sandy plain as large as a parade
ground, which, except for gulleys or gangways crossing it at intervals,
was packed from end to end with row after row of cars; cars in the worst
possible condition, torn, twisted, wheelless, cars with less dramatic
and yet fatal injuries; some squatting backwards upon their haunches,
some inclined forwards upon their knees--one, lately fished up from a
river, had slabs and crusts of ice still upon its seats--one, the last
dragged in at the tail of a breakdown lorry, hung, fore-wheels in the
air, helpless upon a crane. Here, in the yard, was nothing but broken
iron and mouldering carriage work--the cemetery of the Transport of the
Grand Quartier.
Lining all one side of the yard ran a shed, closed and warmed and
lighted, where living cars slept in long rows mudguard to mudguard, and
bright lamps facing outward.
As the Englishwomen walked in a soft rustle could be heard up and down
the lighted shed, for each half-hidden driver working by his car turned
and shot a glance, expectant and mocking, towards the door.
"Ben quoi, i'parait qu'c'esst vrai! Tu vois!"
"Qu'est-ce qu'il dit, c'ui-la?"
"C'est les Anglaises, pardi!"
"Tu comprends, j'suis contre tout ca.
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