There was no sign at all of the
village--not a brick lay where the signpost stood.
Stopping the car she drew out her map and considered--and suddenly, out
of nowhere, with a rattle and a bang, and a high blast on a mad little
horn, a Ford arrived at her side upon the cross-roads.
"Got no gas?" enquired an American. She looked up into his pink face.
His hood was broken and hung down over one side of the car. One of his
springs was broken and he appeared to be holding the car upright by the
tilt of his body. His tyres were in rags, great pieces of rubber hung
out beyond the mudguards.
"Dandy car you've got!" he said with envy. "French?"
Soon he was gone upon the road to Chaulnes. His retreating back, with
the spindly axle, the wild hood, the torn fragments of tyre flying round
in streamers, and the painful list of the body set her laughing, as she
stood by the signpost in the desert.
Then she took the road to Peronne.
"I won't have my lunch yet--" looking at the pale sun. Her only watch
had stopped long since, resenting the vibrations of the wheel. She
passed Peronne--uprooted railways and houses falling head foremost into
the river, and beyond it, side roads led her to a small deserted
village, oddly untouched by shell or fire. Here the doors swung and
banged, unlatched by any human fingers, the windows, still draped with
curtains, were shut, and no face looked out.
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