We Shall Not Sleep_ A Novel - Anne Perry [122]
In the morning it was clear and colder. They breakfasted on tea and the last of the bread they had brought with them, with plum jam. The bread was hard and stale, but no one complained. Uppermost in Judith’s mind was the fact that they would have to buy or beg everything from now on, and that could be another two days, if they had any problems. Time was pressing urgently. It was already the fifth of November—Guy Fawkes Day at home, when they lit bonfires and set off fireworks to celebrate the fact that the plot to blow up Parliament, and kill all its members, had been foiled. A celebration of freedom and the defeat of treason and murder. Did they still remember what it was about? Or was it just an excuse to have fun?
The ambulance would not start. She cleaned the spark plugs, and it made no difference. It was hard to quell the panic inside her. It felt like a fluttering in her stomach and a tightening of her throat so that it was difficult to breathe. No one else had any idea how to help, but she had expected that from the beginning. Mason could observe, assess, write brilliantly. Matthew could plan, judge men, think ahead, unravel truth and lies, and he was a good driver, but he never mended his own cars. Schenckendorff was at least a colonel. Colonels did not maintain their own cars. Lizzie was a nurse and a pretty good driver, too, according to Joseph, who was more than a little biased. And Joseph himself was good at medical emergencies, a fair army cook—at least with a candle and a tin—and a better soldier than he knew. But mechanics of any sort were a closed book to him.
She worked quietly, steadying her hands with an effort of will. At least it was light, and not raining. She changed the plugs. It was sooner than she would have wished. Now they had nothing in reserve.
Joseph was watching her.
“Perhaps you should say a prayer for it,” she said ruefully. “Otherwise we shall have to descend to stealing. Highway robbery.”
“Do you know what parts we need?” he asked, his face puckered with doubt.
She saw the comical side of it. “I was thinking of a trade,” she replied, picking up the crank handle ready to attempt starting the engine.
“Trade?” He was puzzled. “Still doesn’t help if we don’t know what we need.”
“Their vehicle for ours,” she replied. “I told you, highway robbery.” She passed him the crank handle. “Please?”
On the third attempt it sputtered into life. They looked at each other, laughing, drenched with relief, and clambered in.
After they had gone forty-five miles west, they found the roads more crowded with other vehicles and people on foot. It began to look as if the country closer to Dunkirk was making something of a recovery as well.
They managed to find a roadside café at which to buy a meal. It was meager—no eggs, no meat, only dumplings seasoned with herbs—but it was sufficient to sustain them. They spoke little and listened to the conversation around them. There had been other victories. Judith watched Schenckendorff’s face as one group talked about Allied troops pressing forward rapidly now, with terrible loss of German life. She saw the sudden flash of pain in him, and then the effort to hide it and pretend to feel pleasure, like the people around them. A few people around them started cheering, as if each death or mutilation were some kind of victory in itself, a payment for all the loss over the last years: the dead they would never even find, let alone bury.
Then the conversation shifted. There was other news that was more frightening. Spanish influenza had struck, and thousands of people were dying. No one could count how many, and the disease was spreading. Paris was particularly hard hit.
They left the café with a new sense of darkness on the horizon, unknown and closing in. Joseph walked closer to Lizzie. Mason touched Judith’s arm and stood beside her as if to help her up into the driver’s seat, although he knew better than to do so. Instead