* * * * *

They snorted out of the dreary tunnel into Rouen in the first daylight of the next morning.  Peter looked eagerly at the great winding river and the glory of the cathedral as it towered up above the mists that hung over the houses.  There was a fresh taste of spring in the air, and the smoke curled clear and blue from the slow-moving barges on the water.  The bare trees on the island showed every twig and thin branch, as if they had been pencilled against the leaden-coloured flood beneath.  A tug puffed fussily upstream, red and yellow markings on its grimy black.

Jenks was asleep in the corner, but he woke as they clattered across the bridge.  “Heigh-ho!” he sighed, stretching.  “Back to the old graft again.”

Yet once more Peter began to collect his belongings.  It seemed ages since he had got into the train at Victoria, and he felt particularly grubby and unshaven.

“What’s the next move?” he asked.

Jenks eyed him.  “Going to take a taxi?” he queried.

“Where to?” said Peter.

“Well, if you ask me, padre,” he replied, “I don’t see what’s against a decent clean-up and breakfast at the club.  It doesn’t much matter when I report, and the club’s handy for your show.  I know the A.C.G.’s office, because it’s in the same house as the Base Cashier, and the club’s just at the bottom of the street.  But it’s the deuce of a way from the station.  If we can get a taxi, I vote we take it.”

“Right-o,” agreed Peter.  “You lead on.”

They tumbled out on the platform, and produced the necessary papers at the exit labelled “British Officers Only.”  A red-capped military policeman wrote down particulars on a paper, and in a few minutes they were out among the crowd of peasantry in the booking-hall.  Jenks pushed through, and had secured a cab by the time Peter arrived.  “There isn’t a taxi to be got, padre,” he said, “but this’ll do.”

They rolled off down an avenue of wintry trees, passed a wooden building which Peter was informed was the English military church, and out on to the stone-paved quay.  To Peter the drive was an intense delight.  A French blue-coated regiment swung past them.  “Going up the line,” said Jenks.  A crowd of black troops marched by in the opposite direction.  “Good Lord!” said Jenks, “so the S.A. native labour has come.”  The river was full of craft, but his mentor explained that the true docks stretched mile on mile downstream.  By a wide bridge lay a camouflaged steamer.  “Hospital ship,” said Jenks.  Up a narrow street could be seen the buttresses of the cathedral; and if Peter craned his head to glance up, his companion was more occupied in the great cafe at the corner a little farther on.  But it was, of course, deserted at that early hour.  A flower-stall at the corner was gay with flowers, and two French peasant women were arranging the blooms.  And then the fiacre swung into the Rue Joanne d’Arc, and opposite a gloomy-looking entrance pulled up with a jerk.  “Here we are,” said Jenks.  “It’s up an infernal flight of steps.”