The road from Dunkirk to Calais was well guarded in those days. From
Nieuport for some miles inland only the shattered remnant of the Belgian
Army held the line. For the cry "On to Paris!" the Germans had
substituted "On to Calais!"
So, on French soil at least, the road was well guarded. A few miles in
the battered car, then a slowing up, a showing of passports, the clatter
of a great chain as it dropped to the road, a lowering of leveled rifles,
and a salute from the officer--that was the method by which they
advanced.
Henri sat with the driver and talked in a low tone. Sometimes he sat
quiet, looking ahead. He seemed, somehow, older, more careworn. His
boyishness had gone. Now and then he turned to ask if she was
comfortable, but in the intervals she felt that he had entirely forgotten
her. Once, at something Jean said, he got out a pocket map and went
over it carefully. It was a long time after that before he turned to
see if she was all right.
Sara Lee sat forward and watched everything. She saw little evidence of
war, beyond the occasional sentries and chains. Women were walking along
the roads. Children stopped and pointed, smiling, at the battered car.
One very small boy saluted, and Henri as gravely returned the salute.
Some time after that he turned to her.
"I find that I shall have to leave you in Dunkirk," he said. "A matter
of a day only, probably. But I will see before I go that you are
comfortable."
"I shall be quite all right, of course."
But something had gone out of the day for her.
Sara Lee learned one thing that day, learned it as some women do learn,
by the glance of an eye, the tone of a voice. The chauffeur adored
Henri. His one unbandaged eye stole moments from the road to glance
at him. When he spoke, while Henri read his map, his very voice betrayed
him. And while she pondered the thing, woman-fashion they drew into
the square of Dunkirk, where the statue of Jean Bart, pirate and
privateer stared down at this new procession of war which passed daily
and nightly under his cold eyes.
Jean and a porter carried in her luggage. Henri and a voluble and
smiling Frenchwoman showed her to her room. She felt like an island of
silence in a rapid-rolling sea of French. The Frenchwoman threw open
the door.
A great room with high curtained windows; a huge bed with a faded gilt
canopy and heavy draperies; a wardrobe as vast as the bed; and for a
toilet table an enormous mirror reaching to the ceiling and with a
marble shelf below--that was her room.