Fair Stood the Wind for France by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-03-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

LOOKING up from the boat he saw Pierre lying flat on the jetty in the same attitude as he had left him in the afternoon, and above him the old woman standing very still in the twilight, and he knew because there was no one with them that something was very wrong. He was still roped to the plank, but now, because it was almost dark, no longer under the tarpaulin. The girl rowed in close to the jetty. As the boat hit the wooden piles and jarred back, Pierre reached out, grasped it, and held it still. The girl helped him off the plank, and he managed to stand upright. His fear was that he would fall down, and he determined not to fall down. He was tired and stiff with lying down, and his arm seemed to ache down to the finger-tips that no longer existed. But he was aware that something else had happened beside which all this and himself were little things. This feeling strengthened his determination not to fall down. Very carefully he put one foot on a cross-piece of the jetty, and then Pierre held his right hand and pulled him up. His anxiety not to fall down became an angry fear. ‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘Let me walk. Let me walk. Let me walk.’

As they let him walk to the house, Pierre and the girl each side of him, the twilight vibrating each time his feet struck the ground, he clenched his teeth in the renewed effort not to fall down. The house seemed many miles away. It receded and came back and would not remain still. Finally he reached out and tried, with an immense effort, to grasp it in his one hand. To his astonishment he discovered he was holding the door-post. He stood still for a moment, breathing very hard, and then, grasping the smooth friendly wood, swung himself heavily into the kitchen.

A moment later he fell down. He got to his feet with terrified haste, like a boxer who wants to show that he is still fighting.

He was aware after that of sitting in a chair. He was trembling and exhausted, and was drinking a small glass of cognac. The bottle of cognac was on the table and the lamp was burning above it, the flame low beneath the opaque white chimney. Between himself and the light, and sometimes beyond it, he saw the girl and Pierre and the old woman moving. Their faces vibrated as if someone were shaking the light, and it seemed as if they were all talking together.

He discovered after a time that they were not talking together. It was Pierre and the old woman talking, telling the girl what had happened. The girl, for a long time, was silent. He took another drink of the cognac. As the heat of it bit his mouth he felt less tired, and the faces, as he looked at them, no longer vibrated. The face of

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