Fifteen priceless minutes that van had stolen out of my hard-earned hoard. I had risked our lives a score of times to win each one of them. And now an ill-natured churl had flung them into the draught….
I set my teeth and put the car at a hill at eighty-five….
We flashed through Langon at twenty minutes to ten.
Thirty-five minutes left—and thirty miles to go.
We were on the main road now, and the surface was wide, if rough. What little traffic there was, left plenty of room.
I took the ashes of my caution and flung them to the winds.
Piers told me afterwards that for the first twenty miles never once did the speedometer's needle fall below seventy-two. He may be right. I knew that the streets were coming, and the station had to be found. It was a question, in fact, of stealing time. That which we had already was not enough. Unless we could pick some out of the pocket of Providence, the game was up.
I had to slow down at last for a parcel of stones. The road was being re-made, and thirty yards of rubble had to be delicately trod. As we forged through the ruck at twenty, Piers stared at the side of the road.
"BORDEAUX 16," he quoted.
Ten more miles—and nineteen minutes to go.