As one man we rose to our feet and drained our glasses dry.
After dinner we crowded into the lounge, and Jack sat down at the piano. With nimble fingers he drew soft music from the keys. We soon discovered we were in a nest of artists, drawn together by a common tie.
Little Watkins, another Red Cross driver, who, as we afterwards learned, had risked his life a score of times to help some wounded fellow on the treacherous road, sang for us. It seems but yesterday that we sat there in the smoke-filled room, listening with rapt attention to his silvery tenor voice. The flames from the fire lit up his face as the throbbing notes poured forth. Je sais que vous etes jolie; we know now why he sang so well—he was in love. Poor Watkins has many months since passed to the "great beyond," but the sweet pathos of his voice still lingers in the ears of those he charmed that night.
Kennerly Rumford was then called upon—yes, the world-renowned Kennerly Rumford, in khaki in a little room in St. Omer—and in that magnificent baritone of his filled the house until it rocked with glorious sound. Rich, deep, rolling melody welled up from his great chest, until the wonder of it struck us dumb. I looked about me; pipes rested unused upon the table; cigarettes had been cast away, and the cigars, forgotten for the nonce, were dead.
We were loathe to leave this house of entertainment, but time was pressing, and we still had many miles to go.
The streets were black as pitch; no lights were permitted in the war zone, but at last we found our way out of the town, and started.
CHAPTER XIV
As we sped along the road to Poperinghe, the headlights of our car made a lone streak of white against the utter blackness of the outer world. Occasionally on the wings of the wind came the boom of the big guns, followed a moment after by the sharper crash of the bursting shells. The barricades became more numerous, and from time to time we were halted by a British sentry and our passes were scrutinised with especial care.
It was about ten p.m. when we crept softly through the outskirts of the little Belgian town which marked our destination for the night. We pulled up at a small hotel, less than a hundred yards from the spot where the German aviator had wrought such havoc that afternoon. The stone walls of the buildings about were marked with holes, which showed up plainly in the light from the car, and the cobblestones for several yards around were splintered.
As is the case with most small hostels in northern France and Belgium, the door through which we entered opened directly into the bar. The blaze of light within, well screened off from the street by heavy curtains, dazzled our eyes, and the crowded room with its round marble-topped tables was heavy with smoke. The ever-smiling bar-maids were having a busy time. Bottles of whiskey and soda, beer or wine, stood upon every side, and the clink of glasses intermingling with the clatter of foreign tongues, fell upon our ears. The soft, sibilant French, the cockney English and the guttural Flemish warred with one another in an unintelligible babble.