The officer boy shook Brent’s hand, feeling himself half a civilian and on the edge of demobilization. Besides, Brent had always been a gentlemanly chap.
“Well, good luck.”
“Good luck to you, sir,” said Brent.
That incident gave the necessary flick to his decision. Men who were ripe for discharge were allowed out on pass into Charleroi, and Brent got his pass that evening; it was dated for the following day. The N.C.O. in charge of the convalescent “wing” was a far more human person than the yellow-haired nurse.
So Paul Brent went down into Charleroi on a grey January morning, with the thrill of an adventure in his blood. He had scrounged a couple of tins of bully beef and a pocketful of biscuits, his reserve ration for the road. “Escape” was in the air. The trams clanged it, the shops were ready to help in the conspiracy: the crowded streets made Brent think of a dirty, commercialized but fascinating Baghdad. He began to feel himself part of this continental crowd and no English soldier numbered and labelled for an immediate return to some niche in that damned temple of Monotony, the Industrialism of England. He was a little Haroun al Raschid wandering as he pleased in this city of adventure.
Brent’s first business was to change that German money, for it would be no use to him on the road. He found a jeweller and goldsmith’s that was also a Bureau de Change, and they took a thousand of his German marks and gave him French notes in exchange. Brent thought it wise to spread the transaction over a varied surface. He tried a Belgian bank, and came out with six hundred francs in French paper. A second Bureau de Change converted the bulk of the remainder. Then Brent went shopping.
The first thing that he bought was a carpet-bag with black leather handles, and he bought it at a little shop in a shabby side street. This magasin sold workmen’s clothes.
A fat Belgian woman, with a moustache and overflowing cheeks and chin, showed some surprise when he asked the price of a pair of brown velvet trousers.
Brent laughed, and became confidential.
“We make what we call a stage-play, madame, a concert of varieties. The war is over; it is necessary for us to be amused.”