the little bed-sit room and saw that Sabine wasn’t in her bed. But her belongings were scattered everywhere: a dressing gown thrown down, a newspaper covered with bright red toenail clippings, a rug dusted with talcum powder.
Whichever way you cut it, Sabine was a slob. Marc stood up and looked around to make sure that his boots, clothes and money were present, then stepped warily across the wooden floor, both intrigued and horrified by Sabine’s dirty underwear.
‘Morning, skipper,’ Sabine said, making Marc jump as she slid back the door of her tiny bathroom.
She wore only a lacy red bra and knickers and Marc was overpowered by a shot of lust, mangled with embarrassment. The only youngish women he knew were the nuns at the orphanage and even if one of them had ever appeared without her habit, he very much doubted that they wore underwear like that.
‘Would you like your gown?’ Marc spluttered as he pulled it off the floor, toppling a half-filled mug of mildewing coffee and cigarette ash.
‘Aren’t you a gentleman,’ she said, as Marc rescued the cup.
When Sabine stepped up close to grab the gown her breasts were dead level with Marc’s face. He didn’t know where to look and he was so red he felt like his head was going to melt.
‘You’re the first person ever to call me a gentleman,’ Marc said.
‘And you’re the first man who’s ever encouraged me to put clothes on,’ Sabine laughed. ‘How’s your knee?’
‘OK, I think,’ he said, grinning with relief as she covered up with the gown. ‘You did a nice job with the bandage.’
‘You think?’ she said. ‘I’ve never done one before. We can go downstairs and get some breakfast from the bar in a minute. Then I’ll try sorting you out some transport so that you can get to your … who was it you said?’
‘My uncle,’ Marc lied. ‘I need to get to Paris to see my uncle. Maybe I can go back to the station and see if there’s a train.’
Marc cringed again as Sabine sat on the edge of her single bed and pulled a stocking up her leg.
‘You won’t need a train,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘There’s always soldiers and truck drivers coming through the bar. I’ll tell them you’re my little nephew and get one of them to give you a lift.’
‘I’ve got money,’ Marc said.
‘Oh don’t worry about that.’ Sabine smiled. ‘A free beer and a flash of cleavage and they’ll take you to Outer Mongolia if I ask them.’
‘You think?’ Marc smiled, but he didn’t doubt it for a second. He was only too aware of how girls as pretty as Sabine can play tricks with your mind.
It was nine a.m. and downstairs the café was already open and doing a reasonable trade. Sabine was off duty, so she sat at a table with Marc and they ate croissants with jam. Once they’d eaten she eyed up a couple of rowdy military police officers out on the terrace and pushed her boobs out as she gave them a sob story about how her little nephew needed to get to Paris to see his parents and couldn’t get on a train.
After dashing back upstairs to grab his things and kissing Sabine goodbye, Marc clambered into the filthy rear compartment of a canvas-covered army truck and set off towards Paris. He shared the space with a jangling mass of abandoned helmets and rifles, a crate of rattling cider bottles and two muddy Alsatians that looked ferocious, but seemed content to lie down and let the journey pass with as little fuss as possible.
Up front, the driver took great pleasure in blasting his horn and forcing refugees out of the road. It was cruel, but Marc couldn’t help laughing as the passenger leaned out of the cab and yelled ten points for an elderly woman who fell over and twenty-five for a heavily laden handcart that toppled into a ditch.
‘Peasants,’ the driver said to Marc, when he pulled up and stood urinating over the back wheel of the truck. His posh accent indicated a good background. ‘France is shit, the war is shit, everything’s shit!’
‘Vive la shitty France,’ his companion yelled from up front.
Then the driver asked Marc to pass out four bottles of cider and told him that he could take one for himself. Marc had tasted alcohol a couple of times, but he’d never been drunk and didn’t think it would be a good state in which to arrive in