For them it had been a glorious game. In Venice in early August, Harold
had seen a chance for a big stroke of business. He had a friend who lived
in Rome, an Italian close to his government. At once they had joined
forces, worked day and night, pulled wires, used money judiciously here and
there, and so had secured large orders for munitions from the U.S.A. Then
to get back to God's country! There came the hitch, they were too late.
Naples, Genoa, and Milan, all were filled with tourist mobs. They took a
train for Paris, and reaching the city just a week before the end of the
German drive they found it worse than Italy. But there Hal had a special
pull--and by the use of those wits of his, not to be downed by refusals, he
got passage at last for Laura, himself and his new Italian partner. At
midnight, making their way across the panic-stricken city, and at the
station struggling through a wild and half crazed multitude of men and
women and children, they boarded a train and went rushing westward right
along the edge of the storm. To the north the Germans were so close that
Laura was sure she could hear the big guns. The train kept stopping to take
on troops. At dawn some twenty wounded men came crowding into their very
car, bloody and dirty, pale and worn, but gaily smiling at the pain, and
saying, "Ca n'fait rien, madame." Later Harold opened his flask for some
splendid Breton soldier boys just going into action.
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