The doctor huddled down behind the narrow windscreen.Koster passed him his leather helmet.
The horn bayed unceasingly.
The woods flung back the cry.
Koster slowed up in villages only when there was nothing else for it.
Behind the thunderous echo of the un-throttled explosions the rows of houses flapped like a shadow line of washing, the car swept through them, plucked them an instant into the livid glare of the headlights and with its beam before it devoured its way farther into the night.
The tyres began to snarl, to hiss, to whine, to whistle; the engine was giving all that was in it.
Koster lay, his whole being intent on what was ahead, his body one mighty ear, a filter sifting the thunder and the whistling for every tiniest other noise, for every suspicious purr or knock or drag that might mean a puncture and death.
The road became wet.
On one clayey stretch the car skidded and hurtled sideways.
Koster was compelled to slacken speed.
Afterwards, to make up, he took the corners still more sharply.
He was driving no longer with his head, but by instinct.
The headlights showed up the bend in two halves; the moment of the actual turn was black and blind.
Koster helped himself out with the spotlight, but the beam was narrow.
The doctor was silent.
All at once the air glistened in the line of the headlamps; the beam coloured—a pale silver, a cloudy veil.
That was the only time Jaffe heard Koster swear.
A minute later they were in thick fog.
Koster dipped the lights.
They were now swimming through cotton wool, shadows drove silently by, trees, phantoms in a milky sea; there was no road any more, only guesswork and luck, shadows that loomed and dwindled to the accompanying roar of the engine.
After ten minutes, when they came out of it, Koster's face was haggard.
He looked at Jaffe and murmured something.
Then at full speed he drove on, crouching, cold and self-possessed once more. . .
The sticky warmth weighted in the room like lead.
"Has it stopped yet?" I asked.
"No," said the doctor.
Pat looked at me.
I smiled. It fixed in a grimace.
"Half an hour more," said I.
The doctor looked at his watch.
"An hour and a half, if not two.
It's raining."
The drops were rustling lightly down among the leaves and shrubs of the garden.
I peered into the dark with blinded eyes.
How long ago was it since we had got up, Pat and I, in the night and gone out into the garden and sat among the stocks and wallflowers and Pat had hummed children's lullabies?
How long since the moon shone so white on the pathway and Pat, like a lithe animal, ran down it between the bushes?
For the hundredth time I went to the door.
I knew it was useless; but it shortened the waiting.
The air was misty.
I cursed; I knew what that would mean for Koster.
A bird cried out of the darkness.
"Shut up," I growled.
Bird of ill omen! it flashed through my mind. "Rubbish," said I aloud.
A beetle was droning somewhere—but it did not come nearer—it did not come nearer.
It kept up an even, steady hum; now it stopped— now it was there again—and again. I suddenly trembled. That wasn't a beetle; that was a car a long way off, going into the curves at top speed.
I stood stock-still—I held my breath and opened my mouth to hear better.
Again . . . again . . . the light, high-pitched buzzing, as of an angry wasp . . .
And now, stronger, I could clearly detect the sound of the compressor—then the sky line, stretched to breaking-point, suddenly broke into a soft infinity, burying under it might and fear and terror. . . . I ran back to the house. Supporting myself in the doorway,
"They're coming!" I said.
"Doctor, Pat, they're coming!