Coming Home Part 5

I went back to the courtyard and saw Rechamp still smoking his cigarette in the cold sunlight. I don't suppose I'd been in the hospital ten minutes; but I felt as old as Methuselah.

My friend greeted me with a smile. "Ready for breakfast?" he said, and a little chill ran down my spine.... But I said: "Oh, all right--come along...."

For, after all, I _knew_ there wasn't a paper of any sort on that man when he was lifted into my ambulance the night before: the French officials attend to their business too carefully for me not to have been sure of that. And there wasn't the least shred of evidence to prove that he hadn't died of his wounds during the unlucky delay in the forest; or that Rechamp had known his tank was leaking when we started out from the lines.

"I could do with a _cafe complet_, couldn't you?" Rechamp suggested, looking straight at me with his good blue eyes; and arm in arm we started off to hunt for the inn....