Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Sword Without Scabbard

Sword Without Scabbard

Estridge, Robin

Paperback

General World History

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 140677295X
ISBN13: 9781406772951
Publisher: Dodo Pr
Pages: 256
Weight: 0.72
Height: 0.58 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
BY ROBIN ESTRIDGE liti mi WILLIAM MORROW CO., NEW YORK 1950 THE second pilot leaned against the window-frame and nodded earthwards. England, he said. Lewis, who had been dozing fitfully ever since the jagged grandeur, moon landscape, of the Alps had dropped away behind them, peered down and saw a grey green slab of land with the grey sea wrinkling up to it and breaking into white slices. It all looked cold and a trifle forbidding. A flurry of cloud, like breath on the window pane, obscured it. Lewis could feel the second pilot watching him as be fore, he found this embarrassing. He closed his eyes but that young, wondering stare penetrated the darkness, and the young voice said Its funny really, but when we were detailed off to go to Aden I said to the Cap Itll be a lark if were fetching Lewis and he said More likely some wog for another of those conferences. I nearly betted him. Sorry I didnt now Then, after a pause, Its funny how you sometimes seem to know things like that, isnt it Lewis said Yes and opened his eyes again. It was a pity, he thought, that the Captain had not in culcated a little of his own silent tact into this subordi nate. Meeting in the cruel glare of the air-field they had shaken hands and the pilot had searched his passengers face for a moment with clear grey eyes then he had said Hope we give you a quiet journey. Presumably he had seen the signs of strain having served in the war he would take them at their face value the deep lines bitten into young cheeks, the tiny network of wrinkles at the outsides of the eyes, the twitching of the left corner of the mouth but that, Lewis was glad to realise, had forsaken him dur ing the night. Not that he had slept verysoundly it might, the doctor at Aden had pointed out, be a while before he could expect sound natural sleep after the ini tial exhaustion had been slaked there would be a period of mental unrest, dreams, insomnia. Lewis had been used all his life to falling into a healthy deep slumber ten min utes after getting into bed he did not like these evidences of neurosis. Nonsense, dear chap, the doctor had said. The hu man body wasnt designed to go through what youve been through, and no more was the mind. He talked at length about prisoners-of-war and victims of various kinds of shock while his patient followed the antics of a blue bottle, drunk with some insecticide, on the window-sill it ran around in muzzy circles, fell on its back, climbed 2 onto the window-ledge and tumbled off tipsily. He felt that they had much in common, himself and the blue bottle. The second pilot gave up his scrutiny he was too young to have seen war service, and, Lewis felt, was disappointed not to find some signs of greatness in the older man. One thing, however, seemed clear a great deal of nonsense must have been written in the newspapers. Why, heaven alone knew, but probably because they were hard up for a story. A grey-faced man had taken the trouble to fly all the way to Aden from his comfortable flat in Cairo he had arrived only just in time, had come running across the pulsating plain of the aerodrome, a very grey, tired man, smelling of whisky and haggard from perpetual pur suit of sensation. Jesus he had gasped. If Id missed you . . . And he leaned gasping for breath against the bulbous tire of the undercarriage in the shade of the wing, sweat stream ing down his face. Im Darwin, he said. A. N. A.Associated News Agency. Theyve been behaving about you as if you were all the secrets of Western Defence rolled into one. The pilot glanced at his watch and said Well, were off. The reporter said Oh Hell, give us a break, lad. Where to, anyway Thats our business. The grey-faced man wiped away the sweat from his eye brows and swore fluently. What is all this Wheres Falkland Did he stay behind with the wogs Lewis said Im sorry, Ive been told not to say any thing. He was aware of his mouth twitching the doctor had assured him that it would be only a temporary afflic tion...

1 different editions

Also available

Also in

General World History

View All