Peace Makes You Want To Go

The puncture is mended.

Gaius and Virtual Gaius are back on the road.

It's good with the sound off. No more Arne's voice, crackling through from Utrecht.

They ride through Punchy without stopping. A small town with fields of war crosses.

Then through Rancourt. The same.

Virtual Gaius rides tirelessly, but Gaius is flagging.

When they reach Bapaume, Gaius stops outside the Town Hall, where his eye is caught by a stone monument.

A female figure holding two heads, one in each hand. Briquet and Taillandie.

The heads are composed. Not a hair out of place. One would hardly guess they were the heads of two representatives of the Pas de Calais who had been killed in 1917, in a German explosion.

Ah, PAX, says Gaius.

Peace, says Virtual Gaius.

The two Romans gaze at the tall female figure of PAX.

Briquet and Taillandie roll their stone eyes.

It is galling that their heads are being held in ridiculous balance by PAX, who has nothing to do with anything.

But what can you do? If Briquet and Taillandie had shoulders they would shrug, Gallic fashion.

Gaius and Virtual Gaius wheel off to look for a toilet.

Peace has made them want to go.

.......

Vello and David have made it to Beaune.

At last. Terence is sleeping.

On the way they had been having a ding dong argument.

Let us reconstruct it. Start anywhere.

Terence: Yes he would! He can do whatever he likes.

Vello: Nonsense. If God exists he would not throw stones at Saint Stephen.

David: I'd like to know how you know that.

Vello: I'm just saying it for the sake of argument.

David: But where does it come from?

Vello: First I imagine I'm God, then I extrapolate.

Terence: See, he can do anything.

David: No! That's not God. That's Vello.

Terence: But he said....

Vello: One must first and foremost be rational.

David: I agree with that, Vello.

Vello; And Terence must learn to be rational.

Terence: Belle said, Be Responsible.

Vello: Reason comes first.

David: But Belle has a point there. What did she teach you exactly?

Terence: She said Responsible means that you did it. And God did it. His hand was in the picture.

David: But think, Terence. Did God paint the picture?

Terence: He can do whatever he likes.

Sigh.

So you see why we could start anywhere.

Now however, Terence is asleep and they are in Beaune.

They are passing the Hospice de Beaune, with its polychrome roof of glazed Flemish tiles in red, brown, green and yellow.

That is picturesque, says Vello.