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By Root 1959 0

only Prussians in the farmhouse, with a servant and her child who had come back from the woods where they had nearly died of hunger and thirst. It was a little corner of sociable family life, well-earned rest after the labours of the previous days. Soldiers were carefully brushing their uniforms which were hanging over the clothes-lines. One was finishing off a skilful darning job on his trousers, and the cook of the party had a big fire going in the middle of the yard, on which the soup was bubbling in a large saucepan, giving off a nice smell of cabbage and bacon. The conquest was already being organized with perfect, quiet efficiency. You would have taken these men for a lot of business people back home and smoking their long pipes. On a seat by the door a big red-haired man had lifted the servant’s child in his arms, a kid of five or six, and was jumping him up and down and saying nice things to him in German, enjoying seeing the child laugh at this funny language with its harsh syllables that he couldn’t understand.

Prosper turned away at once, fearing some fresh trouble. But these Prussians really were good fellows. They grinned at the little donkey and didn’t even take the trouble to see their pass.

Then began a frantic hunt. The sun appeared for a moment between two clouds, but it was already low down on the horizon. Were they going to be benighted in this endless graveyard? A new downpour obscured the sun again, and there was nothing round them but the dismal waste of rain, like a dust-storm of water effacing everything, roads, fields. trees. He no longer knew where he was, had lost his bearings and said so. The donkey trotted along behind them at the same even pace, head down and pulling his little cart with his resigned, docile gait. They went north, then came back towards Sedan. They lost all sense of direction, twice went back on their tracks when they realized they were passing the same things again. Probably they were going round in a circle, and ultimately they pulled up, tired and desperate, at a point where three roads met, lashed by the rain and too exhausted to go on looking.

But then they heard some moaning, and pushed on as far as a lonely cottage to the left, where they found two wounded men in a room. The doors were wide open and for two days they had been shivering in a fever with their wounds not even dressed, and had not seen a living soul. Above all they were tormented by thirst amid all this pouring rain lashing the windows. They could not move and at once cried ‘Water! Water!’ – the cry of agonized longing with which the wounded pursue anybody who passes, at the slightest sound of footsteps that drags them out of their torpor.

When Silvine had brought them some water Prosper recognized that the more seriously wounded one was a comrade of his, a Chasseur d’Afrique of his own regiment, and he realized that they could not be far from the place where the Margueritte division had charged. The wounded man managed to wave vaguely: yes, it was over that way when you turn left after a big field of lucerne. Silvine was for setting off again at once with the information. She called in a passing team of men who were collecting the dead and asked them to help the two wounded men. She had already taken the donkey’s halter and was pulling him over the slippery ground so as to get quickly down there past the lucerne.

Prosper suddenly stood still.

‘It must be somewhere here. Look, there are the three trees on the right. Can’t you see the wheel marks? There’s an ammunition waggon broken down over there… Here we are at last!’

Silvine rushed over in a very agitated state and looked into the faces of two dead men, gunners lying at the side of the road.

‘But he’s not here, he’s not here! You can’t have seen properly… Yes, it must have been one of those funny ideas that made you see things!’

She was gradually giving way to a wild hope and uncontrollable joy.

‘Suppose you had made a mistake and he’s still alive! Yes, he must still be alive as he isn’t here!’

Then she uttered a little moan, for turning round