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By Root 2144 0

a long way from their tent and simply could not find it, so flustered were they. Where could they go and how could they change clothes? They felt that everybody’s eyes could peer into this basket that Jean was carrying so awkwardly, and see what was inside it. So they made up their minds and went into the first empty tent they could find, and there each frantically slipped on a pair of trousers and a smock, and hid their uniform things under the bread. They abandoned the lot. But they had only found one woollen cap, which Jean forced Maurice to put on. He thought being bareheaded far more dangerous than it really was, and gave himself up for lost. While he was hanging about looking for something to put on his head it occured to him to buy the hat of a scruffy old man selling cigars.

‘Three sous each, two for five, Brussels cigars!’

Since the battle of Sedan the customs regulations had broken down, and all the Belgian riff-raff came in freely. The old man in rags had been making a very handsome profit, but that did not prevent his haggling for large sums when he understood why they wanted to buy his hat, a greasy felt one with a hole right through. He only parted with it for two five-franc pieces, moaning that he was sure he would catch a cold.

Jean, moreover, had thought up something else, which was to buy his stock from him as well, the three dozen cigars he was still hawking round. And so, with no more ado, he pulled the hat down over his eyes and called out in a sing-song voice:

‘Three sous for two, three sous for two, Brussels cigars!’

This time it was deliverance. He made signs for Maurice to go on ahead. Maurice had had the good fortune to pick up an umbrella, and as it was spitting with rain he calmly put it up to go through the line of pickets.

‘Three sous for two, three sous for two, Brussels cigars!’

In a few minutes Jean got rid of his wares. They hurried on, laughing: at any rate there was somebody who sold things cheap and didn’t swindle poor people! Interested by the cheapness, some Prussians came up as well, and he had to have dealings with them. He had manoeuvred so as to pass through the enemy lines, and sold his last two cigars to a big bearded sergeant who couldn’t speak a word of French.

‘Not so fast, for God’s sake!’ Jean kept saying behind Maurice’s back. ‘You’ll give us away!’

Yet despite themselves they quickened their pace. They had to make an immense effort to stop for a moment at the corner of two roads among groups of people standing about in front of a pub. Townsfolk were chatting away with German soldiers, looking quite unconcerned. They pretended to listen, and even risked throwing in a word or two about the rain which might start again and go on all night. One man, a stoutish party, kept his eye on them all the time and made them tremble. But as he smiled very kindly they risked it, and whispered:

‘Sir, is the road to Belgium guarded?’

‘Yes, but go through this wood first, and then turn left across the fields.’

In the wood, in the great dark stillness of the trees, when they could not hear a sound and nothing stirred and they thought they were secure, an extraordinary emotion made them fall into each other’s arms. Maurice was crying like a child, and tears rolled slowly down Jean’s cheeks. It was the reaction after their long torment, the joy of telling themselves that suffering might perhaps take pity on them at last. They hugged each other in a passionate embrace, made brothers by all they had gone through together, and the kiss they exchanged seemed the gentlest yet the strongest in their lives, a kiss the like of which they would never have from a woman, undying friendship and absolute certainty that their two hearts were henceforth one for ever.

‘My dear boy,’ Jean said in a shaky voice when they had let each other go, ‘it’s already a great deal to be here, but we’re not through yet… We ought to take our bearings.’

Although he did not know this bit of the frontier, Maurice swore it was all right to go straight ahead. So they very carefully slipped along, one after the other,