the body of the lorry, they rolled into Montargis and pulled up at the crossroads in the middle of the town.
At the corporal's request the old man got down and asked the way to the military petrol dump. A baker directed him to the north of the town; he got up into the driver's compartment and directed them through the town. They found the French transport park without great difficulty, and Howard went with the corporal to speak to the officer in charge, a lieutenant. They got a brusque refusal. The town was being evacuated, they were told. If they had no petrol they must leave their lorry and go south.
The corporal swore luridly, so luridly that Howard was quite glad that the English children, who might possibly have understood, were in the lorry.
'I got to get this muckin' lot to Brest,' he said. 'I don't leave it here and hop it, like he said.' He tinned to Howard, suddenly earnest. 'Look, mate,' he said. 'Maybe you better beat it with the kids. You don't want to get mixed up with the bloody Jerries.'
The old man said: 'If there's no petrol, you may as well come with us.'
The Air Force man said: 'You don't savvy, mate. I got to get this lot to Brest. That big Herbert. You don't know lathes, maybe, but that's a treat. Straight it is. Machine tools is wanted back home. I got to get that Herbert home - I got to let the Jerries have it for the taking, I suppose! Not bloody likely.'
He ran his eye around the park. It was filled with decrepit, dirty French lorries; rapidly the few remaining soldiers were leaving. The lieutenant that had refused them drove out in a little Citroen car. 'I bet there's juice somewhere about,' the corporal muttered.
He swung round and hailed the driver. 'Hey, Bert,' he said: 'Come on along.'
The men went ferreting about among the cars. They found no dump or store of petrol, but presently Howard saw them working at the deserted lorries, emptying the tanks into a bidon. Gleaning a gallon here and a gallon there, they collected in all about eight gallons and transferred it to the enormous tank of the Leyland. That was all that they could find. 'It ain't much,' said the corporal. 'Forty miles, maybe. Still, that's better 'n a sock in the jaw. Let's see the bloody map, Bert.'
The bloody map showed them Pithiviers, twenty-five miles farther on. 'Let's get goin'.' They moved out on the westward road again.
It was terribly hot. The van body of the lorry had sides made of wood, which folded outwards to enlarge the floor space when the lathe was in use. Little light entered round these wooden sides; it was dim and stuffy and very smelly in amongst the machinery. The children did not seem to suffer much, but it was a trying journey for the old man. In a short time he had a splitting headache, and was aching in every limb from the cramped positions he was constrained to take up.
The road was ominously clear to Pithiviers, and they made good speed. From time to time an aeroplane flew low above the road, and once there was a sharp burst of machine-gun fire very near at hand. Howard leaned over to the little window at the driver's elbow. 'Jerry bomber,' said the corporal. One o' them Stukas, as they call them.'
'Was he firing at us?'
'Aye. Miles off, he was.' The corporal did not seem especially perturbed.
In an hour they were near Pithiviers, five and twenty miles from Montargis. They drew up by the roadside half a mile from the town and held a consultation. The road stretched before them to the houses with no soul in sight. There was no movement in the town. It seemed to be deserted in the blazing sunlight of the afternoon.
They stared at it, irresolute. 'I dunno as I fancy it,' the corporal said. 'It don't look right to me.'
The driver said: Bloody funny nobody's about. You don't think its full of Jerries, corp? Hiding, like?'
'I dunno...'
Howard, leaning forward with his face to the trap in the partition, said over their shoulders: 'I don't mind walking in ahead to have a look, if you wait here.'
'Walk in ahead of us?'
'I don't see that there'd be much risk in that. With all these refugees about I can't see that there'd be much risk in it. I'd rather do that than drive in with you if there's any chance of being fired on.'
'Something in what he says,' the driver said. 'If the Jerries are there, we mightn't find another roundabout this time.'
They discussed it for a minute or two. There was no road alternative to going through the town that did not mean a ten-mile journey back towards Montargis. 'An' that's not so bloody funny, either,' said the corporal. 'Meet the Jerries coming up behind us, like as not.'
He hesitated, irresolute. 'Okay,' he said at last. 'Nip in and have a look, mate. Give us the wire if it's all okey-doke. Wave something if it's all right to come on.'
The old man said: 'I'll have to take the children with me.'
'My muckin' Christ! I don't want to sit here all the bloody day, mate.'
The old man said: 'I'm not going to be separated from the children.' He paused. 'You see, they're in my charge. Just like your lathe.'
The driver burst out laughing. 'That's a good one, corp! Just like your muckin' lathe,' he said.
The corporal said: 'Well, put a jerk in it, anyway.'
The old man got down from the lorry and lifted the children one by one down into the hot sunlight on the dusty, deserted road. He started off with them down the road towards the town, leading the two little ones by the hand, thinking uneasily that if he were to become separated from the lorry he would inevitably lose his perambulator. He made all speed possible, but it was twenty minutes before he led them into the town.
There were no Germans to be seen. The town was virtually deserted; only one or two very old women peered at him from behind curtains or around the half-closed doors of shops. In the gutter of the road that led towards the north a tattered, dirty child that might have been of either sex in its short smock, was chewing something horrible. A few yards up the road a dead horse had been dragged half up on to the pavement and left there, distended and stinking. A dog was tearing at it.
It was a beastly, sordid little town, the old man felt. He caught one of the old women at a door. 'Are the Germans here?' he said.
'They are coming from the north,' she quavered. 'They will ravish everyone, and shoot us.'
The old man felt instinctively that this was nonsense. 'Have you seen any Germans in the town yet?'
'There is one there.'
He looked round, startled. 'Where?'
'There.' She pointed a trembling, withered hand at the child in the gutter.
'There?' The woman must be mad, distraught with terror of the invaders.
'It speaks only German. It is the child of spies.' She caught his arm with senile urgency. 'Throw a stone and chase it away. It will bring the Germans to this house if it stays there.'
Howard shook her off. 'Are any German soldiers here yet?'
She did not answer, but shouted a shrill scream of dirty imprecations at the child in the gutter. The child, a little boy, Howard thought, lifted his head and looked at her with infantile disdain. Then he resumed his disgusting meal.
There was nothing more to be learned from the old hag; it was now clear to him there were no Germans in the town. He turned away; as he did so there was a sharp crack, and a fair-sized stone rolled down the pavement near the German spy. The child slunk off fifty yards down the street and squatted down again on the kerb.
The old man was very angry, but he had other things to do. He said to Rose: 'Look after the children for a minute, Rose. Don't let them go away or speak to anyone.'
He hurried back along the road that they had entered the town by. He had to go a couple of hundred yards before he came in- sight of the lorry, parked by the roadside half a mile away. He waved his hat at it, and saw it move towards him; then he turned and walked back to where he had left the children.
It overtook him near the cross-roads in the middle of the town. The corporal leaned down from the cab. 'Any juice here, do you think?' The old man looked at him uncomprehending. 'Petrol, mate.'
'Oh - I don't know. I wouldn't hang about here very long.'
That's right,' the driver muttered. 'Let's get on out of it. It don't look so good to me.'
'We got to get juice.'
