'We got close on five gallons left. Get us to Angerville.'
'Okay,' the corporal said to Howard. 'Get the kids into the back and we'll 'op it.'
Howard looked round for his children. They were not where he had left them; he looked round, and they were up the road with the German spy, who was crying miserably.
'Rose,' he shouted. 'Come on. Bring the children.'
She called in a thin, piping voice: 'Il est blesse.'
'Come on,' he cried. The children looked at him, but did not stir. He hurried over to them. 'Why don't you come when I call you?'
Rose faced the old man, her little face crimson with anger. 'Somebody threw a stone at him and hit him. I saw them do it. It is not right, that.'
True enough, a sticky stream of blood was running down the back of the child's neck into his filthy clothes. A sudden loathing for the town enveloped the old man. He took his handkerchief and mopped at the wound.
La petite Rose said: 'It is not right to throw a stone at him, and a big woman, too, m'sieur. This is a bad, dirty place to do a thing like that.'
Ronnie said: 'He's coming with us, Mr Howard. He can sit on the other end of Bert's kitbag by the 'lectric motor.'
The old man said: 'He belongs here. We can't take him away with us.' But in his mind came the thought that it might be kind to do so.
'He doesn't belong here,' said Rose. 'Two days only he has been here. The woman said so.'
There was a hurried, heavy step behind them. 'For Christ's sake,' said the corporal.
Howard turned to him. 'They're throwing stones at this child,' he said. He showed the man the cut on his neck.
'Who's throwing stones?'
'All the people in the village. They think he's a German spy.'
'Who - 'im?' The corporal stared. 'He ain't more'n seven years old!'
'I saw the woman do it,' said Ronnie. 'That house there. She threw a stone and did that.'
'My muckin' aunt,' the corporal said. He turned to Howard. 'Anyway, we got to beat it.'
'I know.' The old man hesitated. 'What'll we do? Leave him here in this disgusting place? Or bring him along with us?'
'Bring him along, mate, if you feel like it. I ain't worried over the amount of spying that he'll do.'
The old man bent and spoke to the child. 'Would you like to come with us?' he said in French.
The little boy said something in another language.
Howard said: 'Sprechen sie Deutsch?' That was the limit of the German that he could recall at the moment, but it drew no response.
He straightened up, heavy with new responsibility. 'We'll take him with us,' he said quietly. 'If we leave him here they'll probably end by killing him.'
'If we don't get a move on,' said the corporal, 'the bloody Jerries will be here and kill the lot of us.'
Howard picked up the spy, who suffered that in silence; they hurried to the lorry. The child smelt and was plainly verminous; the old man turned his face away in nausea. Perhaps in Angerville there would be nuns who would take charge of him. They might take Pierre, too, though Pierre was so little bother that the old man didn't mind about him much.
They put the children in the workshop; Howard got in with them and the corporal got into the front seat by the driver. The big truck moved across the road from Paris and out on the road to Angerville, seventeen miles away.
'If we don't get some juice at Angerville,' the driver said, 'we'll be bloody well sunk.'
In the van, crouched down beside the lathe with the children huddled round him, the old man pulled out a sticky bundle of his chocolate. He broke off five pieces for the children; as soon as the German spy realised what it was he stretched out a filthy paw and said something unintelligible. He ate it greedily and stretched out his hand for more.
'You wait a bit.' The old man gave the chocolate to the other children. Pierre whispered: 'Merci, monsieur.'
La petite Rose leaned down to him. 'After supper, Pierre?' she said. 'Shall monsieur keep it for you to have after supper?
The little boy whispered: 'Only on Sunday. On Sunday I may have chocolate after supper. Is today Sunday?'
The old man said: 'I'm not quite sure what day it is. But I don't think your mother will mind if you have chocolate after supper tonight. I'll put it away and you can have it then.'
He rummaged round and produced one of the thick, hard biscuits that he had bought in the morning, and with some difficulty broke it in two; he offered one half to the dirty little boy in the smock. The child took it and ate it ravenously.
Rose scolded at him in French: 'Is that the way to eat? A little pig would eat more delicately - yes, truly, I say -a little pig. You should thank monsieur, too.'
The child stared at her, not understanding why she was scolding him.
She said: 'Have you not been taught how to behave? You should say like this' - she swung round and bowed to Howard - 'Je vous remercie, monsieur.'
Her words passed him by, but the pantomime was evident. He looked confused. 'Dank, Mijnheer,' he said awkwardly. 'Dank u wel.'
Howard stared at him, perplexed. It was a northern language, but not German. It might, he thought, be Flemish or Walloon, or even Dutch. In any case, it mattered very little; he himself knew no word of any of those languages.
They drove on at a good pace through the hot afternoon. The hatch to the driver's compartment was open; from time to time the old man leaned forward and looked through between the two men at the road ahead of them. It was suspiciously clear. They passed only a very few refugees, and very occasionally a farm cart going on its ordinary business. There were no soldiers to be seen, and of the seething refugee traffic between Joigny and Montargis there was no sign at all. The whole countryside seemed empty, dead.
Three miles from Angerville the corporal turned and spoke to Howard through the hatch. 'Getting near that next town now,' he said. 'We got to get some juice there, or we're done.'
The old man said: 'If you see anyone likely on the road I'll ask them where the depot is.'
'Okay.'
In a few minutes they came to a farm. A car stood outside it, and a man was carrying sacks of grain or fodder from the car into the farm. 'Stop here,' the old man said, 'I'll ask that chap.'
They drew up by the roadside, immediately switching off the engine to save petrol. 'Only about a gallon left now,' said the driver. 'We run it bloody fine, an' no mistake.'
Howard got down and walked back to the farm. The man, a grey-beard of about fifty without a collar, came out towards the car. 'We want petrol,' said Howard. 'There is, without doubt, a depot for military transport in Angerville?'
The man stared at him. 'There are Germans in Angerville.'
There was a momentary silence. The old Englishman stared across the farmyard at the lean pig rooting on the midden, at the scraggy fowls scratching in the dust. So it was closing in on him.
'How long have they been there?' he asked quietly.
'Since early morning. They have come from the north.'
There was no more to be said about that. 'Have you petrol? I will buy any that you have, at your own price.'
The peasant's eyes glowed. 'A hundred francs a litre.'
'How much have you got?'
The man looked at the gauge on the battered dashboard of his car. 'Seven litres. Seven hundred francs.'
Less than a gallon and a half of petrol would not take the ten-ton Leyland very far. Howard went back to
