The women were already busy about the work of the farm. He spoke to the older one, and asked if she would make some coffee for the children. Three francs, for the four of them, she said. He reassured her on that point, and went to get the children up.
He found them already running about; they had seen him go downstairs. He sent them down to wash their faces at the pump. The little boy in grey hung back. From the ladder Rose called to him, but he would not go.
Howard, folding up the blankets, glanced at him. 'Go on and wash your face,' he said in French. 'Rose is calling you.'
The little boy put his right hand on his stomach and bowed to him. 'Monsieur,' he whispered.
The old man stood looking at him nonplussed. It was the first time he had heard him speak. The child stood looking up at him imploringly, his hand still on his stomach.
'What's the matter, old boy?' Howard said in French. Silence. He dropped stiffly down on one knee, till their heads were level. 'What is it?'
He whispered: 'J'ai perdu le sifflet.'
The old man got up and gave it to him. 'Here it is,' he said. 'Quite safe. Now go on down and let Rose wash your face.' He watched him thoughtfully as he clambered backwards down the steps. 'Rose, wash his face for him.'
He gave the children their coffee in the kitchen of the farm with the remainder of the bread, attended to their more personal requirements, paid the old lady twenty francs for food and lodging. At about quarter past seven he led them one by one past the chien mechant and out on to the road again, pushing the pram before him.
High overhead a few aeroplanes passed on a pale blue, cloudless sky; he could not tell if they were French or German. It was another glorious summer morning. On the road the military lorries, were thicker than ever, and once or twice in the first hour a team of guns passed by them, drawn by tired, sweating horses flogged westwards by dirty, unshaven men in horizon blue. That day there did not seem to be so many refugees on the road. The cyclists and the walkers and the families in decrepit, overloaded pony-carts were just as numerous, but there were few private cars in evidence on the road. For the first hour Howard walked continually looking backwards for a bus, but no bus came.
The children were very merry. They ran about and chattered to each other and to Howard, playing little games that now and then threatened their lives under the wheels of dusty lorries driven by tired men, and which had then to be checked. As the day grew warmer he let them take off their coats and jerseys and put them in the pram. Rose went barefoot as a matter of course; as a concession to the English children presently Howard let them take off stockings, though he made them keep their shoes on. He took off Pierre's stockings too.
The little boy seemed a trifle more natural, though he was still white and dumb. He had the whistle clutched tight in his hand and it still worked; now and again Sheila tried to get it away from him, but Howard had his eye on her and put a stop to that.
'If you don't stop bothering him for it,' he said, 'you'll have to put your stockings on again.' He frowned at her; she eyed him covertly, and decided that he meant it.
From time to time Rose bent towards the little boy in grey. 'Siffle, Pierre,' she would say. 'Siffle pour Rose.' At that he would put the whistle to his lips and blow a little thin note. 'Ah, c'est chic, ça.' She jollied him along all morning, smiling shyly up at Howard every now and then.
They went very slowly, making not more than a mile and a half in each hour. It was no good hurrying the children, Howard thought. They would reach Montargis by evening, but only if the children took their own pace.
At about ten in the morning firing broke out to the north of them. It was very heavy firing, as of guns and howitzers; it puzzled the old man. It was distant, possibly ten miles away or more, but definitely to the north, between them and Paris. He was worried and perplexed. Surely it could not be that the Germans were surrounding Paris to the south? Was that the reason that the train had stopped at Joigny?
They reached a tiny hamlet at about ten o'clock, a place that seemed to be called La Croix. There was one small estaminet which sold a few poor groceries in a side room that was a little shop. The children had been walking for three hours and were beginning to tire; it was high time they had a rest. He led them in and bought them two long orange drinks between the four of them.
There were other refugees there, sitting glum and silent. One old man said presently, to no one in particular: 'On dit que les Boches ont pris Paris.'
The wizened old woman of the house said that it was true. It had said so on the radio. A soldier had told her.
Howard listened, shaken to the core. It was incredible that such a thing could happen. Silence fell on the room again; it seemed that no one had any more to say. Only the children wriggled on their chairs and discussed their drink. A dog sat in the middle of the floor scratching industriously; snapping now and then at flies.
The old man left them and went through into the shop. He had hoped to find some oranges, but no oranges were left, and no fresh bread. He explained his need to the woman, and examined the little stock of food she had; he bought from her hah0 a dozen thick, hard biscuits each nine or ten inches in diameter and grey in colour, rather like dog-biscuits. He also bought some butter and a long, brown doubtful-looking sausage. For his own weariness of the flesh, he bought a bottle of cheap brandy. That, with four bottles of the orange drink, completed his purchases. As he was turning away, however, he saw a single box of chocolate bars, and bought a dozen for the children.
Their rest finished, he led them out on the road again. To encourage them on the way he broke one of the chocolate bars accurately into four pieces and gave it to them. Three of the children took their portion avidly. The fourth shook his head dumbly and refused.
'Merci, monsieur,' he whispered.
The old man said gently in French: 'Don't you like chocolate, Pierre? It's so good.'
The child shook his head.
'Try a little bit.' The other children looked on curiously.
The little boy whispered: 'Merci, monsieur. Maman dit que non. Settlement apres déjeuner.'
For a moment the old man's mind went back to the torn bodies left behind them by the roadside covered roughly with a rug; he forced his mind away from that. 'All right,' he said in French, 'we'll keep it, and you shall have it after déjeuner.' He put the morsel carefully in a corner of the pram seat, the little boy in grey watched with grave interest. 'It will be quite safe there.'
Pierre trotted on beside him, quite content.
The two younger children tired again before long; in four hours they had walked six miles, and it was now very hot. He put them both into the pram and pushed them down the road, the other two walking by his side. Mysteriously now the lorry traffic was all gone; there was nothing on the road but refugees.
The road was full of refugees. Farm carts, drawn by great Flemish horses, lumbered down the middle of the road at walking pace, loaded with furniture and bedding and sacks of food and people. Between them and around them seethed the motor traffic; big cars and little cars, occasional ambulances and motor-bicycles, all going to the west. There were innumerable cyclists and long trails of people pushing hand-carts and perambulators in the torrid July heat. All were choked with dust, all sweating and distressed, all pressing on to Montargis. From time to time an aeroplane flew near the road; then there was panic and an accident or two. But no bombs were dropped that day, nor was the road to Montargis machine-gunned.