He swung off back towards his lorry. Howard hurried down to the sand pit and called the children to him. 'Come on and get your clothes on, quickly,' he said. 'We're going in a motor-lorry.'
Ronnie faced him, stark naked. 'Really? What sort is it? May I sit by the driver, Mr Howard?'
Sheila, similarly nude, echoed: 'May I sit by the driver too?'
'Come on and get your clothes on,' he repeated. He turned to Rose and said in French: 'Put your stockings on, Rose, and help Pierre. We've got to be very quick.'
He hurried the children all he could, but they were wet and the clothes stuck to them; he had no towel. Before he was finished the two Air Force men were back with him, worrying with their urgency to start. At last he had the children ready. 'Will you be able to take my perambulator?' he asked, a little timidly.
The corporal said: 'We can't take that muckin' thing, mate. It's not worth a dollar.'
The old man said: 'I know it's not. But if we have to walk again, it's all I've got to put the little ones in.'
The driver chipped in: 'Let 'im take it on the roof. It'll ride there all right, corp. We'll all be walking if we don't get hold of juice.'
'My muckin' Christ,' the corporal said. 'Call this a workshop lorry! Perishing Christmas tree, I call it. All right, stick it on the roof.'
He hustled them towards the road. The lorry stood gigantic by the roadside, the traffic eddying round it. Inside it was stuffed full of machinery. An enormous Herbert lathe stood in the middle. A grinding-wheel and valve-facing machine stood at one end, a little filing and sawing machine at the other. Beneath the lathe a motor-generator set was housed; above it was a long electric switchboard. The men's kitbags occupied what little room there was.
Howard hastily removed their lunch from the pram, and watched it heaved up on the roof of the van. Then he helped the children up among the machinery. The corporal refused point-blank to let them ride beside the driver. 'I got the Bren there, see?' he said. 'I don't want no perishing kids around if we runs into Jerries.'
Howard said: 'I see that.' He consoled Ronnie and climbed in himself into the lorry. The corporal saw them settled, then went round and got up by the driver; with a low purr and a lurch the lorry moved out into the traffic stream.
It was half an hour later that the old man realised that they had left Sheila's pants beside the stream in their hurry.
They settled down to the journey. The interior of the van was awkward and uncomfortable for Howard, with no place to sit down and rest; he had to stoop, half kneeling, on a kitbag. The children being smaller, were more comfortable. The old man got out their déjeuner and gave them food in moderation, with a little of the orange drink; on his advice Rose ate very little, and remained well. He had rescued Pierre's chocolate from the perambulator and gave it to him, as a matter of course, when they had finished eating. The little boy received it solemnly and put it into his mouth; the old man watched him with grave amusement.
Rose said: 'It is good, that, Pierre.' She bent down and smiled at him.
He nodded gravely. 'Very good,' he whispered.
Very soon they came to Montargis. Through a little trap-door in the partition between the workshop and the driver's seat the corporal said to Howard: 'Ever been here before, mate?'
The old man said: 'I've only passed it in the train, a great many years ago.'
'You don't know where the muckin' petrol dump would be? We got to get some juice from somewhere.'
Howard shook his head. 'I'm afraid I don't. I'll ask someone for you, if you like.'
'Christ. Do you speak French that good?'
The driver said: 'They all speak it, corp. Even the bloody kids.'
The corporal turned back to Howard. 'Just keep them kids down close along the floor, mate, case we find the Jerries like in that place Susan.'
The old man was startled. 'I don't think there are any Germans so far west as this,' he said. But he made the children lie down on the floor, which they took as a fine joke. So, with the little squeals of laughter from 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 Citroën 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.