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Under its rich weathering the old woman’s face grew as pale as his. “Yes, that was his name–I heard it often enough.”

“Describe him, then. What was he like? Tall and fair? They’re all that–but what else? What in particular?”

She hesitated, and then said: “This one wasn’t fair. He was dark, and had a scar that drew up the left corner of his mouth.”

Rechamp turned to me. “It’s the same. I heard the men describing him at Moulins.”

We followed the old woman into the house, and while she gave us some bread and wine she told us about the wrecking of the village and the factory. It was one of the most damnable stories I’ve heard yet. Put together the worst of the typical horrors and you’ll have a fair idea of it. Murder, outrage, torture: Scharlach’s programme seemed to be fairly comprehensive. She ended off by saying: “His orderly showed me a silver-mounted flute he always travelled with, and a beautiful paint-box mounted in silver too. Before he left he sat down on my door-step and made a painting of the ruins….”

Soon after leaving this place of death we got to the second lines and our troubles began. We had to do a lot of talking to get through the lines, but what Rechamp had just seen had made him eloquent. Luckily, too, the ambulance doctor, a charming fellow, was short of tetanus-serum, and I had some left; and while I went over with him to the pine-branch hut where he hid his wounded I explained Rechamp’s case, and implored him to get us through. Finally it was settled that we should leave the ambulance there–for in the lines the ban against motors is absolute–and drive the remaining twelve miles. A sergeant fished out of a farmhouse a toothless old woman with a furry horse harnessed to a two-wheeled trap, and we started off by round-about wood-tracks. The horse was in no hurry, nor the old lady either; for there were bits of road that were pretty steadily currycombed by shell, and it was to everybody’s interest not to cross them before twilight. Jean de Rechamp’s excitement seemed to have dropped: he sat beside me dumb as a fish, staring straight ahead of him. I didn’t feel talkative either, for a word the doctor had let drop had left me thinking. “That poor old granny mind the shells? Not she!” he had said when our crazy chariot drove up. “She doesn’t know them from snow-flakes any more. Nothing matters to her now, except trying to outwit a German. They’re all like that where Scharlach’s been–you’ve heard of him? She had only one boy–half-witted: he cocked a broomhandle at them, and they burnt him. Oh, she’ll take you to Rechamp safe enough.”

“Where Scharlach’s been”–so he had been as close as this to Rechamp! I was wondering if Jean knew it, and if that had sealed his lips and given him that flinty profile. The old horse’s woolly flanks jogged on under the bare branches and the old woman’s bent back jogged in time with it She never once spoke or looked around at us. “It isn’t the noise we make that’ll give us away,” I said at last; and just then the old woman turned her head and pointed silently with the osier-twig she used as a whip. Just ahead of us lay a heap of ruins: the wreck, apparently, of a great chateau and its dependencies. “Lermont!” Rechamp exclaimed, turning white. He made a motion to jump out and then dropped back into the seat. “What’s the use?” he muttered. He leaned forward and touched the old woman’s shoulder.

“I hadn’t heard of this–when did it happen?”

“In September.”

“They did it?”

“Yes. Our wounded were there. It’s like this everywhere in our country.”

I saw Jean stiffening himself for the next question. “At Rechamp, too?”

She relapsed into indifference. “I haven’t been as far as Rechamp.”