“He says that this is as far as he can take us. This is the end of the road. We must get out and walk on. Someone will meet us on the road beyond. He must wait here. Those are his orders.”
“I thought he said it was the end of the road.”
“If we will come with him he will show us that he speaks the truth.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer to wait here, Miss Kolin?”
“Thank you, no.”
They got out and began to walk on.
For about twenty yards the old man walked ahead of them, explaining something and making large dramatic gestures; then he stopped and pointed.
They had indeed come to the end of the road; or, at least, to the end of that stretch of it. At some time a big stone culvert had carried a mountain stream beneath the roadbed. Now the remains of it lay in a deep boulder-strewn gully that the stream had cut for itself in the hillside.
“He says that it was blown up by the Germans and that the winter rains have made it bigger every year.”
“Are we supposed to cross it?”