“Will you leave the poor woman nothing?” I ask fiercely.
He sets them on the table one by one and slinks back to the outer room.
“Come,” says the Prince.
Half fainting, Madame flings her arms round her husband’s neck for a last embrace, then falls back moaning into a chair. He kisses Germaine and Victor, then walks out into the sunlight and looks round him, half dazed. We shake hands, but with such a lump in my throat I cannot say a word.
The postmaster, carrying the little brown bag, walks off in the direction of Malempré between the Prince and his brother. The soldiers form up behind. The procession is soon lost to sight behind the tree trunks....
The Germans have quite a lust for prisoners to-day. After lunch the word goes round that the Bourgmestre is being sought for. At first they cannot find him. Perhaps he is hiding ... in a cellar ... somewhere.
Presently he is brought along. He looks shrunken and very white. Poor man, I am afraid he has heard rumours of the bread-and-water diet. He, too, is led off under military escort in the direction of Malempré....
At Grand-Mesnil they have already secured 12,000 francs from the Caisse Communale. Gold-thirsty brutes!
There is a panic-stricken cry in the village. The worst has happened. The beloved Curés are here, jogging along in a little armoured tumbril such as those in which one pictured folk passing bravely to the guillotine in revolution time of old. They suffer no indignity of bound hands or bandaged limbs. The swarming lines of troops remove all need for that.
A squad of soldiers march stolidly behind. Through the forest of notched bayonets one catches a glimpse of weeping women. There are other ways of fighting than with swords. The Curé makes the Sign of the Cross and smiles down on the scared faces of the villagers. If his voice would only carry he would say, like his divine forerunner, “Be not afraid.”