An American soldier, his shoulders sagging with fatigue, came out of the underbrush. He frowned at the group. “What’re you folks doing out here?” he demanded. “You better come along with me.”
The doctor—the only one of the Normans who understood English—said, “Yes. Most certainly we do not wish to stay here.”
The American started down the slope. Mme. Gagnon and Pierre, attended by the two other men, followed.
“But Pierre,” Mme. Gagnon protested, “why do we follow them? Did Patchou come this way?”
Patchou answered this by tearing ahead with great purpose.
“You see,” said Pierre.
At the foot of the slope the American pushed his way through a break in the hawthornes. At his heels, M. Angell and the doctor gallantly pulled the bushes apart for Mme. Gagnon.
She took a step forward and stood still, a hand clasped to her heart.
Not twenty feet away, standing near a jeep and a cluster of soldiers, were André and Marie.
At the same instant André and Marie saw her. And André hurled himself toward his mother.