“Now,” André finished, “my father says to be sure you don’t leave anything behind you for the Germans to find. And Marie will come in a few minutes to put the cot and all this stuff away.”
“Splendid.” Ronald looked down at the boy. “I’d hate to see my young brother exposed to all this danger you’re so cheerful about. Well, now I must practice a bit.” He took a sedate turn between the cot and the window, grinning at the French boy. And he practiced sitting down demurely.
It had been raining gustily all day but stopped about three, and the wind dropped.
For some time the village had been quiet—the Nazi squad busy among outlying farms.
As four o’clock neared, Mme. Gagnon was upstairs, dressed and wrapped in a shawl, ready to be hurried onto the stretcher.
In the shuttered little parlor, a dark-robed figure stood in the shadow beside the hallway door.
André stood watch at a window on the road, and his father and Marie paced the stone-floored kitchen.
Then, electrically, the silence was broken by the rumble of an approaching car. André drew the curtain aside a little.
At his stifled cry Marie and her father rushed to the window.
A German army truck crammed with armed soldiers was slowing up on the road. And at that same moment, from the opposite direction, the closed black ambulance rolled up to the Gagnon door.