Sergeant Weller’s voice roared from the hallway, “Lunch coming up!”
A large loaded tray appeared through the door, followed by Weller’s bulky body.
André looked at a heaped platter in the middle, and laughed. “So that is where our chickens went.”
“Your father will be paid for these fowl,” Dobie said. “So make up for the eating you haven’t done today.”
Weller was not as good a cook as his mother or Marie, André thought. But he was surprised that a tough sergeant could cook at all, and the meal was good.
When the sun sank red behind the trees, an evening hush settled, although soldiers from nearby bivouacs moved through the village restlessly.
Weller yawned. “I hope it stays quiet around here awhile,” he said. “After last night we could do with a little snooze, eh, Captain?”
He had scarcely made this wish than André cried, “Listen!”
A distant sound of motors from the sky was drowned by the opening bark of an American antiaircraft battery close by.
Weller leaped to put out the lights.