“Yes, I think so.”
But he did not dare to take him through the streets thus, in his shirt sleeves. Remembering to have seen a dead soldier lying in an adjacent street, he hurried off and presently came back with a capote and a kepi. He threw the greatcoat over his friend’s shoulders and assisted him to slip his uninjured arm into the left sleeve. Then, when he had put the kepi on his head:
“There, now you are one of us—where are we to go?”
That was the question. His reviving hope and courage were suddenly damped by a horrible uncertainty. Where were they to look for a shelter that gave promise of security? the troops were searching the houses, were shooting every Communist they took with arms in his hands. And in addition to that, neither of them knew a soul in that portion of the city to whom they might apply for succor and refuge; not a place where they might hide their heads.
“The best thing to do would be to go home where I live,” said Maurice. “The house is out of the way; no one will ever think of visiting it. But it is in the Rue des Orties, on the other side of the river.”
Jean gave vent to a muttered oath in his irresolution and despair.
“Nom de Dieu! What are we to do?”
It was useless to think of attempting to pass the Pont Royal, which could not have been more brilliantly illuminated if the noonday sun had been shining on it. At every moment shots were heard coming from either bank of the river. Besides that, the blazing Tuileries lay directly in their path, and the Louvre, guarded and barricaded, would be an insurmountable obstacle.
“That ends it, then; there’s no way open,” said Jean, who had spent six months in Paris on his return from the Italian campaign.
An idea suddenly flashed across his brain. There had formerly been a place a little below the Pont Royal where small boats were kept for hire; if the boats were there still they would make the venture. The route was a long and dangerous one, but they had no choice, and, further, they must act with decision.