I spoke to her.
"My dear lady," I said, "are you not afraid to stay here?"
"Bah, Monsieur!" she replied. "A little sooner, a little later. What does it matter at my age?
"I had a grandson," she went on. "He was just 20 when the Boches came. They killed him close by here in 1914. My girl died of grief. The father is fighting somewhere or other. And so I came back. Here at least I can go now and then to pray for my boy. But not beside his grave. The Boches are there. That's where it is, Monsieur, on the other side of the road."
And she pointed to where the enemy lay, close by.
He is there, close by. You feel him; you hear him. For two years he has held the suburbs of Blangy, Ronville and Saint Sauveur. You hear his firing as if it was beside you. It is all street fighting here. In one place, indeed, there is no more than the width of a little street, four or five yards, between the trenches.
For the moment, however, this sector is quiet.
The chief amusement of the Boches is incendiarism. On regular days and at regular hours of the day it pleases them to light great bonfires in the town. This is how they manage it.
First they throw a few incendiary bombs at the prey which they have singled out. When the fire has been started and the firemen have come running to fight it, the Boches enliven the situation with shells, in the hope, I suppose, of feeding the flames with some human victims.