Ask what? For permission to go and kiss his mother.
"Of course!" I said.
I never dreamt that it would be refused.
He left me, but soon came back:
"The captain didn't want me to. He's quite right. Quite right!"
But the most terrible misery was depicted on his face. He continued:
"And do you know. He assures me that it would have been no good, that the village must be evacuated because ... because it's on ... the right bank!"
He stopped at the side of the road.
"Oh! Dreher! I should never have thought that they would have left it, that they would...."