The girl staggered to her feet, still stupid with fatigue. Through the cracks in the shutters the dawn showed faintly.
2
The grey of a bitter, starved-looking morning. The town like a mortally wounded creature, torn by shells, gashed open by bombs. Dead streets—streets of death—death in streets and their houses; yet people still able to sleep and still sleeping.
‘Stephen.’
‘Yes, Mary?’
‘How far is the Poste?’
‘I think about thirty kilometres; why?’
‘Oh, nothing—I only wondered.’
The long stretch of an open country road. On either side of the road wire netting hung with pieces of crudely painted rag—a camouflage this to represent leaves. A road bordered by rag leaves on tall wire hedges. Every few yards or so a deep shell-hole.
‘Are they following, Mary? Is Howard all right?’