by Nevil Shute
The road stretched out towards the west, dead straight. As far as he could see it was thronged with vehicles, all moving the same way. He felt it really was a most extraordinary sight, a thing that he had never seen before, a population in migration.
Presently Rose said she heard an aeroplane.
Instinctively Howard turned his head. He could hear nothing.
“I hear it,” Ronnie said. “Lots of aeroplanes.”
Sheila said, “I want to hear the aeroplane.”
“Silly,” said Ronnie. “There’s lots of them. Can’t you hear?”
The old man strained his ears, but he could hear nothing. “Can you see where they are?” he asked nonchalantly. A cold fear lurked in the background of his mind.
The children scanned the sky. “V’là,” said Rose, pointing suddenly. “Trois avions — là.”
Ronnie twisted round in excitement to Howard. “They’re coming down towards us! Do you think we’ll see them close?”
“Where are they?” he inquired. He strained his eyes in the direction from which they had come. “Oh, I see. They won’t come anywhere near here. Look, they’re going down over there.”
“Oh . . .” said Ronnie, disappointed. “I did want to see them close.”
They watched the aircraft losing height towards the road, about two miles away. Howard expected to see them land among the fields beside the road, but they did not land. They flattened out and flew along just above the tree tops, one on each side of the road and one behind flying down the middle. A little crackling rattle sounded from them as they came. The old man stared, incredulous — it could not be . . .
Then, in a quick succession, from the rear machine five bombs fell on the road. Howard saw the bombs actually leave the aeroplane, saw five great spurts of flame upon the road, saw queer, odd fragments hurled into the air.
From the bus a woman shrieked, “Les Allemands!” and pandemonium broke loose. The driver of the little Peugeot car fifty yards away saw the gesticulations of the crowd, looked back over his shoulder, and drove straight into the back of a mule cart, smashing one of its wheels and cascading the occupants and load on to the road. The French around the bus dashed madly for the door, hoping for shelter in the glass and plywood body, and jammed in a struggling, pitiful mob in the entrance. The machine flew on towards them, their machine guns spitting flame. The rear machine, its bombs discharged, flew forward and to the right; with a weaving motion the machine upon the right dropped back to the rear centre, ready in its turn to bomb the road.
There was no time to do anything, to go anywhere, nor was there anywhere to go. Howard caught Sheila and Ronnie and pulled them close to him, flat upon the ground. He shouted to Rose to lie down, quickly.
Then the machines were on them, low-winged, single-engined monoplanes with curious bent wings, dark green in colour. A burst of fire was poured into the bus from the machines to right and left; a stream of tracer bullets shot forward up the road from the centre aircraft. A few bullets flickered straight over Howard and his children on the grass and spattered in the ground a few yards behind them.
For a moment Howard saw the gunner in the rear cockpit as he fired at them. He was a young man, not more than twenty, with a keen, tanned face. He wore a yellow students’ corps cap, and he was laughing as he fired.
Then the two flanking aircraft had passed, and the centre one was very near. Looking up, the old man could see the bombs slung in their racks beneath the wing; he watched in agony for them to fall. They did not fall. The machine passed by them, not a hundred feet away. He watched it as it went, sick with relief. He saw the bombs leave the machine three hundred yards up the road, and watched dumbly as the debris flew upwards. He saw the wheel of a cart go sailing through the air, to land in the field.
Then that graceful, weaving dance began again, the machine in rear changing places with the one on the left. They vanished in the distance; presently Howard heard the thunder of another load of bombs upon the road.
He released the children, and sat up upon the grass. Ronnie was flushed and excited. “Weren’t they close!” he said. “I did see them well. Did you see them well, Sheila? Did you hear them firing the guns?”
He was ecstatically pleased. Sheila was quite unaffected. She said, “May I have some orange?”
Howard said slowly and mechanically, “No, you’ve had enough to eat. Drink up your milk.” He turned to Rose, and found her inclined to tears. He knelt up, and moved over to her. “Did anything hit you?” he asked in French.
She shook her head dumbly.
“Don’t cry, then,” he said kindly. “Come and drink your milk. It’ll be good for you.”
She turned her face up to him. “Are they coming back? I don’t like the noise they make.”
He patted her on the shoulder. “Never mind,” he said a little unsteadily. “The noise won’t hurt you. I don’t think they’re coming back.” He filled up the one cup with milk and gave it to her. “Have a drink.”
Ronnie said, “I wasn’t frightened, was I?”
Sheila echoed, “I wasn’t frightened, was I?”
The old man said patiently, “Nobody was frightened. Rose doesn’t like that sort of noise, but that’s not being frightened.” He stared over to the little crowd around the bus. Something had happened there; he must go and see. “You can have an orange,” he said. “One third each. Will you peel it, Rose?”
“Mais oui, monsieur.”
He left the children happy in the prospect of more food, and went slowly to the bus. There was a violent and distracted clamour from the crowd; most of the women were in tears of fright and rage. But to his astonishment, there were no casualties save one old woman who had lost two fingers of her left hand severed cleanly near the knuckles by a bullet. Three women, well accustomed to first aid in accidents upon the farm, were tending her, not inexpertly.
Howard was amazed that no one had been killed. From the right a dozen bullets had entered the body of the bus towards the rear; from the left the front wheels, bonnet and radiator had been badly shot about. Between the two the crowd of peasants milling round the door had escaped injury. Even the crowd in the small Peugeot had escaped, though one of the women in the mule cart was shot through the thigh. The mule itself was dying in the road.
There was nothing he could do to help the wounded women. His attention was attracted by a gloomy little knot of men around the driver of the bus; they had lifted the bonnet and were staring despondently at the engine. The old man joined them; he knew little of machinery, but it was evident even to him that all was not quite right. A great pool of water lay beneath the engine of the bus; from holes in radiator and cylinder casting the brown, rusty water still ran out.
One of the men turned aside to spit. “Çà ne marche plus,” he said succinctly.
It took a moment or two for the full meaning of this to come home to Howard. “What does one do?” he asked the driver. “Will there be another bus?”
“Not unless they find a madman for a driver.” There was a strained silence. Then the driver said, “Il faut continuer à pied.”
It became apparent to Howard that this was nothing but the ugly truth. It was about four in the afternoon and Montargis was twenty-five kilometres, say fifteen miles, further on, nearer to them than Joigny. They had passed one or two villages upon the road from Joigny; no doubt one or two more lay ahead before Montargis. But there would be no chance of buses starting at these places, nor was there any reasonable chance of a hotel.
It was appalling, but it was the only thing. He and the children would have to walk, very likely the whole of the way to Montargis.
He went into the wrecked body of the bus and collected their things, the two attaché cases, the little suitcase, and the remaining parcels of food. There was too much for him to carry very far unless the children could carry some of it; he knew that that would not be satisfactory for long. Sheila could carry nothing; indeed she would have to be carried herself a great deal of t
he way. Ronnie and Rose, if they were to walk fifteen miles, would have to travel light.
He took his burdens back to the children and laid them down upon the grass. It was impossible to take the suitcase with them; he packed it with the things that they could spare most easily and left it in the bus in the faint hope that one day it might somehow be retrieved. That left the two bulging little cases and the parcels of food. He could carry those himself.
“We’re going to walk on to Montargis,” he explained to the children. “The bus won’t go.”
“Why not?” asked Ronnie.
“There’s something the matter with the engine.”
“Oh — may I go and see?”
Howard said firmly, “Not now. We’re just going to walk on.” He turned to Rose. “You will like walking more than riding in the bus, I know.”
She said, “I did feel so ill.”
“It was very hot. You’re feeling better now?”
She smiled, “Oui, monsieur.”
They started out to walk in the direction of Montargis. The heat of the day was passing; it was not yet cool, but it was bearable for walking. They went very slowly, limited by the rate at which Sheila walked, which was slow. The old man strolled patiently along. It was no good worrying the children with attempts to hurry them; they had many miles to cover and he must let them go at their own pace.
Presently they came to the place where the second load of bombs had dropped.
There were two great craters in the road, and three more among the trees at the verge. There had been a cart of some sort there. There was a little crowd of people busy at the side of the road; too late, he thought to make a detour from what he feared to let the children see.
Ronnie said clearly and with interest, “Are those dead people, Mr. Howard?”
He steered them over to the other side of the road. “Yes,” he said quietly. “You must be very sorry for them.”
“May I go and see?”
“No,” he said. “You mustn’t go and look at people when they’re dead. They want to be left alone.”
“Dead people do look funny, don’t they, Mr. Howard?”
He could not think of what to say to that one, and herded them past in silence. Sheila was singing a little song and showed no interest; Rose crossed herself and walked by quickly with averted eyes.
They strolled on at their slow pace up the road. If there had been a side road Howard would have taken it, but there was no side road. It was impossible to make a detour other than by walking through the fields; it would not help him to turn back towards Joigny. It was better to go on.
They passed other casualties, but the children seemed to take little interest. He shepherded them along as quickly as he could; when they had passed the target for the final load of bombs there would probably be an end to this parade of death. He could see that place now, half a mile ahead. There were two motor cars jammed in the road, and several trees seemed to have fallen.
Slowly, so slowly, they approached the place. One of the cars was wrecked beyond redemption. It was a Citroën front-drive saloon; the bomb had burst immediately ahead of it, splitting the radiator in two and blasting in the windscreen. Then a tree had fallen straight on top of it, crushing the roof down till it touched the chassis. There was much blood upon the road.
Four men, from a decrepit old de Dion, were struggling to lift the tree aside to clear the road for their own car to pass. On the grass verge a quiet heap was roughly covered by a rug.
Pulling and heaving at the tree, the men rolled it from the car and dragged it back, clearing a narrow passage with great difficulty. They wiped their brows, sweating, and clambered back into their old two-seater. Howard stopped by them as the driver started his engine.
“Killed?” he asked quietly.
The man said bitterly, “What do you think? The filthy Boches!” He let the clutch in and the car moved slowly forward round the tree and up the road ahead of them.
Fifty yards up the road it stopped. One of the men leaned back and shouted at him, “You — with the children. You! Gardez le petit gosse!”
They let the clutch in, and drove on. Howard looked down in bewilderment at Rose. “What did he mean?”
“He said there was a little boy,” she said.
He looked around. “There’s no little boy here.”
Ronnie said, “There’s only dead people here. Under that rug.” He pointed with his finger.
Sheila awoke to the world about her. “I want to see the dead people.”
The old man took her hand firmly in his own. “Nobody goes to look at them,” he said. “I told you that.” He stared around him in bewilderment.
Sheila said, “Well, may I go and play with the boy?”
“There’s no boy here, my dear.”
“Yes, there is. Over there.”
She pointed to the far side of the road, twenty yards beyond the tree. A little boy of five or six was standing there in fact, utterly motionless. He was dressed in grey, grey stockings above the knee, grey shorts, and a grey jersey. He was standing absolutely still, staring down the road towards them. His face was a dead, greyish white in colour.
Howard caught his breath at the sight of him, and said very softly, “Oh, my God!” He had never seen a child looking like that, in all his seventy years.
He crossed quickly over to him, the children following. The little boy stood motionless as he approached, staring at him vacantly. The old man said, “Are you hurt at all?”
There was no answer. The child did not appear to have heard him.
“Don’t be afraid,” Howard said. Awkwardly he dropped down on one knee. “What is your name?”
There was no answer. Howard looked round for some help, but for the moment there were no pedestrians. A couple of cars passed slowly circumnavigating the tree, and then a lorry full of weary, unshaven French soldiers. There was nobody to give him any help.
He got to his feet again, desperately perplexed. He must go on his way, not only to reach Montargis but also to remove his children from the sight of that appalling car, capable, if they realized its grim significance, of haunting them for the rest of their lives. He could not stay a moment longer than was necessary in that place. Equally, it seemed impossible to leave this child. In the next village, or at any rate in Montargis, there would be a convent; he would take him to the nuns.
He crossed quickly to the other side of the road, telling the children to stay where they were. He lifted up a corner of the rug. They were a fairly well-dressed couple, not more than thirty years old, terribly mutilated in death. He nerved himself, and opened the man’s coat. There was a wallet in the inside pocket; he opened it, and there was the identity card. Jean Duchot, of 8 bis, Rue de la Victoire, Lille.
He took the wallet and some letters, and stuffed them into his pocket; he would turn them over to the next gendarme he saw. Somebody would have to arrange the burial of the bodies, but that was not his affair.
He went back to the children. Sheila came running to him, laughing. “He is a funny little boy,” she said merrily. “He won’t say anything at all!”
The other two had stepped back and were staring with childish intensity at the white-faced boy in grey, still staring blankly at the ruins of the car. Howard put down the cases, and took Sheila by the hand. “Don’t bother him,” he said. “I don’t suppose he wants to play just now.”
“Why doesn’t he want to play?”
He did not answer that, but said to Rose and Ronnie, “You take one of the cases each, for a little bit.” He went up to the little boy and said to him, “Will you come with us? We’re all going to Montargis.”
There was no answer, no sign that he had heard.
For a moment Howard stood in perplexity; then he stooped and took his hand. In that hot afternoon it was a chilly, damp hand that he felt. “Allons, mon vieux,” he said with gentle firmness, “we’re going to Montargis.” He turned to the road; the boy in grey stirred and trotted docilel
y beside him. Leading one child with either hand the old man strolled down the long road, the other children followed behind, each with a case.
More traffic overtook them, and now there was noticeable a greater proportion of military lorries mingled with the cars. Not only the civilians streamed towards the west; a good number of soldiers seemed to be going that way too. The lorries crashed and clattered on their old-fashioned solid rubber tyres, grinding their ancient gears. Half of them had acetylene headlamps garnishing the radiators, relics of the armies of 1918, stored twenty years in transport sheds behind the barracks in quiet country towns. Now they were out upon the road again, but going in the other direction.
The dust they made was very trying to the children. With the heat and the long road they soon began to flag; Ronnie complained that the case he was carrying hurt his arm, and Sheila wanted a drink but all the milk was gone. Rose said her feet were hurting her. Only the limp little boy in grey walked on without complaint.
Howard did what he could to cheer them on, but they were obviously tiring. There was a farm not very far ahead; he turned into it and asked the haggard old woman at the door if she would sell some milk. She said there was none, upon which he asked for water for the children. She led them to the well in the courtyard, not very distant from the midden, and pulled up a bucket for them; Howard conquered his scruples and his apprehensions and they all had a drink.
They rested a little by the well. In a barn, open to the courtyard, was an old farm cart with a broken wheel, evidently long disused. Piled into this was a miscellaneous assortment of odd rubbish, and amongst this rubbish was what looked like a perambulator.
He strolled across to look more closely, the old woman watching him, hawk-eyed. It was a perambulator in fact, forty or fifty years old, covered in filth, and with one broken spring. But it was a perambulator, all the same. He went back to the old lady, and commenced to haggle for it.
