just seen had made him eloquent.
Luckily, too, the ambulance doctor, a charming fellow, was short of
tetanus-serum, and I had some left; and while I went over with him to
the pine-branch hut where he hid his wounded I explained Rechamp's
case, and implored him to get us through. Finally it was settled that
we should leave the ambulance there--for in the lines the ban against
motors is absolute--and drive the remaining twelve miles. A sergeant
fished out of a farmhouse a toothless old woman with a furry horse
harnessed to a two-wheeled trap, and we started off by round-about
wood-tracks. The horse was in no hurry, nor the old lady either; for
there were bits of road that were pretty steadily currycombed by shell,
and it was to everybody's interest not to cross them before twilight.
Jean de Rechamp's excitement seemed to have dropped: he sat beside me
dumb as a fish, staring straight ahead of him. I didn't feel talkative
either, for a word the doctor had let drop had left me thinking. "That
poor old granny mind the shells? Not she!" he had said when our crazy
chariot drove up. "She doesn't know them from snow-flakes any more.
Nothing matters to her now, except trying to outwit a German. They're
all like that where Scharlach's been--you've heard of him? She had only
one boy--half-witted: he cocked a broomhandle at them, and they burnt
him. Oh, she'll take you to Rechamp safe enough."

"Where Scharlach's been"--so he had been as close as this to Rechamp! I
was wondering if Jean knew it, and if that had sealed his lips and given
him that flinty profile. The old horse's woolly flanks jogged on under
the bare branches and the old woman's bent back jogged in time with it
She never once spoke or looked around at us. "It isn't the noise we
make that'll give us away," I said at last; and just then the old woman
turned her head and pointed silently with the osier-twig she used as a
whip. Just ahead of us lay a heap of ruins: the wreck, apparently, of
a great chateau and its dependencies. "Lermont!" Rechamp exclaimed,
turning white. He made a motion to jump out and then dropped back into
the seat. "What's the use?" he muttered. He leaned forward and touched
the old woman's shoulder.

"I hadn't heard of this--when did it happen?"

"In September."

"_They_ did it?"

"Yes. Our wounded were there. It's like this everywhere in our country."

I saw Jean stiffening himself for the next question. "At Rechamp, too?"

She relapsed int