endly way. Shortly after their departure, when Farmer Elly and his
friend, the sieur Javelot, breathed more easily and thanked God
because the danger had passed, some rifle-shots rang out.
Somewhere or other a dreadful thing was happening. A new danger
came to the farm at Lamermont, with thirty men of a different patrol,
who did not ask for milk but blood. They accused the farm people of
having killed a German soldier, and in spite of the protests of the two
men, who had been sitting quietly in the kitchen, they were shot in the
yard.

8

At Triaucourt the Germans were irritated by the behaviour of a young
girl named Mlle. Helene Proces, who was bold enough to lodge a
complaint to one of their officers about a soldier who had tried to
make love to her in the German way. It was a fine thing if German
soldiers were to be punished for a little sport like that in time of war!
"Burn them out!" said one of the men. On a cold autumn night a
bonfire would warm things up a little. ... It was the house of M. Jules
Gaude which started the bonfire. It blazed so quickly after the torch
had touched his thatch that he had to leap through the flames to save
himself, and as he ran the soldiers shot him dead. When the houses
were burning the Germans had a great game shooting at the people
who rushed about the streets. A boy of seventeen, named George
Lecourtier, was killed as he thrust his way through the flames. A
gentleman named Alfred Lallemand--his name ought to have saved
him--was chased by some soldiers when he fled for refuge to the
kitchen of his fellow-citizen Tautelier, and shot there on his
hearthside. His friend had three bullet-wounds in the hand with which
he had tried to protect the hunted man. Mlle. Proces, the young girl
who had made the complaint which led to this trouble, fled into the
garden with her mother and her grandmother and an aunt named
Mile. Mennehard, who was eighty-one years old. The girl was able to
climb over the hedge into the neighbour's garden, where she hid
among the cabbages like a frightened kitten. But the old people could
not go so fast, and as they tried to climb the hedge they were shot
down by flying bullets. The cure of the village crept out into the
darkness to find the bodies of those ladies, who had been his friends.
With both hands he scooped up the scattered brains of Mile.
Mennehard, the poor old dame of eighty-one, and afterwards brought
her body back into her house, where he wep