The
Russian, who had stood up in the car, sat down. "Now go on...."
The streets which circled the base of the hill had been partially
cleared of fallen rock and stonework, and the car could pick its way
between the crazy shop-fronts, where notices of vanished cobblers,
manicurists, butchers, flapped before caverns hollowed by fire, upon
fingers of stone already touched by moss.
Here and there soldiers moved in bands at their work of clearing. But
the black hat, the drab coat of the civilian had long been left behind
--and here the face of a woman was unknown as the flying dragons of the
world's youth.
Now and then with a crash the remains of a house fell, as the block
of stonework which alone supported it was disarranged by the working
soldiers.
"Where am I to go?" asked Fanny, as the street wound round the base of
the hill.
"I will climb over beside you and direct you," said the French
lieutenant, and dropped into the front seat.
"Where do these soldiers sleep? Not among these ruins?"
A block of masonry fell ahead of them and split its stones across the
street.
"Be careful! You can get round by this side street. Up here.... In these
ruins. No living soul can sleep in Verdun now."
"Where, then?"
"Don't you know? They sleep _beneath_ Verdun, in this hill around which
we are circling.
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