Fanny held
out her cigarette-case and offered it to him.
"Have you been here long?" she asked.
"A month, mademoiselle."
"Are there many of you in this--village?" (Not a spar, not a pile of
bricks stood higher than two feet above the ground.)
"There are ten persons now. A family came in yesterday."
"But how are you fed?"
"A lorry passes once a week for all the people in this district--within
fifty miles. There are ten souls in one village, twenty in another, two
in another. They have promised to send us huts, but the huts don't come.
We have sunk a well now and it is drinkable, but before that we got
water by lorry once a week, and we often begged a little from the
radiators of other lorries."
"What have you got down there?"
"It is the cellar of my house, mademoiselle. There are two rooms still,
and one is watertight. The trouble is the lack of tools. I can't build
anything. We have a spade, and a pick and a hammer, which we keep
between the ten of us."
"Take my hammer," said Fanny. "I can get another in the garage."
He took it, pleased and grateful, and she left this pioneer of
recolonisation, this obstinate Crusoe and his family, standing by his
banner of blue smoke.
Another hour and a large signpost arrested her attention.
"This _was_ Villers Carbonel," it told her, and beneath it three roads
ran in different directions.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208