She had begged a little wood from the cook in the garage,
but it was wet and hissed, and all her fire died down. Wood hadn't
proved so abundant on the hills as she had hoped. Either it was cut and
had been taken by the Germans, or grew in solid and forbidding branches.
All the small broken branches and twigs of winter had been collected by
the shivering population of the town and drawn down from the mountains
on trays slung on ropes.
Stooping over her two wet logs she drenched them with paraffin, then,
when she had used the last drop in her tin, got down her petrol bottle.
"I shall lose all my hair one day doing this...."
The white flame licked hungrily out towards her, but it too, died down,
leaving the wet wood as angrily cold as ever.
Going downstairs she searched the courtyard and the hayloft, but the
Bulgarians and Turks of the past had burnt every bit, and any twigs in
the garden were as wet as those which spluttered in the hearth. Then--up
to the attics again.
"I _must_ have wood," she exclaimed angrily, and picked up a piece of
broken white wood from the floor.
It had "Philippe Seret" scrawled across it in pencil. "Why, it's your
name!" she said wonderingly, and held the piece of wood in her hand. The
place was all wood. There was wood here to last her weeks. Mouse
cages--white mouse cages and dormouse cages, a wooden ruler with idle
scratches all over it and "P.
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