They will not be gentle as they were after the last war.
If you kill this old man you will be hung in public on a gallows, and your body will stay there rotting as a warning to all other murderers.'
He turned to Howard:
'That ought to fetch him,' he said placidly, speaking in English.
The old man was troubled.
'I am sorry that you spoke like that,' he said.
'It will not do you any good with him.'
'Nor will anything else,' the young man said.
'I'm very nearly through.'
There was a quiet finality about his tone that made Howard wince.
'Are you sorry?' he enquired.
'No, by God I'm not,' Charenton said, and he laughed boyishly.
'We didn't succeed in getting Adolf, but we gave him the hell of a fright.'
Behind them the door opened.
They swung round; there was a German Gefreiter there with a private.
The private marched into the room and stood by Howard.
The Gefreiter said roughly:
'Kommen Sie.'
Charenton smiled as Howard got up.
'I told you so,' he said.
'Good-bye.
All the best of luck.'
'Good-bye,' said the old man.
He was hustled out of the room before he had time to say more.
As he passed down the corridor to the street he saw through an open door the black uniformed Gestapo officer, his face dark with anger.
With a sick heart Howard walked out into the sunlit square between his guards.
They took him back to Nicole and the children.
Ronnie rushed up to hun.
'Marjan has been showing us how to stand on our heads,' he said excitedly.
'I can do it and so can Pierre.
Willem can't, and none of the girls.
Look, Mr Howard. Just look!'
In a welter of children standing on their heads Nicole looked anxiously at him.
'They did nothing?' she enquired.
The old man shook his head.
They used me to try to make a young man called Charenton talk,' he said.
He told her briefly what had happened.
That is their way,' she said.
'I have heard of that in Chartres.
To gain their end through pain they do not work on the body.
They work on the mind.'
The long afternoon dragged into evening.
Cooped in the little prison room it was very hot and difficult to keep the children happy.
There was nothing for them to do, nothing to look at, nothing to read to them.
Nicole and Howard found themselves before long working hard to keep the peace and to stop quarrels, and this in one way was a benefit to them in that it made it difficult for them to brood on their own position.
At last the German orderly brought them another meal, a supper of bitter coffee and long lengths of bread.
This caused a diversion and a rest from the children; presently, the old man and the girl knew very well, the children would grow sleepy.
When the orderly came back for the supper things they asked for beds.
He brought them straw-filled palliasses, with a rough pillow and one blanket each.
They spent some time arranging these; by that time the children were tired and willing to lie down.