He crossed quickly over to him, the children following.
The little boy stood motionless as he approached, staring at him vacantly.
The old man said:
'Are you hurt at all?'
There was no answer.
The child did not appear to have heard him.
'Don't be afraid,' Howard said. Awkwardly he dropped down on one knee.
'What is your name?'
There was no answer.
Howard looked round for some help, but for the moment there were no pedestrians.
A couple of cars passed slowly circumnavigating the tree, and then a lorry full of weary, unshaven French soldiers.
There was nobody to give him any help.
He got to his feet again, desperately perplexed.
He must go on his way, not only to reach Montargis, but also to remove his children from the sight of that appalling car, capable, if they realised its grim significance, of haunting them for the rest of their lives.
He could not stay a moment longer than was necessary in that place.
Equally, it seemed impossible to leave this child.
In the next village, or at any rate in Montargis, there would be a convent; he would take him to the nuns.
He crossed quickly to the other side of the road, telling the children to stay where they were.
He lifted up a corner of the rug.
They were a fairly well-dressed couple, not more than thirty years old, terribly mutilated in death.
He nerved himself and opened the man's coat.
There was a wallet in the inside pocket; he opened it, and there was the identity-card.
Jean Duchot, of 8 bis, Rue de la Victoire, Lille.
He took the wallet and some letters and stuffed them into his pocket; he would turn them over to the next gendarme he saw.
Somebody would have to arrange the burial of the bodies, but that was not his affair.
He went back to the children.
Sheila came running to him, laughing.
'He is a funny little boy,' she said merrily.
'He won't say anything at all!'
The other two had stepped back and were staring with childish intensity at the white-faced boy in grey, still staring blankly at the ruins of the car.
Howard put down the cases and took Sheila by the hand.
'Don't bother him,' he said.
'I don't suppose he wants to play just now.'
'Why doesn't he want to play?'
He did not answer that, but said to Rose and Ronnie:
'You take one of the cases each for a little bit.'
He went up to the little boy and said to him:
'Will you come with us?
We're all going to Montargis.'
There was no answer, no sign that he had heard.
For a moment Howard stood in perplexity; then he stooped and took his hand.
In that hot afternoon it was a chilly, damp hand that he felt.
'Allans, mon vieux,' he said, with gentle firmness, 'we're going to Montargis.'
He turned to the road; the boy in grey stirred and trotted docilely beside him.
Leading one child with either hand, the old man strolled down the long road, the other children followed behind, each with a case.
More traffic overtook them, and now there was noticeable a greater proportion of military lorries mingled with the cars.
Not only the civilians streamed towards the west; a good number of soldiers seemed to be going that way too.
The lorries crashed and clattered on their old-fashioned solid rubber tyres, grinding their ancient gears.
Half of them had acetylene headlamps garnishing the radiators, relics of the armies of 1918, stored twenty years in transport sheds behind the barracks in quiet country towns.
Now they were out on the road again, but going in the other direction.