He is funny.'
Sheik echoed: 'Why doesn't he say anything?'
Howard said: 'He's been very unhappy.
You must be as nice and as kind to him as ever you can.'
They digested this in silence for a minute.
Then Sheila said:
'Have you got to be nice to him, too, Monsieur Howard?'
'Of course,' he said.
'Everybody's got to be as nice as ever they can be to him.'
She said directly, in French: 'Then why don't you make him a whistle, like you did for us?'
Rose looked up.
'Un sifflet?'
Ronnie said in French:
'He can make whistles ever so well out of a bit of wood.
He made some for us at Cidoton.'
She jumped up and down with pleasure.
'Ecoute Pierre,' she said. 'Monsieur va te fabriquer un sifflet!'
They all beamed up at him in expectation.
It was clear that in their minds a whistle was the panacea for all ills, the cure for all diseases of the spirit. They seemed to be completely in agreement on that point.
'I don't mind making him a whistle,' he said placidly.
He doubted if it would be any good to Pierre, but it would please the other children,
'We'll have to find the right sort of bush.
A hazel bush.'
'Un coudrier,' said Ronnie.
'Cherchons un coudrier.'
They strolled along the road in the warm evening, pushing the pram and looking for a hazel bush.
Presently Howard saw one.
They had been walking for three-quarters of an hour since they had left the farm, and it was time the children had a rest; he crossed to the bush and cut a straight twig with his pocket-knife.
Then he took them into the field a little way back from the traffic of the road and made them sit down on the grass, and gave them an orange to eat between them.
The three children sat watching him entranced as he began his work on the twig, hardly attending to the orange.
Rose sat with her arm round the little boy in grey; he did not seem to be capable of concentrating on anything.
Even the sections of the orange had to be put into his mouth.
The old man finished cutting, bound the bark back into place and lifted the whistle to his lips.
It blew a little low note, pure and clear.
'There you are,' he said.
'That's for Pierre.'
Rose took it.
'Regarde, Pierre,' she said, 'ce que monsieur fa fait.' She blew a note on it for him.
Then, gently, she put it to his lips.
'Siffle, Pierre,' she said.
There was a little woody note above the rumble of the lorries on the road.
Chapter 5
Presently they got back to the road and went on towards Montargis.
Evening was coming on them; out of a cloudless sky the sun was dropping down to the horizon.
It was the tune of evening when in England birds begin to sing after a long, hot day.
In the middle of France there are few birds because the peasant Frenchman sees to that on Sundays, but instinctively the old man listened for their song.
He heard a different sort of song.
He heard the distant hum of aeroplanes; in the far distance he heard the sharp crack of gunfire and some heavier explosions that perhaps were bombs.
On the road the lorries of French troops, all making for the west, were thicker than ever.
Clearly it was impossible for them to reach Montargis.