'May I sit by the driver too?'
'Come on and get your clothes on,' he repeated.
He turned to Rose and said in French: 'Put your stockings on, Rose, and help Pierre.
We've got to be very quick.'
He hurried the children all he could, but they were wet and the clothes stuck to them; he had no towel.
Before he was finished the two Air Force men were back with him, worrying with their urgency to start.
At last he had the children ready.
'Will you be able to take my perambulator?' he asked, a little timidly.
The corporal said: 'We can't take that muckin' thing, mate.
It's not worth a dollar.'
The old man said: 'I know it's not.
But if we have to walk again, it's all I've got to put the little ones in.'
The driver chipped in: 'Let 'im take it on the roof. It'll ride there all right, corp.
We'll all be walking if we don't get hold of juice.'
'My muckin' Christ,' the corporal said.
'Call this a workshop lorry!
Perishing Christmas tree, I call it.
All right, stick it on the roof.'
He hustled them towards the road.
The lorry stood gigantic by the roadside, the traffic eddying round it.
Inside it was stuffed full of machinery.
An enormous Herbert lathe stood in the middle.
A grinding-wheel and valve-facing machine stood at one end, a little filing and sawing machine at the other.
Beneath the lathe a motor-generator set was housed; above it was a long electric switchboard.
The men's kitbags occupied what little room there was.
Howard hastily removed their lunch from the pram, and watched it heaved up on the roof of the van.
Then he helped the children up among the machinery.
The corporal refused point-blank to let them ride beside the driver.
'I got the Bren there, see?' he said.
'I don't want no perishing kids around if we runs into Jerries.'
Howard said: 'I see that.'
He consoled Ronnie and climbed in himself into the lorry.
The corporal saw them settled, then went round and got up by the driver; with a low purr and a lurch the lorry moved out into the traffic stream.
It was half an hour later that the old man realised that they had left Sheila's pants beside the stream in their hurry.
They settled down to the journey.
The interior of the van was awkward and uncomfortable for Howard, with no place to sit down and rest; he had to stoop, half kneeling, on a kitbag.
The children being smaller, were more comfortable.
The old man got out their dejeuner and gave them food in moderation, with a little of the orange drink; on his advice Rose ate very little, and remained well.
He had rescued Pierre's chocolate from the perambulator and gave it to him, as a matter of course, when they had finished eating.
The little boy received it solemnly and put it into his mouth; the old man watched him with grave amusement.
Rose said: 'It is good, that, Pierre.' She bent down and smiled at him.
He nodded gravely.
'Very good,' he whispered.
Very soon they came to Montargis.
Through a little trap-door in the partition between the workshop and the driver's seat the corporal said to Howard:
'Ever been here before, mate?'
The old man said: 'I've only passed it in the train, a great many years ago.'
'You don't know where the muckin' petrol dump would be?
We got to get some juice from somewhere.'
Howard shook his head.