'I'm afraid I don't.
I'll ask someone for you, if you like.'
'Christ.
Do you speak French that good?'
The driver said: 'They all speak it, corp.
Even the bloody kids.'
The corporal turned back to Howard.
'Just keep them kids down close along the floor, mate, case we find the Jerries like in that place Susan.'
The old man was startled.
'I don't think there are any Germans so far west as this,' he said.
But he made the children lie down on the floor, which they took as a fine joke.
So, with the little squeals of laughter from the body of the lorry, they rolled into Montargis and pulled up at the crossroads in the middle of the town.
At the corporal's request the old man got down and asked the way to the military petrol dump.
A baker directed him to the north of the town; he got up into the driver's compartment and directed them through the town.
They found the French transport park without great difficulty, and Howard went with the corporal to speak to the officer in charge, a lieutenant.
They got a brusque refusal.
The town was being evacuated, they were told.
If they had no petrol they must leave their lorry and go south.
The corporal swore luridly, so luridly that Howard was quite glad that the English children, who might possibly have understood, were in the lorry.
'I got to get this muckin' lot to Brest,' he said.
'I don't leave it here and hop it, like he said.'
He tinned to Howard, suddenly earnest. 'Look, mate,' he said. 'Maybe you better beat it with the kids.
You don't want to get mixed up with the bloody Jerries.'
The old man said: 'If there's no petrol, you may as well come with us.'
The Air Force man said: 'You don't savvy, mate.
I got to get this lot to Brest.
That big Herbert.
You don't know lathes, maybe, but that's a treat.
Straight it is.
Machine tools is wanted back home.
I got to get that Herbert home - I got to let the Jerries have it for the taking, I suppose!
Not bloody likely.'
He ran his eye around the park.
It was filled with decrepit, dirty French lorries; rapidly the few remaining soldiers were leaving.
The lieutenant that had refused them drove out in a little Citroen car.
'I bet there's juice somewhere about,' the corporal muttered.
He swung round and hailed the driver.
'Hey, Bert,' he said:
'Come on along.'
The men went ferreting about among the cars.
They found no dump or store of petrol, but presently Howard saw them working at the deserted lorries, emptying the tanks into a bidon.
Gleaning a gallon here and a gallon there, they collected in all about eight gallons and transferred it to the enormous tank of the Leyland.
That was all that they could find.
'It ain't much,' said the corporal.
'Forty miles, maybe.
Still, that's better 'n a sock in the jaw.
Let's see the bloody map, Bert.'
The bloody map showed them Pithiviers, twenty-five miles farther on.
'Let's get goin'.'
They moved out on the westward road again.