The old man got down from the lorry and lifted the children one by one down into the hot sunlight on the dusty, deserted road.
He started off with them down the road towards the town, leading the two little ones by the hand, thinking uneasily that if he were to become separated from the lorry he would inevitably lose his perambulator.
He made all speed possible, but it was twenty minutes before he led them into the town.
There were no Germans to be seen.
The town was virtually deserted; only one or two very old women peered at him from behind curtains or around the half-closed doors of shops.
In the gutter of the road that led towards the north a tattered, dirty child that might have been of either sex in its short smock, was chewing something horrible.
A few yards up the road a dead horse had been dragged half up on to the pavement and left there, distended and stinking.
A dog was tearing at it.
It was a beastly, sordid little town, the old man felt.
He caught one of the old women at a door.
'Are the Germans here?' he said.
'They are coming from the north,' she quavered.
'They will ravish everyone, and shoot us.'
The old man felt instinctively that this was nonsense.
'Have you seen any Germans in the town yet?'
'There is one there.'
He looked round, startled.
'Where?'
'There.'
She pointed a trembling, withered hand at the child in the gutter.
'There?'
The woman must be mad, distraught with terror of the invaders.
'It speaks only German.
It is the child of spies.'
She caught his arm with senile urgency.
'Throw a stone and chase it away.
It will bring the Germans to this house if it stays there.'
Howard shook her off.
'Are any German soldiers here yet?'
She did not answer, but shouted a shrill scream of dirty imprecations at the child in the gutter.
The child, a little boy, Howard thought, lifted his head and looked at her with infantile disdain.
Then he resumed his disgusting meal.
There was nothing more to be learned from the old hag; it was now clear to him there were no Germans in the town.
He turned away; as he did so there was a sharp crack, and a fair-sized stone rolled down the pavement near the German spy.
The child slunk off fifty yards down the street and squatted down again on the kerb.
The old man was very angry, but he had other things to do.
He said to Rose: 'Look after the children for a minute, Rose.
Don't let them go away or speak to anyone.'
He hurried back along the road that they had entered the town by.
He had to go a couple of hundred yards before he came in- sight of the lorry, parked by the roadside half a mile away.
He waved his hat at it, and saw it move towards him; then he turned and walked back to where he had left the children.
It overtook him near the cross-roads in the middle of the town.
The corporal leaned down from the cab.
'Any juice here, do you think?' The old man looked at him uncomprehending. 'Petrol, mate.'
'Oh - I don't know.
I wouldn't hang about here very long.'
That's right,' the driver muttered.
'Let's get on out of it.
It don't look so good to me.'
'We got to get juice.'