'Not exactly,' he said.
'But they said I might go with them for a ride tomorrow or one day.
They did speak funnily.
I could hardly understand what they wanted to say.
May I go for a ride with them tomorrow, m'sieur?
They say I might.'
The old man said: 'We'll have to see about that.
We may not be here tomorrow.'
Sheila said: 'Why did they talk funny, Ronnie?'
Rose said suddenly:
'They are dirty Germans, who come here to murder people.'
The old man coughed loudly.
'Go on and eat your supper,' he said, 'all of you.
That's enough talking for the present.'
More than enough, he thought; if the German dishing out the soup had overheard they would all have been in trouble.
Angerville was no place for them; at all costs he must get the children out.
It was only a matter of an hour or two before exposure came.
He meditated for a moment; there were still some hours of daylight.
The children were tired, he knew, yet it would be better to move on, out of the town.
Chartres was the next town on his list; Chartres, where he was to have taken train for St Malo.
He could not get to Chartres that night; it was the best part of thirty miles farther to the west.
There was little hope now that he would escape the territory occupied by Germans, yet for want of an alternative he would carry on to Chartres.
Indeed, it never really occurred to him to do otherwise.
The children were very slow eaters.
It was nearly an hour before Pierre and Sheila, the two smallest, had finished their meal.
The old man waited, with the patience of old age.
It would do no good to hurry them.
When they had finished he wiped their mouths, thanked the German cook politely, collected the pram, and led them out on to the road to Chartres.
The children walked very slowly, languidly.
It was after eight o'clock, long past their ordinary bed-time; moreover, they had eaten a full meal.
The sun was still warm, though it was dropping towards the horizon; manifestly, they could not go very far.
Yet he kept them at it, anxious to get as far as possible from the town.
The problem of the little Dutch boy engaged his attention.
He had not left him with the Sisters, as he had been minded to; it had not seemed practical when he was in the town to search out a convent.
Nor had he yet got rid of Pierre, as he had promised himself that he would do.
Pierre was no trouble, but this new little boy was quite a serious responsibility.
He could not speak one word of any language that they spoke.
Howard did not even know his name.
Perhaps it would be marked on his clothes.
Then, with a shock of dismay, the old man realised that the clothes were gone for ever.
They had been taken by the Germans when the little chap had been de-loused; by this time they were probably burnt.
It might well be that his identity was lost now till the war was over, and enquiries could be made.
It might be lost for ever.
The thought distressed old Howard very much.
It was one thing to hand over to the Sisters a child who could be traced; it seemed to him to be a different matter altogether when the little boy was practically untraceable.
As he walked along the old man revolved this new trouble in his mind.
The only link now with his past lay in the -fact that he had been found abandoned in Pithiviers on a certain day in June - lay in the evidence which Howard alone could give.
With that evidence, it might one day be possible to find his parents or his relatives.
If now he were abandoned to a convent, that evidence might well be lost.
They walked on down the dusty road.