The officer would go away then, and send her cigarettes for her men or,
as in more than one case, a squad with bags of earth and other things
to protect the little house as much as possible. After a time the little
house began to represent the ideas in protection and camouflage, then in
its early stages, of many different minds.
Rene shot a man there one night, a skulking figure working its way in
the shadows up the street. It was just before dawn, and Rene, who was
sleepless those days, like the others, called to him. The man started
to run, dodging behind walls. But Rene ran faster and killed him.
He was a German in Belgian peasant's clothing. But he wore the great
shoes of the German soldier, and he had been making a rough map of the
Belgian trenches.
Sara Lee did not see him. But when she heard the shot she went out, and
Rene told her breathlessly.
From that time on her terrors took the definite form of Henri lying dead
in a ruined street, and being buried, as this man was buried, without
ceremony and without a prayer, in some sodden spring field.