I tried to get her to outline to me what had happened to her since the start of the war, but she wasn’t to be drawn out on that point. “Ze Germans, zay was not nice,” she said; “zay killed my mother over zare.” It appeared that her mother had kept pigeons in the loft of their cottage. When the Germans discovered that the birds had rings on their legs, they had suspected that they were intended for the carrying of messages, and her old mother had been led out and shot. She herself had escaped through their outposts and regained the unconquered territory. What had happened between the time of her escape and our finding her she passed over in a phrase, “Eet was cold and un’appy, and zen you were kind.” I found that what she really preferred to talk about was her girlhood, before calamity had touched her; so let her talk on. It was over there in Hallu Wood, from which the sniping was coming, that she had gone each spring with the village children to gather primroses. It was through these fields, where corpses were now lying, that she used to walk with her pail at milking-time. She peopled the battlefield with ghosts, recreating all the peasant ways of life that the ferocity of war had terminated. She made me see the old priest in his rusty black skirt and round felt hat, going down the lanes between the little cottages. She made me see the pool in the brook where her mother used to kneel with the village women, singing and banging the linen white against the stones. But most of all she made me see herself—Suzette, with the gold-brown plaits, whom all the boys used to follow with their eyes, before there was any Bully Beef or any hint of catastrophe in the world. The ‘phone tinkled, breaking the spell, and the telephonist on duty called to let me know that I was wanted by the Major. “Hulloa, sir, I was going to have called you up. I’m sending Suzette back. There is nothing for her to see up here.” “Don’t send her back—not yet.” The Major’s voice sounded abrupt and agitated. “But why——?” “Here’s why. Bully Beef is lost and we don’t want her to know until we’ve found him.” “Lost, but——” “Yes, lost. I know what you are going to say; that he can’t have gone far and must have been picked up by some other unit. The fact is, however, that he’s as completely vanished as if the ground had opened and swallowed him. Keep her with you until we’ve made a proper search. We may not have to tell her.”