done, on a convenient bit of level ground by the side of the road, he made up his mind what to do, and did it, in the same second, jamming his lever into the reverse speed directly we stopped, and the car began moving steadily backwards, though not quite as fast as we should have liked. He was sitting bolt upright in front of me, with one hand on the steering-wheel and the other on the back of his seat, looking away from the Germans along the road behind us. As soon as they saw that we were not coming on they began to fire. Still perfectly cool and French, he backed down the slope of the hill, which was as straight as a two-foot rule, counting the shots out loud as we went: “One, two, three, four....” They made a flick just like the crack of a small hunting-crop. “Another thousand yards and we’re all right ... five, six—that touched us” (it had grazed the right front lamp and glanced on to the trumpet) “seven ...” and so on up to “nine, ten ... eleven,” and with that we reached a side lane into which, with the same quick decision, he backed the car to turn her. And then, just when it seemed as if we had got off safely, things began to go wrong. The engine stopped dead, and the off-wheels stuck in the ditch. So out we jumped. M. Puech to the front to start the engine if he could, M. Mirman and M. Rogier and I to push behind—our very hardest, but without the slightest effect, M. Puech grinding away just as hard and just as vainly at the engine crank—and then suddenly the engine started, and we flung ourselves into the car, this time with our backs to the foe but our heads erect, and in a moment were flying back to the village as fast as our excellent M. Puech could push her along. [Illustration: NOMENY. _By permission of M. Martin, Secrétaire Général, the Prefecture, Nancy._ ] In the village street we found M. Lamure and the others and the second car, standing in the middle of a group of excited villagers. When they had come along, a minute or two behind us, the whole population, instead of only our old woman, rushed out and barred the road in front of them, and when they had pulled up told them they could not possibly go on as sixty Uhlans had just left the village, only ten minutes before our car went through. While they were talking to them, wondering what to do, the shots fired at us, or rather at M. Puech, began to sing into the village, but over their heads, chipping the plaister off the upper walls. And that, no doubt, was the explanation of our escape. The Germans had been firing from the village, most probably at a long range, before we came into it, and when they retired towards Nomeny the four men whom they had left on the road as a rearguard had forgotten to lower their sights, till one of them saw what he was doing, corrected his mistake, and fired the shot which hit the lamp of the car.