They covered nearly a mile at the Percheron’s steady plod. Then a shell crashed a hundred yards away, and the horse cowered under a shower of falling debris. Victor and André had flattened themselves on the Percheron’s vast back. With his head still buried in Victor’s rough coat, André begged, “Surely it is wiser to turn back, Victor.” The old man sighed. “But it is now such a little way. It is a pity.” Both sat up cautiously. The marshes glowed beyond a broken orchard, just across the Paris-Cherbourg road. Far to the northeast, from a German pillbox sunk beside the flooded land, swiveled guns thumped, and were immediately answered by other, unseen guns. Before they could move again, André cried, “Listen!” [Illustration] A tremendous explosion, close to the sea, was followed by a shattering series of rolling reverberations. And immediately, from almost on the horizon, a fleet of planes swept upward sharply over their heads. “Dive bombers,” André cried. “They must be finishing off those big German guns on the sea bluff.” Then, added to the shock and noise of the bombing, rose all around them a fury of gobbling protest. Turkeys which had been roosting in the trees screamed and fluttered insanely. In the grass, a family of small white pigs ran helter-skelter toward the hedges. La Fumée stood stiff, with rolling eyes. At length the last wave of bombers passed. The air over the orchard reeked, and smoke seeped inland from the marshes. The turkeys continued to scold, their voices dropping to an angry gurgle. “There, that is over,” Victor said firmly. “Jacquard’s is so close, we may as well go on.” La Fumée moved woodenly, and André smoothed her thick, firm flank with a gentle hand. If they were to go on, they must cross the wide, pitted Paris-Cherbourg road. And into this angled a smaller one. This led to Jacquard’s, and continued seaward to the hamlet of l’Audouville. The road stretching north and south was completely deserted just then except for a litter of wrecked Nazi trucks pushed to the sides. La Fumée put on a jiggling burst of speed to cross the main road. The smaller road also seemed empty. “You see,” Victor said. “Here we are. Jacquard’s place is just ahead.” André’s sharper eyes studied the high stone walls and the slate roofs above. “It has been bombed or shelled already,” he said. Victor hunched forward, shocked into silence. The farm’s roadside gates sagged open on broken hinges, and fowl wandered in and out. The sound of a car racing up the main road to Cherbourg caught André’s ear. As he turned, he saw the car hesitate at the fork of their road, and then swing into it at gathering speed. He thrust his hand under Victor’s arm, grabbed the reins, and yanked the Percheron into the shallow ditch at the side. The car swept past so fast, André caught only a glimpse of the Nazi Swastika on the side.