The silence of the house, as the sun slid up over the trees, was numbing. Mme. Lescot arrived to break this up, equipped with an armload of cleaning things. “This place resembles a pigsty,” she announced. “Mme. Gagnon must not see such a mess. Please cause yourself to be absent.” Slim hurriedly remembered a job to be done. André pushed Patchou hastily out of doors and went to milk the cows. He had just put the milk to cool when Mme. Lescot hailed him from the kitchen door. “Breakfast!” she called. When Slim and André drew up to the table, Mme. Lescot produced a breakfast of army supplies she had found on a shelf. “It is not my business,” she said shortly, “to complain about God’s behavior. But I cannot help believing He has encouraged the American Army to habits of extravagance. Do you leave good food behind, everywhere you go?” When this was translated into English, Slim laughed. “No, ma’am!” he said emphatically. “This army eats everything it lays its hands on. Weller’s just repayin’ the Gagnons for the use of their house, I guess.” After breakfast, Slim called for André and the trumpet. Fitted in between his duties, Slim gave André more lessons in American tunes. The old house trembled under the blasts. In the midst of one of Slim’s Texas songs, an ambulance full of wounded from the fighting at St. Sauveur drew up and stopped. The driver had a message about Captain Dobie. “Cap’n’s got himself shot in the shoulder,” he reported. André and Slim froze. The driver added, as he started on, “Couldn’t get him to come away and be evacuated home with these other guys.” “What’s Weller doin’ lettin’ the skipper get shot!” Slim exclaimed. “Best I get up there quick, now.” André had decided to “get up there,” too. He could surely get far enough to trace Marie, and perhaps find some clue to where his father and mother were. Late that evening of D-day plus nine, Weller returned to pick up Slim. “Come on, Corporal,” he shouted. “The cap’n needs you. “Looks like we’ll take St. Sauveur in a couple of days,” he told André. “Then, as soon’s we cut through to the coast, the big push up to Cherbourg starts off. Won’t be long now.... Take care y’self, kid.” The two waved from the jeep. “Be seein’ you,” they called. André answered, “_Oui_--yes. I think so. Soon.” Because of his own plans, Slim’s departure did not leave André quite so lonely as he might have been. The question of _how_ to get near St. Sauveur was the problem. André thought he might ask some pleasant-looking officer for a lift. He might-- In the end it was Victor who solved things very simply. The Lescots’ married daughter’s home had been burned out. She had just sent word that she was at a farm near Picauville, a hamlet just outside Pont l’Abbé. The message begged her father to come, please, and get her. On the morning after Slim’s departure, Victor arrived at the Gagnons’ door with La Fumée and the cart. He explained his journey to André.