Henri walked along gayly. He hailed other French soldiers. He joined a
handful and stood talking to them. But he reached the crossroads before
the ammunition train.
The crossroads was crowded, as usual--many soldiers, at rest, waiting
for the word to fall in, a battery held up by the breaking of a wheel.
A temporary forge had been set up, and soldiers in leather aprons were
working over the fire. A handful of peasants watched, their dull eyes
following every gesture. And one of them was a man Henri sought.
Henri sat down on the ground and lighted a cigarette. The ammunition
train rolled in and halted, and the man Henri watched turned his
attention to the train. He had been dull and quiet at the forge, but
now he became smiling, a good fellow. He found a man he knew among the
drivers and offered him a cigarette. He also produced and presented an
entire box of matches. Matches were very dear, and hardly to be bought
at any price.
Henri watched grimly and hummed a little song: "Trou la la, ca ne va guere;
Trou la la, ca ne va pas."
Still humming under his breath, when the peasant left the crossroads he
followed him. Not closely. The peasant cut across the fields. Henri
followed the road and entered the fields at a different angle. He knew
his way quite well, for he had done the same thing each day for four
days. Only twice he had been a Belgian peasant, and once he was an
officer, and once he had been a priest.
Four days he had done this thing, but to-day was different. To-day there
would be something worth while, he fancied. And he made a mental note
that Sara Lee must not be in the little house that night.
When he had got to a canal where the pollard willows were already sending
out their tiny red buds, Henri sat down again. The village lay before
him, desolate and ruined, a travesty of homes. And on a slight rise, but
so concealed from him by the willows that only the great wings showed,
stood the windmill.
It was the noon respite then, and beyond the line of poplars all was quiet.
The enemy liked time for foods and the Belgians crippled by the loss of
that earlier train, were husbanding their ammunition. Far away a gap in
the poplar trees showed a German observation balloon, a tiny dot against
the sky.
The man Henri watched went slowly, for he carried a bag of grain on his
back. Henri no longed watched him, He watched the wind wheel. It had
been broken, and one plane was now patched with what looked like a red
cloth. There was a good wind, but clearly the miller was idle that day.
The great wings were not turning.