She heard the gate squeal open, there was the mutter of a man’s voice and suddenly Marie gave a shout of indignation that was abruptly cut short.
Lucille ran to the cupboard where Richard kept his other guns, but before she even had time to turn the key, the kitchen door banged wide open and a tall man with a face like old scratched leather was standing in the doorway where his breath misted in the cold air. He slowly raised a pistol so that it was pointing between Lucille’s eyes, then, just as slowly, he thumbed the cock back. “Where is the Englishman?” he asked in a calm voice. Lucille said nothing. She could see there were a half-dozen other men in the yard. “Where is the Englishman?” The tall man asked again. “Papa”s shooting foxes!” Young Patrick explained helpfully. “Bang!” A small bespectacled man pushed past the man with the pistol. “Look after your child, Madame,” he ordered Lucille, then he stepped aside to let his six ragged followers into the kitchen. The small bespectacled man was the only one who did not carry a pistol, and the only one who did not have long pigtails framing his face. The last man through the door dragged Marie out of the cold and pushed her down on to a chair. “Who are you?” Lucille demanded of the small man, “Look after your child, Madame!” he insisted again. “I cannot abide small children.” The tall man who had first appeared in the doorway shepherded Lucille away from the gun cupboard. He looked to be around 40 years old, and everything about him declared that he was a soldier from the wars. The pigtails had been the badge of Napoleon’s dragoons, and they framed a face that had been scarred by blades and powder burns. His coat was an army coat with the bright buttons replaced by horn, while his cap was a forage hat which still had Napoleon’s badge. He pushed Lucille into a chair, then turned to the small man. “We’ll start the search now, Maitre?” “Indeed,” the small man said. “Who are you?” Lucille asked again, this time more fiercely. The small man took off his coat, revealing a shabby black suit. “Make sure she stays at the table,” he said to one of the men, “the rest of you, search! Sergeant, you start upstairs.” “Search for what?” Lucille demanded as the intruders spread out through the house.
THE SMALL man turned back to her. “You possess a cart, Madame?” “A cart?”
Lucille asked, confused. “We shall find it, anyway,” the man said. He crossed to the window, rubbed mist off a pane and peered out. “When will your Englishman return?” “In his own time,” Lucile said defiantly. There was a shout from the old hall where one of the strangers had discovered the remnants of the Lassan silver. There had been a time when a lord of this chateau could seat 40 diners in front of silverware, but now there was just a thick ewer, some candlesticks and a dozen dented plates. The silver was brought into the kitchen, where the small man ordered that it be piled beside the door. “We are not rich!” Lucille protested. She was trying to hide her terror, for she feared that the farm had been invaded by one of the desperate bands of old soldiers who roamed and terrorised rural France. The newspapers had been full of their crimes, yet Lucille had somehow believed that the troubles would never reach Normandy. “That is all we have!” she said, pointing to the silver.
“You have more, Madame,” the small man said, “much more. And I would advise you not to try to leave the house, or else Corporal Lebecque will shoot you.”
He nodded to her, then ducked under the staircase door to help the men who were ransacking the bedrooms. Lucille looked at the thin corporal who had been ordered to watch her. “We are not rich,” she said. “You’re richer than we are,” the corporal answered. He had a ferret’s face, Lucille thought, with ravaged teeth and sallow eyes. “Much richer,” he added. “You won’t hurt us?”
Lucille asked, clutching Patrick. “That depends on your Englishman,” the corporal said, “and on my sergeant’s mercy.” “Your sergeant?” Luciile asked, guessing he meant the big man who had first confronted her. “And my sergeant, the corporal continued, “does not have mercy. It was bled out of him in the war. It was bled out of us all. You have coffee?” A shot sounded far away, and Lucille thought of the terrible things that war had left in its wake. She remembered the stories of pillage and murder that racked poor France and which now, at Christmas, had arrived at her own front door. She held her child, closed her eyes and prayed.