Having mothers back home themselves they could sympathize with her and understand why she was so anxious and worried. They did all sorts of things for her and in time she became fond of her four official enemies. Peasants very rarely feel patriotic loathing for others. Those sorts of feelings, they believe, are reserved for their social superiors. The least warmongering are the poor, humble people whom war affects most because they can least afford any extra charges. The least jingoistic are those who are killed in their thousands and form the real cannon-fodder of battle. The people who suffer the greatest misery and deprivation in times of conflict are always the weakest and most vulnerable. They are the ones for whom national honour and glory mean nothing and they form the bulk of the populations on both sides of war. In six months it exhausts both victors and vanquished alike.

When Mother Sauvage’s four Germans came up in conversation local people would say, ‘Now those four got a cushy billet all right!’

One morning when the old woman was at home by herself, she saw a man in the distance coming towards the house. In a little while, she recognized the local postman. He gave her a piece of folded paper and, having put on the spectacles she used for sewing, she read:

Madame Sauvage,
This letter brings sad news. Your son Victor was killed yesterday by a cannonball which effectively cut him in half. I was close to him when it happened since we are next to each other in the company. He asked me to let you know the same day if anything should ever happen to him. I took his watch from his pocket and will return it to you when the war is over.
Greetings from your friend,
Césaire Rivot. Recruit. 23rd Infantry.

The letter was dated three weeks earlier.

Madame Sauvage did not weep. She stood stock still, so shocked and paralysed by the news that she felt as yet no pain. She simply thought, ‘Victor’s dead now.’ Then little by little tears came to her eyes as she was overwhelmed with grief. Ideas came into her mind one after another. Dreadful, appalling thoughts began to creep in. She would never hold her lovely boy in her arms again! The police had killed his father – now the Prussians had killed her son. He had been sliced in two by a cannonball! She could visualize the whole horrifying scene. She imagined his head falling forward, his eyes still wide open as he stood chewing the end of his moustache as he always did when he was angry. What had they done with his body afterwards? If only they had given her her child back, as they had her husband, even with the bullet-hole in his forehead!