She heard the sound of voices. It was the Prussians returning from the village. She quickly hid the letter and dried her eyes carefully before greeting them as she always did. They were in excellent spirits, having managed somehow to get hold of a rabbit, more than likely stolen. They made signs to indicate that they had something good to eat and she began to prepare the midday meal. When it came to killing the creature, however, despite the countless times she had done so in the past, her courage failed her now. One of the soldiers stunned it with a blow behind the ears. Once the animal was dead she pulled its red body out of its skin. But the sight of the blood as she did so and as it covered her hands, the feel of the warm blood as it cooled and coagulated, made her tremble from head to foot. In her mind’s eye she saw her own darling boy’s red flesh being torn in two while, like that of the rabbit, his body still continued to throb with life.

She sat down at the table with the Prussians but could not touch a thing. They devoured the rabbit without paying too much attention. She looked at them out of the corner of her eye, silently mulling over an idea which had come into her head. Her face was expressionless. They suspected nothing. Suddenly she said:

‘Do you realize, we’ve been together here now for a whole month and I don’t even know your names.’

With some difficulty they managed to understand what she was getting at and told her what they were called. She wanted more. They must write it down, as well as the addresses of their families back home. Fixing her spectacles on her large nose, she looked at the unfamiliar handwriting, then folded the paper they had written on and put it in her pocket alongside the note informing her of her son’s death.

When the meal was over she said to the men, ‘I’ve just thought of something that might be of some help to you,’ and started carrying up hay into the loft where they slept each night. They were surprised to see her doing this but when she explained that it was to keep them warmer they willingly gave her a hand. Between them, they piled up bales as high as the thatched roof, making a kind of large bedroom with walls of warm, fragrant straw within which they would sleep like babies.