At supper that night one of them was a little concerned to see Mother Sauvage still not eating. She explained that she was suffering from stomach cramps and made up the fire to keep herself warm also. Eventually, climbing up the ladder they used every night, the four Germans retired to their quarters. As soon as the trap-door was shut, the old woman took away the ladder. Then opening the outside door again she fetched in more bales of straw and filled the kitchen with them. She tip-toed back and forth in the snow barefoot so as to make no noise. From time to time she could hear the loud, irregular snores of the four sleeping soldiers.

When preparations were completed to her satisfaction she tossed one of the bales into the hearth and, once the straw had caught fire, started spreading it over the others. She then went outside again and stood watching. In a few seconds the whole of the interior was lit by a blinding incandescence and in a few more this turned into a terrifying brazier, a gigantic furnace the light of whose flames cast a dazzling glare through the narrow window and on to the snow outside. Then a cry went up from the top of the house followed by the hideous clamour of human screams and heartrending cries of terror and agony. Then, the trap-door having collapsed into the kitchen below, a whirling tornado of flames flew up towards the loft, shot through the thatched roof and like some giant, flaming torch, leapt into the sky as the cottage crumbled and collapsed.

Nothing more was heard except for the crackling of the fire, the shattering of walls and the crump of rafters hitting the ground. Suddenly, as the roof finally fell in, the blazing carcass of the house threw a great burst of sparks into the air amid a cloud of smoke. The white landscape, illuminated by the fire, gleamed like a silver cloth shot through with red.

In the distance a bell began to peal.

Mother Sauvage remained in front of her ruined house, standing with her son’s rifle ready in case any of the men escaped. When she saw that it was all over she threw the weapon into the blaze and a shot rang out. People, both locals and Prussians, began to arrive at the scene. They found the woman sitting on a tree-trunk with a look of calm satisfaction on her face. A German officer who spoke fluent French asked her: ‘Where are your soldiers?’

She lifted a skinny arm in the direction of the fire’s red heart, now beating its last, and answered confidently, ‘In there!’

People crowded round her. The Prussian continued: ‘And how did the fire start?’

‘I started it myself,’ she said.