The passenger looked back through the little window. Cider drizzled from the corner of his mouth as he smiled at Marc. ‘What’s your problem?’ he shouted. ‘What do you think the Boche are gonna do when they get hold of us, eh? Don’t you get it, kid? We’re already as good as dead.’

At the next turn the tyres on one side lifted off the ground and crashed down, jarring Marc’s back and shattering several of the remaining cider bottles. He couldn’t see much of the road ahead through the small window into the cab, but he desperately grabbed one of the poles holding up the canvas roof as he sensed that they were braking hard. After a brief skid they were off-road, juddering violently as stones and rocks clattered against the truck’s metal underside.

They came to a mercifully gentle halt as the truck fought a losing battle with heavy undergrowth. Marc was trembling and gasping for breath, but seemed free of serious injury. He thought it unlikely that the driver would be in any state to drive on but he wasn’t prepared to take chances and, as the dogs scrambled back to their feet, he grabbed his bag and jumped out the back.

He landed in a tangle of earth and roots torn up by the truck. Thirty metres away the road was lined with the bedraggled column of open-backed troop carriers and horse-drawn artillery that the driver had swerved to avoid.

An officer with his pistol drawn was jogging towards Marc with three of his men a few paces behind. A second group was cutting through the trees towards the front of the truck.

‘Hands up,’ the officer shouted to Marc. ‘What the devil is this?’

Marc didn’t like having a gun pointed at him. ‘I was just riding in the back,’ he explained nervously. ‘They went crazy.’

As the team at the front of the truck grabbed the doors and pulled out the driver and his companion, one of the bewildered Alsatians scrambled over the back flap and yelped pitifully.

‘Big branch straight through the windscreen, sir,’ one of the soldiers at the front shouted. ‘Driver’s dead for sure and the other bloke’s in a right mess.’

The officer turned away and shook his head. ‘Drunks,’ he sneered. ‘Deserters, most likely, and I’m not wasting any more time on them. Let’s move out.’

‘Are you heading to Paris?’ Marc asked. ‘Can I get a ride?’

The officer looked as though his head was going to explode. ‘Piss off, boy. This is the French Army, not a bloody taxi service.’

But one of the soldiers was more sympathetic. ‘You’re only a few kilometres out and our horses are tired. You’ll do just as well to walk.’

‘What about the dogs, sir? Shall we bring them along?’ his colleague asked.