Their view of the giant birdcage among the trees was getting better and better as they walked.

‘Franck, this place is incredible …’

Franck slowed down and let them get closer to the cage, keeping a good thirty metres behind them. He was watching from above as they ducked under the entrance and then went into the cage. It was perfect. They looked like two figurines trapped inside a snow globe; you just had to close it and shake it to make the snowflakes fall. He’d got them. Alpha seemed to be seeking his approval; he knew it too. They’d got them.

The dog stood outside the cage, tense and panting. He looked at Franck, who was almost at the bottom, waiting for an order. But who was giving the orders, Franck or the dog? What would take over, the wolf part in the human, or the human part in the dog?

July 1915

July 1915

Wolves hunt at speed, ambushing flocks that move slowly. They often wait for fog to spring out at the terrified animals and chase them or throw them into the air, their forty-two sharpened teeth visible in their gaping mouths, forty-two blades ready to rip open the animals’ throats, spilling their blood. Unlike men, animals have to fight to live. And they have to do it continually, in order to eat or guard their territory; even birds spend their life on alert. Blackbirds sing in the morning not to brighten the sky but to warn off possible rivals. Joséphine lived in peace, the peace of the hills, yet all around her animals were killing each other to feed themselves. For many of them violence was the essential element of their existence. Boar ate broods of pheasants when there weren’t enough acorns; foxes slaughtered chickens when there weren’t enough hares; hares ate worms and midges. As for the buzzards and kites wheeling about the sky all day long, they swooped on mice and the mice fed on caterpillars. Even wild cats end up being devoured by cowardly hyenas that wait for them to die before attacking.

In this scheme all man does is add to the cruelty, particularly in periods of war when restrictions and shortages are conducive to wild hunting and poaching. Caught in between the battle lines, soldiers allowed themselves this kind of mischief. Behind their lines some had ambitious hunting plans, in complete contravention of the law, but driven by extreme hunger. Some infantrymen threw grenades into the rivers to stir up the fish, others who were further from the front practised battue hunting. Hunting was forbidden in areas of armed confrontation, but officers turned a blind eye. No one would have tolerated it if officers who sent their men off to be killed by the enemy had sanctioned a soldier for killing a dog or a trout.