Fear makes a bad counsellor but is very often the first to show up. That Sunday, after Mass, Couderc found it difficult to conceal his anxiety. Beneath his assured demeanour, he struggled to suppress a terrifying thought. As he stood, perplexed, looking at the empty square, he wondered if the mothers’ premonition of doom had been fulfilled. There was not a child in sight. The square in front of the church, usually filled with the bustle and sounds of games of hide-and-seek, now lay under an atrocious pall of silence. The children had all disappeared and there was no laughter or shouting.

Since the outbreak of war there had been a resurgence of religious belief, or, at least, people had begun to attend Mass again. The women brought the old people, who all gathered in the front pews of the little church, apart from Fernand and Couderc, who sat at the back. All the women felt that because God decided when it was time to die, God must have something to do with the war. Perhaps he was the instigator, or the one who would save them from it, but either way, his role was crucial. With the men gone, the women came to church to talk to God about them and to have the little cardboard crosses they had made to send to them blessed. They prayed for the men to come back soon, hoping the authority they prayed to did exist. Since the outbreak of war the parish priest had made the effort to come up to the village with his big golden chalice and his censer sent from Rome, although he didn’t have a car or a horse any more. For the last two months, he had made the journey on foot, inspired by the newly canonised Joan of Arc, who featured in all his sermons; he always glorified her army of liberation, saying very definitely, ‘God is on our side, not on the side of the Germans, those wicked Protestants, those heretics who desecrate the Virgin and go straight to Damnation when they die. No one dared contradict him. He would then lead them in singing, always hymns that attested to miracles, because even if individually they sang out of tune, all together they made a kind of harmony. Anyway, it felt good to sing to God, who might be able to help them, so good that for an hour or so they forgot about the children, who had stayed outside to play.