The thin soldier looked suspiciously at the men with their backpacks. ‘All this is for German soldiers?’

‘I hope so,’ Teresa said. ‘There’s no one else up here to sell it to.’ She took a piece of paper from her pocket. ‘Here’s the order, signed by your Sergeant Eisenstein.’

The man read it carefully and handed it back. Then he looked at Lieutenant-Colonel Will Donelly, a beefy American pilot. ‘Is he French?’

Lloyd put his hand on the gun in his pocket.

The appearance of the fugitives was a problem. In this part of the world the local people, French and Spanish, were usually small and dark. And everyone was thin. Both Lloyd and Teresa fitted that description, as did the Czech and the violinist. But the British were pale and fair-haired, and the Americans were huge.

Teresa said: ‘Guillaume was born in Normandy. All that butter.’

The younger of the two soldiers, a pale boy with glasses, smiled at Teresa. She was easy to smile at. ‘Do you have wine?’ he said.

‘Of course.’

The two sentries brightened visibly.

Teresa said: ‘Would you like some right now?’

The older man said: ‘It’s thirsty in the sun.’

Lloyd opened a pannier on one of the ponies, took out four bottles of Roussillon white wine, and handed them over. The Germans took two each. Suddenly everyone was smiling and shaking hands. The older sentry said: ‘Carry on, friends.’

The fugitives went on. Lloyd had not really expected trouble, but you could never be sure, and he was relieved to have got past the sentry post.

It took them two more hours to reach Lamont. A dirt-poor hamlet with a handful of crude houses and some empty sheep pens, it stood on the edge of a small upland plain where the new spring grass was just beginning to show. Lloyd pitied the people who had lived here. They had had so little, and even that had been taken from them.

The party walked into the centre of the village and gratefully unshouldered their burdens. They were surrounded by German soldiers.

This was the most dangerous moment, Lloyd thought.

Sergeant Eisenstein was in charge of a platoon of fifteen or twenty men. Everyone helped to unload the supplies: bread, sausage, fresh fish, condensed milk, canned food. The soldiers were pleased to get supplies and glad to see new faces. They merrily attempted to engage their benefactors in conversation.

The fugitives had to say as little as possible. This was the moment when they could so easily betray themselves by a slip. Some Germans spoke French well enough to detect an English or American accent. Even those who had passable accents, such as Teresa and Lloyd, could give themselves away with a grammatical error. It was so easy to say sur le table instead of sur la table, but it was a mistake no French person would ever make.

To compensate, the two genuine Frenchmen in the party went out of their way to be voluble. Any time a soldier began to talk to a fugitive, someone would jump into the conversation.