“They do,” said Peter.  “And, to tell you the truth, I wondered if I’d be over in time myself.  Surely the Yanks must come in and make a difference.”

“This time next year, perhaps, though I doubt it.  What do you think, Scottie?”

“Oh, ask another!  I’m sick of it.  Say, skipper, what about that run out into the forest you talked of?”

“Good enough.  Would you care to go, padre?  There’s a wood-cuttin’ crowd out there, and I want to see ’em about firewood.  There’s a car possible to-day, and we could all pack in.”

“Count me out,” said Jenks.  “I’ll have to toddle over and report.  Sorry, all the same.”

“I’d love it,” said Peter.  “Besides, the A.C.G. said I was to look up those people.”

“Oh, well done.  It isn’t a joy-ride at all, then.  Have another, padre, and let’s get off.  No?  Well, I will.  How’s yours, Scottie?”

Ten minutes later the three of them got into a big car and glided smoothly off, first along the river, and then up a steep road into the forest.  Peter, fresh from London, lay back and enjoyed it immensely.  He had no idea Normandy boasted such woods, and the world looked very good to him.  It was all about as different from what he had imagined as it could possibly have been.  He just set himself to appreciate it.

The forest was largely fir and pine, and the sunlight glanced down the straight trunks and patterned on the carpet beneath.  Hollies gleamed green against the brown background, and in an open space of bare beech trees the littered ground was already pricked with the new green of the wild hyacinth.  Now and again the rounded hills gave glimpses of the far Normandy plain across the serpentine river, then would as suddenly close in on them again until the car seemed to dart between the advancing battalions of the forest as though to escape capture.  At length, in one such place, they leaped forward up a short rise, then rushed swiftly downhill, swung round a corner, and came out on what had become all but a bare tableland, set high so that one could see distant valleys—­Boscherville, Duclair—­and yet bare, for the timber had been all but entirely cut down.

Five hundred yards along this road brought them to a small encampment.  There were some lines of Nysson huts, a canteen with an inverted triangle for sign, some tents, great stacks of timber and of smaller wood, a few lorries drawn up and silent, and, beyond, two or three buildings of wood set down by themselves, with a garden in front, and a notice “Officers’ Quarters.”  Here, then, Captain Harold stopped the car, and they got out.  There were some jovial introductions, and presently the whole party set off across the cleared space to where, in the distance, one could see the edge of the forest.

Peter did not want to talk, and dropped a little behind.  Harold and the O.C. of the forestry were on in front, and Mackay, with a junior local officer, were skirmishing about on the right, taking pot-shots with small chunks of wood at the stumps of trees and behaving rather like two school-boys.