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"No," he said. "I didn't have a car. I don't drive very well, and I had to give it up some years ago. My eyesight isn't what it used to be."

"When did you leave Jura, then?" I asked.

He thought for a minute. "June the eleventh," he said at last. "That was the day, I think."

I wrinkled my brows in perplexity. "Were the trains all right?" Because in the course of my work I had heard a good deal about conditions in France during those weeks.

He smiled. "They weren't very good," he said reflectively.

"How did you get along, then?"

He said, "I walked a good deal of the way."

As he spoke, there was a measured crump . . . crump . . . crump . . . crump as a stick of four fell, possibly a mile away. The very solid building swayed a little, and the floors and windows creaked. We waited, tense and still. Then came the undulating wail of the sirens, and the sharp crack of gunfire from the park. The raid was on again.

* * * * *

"Damn and blast," I said. "What do we do now?"

The old man smiled patiently. "I'm going to stay where I am."