At length Gérard decides to speak: “Maître Sarlange must have told you about the situation at Savignole?”
“Yes, a little.”
“Good. There are fifteen of us at the bothy, including a Jewish family, father, mother and two kids. They left Clermont just in time, they’d been denounced to the Gestapo, presumably by the people living in the same building and with whose children their own children used to play. It is hard to believe in such inhumanity. But as long as they’re with us they have to be fed. They came to us, starving. No ration cards…too risky using them… “. Gérard draws semi-circles in the snow with one of my ski sticks. His mood is sombre. He explains that the Maquis’ hold-ups he could still organise a while ago have now to be stopped. He says:
“The Gestapo is everywhere, fanaticall
