The ambulance had stopped opposite our gates, and lying on his
stretcher he had seen our garden, my garden. He knew he was to die, and
he had begged with tears in his eyes to the doctor that he might be
left in the garden.
Who could refuse him?
He died within two hours, amongst our flowers, with Alex and I at his
side.
Before he died, he begged us, implored us, almost ordered us, to move
east before it was too late.
We repeated his arguments to my father, but the latter was obdurate,
and he swore that a regiment of angels would not move him from his
ancestral home. So we made up our minds to stay.
Things got worse and worse, and one day shells fell in the grounds and
we hid in the cellars. That night all our servants ran away, and my
father cursed them for cowards. Next day in the early morning we heard
machine guns fire outside the village, and then all was still.
At six o'clock Alex, white-faced, came running into the house. He had
been down to the gates and he had seen the enemy. They were drunk, he
said, and going down the street firing the houses and shooting the
people as they came out.
It seemed impossible and yet it was true. It was growing dark, when we
heard shouts and saw lights, and from the top of the house I saw a
crowd of singing and shouting soldiers, with pine torches, half
running, half walking up the drive.
They massed in a body opposite the house. Paralysed with terror, I
looked down on the scene, and shuddered to see that every second man
seemed to have a bottle.
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