Yet I noticed that nearly every one of these people had something good to say about some German soldier who had been billeted with them. “He was a good-natured fellow. He chopped wood for me and gave the children his own bread. He wept when he told me that the village was to be destroyed.” Even some of the German officers had deplored this destruction. “The world will have a right to call us barbarians,” said one of them in Ham. “But what can we do? We are under orders. If we do not obey we shall be shot. It is the cruelty of the High Command. It is the cruelty of war.”

On the whole it seemed they had not misused the women. I heard no tales of actual atrocity, though some of brutal passion. But many women shrugged their shoulders when I questioned them about this and said: “They had no need to use violence in their way of lovemaking. There were many volunteers.”

They rubbed their thumbs and fingers together as though touching money and said, “You understand?”