The Cuirassier tries to pump me, very deftly, very innocently.
“Have you heard anything of the number of French in Namur. Have they
been strengthening the defences there during the last two weeks. Is it
true that their food supply is inadequate to the needs of the town?”
It is amazing how obtuse I suddenly become. I forgot that the
Job-Lepouses have dinned into my brain for the past fortnight the
pleasing legend that a hundred and forty thousand Frenchmen, not
to speak of Belgians, are defending Namur, and that every other
tree in the country side has been cut down to pile up barricades. I
swear I have no knowledge of the (possibly true) assertion that the
_avant-garde_ of the French troops, two hundred men and officers, are
at Laroche. I am duller witted all of a sudden than the village idiot
who has, by the way, refuted the charge of idiotcy by keeping mostly to
the fields since the Germans came.