Image
This picture of the town square in Bavay was taken just after a storm. You can see the Colonne Brünehaut on the left and the town hall straight ahead, with the balcony of the Salle d'Honneur decorated with flowers.
Place
We are back in Bavay from where Gaston is taken, this time by wagon, from his home to the prison in Saint-Quentin.
People
In this chapter Gaston experiences both inhumanity at the hands of an increasingly enraged Horstberg and humanity in the small gesture from the young German soldier of giving him back his glasses with the cracked lens after he loses them in a fall. I have tried to give reasons for the steady decline in the behavour of all antipathetic characters in the story but I also try to celebrate the small kind gestures which made a difference too, such as the gift of a small apple from a gaelor.
Fact and Fiction
I have no idea whether there was a fearsome château in old Saint-Quentin but it seemed logical that invaders would commandeer solid, fortified buildings for their headquarters. It is an appropriate place to imprison Gaston.
Vehicles in WWI varied between horse-drawn carts as here and the more modern trucks and motorbikes. I have tried to include a good variety of transport in Major Tom's War.