It was not possible that Chastel, silent as it was and desolate as it seemed, could be entirely deserted.

Although leaving ruin behind, the fury of battle had passed and some of the people would return to their homes.

Chastel lay behind the French lines, a great hospital camp was not far away, and the fear of further German invasion could not be present now.
He put one hand in his overcoat pocket over the butt of the automatic, and then, remembering how General Vaugirard whistled, he too whistled, not for want of thought but to encourage himself, to make his heart beat a little less violently, and to hear a cheerful sound where there was nothing else but the soft swish of the snow and the desolate moaning of the wind among the ruins.
He walked down the main street, and unconsciously stopped whistling.
Then the awful silence and desolation brooded over him again.

The storm was thickening, and the lights in the plain below were entirely gone now.

He was not yet able to find any proof of human life in Chastel, and, after all, the fighting in the town might have been so recent and so fierce that not one of the inhabitants yet dared to return.