The mist hadn't cleared when the first tracks crossed the Roncesvalles Pass.
French armored columns moved in silence.
No salutes, no bands, just a steady tide of men and machines flowing south across the line that once marked safety.
At Somport, the same stuff.
Trucks by the hundreds.
Light tanks.
Covered troop transports packed with infantry from Bayonne, Pau, and Tarbes.
Convoy leaders didn't pause.
Orders were strict keep moving, stay silent.
In the villages clinging to the French side of the mountains, shutters opened.
Civilians stood on thresholds, watching in disbelief.
Children pointed.
Old men wept quietly, hands on the shoulders of sons too young to understand why this moment was different.
A woman in Perpignan hung a small tricolor from her window.
Then another house.
Then another.
No one told them to.
They remembered something.
Not pride, not revenge, something older.
