A lean older man with weathered pale skin, a gray moustache trimmed close at the corners, and one eyebrow that rises whenever he listens hard. His face is long and creased by wind and squinting; his movements have the measured sway of someone accustomed to a cart's uneven pull. He leaves an impression of stubborn steadiness, as if even a sudden shout would have to wait until he had finished judging the road.

Serge is patient with animals, wheels, and frightened people, but impatient with anyone who treats risk as someone else's problem. He can be quietly generous when working alone and guarded when family or authority figures are present. A demand for a simple answer makes him cautious; a practical task often brings out his wry humor.

Serge Vautrin grew up in a village where carts, harvests, and weather mattered more than promises. He learned the lanes by listening to wheel rims, axle squeaks, and the different crunch of gravel, clay, and broken stone. He took over grain runs after his older brother Étienne was killed in a road accident, an event that made Serge stop treating haste as a virtue. During the occupation, he has kept working as a civilian cart driver, bringing grain through on the routes he knows best. His wife, Lucette, wants him to refuse any load that might feed the occupying forces; his adult daughter, Mireille, argues that refusing all loads would leave local families hungry. Serge is caught between them, and between the village's need for food and the danger of every journey.