by Nevil Shute
Her words passed him by, but the pantomime was evident. He looked confused. ‘Dank, Mijnheer,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Dank u wel.’
Howard stared at him, perplexed. It was a northern language, but not German. It might, he thought, be Flemish or Walloon, or even Dutch. In any case, it mattered very little; he himself knew no word of any of those languages.
They drove on at a good pace through the hot afternoon. The hatch to the driver’s compartment was open; from time to time the old man leaned forward and looked through between the two men at the road ahead of them. It was suspiciously clear. They passed only a very few refugees, and very occasionally a farm cart going on its ordinary business. There were no soldiers to be seen, and of the seething refugee traffic between Joigny and Montargis there was no sign at all. The whole countryside seemed empty, dead.
Three miles from Angerville the corporal turned and spoke to Howard through the hatch. ‘Getting near that next town now,’ he said. ‘We got to get some juice there, or we’re done.’
The old man said: ‘If you see anyone likely on the road I’ll ask them where the depot is.’
‘Okay.’
In a few minutes they came to a farm. A car stood outside it, and a man was carrying sacks of grain or fodder from the car into the farm. ‘Stop here,’ the old man said, ‘I’ll ask that chap.’
They drew up by the roadside, immediately switching off the engine to save petrol. ‘Only about a gallon left now,’ said the driver. ‘We run it bloody fine, an’ no mistake.’
Howard got down and walked back to the farm. The man, a grey-beard of about fifty without a collar, came out towards the car. ‘We want petrol,’ said Howard. ‘There is, without doubt, a depot for military transport in Angerville?’
The man stared at him. ‘There are Germans in Angerville.’
There was a momentary silence. The old Englishman stared across the farmyard at the lean pig rooting on the midden, at the scraggy fowls scratching in the dust. So it was closing in on him.
‘How long have they been there?’ he asked quietly.
‘Since early morning. They have come from the north.’
There was no more to be said about that. ‘Have you petrol? I will buy any that you have, at your own price.’
The peasant’s eyes glowed. ‘A hundred francs a litre.’
‘How much have you got?’
The man looked at the gauge upon the battered dashboard of his car. ‘Seven litres. Seven hundred francs.’
Less than a gallon and a half of petrol would not take the ten-ton Leyland very far. Howard went back to the corporal.
‘Not very good news, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘The Germans are in Angerville,’
There was a pause, ‘Bloody ’ell,’ the corporal said at last. He said it very quietly, as if he were suddenly tired. ‘How many are there there?’
Howard called back the enquiry to the peasant. ‘A regiment,’ he said. ‘I suppose he means about a thousand men.’
‘Come down from the north, like,’ said the driver.
There was nothing much more to be said. The old man told them about the petrol. ‘That’s not much good,’ the corporal said. ‘With what we’ve got, that wouldn’t take us more’n ten miles.’ He turned to the driver. ‘Let’s ’ave the muckin’ map.’
Together they pored over the sheet; the old man got up into the cab and studied it with them. There was no side road between them and the town; behind them there was no road leading to the south for nearly seven miles. ‘That’s right,’ the driver said. ‘I didn’t see no road on that side when we came along.’
The corporal said quietly: ‘An’ if we did go back, we’d meet the Jerries coming along after us from that other muckin’ place. Where he picked up the nipper what they told him was a spy.’
‘That’s right,’ the driver said.
The corporal said: ‘Got a fag?’
The driver produced a cigarette; the corporal lit it and blew a long cloud. ‘Well,’ he said presently, ‘this puts the lid on it.’
The other two were silent.
‘I wanted to get home with that big Herbert,’ the corporal said. ‘I wanted to get that through okay, as much as I ever wanted anything in all my life.’ He turned to Howard: ‘Straight, I did. But I ain’t going to.’
The old man said gently: ‘I am very sorry.’
The other shook himself. ‘You can’t always do them things you want to most.’ He stirred. ‘Well, this won’t buy baby a new frock.’
He got down from the cab on to the ground. ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Howard.
‘I’ll show you what I’m going to do.’ He led the old man to the side of the great lorry, about half-way down its length. There was a little handle sticking out through the side chassis member, painted bright red. ‘I’m going to pull that tit, and run like bloody ’ell.’
‘Demolition,’ said the driver at his elbow. ‘Pull that out an’ up she goes.’
The corporal said: ‘Come on, now. Get them muckin’ kids out of the back. I’m sorry we can’t take you any farther, mate, but that’s the way it is.’
Howard said: ‘What will you do, yourselves?’
The corporal said: ‘Mugger off cross-country to the south an’ hope to keep in front of the Jerries.’ He hesitated. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said, a little awkwardly. ‘They won’t do nothin’ to you, with all them kids.’
The old man said: ‘We’ll be all right. Don’t worry about us. You’ve got to get back home to fight again.’
‘We got to dodge the muckin’ Jerries first.’
Together they got the children down on to the road; then they lifted down the pram from the top of the van. Howard collected his few possessions and stowed them in the pram, took the corporal’s address in England, and gave his own.
There was nothing then to wait for.
‘So long, mate,’ said the corporal. ‘See you one day.’
The old man said: ‘So long.’
He gathered the children round him and set off with them slowly down the road in the direction of Angerville. There was a minor squabble as to who should push the pram, which finished up by Sheila pushing it with Ronnie to assist and advise. Rose walked beside them leading Pierre by the hand; the dirty little stranger in his queer frock followed along behind. Howard thought ruefully that somehow, somewhere, he must get him washed. Not only was he verminous and filthy, but the back of his neck and his clothes were clotted with dried blood from the cut.
They went slowly, as they always did. From time to time Howard glanced back over his shoulder; the men by the lorry seemed to be sorting out their personal belongings. Then one of them, the driver, started off across the field towards the south, carrying a small bundle. The other bent to some task at the lorry.
Then he was up and running from the road towards the driver. He ran clumsily, stumbling; when he had gone about two hundred yards there was a sharp, crackling explosion.
A sheet of flame shot outwards from the lorry. Parts of it sailed up into the air and fell upon the road and into the fields; then it sunk lower on the road. A little tongue of fire appeared, and it was in flames.
Ronnie said: ‘Coo, Mr. Howard. Did it blow up?’
Sheila echoed: ‘Did it blow up itself, Mr. Howard?’
‘Yes,’ he said heavily, ‘that’s what happened.’ A column of thick black smoke rose from it on the road. He turned away. ‘Don’t bother about it any more.’
Two miles ahead of him he saw the roofs of Angerville. The net was practically closed upon him now. With a heavy heart he led the children down the road towards the town.
Chapter Six
I broke into his story and said, a little breathlessly: ‘This one’s not far off.’
We sat tense in our chairs before the fire, listening to the rising whine of the bomb. It burst somewhere very near, and in the rumble of the falling debris we heard another falling, closer still. We sat absolutely motionless as the club rocked to the expl
osion and the glass crashed from the windows, and the whine of the third bomb grew shrill. It burst upon the other side of us.
‘Straddled,’ said old Howard, breaking the tension. ‘That’s all right.’
The fourth bomb of the stick fell farther away; then there was a pause, but for a burst of machine-gun fire. I got up from my chair and walked out to the corridor. It was in darkness. A window leading out on to a little balcony had been blown open. I went out and looked round.
Over towards the city the sky was a deep, cherry red with the glow of the fires. Around us there was a bright, yellow light from three parachute-flares suspended in the sky; Bren guns and Lewis guns were rattling away at these things in an attempt to shoot them down. Close at hand, down the street, another fire was getting under way.
I turned, and Howard was at my side. ‘Pretty hot tonight,’ he said.
I nodded. ‘Would you like to go down into the shelter?’
‘Are you going?’
‘I don’t believe it’s any safer there than here,’ I said.
We went down to the hall to see if there was anything we could do to help. But there was nothing to be done, and presently we went up to our chairs again beside the fire and poured another glass of the Marsala. I said: ‘Go on with your story.’
He said diffidently: ‘I hope I’m not boring you with all this?’
Angerville is a little town upon the Paris-Orleans road. It was about five o’clock when Howard started to walk towards it with the children, a hot, dusty afternoon.
He told me that that was one of the most difficult moments of his life. Since he had left Cidoton he had been travelling towards England; as he had gone on fear had grown upon him. Up to the last it had seemed incredible that he should not get through, hard though the way might be. But now he realised that he would not get through. The Germans were between him and the sea. In marching on to Angerville he was marching to disaster, to internment, probably to his death.
That did not worry him so much. He was old and tired; if an end came now he would be missing nothing very much. A few more days of fishing, a few more summers pottering in his garden. But the children—they were another matter. Somehow he must make them secure. Rose and Pierre might be turned over to the French police; sooner or later they would be returned to their relations. But Sheila and Ronnie—what arrangements could he possibly make for them? What would become of them? And what about the dirty little boy who now was with them, who had been stoned by old women mad with terror and blind hate? What would become of him?
The old man suffered a good deal.
There was nothing to be done but to walk straight into Angerville. The Germans were behind them, to the north, to the east, and to the west. He felt that it was hopeless to attempt a dash across the country to the south as the Air Force men had done; he could not possibly outdistance the advance of the invader. Better to go ahead and meet what lay before him bravely, conserving his strength that he might help the children best.
Ronnie said: ‘Listen to the band.’
They were about half a mile from the town. Rose exclaimed with pleasure. ‘Ecoute, Pierre,’ she said, bending down to him. ‘Ecoute!’
‘Eh?’ said Howard, waking from his reverie. ‘What’s that?’
Ronnie said: ‘There’s a band playing in the town. May we go and listen to it?’ But his ears were keener than the old man’s, and Howard could hear nothing.
Presently, as they walked into the town, he picked out the strains of Lieberstraum.
On the way into the town they passed a train of very dirty lorries halted by the road, drawing in turn up to a garage and filling their tanks at the pump. The soldiers moving round them appeared strange at first; with a shock the old man realised that he was seeing what he had expected for the last hour to see; the men were German soldiers. They wore field-grey uniforms with open collars and patch pockets, with a winged eagle broidered on the right breast. Some of them were bare-headed; others wore the characteristic German steel helmet. They had sad, tired, expressionless faces; they moved about their work like so many machines.
Sheila said: ‘Are those Swiss soldiers, Mr. Howard?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘they’re not Swiss.’
Ronnie said: ‘They wear the same kind of hat.’
Rose said: ‘What are they?’
He gathered them around him. ‘Look,’ he said in French, ‘you mustn’t be afraid. They are German, but they won’t hurt you.’
They were passing a little group of them. From the crowd an Unterfeldwebel came up to them; he wore long black boots and breeches stained with oil. ‘That is the proper spirit,’ he said in harsh, guttural French. ‘We Germans are your friends. We bring you peace. Very soon you will be able to go home again.’
The children stared at him, as if they did not understand what he had said. Very likely this was so, because his French was very bad.
Howard said in French: ‘It will be good when we have peace again.’ There was no point in giving up before he was found out.
The man smiled, a set, expressionless grin. ‘How far have you come?’
‘From Pithiviers.’
‘Have you walked so far?’
‘No. We got a lift in a lorry which broke down a few miles back.’
The German said: ‘So. Then you will want supper. In the Place there is a soup-kitchen which you may go to.’
Howard said: ‘Je vous remercie.’ There was nothing else to say.
The man was pleased. He ran his eye over them and frowned at the little boy in the smock. He stepped up and took him by the head, not ungently, and examined the wound upon his neck. Then he looked at his own hands, and wiped them with disgust, having handled the child’s head.
‘So!’ he said. ‘By the church there is a field hospital. Take him to the Sanitätsunteroffizier.’ He dismissed them curtly and turned back to his men.
One or two of the men looked at them woodenly, listlessly, but no one else spoke to them. They went on to the centre of the town. At the cross-roads in the middle, where the road to Orleans turned off to the left and the road to Paris to the right, there was a market square before a large grey church. In the centre of the square the band was playing.
It was a band of German soldiers. They stood there, about twenty of them, playing doggedly, methodically; doing their duty for their Führer. They wore soft field caps and silver tassels on their shoulders. A Feldwebel conducted them. He stood above them on a little rostrum, the baton held lovingly between his finger-tips. He was a heavy, middle-aged man; as he waved he turned from side to side and smiled benignly on his audience. Behind the band a row of tanks and armoured cars were parked.
The audience was mostly French. A few grey-faced, listless German soldiers stood around, seemingly tired to death; the remainder of the audience were men and women of the town. They stood round gaping curiously at the intruder, peering at the tanks and furtively studying the uniforms and accoutrements of the men.
Ronnie said in English: ‘There’s the band, Mr. Howard. May we go and listen to it?’
The old man looked quickly round. Nobody seemed to have heard him. ‘Not now,’ he said in French. ‘We must go with this little boy to have his neck dressed.’
He led the children away from the crowd. ‘Try not to speak English while we’re here,’ he said quietly to Ronnie.
‘Why not, Mr. Howard?’
Sheila said: ‘May I speak English, Mr. Howard?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘The Germans don’t like to hear people speaking English.’
The little girl said in English: ‘Would the Germans mind if Rose spoke English?’
A passing Frenchwoman looked at them curiously. The old man beat down his irritation; they were only children. He said in French: ‘If you speak English I’ll find a little frog to put into your mouth.’
Rose said: ‘Oo—to hear what monsieur has said! A little frog! It would be horrible, that.’
In mixed laughter and apprehension
they went on talking in French.
The field hospital was on the far side of the church. As they went towards it every German soldier that they passed smiled at them mechanically, a set, expressionless grin. When the first one did it the children stopped to stare, and had to be herded on. After the first half-dozen they got used to it.
One of the men said: ‘Bonjour, mes enfants.’
Howard muttered quietly. ‘Bonjour, m’sieur,’ and passed on. It was only a few steps to the hospital tent; the net was very close around him now.
The hospital consisted of a large marquee extending from a lorry. At the entrance a lance-corporal of the medical service, a Sanitätsgefreiter, stood idle and bored, picking his teeth.
Howard said to Rose: ‘Stay here and keep the children with you.’ He led the little boy up to the tent. He said to the man in French: ‘The little boy is wounded. A little piece of plaster or a bandage, perhaps?’
The man smiled, that same fixed, mirthless smile. He examined the child deftly. ‘So!’ he said. ‘Kommen Sie—entrez.’
The old man followed with the child into the tent. A dresser was tending a German soldier with a burnt hand; apart from them the only other occupant was a doctor wearing a white overall. His rank was not apparent. The orderly led the child to him and showed him the wound.
The doctor nodded briefly. Then he turned the child’s head to the light and looked at it, expressionless. Then he opened the child’s soiled clothes and looked at his chest. Then, rather ostentatiously, he rinsed his hands.
He crossed the tent to Howard. ‘You will come again,’ he said in thick French. ‘In one hour,’ he held up one finger. ‘One hour.’ Fearing that he had not made himself understood he pulled out his watch and pointed to the hands. ‘Six hours.’
‘Bien compris,’ said the old man. ‘A six heures.’ He left the tent, wondering what dark trouble lay in store for him. It could not take an hour to put a dressing on a little cut.
Still there was nothing he could do. He did not dare even to enter into any long conversation with the German; sooner or later his British accent must betray him. He went back to the children and led them away from the tent.