by Nevil Shute
Earlier in the day—how long ago it seemed!—Sheila had suffered a sartorial disaster, in that she had lost her knickers. It had not worried her or any of the children, but it had weighed on Howard’s mind. Now was the time to rectify that omission. To ease Ronnie’s longings they went and had a look at the German tanks in the Place; then, ten minutes later, he led them to a draper’s shop not far from the field hospital.
He pushed open the door of the shop, and a German soldier was at the counter. It was too late to draw back, and to do so would have raised suspicion; he stood aside and waited till the German had finished his purchases. Then, as he stood there in the background, he saw that the German was the orderly from the hospital.
A little bundle of clothes lay upon the counter before him, a yellow jersey, a pair of brown children’s shorts, socks, and a vest. ‘Cinquante quatre, quatre vingt dix,’ said the stout old woman at the counter.
The German did not understand her rapid way of speech. She repeated it several times; then he pushed a little pad of paper towards her, and she wrote the sum upon the pad for him. He took it and studied it. Then he wrote his own name and the unit carefully beneath. He tore off the sheet and gave it to her.
‘You will be paid later,’ he said, in difficult French. He gathered up the garments.
She protested. ‘I cannot let you take away the clothes unless I have the money. My husband—he would be very much annoyed. He would be furious. Truly, monsieur—that is not possible at all.’
The German said stolidly: ‘It is good. You will be paid. That is a good requisition.’
She said angrily: ‘It is not good at all, that. It is necessary that you should pay with money.’
The man said: ‘That is money, good German money. If you do not believe it, I will call the Military Police. As for your husband, he had better take our German money and be thankful. Perhaps he is a Jew? We have a way with Jews.’
The woman stared at him, dumb. There was a momentary silence in the shop; then the hospital orderly gathered up his purchases and swaggered out. The woman remained staring after him, uncertainly fingering the piece of paper.
Howard went forward and distracted her. She roused herself and showed him children’s pants. With much advice from Rose upon the colour and design he chose a pair for Sheila, paid three francs fifty for them, and put them on her in the shop.
The woman stood fingering the money. ‘You are not German, monsieur?’ she said heavily. She glanced down at the money in her hand.
He shook his head.
‘I thought perhaps you were. Flemish?’
It would never do to admit his nationality, but at any moment one of the children might betray him. He moved towards the door. ‘Norwegian,’ he said at random. ‘My country has also suffered.’
‘I thought you were not French,’ she said. ‘I do not know what will become of us.’
He left the shop and went a little way up the Paris road, hoping to avoid the people. German soldiers were still pouring into the town. He walked about for a time in the increasing crowd, tense and fearful of betrayal every moment. At last it was six o’clock; he went back to the hospital.
He left the children by the church. ‘Keep them beside you,’ he said to Rose. ‘I shall only be at the hospital a little while. Stay here till I come back.’
He went into the tent, tired and worn with apprehension. The orderly saw him coming. ‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘I will tell the Herr Oberstabsarzt.’
The man vanished into the tent. The old man stood waiting at the entrance patiently. The warm sun was pleasant now, in the cool of the evening. It would have been pleasant to stay free, to get back to England. But he was tired now, very, very tired. If only he could see the children right, then he could rest.
There was a movement in the tent, and the doctor was there, leading a child by the hand. It was a strange, new child, sucking a sweet. It was spotlessly clean, with short cropped hair trimmed close to its head with clippers. It was a little boy. He wore a yellow jersey and a pair of brown shorts, socks, and new shoes. The clothes were all brand new, and all seemed vaguely familiar to the old man. The little boy smelt very strong of yellow soap and disinfectant.
He wore a clean white dressing on his neck. He smiled at the old man.
Howard stared at him, dumbfounded. The doctor said genially. ‘So! My orderly has given him a bath. That is better?’
The old man said: ‘It is wonderful, Herr Doktor. And the clothes, too. And the dressing on his neck. I do not know how to thank you.’
The doctor swelled visibly. ‘It is not me that you must thank, my friend,’ he said with heavy geniality. ‘It is Germany! We Germans have come to bring you peace, and cleanliness, and the ordered life that is true happiness. There will be no more war, no more wandering for you now. We Germans are your friends.’
‘Indeed,’ the old man said faintly, ‘we realise that, Herr Doktor.’
‘So,’ said the man, ‘what Germany has done for this boy, she will do for France, for all Europe. A new Order has begun.’
There was rather an awkward silence. Howard was about to say something suitable, but the yellow jersey caught his eye, and the image of the woman in the shop came into his mind and drove the words from his head. He stood hesitant for a minute.
The doctor gave the child a little push towards him. ‘What Germany has done for this one little Dutchman she will do for all the children of the world,’ he said. ‘Take him away. You are his father?’
Fear lent speed to the old man’s thoughts. A half-truth was best. ‘He is not mine,’ he said. ‘He was lost and quite alone in Pithiviers. I shall take him to the convent.’
The man nodded, satisfied with that. ‘I thought you might be Dutch yourself,’ he said. ‘You do not speak like these French.’
It would not do to say he was Norwegian again; it was too near to Germany. ‘I am from the south,’ he said. ‘From Toulouse. But I am staying with my son in Montmirail. Then we got separated in Montargis; I do not know what has become of him. The children I was with are my grandchildren. They are now in the Place. They have been very good children, m’sieur, but it will be good when we can go home.’
He rambled on, getting into the stride of his tale, easily falling into the garrulity of an old man. The doctor turned away rudely. ‘Well, take your brat,’ he said. ‘You can go home now. There will be no more fighting.’
He went back into the tent.
The old man took the little boy by the hand and led him round the church, passing on the other side of the shop that had sold children’s clothes. He found Rose standing more or less where he had left her, with Sheila and Pierre. There was no sign of Ronnie.
He said anxiously to her: ‘Rose, what has become of Ronnie? Where is he?’
She said: ‘M’sieur, he has been so naughty. He wanted to see the tanks, but I told him it was wrong that he should go. I told him, m’sieur, that he was a very, very naughty little boy and that you would be very cross with him, m’sieur. But he ran off, all alone.’
Sheila piped up, loud and clear, in English: ‘May I go and see the tanks, too, Mr. Howard?’
Mechanically, he said in French: ‘Not this evening. I told you that you were all to stay here.’
He looked around, irresolute. He did not know whether to leave the children where they were and go and look for Ronnie, or to take them with him. Either course might bring the other children into danger. If he left them they might get into further trouble. He took hold of the pram and pushed it ahead of him. ‘Come this way,’ he said.
Pierre edged up to him and whispered: ‘May I push?’
It was the first time that the old man had heard the little boy volunteer a remark. He surrendered the handle of the pram. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Rose, help him push.’
He walked beside them towards the parked tanks and lorries, anxiously scanning the crowd. There were German soldiers all about the transport, grey, weary men, consciously endeavouring to frater
nise with a suspicious population. Some of them were cleaning up their clothes, some tending their machines. Others had little phrase books in their hands, and these were trying to make conversation with the crowd. The French peasants seemed sullen and uncommunicative.
Sheila said suddenly: ‘There’s Ronnie, over there!’
The old man turned, but could not see him. ‘Where is he?’
Rose said: ‘I see him—oh, m’sieur, what a naughty little boy. There, m’sieur, right inside the tank, there—with the German soldiers!’
A cold fear entered Howard’s heart. His eyesight for long distances was not too good. He screwed his eyes up and peered in the direction Rose was pointing. True enough, there he was. Howard could see his little head just sticking out of a steel hatch at the top of the gun-turret as he chattered eagerly to the German soldier with him. The man seemed to be holding Ronnie in his arms, lifting him up to show him how the captain conned his tank. It was a pretty little picture of fraternisation.
The old man thought very quickly. He knew that Ronnie would most probably be talking French; there would be nothing to impel him to break into English. But he knew also that he himself must not go near the little boy nor must his sister; in his excited state he would at once break out in English to tell them all about the tank. Yet, he must be got away immediately, while he was still thinking of nothing but the tank. Once he began to think of other things, of their journey, or of Howard himself, he would inevitably betray them all in boyish chatter. Within five minutes of him losing interest in the tank the Germans would be told that he was English, that an old Englishman was strolling round the town.
Sheila plucked his sleeve. ‘I want my supper,’ she said. ‘May I have my supper now? Please, Mr. Howard, may I have my supper now?’
‘In a minute,’ he said absently. ‘We’ll all go and have our supper in a minute.’ But that was an idea. If Sheila was hungry, Ronnie would be hungry too—unless the Germans had given him sweets. He must risk that. There was that soup kitchen that the German at the entrance to the town had spoken of; Howard could see the field-cookers a hundred yards down the Place.
He showed them to Rose. ‘I am taking the little children down there, where the smoke is, for our supper,’ he said casually. ‘Go and fetch Ronnie, and bring him to us there. Are you hungry?’
‘Oui, m’sieur.’ She said that she was very hungry indeed.
‘We shall have a fine hot supper, with hot soup and bread,’ the old man said, drawing on his imagination. ‘Go and tell Ronnie and bring him along with you. I will walk on with the little ones.’
He sent her off, and watched her running through the crowd, her bare legs twinkling. He steered the other children rather away from the tank; it would not do for Ronnie to be able to hail him. He saw the little girl come to the tank and speak urgently to the Germans; then she was lost to sight.
The old man sent up an urgent, personal prayer for the success of her unwitting errand, as he helped Pierre push the pram towards the field-cookers. There was nothing now that he could do. Their future lay in the small hands of two children, and in the hands of God.
There was a trestle table, with benches. He parked the pram and sat Pierre and Sheila and the nameless little Dutch boy at the table. Soup was dispensed in thick bowls, with a hunk of bread; he went and drew four bowls for the lot of them and brought them to the table.
He turned and Rose was at his elbow with Ronnie. The little boy was still flushed and ecstatic. ‘They took me right inside!’ he said in English.
The old man said gently in French: ‘If you tell us in French, then Pierre can understand too.’ He did not think that anyone had noticed. But the town was terribly dangerous for them; at any moment the children might break into English and betray them.
Ronnie said in French: ‘There was a great big gun, and two little guns, m’sieur, and you steer with two handles and it goes seventy kilos an hour!’
Howard said: ‘Come on and eat your supper.’ He gave him a bowl of soup and a piece of bread.
Sheila said enviously. ‘Did you go for a ride, Ronnie?’
The adventurer hesitated. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘But they said I might go with them for a ride to-morrow or one day. They did speak funnily. I could hardly understand what they wanted to say. May I go for a ride with them to-morrow, m’sieur? They say I might.’
The old man said: ‘We’ll have to see about that. We may not be here to-morrow.’
Sheila said: ‘Why did they talk funny, Ronnie?’
Rose said suddenly: ‘They are dirty Germans, who come here to murder people.’
The old man coughed loudly. ‘Go on and eat your supper,’ he said, ‘all of you. That’s enough talking for the present.’ More than enough, he thought; if the German dishing out the soup had overhead they would all have been in trouble.
Angerville was no place for them; at all costs he must get the children out. It was only a matter of an hour or two before exposure came. He meditated for a moment; there were still some hours of daylight. The children were tired, he knew, yet it would be better to move on, out of the town.
Chartres was the next town on his list; Chartres, where he was to have taken train for St. Malo. He could not get to Chartres that night; it was the best part of thirty miles farther to the west. There was little hope now that he would escape the territory occupied by Germans, yet for want of an alternative he would carry on to Chartres. Indeed, it never really occurred to him to do otherwise.
The children were very slow eaters. It was nearly an hour before Pierre and Sheila, the two smallest, had finished their meal. The old man waited, with the patience of old age. It would do no good to hurry them. When they had finished he wiped their mouths, thanked the German cook politely, collected the pram, and led them out on to the road to Chartres.
The children walked very slowly, languidly. It was after eight o’clock, long past their ordinary bed-time; moreover, they had eaten a full meal. The sun was still warm, though it was dropping towards the horizon; manifestly, they could not go very far. Yet he kept them at it, anxious to get as far as possible from the town.
The problem of the little Dutch boy engaged his attention. He had not left him with the Sisters, as he had been minded to; it had not seemed practical when he was in the town to search out a convent. Nor had he yet got rid of Pierre, as he had promised himself that he would do. Pierre was no trouble, but this new little boy was quite a serious responsibility. He could not speak one word of any language that they spoke. Howard did not even know his name. Perhaps it would be marked upon his clothes.
Then, with a shock of dismay, the old man realised that the clothes were gone for ever. They had been taken by the Germans when the little chap had been de-loused; by this time they were probably burnt. It might well be that his identity was lost now till the war was over, and enquiries could be made. It might be lost for ever.
The thought distressed old Howard very much. It was one thing to hand over to the Sisters a child who could be traced; it seemed to him to be a different matter altogether when the little boy was practically untraceable. As he walked along the old man revolved this new trouble in his mind. The only link now with his past lay in the fact that he had been found abandoned in Pithiviers upon a certain day in June—lay in the evidence which Howard alone could give. With that evidence, it might one day be possible to find his parents or his relatives. If now he were abandoned to a convent, that evidence might well be lost.
They walked on down the dusty road.
Sheila said fretfully: ‘My feet hurt.’
She was obviously tired out. He picked her up and put her in the pram, and put Pierre in with her. To Pierre he gave the chocolate that had been promised to him earlier in the day, and then all the other children had to have a piece of chocolate too. That refreshed them and made them cheerful for a while, and the old man pushed the pram wearily ahead. It was essential that they should stop soon for the night.
He stopped at the
next farm, left the pram with the children in the road, and went into the court-yard to see if it was possible for them to find a bed. There was a strange stillness in the place. No dog sprang out to bark at him. He called out, and stood expectant in the evening light, but no one answered him. He tried the door to the farmhouse, and it was locked. He went into the cowhouse, but no animals were there. Two hens scratched upon the midden; otherwise there was no sign of life.
The place was deserted.
As on the previous night, they slept in the hay loft. There were no blankets to be had this time, but Howard, searching round for some sort of a coverlet, discovered a large, sail-like cover, used possibly to thatch a rick. He dragged this into the loft and arranged it double on the hay, laying the children down between its folds. He had expected trouble with them, excitement and fretfulness, but they were too tired for that. All five of them were glad to lie down and rest; in a short time they were all asleep.
Howard lay resting on the hay near them, tired to death. In the last hour he had taken several nips of brandy for the weariness and weakness that he was enduring; now as he lay upon the hay in the deserted farm fatigue came soaking out of him in great waves. He felt that they were in a desperate position. There could be no hope now of getting through to England, as he once had hoped. The German front was far ahead of them; by now it might have reached to Brittany itself. All France was overrun.
Exposure might come at any time, must come before so very long. It was inevitable. His own French, though good enough, was spoken with an English accent, as he knew well. The only hope of escaping detection would be to hide for a while until some plan presented itself, to lie up with the children in the house of some French citizen. But he knew no one in this part of France that he could go to.
And any way, no family would take them in. If he did know anybody, it would hardly be fair to plant himself on them.
He lay musing bitterly on the future, only half-awake.