by Nevil Shute
On the outskirts of the town they were stopped. There was a barricade of an elementary nature, of two old motor-cars drawn half across the road, leaving only a small passage between. A sentry strolled out sleepily in the hot afternoon and raised his hand. Howard pulled up the horse and stared at him, and mumbled something with head hanging and mouth open. An Unteroffizier came from the guard-house and looked them over.
He asked in very bad French: ‘Where are you taking this to?’
The old man raised his head a little and put his hand to one ear. ‘Eh?’
The German repeated his question in a louder tone.
‘Loudeac,’ the old man said. ‘Loudeac, outside l’Abervrach.’
The Unteroffizier looked at Nicole. ‘And madame goes too?’
Nicole smiled at him and put her hand upon Pierre’s shoulder. ‘It is the little one’s birthday,’ she said. ‘It is not easy to make fête these days. But as my uncle has to make this trip this afternoon, and as the load is only half and therefore easy for the horse, we make this little journey for an outing for the children.’
The old man nodded. ‘It is not easy to make a treat for children in times like these.’
The Unteroffizier smiled. ‘Proceed,’ he said lazily. ‘Many happy returns of the day.’
Howard jerked up the old horse, and they passed up the street. There was little traffic to be seen, partly because the French were keeping within doors, partly, no doubt, because of the heat of the afternoon. A few houses were evidently requisitioned by the Germans; there were German soldiers lounging at the windows of bare rooms cleaning their equipment, in the manner of soldiers all over the world. None of them paid any attention to the dung-cart.
By the great church in the middle of the town three tanks were drawn up in the shade of the plane-trees, with half a dozen lorries. From one large house the Swastika flag floated lazily in the hot summer afternoon from a short staff stuck out of a first-floor window.
They paced steadily through the town, past shops and residences, past German officers and German soldiers. At the outskirts of the town they took the right fork at the advertisement for Byrrh, and left the last houses behind them. Presently, blue and hazy in a dip between two fields, the old man saw the sea.
His heart leaped when he saw it. All his life he had taken pleasure from the sight and savour of the sea. In its misty blueness between the green fields it seemed to him almost like a portion of his own country; England seemed very close. By to-morrow evening, perhaps, he would have crossed that blue expanse; he would be safe in England with the children. He trudged on stolidly, but his heart was burning with desire to be at home.
Presently Rose became tired; he stopped the cart and helped her into it. Nicole got down and walked beside him.
‘There is the sea,’ she said. ‘You have not very far to go now, monsieur.’
‘Not very far,’ he said.
‘You are glad?’
He glanced at her. ‘I should be very, very glad, but for one thing,’ he said. ‘I would like you to be coming with us. Would you not do that?’
She shook her head. ‘No, monsieur.’
They walked on in silence for a time. At last he said: ‘I shall never be able to thank you for what you have done for us.’
She said: ‘I have benefited the most.’
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
She said: ‘It was a very bad time when you came. I do not know if I can make you understand.’ They walked on in the hot sun in silence for a time. ‘I loved John very much,’ she said simply. ‘Above all things, I wanted to be an Englishwoman. And I should have been one but for the war. Because we meant to marry. Would you have minded that very much?’
He shook his head. ‘I should have welcomed you. Don’t you know that?’
She said: ‘I know that now. But at the time I was terribly afraid of you. We might have been married if I had not been so foolish, and delayed.’ She was silent for a minute. ‘Then John—John was killed. And at the same time nothing went right any more. The Germans drove us back, the Belgians surrendered, and the English ran back to their own country from Dunkerque and France was left to fight alone. Then all the papers, and the radio, began to say bad things of the English, that they were treacherous, that they had never really meant to share the battle with us. Horrible things, monsieur.’
‘Did you believe them?’ he asked quietly.
She said: ‘I was more unhappy than you could believe.’
‘And now? Do you still believe those things?’
She said: ‘I believe this, that there was nothing shameful in my love for John. I think that if we had been married, if I had become an Englishwoman, I should have been happy for the remainder of my life.’
She paused. ‘That is a very precious thought, monsieur. For a few weeks it was clouded with doubts and spoilt. Now it is clear once more; I have regained the thing that I had lost. I shall not lose it again.’
They breasted a little rise, and there before them lay the river, winding past the little group of houses that was l’Abervrach, through a long lane of jagged reefs out to the open sea. The girl said: ‘That is l’Abervrach. Now you are very near the end of your journey, Monsieur Howard.’
They walked in silence, leading the horse, down the road to the river and along the water-front, past the cement factory, past the few houses of the village, past the lifeboat-house and the little quay. Beside the quay there was a German E-boat apparently in trouble with her engines, for a portion of her deck amidships was removed and was lying on the quay beside a workshop lorry; men in overalls were busy upon her. A few German soldiers lounged upon the quay, watching the work and smoking.
They went on past the estaminet and out into the country again. Presently they turned up the hill in a lane full of sweet-briar, and so came to the little farm of Loudeac.
A peasant in a rusty red canvas pullover met them at the gate.
Howard said: ‘From Quintin.’
The man nodded and indicated the midden. ‘Put it there,’ he said. ‘And then go away quickly. I wish you good luck, but you must not stay here.’
‘That is very well understood.’
The man vanished into the house, nor did they see him again. It was getting towards evening; the time was nearly eight o’clock. They got the children down out of the cart and backed the horse till the load was in the right place to tip; then they tipped the wagon and Howard cleared it with a spade. In a quarter of an hour the job was done.
Nicole said: ‘There is time enough, and to spare. If we go now to the estaminet, we can get supper for the little ones—coffee, perhaps, and bread and butter.’
Howard agreed. They got into the empty cart and he jerked up the horse; they moved out of the stable yard and down the road towards the village. At a turn of the road the whole entrance to the harbour lay before them, sunny and blue in the soft evening light. In the long reach between the jagged rocks there was a fishing-boat with a deep brown lug sail coming in from the sea; faintly they heard the putter of an engine.
The old man glanced at the girl. ‘Focquet,’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I think so.’
They went on down to the village. At the estaminet, under the incurious glances of the German soldiers, they got out of the cart; Howard tied the bridle of the old horse to a rail.
Ronnie said in French: ‘Is that a torpedo-boat? May we go and see it?’
‘Not now,’ said Nicole. ‘We’re going to have supper now.’
‘What are we going to have for supper?’
They went into the estaminet. There were a few fishermen there standing by the bar, who looked at them narrowly; it seemed to Howard that they had divined his secret as soon as they set eyes on him. He led the children to a table in a far corner of the room, a little way away from the men. Nicole went through to the kitchen of the place to speak to Madame about supper for the children.
Supper came presently, bread and butter and coffee for the chil
dren, red wine mixed with water for Nicole and the old man. They ate uneasily, conscious of the glances at them from the bar, speaking only to assist the children in their meal. It seemed to Howard that this was the real crux of their journey; this was the only time when he had felt his own identity in question. The leaden time crept on, but it was not yet nine o’clock.
Their meal finished, the children became restless. It was still not nine o’clock, and it was necessary to spin out time. Ronnie said, wriggling in his chair: ‘May we get down and go and look at the sea?’
It was better to have them out of the way than calling fresh attention to the party in the estaminet. Howard said: ‘Go on. You can go just outside the door and lean over the harbour wall. Don’t go any farther than that.’
Sheila went with him; the other children stayed quiet in their seats. Howard ordered another bottle of the thin red wine.
At ten minutes past nine a big, broad-shouldered young man in fisherman’s red poncho and sea boots rolled into the estaminet. One would have said that he had visited competitive establishments on the way, because he reeled a little at the bar. He took in all the occupants of the estaminet in one swift, revolving glance like a lighthouse.
‘Ha!’ he said. ‘Give me a Pernod des Anges, and to hell with the sale Boche.’
The men at the bar said: ‘Quietly. There are Germans outside.’
The girl behind the bar wrinkled her brows. ‘Pernod des Anges? It is a pleasantry, no doubt? Ordinary Pernod for m’sieur.’
The man said: ‘You have no Pernod des Anges?’
‘No, m’sieur. I have never heard of it.’
The man remained silent, holding to the bar with one hand, swaying a little.
Howard got up and went to him. ‘If you would like to join us in a glass of the rouge,’ he said.
‘Assuredly.’ The young man left the bar and crossed with him to the table.
Howard said quietly: ‘Let me introduce you. This is my daughter-in-law, Mademoiselle Nicole Rougeron.’
The young man stared at him. ‘You must be more careful of your French idiom,’ he said softly out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Keep your mouth shut and leave the talking to me.’
He slumped down into a seat beside them. Howard poured him out a glass of the red wine; the young man added water to it and drank. He said quietly: ‘Here is the matter. My boat lies at the quay, but I cannot take you on board here, because of the Germans. You must wait here till it is dark, and then take the footpath to the Phare des Vaches—that is an automatic light on the rocks, half a mile towards the sea, that is not now in use. I will meet you there with the boat.’
Howard said: ‘That is clear enough. How do we get on to the footpath from here?’
Focquet proceeded to tell him. Howard was sitting with his back to the estaminet door facing Nicole. As he sat listening to the directions, his eye fell on the girl’s face, strained and anxious.
‘Monsieur …’ she said, and stopped.
There was a heavy step behind him, and a few words spoken in German. He swung round in his chair; the young Frenchman by his side did the same. There was a German soldier there, with a rifle. Beside him was one of the engineers from the E-boat by the quay in stained blue dungarees.
The moment remained etched upon the old man’s memory. In the background the fishermen around the bar stood tense and motionless; the girl had paused, cloth in hand, in the act of wiping a glass.
It was the man in dungarees who spoke. He spoke in English with a German-American accent.
‘Say,’ he said. ‘How many of you guys are Britishers?’
There was no answer from the group.
He said: ‘Well, we’ll all just get along to the guardroom and have a lil’ talk with the Feldwebel. And don’t let any of you start getting fresh, because that ain’t going to do you any good.’
He repeated himself in very elementary French.
Chapter Ten
There was a torrent of words from Focquet, rather cleverly poured out with well-simulated alcoholic indignation. He knew nothing, he said, of these others; he was just taking a glass of wine with them—there was no harm in that. He was about to sail, to catch the tide. If he went with them to the guard-room there would be no fish for déjeuner to-morrow, and how would they like that? Landsmen could never see farther than their own noses. What about his boat, moored at the quay? Who would look after that?
The sentry prodded him roughly in the back with the butt of his rifle, and Focquet became suddenly silent.
Two more Germans, a private and a Gefreiter, came hurrying in; the party were hustled to their feet and herded out of the door. Resistance was obviously useless. The man in dungarees went out ahead of them, but he reappeared in a few minutes bringing with him Ronnie and Sheila. Both were very much alarmed, Sheila in tears.
‘Say,’ he said to Howard, ‘I guess these belong to you. They talk English pretty fine, finer ’n anyone could learn it.’
Howard took one of them hand in hand with him on each side, but said nothing. The man in dungarees stared oddly at him for a minute, and remained standing staring after them as they were shepherded towards the guardroom in the gathering dusk.
Ronnie said, frightened: ‘Where are we going to now, Mr. Howard? Have the Germans got us?’
Howard said: ‘We’re just going with them for a little business. Don’t be afraid; they won’t do anything to hurt us.’
The little boy said: ‘I told Sheila you would be angry if she talked English, but she would do it.’
Nicole said: ‘Did she talk English to the man in the overall?’
Ronnie nodded. Then he glanced up timorously at the old man. ‘Are you angry, Mr. Howard?’ he ventured.
There was no point in making more trouble for the children than they had already coming to them. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It would have been better if she hadn’t, but we won’t say any more about it.’
Sheila was still crying bitterly. ‘I like talking English,’ she wailed.
Howard stooped and wiped her eyes; the guards, considerately enough, paused for a moment while he did so. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘You can talk as much English as you like now.’
She walked on with him soberly, in sniffing, moist silence.
A couple of hundred yards up the road to Lannilis they were wheeled to the right and marched into the house that was the guard-room. In a bare room the Feldwebel was hastily buttoning his tunic as they came in. He sat down behind a bare trestle table; their guards ranged them in front of him.
He glanced them up and down scornfully. ‘So,’ he said at last. ‘Geben Sie mir Ihre legitimationspapiere.’
Howard could understand only a few words of German, the others nothing at all. They stared at him uncertainly. ‘Cartes d’identité’ he said sharply.
Focquet and Nicole produced their French identity-cards; the man studied them in silence. Then he looked up. Howard put down his British passport on the bare table in the manner of a man who plays the last card of a losing hand.
The Feldwebel smiled faintly, took it up, and studied it with interest. ‘So!’ he said. ‘Engländer. Winston Churchill.’
He raised his eyes and studied the children. In difficult French he asked if they had any papers, and appeared satisfied when told that they had not.
Then he gave a few orders in German. The party were searched for weapons, and all they had was taken from them and placed on the table—papers, money, watches, and personal articles of every sort, even their handkerchiefs. Then they were taken to another room with a few palliasses laid out upon the floor, given a blanket each, and left. The window was barred over roughly with wooden beams; outside it in the road a sentry stood on guard.
Howard turned to Focquet. ‘I am very sorry this has happened,’ he said. He felt that the Frenchman had not even had a run for his money.
The young man shrugged his shoulders philosophically. ‘It was a chance to travel and to see the world with de Gaulle,’ he said. ‘An
other chance will come.’ He threw himself down on one of the palliasses, pulled the blanket round him, and composed himself to sleep.
Howard and Nicole arranged the palliasses in two pairs to make beds for the little boys and the little girls, and got them settled down to sleep. There remained one mattress over.
‘You take that,’ he said. ‘I shall not sleep to-night.’
She shook her head. ‘Nor I either.’
Half an hour later they were sitting side by side leaning against the wall, staring out of the barred window ahead of them. It was practically dark within the room; outside the harbour showed faintly in the starlight and the last glow of evening. It was still quite warm.
She said: ‘They will examine us in the morning. What shall we say?’
‘There’s only one thing we can say. Tell them the exact truth.’
She considered this for a moment. ‘We must not bring in Arvers, nor Loudeac or Quintin if we can avoid it.’
He agreed. ‘They will ask where I got these clothes. Can you say that you gave them to me?’
She nodded. ‘That will do. Also, I will say that I knew Focquet and arranged with him myself.’
She crossed to the young man, now half asleep, and spoke earnestly to him for a few minutes. He grunted in agreement; the girl came back to Howard and sat down again.
‘One more thing,’ he said. ‘There is Marjan. Shall I say that I picked him up upon the road?’
She nodded. ‘On the road before you came to Chartres. I will see that he understands that.’
He said doubtfully: ‘That should be all right so long as they don’t cross-examine the children.’
They sat in silence for a long time after that. Presently she stirred a little by him, shifting to a more comfortable position.