by Nevil Shute
There was a pause. The old man did not speak.
“But now,” she said, “I think I can begin to see the pattern. It was not meant that John and I should be happy, save for a week. It was intended that we should do wrong. And now, through John and me, it is intended that these children should escape from Europe to grow up in peace.”
Her voice dropped. “This may have been what John and I were brought together for,” she said. “In thirty years the world may need one of these little ones.” She paused. “It may be Ronnie or it may be Willem, or it may be little Pierre who does great things for the world,” she said. “But when that happens, monsieur, it will be because I met your son to show him Paris, and we fell in love.”
He leaned across and took her hand, and sat there in the dim light holding it for a long time. Presently they lay down upon their beds, and lay awake till dawn.
They spent the next day in the garden, as the day before. The children were becoming bored and restless with the inactivity. Nicole devoted a good deal of her time to them, while Howard slept in his armchair beneath the tree. The day passed slowly. Dinner was served to them at six; after the meal the table was cleared by the same waiter.
They turned to put down the beds for the children. The Gefreiter stopped them; with some difficulty he made them understand that they were going away.
Howard asked where they were going to. The man shrugged his shoulders. “Nach Paris?” he said doubtfully. Evidently he did not know.
Half an hour later they were taken out and put into a covered van. Two German soldiers got in with them, and they moved off. The old man tried to ask the soldiers where they were being taken to, but the men were uncommunicative. Presently, from their conversation, Howard gathered that the soldiers were themselves going on leave to Paris; it seemed that while proceeding on leave they were to act as a guard for the prisoners. That looked as if the Paris rumour was correct.
He discussed all this with Nicole in a low tone as the van swayed and rolled inland from the coast through the leafy lanes in the warm evening.
Presently they came to the outskirts of a town. Nicole peered out. “Brest,” she said presently. “I know this street.”
One of the Germans nodded. “Brest,” he said shortly.
They were taken to the railway station; here they got out of the van. One of the soldiers stood guard over them while the other went to see the R.T.O.; the French passengers looked at them curiously. They were passed through the barrier and put into a third-class carriage with their guards, in a train which seemed to be going through to Paris.
Ronnie said, “Is this the train we’re going to sleep in, Mr. Howard?”
He smiled patiently. “This isn’t the one I meant, but we may have to sleep in this one,” he said.
“Shall we have a little bed, like you told us about?”
“I don’t think so. We’ll see.”
Rose said, “I do feel thirsty. May I have an orange?”
There were oranges for sale upon the platform. Howard had no money. He explained the requirement to one of the German soldiers, who got out of the carriage and bought oranges for all of them. Presently they were all sucking oranges, the children vying with the German soldiers in the production of noise.
At eight o’clock the train started. It went slowly, stopping at every little local halt upon the line. At eight-twenty it drew up at a little place called Lanissant, which consisted of two cottages and a farm. Suddenly Nicole, looking out of the window, turned to Howard.
“Look!” she said. “Here is Major Diessen.”
The Gestapo officer, smart and upright in his black uniform and black field boots, came to the door of their carriage and opened it. The German sentries got up quickly and stood to attention. He spoke to them incisively in German. Then he turned to Howard.
“You must get out,” he said. “You are not going on in this train.”
Nicole and Howard got the children out of the carriage on to the platform. Over the hill the sun was setting, in a clear sky. The Gestapo officer nodded to the guard, who shut the carriage door and blew a little toot upon his horn. The train moved forward, the carriages passed by them, and went on slowly up the line. They were left standing on this little platform in the middle of the country with the Gestapo officer.
“So,” he said. “You will now follow me.”
He led the way down the wooden steps that gave on to the road. There was no ticket collector and no booking-office; the little halt was quite deserted. Outside, in the lane, there was a grey car, a Ford van with a utility body. In the driver’s seat there was a soldier in black Gestapo uniform. Beside him was a child.
Diessen opened the door and made the child get out. “Kom, Anna,” he said. “Hier ist Herr Howard, und mit ihm wirst du zu Onkel Ruprecht gehen.”
The little girl stared at the old man and his retinue of children, and at the dishevelled girl beside him. Then she stretched out a little skinny arm, and in a shrill voice exclaimed, “Heil Hitler!”
The old man said gravely, “Guten Abend, Anna.” He turned to the Gestapo officer, smiling faintly. “She will have to get out of that habit if she’s going to America,” he said.
Diessen nodded. “I will tell her.” He spoke to the little girl, who listened to him round-eyed. She asked a question, puzzled; Howard caught the word Hitler. Diessen explained to her again; under the scrutiny of Howard and Nicole he flushed a little. The child said something in a clear, decisive tone which made the driver of the car turn in his seat and glance towards his officer for guidance.
Diessen said, “I think she understands.” To the old man he seemed a little embarrassed.
He asked, “What did she say?”
The officer said, “Children do not understand the Führer. That is reserved for adults.”
Nicole asked him in French, “But, monsieur, tell us what she said.”
The German shrugged his shoulders. “I cannot understand the reasoning of children. She said that she is glad that she has not got to say ‘Heil Hitler’ any more, because the Führer wears a moustache.”
Howard said with perfect gravity, “It is difficult to understand the mind of children.”
“That is so. Now, will you all get into the car. We will not linger in this place.” The German glanced around suspiciously.
They got into the car. Anna got into the back seats with them; Diessen seated himself beside the driver. The car moved down the road. In the front seat the Gestapo officer turned, and passed back a cotton bag tied with a string to Howard, and another to Nicole.
“Your papers and your money,” he said briefly. “See that it is all in order.”
The old man opened it. Everything that had been taken from his pockets was there, quite intact.
In the gathering dusk they drove through the countryside for an hour and a half. From time to time the officer said something in a low tone to the driver; the old man got the impression once that they were driving round merely to kill time till darkness fell. Now and again they passed through villages, sometimes past barricades with German posts on guard. At these the car stopped and the sentry came and peered into the car. At the sight of the Gestapo uniform he stepped quickly back and saluted. This happened two or three times.
Once Howard asked, “Where are we going to?”
The German said, “To l’Abervrach. Your fisherman is there.”
After a pause the old man said, “There was a guard upon the harbour.”
Diessen said, “There is no guard to-night — that has been arranged. Do you take me for a fool?”
Howard said no more.
At ten o’clock, in the first darkness, they ran softly to the quay at l’Abervrach. The car drew up noiselessly and the engine stopped at once. The Gestapo officer got out and stood for half a minute, staring around. All was quiet and still.
He turned back to the car. “Come,” he said. “Get out quickly — and do not let the children talk.” They helped the children from th
e car. Diessen said to Nicole, “There is to be no trickery. You shall stay with me. If you should try to go with them, I shall shoot down the lot of you.”
She raised her head. “You need not draw your gun,” she said. “I shall not try to go.”
The German did not answer her, but pulled the big automatic from the holster at his waist. In the dim light he went striding softly down the quay; Howard and Nicole hesitated for a moment and then followed him with the children; the black-uniformed driver brought up the rear. At the end, by the water’s edge, Diessen turned.
He called to them in a low tone, “Hurry.”
There was a boat there, where the slip ran down into the water. They could see the tracery of its mast and rigging outlined against the starry sky; the night was very quiet. They drew closer and saw it was a half-decked fishing boat. There were two men there, besides Diessen. One was standing on the quay in the black uniform they knew so well. The other was in the boat, holding her to the quay by a rope rove through a ring.
“In with you, quickly,” said Diessen. “I want to see you get away.”
He turned to Focquet, speaking in French. “You are not to start your engine till you are past Le Trepied,” he said. “I do not want the countryside to be alarmed.”
The young man nodded. “There is no need,” he said in the soft Breton dialect. “There is sufficient wind to steer by, and the ebb will take us out.”
They passed the seven children one by one down into the boat. “You now,” the German said to Howard. “Remember to behave yourself in England. I shall send for you in London in a very few weeks’ time. In September.”
The old man turned to Nicole. “This is good-bye, my dear,” he said. He hesitated. “I do not think this war will be over in September. I may be old when it is over, and not able to travel very well. You will come and visit me, Nicole? There is so much that I shall want to say to you. So much that I wanted to talk over with you, if we had not been so hurried and so troubled in the last few days.”
She said, “I will come and stay with you, as soon as we can travel. And you shall talk to me about John.”
The German said, “You must go now, Mr. Englishman.”
He kissed the girl; for a minute she clung to him. Then he got down into the boat among the children.
Pierre said, “Is this the boat that’s going to take us to America?”
The old man shook his head. “Not this boat,” he said with mechanical patience. “That will be a bigger boat than this.”
“How big will that one be?” asked Ronnie. “Twice as big?”
Focquet had slipped the warp out of the ring and was thrusting vigorously with an oar against the quay side. The stretch of dark water that separated them from France grew to a yard, to five yards wide. The old man stood motionless, stricken with grief, with longing to be back upon the quay, with the bitter loneliness of old age.
He saw the figure of the girl standing with the three Germans by the water’s edge, watching them as they slid away. The ebb caught the boat and hurried her quietly out into the stream; Focquet was heaving on a halliard forward and the heavy nut-brown sail crept slowly up the mast. For a moment he lost sight of Nicole as a mist dimmed his eyes; then he saw her again clearly, still standing motionless beside the Germans. Then the gloom shrouded all of them, and all that he could see was the faint outline of the hill against the starry sky.
In deep sorrow, he turned and looked forward to the open sea. But tears blinded him, and he could see nothing of the entrance.
Ronnie said, “May I work the rudder, Mr. Howard?”
The old man did not answer him. The little boy repeated his question.
Rose said, “I do feel sick.”
He roused himself, and turned to their immediate needs, with heavy heart. They had no warm clothes and no blankets to keep off the chill of the night sea. He spoke a few sentences to Focquet and found him mystified at their deliverance; he found that the young man intended to cross straight over to Falmouth. He had no compass and no chart for the sea crossing of a hundred miles or so, but said he knew the way. He thought that it would take a day and a night, perhaps a little longer. They had no food with them, but he had a couple of bottles of red wine and a beaker of water.
They pulled a sail out from the forepeak and made a resting place for the children. The old man took Anna and made her comfortable in a corner first, and put her in the charge of Rose. But Rose, for once, displayed little of her maternal instinct; she was preoccupied with her own troubles.
In a very few minutes, she was sick, leaning over the side of the boat under the old man’s instructions. One by one the children followed her example as they reached the open sea; they passed Le Trepied, a black reef of rock, with so much wailing that they might just as well have had the engine running after all. In spite of the quick motion of the boat the old man did not feel unwell. Of the children, the only one unaffected was Pierre, who stood by Focquet at the stern, gazing at the moonlight on the water ahead of them.
They turned at the Libenter buoy, and headed to the north. In a lull between the requirements of the children Howard said to Focquet, “You are sure that you know which way to steer?”
The young Frenchman nodded. He glanced at the moon and at the dim loom of the land behind them, and at the Great Bear shimmering in the north. Then he put out his hand. “That way,” he said. “That is where Falmouth is.” He called it “Fallmoot.” “In the morning we will use the engine; then we will get there before evening.”
A fresh wailing from the bow drew the old man away. An hour later most of the children were lying exhausted in an uneasy doze; Howard was able to sit down himself, and rest. He glanced back at the land. It was practically lost to sight; only a dim shadow showed where France lay behind them. He stared back at Brittany with deep regret, in bitter lonely sadness. With all his heart he wished that he was back there with Nicole.
Presently he roused himself. They were not home yet; he must not give way to depression. He got up restlessly, and stared around. There was a steady little night breeze from the southeast; they were making about four knots.
“It is going well,” said Focquet. “If this wind holds we shall hardly need the engine.”
The young fisherman was sitting on a thwart, smoking a Caporal. He glanced back over his shoulder. “To the right,” he said without moving. “Put it this way. So. Keep her at that, and looks always at your star.”
The old man became aware that little Pierre was at the helm, thrusting with the whole weight of his body on the big tiller. He said to Focquet, “Can that little one steer a boat?”
The young man spat into the sea. “He is learning. He is quick, that one. It prevents seasickness, to sail the ship. By the time that we reach England he will be a helmsman.”
The old man turned to Pierre. “You can do that very well,” he said. “How do you know which way to go?”
In the dim light of the waning moon he saw Pierre staring straight ahead. “Focquet told me,” he replied. The old man had to strain to catch his little voice above the lapping of the waves. “He said, to sail at those square stars up there.” He raised his little arm and pointed at the Bear. “That is where we are going to, m’sieur. That is the way to America, under those stars. There is so much food there that you can give some to a dog and have him for your friend. Mademoiselle Nicole told me so.”
Presently he grew tired; the boat began to wander from the Bear. Focquet threw the stump of his cigarette into the sea and routed out a heap of sacking. Howard took the helm and the young man arranged a sleepy little boy upon the floor beside their feet. After a time Focquet lay down himself on the bare boards and slept for an hour while the old man sailed the boat on through the starlight.
All night they saw no ships at all upon the sea. Ships may have been near them, but if so they were sailing without lights and did not trouble them. But in the half light of dawn, at about half past four, a destroyer came towards them from the west, t
hrowing a deep, feathery bow wave of white foam aside as she cut through the water, bearing down on them.
She slowed a quarter of a mile away and turned from a grey, menacing spear into rather a battered, rusty ship, menacing still but worn with much hard work. A young man in duffle coat and service cap shouted at them from the bridge, megaphone in hand, “Vous êtes Français?”
Howard shouted back, “Some of us are English.”
The young man waved at him cheerfully. “Can you get to Plymouth all right?”
“We want to go to Falmouth.” The whine of the destroyer’s fans and the lapping of the waves made conversation difficult.
“You’ve got to go to Plymouth. Plymouth! Is that all right for you?”
Howard spoke quickly to Focquet, and then nodded to the ship. The young officer waved at him again and stepped back. There was a sudden foaming at the stern and the destroyer shot away upon her course up Channel. They were left tossing in the creamy effervescence of her wake.
They altered course two points towards the east, and started up the engine, giving them about six knots of speed. The children roused, and in wailing misery began to vomit again. They were all cold, and very tired, and desperately hungry.
Presently the sun came up and the day grew warm. The old man gave them all a little drink of wine and water.
All morning they plugged on over a sunlit, summer sea. Now and again the young Frenchman asked Howard the time, studied the sun, and made a correction to his course. At noon a thin blue line of land appeared ahead of them to the north.
At about three o’clock a trawler closed with them, and asked who they were, and, as they tossed beside her, showed them the high land of Rame Head, on the horizon.
At about half past five they were off Rame Head. A motor launch, a little yacht in time of peace, ranged up alongside them; an R.N.V.R. lieutenant questioned them again. “You know the Cattewater?” he shouted to Howard. “Where the flying boats are? That’s right. Go up there and into the basin on the north side. All refugees land at the fish quay in the basin. Got that? Okay.”
The launch sheered off and went upon her way. The fishing boat nosed in past Rame Head, past Cawsand, past the breakwater into the shelter of the Sound. Ahead of them lay Plymouth on its hills, grey and peaceful by its harbour in the evening sunlight. Howard stared at it, and sighed a little. It seemed to him that he had been happier in France than he would be in his own land.