Pied Piper

She shook her head. 'One does not go to see these places except when one is showing the sights of Paris to a friend, you understand,' she said. 'That was the reason that John came to Paris, because he had never seen Paris. And I said that I would show him Paris. That was how it was.'

He nodded. 'Did he like the zoo?' he asked.

She said: 'It was a very happy day that. It was a French day.' She turned to him a little shyly. 'We had arranged a joke, you see - we should speak only in French one day and in English on the next day. On the English day we did not talk very much,' she said reminiscently. 'It was too difficult; we used to say that the English day ended after tea...'

Mildly surprised, he said: 'Did he speak French well?' Because that was most unlike John.

She laughed outright. 'No - not at all. He spoke French very, very badly. But that day, on the way out to Vincennes, the taxi-driver spoke English to John, because there are many tourists in Paris and some of the drivers can speak a little English. And John spoke to him in English. Because I had a new summer hat, with carnations, you understand - not a smart hat, but a little country thing with a wide brim. And John asked the taxi-driver to tell him what the French was for' - she hesitated for a moment, and then said - 'to tell me that I was looking very pretty. And the man laughed a lot and told him, so then John knew and he could say it to me himself. And he gave the driver twenty francs.'

The old man said: 'It was probably worth that, mademoiselle.'

"She said: 'He wrote it down. And then, when he wanted me to laugh, he use. d to get out his little book and read it out to me.'

She turned and stared out of the window at the slowly-moving landscape. The old man did not pursue the subject; indeed, he could think of nothing adequate to say. He got out his packet of caporal cigarettes and offered one to Nicole, but she refused.

'It is not in the part, that, monsieur,' she said quietly. 'Not in this dress.'

He nodded; lower middle-class Frenchwomen do not smoke cigarettes in public. He lit one himself, and blew a long cloud of the bitter smoke. It was hot already in the carriage, though they had the windows open. The smaller children, Pierre and Sheila, were already tired and inclined to be fretful.

All day the train ground slowly on in the hot sun. It was not crowded, and they seldom had anybody in the carriage with them, which was a relief. As on the previous day, the German troops travelling were confined strictly to their own part of the train. On all the station platforms they were much in evidence. At towns such as St Brieuc, the exit from the station appeared to be picketed by a couple of German soldiers; at the wayside halts they did not seem to worry about passengers leaving the station.

Nicole drew Howard's attention to this feature. 'It is good, that,' she said. 'At Landerneau it may be possible to go through without questioning. But if we are stopped, we have still a good story to tell.'

He said: 'Where are we going tonight, mademoiselle? I am entirely in your hands.'

She said. 'There is a farm, about five miles from Landerneau, to the south. Madame Guinevec, wife of Jean Henri - that was her home before she was married. I have been there with my father, at the time of the horse fair, the fete, at Landerneau.'

'I see,' he said. 'What is the name of the people at the farm?'

'Arvers,' she said. 'Aristide Arvers is the father of Marie.

They are in good circumstances, you understand, Aristide is a careful man, my father used to say. He breeds horses a little, too, for our army. Marie was Queen of Beauty at the Landerneau Fete one year. It was then that Jean Henri first met her.'

He said: 'She must have been a very pretty girl.'

'She was lovely,' Nicole said. 'That was when I was little - over ten years ago. She is still beautiful."

The train ground on in the hot sunlight, stopping now and again at stations and frequently in between. They gave the children déjeuner of bread and sausage with a little lemonade. That kept them amused and occupied for a time, but they were restless and bored.

Ronnie said: 'I do wish we could go and bathe.'

Sheila echoed: 'May we bathe, Monsieur Howard?'

He said: 'We can't bathe, while we're in the train. Later on, perhaps. Run along out into the corridor; it's cooler there.'

He turned to Nicole. They're thinking of a time three days ago - or four was it? - just before we met the Air Force men. I let them have a bathe in a stream.'

'It was lovely,' said Ronnie. 'Ever so cool and nice.' He turned and ran with his sister out into the corridor followed by Willem.

Nicole said: 'The English are great swimmers, are they not, monsieur? Even the little ones think of nothing else.'

He had not thought about his country in that way: 'Are we?' he said. 'Is that how we appear?'

She shrugged her shoulders,. 'I do not know so many English people,' she said frankly. 'But John - he liked more than anything for us to go bathing.'

He smiled. 'John was a very good swimmer,' he said reminiscently. 'He was very fond of it.'

She said: 'He was very, very naughty, Monsieur Howard.

He would not do any of the things that one should do when one visits Paris for the first time. I had prepared so carefully for his visit - yes, I had arranged for each day the things that we would do. On the first day of all I had planned to go to the Louvre, but imagine it - he was not interested. Not at all.'

The old man smiled again. 'He never was one for museums, much,' he said.

She said: 'That may be correct in England, monsieur, but in Paris one should see the things that Paris has to show. It was very embarrassing, I assure you. I had arranged that he should see the Louvre, and the Trocadero, and for a contrast the Musee de 1'Homme, and the museum at Cluny, and I had a list of galleries of modern art that I would show him. And he never saw any of it at all!'

'I'm sorry about that,' said Howard. There seemed nothing else to say. 'What did you do?'

She said: 'We went bathing several times, at the Piscine Molitor in Auteuil. It was very hot weather, sunny all the time. I could not get him into one museum - not one! He was very, very naughty.'

'I expect that was very pleasant, though,' he said.

She smiled. 'It was not what I had arranged,' she said. 'I had not even got a costume. We had to go together, John and I, to buy a bathing-costume. Never have I done a thing like that before. It was a good thing I had said that we would meet in Paris, not in Chartres. In France there are conventions, Monsieur Howard, you understand.'

'I know,' he said. 'John never worried much about those. Did he get you a nice bathing-dress?'

She smiled: 'It was very beautiful,' she said. 'An American one, very chic, in silver and green. It was so pretty that it was a pleasure to be seen in it.'

'Well,' he said. 'You couldn't have worn that in a museum.'

She stared at him, nonplussed. 'But no...' And then she laughed. 'It would be quite ridiculous, that.' She smiled again at the thought. 'Monsieur, you say absurd things, just the same as John.'

It was four o'clock when the train pulled into the little station of Landerneau. They tumbled out of the carriage with relief, Nicole lifting each child down on to the platform except Ronnie, who insisted on getting down himself. They fetched the pram from the baggage-car and put the remainder of their lunch in it, with the kitten.

There was no guard at the guichet and they passed through into the town.

Landerneau is a little town of six or seven thousand people, a sleepy little place on a tidal river running to the Rade de Brest. It is built of grey stone, set in a rolling country dotted round with little woods; it reminded Howard of the Yorkshire wolds. The air, which had been hot and stuffy in the railway carriage, now seemed fresh and sweet, with a faint savour suggesting that the sea was not so very far away.

The town was sparsely held by Germans. Their lorries were parked in the square beneath the plane-trees by the river, but there were few of them to be seen. Those that were in evidence seemed ill at ease, anxious to placate the curiosity of a population which they knew to be pro-English. Their behaviour was most studiously correct. The few soldiers in the streets were grey faced and tired looking, wandering round in twos and threes and staring listlessly at the strange sights. One thing was very noticeable; they never seemed to laugh..

Unchallenged, Howard and Nicole walkedxhrough the town and out into the country beyond, on the road that led towards the south. They went slowly for the sake of the children; the old man was accustomed now to the slow pace that they could manage. The road was empty and they straggled all over it. It led up on to the open wold.

Rose and Willem were allowed to take their shoes off and go barefoot, rather to the disapproval of Nicole. 'I do not think that that is in the part,' she said. 'The class which we represent would not do that.'

The old man said: 'There's nobody to see.'

She agreed that it did not matter much, and they went sauntering on, Willem pushing the pram with Pierre. Ahead of them three aircraft crossed the sky in steady, purposeful flight towards the west, flying at about two thousand feet.

The sight woke memories in Rose. 'M'sieur,' she cried. 'Three aeroplanes - look! Quick, let us get ulto the ditch!'

He calmed her. 'Never mind them,' he said equably. 'They aren't going to hurt us.'

She was only half-reassured. 'But they dropped bombs before and fired their guns!'

He said: 'These are different aeroplanes. These are good aeroplanes. They won't hurt us.'

Pierre said, suddenly and devastatingly, in his little piping voice: 'Can you tell good aeroplanes from bad aeroplanes, M'sieur Howard?'

With a sick heart the old man thought again of the shambles on the Montargis road. 'Why, yes,' he said gently. 'You remember the aeroplanes that mademoiselle took you to see at Chartres? The ones where they let you touch the bombs? They didn't hurt you, did they? Those were good aeroplanes. Those over there are the same sort. They won't hurt us.'

Ronnie, anxious to display expert technical knowledge, endorsed these statements. 'Good aeroplanes are our own aeroplanes, aren't they, Mr Howard?'

'That's right,' the old man said.

Nicole drew him a little way aside. 'I don't know how you can think of such things to say,' she said in a low tone. 'But those are German aeroplanes.'

'I know that. But one has to say something.'

She stared at the three pencil-like shapes in the far distance. 'It was marvellous when aeroplanes were things of pleasure,' she said.

He nodded. 'Have you ever flown?' he asked.

She said: Twice, at a fete, just for a little way each time. And then the time I flew with John over Paris. It was wonderful, that...'

He was interested. 'You went with a pilot, I suppose. Or did he pilot the machine himself?'

She said: 'But he flew it himself, of course, m'sieur. It was just him and me.'

'How did he get hold of the aeroplane?' He knew that in a foreign country there were difficulties in aviation.

She said: 'He took me to dance, at the flying club, in the Rue Francois Premier. He had a friend - un capitaine de l'Aeronautique - that he had met in England when he had been with our Embassy in London. And this friend arranged everything for John.'

She said: 'Figurez-vous, monsieur! I could not get him to one art gallery, not one! All his life he is used to spend in flying, and then he comes to Paris for a holiday and he wants to go to the aerodrome and fly!'

He smiled gently. 'He was like that... Did you enjoy yourself?'

She said: 'It was marvellous. It was a fine, sunny day with a fresh breeze, and we drove out to Orly, to the hangar of the flying club. And there, there was a beautiful aeroplane waiting for us, with the engine running.'

Her face clouded a little, and then she smiled. 'I do not know very much about flying,' she said frankly. 'It was very chic, with red leather seats and chromium steps to make it easy to get in. But John was so rude.'

The old man said: 'Rude?'

'He said it looked like a bed bug, monsieur, but not so that the mechanics could hear what he said. I told him that I was very cross to hear him say such a thing, when they had been so kind to lend it to us. He only laughed. And then, when we were flying over Paris at grande vitesse, a hundred and twenty kilometres an hour or more, he turned to me and said: "And what's more, it flies like one!" Imagine that! Our aeroplanes are very good, monsieur. Everybody in France says so.'

Howard smiled again. 'I hope you put him in his place,' he said.

She laughed outright; it was the first time that he had heard that happen. 'That was not possible, Monsieur Howard,' she said. 'Never could I put him in his place, as you say.'

He said: 'I'm sorry about that.' He paused, and then he said: 'I have never flown over Paris. Is it beautiful?'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'Beautiful? I do not think that anything is beautiful seen from the air, except the clouds. But that day was marvellous, because there were those big, fleecy clouds that John called cum... something.'

'Cumulus?'

She nodded. 'That was it. For more than an hour we played in them, flying around and over the top and in between the white cliffs in the deep gorges of the mist. And every now and then, far below, one would see Paris, the Concorde or perhaps the Etoile. Never shall I forget that day. And when we landed I was so sleepy that I went to sleep in the car on the way back to Paris, leaning up against John, with my head on his shoulder.'

They walked on in silence for a time. Pierre and Willem tired of pushing the pram and gave place to Rose, with Sheila trotting at her side. The kitten lay curled up in the pram, sound asleep.

Presently Nicole pointed ahead of them. That is the house - amongst those trees.'

The house that she pointed to lay about a mile ahead of them. It seemed to be a fairly large and prosperous farm, grouped round a modest country house standing among trees as shelter from the wind. About it rolled the open pasture of the wold, as far as could be seen.

In half an hour they were close up to it. A long row of stabling showed the interests of the owner; there were horses running in the paddocks near the farm. The farm buildings were better kept and laid out than the farms that Howard had had dealings with on his journey; this was a cut above the usual run of things.

They went up to a house that stood beside the entrance, in the manner of a lodge; here Nicole enquired for M. Arvers. They were directed to the stables; leaving the children with the pram at the gate, they went forward together. They met their man half-way.

Aristide Arvers was a small man of fifty-five or so, thin, with sharp features and a shrewd look. Howard decided at the first glance that this man was no fool. And the second thought that came into his mind was realisation that this man could well be the father of a beauty queen, of Miss Landerneau. The delicate features, sharpening by advancing age, might well be fascinating in a young girl. He wore a shapeless black suit with a soiled scarf wrapped around his neck in lieu of collar; a black hat was on his head.

Nicole said: 'Monsieur Arvers, do you remember me? You were so kind as to invite me here one day, with my father, Colonel Rougeron. You showed my father round your stables. After that you entertained us in your house. That was three years ago - do you remember?'

He nodded. 'I remember that very well, mademoiselle. M. le colonel was very interested in my horses for the army, being himself an artillery officer, if I remember right.' He hesitated. 'I hope you have good news of M. le colonel?'

She said: 'We have had no news for three months, when he was at Metz.'

'I am desolated, mademoiselle.'

She nodded, having nothing much to say to that. She said: 'If my father had been at home he would no doubt have come to see you himself. As he is not, I have come instead.'

His brows wrinkled slightly, but he bowed a little. 'That is an added pleasure,' he said perfunctorily.

'May we, perhaps, go to your office?'

'But certainly.'

He turned and led them to the house. There was a littered, dusty office, full of sad-looking account-books and files, with bits of broken harness thrown aside in corners. He closed the door behind them and gave them rickety chairs; there being no other seats, he leaned backwards against the edge of the desk.

'First,' said the girl, 'I wish to introduce you to Monsieur Howard. He is an Englishman.'

The horse-breeder raised his eyebrows a little, but bowed ceremonious. 'Enchante,' he said.

Nicole said: 'I will come directly to the point, Monsieur Arvers. Monsieur Howard is a very old friend of my family. He is travelling with several children, and he is trying to return to England in spite of the Germans. My mother and I have talked about this, in the absence of my father, and it seemed to us that Jean Henri could help perhaps with one of his boats. Or, if that was impossible, Jean Henri might know some friend who would help. There is money enough to pay for any services.'

The man said nothing for a time. At last: The Germans are not to be trifled with,' he said.

Howard said: 'We appreciate that, monsieur. We do not wish that anyone should run into trouble on our behalf. That is why mademoiselle has come to talk to you before going to your son-in-law.'

The other turned to him. 'You speak French better than most Englishmen.'

'I have had longer than most Englishmen to learn it.'

The Frenchman smiled. 'You are very anxious to return to England?'

The old man said: 'For myself, not so very anxious. I should be quite happy to live in France for a time. But I have children in my care you understand, English children that I have promised that I would escort to England.' He hesitated. 'And, as a matter of fact, there are three others now.'

'What are those other children? How many of you are there altogether? And where have you come from?'

It took nearly twenty minutes fo elucidate the story. At last the Frenchman said: 'These other children, the little one called Pierre and the little Dutchman. What is going to become of them when they reach England?'

Howard said: 'I have a daughter, married, in America. She is in easy circumstances. She would make a home for those two in her house at Long Island till the war is over and we can trace their relations. They would be very happy there.'

The man stared at him keenly. 'In America? That I can well believe. You will send them over the Atlantic to your daughter? Will she be good to them - children that she has never seen? Unknown, foreign children?'

The old man said: 'My daughter has one child of her own, and now hopes for another. She is very fond of all children. They will be safe with her.'

Arvers got up suddenly from the desk. 'It is impossible,' he said. 'If Jean Henri should put his hand to this he would be in great danger. The Germans would shoot him, beyond all doubt. You have no right to suggest such a thing.' He paused, and then he said: 'I have my daughter to consider.'

There was a long, slow pause. At last the old man turned to Nicole. 'That's the end of that,' he said. He smiled at Arvers. 'I understand perfectly,' he said. 'In your place, thinking of my daughter, I should say the same.'

The Frenchman turned to the girl. 'I regret very much that I cannot help you in the way you want,' he said.

She shrugged her shoulders. 'Tant pis,' she said. 'N'y pensee plus.'

He looked uncomfortable. These children,' he said. 'Where are they now?'

They told him that they were waiting in the road, and he walked with them to the gate. It was getting towards evening. The children were playing at the edge of a pond, muddy and rather fractious. There were tear streaks around Sheila's face.

Arvers said awkwardly: 'Would it help you to stay here for the night? I do not think we have beds for so many, but something could perhaps be managed.'

Nicole said warmly: 'You are very kind, monsieur.'

They called the children and introduced them one by one to the horse-dealer; then they went towards the house.

The man called his wife as they approached the door; she came from the kitchen, a stolid peasant woman. He spoke to her, told her that the party were to stay with them for the night, introduced her formally to them. Nicole shepherded the children after her into the kitchen. Arvers turned to Howard.

'You will take a little glass of Pernod, perhaps?' he said.

A little glass of Pernod seemed to the old man to be a very good idea. They went into the salon because the kitchen was full of children. The salon was a stiff and formal room, with gilt-legged furniture upholstered in red plush. On the wall there was a very large oleograph of a white-robed little girl kneeling devoutly in a shaft of light. It was entitled: 'La Premiere Communion.'

Arvers brought the Pernod, with glasses and water, and the two men settled down together. They talked about horses and about country matters. Arvers had been to England once, to Newmarket as a jockey when he was a very young man. They chatted pleasantly enough for a quarter of an hour.

Suddenly Arvers said: 'Your daughter, Monsieur Howard. She will surely find so many foreign children an encumbrance? Are you so certain that they will be welcome in her home?'

The old man said: 'They will be welcome, all right.'

'But how can you possibly know that? Your daughter may find it very inconvenient to have them.'

He shook his head. 'I don't think so. But if that should be so, then she would make arrangements for them for me. She would engage some kind woman to make a home for them, because that is my wish, that they should have a good home in America - away from all this.' He motioned with his hand. 'And there is no difficulty over money, you understand.'

The Frenchman sat silent for a little time, staring into his glass.

'This is a bad time for children, this filthy war,' he said at last. 'And now that France is defeated, it is going to be worse. You English now will starve us, as we starved Germany in 1918.'

Howard was silent.

'I shall not blame your country if you do that. But it will be bad for children here.'

'I am afraid it may be,' said the old man. 'That is why I want to get these children out of it. One must do what one can.'

Arvers shrugged his shoulders. 'There are no children in this house, thank God. Or - only one.' He paused. 'That was a hard case, if you like.'

Howard looked at him enquiringly. The Frenchman poured him out another Pernod. 'A friend in Paris asked me if I had work for a Pole,' he said. 'In December, that was - just at Christmas time. A Polish Jew who knew horses, who had escaped into Rumania and so by sea to Marseilles. Well, you will understand, the mobilisation had taken five of my eight men, and it was very difficult.'

Howard nodded. 'You took him on?'

'Assuredly. Simon Estreicher was his name, and he arrived one day with his son, a boy of ten. There had been a wife, but I will not distress you with that story. She had not escaped the Boche, you understand.'

The old man nodded.

'Well, this man Estreicher worked here till last week, and he worked well. He was quiet and gave no trouble, and the son worked in the stables too. Then last week the Germans came here and took him away.'

Took him away?'

Took him away to Germany, to their forced labour. He was a Pole, you see, m'sieur, and a Jew as well. One could do nothing for him. Some filthy swine in town had told them about him, because they came straight here and asked for him. They put handcuffs on him and took him in a camion with several others.'

'Did they take the son as well?'

'They never asked for him, and he was in the paddock at the time, so I said nothing. One does not help the Germans in their work. But it was very hard on that young boy.'

Howard agreed with him. 'He is with you still, then?'

'Where else could he go? He is useful in the stables, too. But before long I suppose they will find out about him, and come back for him to take him away also.'

Nicole came to them presently, to call them to the kitchen for supper. She had already given the children a meal, and had put them to sleep on beds improvised upstairs by Madame Arvers. They ate together in the kitchen at a long table, together with two men from the farm and a black-haired Jewish-looking boy whom Madame called Marjan, and who said little or nothing during the meal.

The meal over, Arvers escorted Nicole and Howard back to the salon; presently he produted a set of dominoes and proposed a game. Howard settled down to it with him. The horse-dealer played carelessly, his mind on other things.

Presently he returned to the subject that was on his mind. 'Are many children going to America, monsieur? I cannot comprehend how you can be so positive that they will be welcomed. America is very far away. They do not bother about our difficulties here.'

Howard shrugged his shoulders. 'They are a generous people. These children will be quite all right if I can get them there, because my daughter will look after them. But even without her, there would be many people in America willing to provide for them. Americans are like that.'

The other stared at him incredulously. 'It would cost a great deal of money to provide for a child, perhaps for years. One does not do that lightly for a foreign child of which one knows nothing.'

'It's just the sort of thing they do do,' said the old man. They would pour out their money in a cause like that.'

The horse-dealer stared at him keenly and thoughtfully. 'Would they provide for Marjan Estreicher?' he enquired at last. 'No doubt they would not do that for a Jew.'

'I don't think it would make the slightest difference in the case of a child. It certainly would make no difference to my daughter.'

Nicole moved impulsively beside him. 'Monsieur..." she said, but he stopped her with a gesture. She subsided into silence again, watchful.

Howard said steadily: 'I would take him with me, if that is what you want. I would send him to the United States with the other children. But before that, I should want help to get them all away.'

'Jean Henri?'

'Assuredly, Monsieur.'

The other got up, displacing the unheeded game of dominoes with his sleeve. He went and fetched the Pernod, the glasses, and the water, and poured out a drink for Howard. He offered one to the girl, but she refused.

'The risk is enormous,' he said stubbornly. 'Think what it would mean to my daughter if you should be caught.'

Think what it would mean to that boy, if he should be caught,' the old man said. They would take him for a slave, put him in the mines and work him till he died. That's what the Germans do with Polish children.'

Arvers said: 'I know that. That is what troubles me.'

Nicole said suddenly: 'Does Marjan want to go? You cannot make him if he does not want to. He is old, that one.'

'He is only ten,' said Arvers.

'Nevertheless,' she said, 'he is quite grown up. We cannot take him if he does not want to go.'

Arvers went out of the room; in a few minutes he returned, followed by the boy. He said to him: 'This is the matter, Marjan. This monsieur here is going to England if he can escape the Germans, and from England the children with him are going to America. In America they will be safe. There are no Germans there. Would you like to go with them?'

The boy stood silent. They explained it to him again. At last he said in almost unintelligible French: 'In America, what should I work at?'

Howard said: 'For a time you would have to go to school, to learn English and the American way of living. At school they would teach you to earn your living in some trade. What do you want to do when you grow up?'

Without any hesitation the boy said: 'I want to kill Germans.'

There was a momentary silence. Arvers said: 'That is enough about the Germans. Tell Monsieur here what trade you wish to learn in America, if he should be so kind as to take you there.'

There was a silence.

Nicole came forward. 'Tell us,' she said gently. 'Would you like to grow up with horses? Or would you rather buy things and sell them for a profit?' After all, she thought, it would be difficult for him to go against the characteristics of his race. 'Would you rather do that?'

The boy looked up at her. 'I want to learn to shoot with a rifle from a very long way away,' he said, 'because you can do that from the hills when they are on the road. And I want to learn to throw a knife hard and straight. That is best in the darkness, in the narrow streets, because it does not make a noise.'

Arvers smiled a little ruefully. 'I am sorry, monsieur,' he said. 'I am afraid he is not making a very good impression.'

The old man said nothing.

Marjan said: 'When do we start?'

Howard hesitated, irresolute. This lad might be a great embarrassment to them; at the best he could only be described as a prickly customer. On the other hand, a deep pity for the child lurked in the background of his mind.

'Do you want to come with us?' he asked.

The boy nodded his black head.

'If you come with us, you will have to forget all this about the Germans,' said the old man. 'You will have to go to school and learn your lessons, and play baseball, and go fishing, like other boys.'

The lad said gravely: 'I could not kill a German for another two or three years because I am not strong enough. Not unless I could catch one asleep and drive a pitchfork into his belly as he slept, and even then he might reach out before he died and overcome me. But in America I could learn everything, and come back when I am fifteen years old, and big and strong.'

Howard said gently: 'There are other things to learn in America besides that.'

The boy said: 'I know there is a great deal to learn, monsieur. One thing, you should always go for the young women - not the men. If you get the young women, then they cannot spawn, and before long there will be no more Germans.'

'That is enough,' said Arvers sharply. 'Go back to kitchen and stay there till I call you.'

The boy left the room. The horse-dealer turned to Nicole. 'I am desolated that he should have said such things,' he said.

The girl said: 'He has suffered a great deal. And he is very young.'

Arvers nodded. 'I do not know what will become of him,' he said morosely.

Howard sat down in the silence which followed and took a sip of Pernod. 'One of two things will happen to him,' he said. 'One is, that the Germans will catch him very soon. He may try to kill one of them, in which case they might shoot him out of hand. They will take him to their mines. He will be rebellious the whole time, and before long he will be beaten to death. That is the one thing.'

The horse-dealer dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the table, the bottle of Pernod between them. There was something in the old man's tone that was very familiar to him. 'What is the other thing?' he asked.

'He will escape with us to England,' said Howard. 'He will end up in America, kindly treated and well cared for, and in a year or two these horrors will have faded from his mind.'

Arvers eyed him keenly. 'Which of those is going to happen?'

That is in your hands, monsieur. He will never escape the Germans unless you help him.'

There was a long, long silence in the falling dusk.

Arvers said at last: 'I will see what I can do. Tomorrow I will drive Mademoiselle to Le Conquet and we will talk it over with Jean Henri. You must stay here with the children and keep out of sight.'

Chapter 9

Howard spent most of the next day sitting in the paddock in the sun, while the children played around him. His growing, stubbly beard distressed him with a sense of personal uncleanliness, but it was policy to let it grow. Apart from that, he was feeling well; the rest was welcome and refreshing.

Madame dragged an old cane reclining chair from a dusty cellar and wiped it over with a cloth for him; he thanked her and installed himself in it. The children had the kitten, Jo-Jo, in the garden and were stuffing it with copious draughts of milk and anything that they could get it to eat. Presently it escaped and climbed up into the old man's lap and went to sleep.

After a while he found himself making whistles on a semi-production basis, while the children stood around and watched.

From time to time the Polish boy, Marjan, appeared by the paddock gate and stood looking at them, curious, inscrutable. Howard spoke to him and asked him to come in and join them, but he muttered something to the effect that he had work to do, and sheered away shyly. Presently he would be back again, watching the children as they played. The old man let him alone, content not to hurry the friendship.

In the middle of the afternoon, suddenly, there was a series of heavy explosions over in the west. These mingled with the sharp crack of gunfire; the children stopped their games and stared in wonder. Then a flight of three single-engined fighter aeroplanes got up like partridges from some field not very far away and flew over them at about two thousand feet, heading towards the west and climbing at full throttle as they went.

Ronnie said wisely: 'That's bombs, I know. They go whee... before they fall, and then they go boom. Only it's so far off you can't hear the whee part.'

'Whee... Boom!' said Sheila. Pierre copied her, and presently all the children were running round wheeing and booming.

The real detonations grew fewer, and presently died in the summer afternoon.

That was the Germans bombing someone, wasn't it, Mr Howard?' asked Ronnie.

'I expect so,' he replied. 'Come and hold this bark while I bind it.' In the production of whistles the raid faded from their minds.

In the later afternoon Nicole returned with Arvers. Both were very dirty, and the girl had a deep cut on the palm of one hand, roughly bandaged. Howard was shocked at her appearance.

'My dear,' he said, 'whatever happened? Has there been an accident?'

She laughed a little shrilly. 'It was the British,' she said. 'It was an air raid. We were caught in Brest - this afternoon. But it was the British, monsieur, that did this to me.'

Madame Arvers came bustling up with a glass of brandy. Then she hustled the girl off into the kitchen. Howard was left in the paddock, staring out towards the west.

The children had only understood half of what had happened. Sheila said: 'It was the bad aeroplanes that did that to Nicole, monsieur, wasn't it?'

'That's right,' he said. 'Good aeroplanes don't do that sort of thing.'

The child was satisfied with that. 'It must have been a very, very bad aeroplane to do that to Nicole.'

There was general agreement on that point. Ronnie said: 'Bad aeroplanes are German aeroplanes. Good aeroplanes are English ones.'

He made no attempt to unravel that one for them.

Presently Nicole came out into the garden, white-faced and with her hand neatly bandaged. Madame hustled the children into the kitchen for their supper.

Howard asked after her hand. 'It is nothing,' she said. 'When a bomb falls, the glass in all the windows flies about. That is what did it.'

'I am so sorry.'

She turned to him. 'I would not have believed that there would be so much glass in the streets,' she said. 'In heaps it was piled. And the fires - houses on fire everywhere. And dust, thick dust that smothered everything.'

'But how did you come to be mixed up in it?'

She said: 'It just happened. We had been to Le Conquet, and after déjeuner we set out in the motor-car to return here. And passing through Brest, Aristide wanted to go to the Bank, and I wanted tooth-powder and some other things - little things, you understand. And it was while Aristide was in the Bank and I was in the shops in the Rue de Siam that it happened.'

'What did happen?' he asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. 'It was an aeroplane that came racing low over the roofs - so low that one could see the number painted on the body; the targets on the wings showed us that it was. English. It swung round the Harbour and dropped its bombs near the Port Militaire, and then another of them came, and another - many of them. It was the German ships in the harbour, I think, that they were bombing. But several of them dropped their bombs in a long line, and these lines spread right into the town. There were two bombs that hit houses in the Rue de Siam, and three or more in the Rue Louis Pasteur. And where a bomb fell, the house fell right down, not five feet high, Monsieur - truly, that was all that\could be seen. And there were fires, and clouds of smoke\nd dust, and glass - glass everywhere...'

There was a little silence. 'Were many people hurt?' he asked at last. -She said: 'I think very many.'

He was very much upset. He felt that something should have happened to prevent this. He was terribly concerned for her, and a little confused.

She said presently: 'You must not distress yourself on my account, Monsieur Howard. I assure you, I am quite all right, and so is Aristide.' She laughed shortly. 'At least, I can say that I have seen the Royal Air Force at work. For many months I longed to see that.' He shook his head, unable to say anything. She laid her hand on his arm. 'Many of the bombs fell in the Port Militaire,' she said gently. 'One or two went wide, but that was not intended. I think they may have hit the ships.' She paused and then she said: 'I think John would have been very pleased.'

'Yes,' he said heavily, 'I suppose he would have been.' She took his arm. 'Come in the salon and we will drink a Pernod together, and I will tell you about Jean Henri.' They went together into the house. Aristide was not about; in the salon Howard sat down with the girl. He was still distressed and upset; Nicole poured out a Pernod for him and added a little water. Then she poured a smaller one for herself.

'About Jean Henri,' she said. 'He is not to appear in this himself. Aristide will not have that, for the sake of Marie. But in Le Conquet there is a young man called Simon Focquet, and he will take a boat across with you.'

The old man's heart leaped, but all he said was: 'How old is this young man?'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'Twenty - twenty-two, perhaps. He is de Gaullist.'

'What is that, mademoiselle?'

She said: 'There is a General de Gaulle in England with your armies, one of our younger Generals. In France nobody knew much about him, but now he will carry on the battle from England. He is not approved by our Government of Vichy, but many of our young men are slipping away to join him, some by way of Spain and others in boats across the Manche. That is how Simon Focquet wishes to go, because he is a fishing-boy, and knows boats very well.'

'But the Germans will stop that, surely.'

She nodded. 'Already all traffic has been stopped. But the boats are still allowed to fish around the coast and by Ushant. It will be necessary to devise something.

He said: 'Where will he get the boat?'

'Aristide has arranged that for us. Jean Henri will hire one of his boats for fishing to this young man, and Simon then will steal it when he leaves for England. Jean Henri will be the first to complain to the gendarmerie, and to the Germans, that his boat has been stolen. But Aristide will pay him for it secretly. You should pay Aristide, if you have so much money.'

He nodded. 'How much will it be?'

She said: 'Five thousand five hundred francs.'

209

He thought for a moment. Then he pulled out his wallet from his hip pocket, opened with the deliberation of age, and studied a document. 'I seem to have forty pounds left on my letter of credit,' he said. 'Will that be enough?'

She said: 'I think so. Aristide will want all the payment that you can make because he is a peasant, Monsieur, you understand. But he wishes to help us, and he will not stop the venture for that reason.'

Howard said: 'I would see that he got the difference when the war is over.'

They talked of this for a little time. Then Nicole got up from the table. 'I must go and see the children in thtir beds,' she said. 'Madame Arvers has been very kind, But one should not leave everything to her.'

'I will come too,' he said. 'They have been very good children all day, and no trouble.'

The children were all sleeping in one room, the two girls in the bed and the three little boys on a mattress on the floor, covered with rough blankets. The peasant woman was tucking them up; she smiled broadly as Nicole and the old man came in, and disappeared back into the kitchen. Ronnie said: 'My blanket smells of horses.'

Nothing was more probable, the old man thought. He said: 'I expect you'll dream that you're going for a ride all night.'

Sheila said: 'May I go for a ride, too?'

'If you're very good.'

Rose said: 'May we stay here now?'

Nicole sat down on her bed. 'Why?' she said. 'Don't you want to see your father in London?'

La petite Rose said: 'I thought London was a town.'

'So it is. A very big town.'

'I like being in the country like this,' Rose said. 'This is like it was where we used to live.'

Ronnie said: 'But we're all going to London.'

'Not all of you,' the old man said. 'You and Sheila are going to live with your Aunt Margaret at Oxford.'

'Are we? Is Rose going to live with Aunt Margaret, top?'

'No. Rose is going to live with her daddy in London.' Sheila said: 'Is Pierre going to live with Aunt Margaret?'

'No,' he said. 'Pierre and Willem are going to America to live with my daughter. Did you know I had a grown-up daughter, older than Nicole? She's got a little boy of her own.'

They stared at him incredulously. 'What's his name?' Ronnie asked at last.

'Martin,' the old man said. 'He's the same age as Pierre.'

Pierre stared at them. 'Won't you be coming with us?'

'I don't think so,' Howard said. 'I think I shall have work to do in England.' His Up trembled. 'Won't Rose be coming?' Nicole slipped down by his bed. 'It's going to be lovely in America,' she said gently. There will be bright lights at night-time, not like the black-out we have here. There is no bombing, nor firing guns at people from the air. There will be plenty to eat, and nice, sweet'things like we all used to have. You will live at a place called "Coates Harbor" on Long Island, where Madame Costello has a great big house in the country. And there is a pony for you to ride, and dogs to make friends with, like we all used to have before the war when we had food for dogs. And you will learn to sail a boat, and to swim and dive like the English and Americans do, and to catch fish for pleasure. And you will feel quite safe then, because there is no war in America.' Pierre stared up at her. 'Will you be coming with me to America?'

She said quietly: 'No, Pierre. I must stay here.'

The corners of his mouth dropped. 'I don't want to go alone.'

Howard said: 'Perhaps Rose's father will want her to go too. Then she would go with you. You'd like that, wouldn't you?'

Sheila said: 'May Ronnie and I go, Mr Howard? Can we all go with Pierre?'

He said: 'I'll have to see about that. Your Aunt Margaret may want you in England.'

Ronnie said: 'If she doesn't want us, may we go to Coates Harbor with Pierre?'

'Yes,' he said. 'If she wants you out of England you can all go to Coates Harbor together.'

'Coo,' said the little boy, unfeelingly. 'I do hope she doesn't want us.'

After a time they got the children settled down to sleep; they went downstairs again and out into the garden until supper was ready. The old man said: 'You know a good deal about my daughter's house in America, mademoiselle.'

She smiled. 'John used to tell me about it,' she said. 'He had been out there, had he not, monsieur?'

He nodded. 'He was out there with Enid for a time in 1938. He thought a great deal of her husband, Costello.'

She said: 'He told me all about it very early one morning, when we could not sleep. John loved America. He was amateur, you understand - he loved their technique.'

Not for the first time the old man wondered doubtfully about the nature of that week in Paris. He said absently: 'He enjoyed that visit very much.'

He roused himself. 'I am a little worried about Pierre,' he said. 'I had not thought of sending anybody over with him to America.'

She nodded. 'He is sensitive, that one. He will be lonely and unhappy at first, but he will get over it. If Rose could go too it would be all right.'

He faced her. 'Why not go yourself?' he suggested. 'That would be best of all.'

'Go to America? That is not possible at all, monsieur.'

A little fear stole into his heart. 'But you are coming to England, Nicole?'

She shook her head. 'No, monsieur. I must stay in France.'

He was suddenly deeply disappointed. 'Do you really think that is the best thing to do?' he said. This country is overrun with Germans, and there will be great hardships as the war goes on. If you came with us to England you could live with me in my house in Essex, or you could go on to America with the children. That would be much better Nicole.'

She said: 'But monsieur, I have my mother to consider.'

He hesitated. 'Would you like to try to get hold of her, and take her with us? Life in France is going to be very difficult, you know.'

She shook her head. 'I know that things are going to be difficult. But she would not be happy in England. Perhaps I should not be happy either - now.'

'Have you ever been to England?' he asked curiously.

She shook her head. 'We had arranged that I should visit John in England in October, when he could get leave again. I think he would have taken me to see you then, perhaps. But the war came, and there was no more leave... And travelling was very difficult. I could not get a visa for my passport.'

He said gently: 'Make that trip to England now, Nicole.'

She shook her head. 'No, monsieur.'

'Why not?'

She said: 'Are you going to America with the children, yourself?'

He shook his head. 'I would like to, but I don't think I shall be able to. I believe that there'll be work for me to do when I get back.'

She said: 'Nor would I leave France.'

He opened his mouth to say that that was quite different, but shut it again without speaking. She divined something of his thought, because she said: 'Either one is French or one is English, and it is not possible that one should be both at the same time. And in times of great trouble, one must stay with one's own country and do what one can to help.'

He said slowly: 'I suppose so.'

Pursuing her train of thought,, she said: 'If John and I -' she hesitated - 'if we had married, I should have been English and then it would be different. But now I am not to be English, ever. I could not learn your different ways, and the new life, alone. This is my place that I belong to, and I must stay here. You understand?'

He said: 'I understand that, Nicole.' He paused for a minute, and then said: 'I am getting to be an old man now. When this war is over I may not find it very easy to get about. Will you come and stay with me in England for a little? Just for a week or two?'

She said: 'Of course. Immediately that it is possible to travel, I will come.'

They walked beside each other in silence for the length of the paddock. Presently she said: 'Now for the detail of the journey. Focquet will take the boat tonight from Le Conquet to go fishing up the Chenal as far as Le Four. He will not return to Le Conquet, but tomorrow night he will put into l'Abervrach to land his fish, or to get bait, or on some pretext such as that. He will sail again at midnight of tomorrow night and you must then be in the boat with him, for he will go direct to England. Midnight is the latest time that he can sail, in order that he may be well away from the French coast before dawn.'

Howard asked: 'Where is this place 1'Abervrach, mademoiselle? Is it far from here?'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'Forty kilometres, no more. There is a little town behind it, four miles inland, called Lannilis. We must go there tomorrow.'

'Are there many Germans in those parts?'

'I do not know. Aristide is trying to find out the situation there, and to devise something for us.'

The boy Marjan passed through the paddock on his way to the house. Howard turned and called to him; he hesitated, and then came to them.

The old man said; 'We are leaving here tomorrow, Marjan. Do you still want to come with us?'

The boy said: To America?'

'First we are going to try to get away to England. If we do that successfully, I will send you to America with Pierre and Willem, to live with my daughter till the war is over. Do you want to go?'

The boy said in his awkward French: 'If I stay with M. Arvers the Germans will find me and take me away. Presently they will kill me, as they killed my mother and as my father will be killed, because we are Jews. I would like to come with you.'

The old man said: 'Listen to me. I do not know if I shall take you, Marjan. We may meet Germans on the way from this place to the coast; we may have to mix with them, eat at their canteens perhaps. If you show that you hate them, they may arrest us all. I do not know if it is safe to take you, if it is fair to Rose and Ronnie and Sheik and Willem and to little Pierre.'

The boy said: 'I shall not make trouble for you. It will be better for me to go to America now; that is what I warn to do. It would only be by great good luck that I could kill a German now; even if I could creep up to one in the darkness and rip him open with a sharp knife, I should be caught and killed. But in a few years' time I shall be able to kill many hundreds of them, secretly, in the dark streets. That is much better, to wait and to learn how these things should be managed properly.'

Howard felt slightly sick. He said: 'Can you control yourself, if Germans are near by?'

The boy said: 'I can wait for years, monsieur, till my time comes.'

Nicole said: 'Listen, Marjan. You understand what Monsieur means? If you are taken by the Germans all these little boys and girls will also be taken, and the Germans will do to them what they will do to you. It would be very wrong of you to bring that trouble on them.'

He said: 'Have no fear. I shall be good, and obedient, and polite, if you will take me with you. That is what one must practise all the time, so that you win their confidence. In that way you can get them at your mercy in the end.'

Howard said: 'All right, Marjan. We start in the morning; be ready to come with us. Now go and have your supper and go up to bed.'

He stood watching the boy as he made his way towards the house. 'God knows what sort of world we shall have when this is all over,' he said heavily.

Nicole said: 'I do not know. But what you are doing now will help us all, I think. To get these children out of Europe must be a good thing.'

Presently they were called to the kitchen for their supper. Afterwards, in the salon, Arvers talked to them.

'Listen,' he said, 'and I will tell you what I have arranged.'

He paused. 'Lannilis is full of Germans. That is four miles from the coast, and the places at the coast itself, l'Abervrach and Portsall and places of that sort, are very lightly held or even not occupied at all. They do not interfere with the traffic of the country, and this is what I have devised for you.'

He said: 'Three miles this side of Lannilis there is a farmer called Quintin, and he is to send a load of manure tomorrow to a fisherman called Loudeac, the captain of the lifeboat at l'Abervrach, because Loudeac has a few fields on the hills and wants manure. I have arranged all that. The manure will be delivered in a cart with one horse, you understand? You, m'sieur, will drive the cart. Mademoiselle and the children will accompany you for the ride.'

Howard said: 'That seems sound enough. Nobody would suspect that.'

Aristide glanced at him. 'It will be necessary that you should wear poorer clothes. That I can arrange.'

Nicole said: 'How do we get into touch with Focquet tomorrow night?'

The horse-dealer said: Tomorrow night, Focquet will come at nine o'clock to the estaminet on the quayside. He will appear to be slightly drunk, and he will ask for Pernod des Anges. There is no such drink. In that way you will know him. The rest I will leave to you.'

Howard nodded: 'How can we get to Quintin's farm?'

'I will take you myself so far in the car. That will be safe enough, for it is this side of Lannilis and there will be no questions asked. But there I must leave you.' He thought for a minute. 'It will be better that you should not start from Quintin's farm much before five o'clock,' he said. That will make it reasonable that you should be in l'Abervrach at nightfall, and even that you should spend the night there, with Loudeac.'

Nicole said: 'What about Loudeac and Quintin, monsieur? Do they know that Monsieur Howard and the children will escape?'

The man said: 'Have no fear, mademoiselle. This is not so uncommon, in these times. They know all that they wish to know, and they have been paid. They are good friends of mine.'

Howard said: 'I must now pay you, monsieur.'

They settled down together at the table.

Soon after that they went to bed; refreshed by a restful day Howard slept well. In the morning he went down for coffee feeling better than he had felt for some days.

Aristide said: 'We leave after déjeuner. That will be time enough. Now, I have borrowed clothes for m'sieur. You will not like them, but they are necessary.'

The old man did not like the clothes at all. They were very dirty, a coarse, stained flannel shirt, a pair of torn blue cotton trousers, a dirty canvas pullover that had once been rusty pink iiucolour, and a black, floppy Breton casque. Wooden sabots were the footgear provided with this outfit, but the old man struck at those, and Arvers produced a torn and loathsome pair of boots.

It was some days since he had shaved. When he came down to the kitchen Nicole smiled broadly. 'It is very good,' she said. 'Now, Monsieur Howard, if you walk with the head hanging down, and your mouth open a little - so. And walk slowly, as if you were a very, very old man. And be very deaf and very stupid. I will talk for you.'

Arvers walked round him, studying him critically. 'I do not think the Germans will find fault with that,' he said.

They spent the rest of the morning studying appearances. Nicole kept her black frock, but Arvers made her dirty it a little, and made her change to a very old pair of low-heeled shoes belonging to his wife. With a shawl belonging to Madame Arvers over her head, he passed her too.

The children needed very little grooming. During the morning they had been playing at the duck-pond, and were sufficiently dirty to pass muster without any painting of the lily. Ronnie and Willem were scratching themselves a good deal, which added verisimilitude to the act.

They started after déjeuner. Howard and Nicole thanked Madame Arvers for her kindness; she received their thanks with calm, bovine smiles. Then they all got into the little old de Dion van that Arvers kept for the farm and drove off down the road.

Ronnie said: 'Are we going to the train that we're going to sleep in, Mr Howard?'

'Not just yet,' he said. 'We shall get out of the car presently and say good-bye to Monsieur Arvers, and then we have a ride in a cart. You must all be very careful to speak French only, all the time.'

Sheila said: 'Why must we speak French? I want to speak English, like we used to.'

Nicole said gently: 'We shall be among the Germans. They do not like people who speak English. You must be very careful to speak only in French.'

Rose said suddenly: 'Marjan says the Germans cut his mother's hands off.'

Howard said gently: 'No more talk about the Germans now. In a little time we shall get out, and have a ride in a horse and cart.' He turned to Pierre. 'What sort of noise does a horse make?' he asked.

Pierre said shyly: 'I don't know.'

La petite Rose bent over him. 'Oh, Pierre, of course you know!

'My great-aunt lives in Tours, In a house with a cherry tree With a little mouse (squeak, squeak)

And a big lion (roar, roar)

And a wood-pigeon (coo, coo)...'

That lasted them all the way through Landerneau, of which they caught only glimpses through the windows at the back of the old van, and half-way to Lannilis.

Presently the van slowed, turned off the road, and bumped to a standstill. Arvers swung round to them from the driving-seat. 'This is the place,' he said. 'Get out quickly, it is not wise to linger here.'

They opened the door at the back of the van and got out. They were in a very small farmyard, the farmhouse itself little more than a workman's cottage of grey stone. The air was fresh and sweet after the van, with a clear savour of the sea. In the warm sun, and looking at the grey stone walls and roofs, Howard could have thought himself in Cornwall.

There was a cart and horse, the cart half loaded with manure, the old grey horse tied to the gate. Nobody was to be seen.

Arvers said: 'Now quickly, monsieur, before a German passes on the road. There is the cart. You have everything quite clear? You take the dung to Loudeac, who lives up on the hill above l'Abervrach, half a mile from the port. There you unload it; Mademoiselle Rougeron must bring back the cart tomorrow to this place. Focquet will be in the estaminet tonight at nine o'clock, and he will be expecting you. He will ask for Pernod des Anges. It is all clear?'

'One thing,' the old man said. This road leads straight to Lannilis?'

'Assuredly.' The horse-dealer glanced nervously around.

'How do we get through Lannilis? How do we find the road out of the town to l'Abervrach?'

The hot sun beat down on them warmly from a cloudless sky; the scent of briar mingled with the odour of manure about them. Arvers said: 'This road leads straight to the great church in the middle of the town. From the west end of the church a road runs westwards; follow that. Where it forks at the outskirts of the town, by an advertisement for Byrrh, take the right-hand fork. From there to l'Abervrach is seven kilometres.'

Nicole said: 'I have been that way before. I think I know the road.'

The horse-dealer said: 'I will not linger, mademoiselle. And you, you must move off from here at once.' He turned to Howard. 'That is all that I can do for you, monsieur. Good luck. In happier days, we may meet again.'

The old man said: 'I shall look forward to thanking you again for so much kindness.'

Arvers swung himself into the seat of the old van, reversed out into the road, and vanished in a white cloud of dust. Howard looked around; there was no movement from the house, which stood deserted in the afternoon sun.

Nicole said: 'Come, children, up you go.'

Willem and Marjan swung themselves up into the cart; the English children, with Pierre and Rose, hung back. Ronnie said doubtfully: 'Is this the cart you said we were going to have a ride in?'

Rose said: 'It is a dung-cart. It is not correct to ride in a cart full of horse-dung, mademoiselle. My aunt would be very cross with me if I did that.'

Nicole said brightly: 'Well, I'm going to. You can walk with monsieur and help lead the horse, if you like.' She bustled the other children into the cart before her; it was only half full and there was room for all of them to stand and sit on the edges of the sides in front of the load.

Pierre said: 'May I walk with Rose and lead the horse?'

Nicole said: 'No, Pierre, you're too small for that and the horse walks too quickly. You can stroke his nose when we get there.'

Howard untied the bridle from the gate and led the horse out into the road. He fell into a steady, easy shamble beside the horse, head hanging down.

For an hour and a half they went on like that before they reached the first houses of Lannilis. In the cart Nicole kept the children happy and amused; from time to time the old man heard a little burst of laughter above the clop, clop of the hooves of the old horse. La petite Rose walked on beside him, barefoot, treading lightly.

They passed a good deal of German transport on the road. From time to time lorries would come up behind them and they would pull in to the right to let them pass; the grey-faced, stolid soldiers staring at them incuriously. Once they met a platoon of about thirty infantry marching towards them down the road; the Oberleutnant in charge looked them over, but did not challenge them. Nobody showed much interest in them until they came to Lannilis.

On the outskirts of the town they were stopped. There was a barricade of an elementary nature, of two old motorcars drawn hah0 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 Unteroffzier 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 1'Aberv-rach.'

The Unteroffizier looked at Nicole. 'And madame goes too?'

Nicole smiled at him and put her hand on Pierre's shoulder. 'It is the little one's birthday,' she said. 'It is not easy to make fete 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 tomorrow 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 waiked 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 tune. 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 on her. A few German soldiers lounged on 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 children, 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 light-house.

'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?'

FocqweT 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 on 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 guard-room and have a l'il 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 10

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 tomorrow, 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 tb 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 guard-room 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 Jn 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. 'Englander. 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 on 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. 'Another 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 tonight.'

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 on 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.

'Go and lie down, Nicole,' he said. 'You must get some sleep.'

'I do not want to sleep, monsieur,' she said. 'Truly I am better sitting here like this.'

'I've been thinking about things,' he said.

'I also have been thinking.'

He turned to her in the darkness. 'I am so very sorry to have brought you into all this trouble,' he said quietly. 'I did want to avoid that, and I thought that we were going to.'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'It does not matter.' She hesitated. 'I have been thinking about different things to that.'

'What things?' he asked.

'When you introduced Focquet - you said I was your daughter-in-law.'

'I had to say something,' he remarked. 'And that's very nearly true."

In the dun light he looked into her eyes, smiling a little. 'Isn't it?'

'Is that how you think of me?'

'Yes,' he said simply.

There was a long silence in the prison. One of the children, probably Willem, stirred and whimpered uneasily in his sleep; outside the guard paced on the dusty road.

At last she said: 'What we did was wrong - very wrong.' She turned towards him. Truly, I did not mean to do wrong when I went to Paris, neither did John. We did not go with that in mind at all. I do not want that you should think it was his fault. It was nobody's fault, neither of us. Also, it did not seem wrong at the time.'

His mind drifted back fifty years. 'I know,' he said. 'That's how these things happen. But you aren't sorry, are you?'

She did not answer that, but she went on more easily. 'He was very, very naughty, monsieur. The understanding was that I was to show him Paris, and it was for that that I went to Paris to meet him. But when the time came, he was not interested in the churches or in the museums, or the picture-galleries at all.' There was a touch of laughter in her voice. 'He was only interested in me.'

'Very natural,' he said. It seemed the only thing to say.

'It was very embarrassing, I assure you, I did not know what I should do.'

He laughed. 'Well, you made your mind up in the end.'

She said reproachfully: 'Monsieur - it is not a matter to laugh over. You are just like John. He also used to laugh at things like that.'

He said: 'Tell me one thing, Nicole. Did he ask you if you would marry him?'

She said: 'He wanted that we should marry in Paris before he went back to England. He said that under English law that would be possible.'

'Why didn't you?' he asked curiously.

She was silent for a minute. Then she said: 'I was afraid of you, monsieur.'

'Of me?'

She nodded. 'I was terrified. It now sounds very silly, but - it was so.'

He struggled to understand. 'What were you frightened of?' he asked.

She said: 'Figure it to yourself. Your son would have brought home a foreign girl, that he had married very suddenly in Paris. You would have thought that he had been foolish in a foreign city, as young men sometimes are. That he had been trapped by a bad woman into an unhappy marriage. I do not see how you could have thought otherwise.'

'If I had thought that at first,' he said, 'I shouldn't have thought it for long.'

'I know that now. That is what John told me at the time. But I did not think that it was right to take the risk. I told John, it would be better for everybody that we should be a little more discreet, you understand.'

'I see. You wanted to wait a bit.'

She said: 'Not longer than could be helped. But I wanted very much that everything should be correct, that we should start off right. Because, to be married, it is for all one's hie, and one marries not only to the man but to the relations also. And in a mixed marriage things are certain to be difficult, in any case. And so, I said that I would come to England for his next leave, in September or October, and we would meet in London, and he could then take me to see you in your country home. And then you would write to my father, and everything would be quite in order and correct.'

'And then the war came,' he said quietly.

She repeated: 'Yes, monsieur, then the war came. It was not then possible for me to visit England. It would almost have been easier for John to visit Paris again, but he could get no leave. And so I went on struggling to get my permis and the visa month after month.

'And then,' she said, 'they wrote to tell me what had happened.'

They sat there for a long time, practically in silence. The air grew colder as the night went on. Presently the old man heard the girl's breathing grow more regular and knew she was asleep, still sitting up on the bare wooden floor.

After a time she stirred and fell half over. He got up stiffly and led her, still practically asleep, to the palliasse, made her lie down, and put a blanket over her. In a short time she was asleep again.

For a long time he stood by the window, looking out over the harbour mouth. The moon had risen; the white plumes of surf on the rocks showed clearly on the blackness of the sea. He wondered what was going to happen to them all. It might very well be that he would be taken from the children and sent to a concentration camp; that for him would be the end, before so very long. The thought of what might happen to the children distressed him terribly. At all costs, he must do his best to stay at liberty. If he could manage that it might be possible for him to make a home for them, to look after them till the war was over. A home in Chartres, perhaps, not far from Nicole and her mother. It would take little money to live simply with them, in one room or in two rooms at the most. The thought of penury did not distress hun very much. His old life seemed very, very far away.

Presently, the blackness of the night began to pale towards the east, and it grew colder still. He moved back to the wall and, wrapped in a blanket, sat down in a corner. Presently he fell into an uneasy sleep.

At six o'oclock the clumping of the soldiers' boots in the corridor outside woke him from a doze. He stirred and sat upright; Nicole was awake and sitting up, running her fingers through her hah- in an endeavour to put it into order without a comb. A German Oberschütze came in and made signs to them to get up, indicating the way to the toilet.

Presently, a private brought them china bowls, some hunks of bread and a large jug of bitter coffee. They breakfasted, and waited for something to happen. They were silent and depressed; even the children caught the atmosphere and sat about in gloomy inactivity.

Presently the door was flung open, and the Feldwebel was there with a couple of privates. 'Marchez,' he said. 'Allez, vite.'

They were herded out and into a grey, camouflaged motor-lorry with a closed, van-like body. The two German privates got into this with them and the doors were shut and locked on them. The Feldwebel got into the seat beside the driver, turned and inspected them through a little hatchway to the driver's compartment. The lorry started.

They were taken to Lannilis, and unloaded at the big house opposite the church, from the window of which floated the Swastika flag. Here they were herded into a corridor between their guards. The Feldwebel went into a door and closed it behind him.

They waited thus for over half an hour. The children, apprehensive and docile at the first, became bored and restless. Pierre said, in his small voice: 'Please, monsieur, may I go out and play in the square?'

Sheila and Ronnie said in unison, and very quickly: 'May I go too?'

Howard said: 'Not just now. You'll have to stay here for a little while.'

Sheila said mutinously: 'I don't want to stay here. I want to go out in the sun and play.'

Nicole stooped to her and said: 'Do you remember Bahar the Elephant?'

The little girl nodded.

'And Jacko the Monkey? What did he do?'

Laughter, as at a huge, secret joke. 'He climbed up Babar's tail, right up on to his back!'

'Whatever did he do that for?'

The stolid, grey-faced Germans looked on mirthlessly, uncomprehending. For the first time in their lives they were seeing foreigners, displaying the crushing might and power of their mighty land. It confused them and perplexed them that their prisoners should be so flippant as to play games with their children in the corridor outside the very office of the Gestapo. It found the soft spot in the armour of their pride; they felt an insult which could not be properly defined. This was not what they had understood when their Führer last had spoken from the Sport-Palast. This victory was not as they had thought it would be.

The door opened, the sentries sprang to attention, clicking their heels. Nicole glanced upwards, and then stood up, holding Sheila in one hand. From the office Feldwebel cried, 'Achtung!' and a young officer, a Rittmeister of the Tank Corps came out. He was dressed in a black uniform not unlike the British battle-dress; on his head he wore a black beret garnished with the eagle and swastika, and a wreath-like badge. On his shoulder-straps an aluminium skull and crossbones gleamed dull on the black cloth.

Howard straightened up and Focquet took his hands out of his pockets. The children stopped chattering to stare curiously at the man in black.

He had a notebook and a pencil in his hand. He spoke to Howard first. 'Wie heissen Sie?' he asked. 'Ihr Familien-name und Taufname? Ihr Beruf?'

Somebody translated into indifferent French and the particulars of all the party were written down. As regards nationality, Howard declared himself, Sheila, and Ronnie to be English; there was no use denying it. He said that Willem and Mar jan were of nationality unknown.

The young officer in black went into the office. In a few minutes the door was flung open again and the party were called to attention. The Feldwebel came to the door.

'Folgen Sie mir! Halt! Rührt Euch!' They found themselves in the office, facing a long table. Behind this sat the officer who had interrogated them in the passage. By his side was an older man with a square, close-cropped head and a keen, truculent expression. He held himself very straight and stiff, as if he were in a straight waistcoat, and he also wore a black uniform, but more smartly cut, and with a shoulder-belt in black leather resembling the Sam Browne. This man, as Howard subsequently learned, was Major Diessen of the Gestapo.

He stared at Howard, looking him up and down, noting the clothes he wore, the Breton casque on his head, the stained rust-coloured poncho jacket, the dirty blue overall trousers.

'So,' he said harshly, but in quite good English. 'We still have English gentlemen travelling in France." He paused. 'Nice and Monte Carlo,' he said. 'I hope that you have had a very nice time.'

The old man was silent. There was no point in trying to answer the taunts.

The officer turned to Nicole. 'You are French,' he said, fiercely and vehemently. 'You have been helping this man in his secret work against your country. You are a traitor to the Armistice. I think you will be shot for this.'

The girl stared at hun, dumbfounded. Howard said: There is no need to frighten her. We are quite ready to tell you the truth.'

'I know your English truth,' the Gestapo officer replied, 'I will find my own, even if I have to whip every inch of skin from her body and pull out every finger-nail.'

Howard said quietly: 'What do you want to know?'

'I want to know what means you used to make her help you in your work.'

There was a small, insistent tug at the old man's sleeve. He glanced down and it was Sheila, whispering a request.

'Presently,' he said gently. 'You must wait a little.'

'I can't wait,' she said. 'I want to go now.'

The old man turned to the Gestapo officer. 'There is a small matter that requires attention,' he said placidly. He indicated Rose. 'May this one take this little girl outside for a minute? They will come back.'

The young Tank Corps officer smiled broadly; even the Gestapo man relaxed a little. The Rittmaster spoke to the sentry, who sprang to attention and escorted the two little girls from the room.

Howard said: 'I will answer your question so far as I can. I have no work in France, but I was trying to get back to England with these children. As for this young lady, she was a great friend of my son, who is now dead. We have known each other for some time.'

Nicole said: 'That is true. Monsieur Howard came to us in Chartres when all travelling to England had been stopped. I have known Focquet here since I was a little girl. We were trying to induce him to take monsieur and these children back to England in his boat, but he was unwilling on account of the regulations.'

The old man stood silent, in admiration of the girl. If she got away with that one it let Focquet out completely.

The officer's lips curled. 'I have no doubt that Mister Howard wanted to return to England,' he said dryly. 'It is getting quite too hot here for fellows of his sort.'

He said suddenly and sharply: 'We captured Charenton. He is to be executed tomorrow, by shooting.'

There was a momentary silence. The German eyed the party narrowly, his keen eyes running from one to the other. The girl wrinkled her brows in perplexity. The young Rittmeister of the Tank Corps sat with an impassive face, drawing a pattern on his blotting-pad.

Howard said at last: 'I am afraid I don't understand what you mean. I don't know anybody called Charenton.'

'No,' said the German. 'And you do not know your Major Cochrane, nor Room 212 on the second floor of your War Office in Whitehall.'

The old man could feel the scrutiny of everybody in the room on him. 'I have never been in the War Office,' he said, 'and I know nothing about the rooms. I used to know a Major Cochrane who had a house near Totnes, but he died in 1924. That is the only Cochrane that I ever knew.'

The Gestapo officer smiled without mirth. 'You expect me to believe that?'

'Yes, I do,' the old man said. 'Because it is the truth.'

Nicole interposed, speaking in French. 'May I say a word. There is a misunderstanding here, truly there is. Monsieur Howard has come here directly from the Jura, stopping only with us in Chartres. He will tell you himself.'

Howard said: 'That is so. Would you like to hear how I came to be here?'

The German officer looked ostentatiously at his wristwatch and leaned back in his chair, insolently bored. 'If you must,' he said indifferently. 'I will give you three minutes.'

Nicole plucked his arm. 'Tell also who the children are and where they came from,' she said urgently.

The old man paused to collect his thoughts. It was impossible for him, at his age, to compress his story into three minutes; his mind moved too slowly. 'I came to France from England in the middle of April,' he said. 'I stayed a night or two in Paris, and then I went on and stayed a night in Dijon. You see, I had arranged to go to a place called Cidoton in the Jura, for a little fishing holiday.'

The Gestapo officer sat up suddenly, galvanised into life. 'What sort of fish?' he barked. 'Answer me - quick!'

Howard stared at him. 'Blue trout,' he said. 'Sometimes you get a grayling, but they aren't very common.'

'And what tackle to catch them with - quickly!'

The old man stared at him, nonplussed, not knowing where to start. 'Well,' he said, 'you need a nine-foot cast, but the stream is usually very strong, so 3X is fine enough. Of course, it's all fishing wet, you understand.'

The German relaxed. 'And what flies do you use?'

A faint pleasure came to the old man. 'Well,' he said with relish, 'a Dark Olive gets them as well as anything, or a large Blue Dun. I got one or two on a thing called a Jungle Cock, but -'

The German interrupted him. 'Go on with your story,' he said rudely. 'I have no time to listen to your fishing exploits.'

Howard plunged into his tale, compressing it as much as seemed possible to him. The two German officers listened with growing attention and with growing incredulity. In ten minutes or so the old man reached the end.

The Gestapo officer, Major Diessen, looked at him scornfully. 'And now,' he said. 'If you had been able to return to England, what would you have done with all these children?'

Howard said: 'I meant to send them to America.'

'Why?'

'Because it is safe over there. Because this war is bad for children to see. It would be better for them to be out of it.'

The German stared at him. 'Very fine words. But who was going to pay to send them to America, may I ask?'

The old man said: 'Oh, I should have done that.'

The other smiled, scornfully amused. 'And what would they do in America? Starve?'

'Oh no. I have a married daughter over there. She would have made a home for them until the war was over.'

'This is a waste of time,' the German said. 'You must think me a stupid fellow to be taken in with such a tale.'

Nicole said: 'Nevertheless, m'sieur, it is quite true. I knew the son and I have known the father. The daughter would be much the same. American people are generous to refugees, to children.'

Diessen turned to her. 'So,' he sneered, 'mademoiselle comes in to support this story. But now for mademoiselle herself. We leam that mademoiselle was a friend of the old English gentleman's son. A very great friend...'

He barked at her suddenly. 'His mistress, no doubt?'

She drew herself up. 'You may say so if you like,' she said quietly. 'You can call a sunset by a filthy name, but you do not spoil its beauty, monsieur.'

There was a pause. The young Tank officer leaned across and whispered a word or two to the Gestapo officer. Diessen nodded and turned back to the old man.

'By the dates,' he said, 'you could have returned to England if you had travelled straight through Dijon. But you did not do so. That is the weak point of your story. That is where your lies begin in earnest.'

He said sharply: 'Why did you stay in France? Tell me now, quickly, and with no more nonsense. I promise you that you will talk before tonight, in any case. It will be better for you to talk now.'

Howard was puzzled and distressed. 'The little girl,' he turned and indicated Sheila, 'fell ill in Dijon. I told you so just now. She was too ill to travel.'

The German leaned across the table to him, white with anger. 'Listen,' he said. 'I warn you once again, and this for the last time. I am not to be trifled with. That sort of lie would not deceive a child. If you had wanted to return to England you would have gone.'

'These children were in my care,' the old man said. 'I could not have done that.'

The Gestapo officer said: 'Lies... lies... lies.' He was about to say something more, but checked himself. The young man by his side leaned forward and whispered deferentially to him again.

Major Diessen leaned back in his chair. 'So,' he said, 'you refuse our kindness and you will not talk. As you wish. Before the evening you will be talking freely, Mister Englishman, but by then you will be blind, and in horrible pain. It will be quite amusing for my men. Mademoiselle, too, shall be there to see, and the little children also.'

There was a silence in the office.

'Now you will be taken away,' the German said. 'I shall send for you when my men are ready to begin.' He leaned forward. 'I will tell you what we want to know, so that you may know what to say even though you be blind and deaf. We know you are a spy, wandering through the country in disguise and with this woman and the children as a cover. We know you have been operating with Charenton - you need not tell us about that. We know that either you or Charenton sent information to the English of the Fuhrer's visit to the ships in Brest, and that you caused the raid.'

He paused. 'But what we do not know, and what this afternoon you shall tell us, is how the message was passed through to England, to that Major Cochrane' - his lip sneered - 'that died in 1924, according to your story. That is what you are going to tell, Mister Englishman. And as soon as it is told the pain will stop. Remember that.'

He motioned to the Feldwebel. 'Take them away.'

They were thrust out of the room. Howard moved in a daze; it was incredible that this thing should be happening to him. It was what he had read of and had found some difficulty in crediting. It was what they were supposed to do to Jews in concentration camps. It could not be true.

Focquet was taken from them and hustled off on his own. Howard and Nicole were bundled into a downstairs prison room, with a heavily-barred window; the door was slammed on them and they were left alone.

Pierre said, in French: 'Are we going to have our dinner here, mademoiselle?'

Nicole said dully: 'I expect so, Pierre.'

Ronnie said: 'What are we going to have for dinner?'

She put an arm around his shoulder. 'I don't know,' she said mechanically. 'We'll see when we get it. Now, you run off and play with Rose. I want to talk to Monsieur Howard.'

She turned to Howard. 'This is very bad,' she said. 'We are involved in something terrible.'

He nodded. 'It seems to be that air raid that they had on Brest. The one that you were in.'

She said: 'In the shops that day they were saying that Adolf Hitler was in Brest, but one did not pay attention. There is so much rumour, so much idle talk.'

There was a silence. Howard stood looking out of the window at the little weeded, overgrown garden outside. As he stood the situation became clear to him. In such a case the local officers of the Gestapo would have to make a show of energy. They would have to produce the spies who had been instrumental in the raid, or the mutilated bodies of people who were classed as spies.

Presently he said: 'I cannot tell them what I do not know, and so things may go badly with me. If I should be killed, you will do your best for the children, Nicole?'

She said: 'I will do that. But you are not going to be killed, or even hurt. Something must be possible.' She made a little gesture of distress.

Pursuing his thought, he said: 'I shall have to try and get them to let me make a new will. Then, when the war is over and you could get money from England, you would be able to keep the children and to educate them, those of them that had no homes. But in the meantime you'll just have to do the best you can.'

The long hours dragged past. At noon an orderly brought them an open metal pan with a meal of meat and vegetables piled on it, and several bowls. They set the children down to that, who went at it with gusto.

Nicole ate a little, but the old man practically nothing.

The orderly removed the tray and they waited again. At three o'clock the door was flung open and the Feldwebel was there with a guard.

'Le Vieux,' he said, 'Marchez.' Howard stepped forward and Nicole followed him. The guard pushed her back.

The old man stopped. 'One moment,' he said. He took her hand and kissed her on the forehead. There, my dear,' he said. 'Don't worry about me.'

They hustled him away, out of that building and out into the square. Outside the sun was bright; a car or two passed by and in the shops the peasants went about their business. In Lannilis life went on as usual; from the great church the low drone of a chant broke the warm summer air. The women in the shops looked curiously at him as he passed by under guard.

He was taken into another house and thrust into a room on the ground floor. The door was shut and locked behind him. He looked around.

He was in a sitting-room, a middle-class room furnished in the French style with uncomfortable, gilded chairs and rococo ornaments. A few poor oil paintings hung on the walls in heavy, gilded frames; there was a potted palm, and framed, ancient photographs on the side tables, with a few ornaments. There was a table in the middle of the room, covered over with a cloth.

At this table a young man was sitting, a dark-haired, pale-faced young man in civilian clothes, well under thirty. He glanced up as Howard came into the room.

'Who are you?' he asked in French. He spoke almost idly, as if the matter was of no great moment.

The old man stood by the door, inwardly beating down his fears. This was something strange and therefore dangerous.

'I am an Englishman,' he said at last. There was no point any longer in concealment. 'I was arrested yesterday.'

The young man smiled without mirth. This time he spoke in English, without any trace of accent. 'Well,' he said, 'you'd better come on and sit down. There's a pair of us. I'm English too.'

Howard recoiled a step. 'You're English?'

'Naturalised,' the other said carelessly. 'My mother came from Woking, and I spent most of my life in England. My father was a Frenchman, so I started off as French. But he was killed in the last war.'

'But what are you doing here?'

The young man motioned to the table. 'Come on and sit down.'

The old man drew a chair up to the table and repeated his question. 'I did not know there was another Englishman in Lannilis,' he said. 'Whatever are you doing here?

The young man said: 'I'm waiting to be shot.'

There was a stunned, horrible pause. At last, Howard said: 'Is your name Charenton?'

The young man nodded. 'Yes,' he said, 'I'm Charenton. I see they told you about me.'

There was a long silence in the little room. Howard sat dumb, not knowing what to say. In his embarrassment his eyes fell on the table, on the young man's hands. Sitting with his hands before him on the table, Charenton had formed his fingers in a peculiar grip, the fingers interlaced, the left hand palm up and the right hand palm down. The thumbs were crossed. As soon as he observed the old man's scrutiny he glanced at him sharply, then undid the grasp.

He sighed a little.

'How did you come to be here?' he asked.

Howard said: 'I was trying to get back to England, with a few children.' He rambled into his story. The young man listened to him quietly, appraising him with keen, curious eyes.

In the end he said: 'I don't believe that you've got much to worry about. They'll probably let you live at liberty in some French town.'

Howard said: 'I'm afraid they won't do that. You see, they think that I'm mixed up with you.'

The young man nodded. 'I thought that must be it. That is why they've put us together. They're looking for a few more scapegoats, are they?'

Howard said: 'I am afraid they are.'

The young man got up and walked over to the window. 'You'll be all right,' he said at last. They've got no evidence against you - they can't have. Sooner or later you'll get back to England.'

There was a tinge of sadness in his voice.

Howard said: 'What about you?'

Charenton said: 'Me? I'm for the high jump! They got the goods on me all right.'

It seemed incredible to Howard. It was as if he had been listening to a play.

'We both seem to be in difficulties,' he said at last. 'Yours may be more serious than mine; I don't know. But you can do one thing for me.' He looked around. 'If I could get hold of a piece of paper and a pencil, I would redraft my will. Would you witness it for me?'

The other shook his head. 'You must write nothing here without permission from the Germans; they will only take it from you. And no document that had my signature on it would get back to England. You must find some other witness, Mr Howard.'

The old man sighed. 'I suppose that is so,' he said. And presently he said: 'If I should get out of this and you should not, is there anything I can do? Any message you would like me to take?'

Charenton smiled ironically. 'No messages,' he said definitely.

'There is nothing I can do?'

The young man glanced at him. 'Do you know Oxford?'

'I know Oxford very well,' the old man said. 'Were you up there?'

Charenton nodded. 'I was up at Oriel. There's a place up the river that we used to walk to - a pub by a weir pool, a very old grey stone house beside a little bridge. There is the sound of running water all the time, and fish swimming in the clear pool, and flowers, flowers everywhere.'

'You mean the "Trout Inn," at Godstow?'

'Yes - the "Trout." You know it?'

'I know it very well indeed. At least, I used to, forty years ago.'

'Go there and drink a pint for me,' the young man said. 'Sitting on the wall and looking at the fish in the pool, on a hot summer day.'

Howard said: 'If I get back to England, I will do that.' He glanced around the shabby, garishly furnished room. 'But is there no message I can take to anyone?'

Charenton shook his head. 'No messages,' he said. 'If there were, I would not give them to you. There is almost certainly a microphone in this room, and Diessen listening to every word we say. That is why they have put us here together.' He glanced around. 'It's probably behind one of those oil paintings.'

'Are you sure of that?'

'As sure as I'm sitting here.'

He raised his voice and said, speaking in German: 'You are wasting your time, Major Diessen. This man knows nothing about my affairs.' He paused and then continued: 'But I will tell you this. One day the English and Americans will come, and you will be in their power. They will not be gentle as they were after the last war. If you kill this old man you will be hung in public on a gallows, and your body will stay there rotting as a warning to all other murderers.'

He turned to Howard: 'That ought to fetch him,' he said placidly, speaking in English.

The old man was troubled. 'I am sorry that you spoke like that,' he said. 'It will not do you any good with him.'

'Nor will anything else,' the young man said. 'I'm very nearly through.'

There was a quiet finality about his tone that made Howard wince.

'Are you sorry?' he enquired.

'No, by God I'm not,' Charenton said, and he laughed boyishly. 'We didn't succeed in getting Adolf, but we gave him the hell of a fright.'

Behind them the door opened. They swung round; there was a German Gefreiter there with a private. The private marched into the room and stood by Howard. The Gefreiter said roughly: 'Kommen Sie.'

Charenton smiled as Howard got up. 'I told you so,' he said. 'Good-bye. All the best of luck.'

'Good-bye,' said the old man. He was hustled out of the room before he had time to say more. As he passed down the corridor to the street he saw through an open door the black uniformed Gestapo officer, his face dark with anger. With a sick heart Howard walked out into the sunlit square between his guards.

They took him back to Nicole and the children. Ronnie rushed up to hun. 'Marjan has been showing us how to stand on our heads,' he said excitedly. 'I can do it and so can Pierre. Willem can't, and none of the girls. Look, Mr Howard. Just look!'

In a welter of children standing on their heads Nicole looked anxiously at him. 'They did nothing?' she enquired.

The old man shook his head. They used me to try to make a young man called Charenton talk,' he said. He told her briefly what had happened.

That is their way,' she said. 'I have heard of that in Chartres. To gain their end through pain they do not work on the body. They work on the mind.'

The long afternoon dragged into evening. Cooped in the little prison room it was very hot and difficult to keep the children happy. There was nothing for them to do, nothing to look at, nothing to read to them. Nicole and Howard found themselves before long working hard to keep the peace and to stop quarrels, and this in one way was a benefit to them in that it made it difficult for them to brood on their own position.

At last the German orderly brought them another meal, a supper of bitter coffee and long lengths of bread. This caused a diversion and a rest from the children; presently, the old man and the girl knew very well, the children would grow sleepy. When the orderly came back for the supper things they asked for beds.

He brought them straw-filled palliasses, with a rough pillow and one blanket each. They spent some time arranging these; by that time the children were tired and willing to lie down.

The long hours of the evening passed in bored inactivity. Nicole and Howard sat on their palliasses, brooding; from time to time exchanging a few words and relapsing into silence. At about ten o'clock they went to bed; taking off their outer clothes only, they lay down and covered themselves with the blanket.

Howard slept fairly well that night, the girl not so well. Very early in the morning, in the half-light before dawn, the door of their prison opened with a clatter. The Gefreiter was there, fully dressed and equipped with bayonet at his belt and steel helmet on his head.

He shook Howard by the shoulder. 'Auf!' he said. He indicated to him that he was to get up and dress himself.

Nicole raised herself on one arm, a little frightened. 'Do they want me?' she asked in French. The man shook his head.

Howard, putting on his coat, turned to her in the dim light. This will be another of their enquiries,' he said. 'Don't worry. I shall be back before long.'

She was deeply troubled. 'I shall be waiting for you, with the children,' she said simply. They will be safe with me.'

'I know they will,' he said. 'Au revoir,'

In the cold dawn they took him out into the square and along to the big house with the swastika flag, opposite the church, where they had first been interrogated. He was not taken to the same room, but to an upstairs room at the back. It had been a bedroom at one time and some of the bedroom furniture was still in place, but the bed had been removed and now it was some kind of office.

The black uniformed Gestapo officer, Major Diessen, was standing by the window. 'So,' he said, 'we have the Englishman again.'

Howard was silent. The German spoke a few words in his own language to the Gefreiter and the private who had brought Howard to the room. The Gefreiter saluted and withdrew, closing the door behind him. The private remained standing at attention by the door. The cold, grey light was now strong in the room.

'Come,' said the German at the window. 'Look out. Nice garden, is it not?'

The old man approached the window. There was a garden there, entirely surrounded by high old red-brick walls covered with fruit trees. It was a well-kept, mature garden, such as he liked to see.

'Yes,' he said quietly. 'It is a nice garden.' Instinctively he felt the presence of some trap.

The German said: 'Unless you help him, in a few minutes your friend Mr Charenton will die in it. He is to be shot as a spy.'

The old man stared at him. 'I don't know what is in your mind that you have brought me here,' he said. 'I met Charenton for the first time yesterday, when you put us together. He is a very brave young man and a good one. If you are going to shoot him, you are doing a bad thing. A man like that should be allowed to live, to work for the world when this war is all over.'

'A very nice speech,' the German said. 'I agree with you; he should be allowed to live. He shall live, if you help him. He shall be a prisoner to the end of the war which will not be long now. Six months at the most. Then he will be free.'

He turned to the window. 'Look,' he said. 'They are bringing him out.'

The old man turned and looked. Down the garden path a little cordon of six German soldiers, armed with rifles, were escorting Charenton. They were under the command of a Feldwebel; an officer rather behind Charenton, who walked slowly, his hands, in his trousers-pockets. He did not seem to be pinioned in any way, nor did he seem to be particularly distressed.

Howard turned to the German. 'What do you want?' he asked. 'Why have you brought me to see this?'

'I have had you brought here,' said the German, 'to see if you would not help your friend, at a time when he needs help.'

He leaned towards the old man. 'Listen,' he said softly. 'It is a very little thing, that will not injure either of you. Nor will it make any difference to the war, because in any case your country now is doomed. If you will tell me how he got the information out of France and back to England, to your Major Cochrane, I will stop this execution.'

He stepped back. 'What do you think?' he said. 'You must be realist. It is not sensible to let a brave young man die, when he could be saved to work for your country when the war is over. And further, nobody can ever know. Charenton will stay in prison till the war is over, in a month or two; then he will be released. You and your family of children will have to stay in France, but if you help us now you need not stay in prison at all. You can live quietly in Chartres with the young woman. Then, when the war is over, in the autumn, you shall all go home. There will be no enquiries about this from England, because by that time the whole organisation of British spies will have become dispersed. There is no danger for you in this at all, and you can save that young man's life.' He leaned towards Howard again. 'Just a few little words,' he said softly. 'How did he do it? He shall never know you told.'

The old man stared at him. 'I cannot tell you,' he replied. 'Quite truthfully, I do not know. I have not been concerned in his affairs at all.' He said it with a sense of relief. If he had had the information things would have been more difficult.

The Gestapo officer stepped back. That is mere nonsense,' he said harshly. 'I do not believe that. You know sufficient to assist an agent of your country if he needs your help. All travellers in any foreign country know that much. Do you take me for a fool?'

Howard said: 'That may be so with German travellers. In England ordinary travellers know nothing about espionage. I tell you, I know literally nothing that could help this man.'

The German bit his lip. He said: 'I am inclined to think you are a spy yourself. You have been wandering round the country in disguise, nobody knows where. You had better be careful. You may share his fate.'

'Even so,' the old man said, 'I could not tell you anything of value to you, because I do not know.'

Diessen turned to the window again. 'You have not got very much time,' he said. 'A minute or two, not more. Think again before it is too late.'

Howard looked out into the garden. They had put the young man with his back against the wall in front of a plum-tree. His hands now were bound behind his back, and the Feldwebel was blindfolding him with a red cotton handkerchief.

The German said: 'Nobody can ever know. There is still time for you to save him.'

'I cannot save him in that way,' the old man said. 'I have not got the information. But this is a bad, wicked thing that you are going to do. It will not profit you in the long run.'

The Gestapo officer swung round on him suddenly. He thrust his face near to the old man's. 'He gave you messages,' he said fiercely. 'You think you are clever, but you cannot deceive me. The "Trout Inn" - beer - flowers - fish! Do you think I am a fool? What does all that mean?'

'Nothing but what he said,' Howard replied. 'It is a place that he is fond of. That is all.'

The German drew back morosely. 'I do not believe it,' he said sullenly.

In the garden the Feldwebel had left the young man by the wall. The six soldiers were drawn up in a line in front of him, distant about ten yards. The officer had given them a command and they were loading.

'I am not going to delay this matter any longer,' said Diessen: 'Have you still nothing to say to save his life?'

The old man shook his head.

In the garden the officer glanced up to their window. Diessen lifted his hand and dropped it. The officer turned, drew himself up and gave a sharp word of command. An irregular volley rang out. The old man saw the body by the plum-tree crumple and fall, twitch for a little and lie still.

He turned away, rather sick. Diessen moved over to the middle of the room. The sentry still stood impassive at the door.

'I do not know whether I should believe your story or not,'the German said heavily at last. 'If you are a spy you are at least a clever one.'

Howard said: 'I am not a spy.'

'What are you doing in this country, then? Wandering round disguised as a French peasant?'

'I have told you that,' the old man said wearily, 'many times. I have been trying to get these children back to England, to send them to their homes or to America.'

The German burst out: 'Lies - lies! Always the same lies! You English are the same every time! Stubborn as mules!' He thrust his face into the other's. 'Criminals, all the lot of you!' He indicated the garden beyond the window. 'You could have prevented that, but you would not.'

'I could not have prevented you from killing that young man. That was your own doing.'

The Gestapo officer said, gloomily: 'I did not want to kill him. He forced me to do it, you and he between you. You are both to blame for his death. You left me with no other course.'

There was a silence. Then the German said: 'All your time you spend lymg and scheming against us. Your Churchill and your Chamberlain, goading us on, provoking us to war. And you are just another one.'

The old man did not answer that.

The German pulled himself together, crossed the room, and sat down at a table. 'This story of yours about sending these children to America,' he said. 'I do not believe a word of it.'

The old man was very, very tired. He said, indifferently: 'I can't help that. That is what I meant to do with them.'

'You still say that you would have sent them to your married daughter?'

'Yes.'

'Where does she live in America?'

'At a place called Coates Harbor, on Long Island.'

'Long Island. That is where the wealthy live. Is your daughter very wealthy?'

The old man said: 'She is married to an American business man. Yes, they are quite well off.'

The German said incredulously: 'You still wish me to believe that a wealthy woman such as that would make a home in her own house for all these dirty little children that you have picked up?'

Howard said: 'She will do that.' He paused, and then he said, 'You do not understand. Over there, they want to help us. If they make a home for children, refugees from Europe, they feel that they are doing something worth while. And they are.'

The German glanced at him curiously. 'You have travelled in America?'

'A little.'

'Do you know a town called White Falls?'

Howard shook his head. 'That sounds like quite a common name, but I don't recollect it. What state is it in?'

'In Minnesota. Is that far from Long Island?'

'It's right in the middle. I should think it's about a thousand miles.' This conversation was becoming very odd, the old man thought.

The German said: 'Now about mademoiselle. Were you going to send her to America also? Is she one of your children, may I ask?'

The old man shook his head. 'I would like her to go there,' he replied. 'But she will not leave France. Her father is a prisoner in your hands; her mother is alone in Chartres. I have tried to persuade her to come with us to England, but she will not do so. You have nothing against her.'

The other shrugged his shoulders. 'That is a matter of opinion. She has been helping you in your work.'

The old man said wearily: 'I tell you over and over again, I have no secret work. I know that you do not believe me.' He paused. 'The only work that I have had for the last fortnight has-been to get these children into safety.'

There was a little silence.

'Let them go through to England,' he said quietly. 'Let the young man Focquet sail with them for Plymouth in his boat, and let Mademoiselle Rougeron go with them to take them to America. If you let them go, like that, I will confess to anything you like.'

The Gestapo man stared at him angrily. 'You are talking nonsense,' he replied. 'That is an insult to the German nation that you have just made. Do you take us for a pack of dirty Russians, to make bargains of that sort?'

Howard was silent.

The German got up and walked over to the window. 'I do not know what to make of you,' he said at last. 'I think that you must be a very brave man, to talk as you have done.'

Howard smiled faintly. 'Not a brave man,' he said. 'Only a very old one. Nothing you can do can take much from me, because I've had it all.'

The German did not answer him. He spoke in his own language to the sentry, and they took Howard back to the prison room.

Chapter 11

Nicole greeted him with relief. She had spent an hour of unbearable anxiety, tortured by the thought of what might be happening to him, pestered by the children. She said: 'What happened?'

He said wearily: 'The young man, Charenton, was shot. Then they questioned me a lot more.'

She said gently: 'Sit down and rest. They will bring us coffee before very long. You will feel better after that.'

He sat down on his rolled-up mattress. 'Nicole,' he said. 'I believe there is a chance that they might let the children go to England without me. If so, would you take them?'

She said: 'Me? To go alone to England with the children? I do not think that that would be a good thing, Monsieur Howard.'

'I would like you to go, if it were possible.'

She came and sat by him. 'Is it for the children that you want this, or for me?' he asked.

He could not answer that. 'For both,' he said at last.

With clear logic she said: 'In England there will be many people, friends of yours and the relations of the English children, who will care for them. You have only to write a letter, and send it with them if they have to go without you. But for me, I have told you, I have no business in England - now. My country is this country, and my parents are here and in trouble. It is here that I must stay.'

He nodded ruefully. 'I was afraid that you would feel like that.'

Half an hour later the door of their room was thrust open, and two German privates appeared outside. They were carrying a table. With some difficulty they got it through the door and set it up in the middle of the room. Then they brought in eight chairs and set them with mathematical exactitude around the table.

Nicole and Howard watched this with surprise. They had eaten all their meals since they had been in captivity from plates balanced in their hands, helped from a bowl that stood on the floor. This was something different in their treatment, something strange and suspicious.

The soldiers withdrew. Presently, the door opened again, and in walked a little French waiter balancing a tray, evidently from some neighbouring café. A German soldier followed him and stood over him in menacing silence. The man, evidently frightened, spread a cloth on the table and set out cups and saucers, a large pot of hot coffee and a jug of hot milk, new rolls, butter, sugar, jam, and a plate of cut rounds of sausage. Then he withdrew quickly, in evident relief. Impassively, the German soldier shut the door on them again.

The children crowded round the table, eager. Howard and Nicole helped them into their chairs and set to work to feed them. The girl glanced at the old man.

'This is a great change,' she said quietly. 'I do not understand why they are doing this.'

He shook his head. He did not understand it either.

Lurking in his mind was a thought that he did not speak, that this was a new trick to win him into some admission. They had failed with fear; now they would try persuasion.

The children cleared the table of all that was on it and got down, satisfied. A quarter of an hour later the little waiter reappeared, still under guard; he gathered up the cloth and cleared the table, and retired again in silence. But the door did not close.

One of the sentries came to it and said: 'Sit konnen in den Garten gehen.' With difficulty Howard understood this to mean that they might go into the garden.

There was a small garden behind the house, completely surrounded by a high brick wall, not unlike another garden that the old man had seen earlier in the day. The children rushed out into it with a carillon of shrill cries; a day of close confinement had been a grave trial to them. Howard followed with Nicole, wondering.

It was another brilliant, sunlit day, already growing hot. Presently, two German soldiers appeared carrying arm-chairs. These two chairs they set with mathematical exactitude precisely in the middle of a patch of shade beneath a tree. 'Setzen Sie sich,' they said.

Nicole and Howard sat down side by side, self-consciously, in silence. The soldiers withdrew, and a sentry with a rifle and a fixed bayonet appeared at the only exit from the garden. There he grounded his rifle and stood at ease, motionless and expressionless. There was something sinister about all these developments.

Nicole said: 'Why are they doing this for us, monsieur? What do they hope to gain by it?'

He said: 'I do not know. Once, this morning, I thought perhaps that they were going to let us go - or at any rate, let the children go to England. But even that would be no reason for giving us arm-chairs in the shade.'

She said quietly: 'It is a trap. They want something from us; therefore they try to please us.'

He nodded. 'Still,' he said, 'it is more pleasant here than in that room.'

Marjan, the little Pole, was as suspicious as they were. He sat aside on the grass in sullen silence; since they had been taken prisoner he had barely spoken one word. Rose, too was ill at ease; she wandered round the garden, peering at the high walls as if looking for a means to escape. The younger children were untouched; Ronnie and Pierre and Willem and Sheila played little games around the garden or stood, finger in mouth, looking at the German sentry.

Presently Nicole, looking round, saw that the old man was asleep in his arm-chair.

They spent the whole day in the garden, only going back into their prison room for meals. Déjeuner and diner were served in the same way by the same silent little waiter under guard; good, plentiful meals, well cooked and attractively served. After dinner the German soldiers removed the table and the chairs, and indicated that they might lay out their beds. They did so and put all the children down to sleep.

Presently Howard and Nicole went to bed themselves.

The old man had slept only for an hour when the door was thrust open by a German soldier. He bent and shook the old man by the shoulder. 'Kommen Sie,' he said. 'Schnell - zur Gestapo.'

Howard got up wearily and put on his coat and shoes in the darkness. From her bed Nicole said: 'What is it? Can I come too?'

He said: 'I don't think so, my dear. It's just me that they want.'

She expostulated: 'But what a time to choose!'

The German soldier made a gesture of impatience.

Howard said: 'Don't worry. It's probably another interrogation.'

He was hustled away and the door closed behind him. In the dark room the girl got up and put on her skirt, and sat waiting in the darkness, sitting on her bed among the sleeping children, full of forebodings.

Howard was taken to the room in which they had first been interviewed. The Gestapo officer, Major Diessen, was there sitting at the table. An empty coffee cup stood beside him, and the room was full of his cigar-smoke. The German soldier who brought Howard in saluted stiffly. The officer spoke a word to him, and he withdrew, closing the door behind him. Howard was left alone in the room with Major Diessen.

He glanced at the clock. It was a little after midnight. The windows had been covered over with blankets for a blackout.

Presently the German looked up at the old man standing by the wall. 'So,' he said. 'The Englishman again.' He opened a drawer beside him and took out a large, black automatic pistol. He slipped out the clip and examined it; then put it back again and pulled the breech to load it. He laid it on the blotting-pad in front of him. 'We are alone,' he said. 'I am not taking any chances, as you see.'

The old man smiled faintly. 'You have nothing to fear from me.'

The German said: 'Perhaps not. But you have much to fear from me.'

There was a little silence. Presently he said: 'Suppose I were to let you go to England after all? What would you think then, eh?'

The old man's heart leapt and then steadied again. It was probably a trap. 'I should be very grateful, if you let me take the children,' he said quietly.

'And mademoiselle too?'

He shook his head. 'She does not want to come. She wants to stay in France.'

The German nodded. 'That is what we also want.' He paused, and then said: 'You say that you would be grateful. We will see now if that is just an empty boast. If I were to let you go to England with your children, so that you could send them to America, would you do me a small service?'

Howard said: 'It depends what it was.'

The Gestapo man flared out: 'Bargaining! Always the same, you English! One tries to help you, and you start chaffering! You are in no position to drive bargains, Mr Englishman!'

The old man persisted: 'I must know what you want me to do.'

The German said: 'It is a matter of no difficulty...'

There was a short pause.

His hand strayed to the black automatic on the desk before him, and began fingering it. 'There is a certain person to be taken to America,' he said deliberately. 'I do not want to advertise her journey. It would be very suitable that she should travel with your party of children.'

The gun was now in his hand, openly.

Howard stared at him across the table. 'If you mean that you want to use my party as a cover for an agent going to America,' he said, 'I will not have it.'

He saw the forefinger snap round the trigger. He raised his eyes to the German's face and saw it white with anger. For a full half-minute they remained motionless, staring at each other.

The Gestapo officer was the first to relax. 'You would drive me mad,' he said bitterly. 'You are a stubborn and obstinate people. You refuse the hand of friendship. You are suspicious of everything we do.'

Howard was silent. There was no point in saying more than was necessary. It would not help.

'Listen to me,' the German said, 'and try to get this into your thick head. This is not an agent who is travelling to America. This is a little girl.'

'A little girl?'

'A little girl of five years old. The daughter of my brother, who has been killed.'

The gun was firmly in his hand, resting on the desk but pointing in the direction of the old man.

Howard said: 'Let me understand this fully. This is a little German girl that you want me to take to America, with all the other children?'

'That is so.'

'Who is she, and where is she going?'

The German said: 'I have told you who she is. She is the daughter of my brother Karl. Her name is Anna Diessen, and at present she is in Paris.'

He hesitated for a minute. 'You must understand,' he said, 'that there were three of us. My oldest brother Rupert fought in the World War, and then went to America. He now has a business, what you would call a grocery, in White Falls. He is an American citizen now.'

'I see,' said Howard thoughtfully.

'My brother Karl was Oberleutnant in the 4th Regiment Tanks, in the Second Panzer Division. He was married some years ago, but the marriage was not a success.' He hesitated for a moment and then said quickly: The girl was not wholly Aryan, and that never works. There was trouble, and she died. And now Karl, too, is dead.'

He sat brooding for a minute. Howard said gently: 'I am very sorry.' And he was.

Diessen said sullenly: 'It was English treachery that killed him. He was driving the English before him, from Amiens to the coast. There was a road cluttered up with refugees, and he was clearing it with his guns to get his tank through. And hiding in amongst these refugees were English soldiers that Karl did not see, and they threw bottles of oil on top of his cupola so they dripped down inside, and then they threw a flame to set the oil alight. My brother threw the hatch up to get out, and the English shot him down before he could surrender. But he had already surrendered, and they knew it. No man could go on fighting in a blazing tank.'

Howard was silent.

Diessen said: 'So there is Anna who must be provided for. I think it will be better if she goes to live with Rupert in America.'

The old man said: 'She is five years old?'

'Five and a half years.'

Howard said: 'Well, I should be very glad to take her.'

The German stared at him thoughtfully. 'How quickly after you reach England will the children go? How many of them are you sending to America? All of them?'

Howard shook his head. 'I doubt that. Three of them will certainly be going, but of the six two are English and one is a French girl with a father in London. I don't suppose that they would want to go - they might. But I shall send the other three within a week. That is, if you let us go.'

The German nodded. 'You must not wait longer. In six weeks we shall be in London.'

There was a silence. 'I do not want that you should think I am not confident about the outcome of this war,' Diessen said. 'We shall conquer England, as we have conquered France; you cannot stand against us. But for many years there will be war with your Dominions, and while that is going on there will be not much food for children, here or in Germany. It will be better that little Anna should be in a neutral country.'

Howard nodded. 'Well, she can go with my lot if you like to send her.'

The Gestapo officer eyed him narrowly. 'There must be no trickery. Remember, we shall have Mademoiselle Rougeron. She may return to Chartres and live with her mother, but until I have a cable from my brother Rupert that little Anna is safe with him, we shall have our eye on mademoiselle.'

'As a hostage,' said the old man quietly.

'As a hostage.' The German stared at him arrogantly. 'And another thing, also. If any word of this appears, it is the concentration camp for your young lady. I will not have you spreading lies about me as soon as you reach England. Remember that.'

Howard thought quickly. 'That has another side to it,' he said. 'If Mademoiselle Rougeron gets into trouble with the Gestapo and I should hear of it in England, this story shall be published in my country and quoted in the German news on the radio, mentioning you by name.'

Diessen said furiously: 'You dare to threaten me!'

The old man smiled faintly. 'Let us call off this talk of threats,' he said. 'We are in each other's hands, and I will make a bargain with you. I will take your little girl and she shall travel safely to White Falls, even if I have to send her by the Clipper. On your side, you will look after Mademoiselle Rougeron and see that she comes to no harm. That is a bargain that will suit us both, and we can part as friends.'

The German stared at him for a long time, 'So,' he said at last. 'You are clever, Mr Englishman. You have gained all that you want.'

'So have you,' the old man said.

The German released the automatic and reached out for a slip of paper. 'What address have you in England? I shall send for you when we visit London in August.'

They settled to the details of the arrangement. A quarter of an hour later the German got up from the table. 'No word of this to anyone,' he said again. 'Tomorrow in the evening you will be moved from here.'

Howard shook his head. 'I shall not talk. But I would like you to know one thing. I should have been glad to take your little girl with me in any case. It never entered my head to refuse to take her.'

The German nodded. 'That is good,' he said. 'If you had refused I should have shot you dead. You would have been too dangerous to leave this room alive.'

He bowed stiffly. 'Auf Wiedersehen,' he said ironically. He pressed a button on his desk; the door opened and the sentry took Howard back through the quiet, moonlit streets to his prison.

Nicole was sitting on her bed, waiting for him. As the door closed she came to him and said: 'What happened? Did they hurt you?'

He patted her on the shoulder. 'It's all right,' he said. They did nothing to me.'

'What happened, then? What did they want you for?'

He sat down on the bed and she came and sat down opposite him. The moon threw a long shaft of silver light in through the window; faintly, somewhere, they heard the droning of a bomber.

'Listen, Nicole,' he said. 'I can't tell you what has happened. But I can tell you this, and you must try to forget what I am telling you. Everything is going to be all right. We shall go to England very soon, all of the children - and I shall go too. And you will go free, and travel back to Chartres to live with your mother, and you will have no trouble from the Gestapo. That is what is going to happen.'

She said breathlessly: 'But - I do not understand. How has this been arranged?'

He said: 'I cannot tell you that. I cannot tell you any more, Nicole. But that is what will happen, very soon.'

'You are not tired, or ill? This is all true, but you must not tell me how it has been done?'

He nodded. 'We shall go tomorrow or the next day,' he replied. There was a steady confidence in his tone which brought conviction to her.

'I am very, very happy,' she said quietly.

There was a long silence. Presently she said: 'Sitting here in the darkness while you were away, I have been thinking, monsieur.' In the dim light he could see that she was looking away from him. 'I was wondering what these children would grow up to be when they were old. Ronnie - I think he will become an engineer, and Marjan a soldier, and Willem - he will be a lawyer or a doctor. And Rose will be a mother certainly, and Sheila - she may be a mother too, or she may become one of your English women of business. And little Pierre - do you know what I think of him? I think that he will be an artist of some sort, who will lead many other men with his ideas.'

'I think that's very likely,' said the old man.

The girl went on. 'Ever smee John was killed, monsieur, I have been desolate,' she said quietly. 'It seemed to me that there was no goodness in the world, that everything had gone mad and crazy and foul - that God had died or gone away, and left the world to Hitler. Even these little children were to go on suffering.'

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 I, 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 on 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 arm-chair 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 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 RTO; 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 on the platform. Howard had no money. He explained the requirements 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 on 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 on 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. 'Komm, 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 minds 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 on the harbour.'

Diessen said: 'There is no guard tonight - 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 the 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 on 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 he could see was the faint outline of the hill against the starry sky.