Assignment in Brittany (11 page)

Kerénor bowed, and wheeling abruptly on his heel he limped out of the door. Masochist, thought Hearne, and then as the girl in the clinging flowered dress turned her face once more towards him, he forgot Kerénor.

“You look as if you could scarcely believe your eyes,” she teased in her low voice.

“I—I didn’t know—”

“Of course not. I was in Paris after Strasbourg was evacuated. Now it is more—well, suitable”—her eyes emphasised the word—“that I should come back here.”

Hearne stood without speaking. Who on earth was this girl? Corlay had told him of Anne, of Albertine, of his mother; of everything, it now seemed, except a goddess with green eyes and a warm smile, with smooth white skin and sculptured bones.

She interpreted his silence in her own way. “You were worried about me? And I was for you. I thought you were either dead or taken by the English and I wouldn’t see you perhaps ever again. But now we needn’t worry any more. I may be here for a month, two months.” She paused.

“When can we meet? Tonight? The usual place?”

Hearne was taken aback. He hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” the girl asked.

“Would it be safe?” he hedged.

“Why not?” The large eyes were still larger. “I’ve so much to tell you. I must see you.” It was a command.

“Of course,” Hearne said.” Of course.”

“Is that all you can say?” There was a frown shadowing the smooth brow.

“You are so beautiful.”

She laughed, as if to herself. “That is better... So you still love me?”

“Yes, I love you.”

“More than ever?”

Then the grating of the restaurant door interrupted them. A large woman, tightly encased in black silk, her hair flagrantly dyed and tortured into rigid waves, had entered the bar-room.

“Elise,” she said, and motioned with her head towards the restaurant.

“Yes, Aunt Marie. Coming.”

“Be quick, then.” The large woman nodded again. She
looked at Hearne and pursed her lips; and then the door screeched once more.

Hearne stiffened. “Who are your friends in there?”

“Bertrand!” The girl was delighted. “I’ve told you before you mustn’t be jealous. Business is merely business.” She looked contemptuously round the empty room, at the desolate tables, at the small group of men sitting so silently in the window alcove. “We have still a lot of work to do,” she added. “You will be needed more than ever. I’ll tell you when I see you. Tonight...” She hesitated and glanced towards the restaurant door. “Well, perhaps tomorrow night would be better. Tomorrow night at ten o’clock?”

“Yes,” said Hearne. There was nothing else he could say. “Tomorrow night at ten. At the—?”

“Yes, at the usual place.” She gave him a last long look, a warm smile, a pressure of her cool, slender hand. The protesting door was held open long enough for a glance over her shoulder and a last smile; for his eyes to see the tables beyond, empty except for one where three uniformed men had risen to their feet.

Hearne took a deep breath. He needed it.

He had left the Hôtel Perro and the market-place behind him before his thoughts began to take, shape. He felt like a man who had been caught in a strong river current and had managed, somehow, to pull himself out on to the bank. He passed some men, but he kept his eyes fixed moodily on the road. Someone said in a strong Breton voice, “It’s Corlay.” But Hearne only raised a hand in greeting, and kept his eyes lowered. He had had just about enough for one night; just about. And then he remembered, that tonight he’d have to try a first journey. He’d have to test that front door. Sometime before supper he’d
have to examine that lock, perhaps grease it. Sometime when Albertine was feeding the hens or even looking after the cows; for Henri wouldn’t be much use this evening.

He quickened his pace. The fields were empty, the woods were silent. In the autumn, when the late evening sun rested on the rich brown leaves, the trees would match that girl’s hair. But he wouldn’t be here to see. By the beginning of September his job would—must be finished. No, he wouldn’t be here to see. “All right, then,” he said to himself savagely. “You won’t be here in September. You’ll be lucky if you are anywhere in September.”

In the farm-house kitchen he found Henri sitting at the smaller table, his elbows on the hard wood, his eyes firmly closed. There was the sound of a piano.

Albertine’s face was like a thundercloud. “He came in without a word and sat down and went to sleep,” she said. “Not a word out of his head, not a word. And after me worrying myself to death over him, and all the work left undone.” She stopped abruptly. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice unexpectedly softening.

“Nothing. Not many Germans so far. Just some flags and some large notices plastered on the walls. Where’s the American?”

Albertine smiled and pointed to the ceiling above her head. Hearne listened more intently. It wasn’t well played, and it was softly played, but there was no doubt about the tune. It was
I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby.

9

PAGES FROM THE LIFE OF BERTRAND CORLAY

When Hearne awoke next morning, his legs stiff, his arm cramped in the deepness of sleep into which his exhaustion had plunged him, he noticed first his muddied boots lying drunkenly on the floor, then his clothes abandoned in a heap beside them, and last of all the half-open door leading to the store-room. A chair scraped; something moved. Hearne, suddenly very much awake, pulled on the nightshirt lying at the bottom of the bed and crossed quickly to the door.

It was the American, sitting on an uncomfortable chair in front of the open window. On his crossed legs he balanced a book and some sheets of paper. He saluted Hearne with his pencil.

“Sorry if I woke you,” he said. “But I had to get up to stretch my legs.”

“Very difficult,” Hearne answered, looking at the mass of objects which were hoarded in the room. “This place looks like a furniture shop. We never throw anything away.”

“Some people would pay a lot of money for much of this stuff.”

“But they seldom do.”

The American grinned. “I guess not. We are all bargain-hunters.”

“How is your writing getting on?”

“Not so hot. But I am getting the stuff on to paper: that’s the main thing.”

“It must be very interesting.”

“It’ll sell, anyway.”

“Won’t it be dangerous to take notes along with you?”

“I’ll abandon them if need be. Meanwhile I get everything in order, and I’ll remember the facts better when I see them written down. That’s the way my memory works.”

“Are you comfortable? Did you sleep well?” Hearne was being the polite host.

Myles laughed. “After three weeks of straw, if I was lucky?”

Hearne smiled wholeheartedly. Then Myles wouldn’t have heard him last night. Not that he had made much noise: the door had worked smoothly enough after proper coaxing. He had left the house at ten when every one seemed asleep, and he had returned before dawn. Myles hadn’t made any joke, either, about the clothes on the bedroom floor. Perhaps the curtained window had blocked enough light so that the American had only noticed a crumpled heap instead of mud. And dampness couldn’t be seen; it wasn’t likely that anyone moving quickly through another man’s bedroom was going to stop to touch things. Hearne waited for a stray allusion; if Myles had noticed anything, now would be the time for one of his cracks. But Myles was smiling placidly, trying without
much success to ignore Hearne’s nightshirt. Chapter nineteen, thought Hearne: “The Bretons at Home.” He looked down at his knees, wondering how they’d appear in print.

“I’d better get dressed. I seem to have slept very late,” Hearne said.

“It’s almost ten o’clock. I suppose that’s almost the day over in this country.”

“Almost. I’ve been ill, so Albertine lets me sleep half the day. Now I’ve got some work to do. I write, too.”

“What’s your line?” The American was interested.

“Oh, only small things.” Hearne was charmingly modest.

“I’d like to see some of them.”

“Thank you. We must compare our different styles.” Hearne smiled and nodded towards the pages of notes on the American’s knee. “Now, if you will excuse me...” He bowed as gallantly as he could in the short shirt.

“Of course.” Myles was being equally gallant. He saluted again with the pencil. He was trying valiantly to hide a private joke. Hearne kept his face straight with difficulty. This was a moment when he would have liked to discard this French-intoned English for his own voice to say, “Go on, old man, have your laugh. It’s on me.” He bowed again.

“Hope I’m not disturbing you,” Myles called after him. “This was Albertine’s idea. She wouldn’t have me downstairs in case anyone looked through a window. Which reminds me— did you see many Germans yesterday?”

Hearne came back to the door. He had pulled on his crumpled trousers and the harsh wool sweater. “Not many, so far,” he said. “There were some officers in the hotel, and a handful of soldiers. But not enough to patrol the farms. Not
yet, anyway. I think you’ll be safe.”

“As long as I keep away from the main road and that railway. That’s how I found myself on your farm. Two nights ago I was down in the valley. It wasn’t so healthy, so I came up on to the hillside.”

“I wonder what the Boches want down there?”

“It’s a main line from North-eastern France to the coast. I’m telling you I saw enough stuff being rolled over these tracks to set up whole airfields.”

“But couldn’t they fly planes? Why do they send them by train?”

The American was very patient. He was, decided Hearne, a decent sort of chap. And he liked to explain. “You fly planes, certainly. But then there are the spare parts, and the oil, and a hundred other things to fix up an airport.”

“But we had some aerodromes near here, I think.”

“If they weren’t destroyed completely, they are only being fixed for decoys. The Germans are building others. And this part of the country is good. It can’t be shelled from the English coast, but it’ll make a good spring-board against Southampton and Plymouth. These airports are springing up everywhere. I’m telling you I saw them with my two eyes. I could name ten places I’ve come through, all of them with new camouflaged airfields. They are so well hidden—netting and leaves over the planes, lying well spread out beside clumps of innocent trees, with little runways to hayfields which are the real taking-off point—that I almost got caught at one of them. I had been coming through a thicket of trees, and there was a path ahead. At one end of the path was a plane all in fancy dress; at the other end there was a hayfield. I had been avoiding a big hangar and a fine airfield
about three miles away to my left. It must have been a dummy. I guess the idea is that the British will probably find out there’s an air base beside village X. They will come over and bomb X, and will naturally aim for the flying field. The Germans at point X, but just a mile or two from danger, will smile and rub their hands and go on bombing Britain.”

“It would be very important, then, for the British to find out—” Hearne halted and shrugged his shoulders. “But it would be too difficult.”

“It would be important. And not too difficult. I myself could tell them of several places which would interest them. And I’m willing to bet the British have ways of their own for finding out.”

Hearne shrugged his shoulders again. “It seems so hopeless,” he said.

The American smiled. “The British don’t know what that word means. They can drive an American nuts with their slowness and self-complacency. But they never think anything’s hopeless.”

There was a pause.

“How are the feet?” Hearne asked politely.

Myles looked at them in their white linen wrappings. “Doing nicely, I think. This was Albertine’s idea, too. She covered them with some kind of paste which her grandmother used. It certainly looked mouldy enough, but it’s working miracles. They don’t even hurt now when I stand on them.”

“Good,” Hearne said, and turned towards his room. “I must work now, if you’ll excuse me.” He bowed gravely. The American saluted again with the pencil; his eyes weren’t at all grave.

* * *

It didn’t take Hearne very long to jot down in his private shorthand all the particulars he had noted last night. He considered that journey merely as a kind of introduction to the countryside round the railway. Tomorrow he would explore westward and watch the roadway from Rennes to Saint-Malo on the coast. Once he got accustomed to short cuts and patches of good cover, he would travel more quickly. But even judging from what he had seen tonight, his job might be quite useful. That idea cheered him; he wrote quickly and continuously. When the time came to get a report sent out from Mont Saint-Michel he could choose the most urgent of these points. Meanwhile, like the American, he was noting everything down.

Myles’s remarks had only confirmed his own observations. There was some terrific construction work going on up there to the north of Saint-Déodat. He remembered that the railways ran through the old town of Dol before it swerved north-west to the coast. And northward above Dol the land was a flat plain, miles and miles of plain, most of which had been reclaimed from the sea. The more he thought of Dol, the more interesting he found it. First, there was the railway direct from the east to Dol. Secondly, Dol was connected to Dinan by a good road, and Dinan was at the end of the canal from Rennes. Thirdly, there was a main highway from the east which ended at Saint-Malo on the coast, and that highway cut across the road from Dinan to Dol. So Dol could be served three ways if the traffic were heavy towards that town. And Dol, lying back from the sea-coast, commanded a long stretch of plain. Yes, this job he had to do might be quite useful.

He finished his last entry, and looked round the room for
some place to keep these notes safely. The empty bookshelves yawned at him from the corner. “Stop gaping at me,” he told them. “I’ll soon have you filled up.” His words gave him the idea: the safest place for his sheet of paper, and the sheets which would be added, was the inside of a book. He looked at the rest of the furniture: this table on which he had written, with its one unlocked drawer kept obviously for writing material; the chest beside the bed; the wardrobe; the concealed wash-basin affair. None of these was practicable: Albertine had access to everything. The only thing which wouldn’t interest her would be the contents of the bookcase. He rose and walked over to the bed, pulling the cover aside. He felt the mattresses: straw, feather, wool, in that order. No, he decided: they’d only ooze if he split them, and their depths could lose anything they were hiding. It would have to be the bookcase.