Assignment in Brittany (15 page)

She was about to say more, when Albertine entered. “I’ve opened the wine, Madame. But the American won’t take any until you have had the first glass.”

Madame Corlay was smiling. Watching the pleasure in her
eyes, Hearne wondered how he could have been so mistaken when he had first seen her. An honest laugh, a kind word, a friendly idea: they didn’t cost much. The more he thought of it all, the more Corlay seemed just a bloated fool.

“Ask Monsieur Myles if he will be so good as to join us,” Madame Corlay said. “And over in that dresser you will find four glasses.”

“Your best crystal?” Albertine was shocked.

“Four glasses, Albertine.”

When Myles came there was an uncertainty in the way he halted at the threshold of the room, there was a hesitation in his usual cheery smile. He thinks we are going to turf him out right away, guessed Hearne, and gave him a reassuring grin. But Hearne’s guess was only half the explanation, as he knew when he caught the American’s wary eyes fixed on him. Myles was doing a little thinking about the Germans’ hasty departure.

Albertine had filled the four crystal glasses. In her nervousness, the bottle neck struck lightly against the rim of one of them, and a thin, clear note shimmered through the still room. The light was fading. The massive furniture stood like black shadows against the white walls.

Here we are, thought Hearne: two old Breton women, an American who’ll probably go through worse before he’s better, and an Englishman who spends his nights hiding in ditches. What would they drink to?

It was Madame Corlay who gave the toast, leaning on her cane as she rose slowly and painfully to her feet.

“To our war,” she said; and no one smiled.

12

RENDEZVOUS

The Corlay farm was asleep. The only light left burning was in Hearne’s room. He sat at the table, his watch in front of him, the diary propped against some books. He had opened it in excitement, but long since the excitement had given way to disappointment, and then the disappointment had given way to exasperation. He turned over another page. Just the same old thing, he thought, just the same old thing.

May
15. Met E.

May
20. Met E.

May
21. Talked with H.

May
25. Met E. Visit to Paris planned.

May
29. Talked with H. Meeting at Rennes.

June
12. Met E.

Met E...Met E...Met E...

All the consciously fine writing of the earlier diary had disappeared. Since January 1938 everything had become concise, objective. E. was obviously the beautiful Elise. H... that was something which Hearne could not yet understand. And nothing which he read helped to explain H. Perhaps, thought Hearne flippantly, H. was a brunette, just to complete the circle: Corlay had a redhead in Elise, a blonde in Anne.

Only once did anything longer than these brief memoranda appear. That was in December 1938, when Corlay had made his first speech. Then he had written: “The audience was small, necessarily, but appreciative. It was a terrific experience to feel them respond. When I admired, they admired. When I hated, they hated. Today they could be counted in tens, but tomorrow they may number hundreds, even thousands.” There had been some other speeches recorded after that, but Corlay had managed to curb his self-approbation. It must have been quite a strain. Once he had noted that he was tired and depressed, but that E. was encouraging. It was shortly afterwards that the trip to Paris had taken place. E. had been there too. There were no more entries about tiredness or depression after that visit to Paris.

But not all the notes were devoted to meetings with E. or H. Occasionally there would only be a number within a neat circle. Hearne remembered the loose sheets of paper held together with the elastic band, and the numbered map. Something made hard sense somewhere. Even this diary might become interesting if he only knew exactly what Corlay had been doing. His guesses weren’t enough: he had to know. He had to know what Corlay’s game had been. Then either he could stuff the diary and papers back into their hiding-place and forget about them, or—and Hearne drew a deep breath—they might prove to be something much more than interesting.

Anyway, he consoled himself, he had spent just as useful a day as he would have done lying on his bed or digging in a field. For one thing, he couldn’t have handled that conversation with Madame Corlay if he hadn’t found out more about her son than he had memorised in an English hospital. So nuts and double nuts to Matthews. The trouble with people with cold blue eyes was that they kept floating in front of you with a reprimanding look.

He strapped the watch on to his wrist thoughtfully. Twenty minutes to ten. Nuts again to Matthews. He wasn’t going to leave this self-imposed job half finished. He had to find out Corlay’s game, and Elise was his last chance for that With a suspicion of a smile, he lifted his pencil and copied Corlay’s writing as carefully as he could.
“July
9, 1940. Met E.” He closed the diary and placed it in the drawer.

And then he unlaced his boots.

Outside, the stars were dimmed by broken clouds. The young moon was shrouded. There was a smell of rain in the air. Hearne knelt under an apple tree and pulled on his boots.

He approached the dovecote with a care which would have seemed exaggerated to most people. But Hearne had learned that no care was ever exaggerated: not in this kind of work. When he was satisfied that the surrounding fields were really as deserted as they looked, he advanced through blocks of shadows to the dovecote walls. There he paused, leaning against the curved side of the tower. He regained his breath, his eyes
and ears alert. No windows. No sound of any movement. He edged carefully towards the door. It lay open, a black, gaping hole in the rough wall. There was still no sound. Either she was late, or he had credited that line of poetry with too much sense. The half-light of the moon faded behind the thickness of a cloud. He moved quickly into the darkness of the tower.

The door hadn’t been opened: it lay, torn off its hinges and abandoned, in the middle of the uneven earth floor. He tripped over it in the darkness, as his eyes looked up to the broken roof with its slits of night sky. He regained his balance, and cursed under his breath. And then something moved behind him.

He turned quickly, and instinctively reached for the shadow which had separated from the blackness of the wall. Then, as his mind caught up with his instinct, he softened his grip. What would have been a stranglehold became an embrace. He heard her gasp, and then there was a low laugh, and her arms were round his neck. Her cheeks were soft and warm. She was wearing the perfume he had noticed yesterday.

“Bertrand,” she said when she paused for breath.

“Elise,” he said for lack of anything better to say. From now on, he remembered to think, it was a case of follow-my-leader. He waited for her next move, his face pressed against the fine silk of her hair. He was thankful for the darkness. Even as his eyes became accustomed to its depths, he could only distinguish outlines. That made him feel safer, more assured.

The tenseness of her body suddenly relaxed. She drew away from him. “Come,” she said, “we have little time. You were late.”

“It was difficult tonight. My mother was ill and restless. We had visitors this afternoon and they upset her.”

“Visitors?”

“Two officers. They wanted to commandeer our house for some colonel.”

Elise had moved towards a mound of earth banked against the wall; she still held his hand. “How ridiculous... Where is your coat? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten it.” Her voice was half laughing, but only half. The iron hand in the velvet glove, thought Hearne. What was he supposed to have a coat for, anyway?

“They packed away all my clothes,” he answered. “I’ve had the devil of a time finding things since I got back.” Then, as he saw her hesitating before the mound, he guessed her thoughts.

“Here’s my jacket. That will do.” He spread it on the earth at her feet.

“Yes, that will do.” She caught his hand again and pulled him down beside her. She was wearing a thin silk dress and little else under her opened coat. Poor Anne, Hearne suddenly thought: she never had had a chance with Corlay, not one solitary chance against this. “I shall keep you warm,” Elise said. Her voice had lost its edge and was once more good-humoured.

Warm was an under-statement, Hearne thought. He said, “You’re still as beautiful.”

She laughed that slow, breath-caught laugh of hers. “But tonight we have little time for your poetry, Bertrand. When I come back from Paris you can tell me how much you love me. But tonight it is business.”

“Paris?” Hearne hoped his voice was sufficiently dismayed.

“Yes, tomorrow. That was why I had to see you tonight. That was why I was annoyed when you were late. I must be back at the hotel by eleven. A lot is happening, Bertrand.” There was an excitement breaking through her voice.

Hearne waited for her to speak again. She rested her head against his shoulder, and looked up towards the patches of cloud and stars above them. He was conscious of the coldness of the night, the warmth of her body, the line of her throat as she watched the night sky through the gaping roof, the perfume in her hair, the emotion in her voice. His mind was as alert as his senses. He waited.

“Yes, a lot is happening. And you managed to get back at the right time. Oh, Bertrand, how could you have been so stupid as to get into real fighting?”

He gave a short laugh. “I couldn’t very well avoid it, could I?”

“Well, why didn’t you get captured right at the beginning?”

“That doesn’t always work: there’s often a chap on the other side who shoots first and then questions afterwards.”

That made her laugh again. “You must tell me what happened. After I get back from Paris. Now—” Her voice was serious, assured, almost commanding. She gives the orders, Hearne judged, and the curve of her waist inside his arm didn’t soften the thought. “Now listen. They are moving into Saint-Déodat. The hotel is already taken over.” She paused for dramatic emphasis.

“So I noticed yesterday. But what trouble do they expect here? The place has been half dead for years.”

The interruption annoyed her. “There will be no trouble here, silly. That is why they’ve chosen here. Think of Saint-Déodat’s position. It’s central. It’s a control-point for the whole district. And it’s safe. It’s as safe as—as—”

“The Bank of France.”

“This isn’t the time for jokes, Bertrand, not even bad ones.”

Hearne listened to the sharp edge in her voice, and decided it
certainly wasn’t the time. And yet it was difficult to restrain his own particular brand of humour when a young woman took herself so seriously; still more difficult when the young woman was so beautiful as this one. He mumbled what might have been an apology or an endearment, and kissed her hair.

“From Saint-Déodat,” Elise went on, “the hundreds of surrounding farms and all the villages scattered over this area can be controlled, just as they were by the Church centuries ago.”

Hardly for the same ends, Hearne thought, as he answered, “But Saint-Déodat may have been central once: now it’s isolated.”

“Not with a well-made road, and that will be easy for them. It will only be a short detour, really, from the main road in the valley.”

She was excited: she was making it all sound so very important. Granted Saint-Déodat’s one-time dominance over the district, he could still think of other places which the Nazis would be more likely to pick. Then he realised what she had meant by saying it was safe. Saint-Déodat
was
safe; for he wouldn’t be the only one to believe it was negligible. That was its safety.

“The valley?” he echoed, picking up the emphasis she had used on that word.

“Yes.” The excitement in her voice increased. “The valley— or Dol, to be precise. You don’t believe me? Well, wait until you see the airfields that are being built now all round there. Wait until you see what happens in August, what the results will be by September!”

“By September?” He kept his voice casual.

“Yes!” The nonchalance in Hearne’s voice sharpened her tone. “Yes, Bertrand. By August the fifteenth the Germans will
be leaving us here. Britain will be under attack. By the middle of September Great Britain will be finished.”

Hearne kept silent.

“What are you thinking?” she asked impatiently.

Hearne said, “I’m thinking that the time is short. I haven’t seen many Germans about Saint-Déodat, so far.”

“I don’t think you need worry about their efficiency. The plans are all ready, the preparations have begun. In fact”—Elise’s voice was a mixture of amusement and sarcasm—“in fact, Monsieur Corlay, the army is arriving the day after tomorrow.”

The army...the army... And she didn’t mean masses of soldiers by that, either. She meant the army as opposed to the other branches of the invasion horde. The military element was still to come: the day after tomorrow, she had said. The hotel was already taken over by a handful of soldiers and some officers responsible for the billeting of the troops who were still to come. He suddenly wondered if there were any other types of Nazi at the hotel: Gestapo or Military Intelligence, for instance.

“Just who are in the hotel now?” he asked casually, and the answer this time stiffened him.

“We are.” She could no longer hide her sense of triumph. “We are.” She tightened her hands on his wrists until they were numbed. She raised her head from his shoulder and tried to see his expression through the darkness. “What’s wrong?” she asked suddenly. He kissed her, and his thoughts were cold and bitter and completely realistic at last. Corlay was no Breton nationalist, or if he had been one, he had been side-tracked by a very beautiful body. He wondered what the correct answer should be. What would Corlay have said? The kiss ended.