Assignment in Brittany (17 page)

Myles said nothing at first. He was staring at Hearne, as if he were trying to read his thoughts. At last he said slowly, “I don’t follow this. I’m willing to bet that you aren’t doing this for the sake of my bright blue eyes.”

“You’d win that bet.”

That startled even Myles. He smiled in spite of himself.

“Well, why then?” He wasn’t angry now, but he was still watchful.

“In the last three weeks you’ve stored a lot of details inside that brain of yours. As a newspaper man, you are a trained observer. The things you would automatically notice during your journey here would be interesting and perhaps useful to the right people.”

There was a pause, and then Myles answered, “I guess they would. But who are your ‘right people’?”

“The ones who’ll meet the fishing-boat when it crosses the Channel.”

The American’s eyes were examining the toes of his boots.

“So you’ve taken all this trouble with me so that I can spill what I know to the ‘right people’... Why bother? I know what to do with the information I’ve gathered.”

“But you might not be able to do it quickly enough. You might take two or three weeks to reach England.
If
you go my way, you’ll be in England by the fifteenth of July at the latest.”

“If...” Myles repeated Hearne’s emphasis on the word. “Then the choice is up to me? This isn’t an ultimatum?”

“The choice is yours.”

The American relaxed slightly. “You are the funniest farmer I’ve ever met,” he said, and his voice was almost friendly once more.

“I
am
the funniest farmer.”

Myles shot a sudden glance at Hearne’s face. It was grimly serious.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Myles said, and then shut his lips into that tight line.

“What doesn’t?”

“Your touching farewell with these Jerries yesterday evening, and the way you’ve taken so much trouble to hide me here. Why didn’t you give me up, then and there? You seemed to be a friend of theirs.”

“Shall we say, they
think
I am a friend of theirs?” Hearne’s quiet voice had no hint of mockery. He returned the American’s direct look with equal steadiness.

Myles said, “You are taking a big chance on me. What if I didn’t turn my information over to the proper quarters? What if I never went near your man outside Saint-Malo?”

“I shall see you do. I shan’t leave you until you are on that boat, and then I’ll get a message over to the other side to expect you and your information. They’ll meet you all right.”

“Well,” said Myles, and gave a short laugh. “You’ve got it all arranged pat, I must say. You weren’t a newspaper man yourself at one time? No? I didn’t expect any company on this journey to the coast. I won’t weary, anyway, I can see.”

“No. I don’t think either of us will weary.”

The American’s interest quickened. “Will it be tough going?”

“Possibly. But we’ll manage. And we’ll only manage if we trust
each other. I am trusting you, even if your name isn’t Myles.”

The American was silent; his face seemed unchanged, but he had stopped playing with the pencil.

“I get it,” he said at last.

“Fine. Now today go on remembering every detail you’ve seen, shaping them into order. Eat plenty, and get some sleep. You can use my bed.”

“There’s only one answer I’d like to know,” the American said.

Hearne turned at the door. “And what’s that?”

“I’ll ask you when you get me on to that boat. We’ll skip it now.”

“Okay.”

The American laughed. Hearne looked puzzled. “Kind of cute how all foreigners think they have to say ‘okay’ to an American,” Myles explained.

“Or perhaps it is the way we say it?” Hearne suggested. With the smile still on his lips, he said, “And you should also rest your feet today. Better take the boots off now.”

Myles tightened his lips, but he did bend down to unlace the boots.

“Yes,” he said, “that will rest my feet. It will also prevent me running away without you. Here, take the damned things.” He threw them, each in turn, over to Hearne, with the beginning of a grin. “What was that about trusting me?”

“It still holds,” Hearne said. “I do trust you, but I’ve also heard that Americans are very independent people, and like their own way best. Perhaps you might begin to think once more that you could manage better by yourself.”

“Perhaps I could.”

“Perhaps. But it would be better to avoid all risks. You are
much too important at the moment.”

“I don’t think I like being important,” Myles said, but he was not displeased.

“It has its disadvantages,” Hearne agreed, and gave his customary bow. That always amused Myles. At least, Hearne thought, the temperature had risen again. Tonight’s journey would not be such an unpleasant task after all.

“When do we start?” the American asked.

“At sunset. Meanwhile I’ll see my mother and work over some maps.”

“And I’ll rest my feet, I suppose?”

“That’s the idea,” Hearne said. He paused with his hand on the door. “And I really do advise you not to leave the house until we both go. It will be dangerous, not only for yourself but for all of us here. There are Germans in the village. The soldiers are coming here in some numbers tomorrow, but there are others already in the hotel. They probably call themselves a Commission for Economic and Educational Understanding. I think Gestapo is simpler to pronounce, don’t you?”

Myles gave a short laugh. “So
they’re
here,” he said as if to himself. “I might have known it.”

“Well, I’ll see you later,” Hearne said, and moved into his own room. He closed the door behind him. Already he could feel the numbered lists, which Corlay had hidden so securely, being turned over in his hands. If they were half as good as he hoped, they would still be dynamite.

They were. He spent the next two hours happily copying the names of these men on the German pay-roll, noting their districts and headquarters and meeting-places, memorising as he read and solved and wrote. This, he thought, as he finished his
last entry, would be a nice little surprise packet for Matthews: a sort of bonus on the side. It would be useful for. the agents whom Matthews had sent into Northern Brittany to know just what peaceful citizen was a dangerous enemy. And it would be particularly useful for the French who were fighting on. They would have a special interest, a special bill to settle. What was more, if the key-map and its accompanying lists had been drawn up so methodically for Northern Brittany, it also existed for the other districts of France, Hearne imagined perhaps twenty of these map sections, fitting neatly together into one large expanse of intrigue and infiltration. Now that they could be considered an actuality, the search could start for the others. Most things could be discovered, provided you knew that they did exist. That was the snag in this kind of work: there were so many possibilities that you wasted ingenuity and effort, time and trouble, just looking for something you hoped would be there. But once you had a reality to deal with, that was quite a different cup of tea. Then you could stop worrying about fifty problematical ways to be explored, then you could start working, with the added zest of knowing that you were on the right road.

Hearne folded the sheets of paper neatly. Later he would add the information which Elise had left for him at the Hôtel Perro, along with a coded summary of his own observations. Together they would all sail for England.

He was debating in his own mind whether he should make the coded summary now, or visit Madame Corlay to break his news of Myles’s departure to her, or slip down to the village for Elise’s instructions, when voices from the stairway decided him. Women’s voices. He listened to Albertine’s solid footsteps followed by lighter movements. There was a rustling outside
his door, but the room they entered was Madame Corlay’s. He stood with his hand on the door-latch. And then, as he heard Albertine come out of Madame Corlay’s room, he opened the door, quickly and silently.

Albertine had started back at his sudden appearance.

“Who?” he whispered, pointing towards the closed door of Madame Corlay’s room.

Albertine was shaking her head unbelievingly. “They’ve turned her out of her farm.”

Turned out...turned whom out?... Hearne said, “Anne?”

“Yes.” Albertine was still shaking her head as she started downstairs. Only God could know where people could sleep or eat; it was beyond any human being to imagine...Hearne watched her go. He thought grimly, she doesn’t know the half of it; in another six months, or in a year, she may begin to understand. And there would be so many Albertines, so many simple hearts and simple minds whose orderly unimaginative lives had left them ill-equipped to grasp what was happening to the world. There was the tragedy of it: if only they could have realised the danger while there was still time, while they were still free to carry a gun and still free to make guns for themselves. Instead, they would now find that it costs three times as much to retrieve a position as it takes to hold it. And the reckoning had not yet begun. In another year, or more, the full cost would begin to be realised. Hearne suddenly hoped he wouldn’t be in France at that time. He had always liked France too well to watch it weigh the load of chains it had helped to fasten on its own neck.

Chuck it, you damned fool, he told himself. You aren’t here to worry about people who just wouldn’t believe that such
things could ever possibly happen to them. The first job is to worry about those who are still holding on. You’re here to find out what you can to help them, and to keep your skin whole. Fat lot of use you’d be to them if you didn’t.

His face was quite expressionless as he knocked on Madame Corlay’s door. “Bertrand,” he called, and then entered.

Madame Corlay sat bolt upright in her chair. She was angry. If I were a German, Hearne thought, she would have struck me with that stick.

“Albertine told me,” he said, and looked at Anne. Her face was quite white, and it seemed thinner, but there were no tears.

“It had to be someone,” she said. Her voice was low, but Hearne felt it was being tightly controlled. “It would be much worse if I were a man with a wife and children. There are some in the village for whom it is much worse.”

“But your family have lived and worked on that farm for two hundred and forty years,” Madame Corlay exploded. She was taking it much less philosophically than Anne. Hearne suddenly remembered that Madame Corlay had planned that the two farms should be joined: in that sense, she no doubt felt that the Germans had taken possession of something connected with her. “Can’t you
do
something?” she went on indignantly. “Can’t you say Anne is betrothed to you? Can’t you—” She halted. Possibly the words had sounded more distasteful than the impulsive thought. When wild ideas surged through your mind, you couldn’t often tell how cheap they were until you put them into a sentence. Anne was looking at her in bewilderment.

“Why,” she asked, “should the Germans pay any attention to that? They think we are lucky to be left alive at all.”

Madame Corlay’s face had reddened. Hearne noted the shining eyes, the trembling lip. She’s going to burst into tears, he thought, and the idea so startled him that he walked over to Anne and took her hands.

“You can live here with us,” he said.

“You’ve no reason to be so kind,” Anne replied stiffly. “Not after what I said to you last time we met. And if I say I am sorry, you will think it is only because I need you now.”

“No, I shan’t. I believe you were sorry in the ten minutes after you left me.”

Anne looked at him for a long moment. She was even smiling now. “But, Bertrand, I was.”

Hearne became very aware of her hands and let them go suddenly. He faced Madame Corlay. Her eyes were fixed on the floor at her feet, but her lip had stopped trembling.

“It will be all right for Anne to stay here?” he asked.

“Of course. But the American?”

“He’s leaving here tonight. I was just coming to tell you about that. I think it is safer if he leaves tonight.” He turned to Anne. “We’ve had a man staying here. He’s trying to reach the coast.”

“And you’ve been hiding him? Oh, Bertrand, how wonderful.” Anne’s eyes were larger than ever. “But he mustn’t leave because of me.”

“He has to go. The Germans will be here in greater numbers tomorrow.”

“I know. The village is being made ready for them. Half of them are to be garrisoned in the empty houses or billeted with families. The rest are to be together on the meadows beside the church.”

Hearne nodded. “Trees there,” he said.

“Trees?” Anne looked puzzled.

Hearne smiled. Trees were natural camouflage, just as the Romanesque-Gothic church would seem so disarmingly innocent from the air.

“Who told you this?” he countered.

“Kerénor. He came to see me as soon as Marie went into the village and I told them what had happened to our farm. I’ve brought Jean and Marie with me.” Her voice was apologetic and anxious. “They are old, and they don’t eat much, and they’ll help Albertine. They had nowhere to go... They couldn’t stay on the farm. The Germans wouldn’t let any French stay around it.” She looked at Madame Corlay. “Jean and Marie are so old. They are so alone.”

“They can stay here,” Hearne said quickly. “But what part is Kerénor playing?”

Anne smiled sadly. “He has declared war.”

“What? The pacifist?”

“But he has changed. Believe me, Bertrand, he has. He has been worried about his ideas for months now. He still believes that they are the right ones, but he says the time is all wrong for them. And now he is going to—” She halted.

“Tell me, Anne.” Kerénor’s name hadn’t been on that Nazi pay list. Elise considered him a fool who had lost, who was beaten even before he ever fought. Kerénor was just the man Hearne needed.

Madame Corlay said unexpectedly, “You can tell Bertrand. I have talked with him and he has changed in many ways too. Our enemy is his enemy.”

“Kerénor wouldn’t talk very much. He only hinted...And I
said I would keep everything secret, as his friend.”

“He was right to ask you not to tell,” Hearne said. “And don’t tell anyone else. But I’ve got information I want to give Kerénor. Information which may save Saint-Déodat from making some mistakes. But I can’t give you any information for Kerénor until I am sure that he is willing to take risks against the Germans.”