Assignment in Brittany (20 page)

But Hearne hadn’t time to be amused. He was too busy thanking his stars that his caution with names had prevented him from imitating the German. “So then, Vuillemin, until the twentieth.” That would have sounded well enough at the time. But it would have been an unsatisfactory way to end one’s career.

He was concentrating on the facts he had learned from Bruneau as he climbed towards the Corlay farm. That was one way to stop thinking about the thinness of the ice over which he had performed such an elaborate outside edge. And then he realised that it wasn’t his stars he should thank: it was Matthews.

15

THE GOLDEN STAR

As the crow flew, it was fourteen miles to Saint-Servan, sixteen to Saint-Malo. But it took Myles and Hearne from sunset in Saint-Déodat to the cold grey sky of the heartless hour before dawn to reach the outskirts of Saint-Servan. They had avoided the villages and the roads, had skirted farms and isolated houses.

It had been a strange journey, with the tall American, dressed in the corduroy trousers and blue smock and round black felt hat of Madame Corlay’s uncle, plodding determinedly beside an equally silent Hearne. When they had to speak, they spoke softly, abruptly, and in French. That had been Hearne’s advice. He had also stipulated that, if by some stroke of bad luck or piece of carelessness they were intercepted, the American must then forget he had ever seen the Corlay farm. He would have to produce his own story. Hearne, in his turn, would have to admit that he had never seen the American before: that they had met only by the sheerest accident in that field or that wood
over there. With Bertrand Corlay’s name attached to him, they would eventually believe him; and the excuse to Elise for this night journey would have to be tied up with the name of one of the men on Corlay’s list. He was to have a free hand in his decisions, she had said. He was to keep his business meetings secret from the Bretons. Elise would believe him, too.

But he felt a wave of relief when he saw the spreading estuary of the River Rance flowing towards the Channel coast. Ahead of them should be the straggling outskirts of Saint-Servan, forming a kind of suburb to the old walled town of Saint-Malo. Here, where the two men had halted, the dismal string of small houses and small shops, and flagrant hoardings had not yet begun. Here the fields and trees still met the steep banks of the river. Here, where the tides had swirled out a muddy inlet, there were still small groupings of simple houses, with their inevitable jetties and anchored boats and drying fishing-nets. They could be called fishermen’s villages, if barely a dozen cottages could be said to form a village. Hearne and Myles had passed two such communities, scarcely a mile apart.

“We should be almost there,” Hearne said, more to reassure himself than to encourage Myles. “There are only seven houses and a pub. It’s called the Golden Star. The pub, that is. We
must
be almost there.” We’ve got to be, he added to himself, as he looked at the sky.

“Perhaps we are.” Myles pointed to the fishing-nets stretched between the tall poles just ahead of them. Down on the river, two black shapes of boats with furled sails pulled against their moorings. Three other smaller boats lay drunkenly on the smooth mud, where the tide had abandoned them. And then they saw the row of houses, built at the very edge of the
riverbank. Some of them had ends which overshot the bank and were supported by props driven into the shore itself. At high tide the water would lap under these gable-ends themselves. Now they looked as hunched and precarious as a man slumping over his crutches.

Myles and Hearne strained their eyes.

“Can’t be sure, in this light,” admitted Hearne at last. “You stay here, well in the shadow of this tree. I’ll have a look.”

“Sure.” Myles sat down thankfully. His voice was cheery enough, but there was a drawn look in his face.

“Feet?”

“Blast them.”

“Wait here.”

“Sure.”

The houses hugged each other tightly as if to give themselves courage. Even so, the only word to describe them was “dejected.” They needed plaster and paint: that was obvious even in this half-light. In their sleep, they looked as sluttish as a sagging woman with twisted rags in her hair. Hearne counted them carefully. They looked like eight altogether, if they began and ended where he thought they did. That was the difficulty with a row of houses: it would have been simple if they had been clearly separate. One was a pub. That at least was definite. Despite its lack of paint, the lettering was still visible: faint but visible. “Etoi...’Or.” That must be it. Etoile d’Or. That must be it, although the three middle letters had given up all hope, and faded away entirely. Like the other houses, the Golden Star was dark and silent. It stood at the end of the row of buildings,
and in its dark side wall was an insignificant door. Hearne took a deep breath. He had found the name
and
the side door. This was the place. It had to be.

He tried the handle. It turned easily. So far, so good. Inside, another door faced him. That was correct, too. He let the outside door swing behind him and stood in the dark coffin of space between the double entrance. This time he knocked: three short raps, two long. Pause. Again three short, two long. It was so dark that he couldn’t even see his hand. All he was aware of was the smell of fish and decaying sea-weed which still persisted here, and mingled in its own peculiar way with the stale odour of fried oil and damp walls. He knocked again in the same way. Wish to God that Basdevant would come, he thought desperately. Apart from the nausea which gripped him, he was haunted by the thought of the steadily approaching dawn, spreading inexorably from the east. As for the possibility that Basdevant might no longer be functioning here—well, that was something he couldn’t even start worrying about. Without this Basdevant there was only a long, dangerous walk ahead of them towards Mont Saint-Michel and the archæologist Duclos. He waited, rehearsing the phrases which that worried French Intelligence man in London had taught him. Basdevant would be six feet and broad-shouldered. He would have black hair, black-brown eyes, an aquiline nose, a red complexion, strongly marked eyebrows and a bottle scar on his left temple. What the hell was keeping Basdevant?

And then the door opened suddenly and a lamp was held in front of his face so that it blinded him. He stood there, with his eyes screwed up tightly, his hands half raised to shield them from the glare. He cursed his over-caution in not carrying his
revolver: he had thought that his name of Corlay would be better protection than bullets as long as Elise and her Hans could vouch for him.

A deep voice said truculently, “What do you want?”

“This is an inn, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it’s closed.”

“Well, it’s open now. I’ve money to pay for what we eat.” Or rather, Myles had. The few francs which Madame Corlay had given him might be needed for the return journey.

“We?” The man’s voice was friendlier. He shifted the weight of the lamp, and Hearne had a chance to see him.

“Two of us.” Hearne could make out the man’s face. Yes, this must be Basdevant. Fournier had indeed given an accurate description. At this moment, the man’s black hair was ruffled, his feet were bare, his clothing consisted of a shirt.

“It’s cold here,” Hearne said suddenly, remembering Fournier’s careful coaching. He spoke slowly. “We could talk better in front of your fire, if the wood is still burning.”

“The wood is still burning.” Basdevant stepped aside to let him enter.

Hearne hesitated a moment. Perhaps the man was getting careless, or perhaps the identification formula had to be shortened to suit the memories of his new clients. They wouldn’t be only Deuxième Bureau now: probably most of them, if not all, were fugitives.

“I’ll get my friend,” Hearne said, and turned towards the door at his back. The man hurriedly blew out the light. There was darkness behind Hearne as he descended the three stone steps into the road, and Basdevant’s voice, low, urgent.

“Hurry,” he said, “hurry. Daylight is breaking.”

* * *

The American was still sitting as Hearne had left him. He rose stiffly, clumsily, to his feet. He was trying to stop himself shivering in the raw morning air.

“All clear. We’ll get something to eat and drink,” Hearne said, and helped the limping Myles to hurry his steps. He, too, felt suddenly pretty low in the water. He blamed it on lack of sleep. Lack of sleep, he thought. Two nights over hills and fields, two nights scrabbling under hedges, two nights floundering through muddy paths. Two cold dawns with needle rain which stung your skin and froze your blood. Two waking nightmares, he thought.

“We’ll get something to eat and drink,” he repeated. And then as they were almost at the door, he remembered to add, “Don’t say what you want to eat or drink. I’ll do the ordering.”

Myles nodded. His face was colourless and lined with fatigue.

“Cheer up,” Hearne said, “you won’t have to walk over the Channel.” If Myles could have given a smile, Hearne would have had one.

The outside door opened easily, and again Hearne noted that the hinges had been well oiled. But this time the inner door was open too. They closed it behind them, and stood together in the darkness. Hearne unconsciously kept hold of the American’s elbow.

Basdevant’s deep voice said, “Is that door closed properly?”

“Yes.”

A match grated and flared. The lamp was lit once more. Basdevant smiled amiably and spoke again. “This way, gentlemen. Had to make sure about the door. The night air is treacherous.” He was standing at the other end of the short
corridor; behind him was the entrance to a room. He had added a pair of faded red sail-cloth trousers to his shirt. He jerked a large thumb over his shoulder. “There’s a fire in here,” he said, and led the way into the room.

The ceiling was low, so low that the Breton only had to sling the handle of the lamp over a hook in one of the wooden beams just above his head, and the room was lighted. And there was a fire, with flames leaping comfortably on the wide stone hearth. Myles sat down heavily on the wooden bench at one side of the fire-place. Hearne stood in front of the blaze and held his numbed fingers out towards the heat of the newly added log. He heard the sound of a bottle knocking against a glass. He took the thick tumbler which Basdevant held out to him. The raw brandy stung his throat, but it was what he needed. Myles had emptied his glass too; perhaps it was the warmth of the fire, or the fact that his weight was off his feet, or that he was becoming accustomed to the strange smell of the house, but he suddenly seemed cheerier. Or, thought Hearne, perhaps he just needed that brandy as much as I did.

Basdevant was moving skilfully about among the disorder of the room. He noticed Hearne’s expression. “This is my own corner,” he said with a broad smile. “It’s warmer here than in the front room. You see, I like to live comfortably.” He swept his powerful arm round the unbelievable chaos. “Now what would you like to eat?”

Myles looked at Hearne, and then bent down to unlace his boots. Hearne said slowly and distinctly, “Cold mutton and some goat cheese.”

“And to drink?” A still broader smile was spreading over the Breton’s face.

“Water.”

Myles paused in the unlacing of his boots and looked sadly at Hearne. The Englishman looked as if he meant what he said, but he was thinking how very unpleasant it would be if Basdevant were to take him at his word.

“Dry your clothes on that line,” Basdevant said as he picked up a smoke-blackened pan from the table and set its chain handle on a hook over the glowing log. He was pointing to a dirty piece of rope which was stretched across the front of the stone mantelpiece. Like all of Basdevant’s arrangements, it was practical even if it wasn’t beautiful. It looked worse when their bedraggled clothes were strung over the sagging piece of rope. Hearne had hung his jacket carefully, so that the two neat packages in his inside jacket pocket wouldn’t be dislodged. He resisted the impulse to take them out and hold them in his hand: better, he decided quickly, to leave them where they were, to let the others think there was nothing of value in his pocket. He ostentatiously removed his penknife, his few francs, and the map. He opened it up to dry it, so that Basdevant could see what it was. But he remained standing at the side of the fire-place, watching the oil crackle in the heated pan. Even when the Frenchman handed him a red-checked tablecloth with which to rub himself down, he didn’t move away from the fire and the drying clothes. Nor did he step aside when Basdevant tossed some fish carelessly into the pan. This time the odour which filled the room was not unpleasant.

“Sorry,” Hearne said, as Basdevant bumped against him. “This fire is too good to leave.” As he finished drying himself with the tablecloth, he was looking round the room. The door by which they had entered was on the same side as the
fireplace. Opposite them was a crumpled bed. In the wall which probably overhung the river was one small window, heavily curtained, and a flight of stairs leading to the rooms overhead. Opposite that was a wall filled with wardrobes and chairs, and in that wall was a second door. Hearne guessed that it might lead into the front room: bar was probably its real function.

Basdevant was watching him. “Cosy here, isn’t it?” he asked. “How do you like the decorations?”

There was something in the big man’s voice which impelled him to look at the calendars and advertisements hung on the walls. Cinzano...Byrrh...Quinquina...Berger... From this distance they all looked equally gaudy, equally innocuous.

“Very pretty,” Hearne murmured. Basdevant was still looking at him. Hearne’s eyes flickered again over the dim walls to see what he had missed. Two small pieces of paper were pinned up over the bed. The Breton had left the fire-place and was now clearing a place for their meal at the table by raking his forearm across one of its corners. Hearne crossed the room towards the bed. Two pieces of paper: two certificates. One was birth, the other first communion. Both belonged to Louis Basdevant.