Assignment in Brittany (35 page)

They had left the road and turned west into the marketplace, following its south side and the narrow pavement leading to the Hôtel Perro. This was the way he had come when he was looking for Henri, on the day the Gestapo had first appeared in Saint-Déodat. The Nazi flag was still there, but now there was also a detachment of soldiers in fatigue uniform with spades and picks over their shoulders. They swung through the square. They were singing, loudly, carefully, operatically. A few civilians, their eyes averted, hurried on their business, or stopped to speak quietly and briefly to one another. The German words marched in perfect unison. They flattened your feelings as if they were a steam-roller, Hearne thought: Even when the hard sound of exact boots had blurred in the distance, the chorus of voices remained like a bitter echo in your heart.

They passed two men: one old and white-haired, the other short and fat with his priest’s hat squarely set above a kindly face, now more stern than good-humoured. The Curé and his companion looked at Hearne with only half interest, and backed against the wall to let the officer, the four soldiers, and Hearne pass.

They mustn’t get the wrong idea, Hearne decided. He wasn’t coming to visit his Nazi friends with a bodyguard to protect him. He pretended to step out of line towards the priest. It worked. The soldier behind him caught his arm roughly and forced him back into his place. There could be no doubt at all of the way the soldiers had crowded more closely around him, no doubt at all of the lieutenant’s animosity in the quickly barked command, the sudden movement of hand to revolver. He didn’t object even to the way in which two soldiers held him with unnecessary vehemence as they urged him into the hotel. Behind him the two men were standing motionless against the wall: but their eyes had followed him with an interest which had become real.

Now, thought Hearne savagely as he was pushed through the restaurant, Kerénor will perhaps believe my message. But at the moment that was cold comfort.

They had crossed the floor of the empty restaurant. To their right the bar seemed empty, too. It was quiet enough. The lieutenant halted at the back of the room, and knocked neatly and politely on a door.

A voice said
“Herein!”
And again two of the soldiers gripped his arms and almost ran him through the door after the officer. Just inside the room they halted, still gripping his arms.

There were people in the room. He could hear movements—a cough, two men talking quickly to the lieutenant. But he could not see any of them, for a large draught screen stood across the entrance, shutting off the room. The two soldiers holding him had halted behind it. All he could see was a side view of some heavy furniture backed against the wall at this end of the room. Not Breton furniture, either. Probably this had been Madame Perro’s living-room, and the furniture had been brought with her when she came to the village. He noted some cheap prints in massive frames on the plaid wallpaper: they were views of towns. By stretching his neck, he could see the three nearest—views of
one
town, he corrected himself. Views of Strasbourg. So that was where Madame Perro and her charming niece came from—Strasbourg. That was quite possible. That explained a lot of things, quite a lot.

One of the soldiers had noticed his interest in the pictures. He knocked Hearne’s head to face the screen, with a side blow from his fist. Charming fellows, Hearne thought, and then the voice which had given the command
“Herein!”
spoke once more.

“Bring him forward.”

Damn it all, you don’t need to shove me about with so much relish, Hearne thought savagely, and checked the impulse to hit the short nose of the long-chinned private who had taken a particular pleasure in a heavy grip on his arm. The two soldiers let him go so suddenly that he almost stumbled. He caught his balance, straightened himself in time, and looked at the table in front of him.

Three men faced him across it. Only one of them was a soldier: a captain. There, but for the grace of God and a quicksand, would probably have sat Deichgräber. The other two men, watching him intently with that close-eyed, tight-lipped look peculiar to their breed, didn’t need their darker uniforms to identify them. So the boys themselves were here, thought Hearne: the perverts, the sodomites, the torturers. Pleasant time he was going to have. The young lieutenant saluted smartly and turned on his heel. The soldiers followed him out of the room. He could hear the sound of heavy boots diminishing through the echoing restaurant.

And then a door, which must have led from the bar itself, opened and closed. The girl who had entered paused, with her shoulder leaning back against its panels as she looked round the room. There was an amused smile on her lips, a tilt to her head which showed the line of her neck, a flicker of black eyelashes veiling the green eyes.

Hearne felt a stab of admiration. The timing, the gestures,
the entrance, was all so perfect. It was a pity that the three men were absorbed in watching his face. He took a step forward.

“Elise,” he said, with sufficient enthusiasm and relief and surprise.

She walked across to the armchair beside the window. She settled herself on one of its arms, curving her legs to the side like a ballet dancer, one arm stretched along its back. She looked at him directly for the first time. Her eyes widened.

“Well,” she said, “and how are you, Mr. Hearne?”

24

ONE MORE DAY

Hearne was conscious that the eyes of the three Germans had never left his face. He forced himself to watch Elise, to keep his look of enthusiasm and relief and surprise in place. Now he added blank amazement as well. “Elise!” he said again. And then, “Is this some kind of a joke? If it is, then it’s a poor one.”

Elise dropped her posing along with her pseudo-amusement. She was sitting very erect now, looking at him quite coldly. “Is it, Mr. Hearne?”

“Is it what? What’s that you keep saying? Misterern-misterern.” He ran the words quickly together to form a meaningless jumble.

If he was really lost, really discovered, then he was taking the risk of adding a lot of amusement to their present pleasure. He had always promised himself that, once he was hopelessly caught, he wouldn’t give his captors the joy of watching him invent. But now he was finding that the word “hopeless” didn’t have much authority. He was caught, yes; but until he knew
more about the evidence he wasn’t going to admit he was hopeless. It would have been just as easy for a strong swimmer to commit suicide by drowning: even as his mind was telling him to sink, his subconscious struggled to keep him afloat.

Hearne looked angrily at the men. “What is all this about, anyway?” he said.

One of the shark-jawed men spoke for the first time. His remark was not addressed to Hearne. “I told you this was the wrong treatment for this man. Now, perhaps, you will let us follow our own methods.”

The German captain moved impatiently in his chair. “The colonel has ordered this examination,” he stated abruptly. He narrowed his eyes at a sheet of paper in front of him.

“Your name?” he said to Hearne. There was only hard efficiency and determined routine in his voice.

The shark-faced Gestapo man caught his breath audibly. He was watching the officer now with barely concealed amusement. The captain ignored the byplay, and proceeded, with at least outward calm, through all the stereotyped questionnaire. Date of birth, place of birth, mother’s name, father’s name, education, religion, attendance at university, date of father’s death, date of uncle’s death, other relatives living, income, political activity, career in peace-time, army service. Hearne, keeping his mind alert, concentrated on the questions, on the way they were asked. He replied easily and assuredly. But he knew that, although there was an undercurrent of friction between the army officer and the Gestapo man, it did not mean the officer would be easy to deal with. He was apparently some kind of liaison or military intelligence man, who came into contact with the Gestapo side of the occupation forces in cases
of common policy, or of certain aspects of army morale, or of citizen morale when it interested the army. He was probably Deichgräber’s successor: that he obviously enjoyed his work less than the late unlamented ditch-digger didn’t mean that he was disposed to any kindness for the prisoner under interrogation. He was only determined that the Gestapo was to be kept in its proper place, that the army’s power should be unrelaxed. And so the dry, impersonal voice continued with the endless questions. And so Hearne concentrated and replied with all the strength of the details he had so painfully memorised. The way in which he acquitted himself, down to a concise account of his rescue from Dunkirk by a French trawler which had brought him as a shell-shocked casualty to Brest, didn’t have any effect on the hard, business-like tone of the captain. But the two other men were now watching him thoughtfully; and it gave Hearne some pleasure to see a puzzled look on the girl’s face when he answered one question directly from Corlay’s secret diary. She hadn’t expected that.

The captain asked his last question. Hearne gave a straight answer. The German hesitated for a moment—his first sign of uncertainty—and then looked at the two others.

The shark-faced one said, “We expected something like this. We’ll continue the investigation—with your permission, Captain Holz.”

The third man, who had been silently examining his fingernails, looked at Elise and said, “In my opinion, all form of oral investigation is useless.” His voice, like his face, was razor-edged. He was the lad who would now spend his time in thinking up variations of torture, instead of inventing filthy jokes—as he no doubt had done before he had turned political. Razorpuss was going to supply several bad quarters of an hour before he had finished. He could hardly wait to get his innings, Hearne thought; that was obvious.

Elise came forward and leaned against the end of the table. She smelled like a flower-garden on a hot August morning.

“I’d like to know what all this is about,” Hearne said petulantly, and looked angrily at the girl. “This is really intolerable, Elise.”

She smiled with little sweetness. One eyebrow was raised, the eyelids were half lowered. “Very pretty so far, Mr. Hearne. But your feat of memory is unfortunately in vain. Here is something which arrived yesterday. Captain Holz—may I?”

She stretched out an arm, and Holz placed a sheet of paper silently in her hand. He looked as if he would be much happier sitting at his desk, planning the occupation of the Isle of Wight by parachuting troops as an advance base against Southampton.

Elise looked at the sheet for a moment, as if to tantalise Hearne. He was keeping the same look of indignant annoyance on his face for the benefit of the others’ watchful eyes. He took the piece of paper when it was at last handed to him with an air of unconcern. He looked at it and thought, They can see my face but thank God they can’t feel my heart. He said, a treacherous tightening in his throat almost spoiling his attempt at anger, “What the devil is this?”

It was a small sheet of paper with rough scallops edging one side where it had been torn from a loose-leaf diary. It was dirty, and creased with many folds. The writing was in pencil, small, scribbled, spilling over into the margins; but it was undeniably the writing of Bertrand Corlay.

“Elise, my own,” it began, “you may be in grave danger. I
am here in England at the Downside Hospital near Bath. Was brought here after Dunkirk with shattered thigh, nearly dead. Only thoughts of you kept me alive. A man, looking like my image in the mirror, came to visit me constantly. I answered all his questions, told him many details of my life but nothing about us, because I knew I must prove I was Bertrand Corlay and not a German. The English are much afraid of Fifth Columnists. I haven’t seen this man for a month. He
may be now
in Saint-Déodat, for at the last I found out that was his purpose. He looks like me, his voice grew like mine, but he is English. I asked cautiously for my friend who had visited me. Only two days ago, I asked a young doctor. That way I found his name is Hern. Yesterday Jacques Lassarre came to see me before he sailed. He came here from Dunkirk, too, but is now going back to France. I have asked him to send you this note when he arrives in France. Am writing under difficulties. All letters examined, but L. will smuggle this out. I shall return soon. Still two boat-loads of wounded to sail to France. Lying here tortured to death with thoughts of you.”

Then followed two lines over which Hearne had shuddered when he had first seen them in Corlay’s diary.

“Tes beaux cheveux, couleur du soleil riche et sombre, Ils seront mon abri, me pâmant dans leur ombre.”

And then the signature: “Bertrand Corlay.”

Hearne looked up at the four intent faces. His eyes were incredulous. Damn that pip-squeak of a doctor, he was thinking. It must have been Paton, who had known him at Cambridge, who thought he had a nice cushy job in Whitehall and used to greet him when they accidentally met by saying, “Well, how goes the rubber stamp these days?” And Paton,
out of ignorance and genial bedside manner, had answered Corlay’s innocent question. Blast Paton and blast the fates that had stationed him at Downside Hospital.

Hearne looked down at the sheet of paper again, and then quickly back at Elise. “What the devil is this?” he asked.

“What do you suppose?”

“It’s a letter from me to you, but I never wrote it.”

“No,
you
certainly did not,” the shark-faced man said, and laughed at his joke.

“It’s no laughing matter.” Hearne was indignant and angry. He read aloud thoughtfully, “Elise, my own, you may be in grave danger...” He looked again at Elise. “Indeed you may, and so may I, and all those who work with us.” The intensity and urgency of his voice silenced even Sharkface.

“Whoever wrote this,” Hearne went on, “knows about us, and is trying to upset our plans by the only means he has: by sowing suspicion. Cleverly done, too. See, he scribbled it hurriedly, so that if he made any mistakes in copying my writing then you would only think it was due to haste.”