by Nevil Shute
‘I’ll be all right. In fact, I’ll get along quicker without them.’
‘You mean take them two Froggie kids along ’stead of you? Is that what you’re getting at?’
‘I’ll be all right. I know France very well.’
‘Don’t talk so bloody soft. What ’ld I do with four muckin’ kids and only Bert along o’ me?’ He swung round on his heel. ‘Come on, then. Get them kids dressed toot and sweet—I ain’t going to wait all night. And if I finds them messing with the Herbert I’ll tan their little bottoms for them, straight I will.’
He swung off back towards his lorry. Howard hurried down to the sand pit and called the children to him. ‘Come on and get your clothes on, quickly,’ he said. ‘We’re going in a motor-lorry.’
Ronnie faced him, stark naked. ‘Really? What sort is it? May I sit by the driver, Mr. Howard?’
Sheila, similarly nude, echoed: ‘May I sit by the driver too?’
‘Come on and get your clothes on,’ he repeated. He turned to Rose and said in French: ‘Put your stockings on, Rose, and help Pierre. We’ve got to be very quick.’
He hurried the children all he could, but they were wet and the clothes stuck to them; he had no towel. Before he was finished the two Air Force men were back with him, worrying with their urgency to start. At last he had the children ready. ‘Will you be able to take my perambulator?’ he asked, a little timidly.
The corporal said: ‘We can’t take that muckin’ thing, mate. It’s not worth a dollar.’
The old man said: ‘I know it’s not. But if we have to walk again, it’s all I’ve got to put the little ones in.’
The driver chipped in: ‘Let ’im take it on the roof. It’ll ride there all right, corp. We’ll all be walking if we don’t get hold of juice.’
‘My muckin’ Christ,’ the corporal said. ‘Call this a workshop lorry! Perishing Christmas tree, I call it. All right, stick it on the roof.’
He hustled them towards the road. The lorry stood gigantic by the roadside, the traffic eddying round it. Inside it was stuffed full of machinery. An enormous Herbert lathe stood in the middle. A grinding-wheel and valve-facing machine stood at one end, a little filing and sawing machine at the other. Beneath the lathe a motor-generator set was housed; above it was a long electric switchboard. The men’s kitbags occupied what little room there was.
Howard hastily removed their lunch from the pram, and watched it heaved up on the roof of the van. Then he helped the children up among the machinery. The corporal refused point-blank to let them ride beside the driver. ‘I got the Bren there, see?’ he said. ‘I don’t want no perishing kids around if we runs into Jerries.’
Howard said: ‘I see that.’ He consoled Ronnie and climbed in himself into the lorry. The corporal saw them settled, then went round and got up by the driver; with a low purr and a lurch the lorry moved out into the traffic stream.
It was half an hour later that the old man realised that they had left Sheila’s pants beside the stream in their hurry.
They settled down to the journey. The interior of the van was awkward and uncomfortable for Howard, with no place to sit down and rest; he had to stoop, half kneeling, on a kitbag. The children being smaller, were more comfortable. The old man got out their déjeuner and gave them food in moderation, with a little of the orange drink; on his advice Rose ate very little, and remained well. He had rescued Pierre’s chocolate from the perambulator and gave it to him, as a matter of course, when they had finished eating. The little boy received it solemnly and put it into his mouth; the old man watched him with grave amusement.
Rose said: ‘It is good, that, Pierre.’ She bent down and smiled at him.
He nodded gravely. ‘Very good,’ he whispered.
Very soon they came to Montargis. Through a little trap-door in the partition between the workshop and the driver’s seat the corporal said to Howard: ‘Ever been here before, mate?’
The old man said: ‘I’ve only passed it in the train, a great many years ago.’
‘You don’t know where the muckin’ petrol dump would be? We got to get some juice from somewhere.’
Howard shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I don’t. I’ll ask someone for you, if you like.’
‘Christ. Do you speak French that good?’
The driver said: ‘They all speak it, corp. Even the bloody kids.’
The corporal turned back to Howard. ‘Just keep them kids down close along the floor, mate, case we find the Jerries like in that place Susan.’
The old man was startled. ‘I don’t think there are any Germans so far west as this,’ he said. But he made the children lie down on the floor, which they took as a fine joke. So, with the little squeals of laughter from the body of the lorry, they rolled into Montargis and pulled up at the cross-roads in the middle of the town.
At the corporal’s request the old man got down and asked the way to the military petrol dump. A baker directed him to the north of the town; he got up into the driver’s compartment and directed them through the town. They found the French transport park without great difficulty, and Howard went with the corporal to speak to the officer in charge, a lieutenant. They got a brusque refusal. The town was being evacuated, they were told. If they had no petrol they must leave their lorry and go south.
The corporal swore luridly, so luridly that Howard was quite glad that the English children, who might possibly have understood, were in the lorry.
‘I got to get this muckin’ lot to Brest,’ he said. ‘I don’t leave it here and hop it, like he said.’ He turned to Howard, suddenly earnest. ‘Look, mate,’ he said. ‘Maybe you better beat it with the kids. You don’t want to get mixed up with the bloody Jerries.’
The old man said: ‘If there’s no petrol, you may as well come with us.’
The Air Force man said: ‘You don’t savvy, mate. I got to get this lot to Brest. That big Herbert. You don’t know lathes, maybe, but that’s a treat. Straight it is. Machine tools is wanted back home. I got to get that Herbert home—I got to. Let the Jerries have it for the taking, I suppose! Not bloody likely.’
He ran his eye around the park. It was filled with decrepit, dirty French lorries; rapidly the few remaining soldiers were leaving. The lieutenant that had refused them drove out in a little Citroën car. ‘I bet there’s juice somewhere about,’ the corporal muttered.
He swung round and hailed the driver. ‘Hey, Bert,’ he said: ‘Come on along.’
The men went ferreting about among the cars. They found no dump or store of petrol, but presently Howard saw them working at the deserted lorries, emptying the tanks into a bidon. Gleaning a gallon here and a gallon there, they collected in all about eight gallons and transferred it to the enormous tank of the Leyland. That was all that they could find. ‘It ain’t much,’ said the corporal. ‘Forty miles, maybe. Still, that’s better ’n a sock in the jaw. Let’s see the bloody map, Bert.’
The bloody map showed them Pithiviers, twenty-five miles farther on. ‘Let’s get goin’.’ They moved out on the westward road again.
It was terribly hot. The van body of the lorry had sides made of wood, which folded outwards to enlarge the floor space when the lathe was in use. Little light entered round these wooden sides; it was dim and stuffy and very smelly in amongst the machinery. The children did not seem to suffer much, but it was a trying journey for the old man. In a short time he had a splitting headache, and was aching in every limb from the cramped positions he was constrained to take up.
The road was ominously clear to Pithiviers, and they made good speed. From time to time an aeroplane flew low above the road, and once there was a sharp burst of machine-gun fire very near at hand. Howard leaned over to the little window at the driver’s elbow. ‘Jerry bomber,’ said the corporal. ‘One o’ them Stukas, as they call them.’
‘Was he firing at us?’
‘Aye. Miles off, he was.’ The corporal did not seem especially perturbed.
In an hour they were near
Pithiviers, five and twenty miles from Montargis. They drew up by the roadside half a mile from the town and held a consultation. The road stretched before them to the houses with no soul in sight. There was no movement in the town. It seemed to be deserted in the blazing sunlight of the afternoon.
They stared at it, irresolute. ‘I dunno as I fancy it,’ the corporal said. ‘It don’t look right to me.’
The driver said: ‘Bloody funny nobody’s about. You don’t think it’s full of Jerries, corp? Hiding, like?’
‘I dunno …’
Howard, leaning forward with his face to the trap in the partition, said over their shoulders: ‘I don’t mind walking in ahead to have a look, if you wait here.’
‘Walk in ahead of us?’
‘I don’t see that there’d be much risk in that. With all these refugees about I can’t see that there’d be much risk in it. I’d rather do that than drive in with you if there’s any chance of being fired on.’
‘Something in what he says,’ the driver said. ‘If the Jerries are there, we mightn’t find another roundabout this time.’
They discussed it for a minute or two. There was no road alternative to going through the town that did not mean a ten-mile journey back towards Montargis. ‘An’ that’s not so bloody funny, either,’ said the corporal. ‘Meet the Jerries coming up behind us, like as not.’
He hesitated, irresolute. ‘Okay,’ he said at last. ‘Nip in and have a look, mate. Give us the wire if it’s all okey-doke. Wave something if it’s all right to come on.’
The old man said: ‘I’ll have to take the children with me.’
‘My muckin’ Christ! I don’t want to sit here all the bloody day, mate.’
The old man said: ‘I’m not going to be separated from the children.’ He paused. ‘You see, they’re in my charge. Just like your lathe.’
The driver burst out laughing. ‘That’s a good one, corp! Just like your muckin’ lathe,’ he said.
The corporal said: ‘Well, put a jerk in it, anyway.’
The old man got down from the lorry and lifted the children one by one down into the hot sunlight on the dusty, deserted road. He started off with them down the road towards the town, leading the two little ones by the hand, thinking uneasily that if he were to become separated from the lorry he would inevitably lose his perambulator. He made all speed possible, but it was twenty minutes before he led them into the town.
There were no Germans to be seen. The town was virtually deserted; only one or two very old women peered at him from behind curtains or around the half-closed doors of shops. In the gutter of the road that lead towards the north a tattered, dirty child that might have been of either sex in its short smock, was chewing something horrible. A few yards up the road a dead horse had been dragged half up on to the pavement and left there, distended and stinking. A dog was tearing at it.
It was a beastly, sordid little town, the old man felt. He caught one of the old women at a door. ‘Are the Germans here?’ he said.
‘They are coming from the north,’ she quavered. ‘They will ravish everyone, and shoot us.’
The old man felt instinctively that this was nonsense. ‘Have you seen any Germans in the town yet?’
‘There is one there.’
He looked round, startled. ‘Where?’
‘There.’ She pointed a trembling, withered hand at the child in the gutter.
‘There?’ The woman must be mad, distraught with terror of the invaders.
‘It speaks only German. It is the child of spies.’ She caught his arm with senile urgency. ‘Throw a stone and chase it away. It will bring the Germans to this house if it stays there.’
Howard shook her off. ‘Are any German soldiers here yet?’
She did not answer, but shouted a shrill scream of dirty imprecations at the child in the gutter. The child, a little boy, Howard thought, lifted his head and looked at her with infantile disdain. Then he resumed his disgusting meal.
There was nothing more to be learned from the old hag; it was now clear to him there were no Germans in the town. He turned away; as he did so there was a sharp crack, and a fair-sized stone rolled down the pavement near the German spy. The child slunk off fifty yards down the street and squatted down again upon the kerb.
The old man was very angry, but he had other things to do. He said to Rose: ‘Look after the children for a minute, Rose, Don’t let them go away or speak to anyone.’
He hurried back along the road that they had entered the town by. He had to go a couple of hundred yards before he came in sight of the lorry, parked by the roadside half a mile away. He waved his hat at it, and saw it move towards him; then he turned and walked back to where he had left the children.
It overtook him near the cross-roads in the middle of the town. The corporal leaned down from the cab. ‘Any juice here, do you think?’ The old man looked at him uncomprehending. ‘Petrol, mate.’
‘Oh—I don’t know. I wouldn’t hang about here very long.’
‘That’s right,’ the driver muttered. ‘Let’s get on out of it. It don’t look so good to me.’
‘We got to get juice.’
‘We got close on five gallons left. Get us to Angerville.’
‘Okay,’ the corporal said to Howard. ‘Get the kids into the back and we’ll ’op it.’
Howard looked round for his children. They were not where he had left them; he looked round, and they were up the road with the German spy, who was crying miserably.
‘Rose,’ he shouted. ‘Come on. Bring the children.’
She called in a thin, piping voice: ‘Il est blessé.’
‘Come on,’ he cried. The children looked at him, but did not stir. He hurried over to them. ‘Why don’t you come when I call you?’
Rose faced the old man, her little face crimson with anger. ‘Somebody threw a stone at him and hit him. I saw them do it. It is not right, that.’
True enough, a sticky stream of blood was running down the back of the child’s neck into his filthy clothes. A sudden loathing for the town enveloped the old man. He took his handkerchief and mopped at the wound.
La petite Rose said: ‘It is not right to throw a stone at him, and a big woman, too, m’sieur. This is a bad, dirty place to do a thing like that.’
Ronnie said: ‘He’s coming with us, Mr. Howard. He can sit on the other end of Bert’s kitbag by the ’lectric motor.’
The old man said: ‘He belongs here. We can’t take him away with us.’ But in his mind came the thought that it might be kind to do so.
‘He doesn’t belong here,’ said Rose. ‘Two days only he has been here. The woman said so.’
There was a hurried, heavy step behind them. ‘For Christ’s sake,’ said the corporal.
Howard turned to him. ‘They’re throwing stones at this child,’ he said. He showed the man the cut upon his neck.
‘Who’s throwing stones?’
‘All the people in the village. They think he’s a German spy.’
‘Who—’im?’ The corporal stared. ‘He ain’t more’n seven years old!’
‘I saw the woman do it,’ said Ronnie. ‘That house there. She threw a stone and did that.’
‘My muckin’ aunt,’ the corporal said. He turned to Howard. ‘Anyway, we got to beat it.’
‘I know.’ The old man hesitated. ‘What’ll we do? Leave him here in this disgusting place? Or bring him along with us?’
‘Bring him along, mate, if you feel like it. I ain’t worried over the amount of spying that he’ll do.’
The old man bent and spoke to the child. ‘Would you like to come with us?’ he said in French.
The little boy said something in another language.
Howard said: ‘Sprechen sie deutsch?’ That was the limit of the German that he could recall at the moment, but it drew no response.
He straightened up, heavy with new responsibility. ‘We’ll take him with us,’ he said quietly. ‘If we leave him here they’ll probably end
by killing him.’
‘If we don’t get a move on,’ said the corporal, ‘the bloody Jerries will be here and kill the lot of us.’
Howard picked up the spy, who suffered that in silence; they hurried to the lorry. The child smelt and was plainly verminous; the old man turned his face away in nausea. Perhaps in Angerville there would be nuns who would take charge of him. They might take Pierre, too, though Pierre was so little bother that the old man didn’t mind about him much.
They put the children in the workshop; Howard got in with them and the corporal got into the front seat by the driver. The big truck moved across the road from Paris and out upon the road to Angerville, seventeen miles away.
‘If we don’t get some juice at Angerville,’ the driver said, ‘we’ll be bloody well sunk.’
In the van, crouched down beside the lathe with the children huddled round him, the old man pulled out a sticky bundle of his chocolate. He broke off five pieces for the children; as soon as the German spy realised what it was he stretched out a filthy paw and said something unintelligible. He ate it greedily and stretched out his hand for more.
‘You wait a bit.’ The old man gave the chocolate to the other children. Pierre whispered: ‘Merci, monsieur.’
La petite Rose leaned down to him. ‘After supper, Pierre?’ she said. ‘Shall monsieur keep it for you to have after supper?’
The little boy whispered: ‘Only on Sunday. On Sunday I may have chocolate after supper. Is to-day Sunday?’
The old man said: ‘I’m not quite sure what day it is. But I don’t think your mother will mind if you have chocolate after supper to-night. I’ll put it away and you can have it then.’
He rummaged round and produced one of the thick, hard biscuits that he had bought in the morning, and with some difficulty broke it in two; he offered one half to the dirty little boy in the smock. The child took it and ate it ravenously.
Rose scolded at him in French: ‘Is that the way to eat? A little pig would eat more delicately—yes, truly, I say—a little pig. You should thank monsieur, too.’
The child stared at her, not understanding why she was scolding him.
She said: ‘Have you not been taught how to behave? You should say like this’—she swung round and bowed to Howard—‘Je vous remercie, monsieur.’
