by Nevil Shute
It was not quite correct to say that he knew nobody. He did know, very slightly, one family at Chartres. They were people called Rouget—no, Rougand—Rougeron; that was it, Rougeron. They came from Chartres. He had met them at Cidoton eighteen months before, when he had been there with John for the ski-ing. The father was a colonel in the army; Howard wondered vaguely what had become of him. The mother had been typically fat and French, pleasant enough in a very quiet way. The daughter had ski’d well; closing his eyes in the doze of oncoming sleep the old man could see her flying down the slopes behind John, in a flurry of snow. She had had fair hair which she wore short and rather elaborately dressed, in the French style.
He had seen a good deal of the father. They had played draughts together in the evening over a Pernod, and had pondered together whether war would come. The old man began to consider Rougeron seriously. If by some freak of chance he should be in Chartres, there might yet be hope for them. He thought that Rougeron might help.
At any rate, they would get good advice from him. Howard became aware at this point of how much, how very much he wanted to talk to some adult, to discuss their difficulties and make plans. The more he thought of Rougeron, the more he yearned to talk to someone of that sort, frankly and without reserve.
Chartres was not far away, not much more than twenty-five miles. With luck they might get there to-morrow. Probably, Rougeron would be away from home, but—it was worth trying.
Presently he slept.
He woke several times in the night, gasping and breathless, with a very tired heart. Each time he sat upright for half an hour and drank a little brandy, presently slipping down again to an uneasy doze. The children also slept uneasily, but did not wake. At five o’clock the old man woke for good, and sitting up against a heap of hay, resigned himself to wait till it was time to wake the children.
He would go to Chartres, and look up Rougeron. The bad night that he had suffered was a warning; it might well be that his strength was giving out. If that should happen, he must get the children safe with someone else. With Rougeron, if he were there, the children would be safe; Howard could leave money for their keep, English money it was true, but probably negotiable. Rougeron might give him a bed, and let him rest a little till this deathly feeling of fatigue went away.
Pierre woke at about half-past six, and lay awake with him. ‘You must stay quiet,’ the old man said. ‘It’s not time to get up yet. Go to sleep again.’
At seven o’clock Sheila woke up, wriggled about, and climbed out of her bed. Her movements woke the other children. Howard got up stiffly and got them all up. He herded them before him down the ladder to the farmyard, and one by one made them sluice their faces beneath the pump.
There was a step behind him, and he turned to meet a formidable woman, who was the farmer’s wife. She demanded crossly what he was doing there.
He said mildly: ‘I have slept in your hay, madame, with these children. A thousand pardons, but there was no other place where we could go.’
She rated him soundly for a few minutes. Then she said: ‘Who are you? You are not a Frenchman. No doubt, you are English, and these children also?’
He said: ‘These children are of all nationalities, madame. Two are French and two are Swiss, from Geneva. One is Dutch.’ He smiled: ‘I assure you, we are a little mixed.’
She eyed him keenly. ‘But you,’ she said, ‘you are English.’
He said: ‘If I were English, madame, what of that?’
‘They are saying in Angerville that the English have betrayed us, that they have run away, from Dunkirk.’
He felt himself to be in peril. This woman was quite capable of giving them all up to the Germans.
He faced her boldly and looked her in the eyes. ‘Do you believe that England has abandoned France?’ he asked. ‘Or do you think that is a German lie?’
She hesitated. ‘These filthy politics,’ she said at last. ‘I only know that this farm is ruined. I do not know how we shall live.’
He said simply: ‘By the Grace of God, madame.’
She was silent for a minute. Then she said: ‘You are English, aren’t you?’
He nodded without speaking.
She said: ‘You had better go away, before anybody sees you.’
He turned and called the children to him, and walked over to the pram. Then, pushing it in front of him, he went towards the gate.
She called after him: ‘Where are you going to?’
He stopped and said: ‘To Chartres.’ And then he could have bitten out his tongue for the indiscretion.
She said: ‘By the tram?’
He repeated uncertainly: ‘The tram?’
‘It passes at ten minutes past eight. There is still half an hour.’
He had forgotten the light railway, running by the road. Hope of a lift to Chartres surged up in him. ‘Is it still running, madame?’
‘Why not? These Germans say that they have brought us Peace. Well then, the tram will run.’
He thanked her and went out on to the road. A quarter of a mile farther on he came to a place where the track crossed the road; here he waited, and fed the children on the biscuits he had bought the day before, with a little of the chocolate. Presently, a little puff of steam announced the little narrow-gauge train, the so-called tram.
Three hours later they walked out into the streets of Chartres, still pushing the pram. It was as easy as that; a completely uneventful journey.
Chartres, like Angerville, was full of Germans. They swarmed everywhere, particularly in the luxury shops, buying with paper money silk stockings, underclothes, and all sorts of imported food. The whole town seemed to be on holiday. The troops were clean and well disciplined; all day Howard saw nothing in their behaviour to complain of, apart from their very presence. They were constrained in their behaviour, scrupulously correct, uncertain, doubtful of their welcome. But in the shops there was no doubt about it; they were spending genuine French paper money and spending it like water. If there were any doubts in Chartres, they stayed behind the locked doors of the banks.
In a telephone-booth the old man found the name of Rougeron in the directory; they lived in an apartment in the Rue Vaugiraud. He did not ring up, feeling the matter to be a little difficult for the telephone. Instead, he asked the way, and walked round to the place, still pushing the pram, the children trailing after him.
Rue Vaugiraud was a narrow street of tall, grey shuttered houses. He range the bell of the house, and the door opened silently before him, disclosing the common staircase. Rougeron lived on the second floor. He went upstairs slowly, for he was rather short of breath, the children following him. He rang the bell of the apartment.
There was the sound of women’s voices from behind the door. There was a step and the door opened before him. It was the daughter, the one that he remembered eighteen months before at Cidoton.
She said: ‘What is it?’
In the passage it was a little dark. ‘Mademoiselle,’ he said, ‘I have come to see your father, monsieur le colonel. I do not know if you will remember me; we have met before. At Cidoton.’
She did not answer for a moment. The old man blinked his eyes; in his fatigue it seemed to him that she was holding tight on to the door. He recognised her very well. She wore her hair in the same close curled French manner; she wore a grey cloth skirt and a dark blue jumper, with a black scarf at the neck.
She said at last. ‘My father is away from home. I—I remember you very well, monsieur.’
He said easily in French: ‘It is very charming of you to say so, mademoiselle. My name is Howard.’
‘I know that.’
‘Will monsieur le colonel be back to-day?’
She said: ‘He has been gone for three months. Monsieur Howard. He was near Metz. That is the last that we have heard.’
He had expected as much, but the disappointment was no less keen. He hesitated and then drew back.
‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘I had ho
ped to see monsieur le colonel, as I was in Chartres. You have my sympathy, mademoiselle. I will not intrude any further upon your anxiety.’
She said: ‘Is it—is it anything that I could discuss with you, Monsieur Howard?’ He got a queer impression from her manner that she was pleading, trying to detain him at the door.
He could not burden a girl and her mother with his troubles; they had troubles of their own to face. ‘It is nothing, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘Merely a little personal matter that I wanted to talk over with your father.’
She drew herself up and faced him, looking him in the eyes. ‘I understand that you wish to see my father, Monsieur Howard,’ she said quietly. ‘But he is away—we do not know where. And I … I am not a child. I know very well what you have come to talk about. We can talk of this together, you and I.’
She drew back from the door. ‘Will you not come in and sit down?’ she said.
Chapter Seven
He turned and motioned to the children. Then he glanced at the girl, and caught an expression of surprise, bewilderment, upon her face. ‘There are rather a lot of us, I’m afraid,’ he said apologetically.
She said: ‘But … I do not understand, Monsieur Howard. Are these your children?’
He smiled. ‘I’m looking after them. They aren’t really mine.’ He hesitated and then said: ‘I am in a position of some difficulty, mademoiselle.’
‘Oh …’
‘I wished to talk it over with your father.’ He wrinkled his brows in perplexity. ‘Did you think that it was something different?’
She said, hastily: ‘No, monsieur—not at all.’ And then she swung round and called: ‘Maman! Come quickly; here is Monsieur Howard, from Cidoton!’
The little woman that Howard remembered came bustling out; the old man greeted her ceremoniously. Then for a few minutes he stood with the children pressed close round him in the little salon of the flat, trying to make the two women understand his presence with them. It was not an easy task.
The mother gave it up. ‘Well, here they are,’ she said, content to let the why and wherefore pass. ‘Have they had déjeuner? Are they hungry?’
The children smiled shyly. Howard said: ‘Madame, they are always hungry. But do not derange yourself; we can get déjeuner in the town, perhaps?’
She said that that was not to be thought of. ‘Nicole, stay with m’sieur for a little, while I make arrangements.’ She bustled off into the kitchen.
The girl turned to the old man. ‘Will you sit down and rest a little,’ she said. ‘You seem to be very tired.’ She turned to the children. ‘And you, too, you sit down and stay quiet; déjeuner will be ready before long.’
The old man looked down at his hands, grimed with dirt. He had not washed properly, or shaved, since leaving Dijon. ‘I am desolated that I should appear so dirty,’ he said. ‘Presently, perhaps I could wash?’
She smiled at him and he found comfort in her smile. ‘It is not easy to keep clean in times like these,’ she said. ‘Tell me from the beginning, monsieur—how did you come to be in France at all?’
He lay back in the chair. It would be better to tell her the whole thing; indeed, he was aching to tell somebody, to talk over his position. ‘You must understand, mademoiselle,’ he began, ‘that I was in great trouble early in the year. My only son was killed. He was in the Royal Air Force, you know. He was killed on a bombing raid.’
She said: ‘I know, monsieur. I have the deepest sympathy for you.’
He hesitated, not quite sure if he had understood her correctly. Some idiom had probably misled him. He went on: ‘It was intolerable to stay in England. I wanted a change of scene, to see new faces.’
He plunged into his story. He told her about the Cavanaghs at Cidoton. He told her of Sheila’s illness, of their delay at Dijon. He told her about the chambermaid, about la petite Rose. He told her how they had become stranded at Joigny, and touched lightly upon the horror of the Montargis road, because Pierre was with them in the room. He told her about the Royal Air Force men, and about the little Dutch boy they had found in Pithiviers. Then he sketched briefly how they had reached Chartres.
It took about a quarter of an hour to tell, in the slow, measured, easy tones of an old man. In the end she turned to him in wonder.
‘So really, monsieur, none of these little ones have anything to do with you at all?’
‘I suppose not,’ he said, ‘if you like to look at it that way.’
She pressed the point. ‘But you could have left the two in Dijon for their parents to fetch from Geneva? You would have been able then, yourself, to have reached England in good time.’
He smiled slowly. ‘I suppose so.’
She stared at him. ‘We French people will never understand the English,’ she said softly. And then she turned aside.
He was a little puzzled. ‘I beg your pardon?’
She got to her feet. ‘You will wish to wash,’ she said. ‘Come, I will show you. And then, I will see that the little ones also wash.’
She led him to an untidy bathroom; manifestly, they kept no servant in the flat. He looked around for a man’s gear, hoping for a razor, but the colonel had been away too long. Howard contented himself with a wash, resolved at the first opportunity to see if he could get a shave.
The girl took the children to a bedroom, and washed them one by one quite thoroughly. Then it was time for déjeuner. By padding out the midday meal with rice, Madame Rougeron had produced a risotto; they sat down to it round the table in the salon and had the first civilised meal that Howard had eaten since Dijon.
And after lunch, sitting round the littered table over coffee, while the children played together in a corner of the salon, he discussed his future with them.
‘I wanted to get back to England, of course,’ he said. ‘I still want to. But at the moment it seems difficult.’
Madame Rougeron said: ‘There are no boats to England now, m’sieur. The Germans have stopped everything.’
He nodded. ‘I was afraid so,’ he said quietly. ‘It would have been better if I had gone back to Switzerland.’
The girl shrugged her shoulders. ‘It is always easy to be wise later,’ she said. ‘At the time, a week ago, we all thought that Switzerland would be invaded. I think so still. I do not think that Switzerland would be at all a good place for you to go.’
There was a silence.
Madame said: ‘These other children, monsieur. The one called Pierre and the other little Dutchman. Would you have taken them to England?’
Sheila, bored with playing on the floor, came up and pulled his sleeve, distracting him. ‘I want to go out for a walk. M’sieur Howard, may we go out for a walk and see some tanks?’
He put his arm round her absently. ‘Not just now,’ he said. ‘Stay quiet for a little. We’ll go out presently.’ He turned to Madame Rougeron. ‘I don’t see that I can leave them, unless with their relations,’ he said. ‘I have been thinking about this a good deal. It might be very difficult to find their relations at this time.’
The mother said: ‘That is very true.’
Pursuing his train of thought, he said: ‘If I could get them to England, I think I’d send them over to America until the war is over. They would be quite safe there.’ He explained. ‘My daughter, who lives in the United States, has a big house on Long Island. She would make a home for them till the war ends, and then we could try and find their parents.’
The girl said: ‘That would be Madame Costello?’
He turned to her faintly surprised. ‘Yes, that is her married name. She has a little boy herself, about their age. She would be very good to them.’
‘I am sure of that, m’sieur.’
For the moment the difficulty of getting them to England escaped him. He said: ‘It’s going to be practically impossible to find the little Dutchman’s parents, I’m afraid. We don’t even know his name.’
Beneath his arm, Sheila said: ‘I know his name.’
He stared d
own at her. ‘You do?’ And then, remembering Pierre, he said, ‘What do you think he’s called?’
She said: ‘Willem. Not William, just Willem.’
Howard said: ‘Has he got another name?’
‘I don’t think so. Just Willem.’
Ronnie looked up from the floor. ‘You are a story,’ he said without heat. ‘He has got another name, Mr. Howard. He’s called Eybe.’ He explained. ‘Just like I’m called Ronnie Cavanagh, so he’s called Willem Eybe.’
‘Oh …’ said Sheila.
Madame said: ‘But if he can’t speak any French or English, how did you find that out?’
The children stared at her, uncomprehending, a little impatient of adult density. ‘He told us,’ they explained.
Howard said: ‘Did he tell you anything more about himself?’ There was a silence. ‘Did he say who his daddy or his mummy were, or where he came from?’
The children stared at him, awkward and embarrassed. The old man said: ‘Suppose you ask him where his daddy is?’
Sheila said: ‘But we can’t understand what he says.’ The others stayed silent.
Howard said: ‘Never mind, then.’ He turned to the two women. ‘They’ll probably know all about him in a day or two,’ he said. ‘It takes a little time.’
The girl nodded. ‘Perhaps we can find somebody who speaks Dutch.’
Her mother said: ‘That might be dangerous. It is not a thing to be decided lightly, that. One must think of the Germans.’
She turned to Howard: ‘So, monsieur,’ she said, ‘it is clear that you are in a difficulty. What is it that you want to do?’
He smiled slowly. ‘I want to get to England with these children, madame,’ he said. ‘Only that.’
He thought for a minute. ‘Also,’ he said gently, ‘I do not wish to get my friends into trouble.’ He rose from his chair. ‘It has been most kind of you to give us déjeuner,’ he said. ‘I am indeed sorry to have missed seeing monsieur le colonel. I hope very much that when we meet again you will be reunited.’
The girl sprang up. ‘You must not go,’ she said. ‘It is not possible at all, that.’ She swung round on her mother. ‘We must devise something, Mother.’
