Assignment in Brittany

by Helen Macinnes

  But the German wasn’t listening to her. He was standing impatiently at one of the tables, his fingers tracing the carving round its edge, his eyes on the doorway where the soldier still held his pose. They heard quiet, quick footsteps on the stairs, and then a little man slipped into the room. A thin little man with spectacles and opened note-book and poised pencil. Apart from the uniform weighing so incongruously upon him, there was little about him which seemed military. An auctioneer’s clerk, thought Hearne; that was what he was, an auctioneer’s clerk dressed up as an officer.

  “Captain Deichgräber?” His voice was as quick and light as his step.

  The tall officer left the table. He spoke rapidly in German. “This isn’t bad. It is the best I’ve seen. It will have to do. The colonel will be furious, but you will have to explain to him that the only castle is in ruins, that this is the best house we can find near the village. You can make it comfortable for him. Have a look at the other rooms on this floor.”

  “Very good, Captain Deichgräber.” The quick footsteps pattered into Hearne’s room. When he at last came back, the note-book was closed. The reedy voice went on, “Two other rooms, Captain Deichgräber. Four officers could sleep there once we cleared all the rubbish out.”

  “Then, Captain Deichgräber, there’s the hall downstairs for a dining-room, and also downstairs there is accommodation for four soldiers.”

  “Good.” The officer called Deichgräber felt in his pocket for a cigarette-case. “You can tell them of the arrangements,” he added, and motioned with his cigarette to the owner of the house as he sauntered to the door.

  “You will be requested to leave here by tomorrow. These rooms are urgently required.” The little man’s French was excellent.

  “Tomorrow?” Hearne spoke for the women. Albertine looked as if she had turned into a pillar of salt. Madame Corlay’s nostrils showed a strange rim of white, as if they had been moulded from wax.

  “I said tomorrow. No doubt you will be able to stay with friends until you come back here. It will only be a matter of weeks, September at latest, before you return. You will be recompensed for any damage, of course. And one more thing: leave such things as these”—he swept his arm towards the china and crystal displayed on the dresser—“and your linen and blankets. We can make the decision what we need of them. You will be adequately recompensed for any damage, you may be sure. I shall be back here tomorrow morning before you leave.” The tone was so polite, so correct, so insufferable.

  I’d like to kick those shiny teeth down your scrawny throat, thought Hearne. He said, “But my mother is an invalid.”

  There was a blank stare.

  Captain Deichgräber had turned at the door. He hadn’t liked Hearne’s interruption. “Your mother can stay with friends. If necessary, she may have a permit to travel to a relative.” Hearne thought, now isn’t that generous of him? But he kept silent. Seemingly Captain Deichgräber hadn’t liked Hearne’s restraint either.

  “You, yourself, need employment,” the German went on. “We don’t tolerate unemployment. There will be a job for you.”

  “I am a farmer,” Hearne said quietly. “I don’t need a job.”

  “You will not be needed on this farm for the next few weeks.” Both the officers were smiling now, but there was no hint of amiability in these smiles. “All the harvesting necessary can be done very quickly when it is efficiently done. We shall see to that. You will be back in time to dig for next year’s crops.”

  “And this year’s?” It was Albertine now. “We live on that: that’s all we’ve got.”

  “You will be paid for anything we need.”

  Hearne looked at the two men. Using just what for money? he thought savagely.

  Perhaps Deichgräber hadn’t liked the look in his eyes. Perhaps Deichgräber didn’t like him at all. Anyway, his voice had hardened, his careful accent lost its Frenchness.

  “Your name?”

  “Bertrand Corlay.”

  “Tomorrow you report for work at the Hôtel Perro in Saint-Déodat. Tomorrow. You understand?” He turned to his auctioneer’s clerk. “Make a note of his name, Traube.”

  Traube was looking suddenly thoughtful. “Bertrand Corlay,” he said slowly. “One moment, please, Captain Deichgräber.” He reached into his breast pocket and produced another note-book, a small, insignificant one. But what his quick fingers found on the second page did not seem at all insignificant. He glanced sidelong at Hearne, and then back to the book again. “Bertrand Corlay,” he said softly. Hearne stood looking at the little man, hoping he didn’t seem as alarmed as he felt. What had they against Bertrand Corlay? Perhaps he wouldn’t even be given that twenty-four hours’ grace until tomorrow, to make his escape. Perhaps within the next ten minutes he would be marched right into the village, between that deaf-mute soldier and his comrades downstairs.

  Deichgräber had noticed the change in Traube’s expression. He threw his cigarette on the floor. Together they walked towards the window beside the fire-place and stood there, with their backs to the room. Traube was talking quickly. Deichgräber was holding the small note-book. When they at last turned round to face Hearne, the German’s expression was masked, but it was a thin mask hardly covering his anger.

  “There has been a mistake. This house will be hardly suitable for us.” He looked at Hearne. “Corlay, you have wasted my valuable time. Why did you not tell me your name?”

  Hearne reddened. He avoided the look which Madame Corlay was giving him. Even Albertine was watching him curiously. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “I gave it to you as soon as you asked me.” No, Deichgräber didn’t like him, quite decidedly no. I must, thought Hearne, have an unfortunate way of answering him, or perhaps he feels he has lost face.

  It was Traube who broke the tension in the room. He moved quickly to the door and waited there for Deichgräber. The two officers were once more correct, even to the precision of their parting salute. But as they reached the bottom of the stairs, Deichgräber’s anger broke loose. Traube, it would seem, was trying to restrain him. Hearne tried to catch the words, but the voices were pitched too low. All he could learn from some of the German words which floated upstairs was that Deichgräber was furious at having been made to look a fool, while Traube was being philosophic about it all. He had obviously been more accustomed to rebuffs in his past life than the very assured Deichgräber.

  The front door had closed noisily. There came an angry command, heavy footsteps running round the house to the front entrance, the shuffling of boots, the clank of gunbutts on the paved pathway, the steady rhythm of precision marching. Hearne moved over to the window and cautiously looked out. Only four soldiers and two officers. He watched them march away until they reached the Pinot land. After that the path to the village was hidden by trees.

  “Such a beautiful right wheel,” he said, as he turned back into the room. “They came more quietly than they left, didn’t they?” He picked up the burning cigarette. The two women didn’t answer. They watched him in silence. “Albertine,” he said, “go all through the house and see if we are really alone. Ask Henri how many soldiers there were down in the back yard.” Albertine was still watching him; her mind was fumbling for an answer to all this. She took the cigarette-end which he presented to her with a slight bow and stood there, holding it.

  “Go, Albertine,” Madame Corlay said. Albertine came back to earth. She looked at the offending cigarette, picked up the bowl of cold soup, and moved slowly to the door.

  “Tell us quickly, Albertine,” Hearne said urgently, and the tone of his voice arrested her attention. He pointed towards the bed which had concealed the American. Albertine’s eyes widened, a hand went up towards her opened mouth, and she scurried from the room.

  “I believe she forgot all about him for a moment,” Hearne said smiling, but Madame Corlay wasn’t thinking of Albertine, or of Myles.

  She was picking up the pieces of glass from her broken spectacles on the table. She shook her
head sadly. “You did not need to do that,” she said. She raised her eyes to his. So she had guessed.

  When she spoke again, her voice had hardened, and her lips were twisted bitterly. “Bertrand seems to have had powerful friends,” she began, and then she was weeping quietly. All the pride had left her face. She was an old woman mourning her son.

  Hearne walked over to the window. It would be easier for her if she would really let herself cry, he thought. Behind him there was only silence. He looked down on the fields, but all he could see was the slow tears falling so quietly over the bloodless cheeks.

  Albertine had returned. “All gone,” she announced triumphantly from the doorway. “Tell the young American I’ve brought him some hot soup.” She carried the steaming bowl into Hearne’s room.

  “All clear,” said Hearne, and walked towards the bed. “All clear,” he repeated, and pulled the white folds aside.

  The American stepped out slowly. “Just wanted to make perfectly sure,” he grinned. “Got rid of them all right?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Smooth bit of work.” Myles was looking at him curiously. You’re not the only one who’s puzzled, not by a long chalk, thought Hearne. Only Madame Corlay in that room had seemed to understand just what had happened. Only Madame Corlay and the peering Traube. Even that other officer, called the Ditchdigger, had been out of his depth.

  Hearne steered Myles towards the door. “Supper,” he said, “is served.”

  “You think it’s wise? Not that I’m an anxious man, but I don’t trust those bastards a square inch.”

  “It’s safe enough at the moment. But we may have to hurry you away from here. I’ll talk to you about that later. Now you must eat, and I have things to discuss here.” He nodded over his shoulder to Madame Corlay. Then to Albertine, waiting outside on the small landing, he said, “Lock all the doors, and bar them. If we have any more visitors, they’ll come announced. See that Monsieur Myles has enough to eat. And you can open that last bottle of wine. If we don’t drink it, others may.” He smiled pleasantly as he re-entered Madame Corlay’s room. One thing, anyway, he was thinking—Albertine has had enough shocks today to complete her education.

  He said to Madame Corlay, “I’d like to talk a little with you, if I may.” He drew a chair towards the old woman, again sitting erectly with her hands clasped on the walking-stick. The knuckles no longer showed white.

  “Yes?”

  “First of all, when did you guess?” That could apply to either Corlay’s “powerful friends” or to himself. If she really knew about him, that was... He might have jumped too quickly to conclusions in this last half-hour. He would soon learn, anyway.

  She returned his look calmly. Her voice was gentle. “About you?”

  He now knew, anyway. He smiled half-heartedly. Damn, he was thinking, you couldn’t have been so good after all.

  “I wish you hadn’t broken my glasses,” Madame Corlay said with some asperity, and narrowed her eyes as she looked at his face. “Yes, as far as I can see, the likeness is remarkable. Are you Breton, too?”

  “I am a Celt,” admitted Hearne truthfully.

  “Yes, you look like Bertrand: you even talk and move like him. At first I thought you were my son. And then the little things were different.”

  “What?”

  “Albertine talks with me a good deal. You see, we’ve been a long time together. She came to this farm when she was a girl, and she has stayed here ever since, except for two visits to Rennes when I needed her. One was when Bertrand was born: the other was when I was very ill. She was waiting here to welcome me when I came back after my uncle’s death. So, you see, we talk a good deal.”

  Hearne smothered his impatience. “Yes?”

  “Although I sit up here, I know what’s going on downstairs. When Albertine told me how much easier it was to live with you nowadays, I thought that perhaps war had made you gentler, more sympathetic. Suffering can do that to men. You didn’t grumble about the food, you didn’t grumble about Albertine going to Mass, you didn’t grumble at having to eat in the kitchen. Apart from the time when you lost your temper with Albertine in your bedroom—when I first saw you—you did seem changed by the war. I was beginning to hope that perhaps some good comes of war even in little things, that perhaps you had stopped being so self-centred and opinionated. Then you offered to work in the fields, you helped the American and even admitted, at that time, that clothes for him would be a difficult problem as he was so tall. Taller than you. Bertrand would never have admitted that. Then you went down to the village to find Henri. And today, Bertrand would have gone down to welcome the Germans himself. He might even have offered them wine. He would certainly not have risked hiding the American.”

  “That’s incredible,” burst out Hearne, and then lowered his voice. “Why?”

  “I don’t know why. All I know is that he would have. He never thought of anyone except himself since he was a small boy. You see, that’s how I guessed. You had the one quality which Bertrand lacked. Even Anne, when she came to see me that evening you went to find Henri, even she thought the war had changed and improved you. I found in you, and Anne did too, just what I always had looked for in my son.”

  Hearne’s eyes were fixed on his hands. He cleared his throat, but he didn’t speak. Whatever was coming was going to embarrass him. He knew that from Madame Corlay’s voice.

  “And that was,” continued Madame Corlay, “just ordinary human kindness. That was something Bertrand couldn’t even understand.”

  There was a pause.

  “You called the Germans his friends,” began Hearne, and then. stopped. This was far from pleasant. He felt he was probing an open wound.

  But Madame Corlay’s strength of character was equal to the strain. She didn’t try to dodge the unspoken question. Her voice was hard, as if she was determined to force herself to speak. “I don’t know exactly,” she was saying. “I don’t know... He had strange friends, strange ideas, and he had some strange money too, in recent years. I made that remark about his ‘friends,’ because I was so angry at having the Boches give favours to my son.”

  “Yes, it looked like a favour. On the other hand, it may be their way of winning over Breton nationalists. Your son was a nationalist, wasn’t he?”

  “Certainly. That I do know. But then he has also been a Royalist, and at one time he was a Communist. That was after his revulsion from the Church.”

  “He had many enthusiasms.”

  “But only one at a time.” Madame Corlay paused. “You may think I have driven him to these—enthusiasms. I assure you, I made excuses for him every time, until last year when this terrible war began. You may think I am a bitter old woman, but my bitterness only began then.”

  Too late, thought Hearne pityingly: too late. If less excuses had been made ten years, even five years, ago for Bertrand Corlay, there might have been no bitterness today. There were some types of men whose wilfulness thrived on the excuses that were made for them. And they were the kind of people who never knew when they had gone far enough in their selfishness, who never knew when to stop. The more allowances that were made for them, the more they presumed.

  “Perhaps we are doing your son an injustice,” he said out of his pity for the tortured old woman. “Perhaps he is a true Breton loyalist.”

  Madame Corlay said wearily, “The true Bretons are not paid.”

  “He showed you money?”

  “No. But he didn’t bother to hide the fact from me that he could buy clothes, and books, and drinks at the hotel. Once I asked him. He said his writing was successful.”

  “Perhaps it was.”

  Madame Corlay smiled sadly. “You are too kind.”

  “No, I’m not. Both of us have definite suspicions, and I won’t deny that they are strong ones. And yet the only conclusive proof would be if we could really know where that money came from. It might, as I said, have come from newspaper articles, or reviews, or short stories.” Certainly n
ot from poems, Hearne added to himself. “Now one last thing. Was there anything else which you noticed about me? You see, I wouldn’t like the Boches, or any friends of theirs, to get suspicious.”

  “You need not worry. Any people like that would not notice the quality which my son lacked. It is only someone like Anne, or myself, who wanted to love him, only someone who wanted more kindness in his heart, who would...” She halted. And then, wearily, she added, “No, you have nothing to fear.”

  “Your son is now in good hands, Madame Corlay. He was wounded, but he is recovering. And he may be thinking over things. Many men do when they are ill, when they have ceased to be the very self-efficient creatures they thought they were. Perhaps when he comes back you will find the war has changed him. Mental and physical suffering are good purges, you know.”

  There was a silence, and then Madame Corlay spoke again. “Perhaps. Now I have answered your questions. In return I shall ask you only one. Why are you here?”

  “Because I am an enemy of the Germans. For me, the war has not yet ended. That is why I was sent here.”

  Madame Corlay sat more upright. Her voice was clearer. “That is enough for me.”

  She was about to say more, when Albertine entered. “I’ve opened the wine, Madame. But the American won’t take any until you have had the first glass.”

  Madame Corlay was smiling. Watching the pleasure in her eyes, Hearne wondered how he could have been so mistaken when he had first seen her. An honest laugh, a kind word, a friendly idea: they didn’t cost much. The more he thought of it all, the more Corlay seemed just a bloated fool.

  “Ask Monsieur Myles if he will be so good as to join us,” Madame Corlay said. “And over in that dresser you will find four glasses.”

  “Your best crystal?” Albertine was shocked.

  “Four glasses, Albertine.”

  When Myles came there was an uncertainty in the way he halted at the threshold of the room, there was a hesitation in his usual cheery smile. He thinks we are going to turf him out right away, guessed Hearne, and gave him a reassuring grin. But Hearne’s guess was only half the explanation, as he knew when he caught the American’s wary eyes fixed on him. Myles was doing a little thinking about the Germans’ hasty departure.