Assignment in Brittany

by Helen Macinnes

  “He’s here,” she was whispering. “He’s down at the boat, waiting to sail. The weather’s just right for it. Hurry.” Her words awakened him as thoroughly as a bucket of cold water.

  He stumbled cautiously across the room. By the light from the window, he guessed it must be almost night. Probably about nine o’clock. “What—” he began, but she silenced him with a finger at her lips.

  “He’ll explain when you are safely away,” she said.

  At the top of the narrow wooden stairs she halted him again. “I’ll go down first and start serving at the bar. Then you just come down quietly and walk out. Don’t stop for a minute.”

  Hearne listened to the loud voices coming up from the room beneath. “Won’t it be dangerous for you if someone sees me?”

  She shook her head impatiently. “A man coming down these stairs doesn’t surprise them. They’ve come down themselves.” She smiled and patted his shoulder. “Now get to the boat. I’ll have some more stories for you next time you come back. And you can bring me some real coffee.” And then she was moving silently down the staircase, her weight balancing from side to side as she placed one foot carefully in front of the other.

  He waited until he heard her voice raised in a shout of laughter and the sound of glasses being clanked heavily down on the bar. A heavy blue haze of smoke filled the little room. But no one turned to watch him slip out of the door, cutting off the warm, thick air and Marguerite’s story-telling as he closed it behind him.

  A cold wind ripped the darkness. He paused in the shadows of the overhanging eaves of the last house in that row. Across the narrow cobbled street was the wharf. From the large restaurant farther along the river-bank came the ebb and flow of music. His eyes searched for the outlines of the boat. There she was, pulling gently against the mooring rope. He gauged the distance with his eye. It would take only ten seconds of quick movement. He gathered his confidence and a deep breath, and walked smartly across the quay.

  There seemed to be no one on board, but a hand pulled him down behind a heap of sails and covered him loosely with their folds.

  “Half an hour,” Le Trapu whispered, “and it will be dark enough to sail.”

  Hearne pushed aside enough of the sail to breathe. He lay and listened to the rise and fall of the violins from the restaurant, the lapping of the tide’s ripples against the boat’s sides. Once he heard marching feet, and held himself ready to slip into the cold water. But the feet marched on, and his tense muscles relaxed again.

  Before the moon had risen the boat was moving gently into mid-channel. The dark banks of the river rose steeply on either side. The wind which had cut through his jacket, as he had left Marguerite’s house, now filled the sails. It was only then that Le Trapu left the other man to steer the boat and came forward to talk to him.

  He gave Hearne a nod of recognition, and sat down silently beside him.

  “Where are we bound?” Hearne asked.

  “You ought to know.”

  Hearne looked at the square-set face with its thick growth of hair on the jaw. “Do you?”

  Le Trapu raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders. “The boy Etienne brought me back an answer to take you to Saint-Lunaire.”

  Hearne relaxed. “Brought me back,” Le Trapu said. That meant Anne’s message had got through to Etienne. Hearne asked, “Answer to what?”

  “If I should sail you there.”

  Hearne was silent, trying to puzzle that one out.

  Le Trapu spoke again. “It was the girl’s idea. She said you were hurt, that the Boches had got you for a while. She thought you might come to Dinan, although she hadn’t wanted you to come, because you’d want to make sure of that message. So I asked the boy Etienne what was I to do. And he came back with the message to take you to Saint-Lunaire if I found you.”

  “Did the girl say where she was going?”

  “To the coast.”

  That was as much as he knew already, thought Hearne. He stared moodily at a patch on the sail. After the strain of worrying about these last miles, it was a strange feeling to sit in a boat and feel them floating past. That was like life...you worried and you schemed, you sweated and you suffered, and then something quite different happened; and all your careful plans were just so much sawdust.

  “I’m giving you a devil of a trouble,” Hearne said.

  “No trouble. It’s quicker this way. Three hours, four hours perhaps in all. It is simple. No trouble.” The Breton was equally awkward. He rose and moved to the stern, as if he were afraid of further thanks.

  Hearne lay still, his eyes watching the river-banks, his mind filled with cross-currents of emotion. The wooded gorge gave way to sloping fields and woods, and small, dark, huddling villages. As they passed them stringing along the river-banks, Hearne remembered L’Etoile d’Or. He wondered how Jules was getting on. He’d make a good boss if he married that girl behind the bar: she was the one to give him the confidence he needed. It was strange to think of big Louis’ body anchored in the mud and slime at the bottom of this river. It was strange to think that they might even be sailing over what was left of it— for the estuary was now broadening, the banks were widening, and there was the hard, square shape of the first big town on the right bank, Hearne, stretching his cramped legs painfully in the bottom of the boat, felt the spray sting his face, and smelled the first real saltiness.

  Le Trapu came forward, and pointed to the distant bank.

  “Saint-Servan, and then Saint-Malo,” he said. “From now on I’ll be busy. Once I get her out between Saint-Malo and Dinard, I’ll talk to you again.” And then he had gone back to the tiller.

  Hearne, remembering the picturesque shapes on his map of this river’s estuary, felt a chill going through his body which didn’t come from the wind. In this darkness, with white clouds chasing each other across the sky, with the slice of moon and scattered stars still struggling to break through the heavy drift of mist, he didn’t feel like talking much. He only half smiled at Le Trapu’s canniness: no chickens being counted here before they were hatched. “Once I get her out, I’ll talk to you again.” Anything they planned before this getting-out business might be just a waste of breath. It might, thought Hearne, as he felt the boat rise and fall and shiver as the strong currents tried to pull their own way. It might, but it wasn’t going to turn out like that. He concentrated on that thought, as if by keeping his mind fixed on arriving at Saint-Lunaire the boat would be bound to get there.

  He could see the black shapes of curving, rocky peninsulas, of scattered islands like so many boulders dropped into a pool of racing currents. Once the moon struggled free of its shroud long enough to throw a sickly gleam on the water. Hearne wished it hadn’t, for the Marguerite appeared to be heading straight into a whirlpool, and between them and the cliffs of the shore were needles of rock round which the cross-currents fought and slavered. If he only knew more about sailing a boat, he thought, he wouldn’t need to imagine himself as a steersman. Perhaps he could relax then, and let Le Trapu manage it all by himself. There was only one thing which gave him any pleasure: the little boat’s speed had increased. At this rate they would soon be in the open Channel and then Saint-Lunaire was only three or four miles to the west of them. The salt spray covered him as the Marguerite suddenly ploughed across a stretch of broken water. Hearne was relieved that the moon hadn’t tactlessly emerged at that point, to show him just how broken it was. And then the boat plunged forward again: the water against its side stopped jabbing at the planks, and hissed as it streamed smoothly past.

  Hearne was startled to hear a voice bellowing in his ear.

  “We’re out now,” Le Trapu explained.

  “Thank God,” Hearne said, unclenching his hand from the mast and relaxing. “I’m all worn out, steering. I’d rather meet a German patrol, any day.”

  That amused Le Trapu. “Each to his own job,” he said politely.

  “Didn’t know a boat was so damned noisy,” Hearne said. “All
creaks and sighs and groans.”

  “Nice little breeze. And nice moon. It was bad for us when it came out for a few moments.”

  “When do we reach Saint-Lunaire?”

  “Very soon. If the light were better, and thank God it isn’t, you would be seeing the way the rocks stick out between the two bays. I’ll take you to the west bay.”

  Hearne nodded. “That’s the one farther away from the town,” he said. “That’s the one.”

  “We’ll run in as near the coast as we can. You can wade ashore. Good sand, big dunes, and no houses. You can lie up there quietly all tomorrow.”

  “Yes,” said Hearne. That waiting wasn’t going to be much fun. He couldn’t allow himself to sleep. He’d just lie and worry about this job: worry how he could have done more, or could have done better. Not that it mattered now at this stage, but at least it would keep him from thinking about himself. And his personal thoughts were far from pleasant at the moment. It had to be this way. The job came first: it had to. Damn it all; he said to himself, why do you have to keep persuading yourself about that? You know it’s first. You can’t think of Anne or yourself until it’s all over. When you chose this kind of work, you were choosing a moment like this, even if you didn’t know it. He looked at the black streak of coast-line, with the darkness hiding the arcs of sand and pointed by cliffs. Perhaps Anne would follow that shore road to Saint-Brieuc, perhaps she might even think of him as she looked over the waters. Shut up, he told himself savagely, shut up. She had only been kind to him because she was kind. She couldn’t help but be sweet and gentle. If she had felt the way he felt, then she would have waited at Marguerite’s house in Dinan. She would at least have said goodbye. Shut up, he said to himself again. He should know it was better that she didn’t wait, that she didn’t say goodbye. Now he could stop sentimentalising, and prepare for a cold swim. That would cool his brain for him.

  “Saint-Lunaire. East bay,” Le Trapu said, pointing. Hearne looked, but there was nothing but blackness, perhaps at the most a faint smudge of grey where the sand of the bay swept out to the sharp teeth of the rocky peninsula. There was no doubt about that spine of rock. Its cliff rose darkly up in a savage line against the sky, as if to protect the town sheltering back in the mainland.

  Le Trapu’s man was bringing the boat in a wide sweep round the headland now, into the second bay. Le Trapu was working swiftly and furiously with the sails. Their speed slackened. They drifted towards the long grey curve of sand, growing greyer and wider. Behind it was a stretch of soft darkness. Golf courses, Hearne remembered from his map. Miles of them. This was the place.

  Their speed slackened still more, they were almost drifting in.

  Le Trapu was beside him again. “Can’t risk any farther. Can you swim?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. It’s very shallow. Stay in the dunes all day. Don’t leave them. They’re safe.”

  Afterwards Hearne remembered the insistence of the Breton’s voice. But at the time he only nodded, and slipped over the edge of the boat, holding his gun in his right hand. Only the left arm was good for swimming, anyhow. He hung on to the side of the boat for a moment, Le Trapu bending over to hold the left hand secure.

  “Bonne chance alors. Au revoir,” he said, and released his grip on Hearne’s hand. Hearne drew his knees up to his chest, his feet against the side of the boat. He shoved against it, and felt himself glide out into the water free of the boat. He paddled softly with his left arm, as he felt for the sand and touched nothing. Six strokes later, he felt again and touched bottom. He waded slowly in over the long stretch of shallow water, keeping only his head and his right hand above water until he was forced to change to crawling on his knees. At the water’s edge, he came in with a curling breaker, and rolled flat on the sand. The wave’s last flow licked his face as he turned his head to watch the boat. He could see it only because he knew it was there. Already it was swinging out. Soon it would be just another fishing-boat crossing the bay.

  He gathered breath, and started the long, slow crawl over the cold sand. When he got back to England, he could start thinking about the pain which gripped his right shoulder, about the spasm which dragged at his back muscles. He lay over on his left side and wrung the water out of his jacket pocket and slipped the gun back into it. He needed his right hand free— such as it was. Then, with his face muscles set in an ugly grin which had nothing to do with amusement, he pulled his body over the shore.

  It was heavy going, for the dripping clothes and swamped boots had the weight of lead; and he was weaker than he had thought. In spite of the constant effort and movement, he was deathly cold and shivering uncontrollably by the time he reached the first curving bank of sand. He rested there. Then he pulled himself up over its soft face towards the waving spikes of grasses. Twice he slipped, and dug in with his knees and elbows to stop himself from sliding back to the shore. But at last he had his left hand round the toughness of the grasses. They cut into his flesh as they took the weight of his body, but he was over the last lip of the dune and he let himself roll gently down its grass side until he rested at the bottom of its hollow. There were bushes near. He crawled over to the largest clump. Gorse-bushes. Painful, he thought, but at least safe. He groaned to himself, and looked for the easiest entrance to the sweet-scented tangle.

  And then he heard a step. A careful step, as if someone had halted uncertainly.

  Oh, God, he thought despairingly. He forced his right hand into his pocket. He rolled over quickly on his side, aiming at the half-crouching figure. It moved forward as he steadied himself.

  The whispered words were like the touch of the wind on the tall grasses round him.

  “I was watching for you.”

  That was all; but his heart leaped, and he forgot the throbbing shoulder and the coldness and the numbing sickness.

  “Anne,” he whispered.

  And then she had slipped, as quietly as she had come, down to where he lay. “Anne,” he said, and gripped her so that he felt her bones yielding under the pressure of his arm and heard the short gasp as the breath left her body.

  “Anne,” he whispered again, and kissed her.

  29

  END OF A MISSION

  The spreading gorse-bush grew at the foot of a short, steep bank, bearded with tall, waving grasses. Its heavy branches. swept to the ground at its front and sides; at its back, they clutched the top of the bank and trailed beyond. They formed a perfect, but painful, screen, Hearne thought, as he forced the stubborn branches apart and held them that way until Anne, her hair protected by her rough woollen jacket, could reach the free space of ground between the roots and the bank. Then he entered the thorny tangle, letting the branches fall to the earth again behind him. They had torn his hands and lashed his shoulders, but the shelter they offered was safe. Anne was lying on the sparse, stubby grass which forced its way up through the sand. He stretched himself carefully beside her. It was too dark to see her face, but the arm which he had thrown round her measured her heart-beats. His left hand pulled the jacket back from her hair. It was no longer tightly braided; its soft, loose silk covered his fingers.

  “I can’t even see it,” he said bitterly. “And I can’t see your face properly. There’s only a black outline which is you. And we’ll have to talk in whispers, and we dare hardly move in case we lose an eye.” He looked up at the dark mass of branches sweeping arc-wise above their heads to reach the steep bank behind them. “Hell of a lover I am, bringing you into a place like this.”

  She laughed softly. “I like it,” she said. “I feel safe here. And I feel so happy.” Suddenly the laughter in her voice stifled, and he knew she was crying.

  “Anne darling,” he said. “Anne!”

  “I’m just so happy,” she repeated. “I thought Le Trapu was never coming, that he had missed you after all, that you had both been caught. And then the light was so bad, and the clouds made so many shadows on the bay that there might have been fifty fishing-boats there
or none at all. Then the clouds thickened and a mist moved in from the sea. Even at the very end, I wasn’t sure it was you. By the time I left the dune where I was lying, and hurried along to where I thought I had seen you go, I began to imagine that I had been dreaming. And then, I found you.”

  Hearne, his lips touching the smooth cheek, didn’t answer. He was thinking of the danger Anne had been in, of the risks she had taken. At last he said, his voice now normal, “How long did you wait?”

  “I came this afternoon. There were others walking on the sands of the bay, so it was quite safe. Near the rocks beside the town there were German soldiers.” A hint of laughter entered her voice. “They were trying to learn to swim. I watched them from the dunes, as some other people were doing. I just sat down there, and the tall grasses were higher than my head, and no one noticed me. After an hour, I moved farther back into the grasses, and I lay there in the sunshine, waiting for the darkness.”

  “Any other Germans?”

  “Some on leave from the town were walking along the sand. They kept looking at the sea.”

  “What about the golf course?”

  “Some Boches were playing there. Madame Chevel said they were staying in the big hotels, and in the villas the Parisians used to own. The Casino is filled with them every night. People believe something is going to be started here very soon, because a lot of boats have been bringing loads to the small quays on the other bay. Some say it’s ammunition, and some say building material. But every one seems to think the Germans’ holiday will soon be over, and that there’s going to be work here for them. There are a lot of soldiers in the town, and on the beach in the other bay in front of the Casino.”

  “Who is Madame Chevel?”

  “I stayed with her last night. When I arrived in Saint-Lunaire, I was hungry, so I joined a queue outside a baker’s shop. There was a woman like Albertine standing beside me. That was Madame Chevel.”