Assignment in Brittany (41 page)

White in the moon the long road lies

That leads me from my love.”
¹

It was Anne who spoke first. “It is a sad poem.”

“How do you know?” he asked quickly.

“Your voice was sad... Will you translate it for me?”

Hearne shook his head. “Some day, Anne. Not now. Later.” He roused himself once more, and rose slowly to his feet. “Now
you
are looking sad. Where’s that smile of yours?”

She found it with difficulty.

“What’s wrong, Anne?”

“Nothing. At least, not much. I’m worried, that’s all. Brittany’s coast is treacherous. I know it quite well, and there are many places with bad tides, currents, rocks. You may choose one of them.” She was walking beside him, watching his steps with a careful eye.

“So we are back there again?”

“Yes.”

“Would it make you any less worried if I were to tell you that the place I shall go to has been chosen because it is safe? You wouldn’t know it; it’s quite small, just west of Dinard, but it is certainly safe. As safe as any place is now.”

Anne said quietly, “Is it Saint-Lunaire?”

He checked his pace, and looked at her with a mixture of annoyance and amusement.

“I noticed your map,” she explained quickly. “I noticed a light pencil line. Or shouldn’t I have?”

“No, you shouldn’t.” He was half angry. Women always wanted to know everything. But even if Anne had seen any of the others papers, she couldn’t have understood the coded shorthand.

She had guessed part of his thoughts. “I only looked at the map. It was lying on the ground beside the mattress. I picked it up and put it safely with the rest of your things. I am sorry if I shouldn’t have looked at it.” Her tone was stilted, her face was flushed, and her eyes were bright. She looked so much like a worried child that he relented and smiled. After all, no harm was done. And she had obviously thought there was nothing wrong in looking at a map: if she had had a guilty conscience, she would never have told him about it. His annoyance and suspicions melted, and he was left with a feeling of being mean and ungrateful.

He smiled again. “Well,” he said, “does all that make you feel better?”

Anne nodded. “Much better. The coast at Dinard is dangerous, but farther west there are safer places.” She didn’t mention Saint-Lunaire again. She stood smiling at him, and the smile was real at last.

Kerénor came again in the evening, bringing food and little news. Things were as they had been, he told them gloomily. In that case, Hearne thought, he ought to be more cheerful. Things might very well be worse: the Nazis might have discovered the real story of the escape from the town hall, its cellars might have new guests within their walls, and Sharkface and Razorpuss might very well be striding into the cave at this moment. Hearne watched Kerénor as he paced the floor, and wondered just what conflicts raged in the Breton’s mind. Elise’s influence wasn’t so easily removed as Kerénor had pretended to believe, yesterday, when he had pronounced his judgment. Or perhaps, by making an open declaration to Anne and Hearne, he had hoped to keep his decision strong. He had probably feared he would hesitate if he hadn’t witnesses to challenge his pride. And now, even with witnesses, he was losing his determination. The coldness of reason was strangling the will to act. Kerénor was the kind of man who had to strike when his anger was at white heat; when it cooled, then his purpose wavered and the will to act became frustrated cynicism. He would always give Elise a last chance, not from kindness of heart but from intellectual self-hypnotism. Hearne looked dispassionately at Kerénor... “The native hue of resolution is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of
thought,” he repeated to himself. Yet, who was he to criticise Kerénor? He thought of Anne. Yes, anyone looking into his mind would think he was another kind of fool. Plenty of people would judge him equally harshly, either because he had smothered his own emotions too much, or because he hadn’t smothered them enough. But what the hell could he do? This wasn’t a case of doing what he wanted to do: it was a case of what he had to do. Personal feelings didn’t enter into it at all. He recognised that, and yet he couldn’t stop himself from having them. So who was he to criticise Kerénor? A typical Nazi would sneer at Hearne for his sentimental weakness: a typical Frenchman would think he was cold and hard. That’s the trouble, he was thinking, he was neither of these. He was just a compromising Englishman.

Kerénor noticed his silence. “You are tired. I’ll come back in the morning when you’ve had a good sleep. You can tell me then about your plans for leaving. You’ve made them?”

Hearne nodded, but said nothing. Yes, they were made, and he wasn’t going to let anything change them, either. On Friday he would leave. Not tomorrow. but the next day, he would leave. He looked again at Anne. How long, he wondered, before this bloody war was over? How long before he could come back?

Anne was restless. She was waiting impatiently for Kerénor to go, and when he did she went with him. “I’ll walk to the tower steps,” she had said, and had lifted the smaller lamp to light her way back to the cave.

Hearne watched the entrance to the cave blankly, and listened to the limping footsteps mingling with the light crispness of Anne’s heels. Then the following echo died away too. He
stretched himself gloomily on the straw mattress. If Anne wanted to walk and talk with Kerénor, then it was nothing of his business. He himself had chosen to make it none of his business. So why the devil was he feeling like this? It was all the fault of lying cooped up in a stone coffin: living in this cave made you imagine things. What on earth had ever given him the idea that it would be any good coming back here when the war was over? She was still betrothed to Corlay, wasn’t she? And if she weren’t, then there were others. She had been kind and gentle to him because she was kind and gentle. What was there for her to see in him, anyway?

When she returned he was lying staring up at the rough ceiling of the cave. She didn’t explain anything, and he wouldn’t ask.

They ate the food which Kerénor had brought them, with little to say. The strangeness of the silence between them struck Hearne: he hadn’t realised before just how much they usually talked when they were together. When Anne changed the bandages, she fastened them with special care, and she examined the cuts and bruises with capably cool hands and eyes. Nothing escaped her tonight. At last everything was done to her satisfaction. She lowered the lamp, smoothed the sheet under his chin. Standing beside his bed, she looked tall and slender. The smooth fair hair seemed almost silver.

She spoke softly, her voice clear and low. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

Well, he thought savagely as he heard her footsteps moving quietly in the cave next door, that was just as neat a piece of emotional bathos as he had ever had. The sooner he was out of here, the better.

¹
From A Shropshire Lad, by permission of the Trustees of the Housman estate, and Messrs. Jonathan Cape Ltd.

27

THE DARK WOOD

When Hearne awoke, Anne must have already risen. The blanket in her corner of the cave was folded in a neat square on the thin mattress. Then he heard a movement from the inner cave. Blast, he thought: he had wanted to go in there for a drink— He interrupted his thinking to listen to the footsteps. They were limping. Hearne, lying rigid on his mattress, said, “Hell, what’s going on here, anyway?”

It was Kerénor all right. He was standing in the entranceway now, with a lamp in his hand and a twisted smile on his face.

“You waken early,” he said.

Hearne didn’t answer.

“Do you want anything?”

“A drink—I’ll get it later.”

“Why not now?”

Hearne rose stiffly and went towards Kerénor.

“Walking more easily? Take this.” He handed the lamp to Hearne.

“Yes. Thanks,” Hearne said briefly, and passed into the other cave. It was empty. Only the thin cascade of water, falling into the pool, made any sound. Only the little stream, flowing in its miniature canal, made any movement. He paused uncertainly.

“What’s wrong?” asked Kerénor. Hearne wished he would wipe that grin off his face.

“Nothing.” He drank from the pool, cupping his hands and letting the cold water splash over his face. His body was certainly better. He could even move his right arm as far as the elbow without any pain.

When he came back into the cave where he had slept, Kerénor was sitting on his bed. “I’ll go and get our breakfast soon,” he said. “Might even find some nice hot soup waiting in Monsieur le Curé’s kitchen this morning. He thinks a man who might be recovering from Nazi treatment might need more nourishment. Funny thing: I am getting quite attached to Monsieur le Curé.”

Hearne stood in front of Kerénor. He was listening, but not to the Breton.

“What’s wrong?” Kerénor asked again.

“Nothing.”

Kerénor was enjoying himself immensely. “Don’t tell me you are missing Anne already.”

Hearne felt his face flush, but he didn’t speak.

“She’s gone, you know.”

“Gone?” Hearne echoed. But of course, he thought, she had to leave some time. She had already delayed her journey to her aunt long enough for safety’s sake. “How long will she take to get to Saint-Brieuc?” he asked, more casually than he felt.

“She hasn’t gone to Saint-Brieuc.” Kerénor was watching him with a mixture of amusement and clinical interest.

Hearne said slowly, “You can stop playing for effects. Where the hell is she?”

“By this time she should have reached Dinan.”

“Dinan?”

“I said Dinan.” And then Kerénor relented. “She wouldn’t tell me very much. She just said I was to tell you that she would see ‘him’ and give ‘him’ the message. That she might shelter with ‘his’ sister before she continued her journey. Does it make sense to you?”

“Partly.” Hearne’s voice was grim. “What message? Did she say?”

“Saturday at the seaside. Not very exciting. Or is it?”

“Exciting enough.” Hearne began to pace about the cave. Anne must have gone last night after he had fallen asleep, so that she could be in Dinan before dawn, so that Le Trapu would have the message before he sailed this morning back to the Bay of Mont Saint-Michel. That meant Etienne would get the message today or tonight; and by tomorrow night, Friday night that was, Duclos would send the message out from his oubliette in the Abbey. Perhaps if Le Trapu saw the boy Etienne in time, the message would even be sent tonight. Saturday at Saint-Lunaire. She had planned everything as neatly as he could have wished.

“But why didn’t she tell me?” Hearne said at last.

“Because she was afraid you would have forbidden the idea. Anne is a well-brought-up girl. Her father’s word was law. If you had forbidden her to go, she would have felt the compulsion of the old instincts to obey.”

“I’m not like her father,” Hearne said irritably.

Kerénor smiled, as if to himself. “No. But you seem to have a lot of authority over her. Now don’t go asking me why. If you can’t understand that for yourself, then it isn’t worth explaining. Here, you’d better sit down and rest.”

“I’m all right. I need to walk.” Hearne’s excitement was fading, and in its place was worry. He thought of Anne alone at Dinan, on the dark road to Dinan. She might never have reached there. His face was hard as he halted in front of Kerénor. “You shouldn’t have let her go.”

“I?” asked Kerénor, in mild surprise. He was no longer smiling as he looked at Hearne’s face. His voice lost its raillery. He said gently, almost sympathetically, “I assure you I have no influence over her at all. She’s my oldest friend here. She would talk with me when the others were still watching me with distrust because I come from another part of the country— from the south of Brittany. But she talked with me, partly because she doesn’t like to hurt people, partly because I could converse about the things she was interested in, partly because she liked me, partly because she pitied me. But the chief thing was that I was someone to talk to. You see, her father had her sent to a good school at Dinan, but he wouldn’t let her go on to Rennes University as she wanted to do. He brought her back to live on the farm, and betrothed her to Corlay. He thought he was doing the best thing for her. If Corlay had been a different sort of chap, no doubt these simple-minded plans wouldn’t have been so bad. Most girls would make happier women if their personal ambitions were sublimated. Well, anyway, we’d talk, Anne and I. I would preach and she would listen or argue gently. But she never took my advice unless she wanted to take it. Last night was one of the times when she just listened to me
and did the other thing. You don’t know Breton women when they have all their plans made.”

“She couldn’t have had them made, if I hadn’t talked so damn’ much,” Hearne said savagely. “She got me into the state of thinking aloud yesterday. I never guessed...she seemed so simple...so...I’ve been thinking of her as a—well, look at her! She fitted into the background of Saint-Déodat so well that I never guessed she would do anything mad like this.”

“She seemed to me to be very sane.”

“But she doesn’t know what she’s up against. What the devil was that message for me again?”

Kerénor repeated it slowly. “She was going to see this ‘him’ and give ‘him’ the message, and perhaps shelter with ‘his’ sister before continuing the journey.”

“Shelter with his sister...” Hearne exploded: he cursed fluently and vividly until he had to pause for breath. “Shelter with his sister!” he repeated. “I’ve never been there. For all I know, the sister may run a brothel.”

“You are worrying too much,” advised Kerénor. “Anne is no fool. She knows Dinan and has friends there. That is where she went to school. And she has her permit with her. She thought of everything, including leaving Jean’s permit for you.”

“Jean?”

“Yes, the old man who worked on her farm. Both he and Marie had permits, too; but when you were arrested and Anne came here to nurse you, Anne sent them up to the Laënnec farm to stay out of the way for a while. They will be useful there, too: Laënnec is dead. The news has just come to his wife. Anne gave the old couple’s permits to Monsieur le Curé for safe-keeping. Last night she told me that perhaps you could use Jean’s permit, if we could change the age in it from eighty-two to thirty-two. I think I can do that all right.”