Assignment in Brittany

  The first bright streaks of light were breaking in the east. The bells halted, and then swung into a changed rhythm. The people, waiting in small groups in the marketplace, began to move towards the church. One of these groups, standing at the north-west corner of the square, moved forward as the two priests passed them. Hearne noted the three grim-faced men, the two white-capped women, as they walked slowly to join other equally straggling groups, walked silently with bowed heads towards the steps of the church. They would hide the two priests from the town hall and the sentries patrolling its front. Hearne’s head bowed too: no one, not even those who were his friends, must see his face. He walked slowly and draggingly, his chin resting on the black cloth covering his chest, Kerénor’s hand comfortingly at his elbow. He felt as old and as weak as he must have looked.

  They had left the market-place and crossed the road. The two Romanesque towers soared above them. The thickening stream of people paused, and moved, and paused, as those in front began to climb the stone steps to the vaulted doorway. Hearne felt Kerénor’s guiding hand keep him to the edge of the crowd, close to the base of one of the towers. The group of three men and two women still shielded them. Now, as they started to mount the stairs, their bodies formed a screen behind which Kerénor opened the narrow little door in the wall of the tower.

  “For the clergy,” murmured Kerénor, and stood aside to let Hearne enter first, as was fitting for his marked age.

  Inside it was as cold and dark as the cellar in which he had lain.

  Hearne took three steps after Kerénor, fumbled, and then fell. Kerénor had him on his feet again, urging him through the blackness. Hearne went forward blindly. All that mattered was to get one foot before another, one foot before another.

  Then at last Kerénor said quietly, “Now you can faint as much as you want.”

  25

  SANCTUARY

  At first he thought of his bedroom in Cornwall. It was his birthday, his fifth birthday, and his father had hung up a Chinese lantern in the window. The air blowing against the thin, flat pieces of glass which dangled from the lantern sent them swaying and striking their tinkling tune. He was lying in his cot, and he had wakened to hear the pretty-coloured thing sound its gentle song. The fragile notes would halt in the middle of their harmony as the wind drew new breath; they jangled into silence, and then began all over again. It seemed to him then that it was the loveliest kind of song, for it had no real beginning and no real end, and even the notes were as indefinite and vague as a song should be.

  Hearne shook himself fully awake. The notes haunted him. He could hear them in their clear faintness. Perhaps he was really going mad. His eyes searched the dimly lit stone walls around him. The ceiling was of stone, rough and uneven. The floor on which he lay, wrapped tightly in a heavy blanket, was of stone, too. It was dark, with shadows deepening in the corners: the only light came from a carefully trimmed lamp standing in a niche chipped out of a wall. No window. No doors in the proper sense: just two arched openings in opposite stone walls. This wasn’t a room in a house. Dismay seized him, and he struggled to raise himself on one elbow. It was more like a dungeon...a prison...And then he saw that the rough blanket was an army blanket, and an old British army blanket at that. His right arm was bandaged with clean linen, his face felt sticky with some grease. He wiped some gently off his sore jaw with his free left hand. Yes, it was ointment: a thick black ointment smelling of tar and sulphur. His body felt clean. It was still sore, still heavy to move, but the blood and the dirt from the town-hall cellar floor had been washed off, and there was a clean white linen sheet wrapped round his body to keep the coarse blanket off his flesh. He relaxed again and lay back on the thin straw mattress. He wasn’t in Nazi hands, that was certain. He looked at the faint yellow light burning so steadily, and listened. Gently the dripping, dropping notes sang through the rough vault above his head. It was water. That was it; water trickling, falling slowly. He smiled, and now his face didn’t hurt so much.

  He must have fallen asleep again, and he must have slept for a long time. He could tell that by this feeling of expansion which his body had: a nice, warm, comfortable feeling, a clean feeling. He closed his eyes and listened to the distant trickle of water, as he tried to fit this jig-saw puzzle together in his mind. This place wasn’t a house. It hadn’t been built by man, but rather by some long, patient process of erosion. The ceiling was too high for a mine: a cave, or a series of caves perhaps, would be nearer it. But just whereabouts was this cave? He tried to remember what had happened after he had crossed the market-place and the road in front of the church. There had been people crowding slowly towards the steps...Kerénor had pulled him into the shadow of the tower, had opened that small door in its base. Then there had been darkness, and the sound of bells and the chanting of. a choir had grown more distant. He thought he could remember another door, some steps, another door. He couldn’t be sure. It had been too dark, and suddenly he had felt too tired. One step before another, stumbling, hesitating, leaning on Kerénor, reeling like a drunk on a Saturday night, one step before another. That was all he could remember. Then there was Kerénor’s voice, no longer whispering, no longer strained. “Now you can faint as much as you want.” And, by heaven, he had.

  And now he was here, wherever that was.

  He lay and listened to the trickling water. It must be falling into a pool in one of the next caves. There was a series of drops, which kept repeating the same notes like the strings of a violin being plucked. They almost formed a tune, but before they resolved themselves they halted, and the first notes sounded all over again. Like the interval signal of a radio station, like rain from the roof dripping into a barrel of water, like a Chinese lantern swinging at an opened window.

  Then he heard the footsteps, at first an uncertain hint, then marked and sure. He kept his eyes closed as they entered the cave.

  A light, clear voice said, “He’s still asleep!” A cool hand was on his brow, and the blanket was smoothed where he had disarranged it.

  “He needed it.” That was Kerénor’s voice. “I don’t think you have to change the bandages again. They look all right to me.”

  Hearne opened his eyes. Anne was kneeling beside him, and Kerénor was standing behind her. It pleased him somehow to see them both looking so anxious.

  “Hello!” he said.

  Anne smiled with her lips and her eyes and her voice. “He’s awake.”

  Kerénor’s twisted smile wasn’t disagreeable. “Evidently,” he said briefly. “How do you feel now?”

  “Not so bad.”

  “Good. You were beginning to worry us. I told you that you could faint, but I didn’t expect quite all this.”

  “How long has it been since?”

  “Since you collapsed? Two days and two nights.”

  “Was this where I passed out?”

  “No. Farther back there.” Kerénor pointed to the opening through which Anne and he had entered the cave.

  “Are we in a mine?”

  “No.” Kerénor’s voice became informative: you could have guessed that he was a schoolmaster by trade. He sat down on the ground beside Hearne. “These rooms and passages are caves, discovered by the founding fathers of the church, no doubt, and used by them to escape from the pagans when they were searching for a suitable sacrifice on their stone altars. Later, the caves were useful against roving bands of northern raiders and, still later, against the English.” Kerénor paused to let that sink in. He was smiling. So he knew now, too, Hearne thought. The schoolteacher was talking again. “Then, about four hundred years after the English, the caves were used during the Revolution, during La Vendée to be precise. That was the Breton counter-revolution, and there was much bloodshed here.” Yes, Kerénor knew that Hearne was English: he was explaining French history politely for the benefit of a foreigner.

  Kerénor was still talking in his matter-of-fact way. “Those of the inhabitants who managed to survive La Vendée did so by living down he
re along with the treasures from the church. After two months they went above ground again, but they didn’t put back the gold plate and silver candle-sticks on the altar for almost thirty years. Cautious people. Now we may find these caves very useful again.”

  “Who knows about them?”

  “The priests. The villagers had heard the stories about the caves, of course, but somehow they believed that they were either filled up or destroyed by Revolutionary soldiers. Certainly, all entrances from the fields have been completely blocked and forgotten. I myself didn’t believe that the caves existed at all, until three days ago and a little conversation with Monsieur le Curé. The Church remembered how well the caves had sheltered its people—and its treasures—and it kept the secret, believing that the less others knew about it, the more valuable it would be.”

  Hearne was about to speak, but Kerénor interrupted him quickly. “I want you to answer some of my questions later, so don’t tire yourself now. I’ll explain as much as I can.” He moved to a more comfortable position and cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking what I should like to know if I were you.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose reflectively as if arranging his thoughts into the neatest order. Anne was sitting motionless on the ground, her full black skirt spreading circle-wise round her. When Kerénor spoke again, he counted each point briskly on the fingers of his left hand. He was a good schoolteacher.

  “First, the Curé and Guézennec saw you were under arrest. Second, Anne arrived and confirmed that rumour. She had come down into the village—the Boches sent to the farm, to question Madame Corlay and to search the rooms, didn’t think she was important: she wasn’t one of the family; she was just a visitor to them; and no one at the farm enlightened them—and she went at once to the Curé for help. Third, the Curé sent Guézennec to bring me to the square, and I was there talking to Anne when you passed on your way to the town hall. We were discussing, actually, how any escape could be managed. Fourth, Monsieur le Curé went up to the farm to see Madame Corlay. He sent Guézennec over to Anne and me, with the news that there was a place which could hide you for days or even weeks, if you were to escape. Fifth, we met in Guézennec’s parlour that evening, and perfected our plans. It’s next door to Trouin’s house, where the men come to drink together, and we know all of them and they know us. Anyone who seemed most suited for what we were planning was sent in to see Guézennec by Trouin. All very quietly, all very simply. That’s how we completed the plans. It gave us good practice for the future.”

  “What about Anne?” Hearne said. “This must be dangerous for her.”

  Anne smiled, rose quickly, lighted a second oil lamp, and moved into the next cave.

  Kerénor waited until she had gone, and then said, “She’s living here...”

  “What?”

  “Easy, easy. Don’t put your temperature up again. Someone had to be with you; and no one else could, without their absence being noted. So Anne is visiting her aunt at Saint-Brieuc. She left on Friday, after you had been arrested and every one at the farm had answered the Boches’ questions stupidly and satisfactorily. What else was there for a girl to do, whose fiancé had turned out to be quite another man in disguise? Very embarrassing for any girl living in a village like Saint-Déodat. Her decision to go didn’t need any explaining, I assure you.”

  Hearne ignored the raillery of Kerénor’s voice. He said, “What about a permit to leave?”

  “She’s had that for some time. She got it the day she was turned out of her farm. They told her she could go and live with her relatives, and graciously gave her a permit to do it. No extra charge. That was an easy way to lease a house, so thoughtful, so generous.” Kerénor’s voice rose in savage imitation of a German accent. “Anne Pinot, born in Brittany, educated and living in Brittany, will be allowed by our gracious Germans permission to travel by foot (all trains being occupied by us, all buses being used by us, all petrol being commandeered by us) the distance of some eighty kilometres to the town of Saint-Brieuc, carrying one bundle of her possessions not larger than six kilos in weight, and there in Saint-Brieuc she will find a roof to put over her head (provided that the roof has not already been blown to bits or occupied by the soldiers assigned to that district) to replace the roof of her Breton farm exploited unjustly by her Breton family for two hundred and forty years and now in the rightful occupation of Brittany’s friends and saviours for the essential defence of Brittany and the Reich.” He had risen to his feet, and was now limping up and down the rough floor, pausing here and there to accent a phrase with two uplifted fists, raising his voice in the crescendo of unmistakable parody as he reached the end of the peroration. He ended abruptly on the highest falsetto screech. “Bah!” he said in his normal voice. “Carpet-chewer!”

  “They’ll hear us,” Hearne warned.

  Kerénor shook his head with a mystery which he obviously was enjoying. “Do you know where you are?” he asked. It was strange to see him become so much the arch-conspirator. Queer fish, thought Hearne: he seemed to pass from sarcasm to mockery, from emotional animation to calm disinterest, as easily as clouds changed their colour at sunset. You could never tell what he was going to say next, whether his face would freeze into remote coldness or liven with expression, whether he would be serious or amused. And in spite of all these variations; you knew you could trust him: you might not like him, not at first anyway, but you could trust him.

  Hearne replied, “We are under the church.” It was as much the obvious answer to Kerénor’s question as the answer was obviously expected.

  “No.” Kerénor was delighted with his secret. “No. Under the marching feet. Charmingly symbolic.”

  “Under the tents and huts?”

  “Yes. Under the meadow lying in front of the east Gothic tower of the church. That water you hear is a small stream draining out of the pond in the meadows.”

  Anne was coming back, walking slowly so that the pitcher of water which she carried would not spill over. There were two pink spots in her cheeks. She had heard part of their conversation about her, no doubt. Hearne was about to say. “Anne, why didn’t you tell us about the permit?” and then didn’t, as he noticed the way she avoided his eyes. She was raising his shoulders so that he could drink, but she was watching the level of the water in the jug. If she hadn’t told him about the permit, then she had her reasons. If she didn’t want to explain them, then it was none of his business. Or, at least, he had no right to think it was. Perhaps she had preferred to stay at the Corlay farm rather than face the long journey to her aunt’s house, perhaps she had felt that Madame Corlay’s invitation would have been less warm if she knew about Saint-Brieuc as an alternative haven for Anne, perhaps it had been an oversight. And yet he found himself entertaining the fantastic hope that none of these explanations was the right one.

  He said, “Enough, Anne. Thank you.” She still avoided his eyes. She lowered his head gently on to the mattress again, and pretended to smooth the blanket. The pink spots deepened in colour and flowed over her cheeks. Hearne was suddenly aware that Kerénor was watching them both, with a strange un-Kerénor look on his face. There was a pause in which each could feel the words they were all avoiding.

  Hearne said quickly, “Think I’ll try to walk.” He raised himself on his left elbow, disarranging the blanket which had just been so carefully smoothed.

  Kerénor was smiling openly now. “Better not,” he said. “You’ve no clothes, anyway. I had to cut what was left of them off you. We’ll have to find new ones. In any case, I want you to lie still today and save your strength for talking. I’ve some questions to ask you.” He was serious again. The amused smile twisted off his face, and his eyes watched Hearne anxiously.

  “I haven’t finished my own,” Hearne replied. “How many people know about me?”

  “Madame Corlay and Anne, Monsieur le Curé and myself.”

  “How many know I am here?”

  “The same again. We had to tell Madame Corlay. She was on the point o
f sending old Henri and his blunderbuss to rescue you. Much good that would have done, but both Madame Corlay and Henri were all set for action. So we had to tell her.”

  “What about the three men who got me out of that hell-hole?”

  “Back working on their farms after attending the procession.”

  “And the three men with the two women?”

  “They know nothing except the Germans weren’t to notice you going towards the church. They are the rest of our committee.”

  “What committee?”

  “Committee for the Preservation of Liberty, Equality Fraternity.” Kerénor was tensely serious. If Hearne had even looked about to smile, Kerénor would have struck him. But Hearne didn’t smile...there was something pathetically courageous in the formation of a committee for the preservation of France in this remote Breton village. Yet great oaks from tiny acorns...

  Hearne said, “Good.”

  Kerénor relaxed again. “Is that all you want to know?”

  “I’d like to know what happened when the guards were changed in the town-hall cellar.”

  “We were coming out of the church at the end of first Mass. It was almost six o’clock. Then systematised pandemonium broke loose. Squads of soldiers were summoned and herded us into the market-place. We were counted and listed like sheep. Just when I thought we were all to be arrested—and that would have been an interesting experience, but the Germans unfortunately thought better of it—we were all sent back for second Mass, and sentries were posted all round the church. When they let us out at last, they had decided on their course of action. A large reward was posted for your capture. Grim warnings were published about the fate of anyone who helped or harboured you. Houses were all searched from cellar to attic. Patrols are everywhere: there’s a curfew for us all to go to bed early like the bad little boys we are. Then there is talk of hostages. But the only trouble is that, at present, they want to keep us co-operative—until the end of this month, anyway. You were right about the warnings you sent me through Anne. We are being manœuvred. I want you to give me the details about that.”