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Title: Most Secret
Author: Shute, Nevil [Norway, Nevil Shute] (1899-1960)
Date of first publication: 1945
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: William Morrow, 1945
Date first posted: 10 April 2016
Date last updated: 10 April 2016
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1314

This ebook was produced by
David T. Jones, woodie4, Al Haines, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net



PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected.






    _Also by_

    NEVIL SHUTE


    LONELY ROAD

    KINDLING

    ORDEAL

    AN OLD CAPTIVITY

    LANDFALL

    PIED PIPER

    PASTORAL




    Most Secret

    _by_

    NEVIL SHUTE

    _A burnt child dreads the fire._
                                PROVERB

    WILLIAM MORROW
    AND COMPANY

    NEW YORK : 1945




    _This book is manufactured under war-time
    conditions in conformity with all government
    regulations controlling the use of
    paper and other materials._

    PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA





MOST SECRET




1


So much happened in the two years that I spent at the Admiralty, I had a
finger in so many pies, that I have found it difficult to say exactly
when it was that this thing began. From my engagement diary it seems to
have been about the middle of July in 1941, and I should say that it
began with a telephone call from McNeil.

I reached out for the receiver. I remember that it was a very hot day
and I was flooded out with work. There was dust all over my desk because
I had the window open, and outside the bricklayers were repairing what
the _Luftwaffe_ had done to us. I said irritably: "Six nine two."

"Is that Commander Martin?"

"Speaking," I said shortly.

"This is Brigadier McNeil. I am speaking from one hundred and sixty-four
Pall Mall."

"Oh, yes, sir?" I replied. The address meant nothing to me, and I
wondered sourly why the Army could not say in short time who they were
and what they wanted.

"Captain Oliver gave me your name. We've been talking about an operation
this morning. I think perhaps I'd better come along and see you."

"Very good, sir. When would you like to come?"

"About three o'clock this afternoon? Is that convenient to you?"

"That's quite all right for me. I'll expect you then."

He came to me in the afternoon. He was a man of forty-five or fifty, a
typical soldier, very smartly dressed. His belt, his buttons, and the
stars and crowns upon his shoulders were beautifully polished; his
uniform sat on him without a crease, and the red staff tabs blazed out
immaculate from the lapels of his tunic. He had short, greyish hair and
china-blue eyes. He looked pleasant enough, determined, absolutely
straight, and--I thought at first--rather stupid. You felt to look at
him that he would be wonderful upon a horse.

I got up as the messenger showed him in. "Good afternoon," I said. "Will
you sit down?"

He laid his hat and gloves upon the corner of my desk, and dropped his
gas-mask on a chair. He said: "I understand that Admiral Thomson is
away?"

"He's away a good deal, sir," I replied. "We deal with routine matters
from this office in his absence. Anything that's beyond us goes down to
V.A.C.O. by the courier."

He sat down on the chair before my desk, and I went back to mine.
"V.A.C.O.?" he said.

"Vice-Admiral for Channel Operations. Admiral Thomson."

"Oh, I see," he said. "That's his proper title, is it? Just wait a
minute, and I'll write that down." He slipped a pencil and a notebook
from his pocket; I watched him as he wrote, slightly amused.

He put them away again, and turned to me. "Well now," he said. "Let's
start at the beginning. You know the office that I come from?"

I shook my head. "I'm afraid I don't, sir. One hundred and sixty-four
Pall Mall, did you say?"

"That's right. Well..." He paused for a moment, considering his
words. "We do various things from that office," he said at last. "We
come directly under the War Cabinet." He hesitated again. "One of our
jobs is to do what we can to keep up the morale of the French."

I nodded, and waited for him to go on.

"That's Cabinet policy, of course," he said. "We mustn't let them lose
faith in a British victory. They never have lost faith, taking it by and
large. Even in the worst days they believed that we would win. It's our
job to keep their faith in us alive."

I passed him a cigarette. "I suppose our wireless broadcasts help in
that," I said. "Do they--the average Frenchman--does he listen to them
much?"

"Oh, everybody listens," he said. "The B.B.C. is doing a good job, for
all that you read in the newspapers. But that's not my concern. You'd
never keep their heart up upon broadcast talks and news alone. But
something concrete, any little bit of activity or sabotage that can be
contrived--that puts new life in them. Just any little thing to show
them that the Germans aren't having things all their own way. These
daylight sweeps that the R.A.F. are doing over France help us
enormously."

I knew now what was coming, more or less. "This activity and sabotage,"
I said quietly. "You mean, you send people over to the other side?"

"Sometimes," he said shortly.

He blew a long cloud of smoke, and seemed to consider for a minute.
"What I came over to see you people about was this," he said. "One of
our young men produced a scheme the other day--a proposal that we
thought rather well of. But what he proposed was so much a naval
operation that I put it up to Captain Oliver. He sent me over here to
see your admiral."

I took a cigarette myself from the packet on my desk and lit it. "This
is all a bit outside my line," I said. "Anything like this would have to
go to V.A.C.O."

"Yes, I expected that."

I was curious, of course; anybody would have been. I said: "If you care
to tell me about it I can probably tell you straight away if it
conflicts with anything that we are doing. Or if you'd rather, sir, I'll
put in a call to Admiral Thomson right away and make an appointment for
you to go down and see him."

"He won't be in London very soon?"

"Not before Thursday of next week," I said. "I could fix up for you to
see him then."

He shook his head. "I'd better not wait so long." He thought for a
moment, and then said: "I think I'd better have your view on it. It has
to do with the fishing fleet based on Douarnenez."

I wrinkled my forehead; few naval officers know much about the coast of
Brittany, for all that it is only just across the way. "Douarnenez?" I
said. "That's the place just by the Saints, isn't it?"

"That's right," he said. "It's on the west coast, twenty or thirty miles
south of Brest. There's a long bay running inland just north of the le
de Sein, and Douarnenez lies at the head of that bay. It's time we did
something for Douarnenez. They've been having the hell of a time."

"Why is that?"

He knocked the ash off his cigarette. "Well," he said, "they're a very
independent sort of people round about those parts, and they don't like
the Germans. And they don't like being conquered, either. You know, the
Bretons never really think of themselves as French. They have their own
language and their own customs, just like the Welsh in this country.
There's always been a Separatist movement among their intellectuals,
never very serious--Brittany for the Bretons, and all that sort of
thing. And now the Bretons don't regard themselves as having been
defeated. They say that the rest of France ratted on them, and let them
down."

"About right, too," I said.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, anyway, that's the way they look at
it. In Douarnenez they were pretty uppish with the Germans just at
first, and there were a lot of executions."

"Uppish?"

"Throwing excrement at German officers, and demonstrations of that sort.
The _Boche_ won't stand for that; he shot thirty of them in one day, in
public, up against the market-place. That only made things worse, of
course. I don't know how many have been executed in all--possibly a
hundred, maybe more. It's difficult to get the figures. It's not a very
big place, about fifteen thousand inhabitants, I think. Now they've gone
sullen and all bloody-minded, and the Gestapo are working on them."

"That doesn't sound so good," I said.

"It's not. That's why I want to do something for them. Put on a bit of a
show."

I glanced at the solid, well-dressed officer before me with a new
respect. It was impossible not to like him, not to appreciate his
manner. He was absolutely candid, absolutely direct. He sat there
looking at me like a great St. Bernard dog.

I asked: "What sort of show have you got in mind, sir?"

He said: "Well, there are several of the German _Raumboote_ based upon
the port. We want to do something against one of those."

I thought for a minute very hard. "The _Raumboote_ is rather like our
own M.L., isn't it? I've not had a great deal to do with them myself."

"Much the same sort of thing," he said. "They use them for the fishery
patrol."

"And you want to do something against one of those?" I reflected for a
moment. "That's because they are based upon the port, and because
everybody knows about them?"

He nodded. "That's exactly it."

Instinctively I recoiled from the idea. "I see that you want to create a
diversion, sir," I said slowly. "But tell me, why must it be a naval
diversion? What I mean is this. Anything done upon the sea tends to
develop into a big show, because you have to cover your stake. A
ship--any sort of ship--takes a long time to make and costs a lot of
money. You may plan to fight your _Raumboote_ with one ship, but before
long you'll find it necessary to send other ships in support of your one
ship. And before you know what's happening your little show has turned
into a considerable operation."

I paused. "I don't know much about these matters," I said diffidently.
"But I should have thought a land diversion would have served as well. A
bomb laid up against an oil-tank, for example. There you only risk one
man and one bomb."

"It wouldn't have the same effect," he said. "As a matter of fact, an
oil-tank is very difficult. It has been done, but the chance of getting
away without detection is very small. A bridge is easier, and
high-tension cables are very simple, of course. You can hurt them quite
a lot by blowing up the pylons, and they can't put a guard on every
pylon in the country. But none of those would influence Douarnenez very
much."

"No?"

He shook his head. "Their minds are turned entirely to the sea. I
thought the same as you at first, but you must understand the sort of
town it is. The whole life of the place is centred round the harbour and
the fishing fleet. It's just like Brixham must have been thirty years
ago."

I nodded without speaking.

"It's got the strongest fishing fleet in France," he said. "But I
suppose you know all about that."

"I'm ashamed to say I don't," I said. "I know it's quite a big fleet.
How many vessels sail out of Douarnenez?"

He pulled out his notebook again. "I can give you that." He fumbled for
a little, and found the page. "On March 1st there were a hundred and
forty-seven sardine-boats, Diesel-engined wooden vessels sixty to
seventy feet long. There were thirty-six sailing tunnymen, ketch-rigged,
about a hundred and ten feet long. And there were seven sailing
crabbers, about a hundred and thirty feet. A hundred and ninety vessels
all told, excluding small boats."

"That's a very strong fleet," I said. "What do all those ships do now?"

"They still go out fishing."

"Are those the fishing-boats that the destroyers see when they make
their sweeps? Between Ushant and Belle Isle?"

He nodded. "Those are probably the ones they see. The tunnymen go down
to the Bay of Biscay; the sardine-boats don't usually go south of the
le de Sein. It's the sardine fleet that concerns us now."

I stared at him. "Wait a minute," I said slowly. "I thought I knew
something about this. Didn't two or three of them come into Falmouth in
June of last year? Loaded with refugees? Or am I thinking of some other
boats?"

"No, that's right," he said. "There are several of them in Falmouth
harbour now."

"Big, beamy boats, with a high sheer and one mast laid down in a
tabernacle? Go everywhere with their engine?"

He nodded. "If you ever saw their nets you'd know them again. Very
fine-mesh nets, dyed blue."

The suggestion crystallized the image in my mind: blue gossamer nets
hung up to the one mast and drying in the sunlight, very foreign-looking
in Falmouth harbour. "Of course I know those boats," I said. "I saw them
there this spring."

I stubbed out the butt of my cigarette and glanced at him. "What is the
exact proposal, sir?"

He fixed his candid, china-blue eyes on me. "My young men want to cut
out one of the _Raumboote_ and destroy it."

"I see," I said thoughtfully. We sat in silence for a minute. "How do
they propose to do that?"

He said: "Let me give you the whole thing. I told you that there were a
hundred and forty-seven sardine-boats sailing from Douarnenez. That's
quite true, but for one reason or another not more than about sixty are
at sea on any one night. They go out after midday, according to the
tide, and go to their grounds--thirty to sixty miles away perhaps,
anywhere between Ushant and the Saints. That depends on where the fish
are."

He paused, and then went on: "There are five _Raumboote_ based on
Douarnenez at the moment. Two of those are always at sea with the
sardine fleet--sometimes three. The fleet stays out all night and
usually for a second night. Then that fleet comes back to harbour, and a
fresh lot go out next day."

I said: "What do the _Raumboote_ do? What are they there for?"

"To stop the Bretons making a run for England."

"I thought there was a German in each boat?"

He shook his head. "Not in every boat. There's usually a German
reservist petty officer, an old _Bootsmannsmaat_ or someone of that
sort, in every other boat or every third boat. But there aren't enough
of them to go round. The Germans depend a good deal on the fact that the
wives and families of the crews are left on shore. If any boat is manned
by Bretons without many home ties of that sort, then that boat gets one
of the old German petty officers allotted to it."

"I see that," I said. "All the same, I should have thought it would have
been a fairly simple matter for them to slip away by night."

He shook his head. "It's not quite so easy as it might appear. They have
to have a working light for handling their nets. The boats with Germans
in them have an orange shade over this light; that tells the _Raumboote_
where the Germans are. The _Raumboote_ cruise around on the sea side of
the fleet all night, counting the lights all the time. If any boat tried
to get away she'd be spotted by her light. If she put out her light,
it's probable that one of the Germans in the other boats would see, and
light a flare to call the attention of the _Raumboote_."

I lit another cigarette and sat for a moment, staring out of my window
at the bricklayers working in the dusty, sun-drenched court.

"How is the _Raumboote_ armed?" I said at last.

He consulted his notebook again. "Let me get this right." He turned the
pages. "One flak gun on the forecastle. Two machine-guns just aft of the
bridge. One light flak--an Oerlikon or something of that sort--mounted
right at the stern."

"And searchlights, of course?"

"There are searchlights on each side, mounted on the wings of the
bridge."

I stared at him curiously. "Did all this information come to you from
the other side?"

He said seriously: "Well, it doesn't just come. We have to send over and
get it."

"Quite so," I said.

There was a little pause.

"You say that one of your young men brought forward this proposal," I
remarked. "That was for dealing with a _Raumboote_?"

"That's right," he said.

"How does he intend to make the first contact with it? Would you require
us to supply White Ensign ships to carry out the operation?"

He said: "Oh, no. That wasn't what we had in mind at all. What he
proposes can be carried out with the resources that we have available.
But as it is essentially a naval operation, we felt that you must know
about it and pronounce upon it."

"I understand," I said. "What is it that he wants to do?"

"The _Raumboote_ control their sardine-boats by coming up alongside and
shouting at them through a megaphone," he said. "That's how they manage
them. So long as they stick to the fishing-grounds arranged beforehand
the _Raumboote_ just cruise round and leave the boats to themselves. But
if one strays away, the _Raumboote_ steam after it, and the officer in
charge orders it back by shouting at it through a megaphone."

"They do that at night, too?" I asked. "Guided by the light that the
sardine-boat wears?"

"That's it," said the brigadier.

"They come within thirty or forty yards?" I was beginning to see the
outline of his scheme.

"Closer than that. Both vessels have their engines running. They have to
come very close to make themselves understood."

"I see," I said thoughtfully. I glanced at him. "A very easy target."

"Yes, a very easy target," he repeated. "As you know, we've got several
of these sardine-boats in this country. We want to send one over with a
special crew and with a special armament and let it mix in with the
fishing fleet during the hours of darkness. It should not be very
difficult to draw the _Raumboote_ alongside and deal with it."

I smiled a little. "Who thought of that idea?"

"The young man I was speaking of. Captain Simon."

I said: "Is he one of the ones who go over to the other side?"

"Yes. It was he who gave us most of this information."

I paused for a moment, and fixed the name in my memory. "He's an Army
captain, I suppose?"

The brigadier hesitated. "Well, yes. We had to regularize his position.
He holds the rank of Captain in the Royal Engineers, seconded for
special duties, of course."

I thought about that answer for a minute, then put it on one side and
reverted to the operation. "It seems to me," I said thoughtfully, "that
it's going to be pretty difficult for your sardine Q-ship to get away.
The noise of gunfire will attract the other _Raumboote_, and any other
German ships that there may be about." I eyed him, and then said more
positively: "I shouldn't think your ship would have a chance of making
her escape, even if she should sink her _Raumboote_. And quite frankly,
sir, I'm not at all convinced that she would sink it. What armament
would you propose to give her for the job?"

He said: "A flame-thrower--one of the big ones. A flame-thrower and a
few Tommy-guns."

I was silent for a minute, re-arranging my ideas. When I had spoken I
had been thinking of a conventional sea battle, an ill-considered
venture, a desperate affair of young fools in a fishing-boat with little
guns attempting to engage a powerful, well-armed motor vessel twice
their size. I had been ready to veto anything so suicidal. But there was
more behind this thing than that. There was some thought behind
it--genius, perhaps.

I knew about these modern flame-throwers. I had been to a couple of
Staff demonstrations, and had seen them belch out their disgusting fury
in a violent, cherry-coloured spout enormous in diameter, ploughing and
devastating the bare earth far, far from the gun. I had seen them
smother and envelop a tank in a furnace. I had seen the sickening effect
upon a dummy man.

I stared at him. "That's not a bad idea," I said very quietly. "There
might be something in that one."

He smiled. "I must say, it attracted me," he said candidly. "It's
something different, you see. I think that they would get their
_Raumboote_ all right, and I don't think that the other ships would
interfere with them. You see, it's something new."

"It would light up the whole sky," I said.

"It would. But from a distance it might well look like a spontaneous
explosion of the petrol-tanks. In any case, it would be...puzzling.
And in the general confusion, I think our ship would get away."

"I think she might," I said. "It would certainly be devastating if it
came as a complete surprise."

"Well, yes, I think it would. We're really getting quite keen on it over
in our office."

I asked: "Have you worked out any tactical plan of how it would be
used?"

He said: "We thought of mounting it amidships, with the fuel-tanks in
the bottom of the boat. The flame-gun would stick up above the bulwarks,
camouflaged as a heap of nets." He paused. "In action, the first thing
to do would be to get rid of the forward flak--open up first upon the
forecastle of the _Raumboote_ and burn up the gun crew. Then traverse
aft and give the bridge a good dose to get rid of the officers, and then
train aft to the machine-guns, and the flak crew at the stern. It ought
not to be very difficult."

"It should not be," I said. "I imagine that you'd clear the decks all
right. But you'd still have the crew within the hull to cater for, and
the _Raumboote_ would still be under way. What would you do next? Would
you board?"

He said cheerfully: "Oh, I don't think so. There'd be no need to run
that risk, you see. You'd treat her like you treat a tank."

I glanced at him in enquiry.

"Give her a good hosing with the oil unlit. Get it well down into the
cowls and ventilators and hatches, and let it drip down well inside.
Then give her a burst of flame, and light her up."

All war is a grim business and we had had two years of it, but I
shivered a little.

"That ought to work all right," I said mechanically.

"I think so, too," he said. "I can't see any flaw in it. In fact, over
at our place we think it's worth a trial."

There was a pause. I sat in silence for a little time, trying to think
up some fresh argument against this thing. I did not want to stop it
now, but I wanted to bring all the possible difficulties up for
discussion before I put it to my chief.

He said: "You see, it's something new. That is of value in itself. And
it's something rather horrible to happen to the German crew, exactly
what the French would wish to happen to them." He leaned towards me.
"That's what concerns us most, of course. A thing like that will have a
wonderful effect in Douarnenez as soon as it becomes known."

I said: "If it's successful, if you destroy your _Raumboote_ without
survivors, it may never become known."

"Oh, yes, it will," he said, and smiled a little. "We'll see they get to
know about it on the other side."

That was his business and not mine, and my mind swung to another aspect
of the matter, one which was really more my concern. "This sardine-boat
that you want to use as a decoy," I said. "You're thinking of using one
of the ones at Falmouth, I suppose."

He shook his head. "Not one of those. There's another one at Dartmouth."
He paused, and then he said a little diffidently: "As a matter of fact,
we've already requisitioned her."

I thought to myself: "Oh, you have, have you?" It was not the first time
that the Army had displayed an inclination to set up a private Navy, and
I knew that my admiral held strong views upon that subject. But I kept
my own counsel, and all I said was:

"What's her name?"

"_Genevive_," he said. "She was a Camaret boat really, but they're all
very similar."

"What about manning her?" I asked. "Have you thought about that?"

He said: "That's one of the things I wanted to talk over with you. Simon
himself has a fair knowledge of the sea--yachting, you know. I suppose
that's what turned his mind to an adventure of this sort. It was he who
discovered this boat at Dartmouth, the _Genevive_. And as a matter of
fact, he's been in touch with two of your young officers down there. He
wants to work them in."

I said aloud this time: "Oh, he has, has he?"

The brigadier said: "I really felt, when I heard that, that it was time
I came to see you people." He smiled charmingly. "I didn't want you to
feel that we'd been trespassing outside our territory."

I smiled back with equal charm. "Oh, not a bit," I said. "Who are these
naval officers?"

"They're both of them lieutenants in the R.N.V.R.," he said. "One of
them, Boden, is in a trawler that goes mine-sweeping from Dartmouth. The
other one is in some technical shore job down there--Boom Defence, or
something of the sort. His name is Rhodes. He's in the Special Branch, I
think. He has a green stripe between the wavy rings."

"That's Special Branch," I said. "He's probably some kind of a
technician."

The brigadier said: "He's the one who knows about the flame-thrower."

I made a note of the names on my pad. "If this thing should go forward,"
I said carefully, "I see no reason why we shouldn't lend those officers
to you, if you really want them. Was it your idea that Captain Simon
should go in command?"

"That is what we should like," he said. "The proposal came from Simon,
he's the man who knows the local conditions over on the other side, and
we have confidence in him. But since this has to be, in its small way, a
combined operation, we should want to agree the commander with you
people."

I nodded. "Who's going to do the navigating?"

"Couldn't Boden look after that part of it?" he asked. "He's in a
trawler now."

I made a slight grimace. "It's better to be safe than sorry. Getting to
the right place at the right time on a strange coast in the middle of
the night takes a bit of doing. Especially with the tides that run round
there."

He said: "We should want help from you upon a point like that. But Simon
wants to work in those two if he can. He says they've got the right idea
about fighting with fire."

I stared out of the window at the bricklayers for a moment. I did not
notice them much; my mind was on V.A.C.O., Admiral Thomson. This thing
did not conflict with anything that we had going on. It was obviously in
tune with Cabinet policy. There was no reason why the old man should
obstruct it. It seemed to me that my job, pending the decision of
V.A.C.O., must be to try and help the thing along.

"I think you want a Sailing Master," I said slowly. "A really good
professional navigator."

I picked up the telephone and asked for the Second Sea Lord's office.
"Lovell," I said. "This is Martin here, speaking from V.A.C.O.'s office.
Tell me, do any of your temporary officers want to use fire against the
Germans? Do you get anyone like that? Or wouldn't you know?"

He said: "Oh, yes, we get one or two of those. It's cropped up a good
bit in the last few months--five or six times, perhaps. They usually
put it in the column for 'Preferred Employment' when they join."

"Do you think you could find a really good navigator who wants to do
that?" I asked. "Somebody we could depend upon. First or second officer
from a merchant ship, or someone of that sort?"

"I don't know about that," he said. "Those chaps are pretty busy in
these times. I'll get my girl to have a look through the card index, and
give you a ring back if you like?"

"I wish you would," I said.

I put back the receiver and turned again to the brigadier. "What about
ratings, sir?" I asked. "Would you want us to provide those too?"

He shook his head. "From every point of view, we should prefer to use
Free French. I've been in touch with the de Gaulle headquarters. I think
we could pick out half a dozen Breton lads of the right type, and lads
who are accustomed to that sort of boat."

"I see."

He glanced at me across the table. "How do you think your admiral will
take it?" he enquired. "You know most of it now."

I paused before replying, wondering how to put it when I saw him. I had
to tell my admiral that the Army had proposed a naval expedition, to be
commanded by a pseudo-Army officer of curious past history, sailing in a
fishing-boat manned principally by foreigners, armed with an
unconventional and utterly disgusting weapon, with the object of
stiffening morale over on the other side. It was certainly an unusual
proposal.

I said slowly: "I've really got no idea how he will take it. It may be
that he will like it and let it go forward." Privately I was pretty
certain that he would.

The brigadier leaned forward and tapped the table. "Look," he said. "We
may be starting something bigger than we think. There are queer streaks
in the German character, and one of the things that they can't stand is
fire. That's why they were the first to think of _Flammenwerfers_."

"That's fairly common knowledge," I said thoughtfully. "The Germans
don't like fire." I smiled a little. "Nor do I."

I glanced across the table at him. "There's just one matter that we
haven't touched upon," I said. "Are you in a hurry, sir? Or may I ask a
few more questions?"

"By all means," he replied.

I said: "What sort of people are the men who want to do this thing?"




2


Charles Simon was almost exactly half French and half English. He spoke
both languages perfectly, and he spoke both with that faint trace of a
foreign accent which betrayed him as a foreigner in either country to
the discerning.

His father had been a British wine merchant who did a good deal of
travelling in France, and liked the country. His mother was a girl from
Lyons. Though technically English by her marriage she was never anything
but French in fact. They called their son Charles because that could be
pronounced in either language, making it easy for the relatives upon
both sides.

They lived in Surbiton from 1904 to 1911, not very happy years for the
girl from Lyons. Simon then died, and within a fortnight she was back in
her home town, taking the boy with her. She had not been happy in the
strange land across the Channel to the north, but she had loved her
husband and respected him. Within a few years she had shaken off her
British nationality and had become French again in law, but it had been
his wish that the boy Charles should be brought up as an Englishman. In
spite of the protests of her parents, she sent him to a preparatory
boarding school near Oxford, and later on to Shrewsbury, his father's
school. She knew that the English valued this peculiar form of
education.

Simon grew up an odd mixture. He spent all his holidays with his mother
and his relations in Lyons, but made few friends there of his own age.
The French boys and girls he came in contact with regarded him as a
foreigner, and a queer fish. His time in England was spent in the
monastic society of a British public school; he made a few close and
enduring friendships with English boys, but he never met an English girl
at all, nor spent more than a single night at a time with any English
family.

He left school at eighteen. He had shown some aptitude for drawing and
for architecture, and with the help of his mother's family he became
apprenticed as a draughtsman to an architect in Lyons. For some years he
worked hard, and liked his work.

Those were the years from 1923 to 1930, when France was leading the
world in the technique of ferro-concrete bridge construction. Charles
Simon mastered this technique, and having an eye for line became
something of a bridge designer. He changed his firm two or three times,
each time with a rise in salary; before long he was sent on his first
business trip to England.

He was passionately fond of England. He knew little of the country
beyond the unreal idealism of his public school, so that for him
everything English was rose-coloured. He was English by nationality and
to that he clung; his work was in France, but he thought of himself as a
foreigner working in a foreign land. Whenever he got a holiday he went
to England, and in 1930, when he joined the Socit Anonyme des
Fabricants de Ciment, the great organization at Corbeil, he began
travelling to England as a technical representative.

He married soon after that, in 1931, when he was twenty-six years old,
an English girl from Tunbridge Wells. Within a year she left him.

I don't know why that happened. It was ten years before the time of
which I am writing, and it had no bearing on his war-time occupations,
so there was no reason why any of us should know much about it. But
thinking back, one can string together a few contributory facts which
throw a little light on it, perhaps.

As I have said, he was a queer fish. His only real interest outside his
work in ferro-concrete was his enthusiasm for England and for all
things English, but his knowledge of England was confined to his own
public school. It was a queer, limited, ignorant enthusiasm. He made
occasional short business trips to England, but his work lay in Corbeil.
Corbeil is a small manufacturing town rather to the south of Paris, a
desperately dull little place unless you happen to be deeply interested
in ferro-concrete.

She must have found it hard to bear, that girl from Tunbridge Wells. It
may have been the ferro-concrete that got her to the stage of breaking
up their marriage, or it may have been the endless, uninformed prattle
of England, or it may have simply been Corbeil. But whether it was one
of those, or some quite different trouble, she left him and went back to
Tunbridge Wells. He never lived with her again.

He gave up his business trips to England after that. It may have been
from choice, but by that time the work was falling off. Britain and
America knew quite as much as France about concrete bridges. Moreover,
fortification work was growing and absorbing the attention of French
concrete firms, and there was less need for them to seek for foreign
contracts. Simon from that time on spent much of his time in
fortification work upon the Maginot Line.

What was he like? He was a lean man, fairly tall, with dark hair that
hung over his forehead. He was quite a merry chap who liked to grease
his work with a salacious joke. People liked working for him; he never
had any trouble with his staff. In peace-time that was all that one
could say about him; it never became apparent till the war was two years
old that he was a natural leader of men.

He did not change his way of life much after his marriage had collapsed.
He went on living in Corbeil, went on with his work. His trips to
England ceased and he became more French to all appearances; he wore
French clothes and stopped buying English newspapers and magazines.
Gradually the people of Corbeil and of the factory forgot that Simon was
in fact a British citizen; only the police knew that, and the director
of the firm who dealt with military business.

And yet, there was one thing. Charles Simon--pronounce the name in
French or English as you like--Charles Simon kept a boat. He kept a
little four-ton cutter at St. Malo, fitted with an auxiliary engine, and
in the summer when he took his holiday he used to make timid adventures
in this thing, to the Channel Islands or to Lesardrieux, picking his
weather with the greatest care. I know a naval officer who met him once
before the war in St. Peter Port and spent the evening with him. This
chap said that he was quite alone. The ship was reasonably clean, as
well she might be, because Simon had been swinging at his anchor for ten
days of summer weather waiting for the perfect day, the day of days when
there would be a dead calm sea, a cloudless sky, a rising glass, and a
very gentle breeze from the north to waft him safely back to St. Malo.

Did he do that because he liked it, or because he felt that it was
English to go yachting, or just for some hereditary urge towards the sea
that had to be obeyed? I don't know. I only know that it seemed to me
when I heard about it to be a typically English way to take a holiday,
rather uncomfortable and rather frightened.

       *       *       *       *       *

He did not get his yachting holiday in the summer of 1939; the work upon
the fortifications was too intense. The Socit Anonyme F.C. de Corbeil
was working night shift by that time, and all the staff were working
twelve hours a day in a wishful endeavour to make ferro-concrete serve
as substitute for an offensive strategy. They laboured through the
winter and on into the spring of 1940; they went on working till the
refugees were streaming through the town and the Germans were within
thirty miles. Then they stopped, and Corbeil joined the throng of
refugees.

Charles Simon stayed behind in the works, together with the managing
director, M. Louis Duchene, and a foreman or two. Duchene stayed because
he had built most of the factory, and because he could not visualize a
life away from it for more than a short trip to Paris; his wife and
family had left for Pau a week before. The foremen stayed because the
factory was their livelihood, and because they shrewdly thought that
whether France was ruled by Germans or by French, concrete would be
needed and their jobs were safe unless they ran away from them. Charles
Simon stayed because he felt himself to be an officer, and because he
was ashamed to go while old Duchene still sat on in his office.

He went up to the old man in his room. "It seems that the Germans will
be here within an hour now," he said nonchalantly. "You will receive
them, monsieur?"

"But certainly," said _monsieur le directeur_. "Watch for the first
officer to come in at the gate, and have him brought up here with
courtesy. And, Simon, get out the general arrangement plan of the works,
and bring it to me. No doubt the officers will wish to see it."

It never crossed their minds that they should destroy any of the
buildings or equipment to prevent them falling into German hands. Such a
course had never even been suggested, and would have been ridiculed if
it had been. One did not throw good money down the drain.

Simon hesitated. "I will bring the plan." He coughed. "May I raise a
personal matter, monsieur?"

"Assuredly." The old man looked at him with curiosity. "These are
difficult times, Simon. You need not stay here if you wish to go."

The designer said: "I would like to stay with you, monsieur. But you
will remember that legally I am an Englishman, a foreigner. That may
make difficulties for me with the Germans when they come."

Duchene said: "I never think of you except as French."

Simon said: "Most people think of me as French, but I am still a British
citizen. Would it be possible for you to forget that I am not a
Frenchman, Monsieur Duchene? If the Germans did not know, I could stay
on working here. They will need all of us to run the factory."

The old man stared at him. "Does anybody else know--who would betray
you?"

"I do not think so. It is many years now since I went to England."

"But your papers--your _carte d'identit_?"

Simon said: "At this moment, monsieur, that perhaps can be arranged."

He left the office, and went out of the factory into the town. Corbeil
was singularly empty. A car or two with dry, empty tanks were parked by
the roadside, and a cart with a broken wheel stood abandoned in the main
street, the mule still in the harness. The place was still, empty, and
desolate that hot summer afternoon, as if it waited breathlessly for the
coming of the Germans.

He went to the Mairie. The door stood open, all the office doors were
open. Everyone had fled. He passed on to the Gendarmerie; one door was
locked. He withdrew a few steps and ran at it and stamped it in. There
was nobody about at all.

He had lived so long in France, had visited the Mairie so many times,
that he knew just what he wanted. First he extracted his card from the
little card index of foreigners, burnt it with a match, and scattered
the ash outside the window. He found the blank identity cards. He found
the register of births, and made a hurried parcel of four volumes; later
in the afternoon he thrust these into the furnace of the steam plant at
the factory. He made himself a new birth certificate. He was at the
Mairie barely twenty minutes and he left it a French citizen, proof
against any superficial investigation.

Later that afternoon the Germans came. There was no fighting near
Corbeil. They rode in on their motor-cycles first, followed by armoured
cars and a few tanks, and streams of motor-lorries full of infantry.
They occupied the railway station and the Mairie and the waterworks and
the power-house and the gasworks; in the late evening three officers and
thirty soldiers drove in to the factory to find Duchene still waiting
for them, gravely courteous, with Simon by his side.

In three days the factory was working on a much reduced basis. A month
later, fortified by fresh supplies of troubled and bewildered labour
drafted by the Germans, it was in its stride again.

The Maginot contracts were a thing of the past now. The German
Commission of Control dictated their activities; aerodrome runways, new
strategic roadways to the Channel ports, and above all air-raid
shelters formed the new work of the S.A.F.C. de Corbeil. Duchene and
Simon worked like Trojans to satisfy their new masters, and for a time
they were too busy in the work to appreciate the implications of the new
regime.

It was only slowly that they came to realize their true position. At
first everything seemed to go on normally; the German troops were civil
and even ingratiating. There was plenty of money in the town, for the
soldiers spent freely, and there was plenty of work. All the evidence of
prosperity was there--for the first three months. If you did not think
too hard about the position of France, or read too many newspapers, it
was quite a good time. Duchene and Simon were too busy to do either.

The first real shock they had was when Paul Lecardeau was arrested,
tried, taken to the barracks, and shot, all within an hour and a half.

Simon knew Paul quite well, and had often played a game of dominoes with
him at the Caf de l'Univers. Paul ran a fair-sized draper's shop in the
route d'Orleans, and he was a notable spitter. In the caf he could hit
a cuspidor at any range up to three metres with accuracy, and he was
gifted with what seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of ammunition.

Paul discovered, when his shop was all but empty, that fresh goods were
unobtainable. His business was mostly in household linen and women's
clothes. The German major who now sat in the Mairie brushed aside his
plea for a permit to buy stock in Paris, but displayed a good deal of
interest in Paul's own capacity for work upon the roads. It was with
difficulty that Paul evaded immediate conscription as a labourer.

With little left upon his shelves to sell, Paul took to sitting in the
Caf de l'Univers hour after hour, gloomily smoking and staring at the
Germans as they passed upon the pavement. Presently he took to spitting
when a German came into the caf; it was an amusing game, because the
big brass cuspidor rang like a gong to each impact. A German _Feldwebel_
stalked up to him and warned him--once. Next day, the brassy note of the
gong was the signal for his arrest. Ninety minutes later, Paul was dead.

Simon faced old Duchene across the table of the office which they now
shared. "It is intolerable, that," he said uncertainly. "Paul was an
honest man. He was _jocrisse_, that is all."

Duchene stared at him in bewilderment. "But why did they do it? All
Corbeil is co-operating with the new regime, as the Marshal has said.
There is not a de Gaullist in the town. Why must the Germans do a thing
like that?"

It was, of course, because they were Germans, but neither Simon nor
Duchene had yet come to appreciate that point.

From then onwards things grew worse. The shortage of goods and even of
foodstuffs became general, and the tempers of the people of Corbeil grew
short in sympathy. They became critical of the Marshal's new order; the
old confusion, they said bitterly, was more tolerable. Before long young
people of both sexes became hostile to the Germans. It was good fun, if
you had no responsibilities, to creep out in the night and let down the
tyres of their bicycles, or pour a little water in a petrol-tank and
watch the car stall half-way down the road. Once or twice a German
officer, infuriated, whipped out his automatic and took a shot at the
dim figures giggling in the shadows. This was great fun and gave the
young people a sense of importance. They began to talk about de Gaulle,
and to dignify their little exploits with the name of sabotage.

Presently the Germans arrested M. Chavaigne, headmaster of the boys'
school, and tried him for complicity in these affairs. The evidence was
inconclusive, so they sentenced him to ten years' forced labour and sent
him away to Germany to work it out. With the removal of that restraining
influence the sabotage increased, and even adults began secretly to
listen to the British radio and to talk about de Gaulle.

Soon after that the cross of Lorraine made its appearance daubed in
paint or clay upon the walls of the factory. The German Commission of
Control, visiting the works one day, demanded furiously that these signs
be removed and Simon, with apologies, set labourers to work.

"I am desolated that this should have happened," he told the Germans.
"It is the boys who do it--the irresponsibles, who do not think. Boys
are the devil."

The _Hauptmann Pionier_ in charge of the Commission stared at him
arrogantly. "Boys do what their parents do. In Germany the boys work
hard, and do not insult the Government. It is not so here. If I see this
again, I will have this town of Corbeil taught a lesson."

Simon said: "I will attend to the matter personally. This will not
happen again."

The German turned away, and they went on with the work.

Simon reported the matter to Duchene as soon as they were gone. "There
will be trouble before long, monsieur," he said. "The people are
becoming restless."

The old man said: "I will not have trouble in these works. We do not mix
with politics here, in the factory. See that the walls are cleaned each
day, and the lavatories also. It is there that they write things."

"I will see to that, monsieur."

"Why must they do these things? It can only lead to trouble. What is the
matter with the men?" the old man asked.

Simon shrugged his shoulders. "It is the war," he said. He glanced over
his shoulders at the closed door. "You listen to the English radio,
perhaps, monsieur?"

The old man said: "I have no patience with the English since they ran
away. As for the radio, it does not amuse me, and there is no news. Is
it that that is the reason for the trouble?"

Simon said: "It is the stories of the German losses in the air that the
men hear upon the radio that makes the trouble. That, and the speeches
of that man de Gaulle." He bent to the _directeur_. "A hundred and
eighteen German aeroplanes were shot down yesterday," he said in a low
tone. "And seventy-one the day before." He paused. "That is the real
trouble with the men."

Duchene stared at him. "Somebody told me something about that, but I did
not believe him. The figures are too big. It is an English lie."

"I do not think it is a lie, monsieur. When I was at Caen on Tuesday the
foreman said that nearly a hundred aeroplanes took off on Sunday, but
less than seventy came back. The officers there have become very surly,
and they will not talk to me, or to any civilian. It is quite different
from what it was a month ago."

The old man said: "Sacred Mother of God! If the English can shoot down
Germans in that way, why did they not do it when they were fighting with
us? They are playing their own game. They have betrayed us."

Simon shook his head. "I cannot understand the turn the war has taken,"
he said soberly. "If they betrayed us, we are now betraying them in
turn. These runways we are doing for the aerodrome at Caen--they are to
make it possible for Heinkels to take off with double bomb load to drop
on English towns. But we were allies, once."

Duchene said: "It was they who began it...." He turned back to his
desk. "No more of politics--that is not our affair." He picked up a
paper. "This invoice from Mensonnier--I will not pay for crates.
Mensonnier knows that. See the accountant, and have that crossed off."

It was not altogether easy for Duchene to free his mind from politics,
in spite of his preoccupation with the factory. He had lived and worked
in Corbeil for over forty years, since he had come into his father's
business as a lad. In that forty years, inevitably since he was the
managing director of the largest business in the town, he had become
associated with a variety of local charities and enterprises, most of
which were now in difficulties and troubles. He cared little enough for
most of them; in the changed times they must adjust themselves. He could
not free his mind, however, from the affairs of the St. Xavier Asile des
Vieux at Chteau Lebrun.

Chteau Lebrun was a village about five miles from Corbeil, and Duchene
was a trustee of the Asile des Vieux. The asylum was an organization
with a religious flavour, partly supported by a subsidy from the
municipality of Corbeil, partly by local charity, and partly by small
sums extracted from the relatives of the occupants. The Vieux were of
both sexes and many of them were feeble-minded, all being sixty years
old or more. It was a useful and on the whole a kindly institution,
which collected destitute and unwanted aged people from a wide area of
country and saw them unhurried to the end.

About seventy of them were accommodated in wards in a big, rectangular
stone building on the outskirts of the village. The land was flat about
Chteau Lebrun, and suitable for a dispersal aerodrome: a fact that the
Germans were quick to grasp. They took the building as a barrack for the
air mechanics. The Matre d'Asile came early to the Maire and to Duchene
for help, and Duchene rang up the Commission of Control, only to get a
short answer. The building was required for military purposes. The
inmates would be moved by the German Field Ambulance Service; it was not
permitted for civilians to accompany them. All asylums in the occupied
zone were to be cleared, and the inmates would be accommodated in the
Vichy area. Relatives would be told the new address in a few days.

So the old people were removed, feebly protesting, in a convoy of field
ambulances. Thereafter nothing happened. Most of the relatives dismissed
the matter from their minds; they had seldom been to see _Grand'mre_
and had more important matters now to think about. A few became
insistent and began to bother the Commission of Control with demands for
the new address. One by one these received an intimation, with regrets,
that the person in question had succumbed to the fatigue of the journey.

One by one they came to Duchene, at his house or in his office at the
factory.

Worried, he went to the Commission and got a sharp rebuff. Such things
were apt to happen, in their view. They could not tell him the location
of the new asylum yet; in due course an information would come through.
In the meantime, he would kindly not waste the time of German officers
with trivialities, but attend to the manufacture of cement.

Anxious, and a little frightened, he began to make enquiries of his own.
The manager of a large industry invariably has ways of getting
information which are not available to ordinary men, and in the concrete
business Duchene's influence spread wide. Gradually, in bits and pieces,
the truth came to him. The old people had got no further towards Vichy
than the German hospital at Szanne. There all had died by hypodermic as
they lay strapped upon the stretchers in the cars, and had been thrust
into a common grave with lime, on the same night.

Shamefaced, white, and shaken, the old man blurted it out to Simon in
the office late one night. "One does not know how to behave now," he
muttered. "One does not know how to address a German officer. It is the
act of barbarians, that. Even the beasts, the animals, do not do things
like that."

Simon was silent.

Duchene's voice rose a little. "But it was murder! Seventy-two people."

Charles Simon said: "I know that, monsieur. They are murderers, every
one of them, if it will serve their end. They did not want to feed these
old ones, or to care for them. That is all."

The old man said, distressed: "But that is not civilized. That is what
savages would do, in the black jungle."

Simon smiled sourly. "I think that we are now in the black jungle, in
Corbeil. And only now have we begun to realize it."

That was all that was said that night, and Duchene went back to his
empty _appartement_ in the town. He did not even go to bed that night.
He sat primly in a gilded, plush-upholstered chair all night, his hands
resting on the table, smoking cigarette after cigarette, staring
unseeing at the ornate wall before him. At dawn he got up, pulled aside
the black-out, and opened a window to let air into the stuffy,
smoke-filled room. An hour later he went down to the works.

Simon came early to his room that day. "The Commission comes at eleven
o'clock," he said. "Lunch as usual?"

_M. le directeur_ drummed nervously upon the table. "I will not see
them," he said irritably. "You must tell them I am ill."

Simon looked at the old man for a moment, silent. Then he said quietly:
"It is understandable, that. But they will know that you are here,
monsieur, and that may make a difficulty. Perhaps you could go home till
they have gone."

Duchene raised weary eyes, clouded with doubts, to his designer. "I am
going to close down the factory," he said, but there was irresolution in
his voice. "I will not have my people working for those German swine."

Simon said gently: "Leave it for to-day, monsieur. Let the car take you
to your house when it goes in to fetch the Germans." They still had a
tiny drain of petrol for the works car for station trips.

The old man flared out: "I will not work for them, myself, not after
this. Not one more kilogramme of cement shall they have from me."

Charles Simon dropped down on to the chair before the desk, and leaned
towards the older man. "You are tired now," he said. "You do not look
well at all. Did you sleep badly, monsieur?"

The old man said: "I did not go to bed. I was thinking of...all
sorts of things."

They had worked together for ten years, and Simon knew his chief very
well. "Listen, monsieur," he said. "We cannot do that, now. It would not
help at all for you to close the factory. It would be open within the
hour with Germans in control, and all that would be gained would be one
hour of our production lost to them. And you would be held in a
concentration-camp. That would not benefit Corbeil, or France."

Duchene passed a weary hand across his eyes.

"One must go on working for the present," said the younger man.

_M. le directeur_ said: "I have been thinking over what you said the
other day about the runways at the aerodrome at Caen. Each ton we send
out is a blow at England, and although I do not like the English, at any
rate they are still fighting in a way against these German swine. How do
you feel about that, Simon?"

"I do not like it, monsieur."

"I do not like it either. The English are still fighting in their way
against these filthy murderers, and you and I are fighting in our way
against the English. Does that make sense to you--you who are an
Englishman yourself? Hey? Does that make sense?"

"No, monsieur. It does not make sense. But there is nothing we can do
about it."

Duchene sat brooding for a time, in silence. "I would rather that the
factory had been blown up and stood in ruins than that it should be used
like this."

"That is what we should have done," said the designer. "It is too late
now, but we should have blown it up ourselves, before the Germans came."

The old man stared at him. "Who could have guessed these Germans were
not people like ourselves?"

"We were told often enough," said Simon grimly. "All the world told us
that the Germans were a murderous and an uncivilized people, without
decent codes of conduct. But when they conquered us, we thought they
would be people like ourselves."

There was a long silence. When Duchene spoke again his voice had lost
all its vigour; he spoke as a very tired old man.

"I do not know what happened to France," he said wearily. "I have been
thinking and thinking, and I cannot understand. We _knew_ that the
Germans were like this in the old days--we knew it, and we fought them
with the British as our allies, and we beat them down. And then we lost
our faith...."

He stared at the designer with tired eyes. "It is as if all France had
lain under a spell," he said slowly. "From that place at Berchtesgaden
there has spread an influence, malign, like a miasma, that has sapped
our will. So that we laid down our arms, and never fought at all, and so
became mere tools for evil in the hands of evil men...."

He got up wearily from his chair, swaying a little as he stood. "One
thing alone saved the English from our lot," he muttered, half to
himself. "Running water--twenty miles of it, salt running water of the
sea. That is why the English are still brave to fight, as we were once.
No spell, no sucking weakening influence sent out by evil people can
cross running water. When I lived in the country as a boy, everybody
knew that much."

Presently Simon got him downstairs to the car. He took him to the
_appartement_ and gave the old man over to his housekeeper, before he
went on to the station in the car to meet the Germans coming down from
Paris on the midday train.

At that time there was construction work of every description going on
along the whole length of the Channel coastline of France. The little
watering-place of Le Trport, amongst others, was undergoing a radical
reorganization of its harbour under German supervision, with a view to
making it more suitable for barge traffic. A fortnight later, Simon was
summoned to a conference at Le Trport, to deal with certain engineering
problems at that port and at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme.

It was not the first time that the Germans had used him in this way;
indeed the vast extent of their conquests made it necessary for them to
use technicians from the countries they had overrun. Simon went with
mixed feelings. He disliked open work on military matters; it did not
seem so bad when one was working in the office at Corbeil, when he could
forget the use to which the product would be put. On the other hand, the
trip to the sea coast was a change and something of a holiday; he could
spin it out over three days.

He went on a Tuesday in late October, and spent the first afternoon
walking round the watering-place and studying the little docks.
Wednesday was spent with the Germans. They made a quick tour of the
harbour in the morning, then settled to a conference on material
supplies. They finished about four o'clock.

Gathering together his papers, the German chairman of the conference
said to Simon: "You are going back to-night?"

The designer shrugged his shoulders. "I will go to the station and find
out about the trains. I do not think I can get through to Corbeil
to-night, and it is cheaper to stay here than in Paris. I shall only go
to-night if I can get home."

The German nodded. "As you like."

Simon went back to his hotel, the one beside the station, and decided to
stay the night. He had dined the previous evening in the hotel and had
not cared for the dinner. That night he went out and found a
caf-restaurant upon the little front, and settled down to spend the
evening there.

It was not very full. He sat for an hour over a Pernod reading his paper
and listening to the wireless, and passing a word now and again with the
man on the other side of the marble-topped table, an engineer from the
power station. Then he dined, and sat for a long time with a cup of
coffee, running over his notes of the day's business, planning the work
involved.

He was sitting so when the swing doors burst open with a crash. There
was an instant's stunned silence as the people at the tables turned to
the interruption. Then, in a deafening clamour in the narrow room, the
fire from a couple of Tommy-guns burst out. A group of four German
non-commissioned officers seated together at a table rose half to their
feet. One of them spun round and collapsed backwards with a crash. The
others dropped where they sat. Their bodies shook and quivered with the
impact of the bullets pumping into them.

An officer, an _Oberleutnant_, sitting with a French girl at a table at
the end of the room, ducked down behind a little wooden table fumbling
for the automatic at his wrist. He never got it out. The wooden
splinters flew from the table and bright holes spread in a pattern over
it; one of the splinters gashed the girl across the eyebrow as she stood
screaming with her hand up to her mouth. Behind the table the officer
fell forward as a sodden weight, and a thin stream of blood ran out on
to the floor.

Suddenly the firing stopped. With a little brassy tinkle the last shell
rattled to the floor.

One of the men at the door shouted in French: "Don't any of you move!"
Then, to the white, terrified proprietor behind the bar: "Any more
Germans in this place?"

The man shook his head, unable at first to find words. Then he gulped,
looked at the bodies, and said: "Only those."

The man at the door said in English: "Go right through the place, lads.
Ben, stay with me."

Three men rushed in, and made their way through into the back quarters.
They were hard, violent young men in British battle-dress. They each
carried a sub-machine-gun; they had two revolvers each, worn on light
webbing harness from the shoulders; the same harness supported a belt
with pockets for Mills hand-grenades. A large electric torch hung at the
waist. They wore British tin hats.

The other two, one of whom wore sergeant's stripes, came forward from
the door, their guns at the ready. The sergeant said again, in accented,
ungrammatical French: "Don't any of you move! Put your identity cards
out upon the tables."

The man called Ben stayed by the door. The sergeant began to move
methodically from table to table looking at the cards displayed, his gun
always at the ready.

There was silence in the caf, broken only by the tramping of the men
upstairs as they ransacked the house, and by the noise of light gunfire
intermittently outside in the night. Once there was a heavy, thunderous
explosion, as of a demolition. The girl who had been sitting with the
dead officer had stopped her screaming and stood motionless, her back
against the wall, her hands pressed palms against the wall behind her,
staring at the devil with the sergeant's stripes advancing slowly down
the room, his gun held at the ready.

To Charles Simon, in that tense moment, came the realization of what he
had to do. This was an English raid, this violent gangster-like affray.
This was his chance. With sudden, utter clarity it came to him that this
was the turning-point of his whole life, and he must take the turning.

He did not produce his card, but turned out letters, bills, receipts,
all the contents of his pockets on the table before him as if he
searched desperately, but the card stayed in his hip pocket. The man
with the gun came to the table and paused, merciless, thrusting his gun
forward.

Charles Simon raised his head, and said in a low tone, in English: "I
seem to have lost my card. You'd better arrest me and take me to your
officer."

The man said: "Are you English?"

Simon said: "Don't be a fool. Arrest me, and take me outside."

The man lunged forward, thrusting the barrel of the Tommy-gun against
his chest. "Outside, you!" he said in French. "Get up!" He swung round
to the man at the door. "Here's one, Ben," he said in English. "Take him
outside, and keep him till I come."

Simon walked the length of the room, most conscious of the guns directed
at him. Outside the night was full of rifle fire; from the small docks
the red glow of a fire was growing bright, the street seemed full of
British soldiers, heavily armed, purposeful, intent. Overhead there was
the noise of many aeroplanes, and the dull thunder of their bombs upon
the roads that led into the town mingled with the rumble and crash of
demolitions at the docks. The place was rapidly becoming an inferno.

The man Ben stood Simon up against the wall outside the door, covering
him with his gun. The tension, in the half-light of the growing fires,
was intense. It was a night of murder unprovoked, of arson and rapine: a
night of war.

Simon said to his guard: "Look, I'm an Englishman. You must take me to
your officer."

The man thrust his face up close. "How do I know you're not a mucking
Jerry?"

"If I was one I couldn't hurt you," Simon said. "You've got all Woolwich
Arsenal to back you up. I tell you, I am English. You've got to take me
back with you; they'll want to question me."

His guard was a sharp, intelligent young man, picked and trained for
this work. The sergeant came out with the other three men; in a few
moments Simon was at a mustering point, a busmen's shelter on the front.
There was a subaltern there, a dark figure in battle-dress
indistinguishable from the rest but that he carried no gun. The sergeant
reported his prisoner in terse, short sentences; the officer flashed a
shaded torch on Simon.

"You are a British citizen?"

"Yes, sir. I've been working in France."

"What at?"

"Concrete construction work. Bridges, aerodrome buildings and runways,
things of that sort. I came here for a job upon the docks."

"What is your Company?"

Simon told him.

The subaltern said: "I am taking you to England as a prisoner. Do you
come with us willingly?"

"Yes, sir."

"All right. Stand over there."

Simon said: "May I write a letter and post it?"

The torch flashed into his face again; he felt suspicion rising up
against him in the darkness. "What sort of letter? Who to?"

"I want to write to the head of my firm. It's just possible that you
may want me to come back here when you've heard what I have to say. I
want to write to the firm and say that I have gone for a week's holiday
to the south of France, to see my mother in the Vichy territory."

There was a short silence. The officer made up his mind with a quick
decision that Simon could not but admire. "You may write a letter like
that," he said. "Have you got paper and an envelope?"

"Not here."

The subaltern called one of the men, a sharp, keen-faced lad, and gave
Simon over to him. The boy took him to an empty, deserted caf, where
they found stationery behind the bar, and there Simon wrote his letter
while the guard made a light for him to write by with his torch and kept
him covered with a heavy black revolver.

Simon said:

     Dear Monsieur,

     It is with pleasure that I can inform you that the Commandant
     in Charge has been so kind as to grant me a permit to visit my
     mother, who as you know lives in the neighbourhood of Lyons. It
     is now nearly a year since I saw her, and as this permit to
     pass into the Vichy territory is for ten days only from to-day
     I am leaving at once for Lyons, and trust that I may be allowed
     this short vacation. I will write particulars of the contracts
     that I have to-day negotiated from there; in the meantime we
     should keep up deliveries of the fifty tons a week to Trport
     provisionally demanded.

     Accept, dear monsieur, the assurance of my deepest respect.

                                                      CHARLES SIMON.

The guard took the letter from him and read it slowly, now and then
asking the meaning of a word. He passed it and Simon sealed the
envelope; then they went together through the firelit darkness to the
Bureau de Poste. He slipped his letter in the box. A naval officer in
blue pressed by them; he wore a white scarf around his neck and a
revolver in a belt at his waist. In his hand he carried a tin bedroom
utensil, white-enamelled. Painted on it roughly was A PRESENT FROM
TRPORT.

Simon and his guard stopped and turned to watch. The lieutenant went to
the counter where the scared postmaster was handing over a sack of
registered mail to a couple of desperate-looking thugs in battle-dress.
The officer said, in bad French:

"Pardon, monsieur. I have a parcel to despatch." He slammed the
enamelware down upon the mahogany slab and pulled the revolver from his
belt. "I will pay the postage, and you will put it in the mail."

The man looked at it uncertainly, and then at the revolver, now pointing
at his belly. "For the mail?" he said.

"For the mail," said the naval officer. "Be quick; we have not long to
waste. How much is it?"

The postmaster put it on the scales, then looked at the label tied to
the handle. Then he laughed. "Adolf Hitler, Bierhalle, Munich," he said.
"Seventeen francs, monsieur."

The officer threw down half a crown. "English money," he said. "Is that
all right?"

The man shrugged his shoulders. "I will keep it as a souvenir." Under
the levelled guns he stamped the label and dropped the pot into a
mail-bag.

Simon and his guard left the Post Office and hurried back to the
mustering-point through rose-coloured, firelit streets. The fires had
got firm hold upon the town, especially in the region of the docks. From
somewhere in the outer darkness machine-guns were firing down the lit
streets, enfilading them; the range was great and the fire scattered and
inaccurate. Outside the town, again, the noise of battle had grown;
there was more happening now on the outer roads than bombs from
aeroplanes. It was quite clear to Simon as they hurried to the sea-front
that unless the British meant to hold the town, it was time to go.

       *       *       *       *       *

He landed in England in the earliest light of dawn, having crossed the
Channel in pitch darkness in a strange, small boat with fifty other men.
There were seven wounded in the boat with him, lying upon the bare deck,
uncomplaining; one died in the middle of the night. In that boat there
were no other prisoners, but he had reason to believe that ten or twelve
Germans and civilian French crossed in another boat. It occurred to him
that he was being segregated.

They landed in a muddy, tidal creek between fields. He never learned
where it was. There was a wooden jetty and a few brown corrugated iron
sheds; it might have been a little yacht-yard in peace-time, or
something of that sort. The men with him stretched stiff, tired limbs,
unloaded Tommy-guns and pistols, and passed soldiers' jokes about ham
and eggs and a good kip.

They landed at the pier and the men formed up in a rough order and were
marched away towards a wood; there seemed to be a camp among the trees.
Simon was ordered by the subaltern to wait; he was taken into a little
hut by a guard, and stayed there till a small lorry with a
canvas-covered back drove up.

He rode in this for half an hour with the subaltern to a large military
camp. Here he was shown into an office, where he was interrogated
shortly by a major. They were kind enough to him, and after ten minutes'
questioning took him to a room and offered him a bath and a shave. Then
he had breakfast, English breakfast that he remembered from his
schooldays, where you were expected to eat porridge as well as meat or
fish, and then very thick toast, and the orange conserve that they
called marmalade. Already he was feeling that his English was a little
rusty.

In fact, it was. It was grammatically correct and the accent was not
very noticeable, but his schoolboy slang called attention to his speech
and then you noticed his accent. It is not natural to hear a man of
thirty-five in serious conversation use the word "topping" to express
appreciation of the treatment that he had received, nor does he
generally refer to his food as "tuck." Charles did both because his
English was like that, and then you noticed him and wondered who he was.

They put him in a car again after breakfast, and by noon he was
disembarked at a large, rather dilapidated country house, full of
soldiers. It was not very far from London, but Charles had no means of
knowing that; he never learned where it was. And here he came before a
major in the British Army and a _capitaine_ of the Free French, and he
talked to them freely for three hours.

In the middle of the afternoon the major said: "I'm going to call a halt
for to-day, Mr. Simon, and have some of this transcribed. I may want to
have another talk with you to-morrow."

Simon said: "Right-oh, sir. I'll stay here, shall I?"

The British officer said gravely: "It would be very kind of you if you
would stay with us to-night. We can make you comfortable." In fact,
Simon was as much a prisoner as if he had been German, but he did not
care to realize it. He was too happy to be back in England.

"I'd like that ever so much," he said.

The major smiled slightly. "Tell me, Mr. Simon," he said. "Have you got
any relatives or friends in England?"

Charles said: "Not very many. There are my wife's people, of course..."
He had told them about her. "But I don't much want them to know that
I'm over here."

"Of course not," said the other easily. "Whom do you know
best--whom would you go and stay with when you leave here?"
He smiled with disarming frankness. "You see, you've come to England
rather--unconventionally. We may have to help you to make up a story
to tell."

Charles laughed. "I would like to see the Beak," he said. "He was my
housemaster at Shrewsbury. I think I'd go and stay with him for a bit,
at the school."

The major asked: "What's his proper name?"

"Mr. Scarlett. He's retired from the House, but he lives just opposite
the cricket-ground."

The major handed him over to a subaltern, who took him and gave him tea
in the mess. Charles was immensely pleased. He had never before had a
meal in a real mess, with officers just like grown-up versions of the
boys that he had been at school with. It was all very, very good.

The mess waiter was just bringing him his second cup of English tea
when, two hundred miles to the north, a camouflaged army car drew up
before the little house opposite the cricket-pitch. Three minutes later
a young officer was explaining his errand to a white-haired old
gentleman.

The old man said: "Oh, dear me, yes. I remember Charles Simon very well.
He was a good oar, a very good oar; if he had gone up to the Varsity he
might have done very well. Not the Blue, you know, but I think he would
have got into the College Eight." The young officer listened patiently;
his job was to listen. "He rowed three in my First Eight in 1923, the
year that we made three bumps and finished up third boat on the river.
It was a good year, that."

Mr. Scarlett paused thoughtfully. "He was French, you know, but a nice
boy all the same."

The subaltern said: "Would you know him again?"

"Know him again? Whatever do you mean? Of course I'd know him again!
Besides, he came to see me here in this very room only nine years ago,
after that unfortunate business with his wife."

The subaltern said: "He's over here now, sir. I understand that he is in
confinement."

The old man looked at the boy searchingly over his spectacles. "What
for?"

"I don't know. I had to tell you that we want you to come down to London
to identify him."

"When?"

"To-night, sir. Right away."

Charles Simon had a game of billiards with his companion, and he had
several glasses of English gin and bitters, and he had dinner in the
mess and talked to the colonel about France, and he listened to the nine
o'clock news with the officers, and he listened to them talking about
the war. He was staggered at their nonchalant assumption that they were
going to win the war. It was obvious that their country was being
terribly battered; he had driven that morning through one blitzed city
that he fancied was Southampton, and the desolation of it, and the
stillness, had seemed to him to be the hall-mark of defeat. In dumb
amazement he listened to the officers discussing what should be done
with Germany when the war was over; the words "if we win the bloody
thing" passed as a joke. It was an eye-opener to Charles.

About ten o'clock there was a raid warning, and most of the officers
went out to their duties. His guide stayed with Charles Simon. "We don't
sleep on the top floor in a raid," he said. "But you'll be all
right--you're on the first floor. There's a shelter if you'd like to go
down there."

He said: "Are you going?"

The other said: "Not unless they start to drop stuff round about. We all
used to go at first, but we don't now. I'd go to bed, if I were you.
I'll call you if it gets hot."

"I think I will."

He went upstairs to bed, and by the light of a candle got into the
pyjamas they had lent him. He lay awake for a long time, tired though he
was, listening to the drone of German bombers passing overhead, the
distant concussion of the bombs, and the sharp crack of distant gunfire.
And as he lay, a wonderful idea formed in his mind. He was a British
subject, an Englishman for all his long years in a foreign country. He
had been at a good English school. If he played his cards right he might
become a British officer like all these other officers, and be made one
of them, with military duties and a khaki tunic with patch pockets and a
beautiful Sam Browne belt, deep brown and polished, with a revolver
holster buckled on to it. And with that uniform he felt there would come
peace of mind, the calm assurance of the future unaccountably possessed
by these young men.

Presently, dead tired, he fell asleep.

He had breakfast in the mess next morning with his guide, and at about
ten o'clock he was taken back into the office where he had been
interrogated on the previous day. The British major was there alone; he
got up as Charles came in, unobtrusively pressing a bell button on his
desk.

"'Morning, Mr. Simon," he said cheerfully. "Sleep all right? Raid didn't
keep you awake? That's grand."

Behind Charles the door opened, and an old man came in. Charles Simon
turned and stared. "Mr. Scarlett!" he said. "I say--whatever brought you
here, sir?"

The old man said: "The soldiers brought me here. Well, Simon, been
getting into trouble? What have you been up to?"

"I've not been up to anything, sir." He spoke as a small boy.

"Well, what have they got you here for? You're under arrest, aren't
you?"

The major interposed. "I think there is a misunderstanding," he said.
"Mr. Simon is not under arrest. But he arrived in this country in a
peculiar way, and we had to get a positive identity for him. You know
him well, I take it?"

"I was his housemaster for four years," the old man said. "If that's not
knowing him well I'd like to know what is."

There was little more to be said. Simon was allowed a quarter of an hour
with his old housemaster; then the old gentleman was politely put into
an army car and taken back to London to his club, slightly bewildered at
the rapid, curtailed meeting. Simon was taken back into the major's
office, but this time there was a brigadier with him, a smartly dressed
officer with red staff tabs, with greyish hair and china-blue eyes. That
was the first time Simon met McNeil.

For half an hour they went over his information of the previous day. He
had told them a good deal about the aerodromes at Caen and other places,
and about the coast defences around Calais, so far as he had knowledge
of them from the concrete contracts. To-day they wanted to pursue the
matter further. They wanted information about Lorient in Brittany.

He wrinkled his brows. "Yes," he said. "There is a good deal of cement
going there. And steel reinforcement, although we don't handle that."

"How much cement a week?"

"Oh, a good deal. Two hundred tons a week, I dare say, sir."

"What do they want with all that in a little place like Lorient?"

Simon said: "I really couldn't tell you. You see, most of our Brittany
contracts pass through our sub-office in Brest. We have an agent there
who takes the orders and passes them to us in bulk at Corbeil. We only
know the destination of the trucks."

The brigadier leaned forward. "I can tell you what that cement is used
for, Mr. Simon. Would you like to know?"

Charles stared at him.

"The Germans are building shelters for their U-boats operating from
Lorient. Did you know that?"

He shook his head. "I knew that they had U-boats there. But--shelters?"

"Bomb-proof, ferro-concrete shelters over the submarine docks," said the
brigadier. "That's what they're doing there. They plan to make those
docks completely safe from our attacks by air. Then with their
submarines they plan to close the English Channel to our shipping--and
they may do it, too. It's really rather serious."

He turned to Charles. "If you were back in Corbeil, in your office," he
said quietly, "could you find out the thickness of the concrete roof,
and the amount of reinforcement? Could you get hold of the design of the
roof of the shelters, so that we can adapt our bombs to penetrate it?"

There was a silence in the bare little office. The officers sat gazing
at the man from France.

"I couldn't find out anything about that in Corbeil," he said at last.
"I'd have to think up some excuse and go to Lorient. I could tell you at
once if I could have a good look at the things."

"And could you manage to do that?" the major asked.

There was a long silence. From the next room there came the clatter of a
typewriter; from the fields outside the rumble of a tractor on the farm.

Charles said heavily at last: "If I went back to Corbeil I could get to
Lorient all right."

The two officers exchanged a glance. The major said softly: "But you
don't want to go back."

There was another pause.

The brigadier leaned forward. "What do you want to do, Mr. Simon?" he
enquired. "Did you come over here to join the forces?"

Charles turned to him gratefully. "I suppose I did," he said. "You see,
I didn't know what things were like here till I landed yesterday. It was
on a sort of impulse that I said they'd better take me from Le Trport,
if you understand. I knew I knew the sort of things you want to know,
and I've always been English, when all's said and done." He struggled to
express himself. "I mean, I was never naturalized French, not in all
those years. I've got a French identity card, but I made that out
myself. I told you."

The major said: "I know. And there's another thing. As I understand it,
the way is pretty clear for you to go back to Corbeil and take up your
work there again, if you want to."

"If I could get across the Channel."

"Oh...of course."

Charles Simon raised his eyes to them. "I was thinking about all this
last night," he said. "I was thinking, I'd like to stay over here and
join up, now that I'm here. I'd be of some use to you--in the Royal
Engineers. I know quite a lot about fortification works in
ferro-concrete." He hesitated, and then came out boldly: "Do you think I
should be able to get a commission?"

The brigadier glanced at the major, and the major at the brigadier, and
each waited for the other. The brigadier spoke first. "I think you could
get a commission," he said, "if that was the best way to use you. But
quite frankly, I would rather see you go back to Corbeil."

The major said, a little bitterly: "My job is in the army. I've been in
the army all my life, and wars don't come very often. I thought this war
was my big chance to make a name. In the first week of it I found myself
in this job here, simply because I'd worked hard during the peace and
learned six languages. All my contemporaries have got battalions. One of
my term at Sandhurst is commanding a brigade. And I'm stuck here, and
here I'll stay till the war ends. Then I shall be retired on pension."

He raised his head. "I don't want you to think that I'm complaining. But
I tell you that, because so few of us get what we want. So few can go
and fight. So many have to stay and work."

Charles pulled out a packet of Caporals, extracted one of the last two,
and lit it. He blew out a long cloud of smoke. "If I did go back," he
said, "it might be months before I could get down to Lorient. Some very
good excuse would have to be contrived, and that would all take time.
But when I had secured the information that you want, what then? How
should I send it back to you?"

The brigadier said: "We'll look after that."

Charles said: "That would be espionage, wouldn't it? I should be shot if
I were caught?" He eyed them narrowly.

The brigadier looked at him straight, bright blue eyes in a tanned,
brown face. "Yes," he said directly. "If the Germans caught you they
would shoot you. That's one of the risks you would have to take."

The designer said: "I don't mind so much about that part of it."

He was silent for a minute, while the officers stared at him. "It's just
the going back that is the worst part. I don't know if I can explain
it." He dropped his eyes and stared at the thin, dirty smoke arising
from the ragged ember of the cigarette. "France is a beastly country
now," he said quietly. "I never realized just how beastly it all was
until I got over here. Everything--everybody over there...they go
round as if they were in a dream, or tied up in a nightmare. There is a
disgusting influence that has sapped their will to work, their will to
live. They move about in lassitude, half men. They are tools for evil,
in the hands of evil men. And the best of them know it. And the worst of
them enjoy it..."

There was a long, long pause.

Charles Simon raised his head. "If I went back and did this job for
you," he said, "could I come back to England afterwards and be a British
officer?"

The brigadier said: "Yes, I think you could. In fact, I'd go so far as
to promise that."

"All right," said Charles, "I'll go. How are you going to get me back to
France?"

They spent the rest of the morning priming him with all he had to know.
It was not much to memorize. There was the name and address of a small
tailor on the quays of the Port du Commerce at Brest and the simple
little phrase: "I want red buttons on the coat." There was a
corn-chandler in the Rue Paul Feval in Rennes down behind the station,
and the head waiter in the Caf de l'Arcade in the Boulevard de Svign
in Paris. Through one or other of these friends he would return to
England, but how they would not say.

In the late afternoon he was driven to an aerodrome to meet his pilot
and to learn his parachute. With the pilot and a large-scale map of
France he planned the flight. "That's where I mean," he said. "Ten miles
north-east of Lyons, by that little place Montluel. Anywhere just round
there, within a mile or two."

The squadron-leader who was to pilot him drew a pencil circle big and
black around the place upon the map. "That's quite okay," he said.
"We'll take a Blenheim. If you come over with me now we'll get you
fitted for the parachute, and then we'll go and have a look at the
machine."

The flight-sergeant fitted and adjusted all the heavy webbing straps
around his body. "Now when you comes to jump," he said, "you just counts
one--two--three after you starts falling. Not onetwothree quick--but
deliberate, like: one--two--three. And then you pulls the ring and be
sure you pull it right out, wire and all, case any of it's holding up.
And don't go thinking that you've bust it when it comes away in your
hand, because you haven't."

His manner robbed the business of all fear. Simon had little difficulty
in grasping the technique of landing. There were obvious risks of
injury, but those did not distress him. He passed on with the
squadron-leader to the aircraft where they met the young sergeant who
was to serve as navigator with them, and for half an hour longer he
examined the machine and the means of getting out of it.

"I shall pull her back to about ninety-five," the pilot said. "You won't
have any difficulty."

With the major from the interrogation centre, he had tea in the Air
Force mess. Then they went back in the car and he met the brigadier
again in the bare little office that had seen all their business. McNeil
had not been idle.

"Fix things up with the Air Force?" he enquired. "It's all right for
to-night, is it? Fine. The sooner you're back in France the better. Here
are your papers."

He passed an envelope across the table. It contained a pass made out in
German and in French, signed by the _Oberstleutnant Commandant_ of Le
Trport authorizing the bearer, M. Charles Simon, to pass into Vichy
territory for the purpose of visiting relatives, and to return into the
occupied zone within ten days. An oval rubber stamp in purple ink
defaced it--'"_Vu  l'entre, Chalon_," and the date.

Charles studied it carefully. "Is that the real signature?" he asked.

The major smiled. "We got a good deal of his correspondence in the
raid."

There was no more to be done, and no more to be said. Charles dined with
the major in the mess, and then went up and lay down, fully clothed but
for his boots, upon the bed. He lay awake for a considerable time,
wondering what lay before him. Presently he grew drowsy and slept for an
hour or two.

At one o'clock in the morning they came to wake him. He got up and put
on his shoes and went down to the mess; they had thoughtfully prepared
for him a drink of hot coffee laced with rum and a few sandwiches. Then
he was driven to the aerodrome. On the tarmac the Blenheim was already
running up, the exhausts two blue streaks in the blackness of the night.

"All ready?" said the squadron-leader. "Well, let's go."

Charles turned to the major and held out his hand. "I'm terribly
grateful for all you've done for me, sir. Don't worry if you don't hear
for a month or two. It's going to take a little time."

The other said gruffly: "Wish I was going with you, 'stead of sticking
in this blasted job. All the very best of luck."

The pilot and the navigator were already in the Blenheim. Charles was
assisted up on to the wing, clumsy in his parachute harness, and settled
into the small seat behind them. The hatch was pushed up behind him and
snapped shut. The Blenheim moved to a burst of engine, and taxied out
into the darkness of the aerodrome.

A few faint lights appeared ahead of them; the engines burst into a
roar, and they went trundling down the field. The lights swept past
them, the motion grew more violent, then died away to a smooth air-borne
rush as the lights dropped away beneath them and behind. The pilot bent
to the instrument panel and juggled quickly with his massed controls.
They swept round in a long gentle turn and steadied on the course for
France, climbing as they went.

Charles remembered little of that flight. He sat there for two hours,
gradually getting cold, watching the computations and the plotting of
the navigator in the dim, shaded cockpit light. In the end the sergeant
turned to him. "About ten minutes more," he said. "Are you all ready to
go?"

Charles said: "All ready."

The pilot swung round in his seat. "You'll see to land all right," he
said. "The moon's just coming up." Charles had watched it rise over the
pilot's left shoulder.

The pilot and the navigator conferred together for a moment. Then the
sergeant got up from his folding seat and turned round to Charles. "He's
going to slow her down," he said. "We'll open the hatch, and I'll help
you get out on to the wing. Then when it's time I'll give you a clap on
the back...and just let go."

The roof hatch dropped down, and the night air blew a keen, cold gale
around him. With the assistance of the sergeant he clambered slowly out.
The wind tore round him, dragging his legs from the slippery surface of
the wing. Far, far below him he could see the dim line of a river and
the faint shadow of the woods upon the patterned fields. His heart was
pounding in his chest, and he thought: "This is death. I have only a few
minutes left to live."

The sergeant, standing in the hatch helping to support him in the
violence of the rush of air, shouted with his mouth against his ear:
"Just take it easy and count one, two, three after you go. Put your hand
upon the ring--that's right. Wait, now..."

They both stared at the pilot, intent on the instruments. They saw him
glance at his watch, and back to the instruments again. Then at his
watch.... He turned in his seat and nodded, smiled at Charles, and
said something which was never heard. The sergeant shouted in his ear:
"Okay, and the best of luck. Off you go."

Charles felt the grasp upon his arm released and a heavy clump upon his
shoulder. He dared not show his fear. He turned his body to face aft and
the wind took him; he slipped, lost his hold, and bumped heavily upon
the trailing edge. A dark shadow that was the tail-plane swept over him,
and then he was head downwards and rotating slowly, seeing only the dim
earth below as the wind rose about him, tearing at his clothes. The fear
made an acute pain in his throat.

He forced himself to think, and counted slowly. Then desperately, with
all his strength, he pulled the ring. It came and something snapped
behind his back; he pulled at the wire following the ring with both his
hands. For a sickening moment he went on falling; then came a rustling
rush and the harness plucked violently at his shoulders, hurting him
with the buckles of the straps. He came erect and saw the sky again; the
wind had gone and he was hanging there suspended in the quiet peace of
the night. For a few moments he hung limp and shaken, exhausted by his
fear.

Presently he regained control of himself, and set to steering the
parachute gingerly away from the woods and into open country.

He fell into a pasture field close by a hedge. He fell down heavily on
knee, thigh, and shoulder as he had been told to do and got badly shaken
up again. The parachute collapsed beside him on the grass. He stayed
there for a quarter of an hour, gradually calming down. He was not hurt
at all.

Presently he got up, made the parachute and harness into a bundle, and
did with it what he had been told to do.

An hour later he walked into his mother's house, with a story that he
had walked from Lyons, having come from Paris by the night express.

       *       *       *       *       *

He got back to Corbeil after a few days and settled down to work again.
Duchene took his absence as a matter of course, and no word of the raid
upon Le Trport seemed to have penetrated to the factory. Charles fell
back easily into his humdrum daily round, and for a time everything went
on normally.

Three weeks later he appeared one morning in the office of _M. le
directeur_, bearing certain test samples of cement, odd-shaped little
twin bulbous bricks. "I regret, monsieur," he said, "that there is
trouble with the samples."

They bent over the fractures; they were granulated and short. "These are
the figures," said the designer. "See for yourself, monsieur." The
failing load of the test-pieces was forty per cent below the
specification strength.

Duchene glanced at the figures. "This is very bad," he said. "What is
the reason?"

Simon produced a paper bag of powdered cement. "This is the sample."
They dipped their fingers in it; the powder was rough and gritty to the
touch. "It has passed once only through the kiln," said Duchene. He
fingered it again, with forty years' experience behind the touch.
"Or--some of it. Half--more than a quarter and less than half--has
passed once only. Has any of this stuff gone out?"

Simon said: "This is from Batch CX/684, monsieur. I regret infinitely
that much of that has been already shipped. I trust that this is not a
true sample of the rest."

The old man bit his lip. "Where did the shipment go to?" he enquired.
This was a serious matter for the prestige of the company.

Charles said: "It was sold through Brest. Much of it was shipped to
Lorient, and some to Audierne, Douarnenez, and Morgat. It has all gone
to the same district."

They discussed the distribution for some little time. It was a major
crisis, and most serious to them commercially. "I will ring up the
Commission of Control," Duchene said in the end. "They must know about
this first of all, and quickly, in case they think that we have made a
sabotage. Then they must arrange at the ports that every sack is put in
quarantine till we have made a test-piece from that sack and broken it.
Every sack is to be tested. I will not take a risk in matters of this
sort."

The designer nodded. "I will go and see to it myself," he said. "They
cannot say that we are taking this lightly if I go myself to do the
tests."

The old man beamed his approval; he was fond of Charles. "That is a very
good suggestion," he said. "I will tell the Commission that I am sending
my chief engineer to make this inspection. You must be ready to start
immediately, and make my apologies to all the commandants concerned.
Telegraph immediately what replacements are required."

The Commission were annoyed, and naturally so, but somewhat mollified
by the suggestion that the S.A.F.C. de Corbeil proposed to send their
chief engineer in person to inspect the defective batch. Half a dozen
telegrams were sent without delay isolating the material, and Charles
was given all the necessary permits for his journey and told to get off
at once. He travelled up next morning to Paris, a city of desolate,
dirty streets and closed shops. He lunched sadly in a little restaurant
and took the afternoon train for Brittany.

He went first to Brest. At the station he took the common hotel bus, an
ancient horse-drawn vehicle, and asked to be put down at the Htel
Moderne. The driver looked at him curiously. "Monsieur has not visited
Brest recently, perhaps?" he said. "The hotel is closed."

He found that it was closed indeed, or rather that it stood wide open to
the sky. There was much bomb damage in the town; he was fortunate to get
a room in the Htel des Voyageurs.

He went to the agent next day, and sat in conference with him for an
hour. Monsieur Clarisson was much concerned about the defects of Batch
CX/684, and said he could not believe that there was really much wrong
with it. He himself had taken samples and had tested them as soon as the
news reached him, and all his samples had come out in strength well
above specification. The two engineers drank several cups of coffee in
the office, bitter stuff tasting of acorns, and gloomed over the samples
that Simon had brought with him from Corbeil. Monsieur Clarisson gave
Charles the names of all the local German commandants that he would have
to see, and expressed his irritation that he would not be able to
accompany Monsieur Simon on his trip from town to town along the coast.
The German regulations in that part were very strict.

"I should warn you, monsieur," he said confidentially, "that here in
Brittany it is necessary to be most discreet." He hesitated. "You will
not mind if I say this? Coming from Corbeil, you may not know quite how
things are here with us."

Charles nodded. "There are difficulties here?"

The man said: "Not here in Brest. Here we are business people, and we
understand that circumstances change. But in the country districts
people are more stupid. They are always trying to do things against the
Germans, and that makes trouble. In the caf, monsieur, they are always
talking. You will hear the English radio quite openly." Charles drew in
his breath; this was asking for it. "You must be very careful not to get
involved in their stupidity. It is trouble--trouble--trouble all the
time."

Charles said: "I am deeply grateful, monsieur, for the warning. These
places I am going to--Lorient, Audierne, Douarnenez, and Morgat--are
they bad?"

The agent said: "Not Lorient, nor Audierne. Morgat is too small for much
to happen there. But in Douarnenez, monsieur, it is most difficult.
Those fishing people will not understand the new regime. Each week there
is some new trouble, each week there is an execution by the Germans,
sometimes several. And it has no effect... But for the fishing
industry and for the food that they bring in, the town would have been
bombarded by the Germans from the air, and razed down to the ground. I
have heard German officers say so."

"It is as bad as that?"

"It is bad as it could be, monsieur. Life is terrible for people in
Douarnenez just now. You must be very, very careful there."

Charles went that afternoon to Lorient, put up at the Hotel Bellevue,
and reported himself next morning to the German commandant. He was
coldly received, and was informed that work of great importance was
completely stopped. He was questioned sharply about the day that he had
spent in Brest; it did not seem to the Germans necessary at all that he
should have wasted time in visiting his agent. They gave him a good
dressing down, then took him to the harbour in a Renault van.

The cement was stacked in heaps in its sacks in a shed overlooking the
estuary. He set to work with one Breton lad to help him, numbering the
sacks, making a sample briquette in a little mould from each sack, and
leaving it to dry. He worked all day. Once or twice, when nobody was
looking, he mingled a little of the sample powder from Corbeil into a
briquette.

In the late afternoon he was taken down to see the sacks upon the job.
He passed along new quays and under arches of new concrete, stepped over
piles of girders and steel reinforcement, walked round great heaps of
wooden shuttering. He dared not glance in each direction more than
once; that one glance was sufficient, if he could remember. His mind was
crowded with the detail he observed. He must, must keep it clear. With
each glance he tried to memorize the picture of what lay before him so
that he might reconstruct it in the night.

They took him to the ready-use cement store, and he set to work again to
make briquettes of the sacks there. As he performed the simple job he
indexed in his mind what he had seen. Seven bays each holding two
U-boats, held up on columns one metre twenty-five square section, each
with two I beams in the centre, each I beam forty-five by fifteen
centimetres, wrapped round with twenty-kilogram reinforcement. Each bay
a hundred metres long and twenty metres wide, and six columns to each
bay. The weight of roof could be deduced from that alone. But keep that
detail in his mind, treasure it. God, let him not forget!

His task finished, he was free to go till the next day; it took
twenty-four hours for the briquettes to dry. He walked back up the
quays. Fifteen-metre girders, each one metre twenty deep--they would be
the longitudinal horizontals between columns. Each girder built of webs
and angles, each angle twenty centimetres by twenty, each web twenty-two
millimetres thick. Mary, Mother of God, help him to remember!

Shuttering for the arches of the twenty-metre bays--radius of arch
thirty to thirty-five metres, each arch about one metre eighty wide. He
glanced up casually to the half-completed job, and looked down at the
quay. Say two tons eighty of forty kilogramme reinforcement to each
arch. Fifty by twelve I beams for the purlins between arches, ten or
eleven purlins to each arch. Over the purlins, six layers of
twenty-kilogramme reinforcement buried in the concrete of the roof, the
layers separated by about fifteen centimetres. Jesus, give him a clear
head to sort out and disentangle all that he had seen!

He did not dine that night because food dulls the brain. He went up to
his room in the hotel and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling in
the hard light of the one unshaded lamp. He would not, must not think of
anything except design. This was no amateur erection that he had seen.
He knew that at a glance. Whoever had designed it had had much
experience in structures of that sort. That made Charles Simon's job
more possible, for everything would have a reason. Each girder and each
column would be made sufficient for the loads imposed upon it and no
more; the strength of one part would show him the strength of the rest,
when he had understood the matter rightly. And all in turn would lead
him to the weight and thickness of the roof, as yet unbuilt, if he could
keep a clear mind and remember all that he had seen.

He set himself to find the gaps, the links in the chain of the structure
that he had not thought to look at. The list of points that he must
memorize to-morrow, his last visit to the quays. Then he got up and
wrote in pencil on a little ivorine tablet all the dimensions he had
noticed, and set to work to learn what he had written off by heart, as
he had learnt poetry when he was a boy at Shrewsbury. Finally, at about
midnight, he expunged what he had written from the tablet with a wet
corner of his towel, and lay down on his bed, still repeating his lesson
to himself. Presently, in the middle of his repetition, he dropped off
to sleep. When he woke up at dawn, alert and desperately hungry, he was
still repeating it.

He went down to the main cement store later in the day and started to
break his briquettes with a little shot-weighing machine that he had
brought with him. A German officer of Pioneers was there to watch him as
he worked. Of about two hundred sacks, seven proved to be defective,
with fractures much below the specification strength for the briquette.
Charles had the offending sacks sorted out and opened one at the neck.
He took a handful of the cement, rubbed it between his fingers, smelt
it, and nodded.

He turned to the German officer. "I regret this infinitely, _Herr
Oberleutnant_," he observed. "But there it is. See for yourself."

The German rubbed some in his hands and nodded wisely.

"Such things happen in any factory from time to time," said Charles
apologetically. "But all the rest may now be cleared for use."

Seven sacks of perfectly good cement were sent down to the breakwater to
form part of the sea wall, sacks and all. Charles was taken down to the
ready-use store again.

Footings for the columns seven metres by seven metres, apparently on
sand or gravel bottom. A squad of carpenters knocking up
one-metre-eighty shuttering--would that be the depth of the roof? Great
boxes full of thirty-millimetre bolts--where did they go, what members
did they join? And what were all these tons and tons of angles, all
fifteen-centimetre angles? Where did they come in? And all those
seven-millimetre strips?

In the ready-use store every briquette passed its test well above
specification strength, possibly because Charles had been under close
supervision the previous afternoon, down there upon the job. The German
officer was very pleased, and genuinely cordial as they walked back
along the quay.

One last look round. An indication of something similar in a very early
stage of construction upon the other side of the river, exactly in a
line between the church of Plouarget and the tall chimney at the
gasworks. A boom across the entrance to the river between Plouarget and
Creusec, turned back for ships to enter, and with one guard-ship. What
seemed to be an oil-tanker beside the quay two hundred metres
down-stream from the bridge. Five naval motor-launches. Two large
twin-engined float seaplanes moored out to buoys. Two salvage ships...

He left Lorient that afternoon and went to Audierne. He must go through
with his trip in all sincerity, for on the coast of Brittany he was
under observation the whole time. There was only a matter of five tons
or so to test at Audierne. He condemned three sacks, apologized to the
commandant on behalf of the S.A.F.C. de Corbeil, and left for Douarnenez
two days later.

It was February, and though the days were beginning to get longer, it
was still quite dark by six o'clock. From Audierne to Douarnenez is not
much more than fifteen miles, but the direct railway line was closed to
all civilian traffic, and Charles had to make a long detour through
Quimper. Here he had a long, indeterminate wait upon the station
platform for a train that was indefinitely late.

He went into the buffet and drank a cup of bitter coffee. The place was
ill-ventilated, smelly and cheerless; outside the night was mild, even
warm. It was fine and starry. He went out on to the platform and began
walking up and down.

Presently he fell into conversation with a priest, a man perhaps fifty
years of age, in shabby black canonicals.

They talked as they walked up and down. The priest, Charles learned, was
travelling to Douarnenez from a seminary at Pontivy; he was on his way
to take up a new cure in the great Church of Ste-Hlne in the middle of
the town. He told Charles quite simply the reason for the vacancy that
he was to fill. His predecessor had been executed by the Germans.

"You understand," he said ingenuously, "that in my calling one is
sometimes in a difficult position, more difficult than I anticipated
when as a young man I joined the Order."

In the dim light of the stars Charles glanced curiously at his
companion. Was this just the folly of an unworldly old man, or was
it--courage? He could not resist the endeavour to find out.

"A middle course is usually possible," he said. He was mindful of the
warning that he had received in Brest. "The Germans, after all, are men
like ourselves. It is not necessary always to be finding means to
irritate them."

The priest said very quietly: "The Germans are not people like
ourselves. They are creatures of the Devil, vowed to idolatry, and
followers of Mithras. If you deny that, you deceive yourself, my son."

Charles did not wish to argue; they walked a few paces in silence. Then
the priest spoke again.

"I am not one of those who consider matters of the earthly sphere," he
said. "Our life and our hope of things to come lie not in this world. I
do not think it matters very much who exercises dominion over these
fields of France, whether our race, or the Germans, or even the English,
who in bygone times ruled here for a century. The Church does not
concern herself with conquests of that sort. We fight against the
conquest of the soul."

Half-heartedly Charles tried to turn the conversation into safer
channels. "The Germans have their Lutheran religion," he said. "The
English also, and the Americans, and the Dutch. I do not see much
difference."

The man said: "The English are not members of the true Church. They
worship Jesus Christ in a foolish and misguided way, and as a social
usage rather than a true belief. Yet they do worship, and they have no
other gods. And so it is with all the other countries that you name. But
not with Germany."

"So much the worse for them, father," said Charles.

"You do not understand, my son," the priest replied. "To gain their
temporal ends the Germans first destroy the souls of men. The Church
thinks little of the temporal end. The Church will fight to save the
souls of men from everlasting torment, and by the Grace of God she will
emerge victorious."

There was no turning him, Charles thought. There were few people on the
platform in the night, and none at all the far end beneath the signal
lights, where they were pacing up and down under the stars.

"Lies and deceit in every form," said the old priest. "Sexual immorality
weakening the body, bribery, false witness, selfishness, corruption,
sloth, and all the petty minor sins that weaken character. These are the
things that Germany has sown in Frenchmen, save in small corners of the
country such as we have here. These are the weapons with which Germany
fights wars. First they destroy the souls of men and then they occupy
the country. Against that we are set; against that we will fight.

"And do not think," he said, "that these things come from facile
cleverness called Propaganda. All in this world, my son, descends from
God, or it ascends from Satan in the Pit. These things that I have
spoken of, these things that Germany has put into the souls of
Frenchmen, do not come from God, whose servant I have been for forty
years. They come from Satan and his messenger at Berchtesgaden."

They walked on in silence for a minute. Charles was deeply impressed,
yet with shrewd realism it seemed to him that there might be another
vacancy at Douarnenez before so very long.

"These things are bred of sheer idolatry and witchcraft," the priest
said presently. "They have cast out and persecuted their own Lutherans.
They make sacrifices of living goats to Satan on their hill-tops in the
night; they bow down to the false gods of war, to Mithras and to Moloch.
In their unholy Sabbaths they sit down in conference, and from their
conference is born the sins and infamies that they now call political
warfare. But these are works of Satan; black magic, and the products of
the Pit."

A little wind swept past them in the starry night. Charles said: "But,
father, what can simple people do?"

"Pray to Almighty God in all humility," the old priest said. "Turn to
the Faith, and watch that you fall not into the pit that has been digged
for you."

They paced up and down in silence for a few minutes. A cool, fresh wind
blew inland from the sea; the stars were very bright and quiet above.
"Mother Church," the old man said at last, "has given us no guidance
upon the matter temporal. Yet age by age the wisdom of the Church
remains unaltered, my son. There is not one truth in one century, and
then another in a later age. Truth and the Laws of God endure through
all the ages of the world. That is so, is it not?"

Charles said quietly: "That is true. If it were otherwise we should be
lost indeed."

The old man nodded his agreement. "Each one of us must seek for his own
guidance, and at Pontivy in my retreat I have spent many, many days and
weeks praying to God for guidance on the road that I must tread. And
presently, my son, it was revealed to me that since Truth must endure it
is not necessary for guidance to be given more than once. Mother Church
speaks once, and that truth then endures through all the ages of the
years for those who seek in humbleness to find it."

They paced on. Charles did not speak.

The priest said: "So humbly, and in long, long hours of prayer I sought
for guidance in the matter temporal, where evil men are dominant,
perverting the souls of men for their own ends by sorcery and the black
arts that they have studied to perform. And presently I saw that this
was no new thing, this struggle against heresy arising from the East.
Black magic and the foul infamies of Satan have arisen in past ages, and
in past ages Holy Church has called up spiritual powers, and weapons
temporal, to beat them down. It is all in the old books, for those to
whom faith gives the faculty of understanding."

Charles said: "I have not gained that faith, father, nor that
understanding." He spoke very quietly. "Is there a weapon temporal for
me?" As he spoke there came a fleeting image of the man in Brest and of
the warnings that he had received. He knew himself to be venturing among
great risks, and he dismissed them from his mind.

The old man said: "I do not know, my son. Yet in past centuries the
Church wielded one great cleansing weapon against heresy and infamy and
all idolatry, a weapon that sweeps all before it, before which
Anti-Christ and all the devils of the Pit recoil. That in past ages was
the wisdom of the Church, my son. It is the wisdom still."

"What is this weapon temporal, then, father?"

The priest said: "It is fire."

He turned and faced Charles Simon. "So in the past the Holy Inquisition
fought the battle against heresy, idolatry, and witchcraft, with faith
in God and with the weapon temporal of fire. With that faith and that
weapon they beat down the devils seeking to destroy the souls of men.
Through that faith and that weapon men's souls may again be saved from
all the dangers that beset them now."

The priest, facing him, laid his hand upon the designer's arm. "That is
the truth of God," he said. "For the weak in faith there is an
evidence." He dropped his voice and glanced round furtively. "Listen, my
son, and I will tell you what I know."

In the dim light they bent together. "There was a brother of my Order,"
said the priest. "He was in Belgium, at Ostend, in September last, four
months after the Occupation. For those four months he watched the
Germans as they trained their troops to sail in barges for the invasion
of England--men and guns and motor-bicycles and cars and tanks, and men
again, all entering and disembarking from the barges. And finally, my
son, the day arrived--September the 16th."

Charles said in a whisper: "What happened then?"

"God in His mercy laid His hand upon the English," the priest whispered
in the dark. "They are not of the true Faith, but the Lord God is
generous to all sincere misunderstanding, and He led them to the weapon
temporal. The barges were three hours from land when British bombers of
the Royal Air Force came upon them and dived on the barges, dropping
upon them drums of oil and small incendiary bombs. Wave upon wave of
aeroplanes came out from England strong in the power of the Lord, oil
and incendiary bombs, oil and bombs. And the drums burst on the barges
and the oil flowed into them, and the bombs set all on fire so that they
blazed fiercely on the water, and the English dropped more oil into the
flames."

Charles drew in his breath sharply.

The priest drew back a little. "For ten whole days the bodies came
ashore upon the beaches," he said in a low tone. "Choked in the blazing
oil, burned, suffocated, and drowned in their vile sins and infamy.
Hundreds upon hundreds of them, every day, and the Germans buried them
among the sand-hills of the beaches like dead animals, that none might
know how they had met their end. Yet it was known all over Belgium and
all through the German armies of the Netherlands within a day."

There was a short silence. "Before that power of fire all powers of
heresy, idolatry, and witchcraft must recoil," the old man said. "It is
not given to us to understand the choice of the Lord's instruments, why
He revealed His mercy to the English rather than to us, any more than it
is given to us to understand His choice of the Hebrew race in ages past.
I only know that by that temporal power the Germans suffered a defeat,
the first that they have suffered in this war. Before that power the
powers of Mithras were thrown back."

He bent close again. "There was a mutiny," he said in a low tone. "A
mutiny in the German Army, because the Nazis ordered that the troops
should sail again for England. And there was mutiny...it is true
what I say. A hundred officers and men were shot in Antwerp at the
rifle-range on September the 29th. And after that, and gradually, the
troops were moved away."

They turned and resumed their pacing up and down. "The lesson of the
ages has been taught again," the priest said quietly. "No other weapon
purges evil from the earth and rids men from their bondage to the powers
of darkness. Only the simple elementals can avail against the elemental
foe--faith in the Power of God and in the cleansing power of fire."

The train came shortly after that. They got into a crowded third-class
carriage and travelled together to Douarnenez. At the station their ways
diverged; before turning into the Htel du Commerce Charles stopped his
companion.

"What is your name, father?" he enquired.

"Augustine," said the old man. "Augustine, of the Church of Ste-Hlne."

In the hotel Charles went up to his room, washed, and went down to the
dining-room for a late meal of tunny fish, garnished with onions and
potatoes. As he was eating a steam hooter from a factory near by blew a
long blast, taken up all over the town by other sirens. A number of
people came hurriedly into the hotel from the street.

Charles asked the waitress: "Is that the air-raid warning?"

She said: "It is the same hooter. But that is for the curfew."

It was half-past eight. "One has a curfew here?" he enquired.

She nodded. "You must not go outside now, in the street. Or, if you have
to go, go very carefully in rope-soled shoes and be prepared to run for
it. They shoot if they see you, but they do not shoot well."

Charles said that he was tired and thought that he would stay at home.

He went down to the caf after dinner, bought a book, and settled down
to read his paper. The _patron_ and his family were there and a few
travellers; presently they turned on the radio and tuned it to the
British news in French. They heard of fresh advances by the Greeks into
Albania and the news of the British entry into Benghazi. That was before
we got chased out again.

Presently the _patron_ came over to the table at which Charles was
sitting. He was a heavy man of about fifty-five, but still vigorous. He
said: "Monsieur is not from these parts?"

Charles shook his head. "This is the first time I have visited
Douarnenez. I come from Corbeil, in Seine et Oise."

The man said: "Then, possibly, monsieur would drink a glass upon the
house to celebrate his first visit to Douarnenez?"

Charles was very pleased, and they settled down together with the
Pernod. Presently he told the innkeeper that he had travelled from
Quimper with a priest called Father Augustine.

The man said: "So, he has arrived?" His face grew black. "The father
told monsieur, perhaps, the reason for the vacancy?"

Charles said gently: "Not in detail. I know that you have had great
trouble here, monsieur."

"And there will be more." There was a short, grim pause.

"I will tell you about that," the man said presently. "In Seine et Oise,
from all I hear, you are great friends with the Germans, but it is not
so here. In August thirty people of this town were shot--thirty, in two
batches, in one day. Two cousins of my own and my wife's brother. What
do you think of that?" He bent towards Charles, trembling with anger.

The designer said: "It is terrible."

"One day, presently, when they are weak and beaten, we shall get at them
with axes and with billhooks," the innkeeper said.

He drew back. "I was telling you. Our children are not very well in
hand," he said. "It is understandable, that. There was a boy of nine--a
little boy, monsieur--a bad boy whose father is at Toulon with the
fleet. A bad boy, monsieur--but a child still, you will understand. It
was his way to go out in the dark night in the curfew and pick up the
horse droppings in the street. Then he would creep up in the darkness to
a sentry and fling what he had collected in the German's face and run.
Many times he did that."

Charles nodded. It was not a very edifying tale.

The man said: "One night, as he ran, there was another sentry in the way
with a fixed bayonet. He lunged at little Jules as he came running past,
monsieur, and he ran him through the chest beneath the left shoulder.
Then the two sentries together had to pull his little body off the
bayonet. Then, one took each arm and they walked him between them
towards German headquarters in the market-place. All the way, monsieur,
he was coughing up his blood. We found it on the _pav_ in the morning.
But he was not dead."

Charles did not speak.

"Father Zacharias was our _cur_ then," the innkeeper went on. "He also
was out that night, but that was allowed, for he had taken the last
Sacrament to a sick woman. There was a moon that night, and in the Rue
Jean Marat he met the German soldiers as they dragged the little one
along between them, and he stopped them and upbraided them, ordering
them to take him into the first house and go to fetch a doctor. All this
was heard, monsieur, by Marie Lechanel outside whose house they stopped.
There was a great pool of blood there in the morning to prove her story,
where they stopped and argued."

He paused. "They would not listen. The father grew angry, and he said:
'If you do not release that little one and fetch a doctor for him, the
Fire of Heaven shall come down and strike you, and you will perish
unshrived in your sin.' But they would not listen. They said: 'We are
taking him to the officer. He will make an example of this one.'

"And Father Zacharias said: 'I shall come with you, and if that boy dies
you both shall be denounced as murderers.' So he went with them to
headquarters of the Gestapo, monsieur. And in the night, there in a
prison, the little boy Jules died, monsieur. And they took Father
Zacharias away to Rennes in a motor-car, and three days later he was
shot for treason, and for inciting the people to revolt. That was the
reason that they gave, and there was not one word of truth in it--at
least, not that the Germans knew."

Charles Simon said gently: "I am desolated, monsieur. This is very, very
bad."

"Aye," said the man heavily. "It is bad indeed here in Douarnenez."

A quarter of an hour later, after another glass of Pernod, the innkeeper
said: "I was in Brest, monsieur, when the English left. It was
incredible to us, you understand--unreal. I had stopped for a glass down
in the Port du Commerce at the Abri de la Tempte. There were still
English ships in the harbour, and two officers of the Royal Navy came in
also to drink a glass. And I went and asked them, monsieur, if it was
true that the English were going away and leaving us.

"And one of them said: 'It is true indeed. It is now three days since
you have signed an armistice with the Germans and we must go, for we are
going on with this war even if you are not.' And three women in the
caf began sobbing, monsieur...That was the start of our bad time."

Next day Charles reported to the German commandant, and was taken to the
cement store, where he worked all morning taking samples from about
fifteen tons of cement in stock. He discovered that there was no cement
at Morgat, since all distribution took place through Douarnenez; this
meant that when he left the fishing port he would be able to go back to
Corbeil.

He returned to the hotel for _djeuner_ and was free for the rest of the
day; his samples took twenty-four hours to set hard. He wandered down to
the harbour in the afternoon; it was a warm, sunny day of early spring.
He was very fond of ships and shipping, and deeply interested in
fishing-boats. For a time he stood and watched the sardine-boats and
tunnymen from the quay. Presently, with a chance word and a cigarette,
he was down in one of the sardine-boats helping a deft-fingered, gruff
old man called Bozellec to find the holes in a blue gossamer net.

He stayed there for two hours, and in that time he learned the whole
operation of the sardine fleet. A German _Raumboote_ came in from the
sea, turned the end of the sea wall, and came alongside, just astern of
them; Charles studied her with all the interest of an amateur yachtsman.
The old fisherman looked at her for a moment, saw that a German officer
was noticing him, and spat ostentatiously into the sea before resuming
his work. The sun beat down upon them on the boat, pleasantly warm. As
they worked on, Charles learned the tactics of the _Raumboote_.
Presently he awoke to the value of what was being told to him and set to
work to memorize the facts, and to fill in the gaps in his information
by direct questions.

The job finished, they strung their net up to the mast-head to dry and
air. "A little glass, perhaps?" Charles said.

A little glass, the old man thought, would be a very good idea. They got
up on to the quay and walked to the Caf de la Rpublique overlooking
the harbour.

They went in and sat down, and Charles ordered Pernod for them both. He
told his old companion a little of himself, and of the defects of the
batches of cement. And presently he said casually:

"Do you have much trouble with the Germans here?"

"No more than any other lice," the old man said.

There was a short silence. "Lice," the old man said again, "and as lice
we treat them. I have told them so."

Charles said: "Is it...wise to say things of that sort to them?"

The fisherman shrugged his shoulders. "The other night," he said, "in
the boat we had a _Bootsmannsmaat_, a German, as a guard, and so we had
the shade over our lamp. And this man said to me, what would I do when
the war ended? Would I go on fishing? So I told him what I would do, in
memory of my dead brother who was murdered. I said that I would put on
my best clothes and go to watch the young men tie the Germans up in
bundles and pour petrol over them and light the petrol. That is the way
to deal with lice, I said. With a blow-lamp."

Charles stared at him. "Does one talk so to the Germans in Douarnenez?"

"He started it," the old man said. "He asked me what I was going to do,
and I told him."

There was nothing to be said to that, and Charles sat on in the caf,
smoking and talking, till the hooter sounded for the curfew. He heard
all that he wanted of the life of the town. It was a sad, pitiful tale,
of desperate insults on the one side, of mass executions and torture on
the other. It was a town in which the Germans seldom ventured out alone
or without arms, a town in which each glint of light in the black-out
received an instant shot from rifle or revolver. It was a town of sullen
hate and brooding superstition, a town turning in despair to the old
country spells and witchcraft for help against the oppressor. They did
not hesitate to let the Germans know of these activities, moreover.
Charles heard a story of a little waxen figure of the German commandant,
finished and painted with the greatest care, found on the
_Oberstleutnant's_ desk one morning. The feet of the little image were
partially melted away, and the bowels were transfixed with a pin; it was
common knowledge that the _Oberstleutnant_ suffered from gout and from
an internal disorder.

The truth of what he had been told in Brest was evident to Charles.
This town continued to exist simply and solely because the Germans could
not do without the food that it produced. But for that fact the Germans
would have wiped out every house. The people of the town knew this quite
well. They played their cards up to the limit, venting their scorn and
hate upon the Germans in a thousand ways and purchasing immunity with
the loads of tunny and sardines that they brought in.

At curfew Charles went back to his hotel. He slept little that night;
once or twice he heard the sound of shots that echoed down the streets.
There was an atmosphere of brooding evil over all the place that left
him utterly appalled; in his experience of France after the occupation
he had come on nothing similar to this in any way.

Next day he broke his samples of cement and condemned four sacks, made
his report and the apologies of his firm to the commandant, and left for
Paris on the midday train. He got there very late at night, turned into
a small hotel, and slept heavily and well.

On the following morning he went for coffee to the Caf de l'Arcade in
the Boulevard de Svign. The head waiter served him, an elderly man
with a drooping grey moustache. He wore a faded green dress suit.

Charles said: "That is a handsome suit that you have on to-day. It only
needs one thing to set it off. If I wore that I should want to have red
buttons on the coat."

The man shot a quick glance around the room. Then he said quietly:

"Monsieur Simon, I presume."

       *       *       *       *       *

Charles Simon landed in England forty-eight hours later. He had spent
part of the intervening time in the cellar of the Caf de l'Arcade, and
he had spent part of it beside the driver of a German ammunition lorry,
going north. In the dark night he had commenced his flight and had
landed shortly before dawn at an aerodrome in Berkshire, a very
frightened man.

A subaltern was there to meet him with a car. He was given a light meal
of sandwiches and coffee in the mess, and in the early light of dawn
they started on the road. It was February, and a wet, windy dawn; the
air was cold and raw. They spoke very little in the car. Once the
subaltern passed him a silver hunting-flask of whisky and they both took
a long drink; the neat spirit heartened him, and he felt better for it.

At about ten o'clock they drove up to the same dilapidated old country
house that he had been taken to before, full of the same soldiers. It
seemed to him that he had hardly been away a day, though it was a full
two months since he had been there. He was taken into the same mess and
given breakfast. Then he was shown into the same bare little office, and
interviewed by the same major and the same _capitaine_ of the Free
French.

The major rose and shook his hand; the _capitaine_ rose and bowed
stiffly from the waist. The major said: "Did you get to Lorient?"

The designer nodded. "I was there on Thursday of last week."

"And did you see the shelters?"

He said: "I saw the shelters." Very briefly he outlined to them an
account of his journey around Brittany. "I think I saw all that you want
to know," he said.

The major passed a sheet of paper across to him, with a pencil. "You'd
better sit there quietly, and put down the details of the structure."

The designer demurred. "I cannot think like that," he said. "Even if I
could, that way would not be useful to your engineers. Get me a
drawing-board and a T-square, and a good roll of tracing-paper. In
twenty-four hours you shall have proper working drawings of the thing
that any engineer can understand."

They got him these things in an hour or two, and gave him a table in a
quiet office. He took the tools of his profession eagerly; they made him
feel at home. He spread the backing-paper with a light heart and pinned
it down, spread the thin tracing-paper, and began to work.

He worked on till he was called to lunch, snatched a quick meal, and
went back to the board. He was happy as he worked that afternoon,
unburdening his memory and putting it all down on paper. As the lines of
the structure grew before him the pieces of the puzzle fell together; it
was quite clear now to him what the fifteen-centimetre angles did and
where the seven-millimetre strips came in. They filled the missing links
of structure, evident now that it was down in hard, neat pencil lines,
in black and white.

From time to time the officers came in and stood behind him, watching
the drawings growing under his neat fingers. They brought him tea and
pieces of cake to the drawing-board: he would not stop again to eat. In
the early evening Brigadier McNeil came in and Simon had to stand up at
the board to answer a few questions and expound the drawing; it irked
him to interrupt the currents of his thought, but he did not dare to
offend the man who had promised to secure him a commission as a British
officer.

The brigadier looked critically at what he had done. "The Air Ministry
must have a print of this immediately..." He paused, running his eye
over the unfinished details. "You make a beautiful drawing, Mr. Simon."

The designer smiled faintly. "Is it good enough," he asked anxiously,
"to get me a commission in the Royal Engineers?"

The hard, china-blue eyes of the brigadier looked at him, noting the
lean, intelligent face, the straight black hair, the quick, rather
nervous movements of the artist hands. "I think it is," he said. "I'll
get a paper going about that to-morrow, Mr. Simon."

"Thank you, sir." He hesitated. "I really do know a good bit about
coastal fortifications that might be useful to you." He turned again to
the drawing and became immersed in it; the officers watched him for a
time and then left him to his work.

He worked on far into the night. At about two in the morning he finished
the third and last sheet of details, drew a border round the edge, and
handed in the lot to the British major. Together they put them in an
envelope and gave them to the despatch rider; then Charles was taken to
a bedroom. In a quarter of an hour he was deeply asleep, exhausted and
relieved of the burden of his work.

They left him to sleep late. At about ten o'clock in the morning he
awoke and lay for a few minutes staring round the darkened room, till he
remembered where he was. Then he got up and went down to the mess, and
managed to secure a cup of coffee. It embarrassed him to find that he
had no money whatsoever, barring unnegotiable francs, as he discovered
on asking for a packet of cigarettes. He went to find the major in his
office.

An hour later they had him in for another interview, the major and
Brigadier McNeil. This time they wanted a complete account of everything
that he had seen and done in France since he had made his parachute
descent. He told them everything that he could remember.

At the end the brigadier said thoughtfully: "Douarnenez seems to be in a
queer state."

Charles said: "It is a town that is going mad."

The major said: "What do you mean by that?"

The designer shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "I don't know that
that's the right word to use. But they don't seem like ordinary people
there, at all. They don't seem to think in the same way, even." He
paused, noticing that neither of the soldiers really understood what he
was driving at. "I mean, like when that old man said you had to deal
with lice with a blow-lamp...." His voice tailed off into silence.

The brigadier said: "Their minds seem to run on fire. The priest at the
railway station and your fisherman both talked of fire."

"And the little waxen image of the commandant," said the major. "That
had its feet melted away--by fire."

There was a little silence. The brigadier said: "Can you imagine
anything behind this talk of fire?"

Charles shook his head. "I think it's simply hate," he said. "Burning
and scorching are the most painful, the most horrible things that they
could do to Germans, so their minds are running in that way. And in the
background of their minds that thought of fire, subconscious, colours
everything they do or say. I tell you, sir, they aren't like ordinary
chaps."

The brigadier nodded. "That's probably the truth of it. We'll just have
to leave it at that."

I do not know a great deal about the next three months of Charles
Simon's life. He was commissioned almost immediately into the Royal
Engineers as a first lieutenant, and shortly afterwards he was promoted
to captain. He worked for a time at Chatham upon coast-defence projects,
but the next thing I really know about his movements is that he was sent
down to Dartmouth, at the beginning of May.

He had a job of work to supervise there on the foreshore, just outside
the mouth of the harbour. What it was I do not know. It kept him down
there for about a month, and for that time he lived in a billet half-way
up the hill towards St. Petrox.

He was still slightly uneasy in his uniform, though desperately proud of
it. He knew that he was foreign in his ways and he sought out the
company of other officers to study them. Dartmouth at that time was
stiff with officers, mostly young naval officers who came into town each
evening from trawlers and M.L.s. The Royal Sovereign on the quay was the
hotel they favoured most, and Simon was usually to be found in a remote
corner of the bar, sipping a pint of heavy English beer, watching, and
learning. He did not very often talk to anybody.

He was there after dinner one warm summer night, sitting in his usual
corner. The bar was nearly empty and a little group of R.N.V.R. officers
near him were chatting about their work. One of them came from a
destroyer, fresh from a sweep over to the other side.

"Never saw a Jerry plane the whole time," he said. "I don't know what's
become of them."

"Got them all over in the East," somebody said. "He's going to go for
Russia."

"Wouldn't be such a fool."

The first speaker said: "We went right close in shore, east of the le
Vierge. You could see the people working in the fields and everything.
Broad daylight, it was."

"See any Jerries?"

"Not a sausage."

Somebody said: "Did the people you saw look downtrodden and oppressed
beneath the Nazi heel, like it says in the _Times_?"

The first speaker took a drink of beer. "They looked just like any other
people in the fields. I don't believe the occupation means a thing to
them. Not to the ordinary run of people in France."

The Army captain in the corner stirred a little, but he did not speak.

"I don't suppose it does," another said. "I don't suppose they know
there's a war on--any more than our farm labourers over here do."

"Ours know it all right," said another. "And how! Three quid a week I
see they're going to get."

Somebody said: "It'll be just the same over on the other side. Farm
labourers always do well in a war. Win, lose, or draw--they get their
cut all right."

"So does everybody else. Look at the chaps in the aeroplane factories.
They're the ones that make this shortage of beer."

The barmaid pushed half a dozen brimming tankards to them across the
bar. One of the naval officers threw down a ten-shilling note, and
harked back to the subject.

"I wish one knew what it was really like over there," he said
thoughtfully. "Tantalizing, just seeing it and coming away."

Probably it was the beer; he had already had two pints. Charles Simon
stood up suddenly. "I'll tell you what it's like upon the other side,"
he said vehemently. "It is terrible, and horrible. You cannot know how
terrible it is."

They all turned to stare at him, a little startled at the queer choice
of words and at the foreign accent, always more noticeable in moments of
excitement.

One said: "I suppose it must be pretty bloody for them." He thought the
Army chap had had quite sufficient beer, and wanted to conciliate him.

Simon said: "Even so, you fellows do not understand. It is...simply
foul. I will tell you." He stood there before them, the dark hair
falling down over his forehead, deadly serious and rather embarrassing
to them. "In Douarnenez, in January of this year, only four months ago.
Only just across the sea from here--a hundred and thirty miles, no more.
There was a little boy of nine called Jules that used to pick up--what
you call it?--droppings of the horse, and throw them at the German
sentry in the night." There were faint smiles all round, and somebody
said: "Red hot!" Simon went on: "And they ran him through the body with
a bayonet, but he did not die, and the priest who came by told them to
fetch a doctor, but they would not. And in the night, in prison, the
little boy, he died. And three days later they shot the priest also,
because he would not keep quiet."

In the bar, dim with cigarette smoke, the impact of this story left a
silence. Somebody said: "Who told you that?"

"It is true," said Charles. "I tell you--cross my heart. I was there
only a month after. I heard everything."

Another said curiously: "Are you French, sir?"

Charles said: "I am a British subject. But I have worked in France for
many, many years--oh, the hell of a time. I was at school at Shrewsbury.
And I tell you chaps, if you think that things go easily there, over on
the other side in Brittany, you are making the hell of a mistake. It is
not Vichy, that."

They clustered round him. "Will you have a drink, sir?"

"Did you say that you were over there in February?"

He said: "Oh, thank you. Half a pint of beer."

"Did you mean February of _this_ year?"

Charles said: "My French tongue slipped away with me. What I said was
true, you chaps, but we will now forget it. Excuse me, please...."

He stayed with them for half an hour, but resolutely refused to talk
about the other side. He talked to them about the war in France, and
about the French Army and the French Fleet, and enjoyed their evident
pleasure in him as a mystery man. And then, feeling that he had drunk as
much beer as he could carry satisfactorily, he left them and went out on
to the quay.

There was still an hour and a half before dark, in the long daylight
hours of war-time England. He strolled on idly beside the river, and
presently turned to a step behind him. It was a lieutenant in the
R.N.V.R., one of the officers who had listened to him in the bar.

This was a tall young man, not more than twenty-four or twenty-five
years old, with red hair and the pale skin that goes with it, and a
strained, puckered look about his face.

He said: "Look, sir. I want to have a word with you. I was in the pub
just now, and I heard what you said about the other side. Do you mind if
we have a chat some time?"

There was an urgency in his manner that compelled attention. Charles
said: "Right-oh. I do not think that I can talk very much myself, you
understand. But if you wish to talk to me, I am entirely at your
service."

They turned and strolled along together. "I want to say first that I
know what you said is true," said the young man. "The Germans do that
sort of thing. They do it for a policy, because they think it makes
people afraid. And if we mean to win this war we must do horrible,
beastly things to them. Torturing things, like they have done to us."

Charles glanced at the strained face of the young man beside him,
interested. He had not heard that sort of talk since he had come from
France.

"So..." he said quietly.

"There's a thing going on down here," the young man said in a low tone,
"that one or two of us are trying to work up. But we've never been able
to find anyone who could tell us what things are like on the other side.
If we let you in on what we want to do, will you keep it under your
hat?"

"Of course. And I will give what help I can. But there are matters that
I cannot talk about, you understand."

The naval officer hesitated. "Look," he said. "It won't take more than
half an hour. I want you to come across the river with me and see a
boat. Would you do that? And then we can talk over there, where it's
quiet."

They went down to the ferry close at hand. As they were crossing the
young man said: "My name is Boden, sir--Oliver Boden. I'm in a trawler
here."




3


Oliver Boden was the son of a wool-spinner in Bradford. George Boden,
his father, was well known in the West Riding as a very warm man and
the firm that he founded in his youth, Boden and Chalmers, as a very
warm firm. Henry Chalmers was, of course, the young man's godfather.

The two partners, in fact, exchanged the function of godfather fairly
frequently; George Boden having two girls and three boys and Henry
Chalmers having three girls and one boy. The Chalmers lived in a large
greystone house in Ilkley and the Bodens lived in a large greystone
house in Burley-in-Wharfedale. The Chalmers, having mostly girls, had a
hard tennis-court and the Bodens, having mostly boys, had a river
running through their garden. Each of the partners took five thousand a
year out of the business as a matter of course, and each lamented the
disastrous state of the wool trade.

They were very happy people.

The partners used to stop on the way home sometimes, and drink a couple
of pints of beer at a roadside pub, while their expensive motor-cars
grew cold outside. It was at these times of relaxation that they swapped
stories about newly-married couples, did their football pools, and
talked about the education of their children. They were quite agreed
about the boys. Boys had to work; there must be no nonsense about
educating them. None of the Eton and Harrow stuff for the young Bodens
or the young Chalmers. The boys would have to work in Bradford all their
lives; it would only unsettle them to put ideas into their heads.
Chalmers favoured Leeds High School for his sons and Boden favoured
Bradford Grammar School, but they agreed that there was not much in it.

About the girls they were completely at sea. Each of them felt,
inarticulately, that only the very best was good enough for the girls,
but what the best was they were not quite sure. Henry Chalmers, turning
in his perplexity to the guidance that had never failed him, came to the
conclusion that since the best goods cost most money, Crowdean School
near Lympne, on the south coast of England, must be the best school in
the country for girls. He sent all three of them there. They came out
four years later polished till they shone, but thanks to the sturdy
simplicity of their parents, quite unspoilt.

Boden, yielding in his perplexity to the opinions of his wife, sent his
two to an academy for young ladies in Harrogate. Then, at the age of
sixteen, he sent them to a finishing school at Lausanne in Switzerland,
for two years. He spent the next ten years kicking himself for a mug.

Oliver Boden, the second son, was born in 1916. He started working in
the business in the autumn of 1934 when he was eighteen years old; to
console him for the loss of liberty he was given a Norton motor-bicycle,
capable of an incredible speed. The first day he had it he rushed round
on it to show it to Marjorie Chalmers, then fifteen years old and home
on holiday from Crowdean. He always wanted to show things to Marjorie.
She went off on the back of it with him far up into the hills, to Malham
Tarn among the bleak crags and the moorlands. It was a fine, exciting
day. They were late home for tea.

During the years that followed he showed Marjorie a twelve-bore
shot-gun, a Harley Davidson motor-bicycle, a trout fly-rod, a Jantzen
swimming-suit, a Brough Superior motor-bicycle, the inside of the
Piccadilly Hotel in London, a Morgan three-wheeler, most of the
dance-halls in Yorkshire, and how not to fly an aeroplane. He showed her
everything he got as soon as he got it, and she was always interested.
The parents looked on with amused resignation. It was quite obvious to
everybody what was going to happen, and most satisfactory. The wool
trade was built up on unions like that.

It was in 1936, I imagine, that he took to racing outboard motor-boats.
He had a little thing more like a tea-tray than a boat that the two of
them could just squeeze into, with a very large racing engine pivoted on
the stern. To get it moving Boden used to open out the engine full and
then stand up and rock it up on to the step, while Marjorie lay out upon
the curved deck of the bow to bring the weight forward. Then it got
going and they grabbed the steering-wheel, slipped back on to the
thwart, and went flying down the river to the first turning-point. They
raced a good deal, that summer. Frequently they upset at a turn and had
to swim ashore; each time that happened the engine took a long drink of
cold water at six thousand revs and had to be rebuilt. They thought it
was tremendous fun.

Islanders have curious traits in them that break out in the oddest
places. Neither the Bodens nor the Chalmers ever had much truck with the
sea; for generations they had lived and worked in the West Riding. But
presently it came to Oliver and Marjorie that there were more amusing
ways of playing with the water than just flying over it upon a
skimming-dish before a racing engine. Somewhere or other they saw a
fourteen-foot International sailing dinghy, a beautiful, neat, delicate
little thing, and longed for it with all their souls. The skimming-dish
went on to the scrap-heap; in 1937 Boden got his dinghy and learned to
sail it, more or less, before Marjorie came home for the holidays. It
was another thing for him to show her, that, and a new electric razor.

Racing the dinghy took them to the tideway, and they began to learn
something about mud and moorings and gum-boots. And presently, one day
in September, they were staring thoughtfully at a two-and-a-half-ton
sloop, a little yacht in miniature. She was Bermudian-rigged and had a
little engine and a little cabin with a little galley, and berths for
two. She was not much bigger than the dinghy, really.

"You could go anywhere in her," Oliver said thoughtfully. "I mean, you
could sail her round to Bridlington or Scarborough."

Marjorie said: "Do you think one'd be sick?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't mind trying. You'd have to have charts and
things."

"And a sextant," said Marjorie. "That's what they have in books."

They crawled all over it, opening all the lockers, examining the warp
and anchor, enormous to their eyes. They were enchanted with the little
boat. "It would be good fun to have a thing like this," said Oliver.
"Fancy anchoring off somewhere for the night, and getting up and cooking
breakfast in the morning!"

"All very well for you to talk like that," said his young woman. "I'd
never hear the last of it from Mummy."

They stared at each other in consternation. Both of them realized that
they were up against a major difficulty. They always had done things
together in the holidays, ever since they could remember. One day, they
both knew, it was extremely probable that they would marry, but that
time was not yet. It seemed such a soft, unenterprising thing to do to
go and marry the kid next door, just because you'd known each other all
your lives.

"We could get over that one somehow," said Boden unconvincingly.
"Anyway, there's an awful lot of day sailing we could do."

The International dinghy went, and by the Christmas holidays he had his
little yacht. She was all new and shining, with stiff white sheets and
halliards, and tanned sails. She was laid up that holiday, but they had
fun with her all the same. They called her _Sea Breeze_, a name which
they considered was original, and were only slightly dashed when someone
showed them seven others in Lloyd's Register. They bought charts of the
Humber and the Yorkshire coast, and binnacles, and patent logs, and
signal flags, and a foghorn, and distress flares, and all the books that
they could find in Yorkshire dealing with yacht cruising. They had a
fine time that holiday, quite as good as if they had been sailing.

_Sea Breeze_ was laid up at Hornsea, rather more than eighty miles from
Ilkley. If anything, that made her more attractive still. Two or three
days each week--the firm was generous to young Oliver Boden during the
school holidays--he would get up at half-past six and drive over to
Ilkley. A sleepy maid would let him into the big greystone house, and
Marjorie would come down and they would drink a cup of tea. And then
they would start off. He had a little Aston Martin at that time, a
two-seater very low upon the ground and capable of a high speed, pretty
with French blue paint and chromium plate. In the half-light they would
set off with a thunderous exhaust and step on it to York, where they
used to stop for breakfast at the Station Hotel. Then on to Hornsea, to
paddle about in gum-boots all the day, painting and varnishing and doing
minor carpentry. They would have tea in Hornsea and be back in Ilkley by
seven o'clock, in time to change their clothes and join a party to go
dancing at the Majestic in Leeds. They were never tired.

The Easter holidays came round, and the fitting-out season, and the
spring. They got _Sea Breeze_ afloat before Easter, and for a week the
firm saw nothing of young Oliver. He was over at Hornsea every day,
ecstatic at his new possession, and every day Marjorie went with him,
because there was always something new that he wanted to show her. And
if he wanted to show her something, she just had to go. It always had
been like that, ever since they could remember.

But there were complications now.

It occurred to Oliver Boden that his Marjorie had changed, disturbingly.
All his life he had taken her for granted: she was just Marjorie,
somebody that he might marry one day if he couldn't find anybody more
exciting and if she didn't marry someone else. He could hardly have
described her, unless to say that she had short brown hair and danced
quite well. He knew she smoked De Reszke minor cigarettes, because that
was what he paid her when he lost bets with her, and he knew that she
liked ices, but that was all he really knew about her tastes.

Now, rather to his own embarrassment, he found himself glancing
furtively at her long, slim, silk-stockinged legs as she got into the
car, at the line of her figure, and at the nape of her neck. She had
filled out since Christmas and had changed a lot; she was nearly
nineteen and she was leaving school at the end of the summer term. She
was learning to wear pretty clothes. She was still the same old
Marjorie, but Boden was forced to admit that she was turning into a very
pretty girl, and a most disturbingly attractive one. He did not know
what might not happen if the night was warm, and the moon shining on the
water, and soft music in the distance: certainly something that he had
never before associated with Marjorie.

It was all very difficult.

They did a good deal of sailing together during the Easter holidays, in
short, timid ventures of an hour or two on calm days between Hornsea and
Bridlington, and they did a good deal of dancing. Then Marjorie went
back to Crowdean in the south to complete her education, and Boden began
to venture farther each week-end upon the deep. Sometimes he took young
Freddie Chalmers with him, Marjorie's brother, but Freddie was frankly
bored by sailing and only came for the sake of driving the Aston
Martin. By the end of the summer term they had worked the little yacht
round to Brough haven, in the Humber. That was in the summer of 1938.

Marjorie came home then for good, and as soon as Oliver Boden set his
eyes on her he knew, deep down inside him, that there would probably be
trouble before the summer was out. Marjorie's mother had the same
feeling, and for all I know Marjorie had it herself, but nobody seemed
to be able to do much about it. They plunged into the usual round of
dancing and sailing together. And presently, the inevitable happened.
They went sailing too far down the Humber and got stuck on the mud at
about seven o'clock at night, upon a falling tide. At least, that's what
they said.

They turned up at Ilkley the next morning at about ten o'clock looking
rather sheepish. I do not know what Mrs. Chalmers said to Marjorie; I
only know what Marjorie's father said to George Boden in the pub that
night.

He said: "Eh, George, what's this I hear about your lad and my lass
beating t' starter's pistol?"

"I dunno. Do you think they did?"

"I dunno. Do you?"

"I dunno."

There was a long, slow pause. Two more tankards were pushed across the
counter to them.

"Don't like going home to-night," said Henry Chalmers. "The wife's got
precious fussed about it all."

"It's all your lass leading my lad into evil ways," said George Boden.
"He'd never have done a thing like that upon his own."

"He couldn't have," said Mr. Chalmers simply. "But next time he wants
to, I'd just as soon he didn't pick my Marjorie."

"I spoke to Oliver. He said they didn't do nothin'. But who's to tell?"

"That's what Marjorie said to the wife. Flew into a proper temper when
the wife suggested it, and said she wished they had."

"Aye," said George Boden. "So does young Oliver, I'll be bound."

They stood gloomily discussing it for a quarter of an hour. Finally
common sense asserted itself.

"Well," said George Boden, "either they did or they didn't. If they
didn't, then there's no harm done and the less said the better. If they
did, well, they're both right young folks and they'll want to be
married. I shan't stand in their way."

"I'd like to see you try it on," said Mr. Chalmers, "if your young
Oliver got my lass into trouble."

So the row simmered down, but left behind an atmosphere of uneasy
expectancy in both families. The old relationship between Marjorie and
Oliver was obviously a thing of the past, and nobody quite knew what
would succeed it.

And then ten days later, I'm blessed if they didn't go and do it again.
This time they hadn't even got the decency to turn up early. They
arrived home at three o'clock in the afternoon, arm-in-arm and beaming
all over their faces in a most discreditable manner. They said
cheerfully that they had been stuck on the mud all night, and they'd
slept late, and they had talked things over and they wanted to get
married.

"And about time, too," said Henry Chalmers. His daughter turned and made
a face at him.

They were married in October, 1938, when she was nineteen and he was
twenty-two. They were married in Ilkley and there was a reception in the
Magnificent Hotel in Harrogate, which most of the wool trade attended.
They left from there in the little Aston Martin for their honeymoon in
the Lakes, and everybody heaved a great sigh of relief that they were
safely married without any scandal getting out.

They came back after a month, and settled down into a little flat in
Harrogate. The Boden family had given Marjorie a little coup as a
wedding present, and this made her free to run around and meet her
family and meet her friends when Oliver was at work with the Aston
Martin. They had a fine time in those last few months before the war.
They ranged the country in their little cars, motoring, sailing,
dancing, and having fun together with a young crowd of their friends.
All Yorkshire, and all life, was open wide for them.

Then the war came. A war is not at all a bad time for young people; it
brings movement to them, travel, and adventure--all the things that
young people long for. In the Yorkshire set that the Bodens moved in
there was great excitement. Most of the young men wanted to go into the
Air Force and be pilots; Oliver Boden was unusual in that he plumped for
the Navy. He knew a little about navigation and the tides by this time,
and the thought that one day he might rise to command a trawler as a
naval officer thrilled both Marjorie and Oliver. A trawler was a real
tough, man-sized job: better than sitting in a mouldy aeroplane and
dropping things.

He got his commission in October, 1939, and went down to Brighton for
his training, to a large, new municipal casino newly christened H.M.S.
King Alfred. Marjorie went with him and stayed in a hotel on the
sea-front which was his billet, thrilled to the core with all the
uniforms and signs of war at sea. For the five weeks it took to turn him
into a naval officer they had a lovely time. The work was not too
strenuous and he could spend each evening with her in their billet. They
drank a good deal of beer and saw a good many pictures, and they met a
great number of young R.N.V.R. officers from all corners of the world.
They felt that they had never had such a good time before.

He passed out of King Alfred after five weeks, a full-fledged
sub-lieutenant with a wavy golden ring upon his arm. He had put in for
trawlers, and a trawler it was that he got, though not the sort of
trawler that he had envisaged. He was posted to a very old, decrepit
ship at Portsmouth that tended the buoys in the swept channel; her name
was _Harebell_. She could do six knots after a boiler clean, not quite
so much before it. She was commanded by a very old R.N.R. lieutenant who
kept a little newspaper shop in Southampton in the days of peace, and
her duty was to waddle out and replace buoys in the approaches to the
harbour that had been blown out of place.

Young Boden knew it was a dud job, but it thrilled him to be doing it.
He knew that it was an apprenticeship for better things. He went at it
in the right frame of mind, humbly learning from his captain the
rudiments of his trade--how to handle stiff wire ropes and how to
handle ratings with a grievance; how to read a hoist of signal flags and
Admiralty Fleet Orders.

Marjorie went with him to Portsmouth and lived in the Royal Clarence
Hotel in some considerable luxury. Each morning he would have to go off
at about seven o'clock unless he had had a night on, when he did not
come home at all. Each morning she would walk down to the Battery and
watch the ships going out; usually she would see _Harebell_ waddle out
at half the speed of other ships, with Oliver very noble in a duffle
coat upon the bridge, or standing over men who worked with ropes and
winches in the well. In the late afternoon she would walk down to meet
him at the dockyard gate; then they would go back to the hotel and have
a few drinks with their friends, and a grill, and then perhaps the
pictures.

He went to Portsmouth in December, 1939. In April, 1940, _Harebell_ was
blown up, and sunk in three minutes.

Oliver Boden never had a very clear idea of what really happened. A
couple of Heinkels had paid their nightly visit to the Solent to drop
magnetic mines, and the trawlers had been out at dawn as usual and
pooped three of them off. _Harebell_ had pottered out in the forenoon to
shift a buoy and Oliver was up upon the bridge with the skipper as they
passed the Elbow. He remembered saying "Starboard Five" down the
voice-pipe, and then he glanced ahead. He saw the water cream on both
sides of the ship beside the well, and he felt through the deck a
tremendous jolt beneath his feet. He saw the well deck split, and a vast
mass of water coming up towards him; then the blast took him and threw
him back against the binnacle, breaking two ribs. He remembered falling
from a height into the water, and a great pain in his chest, and the
salt down in his lungs. Then he was up again upon the surface coughing
and choking, and feebly trying to blow air into the life-saving
waistcoat that Marjorie had given him to wear instead of a Mae West.
There was the mainmast of the _Harebell_ sticking up out of the water
near to him, and eight men of a complement of twenty-one struggling to
reach it with him. There was no sign of the skipper. A motor-pinnace
picked them up in a few minutes, and took them all direct to Haslar
Hospital.

Marjorie heard about it from the Captain of the Dockyard. She was having
lunch alone in the hotel when she was called to the telephone, and
suffered a succession of irritating commands to wait a moment, please.
She could not understand who was calling, or what they wanted, but a
vague apprehension grew in her. It could not be that anything had...
happened.

Then Captain Mortimer himself came on the line. She had met him once at
a sherry party, and she was rather frightened of him. He said: "Look,
Mrs. Boden. We've had a bit of bother here this morning, I'm afraid.
Your husband is in Haslar Hospital, but he's not badly hurt." There was
a silence. "Are you there?"

She said: "I'm here. What was it--what happened?"

"I don't want you to ask that, Mrs. Boden. You know how it is these
days. I don't talk about things that happen here, and you've not got to,
either. Your husband's got a couple of ribs broken, but they tell me
he's quite comfortable. You can see him for a very short time this
afternoon at about four o'clock. Do you know where to go?"

He told her, and impressed on her again the necessity for reticence. She
rang off, and went back to her lunch in the dining-room, but she ate
nothing more. Presently she went up to her room, and threw herself down
upon the bed. There were nearly two hours to wait till she could go to
Haslar.

In that two hours she changed a good deal. She was only twenty and life
had never hit her very hard. The war had been a great game up till then.
People got killed, of course; she knew that in the abstract. But not
people that you _knew_, people that really belonged to you. For the
first time she faced the fact that Oliver might have been killed that
day--in fact, had probably escaped it very narrowly.

Later she went to Haslar, and heard from an over-garrulous sick-bay
steward that two-thirds of _Harebell's_ complement had, in fact, been
killed, including the captain. She saw Oliver for about two minutes,
white and motionless in bed, his head red on the pillow, smiling at her
with his eyes, but drowsy with the drugs that they had given him for
shock. Then she went back to the hotel.

She sat for a time in the lounge, hoping that some other officer's wife
would come in that she knew, that she could talk to. But no one came,
and presently she went and dined alone. By nine o'clock she was in bed,
but not to sleep.

The appalling nature of the disaster that might have come to her shook
her very much. She came of Yorkshire stock, accustomed to face facts;
she now faced the fact that she had very nearly lost Oliver. She might
still lose him; she had heard of deferred shock. She simply could not
visualize what life would be like without him. Oliver had always been
there, ever since she could remember. They always had done things
together, all their lives. All their lives they had given their spare
time to each other. All of their lives, unknowing, they had been in
love.

She lay for hours, blindly miserable, hating all ships and the war;
hating the Royal Clarence Hotel, and the grill-room, and the drinks,
hating Portsmouth and the Navy. If only they could be back in Yorkshire
as they had been once, forgetting all this beastliness! All their lives
they had been so happy there. She saw the Chalmers' greystone house, and
she saw the Bodens' greystone house, and she remembered all the fun that
they had had together, with all the fathers and mothers and brothers and
sisters, for so many years. And now, in contrast this....

She cried a little into her pillow, and presently she cried herself to
sleep.

She did not sleep for long. She was awake again by about four; she got
up and sponged her face. Then she lay down again, grave and thoughtful.
She knew quite well now why everything had been fun up in Yorkshire in
those days. It was because her father had been in love with her mother,
and George Boden had loved Mrs. Boden, and there had been lots of
children. People without children lived in flats and places like the
Royal Clarence Hotel, but when you had a family you had to do things
differently. A family meant you had to have a house, and the bigger the
family the bigger the house--a big greystone house in Ilkley or in
Burley, with lots of children and young people in and out of it. That
was what she wanted now, with all her heart and soul.

They had avoided children; she now felt that they had been very wrong.
Marriage without kids was a silly business, an affair of flats and
cocktail-bars that held no solid Yorkshire happiness. A family meant
home and happiness. And anyway, she thought with grim realism, if they
had a baby there'd be something left for her if Oliver were--killed.

Oliver did not die; in fact, he made a very quick recovery. She used to
go and sit with him each afternoon; he had a cabin overlooking the
garden quadrangle, bright with spring flowers. And suddenly one
afternoon she said: "Nolly, I vote we have a crack at a kid pretty
soon."

There was a pause. "They slobber," he said gently.

"I know they do."

"And they get sick all over you."

"I know." She was holding his hand.

"It must be pretty lousy for you, all alone and doing nothing all day,"
he said. "If that's what you want, it's all O.K. with me."

She said: "You'd like it too, wouldn't you? I mean, it'd be rather fun."

He temporized. "They smell just terrible..." he said.

"Not if you manage them right." She made an appeal to his better
instincts. "I mean, it'd be just like having a puppy and seeing it grow
up into a decent dog."

"You wouldn't like to have a puppy instead?" he enquired. "You'd see the
results quicker."

She said: "I won't be fobbed off with a puppy."

He said: "All right--have it your own way. I was only trying to help. If
we don't like it we can always leave it on a doorstep, and get a puppy."

Presently he was up and about, walking with difficulty, and later they
went back to Yorkshire for three weeks' leave. In that time the battle
of Flanders reached its climax and everybody who was fit to handle a
boat went over to Dunkirk; in Yorkshire they knew little of what was
going on. Oliver was irritated and upset when he discovered from the
newspapers what he had missed. His leave, which had been pleasant enough
when it began, now irked him, and he began to write letters to the
Admiralty for another ship.

He applied this time to be posted to a trawler in the Humber or Mersey
area, in order to be closer to their home if Marjorie were going to have
a baby. He did not get it; he was posted instead to a trawler in the
Forth, based on Port Edgar. Marjorie went up there with him and stayed
in the Lothian Hotel, overlooking the Firth of Forth, with the other
naval officers' wives; Boden was able to spend about two nights a week
on shore with her.

The work was more interesting, and more what he had joined the Navy to
do. His ship was H.M.T. _Grimsby Emerald_, and the commanding officer, a
middle-aged lieutenant R.N.V.R., was a bank manager in civil life and
had been in trawlers in the last war. They used to go sweeping up and
down the Forth in pair with another trawler, and now and again they had
the satisfaction of creating a shattering explosion on the sea bed. Then
they would heave-to, drop a bucket over the side for the harvest of
stunned fish, repair the sweep, and go on, hoping to do it again. It was
pleasant enough during the summer months of June, July, and August. From
time to time Marjorie would go in to Edinburgh and come back with a copy
of the _Nursing Times_ or else a little book on Infant Management; these
she would read in bed at night and sometimes read out bits of them to
Oliver if he were there.

Presently it became necessary for her to go to London, to visit a
particular shop in Bond Street. This, she explained to Oliver, was all
part of the ritual. Only the experts of the Radiant Cradle Company Ltd.
knew the ins and outs of this most difficult and intricate affair, and
if you got the wrong sort of wool, for example, the baby would develop
something horrible and die. Then they would have to start all over
again, which would be troublesome.

Oliver said again: "Much, better have a puppy. They're hardier," and
took her in to Edinburgh to put her in the sleeper for London. The
Battle of Britain was then just beginning, and London had had about a
month of raids. Oliver's sister, Helen Boden, had a little flat up at
the top of an old house in Dover Street, and Marjorie had reckoned to
stay with her there. On account of the raids, and at Oliver's
insistence, she changed her plans and sent a telegram to a school
friend who lived outside at Harrow to invite herself to spend a couple
of nights with her.

There was no answer to that telegram before she left Edinburgh, but that
did not worry them. Oliver took her to the Waverley grill-room and they
split a bottle of burgundy to make her sleep, and then they went to the
train together. In the cramped, delicately furnished little sleeper he
took her in his arms and kissed her.

"So long, old thing," he said. "Look after yourself."

She said a little tremulously: "So long, Nolly. Don't go and bump
another mine before I get back."

He left her, and the train carried her away into the night. He went back
to his duty in _Grimsby Emerald_, and Marjorie arrived in London next
morning, fresh and cheerful after a good night. The train was three
hours late, on account of the raids, and everybody seemed to think that
it had done very well to lose so little time.

She had heard nothing from her friend at Harrow, and so rang her up. It
seemed that there was trouble: mother had bronchitis and there was a
trained nurse sleeping in the spare room. Marjorie was really very glad.
Honour was satisfied; there was now no alternative to sleeping in
Helen's flat in Dover Street, and it would be great fun if there really
was a raid.

She went to Dover Street and saw the caretaker who lived down in the
basement, a Mrs. Harrison. Helen, it seemed, had gone to Yorkshire for a
few days, but she had left word with Mrs. Harrison that Mrs. Boden might
turn up to use the flat, so that was quite all right. Marjorie went up
to the top floor and unpacked her things; she had slept there before.
Each time she used the flat she envied Helen again, for living free and
independently in London in a real flat of her own, in Dover Street.

She went out, and walked down Piccadilly, looking in the shop windows.
She bought a warm blue scarf for Nolly in the Burlington Arcade because
it took her fancy, and she bought a little silver cigarette-lighter at
Dunhill's, which she would keep for his birthday in November. Then she
had lunch at the Chinese restaurant, partly for the novelty and partly
because it was quite cheap, and she was Yorkshire bred.

And after lunch she went to the Radiant Cradle Company in Bond Street
and spent two hours with them. She came out a little dazed, having spent
a good deal of money on little bits and pieces that were obviously
necessary. Having a baby, she thought, was a terribly expensive matter,
but quite fun. Everybody in the shop had been so very, very nice to her.
Her heart warmed to the Radiant Cradle Company.

She went back to the flat and made herself a cup of tea, feeling rather
at a loss. It was fun to be alone in London, but she felt she wouldn't
like to have too much of it; she was almost glad to be going back to
Port Edgar the next day in spite of the boredom when Oliver was at sea.
It would be awful fun if he could come to London next time with her. She
could not think of anyone in London at that moment that she knew, so
when her tea was finished she went out and saw a film.

She came out of the cinema at about seven, on a warm September evening.
There had been a raid warning while she was in it, but ten minutes later
the All Clear had sounded, and when she came out there was nothing
unusual to be seen. She knew little about London restaurants except the
Piccadilly Hotel, and she did not feel like going there alone. So she
went back to the Chinese restaurant again and had another peculiar meal,
and so back to Dover Street in the gloaming.

The warning sounded again as she went in, at about nine o'clock, and
gave her a tremendous thrill.

It was hot in the flat beneath the roof, though all the windows were
wide open. She took off her shoes and her dress, put on a kimono and
went and leaned out of the window. There were a few searchlights
stabbing the evening sky and a low rumble of gunfire in the distance to
the south; she listened to it with pleasurable excitement. Perhaps it
would develop into a real blitz, with fires and bombs and everything;
something to brag about when she got back to the Lothian Hotel. In the
street below her people seemed to be scurrying quickly to their homes.

The blue sky darkened into night; at about ten o'clock the first bombs
fell. Overhead, very distant, she could hear the faint noise of an
aeroplane; from that time onwards the drone was continuous. Whatever
aeroplanes they were, she thought they must be flying at a very great
height, five or six miles, perhaps. She wondered if they were German
bombers or British fighters; there was no means of telling which.

Presently bombs began to fall all over London, some not more than half a
mile away, it seemed to her. There was the glow of fire towards the
east, and several times from Piccadilly she heard the clang and rumble
of fire engines coming from the west. The gunfire from the park not far
away was continuous; each time that one particular gun fired her window
rattled and the floor shook a little beneath her feet. Splinters of
shell fell down from time to time upon the roofs with a sharp rattle,
and once a large piece, probably a fuse, fell with a great crash of
slates not far away. She kept back under cover after that, and only
gazed diagonally upwards through the window at the little bursting stars
spattering the sky above.

After a time it seemed to her that her top room was not the safest place
of all to be in at that time. She opened the door of the flat and went
downstairs in her kimono to see what anybody else was doing. She found a
little knot of people sitting on the stairs of the bottom flight; there
was no cellar or shelter to the house. She went upstairs again and
fetched a cushion and her eiderdown, and came down again to join them,
sitting most uncomfortably upon a stair.

The raid went on and on, the detonations sometimes distant, sometimes
very close at hand. She stayed down there on the cold stairs for over
two hours, weary and bored and rather cold, and most uncomfortable. At
about one o'clock the bombing and the gunfire died away, and for the
first time there was no sound of aircraft overhead.

Somebody said at last: "Sounds like the end. Give it another ten
minutes." Ten minutes passed, a quarter of an hour. There had been no
All Clear, but people started drifting up to bed; Marjorie went up too,
took off her clothes and put on her pyjamas, and slipped thankfully
between the sheets. In five minutes she was asleep.

A second wave of bombers came half an hour later, and the gunfire began
again and woke her up. She did not stir from bed, being very tired. She
lay and listened to the raid for nearly an hour, and presently dozed
off again, accustomed to the noise.

She woke to the shrill scream of the bomb that hit the house next door,
an instant before it burst. She had no time to do anything, hardly time
to realize what the noise denoted, before the appalling thing happened.
Her bed was lifted bodily up into the air and slammed down again upon
the floor, and a great pressure blast came on her that made her cry out
with the pain in her ears. Then, as she watched, the solid wall at the
end of her room split and crumbled and dissolved in shreds of plaster,
and was gone, and a thick, choking cloud of dust was over everything
that made her gasp for breath. She lay petrified with fright in bed;
then something happened to the roof above her. A half-ton coping stone
came crashing through the ceiling and fell down on to the lower half of
the bed. The bed collapsed down on to the floor and she lay pinned
there, stunned with the shock and with the pain in both her legs.

She struggled to sit up, and the pain bit and gnawed her legs, piercing,
unbearable. She lay back white and trembling, and fearful of what this
might mean for her. She thought: "This is the sort of thing that gives
people a miscarriage"; indeed, it seemed to her that people had had
miscarriages for something rather less than she had got. She felt that
she must try to lie back quietly and rest. Presently, when she was a
little calmer, she would cry out, and somebody would come.

Below her, in the street, there were confused noises of men shouting and
the rumble of falling masonry and brick. Slowly the thick choking dust
began to settle; it settled thickly on the ruins of her bed, upon the
sheets, upon her arms, her face, her hair. As the cloud slowly cleared
she found that she could see straight out ahead of her where the wall
used to be; she looked into a torn, incredible gap, vacant, that had
been the house next door. Above the shattered roof of the next door but
one she could see the stairs pin-pointed in a deep blue sky.

Suddenly, from the stairs outside the door behind her head there was a
sound of scrambling, and a man's voice. It was calling:

"Is anyone up there in the top rooms? Is anybody up there?"

She answered weakly: "Yes, please. Me. I'm here."

"Which room are you in?"

"In the front, on the top floor."

"Can you get out on to the landing, where I can see you? Come carefully,
because the stairs are down."

She said: "I can't move. There's something lying on my legs."

There was a momentary pause. Then the voice said: "All right, lady--take
it easy. I'll come up to you."

The scrambling noises recommenced. She heard a voice say: "Bert, there's
a woman up on the top floor. I'm going up. Stand from under, case the
whole bloody lot comes down." And presently, crawling upon his belly on
the floor that swayed and teetered beneath his added weight, a man came
to her.

She saw him faintly in the starlit darkness, through the fog of dust. He
was a very dirty man, in a tin hat and a blue boiler-suit, with an
armlet bearing the letters A.F.S. He was a man of about fifty, still
lean and athletic. He said: "This floor isn't quite what it might be.
Come on, lady. Let's get out of this toot sweet."

She said: "I can't move, I'm afraid. I think both my legs are broken.
Look."

He switched on an electric torch and examined the wreck of her bed. He
tested the weight of the coping stone with his hands: it was utterly
beyond his power to shift it. In three weeks of intensive raids this man
had learned a great deal, had amassed a sad store of experience. He knew
that there was only one thing that could save this girl. A doctor must
come up, alone, because the floor would bear no more than one, and
amputate both legs where she lay. And he must do it quickly.

He said: "Look, lady, I'm going down to fetch my mate to give a hand
with this. We'll get you down okay. Just lie there quiet and stick it
out, and don't move round more'n you've got to. I'll be back inside ten
minutes."

Then he was gone, and she was left alone again.

She heard him slithering and scrambling down the staircase well. His
visit had comforted her, had eased her fears; she knew now that
everything was going to be all right. The little noise of the
incendiaries, the six or seven quick plops as they fell among the
wooden ruins of the roofs and floors, passed her unnoticed; she heard
the growing clamour in the street, but did not understand.

A sharp, bitter smell of smoke was blown to her. In sudden fear she
raised her head and saw, arising from the ruins of the house next door,
a tongue of flame. She stared at it dumbfounded. Then she realized it
meant the end.

In those last moments she was agonized by thoughts of Boden, and of
their dependence on each other. She cried: "Oh, Nolly dear, I've gone
and let you down! Whatever will you do?" The smoke came pouring up the
staircase well and gushed around her, products of combustion, stifling
and merciful. In a few moments she lost consciousness.

The fire shot up into the starry night, enveloping the ruined houses,
violent, uncontrollable. It made a flaming beacon in the night a hundred
feet in height; the Germans took it for an aiming point and sowed the
area with bombs. It was two hours before the sweating, cursing firemen
got it down.

       *       *       *       *       *

The news came to Boden forty hours later, in this way. H.M.T. _Grimsby
Emerald_ came in at about seven in the evening and dropped anchor off
the trawler base. A lamp began to flicker from the signal tower. The
captain stood in Monkey's Island beside the signalman and spelled it
out.

He turned to the lad. "All right. Nip down and tell Mr. Boden."

The signalman went up to Boden on the forecastle. "Captain said to tell
you, sir, there's been a signal. You've got to report to the captain's
office, on shore. They're sending the launch out for you."

Boden glanced ashore; already the launch was casting off from the quay.
"My Christ!" he said. "I'd better go and get clean."

Ten minutes later, in a collar and his best monkey jacket, he slipped
over the side into the launch. He landed at the harbour steps still
straightening his tie. There was an officer he knew slightly waiting for
the ferry, an R.N.V.R. serving in _Rodney_. To this chap Boden remarked
"Baa," according to the custom of the service at that time, and passed
on to the Naval Centre and the office of the captain (Mine-sweepers).

In the outer office he asked the secretary, another R.N.V.R. officer:
"What does he want me for?"

"I don't know, old man." Instinctively, Boden knew that he was lying.

He went into the inner room, his hat under his arm, and there was his
father, standing with the captain.

"Eh, lad," George Boden said directly. "I've brought bad news, and you
must take it like a man."

And then, in plain unvarnished terms he told him what had happened.

The next few days passed in a horrible, unreal dream. He went in to
Edinburgh with his father and they caught the night train down to
London. His captain with unobtrusive naval kindness had telephoned to
C.-in-C. Rosyth, the admiral himself, explaining the position, who in
turn had telephoned demanding sleepers at an hour's notice, so that on
that first night young Boden had a chance of sleep. His father dosed him
well with allonal, and he slept fitfully to London.

They went to Dover Street and saw the blackened ruin of three houses,
with men working to dislodge the crumbling, tottering walls in clouds of
dust and filth. They went to the A.F.S. station, a garage in a near-by
mews, and there they interviewed an awkward, embarrassed man of fifty
with grizzled grey hair, still wearing a tin hat and a dirty
boiler-suit. They gave a statement to the police for records. There was
nothing more that they could do in London, and they went home to
Yorkshire.

Oliver Boden stayed there for three days. Then, because there was
nothing for him to do there, and because he ached to get away from
everything, he took the train north to Port Edgar, and reported back for
duty.

He made two more sweeps in _Grimsby Emerald_. They anchored off Elie, on
the north side of the Firth, one evening; the captain let a few of the
ratings go on shore to stretch their legs. He pressed Boden to go with
them, but the boy refused.

"I don't feel like it, sir, if you don't mind," he said awkwardly.

The late bank manager went himself, and walked about the little
greystone town for an hour, and had a drink at the hotel. And coming
back on board in the twilight, he saw Boden standing alone up in
Monkey's Island, and went up to him.

"Fine night," he said, for want of something to say. "Anything doing?"

"No, sir." The boy hesitated, and then said: "Sir, would you mind very
much if I put in to leave the ship?"

The older man said: "I should mind the hell of a lot. Probably help you
over the side with the toe of my boot." Boden smiled faintly. "Still,
I'd probably get over it. If that's what you want, I'll see the captain
for you, if you like. What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. But I want to get away from here."

The other nodded. "I know. Not much fun going on shore."

"No, sir."

Two days later he was saying the same thing to his captain in the Naval
Centre at Port Edgar. "I don't like coming on shore here, sir," he said
awkwardly. He was flushing, and fumbling with his cap. "Do you think I
could get in some ship going overseas?"

"I don't know about that. Sit down, Boden. Have a cigarette." He made
the boy comfortable, and a little more at ease. "You've only been in
trawlers, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir. I was in a ship called _Harebell_ before this."

"I remember," said the captain directly. "She was sunk. You haven't had
much luck."

"No, sir."

"I don't think you'll get overseas at once, Boden. You're not a gunner,
and you're not a navigator. You're a trawler officer. I tell you what I
can do for you, though. I can put you forward for an anti-submarine
course, and you can go on in an A/S trawler on the west coast somewhere.
Would that suit you, do you think?"

"I'd like that, sir." Boden hesitated, and then said: "I'd like to do
something a bit more active than just sweeping up mines all the time."

The older man nodded. "If you go in now for anti-submarine work, and if
in a year's time you still want to go overseas, you probably won't have
much difficulty in getting a destroyer or a corvette, as a qualified A/S
officer. I think that's your best course."

They talked about it for a time, and the senior officer gave him a cup
of tea. In the end:

"All right, Boden," said the captain. "I'll put you in for that course
right away. You'll probably be going in two or three days' time--I'll
let you know."

The young man got up to go. "I'm terribly sorry to be leaving," he said
awkwardly.

"I'm sorry to lose you, Boden," said the other. "You've done very well,
and I shall say so in your record. I'm very sorry that you've had this
bad luck. I think you're doing right to make a change."

"Thank you, sir."

A week later he left _Grimsby Emerald_ and travelled to a far part of
the country, to a place that he had never seen before, where nobody knew
anything about him. Here he began his anti-submarine course, and for a
month he learned the technicalities of Asdic and of depth charges, and
of the methods of attack. He passed out well, and found himself with a
second stripe upon his arm, a full lieutenant. Having been in two ships
already, and been sunk in one, he found himself regarded as an officer
of some experience.

He was posted to a trawler based on Dartmouth, H.M.T. _Gracie Fields_.
His captain was another officer of the last war, a printer in civil
life, who ran a little business of his own in Exeter. He was a pleasant,
easy-going man and reasonably competent. Boden settled down to his new
work with him quite happily; that was in November, 1940.

The work absorbed him; the long hours of watching, hunting, were a
pleasure to him and an occupation for his mind. Three or four times in
those first winter months they made a contact and dropped depth charges
with indeterminate results. Once, with an M.L. and another trawler to
assist, they kept the contact for two hours, and started leaks in their
own ship with the continual detonations of their charges. They produced
a wide slick of oil upon the surface of the sea and a great mass of
bubbles in the dusk of a winter afternoon. The water was too deep for
sweeping to investigate effectively, and at the conference on shore the
team was credited with a "probable." Young Boden got the keenest
pleasure out of that.

His days on shore were much less satisfactory. He was awkward and
lonely, and he never settled down to his new life. He was unable to
adjust himself. For many years he had looked only to Marjorie in his
times of leisure; he could not now take any pleasure in dances, and even
cinemas now seemed to him artificial, tinsel things, and rather painful.
He liked the company of men of his own sort in hotel bars as much as he
liked anything, but he did not care to spend an evening upon beer and
cigarettes. In short, nothing that in his loneliness he found to do on
shore pleased him so much as his work. Killing the Germans was the
greatest fun of all, chasing them, listening for the ping, making fierce
detonations all around them in their narrow steel hulls. He lay night
after night in his narrow bunk, picturing how the hull would split, the
lights go out, and the air pressure rise intolerably round trapped and
drowning men. That was the line of thought that gave him most real
pleasure at that time.

Presently the problem of his off days on shore became acute. As the days
grew longer it became imperative to him to find some outlet for his
restlessness on shore, something to do. Once in April, casting around to
try something different, he took a little sailing-boat and set off up
the Dart upon a voyage of discovery.

It was a warm afternoon of late spring, with a gentle southerly breeze.
He went up-river on the flood from the trawler anchorage off Kingswear,
in between the wooded hills beyond the town. The quiet, easy progress of
the boat rested and contented him; in spite of all his painful sailing
memories, it was good to be sailing again. He went up past the Naval
College, past Mill Creek. He skirted by the Anchor Stone, and so came to
Dittisham, with its whitewashed and thatched cottages straggling down to
the creek.

Just below Dittisham his eye caught a ship, and his interest was
aroused. She was a very large, black fishing-boat, perhaps seventy feet
in length. She had an enormously high, straight bow and a great sweeping
sheer down to the stern; forward there was one short, thick mast in a
tabernacle, now struck down and lying with the truck down aft. The mast
and some of the upper works were painted light blue, and there was a
little white moulding running down her sheer. On her transom, picked out
in white, was her name and port, _Genevive--D'Nez_.

She was lying at a mooring in the river, and there was an ancient
rowing-boat streaming behind her on a length of painter. That meant that
there was somebody on board. Boden eyed her appreciatively as he swept
past; she had something of the lines and figure of a drifter, but
without the funnel or the upper works. Above the sheer-line there was
little of her showing. Probably, he thought, she had a great big engine
in her; indeed, he noticed an exhaust-pipe like the town drain sticking
through her side. She must, he thought, be a fine sea boat with those
lines.

He tacked upon an impulse, and stemmed the tide up towards her from the
stern to have another look at her. The little bow wave of his boat made
a small noise, and a man stood up on deck and looked towards him. It was
a naval officer, an R.N.V.R. sub-lieutenant.

Boden knew the man by sight, but did not know his name. He was a
dark-haired young special branch officer; that meant that for some
reason he was classed unfit for watch-keeping at sea, and that he wore a
green stripe below the wavy golden ring upon his arm. He worked in some
shore job in the N.O.I.C.'s office. Boden was a little bit surprised to
see him in a ship.

He sailed up very close to the black topsides, slowly creeping past her
up against the tide. "Just having a look at your ship," he said.
"There's plenty of her."

The other said: "She's not my ship. I'm just having a look at her
myself."

"Whose ship is she?"

"I don't think she belongs to anyone. She's French."

"Has she got any accommodation?"

"Not so as you'd notice. Come on board and have a look."

Boden hesitated. Then he said: "All right. Take my painter and I'll drop
astern."

He eased his sheet and threw the painter over the black bulwarks; the
special officer took it and made it fast. Boden lowered and stowed his
sail; the other pulled his boat alongside again, and he stepped aboard
the Frenchman.

He looked around her as he stepped on deck, and liked what he saw. There
was a small forecastle hatch forward of the tabernacle, probably for
gear. The well of the ship was split into two holds, covered by hatches.
Aft there was a companion, and a tiny skylight indicated some sort of
cabin or bunk-room.

"What sort of motor has she got in her?" he asked.

"Ruddy great Sulzer Diesel." The other paused. "They say that these
boats go like hell. They do about twelve knots."

They walked around the deck together, and looked down at the engine in
its section of the boat. "What's her history?" Boden asked. "What's she
doing here?"

"She came over with a lot of refugees last summer, I believe," the other
said. "They all left her, and the Harbour Master had her moved up here.
We want a launch down in the Boom Defence, and I knew that she was up
here, and I thought I'd come and look at her, and see if we could
snaffle her. But I'm afraid she's much too big for what we want."

They stared around them. "Yes," said Boden. "She's a real sea-going
boat. Pity she can't be used."

The special officer said slowly: "I believe she could be used, if people
only had the guts."

Boden glanced at the man beside him curiously. He noticed that he had
dark, smooth hair and keen, thin features; he looked rather a delicate
man. He was about twenty-four or twenty-five; they were much of an age.

"How do you mean?" asked Boden. "How do you think she could be used?" He
lit a cigarette with the quick, nervous motion that had become customary
with him in the last few months. The other filled a pipe.

The special officer said diffidently: "Oh, I don't really know. But I
did think _something_ could be done with her. She's French-built. I
believe you could go anywhere in her and never be questioned. Over on
the other side, I mean."

"What'd you do when you got there?"

The other shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. It's only a crack-pot
idea I had." He laughed awkwardly. "We chaps who stay on shore get
frightfully brave."

"I suppose you're some kind of a scientist," said Boden.

The other nodded. "I couldn't get into the Executive--I'm colour-blind."
He hesitated, and then said: "You're in a trawler, aren't you? I think
I've seen you in the pub."

"That's right. My name is Boden."

The dark-haired special officer said: "Mine is Rhodes."




4


Michael Seymour Rhodes was the son of a doctor in Derby, who died when
he was fifteen. His mother was left in rather difficult circumstances,
but she sold capital to finish the boy's education. He went to
Birmingham University at a younger age than usual, and passed out when
he was nineteen with a degree in chemistry.

He got a job with the great chemical combine, British Toilet Products
Ltd., at their works at Bristol. The concern employed nine thousand
hands at Bristol and about twice that number at the Preston works. They
demanded about fifty young industrial chemists from the universities
each year to feed the great machine with new ideas. Most of the young
men left them six or seven years later, finding promotion to the higher
grades completely blocked, but there were always new ones coming on to
fill the gaps.

Rhodes was one of these, and as one of the team he left a little mark
upon the country's modes and manners. It was his idea to put the stuff
into Titania foot tablets that gave a faint brown tinge of tan to tired
feet, making them more becoming and toning down the angry redness of the
aching corn upon a dead white foot. The slow effervescence of Blue
Grotto bath-cubes, protracted over half an hour, was one of his. In the
field of basic research he did good work upon the solubility of solid
organic perfumes in soya oil which influenced both soaps and face creams
considerably in 1938 and 1939. He was, in fact, a very competent if
rather inexperienced young industrial chemist.

He lived in a bed-sitting-room in a little house in a suburb of Bristol,
and he lived quite alone. His landlady was a widow who looked after him
quite well; on his part, he made very little trouble for her. He was a
very shy young man. He was good company in the office and quite popular
with the staff, but outside office hours he had little contact with his
fellowmen. He joined no sports clubs because he was not interested in
sports. He did not go to dances because he felt himself to be shy and
awkward with young women, and consequently he had an idea that they were
laughing at him. He did not drink at all before he joined the navy, and
he smoked very moderately. In consequence of these ascetic habits he was
rather a lonely young man, and that loneliness made him more shy and
more awkward still. He spent most of his evenings and week-ends in long,
solitary walks, or brooding on the solubility of substances in soya oil.
Occasionally he went to the pictures.

In the autumn of 1937, when he had been at Bristol for about a year, a
great interest came into his life. He had been to Derby for the week-end
to see his mother, and returning late to the little house outside
Bristol on Sunday night, he was surprised to find a very large black dog
upon the doorstep. It slunk away into the front garden as he entered the
front gate. He looked over his shoulder at it, curiously and uneasily,
as he let himself in with his latchkey. It was a very big dog indeed,
and very black and fierce-looking.

His landlady met him in the hall, fussed and a little frightened. It
seemed that the dog had been standing up against the front door for the
last two hours and blowing through the letter-box; in that position he
could look in through the little windows of the door like the Hound of
the Baskervilles. The snuffling snorts in at the letter-box, the
blood-curdling whines, and the fierce glaring eyes had troubled her
considerably.

Rhodes went to the door, opened it, and looked out. The dog pushed past
him and stalked into the sitting-room, wagging his stern. He saw the gas
fire and sat down in front of it, beaming up at them. He took up most of
the hearth-rug.

"Coo, look at that!" said the woman. "Makes himself at home, don't he?"

They stood and marvelled at the dog. It was a very large black Labrador
perhaps three years old, short-haired, with a great dripping jowl, brown
eyes, and a permanent expression of perplexity. It weighed a good six
stone. They very soon became accustomed to it; indeed they had to, for
it obviously meant to spend the night with them. They tried it with a
bit of bread and it ate that ravenously; it ate the rest of the loaf and
the rest of the cold lamb and a lump of suet pudding and a good many
biscuits, and asked for more. It made no objection when Rhodes
scrutinized its collar, but there was no name on it.

In the end, of course, it stayed for good and Rhodes paid his landlady
another five shillings a week for its food. He took it next day to the
police, who offered to destroy it for him. He took it to the local
veterinary surgeon, who told him that it was a Labrador but much too
big, and did not recognize it. He kept it for a few days in constant
trepidation that an owner would turn up and take it from him, but no
owner came.

After a fortnight he gave the dog a name. He called it Ernest, after its
expression; he bought it a new collar with his own name on it, and paid
seven and sixpence for a licence. The police saw to that.

From the first it slept in his bedroom, curled up on a rug in the corner
at the foot of his bed. Out of the office it became his constant
companion. His walks grew longer and more regular; each evening after
tea he started out for his three miles with Ernest ranging on ahead of
him. There was frequent trouble. Ernest, too old to learn new ways,
chased everything that ran, from sheep to partridges, with gleeful
abandon. Rhodes used to thrash him for it without any noticeable effect;
his hide was thick. Grieved words of reproach could reduce him to
abject misery, but only for five minutes. He needed constant watching,
and this in itself was an occupation and an interest for the young man.

The dog, in fact, became Rhodes's principal spare-time interest. The
regulation of his diet and his exercise, and the tending of cut paws and
cat scratches, the daily grooming and the occasional major operation of
a bath took an appreciable proportion of his leisure after the daily
work. On his part the dog became dependent on his master, as dogs will.
He developed an engaging trick of sitting in the sitting-room window in
the late afternoon, watching the road. As the first men came streaming
past from the factory soon after half-past five Ernest would go
scratching at the door to be let out; released, he would bound up the
road till he found Rhodes among the crowd, snuffle his hand, and come
back at his heels.

Rhodes took the dog everywhere with him. At week-ends when he went back
to Derby to see his mother he took Ernest with him sitting beside him in
his Austin Seven; with some difficulty he took Ernest on a fortnight's
summer holiday in Cornwall. He liked summer holidays in Cornwall, poking
about among the fishing-boats in the little harbours, from Helford to
Port Isaac, from Padstow to Polperro. Like most young men in England, he
had a genuine affection for the sea, though when he was out upon it he
was frequently sick. He could manage a harbour rowing-boat and he knew
something of the rudiments of sailing, but till he joined the navy he
had never been more than a mile from shore.

Rhodes had had Ernest for the best part of two years when war broke out.
He was settled deeply in his Bristol groove. His salary was increasing
much more slowly than he once had hoped; still, there was a perceptible
increment every year, and it was sufficient for him in his modest style
of life. He calculated that if the rate of promotion were maintained,
after forty years' service with British Toilet Products Ltd., he would
be getting nearly seven hundred a year, and that, he thought, was quite
a decent salary. War, when it came, was not a bad thing for Rhodes.

At first, the war did not affect him; indeed as a scientific worker in
industry he was classified at first as in a reserved occupation. The
Company had a very considerable export trade throughout the world, and
in the autumn months of 1939 it was common ground that the war could not
be paid for unless export trade were maintained. On the outbreak of war
those of the Company who were territorials were called up at once, but
they were not numerous. A few of Rhodes's fellow-scientists sneaked off
and joined the Royal Air Force. Everybody admired them for their
disregard of danger, but there was a feeling at the luncheon-table that
they had taken the easy path regardless of the real interests of the
country. The hard path was to go on with the humdrum task that lay to
hand, devising cheaper and more fragrant bath-salts, foamier
shampoo-powders and shaving soaps.

This attitude of mind lasted for nine months or so. Then in May, 1940,
the Germans invaded Holland, Belgium, and France; in June the British
Army evacuated from Dunkirk.

In those weeks of troubled humiliation Rhodes went through the spiritual
changes that were common to most people in the country. It seemed to him
that all this talk of export trade to pay for armaments was bunk. If
things went on the way that they were going there would be no need for
further armaments, for the country would be beaten by the Germans. Not
all the toilet soap in Bristol, Rhodes concluded, would prevent the
Germans landing on the coast of England in the next few weeks. The only
things to stop them were young men with guns, and he himself was young.

It became clear to him that whatever the pundits of the luncheon-table
in the Middle Staff Room might declare--and they were not now giving
tongue so readily--his study of the solubility of substances in soya oil
was drawing to a close. He could not bring himself to concentrate upon
it, and he did not want to. When Rotterdam was bombed he knew in his own
mind that he would have to go and fight, but it was three weeks more
before he actually handed in his notice to the Company.

For that three weeks he hung on, miserable, irresolute, desperately
hoping that in some way the cup might pass from him. And the reason for
his trouble was simply this: that he had nobody with whom he could leave
Ernest.

Rhodes was a sensible young man, and he could face up to the fact that
Ernest was not everybody's cup of tea. He was now about six years old,
growing a little grey about the muzzle and a little more portly, as a
Labrador will in middle age. He was a very large dog indeed, and though
for Rhodes he had the imperishable affection of a dog, there was no
denying that he was sometimes a little short with the neighbours. There
were complaints about Ernest growling and frightening people from time
to time, which had to be smoothed over. He now ate over a pound of meat
a day, which took some finding in a time of growing scarcity, and if he
had less he got eczema. He was also subject to a more indelicate
internal trouble.

In those weeks Rhodes searched desperately for a solution to this
problem, while at the same time he found out particulars of entry into
the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. If he had to go and serve he wanted
most of all to be a naval officer; his holidays in Cornwall had done
that for him. But Ernest was an obstacle that seemed insuperable. He
could not leave Ernest with his mother; it would not be fair on the old
lady. His landlady, although she tolerated the dog and liked him well
enough, could never cope with an ageing dog of that size in the
difficulties of war-time rationing. That, as Rhodes realized in sick
despair, would not be fair to Ernest.

A lonely man who has a dog grows almost as dependent upon him as does
the dog upon his master. In the end, in the tension that came after
Dunkirk and nerved by the words of the Prime Minister, Rhodes did what
many people had to do. He took Ernest on his last walk to the People's
Dispensary for Sick Animals and paid ten shillings to a sympathetic
veterinary surgeon, with a muttered request that he would make it
snappy.

He walked home alone. Ten days later he was a sub-lieutenant in the
R.N.V.R. at H.M.S. King Alfred undergoing training.

The loss of Ernest made a great gap in his life, that the new interests
crowding on him failed to fill. He was unused to spending evenings with
other men. He did not mind the change of circumstances that was imposed
on him; indeed he felt that it was not unhealthy to be shaken from his
rut. He was most bitterly resentful of the sacrifice imposed upon him in
the loss of his dog. He brooded over this, until a hatred of the war and
of the Germans who had made the war became the main preoccupation of his
mind. A girl could have got him out of that obsession possibly, but he
was too diffident a man to have much truck with girls.

The naval duty to which he was eventually posted only made things worse.
At his medical examination the surgeons very soon found out a fact that
secretly he knew already: that he was colour-blind. A naval officer who
cannot easily distinguish red from green is not much use in the
executive, and they told him so. In view of his experience as a
scientist they offered him a commission in the Special Branch, which
meant that he would spend the war mostly on shore, wearing a green flash
between the gold bands on his arm and working upon technical matters.
Indifferent in his unhappiness, he took it.

He spent five weeks at King Alfred, and was drafted out. And two weeks
later he found that he was living in a shore job down at Dartmouth, and
quite likely to stay there for the duration of the war. He was billeted
in rooms just like the rooms that he had had at Bristol, but here he had
a good deal more leisure time. His work was necessary and useful but not
strenuous. Most of his fellow-officers kept dogs for company. If Ernest
had been alive, he could have had him in Dartmouth perfectly well, with
more time than ever to look after him.

The thought of that weighed on his mind, making him sullen, bitter, and
morose. He felt that he had done a cruel, beastly thing: he had taken
the dog who loved him and depended utterly on him, and he had had him
killed, unnecessarily and wantonly. It was the war that had tricked him
into doing such a thing, a thing he would not have dreamed of a year
previously. The war was made by Germany. He had joined the navy to fight
the Germans and here he was, stuck in a shore job on the coast of
England, never to see a German, likely as not. He had been tricked all
round, and Ernest was dead, and he was desperately, desperately lonely.

I do not want to paint him as a very tragic figure, though in those
first months of his naval service he was not a very happy one. The work
absorbed him and occupied a good deal of his waking thoughts, and if in
leisure moments he was moody and distrait, so much was true of many
temporary officers whose lives had been disrupted by the war. The long
dark months of winter dragged by in anxiety and preparation for
invasion. Rhodes spent his time divided between working in the office,
working at gear disposed about the harbour mouth, in launches or on
shore, often wet and often in some danger, and watching and waiting for
the enemy in a little stone control hut on a headland.

Loneliness and the aching void caused by a personal loss do not endure
forever. Old wounds heal; new friendships and associations come as
anodynes. In the spring, Rhodes got a rabbit.

I am not joking; that is literally what happened. His landlady, a Mrs.
Harding, took to breeding rabbits for the pot to eke out the meat
ration. She had a very small back-yard to keep them in, and in a short
time had acquired three breeding does. A buck was evidently necessary if
the flow of little rabbits was to proceed according to the plan, and she
got a large grey buck for ten shillings in the market. His presence in a
hutch adjacent to the does did not induce the quiet contemplation proper
to a maternity home, and for three days there was wild excitement in the
hutches, culminating in the death of three tiny, rat-like rabbits
through neglect. Mrs. Harding discussed the tragedy at length with
Sub-Lieutenant Rhodes, who offered to accommodate the buck in the yard
of the net defence store down the road. This yard was a naval
establishment, lately a motor-bus garage, and was forbidden ground for
Mrs. Harding. That did not matter much because Rhodes went there every
morning and could take a bowl of apple cores and cabbage stalks and
potato peelings to the rabbit in a little covered basket. An elderly
torpedo rating undertook to clean the hutch out once or twice a week,
and everyone was satisfied.

This rabbit became an interest to Rhodes, and filled to some extent the
gap left in his life. He did not forget Ernest, nor did he change his
mood about the war. But after a day spent in a boat heaving on wet,
slimy wire ropes or changing detonators with chilled wet hands, it was
amusing to spend half an hour in the net store, smoking a cigarette and
playing with the rabbit. He found that if you teased it with a bit of
Brussels sprout stalk or some other delicacy it made little grunting
noises and pranced forward, playing with mock ferocity. He found that it
would eat an apple core held for it right down to his fingers. Knowing
that he usually brought food, it used to come out of its hay-box when it
heard his step, which pleased him very much. It grew quite tame and
playful with him.

After a week or two he came to the conclusion that it was a rabbit of
character, and deserved a name. After some thought he gave it the name
Geoffrey, because its face reminded him a little of a cousin of his own.
By the end of the month he was letting Geoffrey out each evening for a
run upon the little patch of waste ground enclosed by the fence around
the store, keeping a watchful eye over him for fear of cats.

Rhodes's section of the defences was under the command of an old
lieutenant-commander called Marshall. They were equipped with one old
motor ferry-boat and two row-boats for all the business that they had to
do about the port, and as that business grew their need for boats became
more pressing. "What we want," said Marshall, "is a decent
twenty-five-foot motor-boat with a big open well. If you see anything
like that, make a note of it. There might be something over at Torquay."

Rhodes said: "There are a lot of yachts up-river here, sir."

"There's nothing of that sort. The Air Force cleaned up all the launches
at the beginning of the war."

Rhodes was not convinced, and made two or three trips up the river on
his off days, looking inexpertly at boats. He did not find the boat that
he was looking for, but he discovered a French motor fishing vessel
called _Genevive_ moored up by Dittisham. He saw her first from shore
from some considerable distance. He did not realize her size, and to his
inexperienced eye she seemed at least a possibility. It was on his next
visit, when he borrowed a rowboat from a fisherman to go and board her,
that he came to the conclusion that she was unsuitable.

There was a faint flap of canvas by her while he was on board, and a
faint ripple of water. He looked up and saw a sailing dinghy pass, with
a red-haired naval officer alone in it. He knew the officer by sight;
it was one of the chaps from the anti-submarine trawlers based on the
port. Rhodes watched the dinghy tack and stem the tide back to him. They
passed a few words across the intervening water; presently the
red-haired officer was on board with him, and they were examining the
fishing vessel together. It seemed that the newcomer was called Boden.

They talked about her for a time. "It's quite right what you say," said
Boden. "A boat like this would be a gift for somebody. She really should
be used."

Rhodes said: "Surely to God she isn't going to lie there rotting all the
war."

They sat there smoking for a little. Presently the trawler officer
remarked: "The fishing fleets still go out round about Ushant, somebody
was telling me. You might be able to mix in with them by night. But if
you did that, I don't see that it would get you any further. It isn't
those we want to scrap against."

Rhodes nodded. "No," he said. "But if you could mix in with those you
might sail right back into harbour with them. You could put one ruddy
great gun in her, in the forward fish-hold there, and camouflage it in
some way."

"And shoot up anything that you could see when once you got inside?"

"That's right. In Brest, or in some place like that."

There was a short pause.

Boden said: "I wonder how in hell we'd get the gun?"

The other glanced at him. "Do you think there's anything in it?"

"I don't see why not. If there were, would you want to be in on it?"

Rhodes said: "Yes." He hesitated, and then said: "If I could have got in
one of the fighting branches, I'd rather have done that."

The other nodded. "I think I know the way to set about it," he remarked.
"The first thing to do is to think up some reasonably plausible scheme,
and put it up in writing to our captains."

Rhodes nodded. "That's the way to handle it. You ask the captain to
forward it for the consideration of Their Lordships."

"Is that what you say?"

"I think it is."

In the days that followed they spent a good deal of time together,
sometimes in the cramped ward-room of the trawler, but more often in the
sitting-room of Rhodes's lodgings on shore. In the end they evolved a
scheme, sufficiently good, as they thought, to put forward in a letter.

I saw that scheme a couple of months later, with the comments of the
Plans Division on it. It was not a very good idea, but there was enough
good meat in it to keep it on the secret list, and so I shall not go
into it here. The attitude of the Staff was broadly that for certain
reasons it was only an even chance if the raid would produce the results
that were anticipated in the paper. The authors admitted in their paper
that the prospects of the vessel coming home again were small. The Staff
did not consider that the prospect of results justified the certain loss
of the vessel and her crew. They said that the officers concerned should
be commended for their zeal, and that they should be encouraged to put
forward any further proposals for the employment of the vessel in
question that might occur to them.

This all took some time, and by the time this answer came to Rhodes and
Boden the spring was well advanced. They set to work to recast their
ideas, for to each of them the French ship represented the chance of
fighting in the way they wanted to. They became friends in a limited,
reserved way, but neither of them confided in the other. Boden let slip
one day that he had once been married, and that his wife was dead, but
said no more about it. Nothing would have induced Rhodes to tell any
living man about his grief for Ernest.

They worked and cudgelled their brains through April into May to revise
their plan in order that they might submit it again. They were much
hampered by a scarcity of information about the other side. Obviously,
it was extremely difficult to work out an operating plan without access
to intelligence reports from which to learn the objects which could
reasonably be attacked, and they had no such access. The whole thing
might have fizzled out and died if Simon had not come upon the scene.

Rhodes was not present at the first meeting between Boden and this
unusual, half French army officer. Boden, it seemed, had met this
Captain Simon in the private bar of the "Royal Sovereign" and had taken
him at once to see the French fishing vessel that they had come to
regard as their own property. She had been moved from Dittisham and had
been towed down to a little shipyard on the Kingswear side; Rhodes had
contrived that for their mutual convenience.

Next day they all met at the shipyard and talked for some time in the
boat-shed, sitting on upturned dinghies. "I see what you mean to say,
you two chaps," said Simon presently. "You mean this war goes too bloody
slow for your liking."

"Put it that way if you like," said Rhodes. "There's the boat and here
we are, and the Germans over on the other side. The Admiralty will give
us guns for her if we can thrash out what we want to do. They as good as
said so."

"And what is it that you want to do?"

There was a little silence. "That's the devil of it," Boden said. "We're
working blindfold. But surely to God there must be something you could
do with that sort of a boat."

The Frenchman looked across the sunlit water of the estuary towards Mill
Creek. "You want to fight a battle," he said quietly. "I think you have
got hold of the wrong end of the stick. You cannot fight a battle
against German ships in a French fishing-boat. Your Admiralty have told
you that, and they are right. I think you have been looking at this
thing all wrong."

Boden said: "What do you mean?"

Simon looked at them and smiled. "Look, you chaps," he said. "I have
been over on the other side. I must not talk about it, but I know what I
am saying. You do not want to fight a battle in that fishing-boat. It is
not suitable for that. But it is suitable for...secret things. In
that you can approach the other side without suspicion. You can take
photographs, land agents, even lay a mine or two, perhaps, before you
slip away. You may work secretly for months and never fire a shot. That
is the proper way to use a fishing vessel like that one."

Boden said: "You may be right in that. But that's a bit out of my depth.
That turns it into a--a sort of an intelligence job."

"Yes. That is what it would be."

Boden said moodily: "I don't know that I'd be much interested in that."

The army officer said quietly: "It is interesting work."

"Not to me."

"What would you rather do?"

"I'd rather stay on in my A/S trawler. It's a bit slow at times, but
it's definitely killing Germans."

Simon glanced curiously at the strained white face. "So?"

Boden said: "Look. Take a contact that we made last month. We put down
fifteen charges set for various depths, and _Louise_ put down thirteen.
We got a lot of oil up to the surface, and the hell of a lot of air came
up. And we could hear the muggers tapping--hammering at something. We
_heard_ them on the hydrophones. The noise went on for nearly half an
hour, and then it got fainter and stopped."

He turned to them, eyes glowing. "They were trying to get out, or
something, right down there on the bottom in seventy fathoms, in the
darkness and the mud and slime. I reckon we split the pressure hull
right open, and there were just a few of them trapped in one end, up to
their necks in water, smothered in oil, trying to get out. I expect the
lights were out and they were trying to get out in the darkness. They'd
probably got just a little pocket of air above the water-level, and as
they breathed up that they died off one by one. Or else the pressure
killed them, or the chlorine fumes. But I swear we got the lot of them.
I swear we did."

There was a little pause.

"So?" said Simon again.

Rhodes spoke up. "Can you think of how this vessel could be used if she
were turned over to intelligence, as you say?"

The other said: "I could find out about that from--from my friends."

They settled that he should do so, and presently broke up their meeting.
It was not satisfactory to any of them, but it seemed the only thing to
do. Boden was definitely not interested; in the job that he was in he
knew that he had killed some Germans, distant and unseen as they might
be. He had no intention of giving up that mode of life for a less
active one. To Rhodes it seemed that if the vessel were employed as
Simon had suggested, there could be no place for him in the scheme. If
she were to do no fighting there would be no place in her for a
colour-blind Special officer; it would have been difficult enough for
him to go with her, anyway.

Simon went up to London some days later, Boden went to sea, and Rhodes
went on at his routine jobs at the harbour mouth. He was depressed about
the vessel he had been the first to find, and a little morose. It had
seemed at first that he had found an opportunity for active combat with
the Germans; now that was slipping from him. Other men with better eyes
would take _Genevive_ upon whatever secret mission she was destined to
perform, and he would only be an onlooker. It seemed that it was not his
lot to fight the Germans in this war; he could have served the country
just as well or better by staying on with British Toilet Products, now
switched entirely to war work. He could have still had Ernest with him.

He did not regret altogether his decision to become a naval officer, but
the remembrance of his dog affected all he did or thought about. He
became morose and rather bitter in regard to the trivial defect in his
eyes.

Marshall, his elderly commanding officer, made short trips now and then
with other area officers of the defences to see demonstrations of new
methods of attack for which the coast defences must prepare. Sometimes
these took the form of confidential lectures in some hall in Plymouth;
at other times there were actual demonstrations of real weapons in the
field. He went down in the middle of May with acute lumbago; after a day
of pain and bad temper in the office he gave up and went to bed. He sent
for Rhodes in the stuffy little bedroom of the hotel where he lived.

"Look, Rhodes," he said. "This show at Honiton the day after to-morrow.
I fixed up with N.O.I.C. I'd take the little Austin van because the
place is five miles from a railway station. But I shan't be fit. You'd
better go instead of me, and come back and write a report that I can
send in all about it. It's eighty miles there and eighty miles back,
and I can't stand that with this damn thing I've got."

Rhodes said: "I'm very sorry, sir. What is it you were going to see?"

"Didn't I tell you?"

"No, sir."

"Well, it's flame-throwers. I don't know what the ruddy things are like,
but the Germans have them in the invasion barges, so we've got to know
what we'll be up against. They're going to show a lot of different sorts
of them, I believe."

"I see, sir. Then we've got to see if we can cope with them?"

"That's right. You make a full report of what you've seen, when you get
back, and then we'll see just what it means to us."

"Are these our own flame-throwers that they're going to show; or German
ones?"

"Oh, these things are our own. The Army do a good bit with them, I
believe."

Marshall gave him instructions how to find the place and a numbered pass
for entry to the show. Rhodes asked: "Shall I take the van myself, sir?"

"No, you'd better not do that. The Naval Stores are sending a Wren
driver. It'll take you all of three hours to get there in that thing;
you'd better make your plans to get away from here by eight o'clock at
the latest. The show's at eleven."

"Very good, sir."

Rhodes went into the naval garage next day and spoke to the petty
officer in charge of transport, looked at the battered little
khaki-coloured van with the canvas top, and decided to start at
half-past seven. Punctually at that time next morning the little vehicle
drew up outside his rooms driven by a dark-haired girl, a Leading Wren.

He put his raincoat on and went out to it. "'Morning," he said a little
awkwardly. "Have you had your breakfast?" He was oppressed by the
knowledge that he was bad with girls.

She smiled at him and said: "Yes, thank you, sir. I had mine in the
Wrennery before I came out."

He got into the bucket seat beside her. "All right. You know where we've
got to go to?"

She slipped the gear in and the van moved down the road. "I think I know
the place," she said. "They marked it on the map for me last night."

The morning was bright and fresh, the sun shone, and the little birds
chirped at them from the hedges. The old under-powered van ground its
way very noisily and rather slowly up the long steep hill out of the
town.

Sub-Lieutenant Rhodes said diffidently: "She doesn't get along so fast,
does she? Do you think we'll make it by eleven?"

"I think so, sir. She does a steady thirty on the level."

"I suppose she's very economical in petrol."

The Wren said: "She does about twenty-five to the gallon. That's why she
doesn't go so fast, I suppose."

They relapsed into shy silence. The old van trundled noisily through the
Devon lanes to Totnes and on towards Newton Abbot. Once Rhodes lit a
cigarette and offered one to his driver, not quite certain in his own
mind whether he was violating the King's Regulations by doing so. The
Wren refused the cigarette and drove on in silence; the relationship
between officer and rating was maintained, though the awkward tension in
the van increased.

Rhodes did not dare to turn and look at his driver. He became very much
aware, however, that the Wren was rather an attractive girl. He thought
it was a pity that she was so shy.

They reached their destination with a quarter of an hour to spare. It
was a bare, scorched hill behind a little country house that had been
taken over by the Army and neglected; there was a small camp of hutments
in the field beside it. They passed two sentries who scrutinized their
passes and drove the van into the car-park.

Immediately it became most evident to Rhodes that this was not a party
of his grade at all. The cars that came into the park disgorged colonels
and brigadiers, air commodores and group captains, admirals and captains
in profusion. They parked diffidently between the Bentley of a
divisional commander and the Packard of a vice-admiral. There seemed to
be nobody there lower in rank than a commander. Sub-Lieutenant Rhodes
got out of the van awkwardly and looked around, trying to brush the
dust from his jacket.

He said to the Wren: "You'd better hang about here. I don't suppose
it'll last more than an hour."

She said: "Very good, sir." She watched him as he made his way towards
the demonstration, suddenly rather sorry for him. He looked terribly
diffident and out of place, she thought, amongst all those high
officers.

Twenty minutes later the show was in full swing.

       *       *       *       *       *

By noon the show was over, and the Packard and the Bentleys were sliding
out on to the road, bearing their admirals and generals back urgently to
their more humdrum work. The little Austin van was the last left in the
car-park, but it was nearly one before Rhodes came back to it. A
subaltern walked with him to the van; the Wren heard the last words of
their conversation.

"It's terribly good of you to give me all this dope," said Rhodes. "If I
think of anything else I'll give you a ring."

The army officer said: "Okay--you've got the number?" He dropped his
voice. "If you think any more about that other thing, come up again and
have a chat about it."

Rhodes said: "I will do that. Thanks so much for your help."

He got into the van. The Wren pressed the starter and they moved out on
to the road. As soon as they were clear of the sentries he turned to
her.

"I say," he said enthusiastically. "Did you see the big one?"

She said: "I saw them all. I got a good view from the bottom of the
hill."

"Aren't they the cat's whiskers?"

The Wren hesitated. She did not quite know what to say. Never in all her
life had she imagined such appalling, terrifying things as she had seen
in the last hour. She could not force herself to think of them
as--weapons.

She said weakly: "What are they supposed to be for?"

He said: "Burning up Germans."

She was silent for a moment, sick and horrified. Presently she said:
"Are you allowed to do that to...to people?"

"The Germans use them. As a matter of fact, they're all right in The
Hague Convention." He paused. "But did you see the _distance_ that the
big one goes?"

She said vehemently: "But they're beastly things."

He turned and glanced at her; she was flushed and rather pretty,
evidently feeling strongly about it. He shrugged his shoulders.

"The Germans started using flame-throwers--at any rate, in modern times.
If we can build more horribly, outrange them, smother them with their
own blazing oil...so much the worse for them."

He relapsed into silence, thinking moodily about his dog. He knew that
he had offended the girl. He was not surprised; indeed he had expected
it would happen some time or another; he was bad with girls. The only
thing that he was really good with was animals, he thought. The little
friendly creatures that depended on you, that had to be cared for, that
must never be let down. Those were more satisfactory companions than any
girl.

The Wren drove on in silence, shocked and hurt. She had not been in the
Navy very long, and this was the first time that she had seen the use of
weapons and what they entailed. She was twenty-two years old; in civil
life she had kept the books and acted as cashier in a shop in Norwich,
run by two aunts. The aunts had created a high-grade business in antique
furniture and art fabrics; the shop itself was an old Tudor house,
carefully and rather expensively modernized. The Wren had led a very
sheltered life until she joined the Navy, mostly with women. With men
she was usually on the defensive; she did not understand them.
Generalizing, she considered men to be brutal and insensitive.
Sub-Lieutenant Rhodes confirmed her views.

I am sorry to say that their high sentiments broke down before the
pressure of their baser appetites. At twenty minutes past one Rhodes
said awkwardly:

"Have you had lunch?"

"No, sir."

"We'd better stop and get something." And then he realized that he had
forgotten all about his cheque the day before. He had meant to cash it,
and he hadn't. He fumbled awkwardly in his trouser pocket, feeling the
milled edge of the coins; he had about four and sixpence. This was
terrible.

The Wren was a girl of his own type, although she was a rating. He had
never had anything to do with Wrens before, but it seemed to him to be
essential that he should offer to pay for her lunch. Four shillings and
sixpence might possibly buy lunch for one at one of the hotels along
their route; it certainly would not provide for two. He wrestled in
silence with this problem for a few minutes as they drove on; then said
casually:

"We'd better stop and get a snack at the next pub we come to. Bread and
cheese and beer."

The Wren said: "Very good, sir," a little distantly.

Presently they came to the "Coach and Horses"; he made her pull up
outside it. "This'll do," he said, getting out. "I expect they can fix
us up with something here."

The girl did not move from her seat. She smiled at him brightly. "I'll
wait till you're ready, sir."

He was appalled. "But won't you come in and have something to eat?"

"No, thank you, sir. I'll just wait here."

"But aren't you hungry?"

She was very hungry, and she was getting very much annoyed with this
young man. She said curtly: "I'll just wait here, if you don't mind,
sir. We aren't supposed to go drinking in public-houses with officers."

He was very much embarrassed. He stood there looking at her, slowly
blushing; even in his confusion it did not escape him that she grew
prettier than ever when she was angry. Knowing that he was blushing, he
grew irritated himself.

"There's no need for you to blow that kind of raspberry at me," he said.
"I was offering to pay for your lunch, but I've only got four and
sixpence on me, so this is the best I can do. I forgot to cash a cheque
before I came away." He withdrew his hand from his trouser pocket and
looked at the contents. "Four and eightpence halfpenny, to be exact."

She felt suddenly that she had been very rude, but she did not know what
she could say. "It's frightfully kind of you to want to pay for my
lunch," she said. "But I've never been inside a public-house in my
life."

He said: "I say, I'm awfully sorry. You'd rather go on till we find a
cafe, would you?"

"But you want beer, don't you?"

"Not specially."

She knew he wanted a glass of beer; men always did, so she believed. She
was awkward and embarrassed in her turn, and uneasily conscious of two
pounds ten shillings in a note-case in her pocket. He had done his best
to be friendly, after all. She said:

"Do you have to drink whisky and beer and stuff like that in there?"

"No--you can have something soft. Would you like a glass of lemonade? I
expect they've got that."

She got out of the car. "All right," she said. "Which door do we go in
at?"

He took her into the private bar; it was deserted and empty. Rhodes
ordered a pint of mild, a lemonade, and bread and cheese for two. The
girl glanced around her at the clean wiped tables, the varnished
woodwork, and the brewery advertisements, vaguely disappointed. She had
expected to see a haunt of vice; instead it was all rather like a church
vestry.

Rhodes brought the plates to her at the table. "I say," he said. "Would
you mind telling me your name? Mine's Rhodes--Michael Rhodes."

She said: "I'm called Barbara Wright."

They talked for some little time about the road, and Dartmouth, and the
Navy. Presently she came back to the subject that was troubling her.

"Those things you went to see this morning," she said. "We aren't going
to have them in Dartmouth, are we?"

He did not answer that, mindful of security; moreover, he did not know.
He said: "The Germans will be using them against us when they invade.
We've got to be prepared."

She said: "We aren't using them--on our side--are we?"

Again he did not answer her directly. He said: "The more we do with
things like that the sooner the war will end. It's a good weapon, that.
Put a dozen of those up at the head of a beach and hold your fire till
you can get the first detachment landing. Then turn up the wick on them
and frizzle them up. The others will think twice about coming ashore."

She said no more. The memory of the violent spouts and gusts of burning
oil that she had seen, the intense red flame, the clouds of billowing
black smoke, sickened and disgusted her. People who worked out weapons
of that sort, she thought, were pagans, far remote from mental contact
with all ordinary people.

Presently they went out to the car, and got going again.

A quarter of an hour later one of the little tragedies common on the
road occurred to them. A flight of sparrows rose up from the hedge in
front of them and flew forward and across the path of the van. The quick
flight of the birds made it impossible to help them, and three of them
disappeared squarely between the front wheels below the line of the
radiator. The Wren was startled to feel the officer beside her flinch
and turn to look back through the canvas body of the van. She turned
with him and looked back at the road behind. A little heap of feathers
was fluttering and leaping in the middle of the road.

They both drew in their breaths together; instinctively the girl had
slowed down as she turned. Rhodes said: "I say--I hate leaving it like
that."

She was amazed. "Would you like to stop, sir?" she enquired.

He said eagerly: "Would you mind? I won't be half a minute." The officer
got out and went back down the road, stooped, and deftly tweaked the
sparrow's neck. It collapsed and lay still. When he looked up, the Wren
was at his side.

He said apologetically: "I hate leaving them kicking. You can't help
hitting them, but I always feel you ought to stop and do your best for
them. If you aren't in too much of a hurry."

She said: "I feel like that, too. I hate leaving them."

He picked up the limp body and laid it on the grass verge by the
roadside; together they walked back up the road to the van in silence.
The girl was bewildered and a little confused. She felt that this young
officer was behaving very oddly; she knew him to be a callous and
insensitive man, full of enthusiasm for the most devilish things. It
simply was not in the picture that he should have any feeling for the
gentle things in life.

Through the hot afternoon they trundled back through Devonshire towards
the coast. They were talking more freely now, telling each other the
story of their lives. Rhodes told her all about his work on soya oil and
Titania foot tablets, but he said nothing about Ernest; that lay too
deep. The girl listened with interest and satisfaction; her first
judgment had been quite correct. This, she thought, was a young man of
no account. The things that he was interested in were either rather
nasty, like soap and foot tablets, or they were loathsome, nightmare
matters that she would not think about. He was a pleasant, well-set-up
young man, she thought, but not one that one would care for as a friend.
There was no depth of feeling in him.

She told him, as they drove, about her life in the old Tudor house in
Norwich. She told him about the famous authors and artists that came to
her aunts' shop, and how nice it was when Queen Mary came shopping in
Norwich, from Sandringham, and how her aunts had put up Dr. Cronin for a
night when he was on a lecture tour. Rhodes listened, politely making
the appropriate comments, wondering how anyone could put up with a girl
for company when they could get a dog--or even a buck rabbit. He thought
it was a pity that such an attractive young woman should be interested
in such footling things. He was slightly resentful because he had
thought that she looked intelligent, and she was patently not so.

By the time they reached Totnes they were on terms of amused tolerance,
each feeling very much superior to the other, which was satisfactory for
both of them. And then Rhodes gave the girl another jolt.

They were creeping on low gear up a fairly steep hill between high banks
fringed with foliage. As they neared the top he turned to her and said:

"Would you mind stopping for a minute at the top?"

Men were horrible, she thought; as if he couldn't wait. She said: "Very
good, sir."

He explained. "I just want to get a bit of that cow parsley. I won't be
a moment."

She turned and stared at him, and noted a faint colour in his face. "Cow
parsley?" she repeated.

He said awkwardly: "It's for my rabbit. It's a chance to get him
something different, coming out like this. I'm only just going to get a
little. I won't be long."

The van drew in to the side of the road. "I'm in no hurry," she said.
"Do you mean you keep a rabbit?"

He said: "He's my landlady's rabbit, really, but I look after him. He
lives in the net defence store."

He got out in the road and began pulling up handfuls of the weed from
the grassy bank. The Wren got out in turn, watched to see what he was
picking, and picked a little for him.

"Thanks awfully," he said. "That's enough. It makes a change for him,
you see."

They put the heap of foliage in the back of the van and drove on. Again
Miss Wright suffered that feeling of bewilderment. "Do you feed him on
what you pick up in the hedges?" she enquired.

Rhodes said: "Oh, no. He only gets that as a treat. He lives on Brussels
sprout stalks and potato peelings, and that sort of thing." He turned to
her. "It's so difficult being in uniform," he said. "You can't go out
and come back through the streets with an armful of cow parsley. That's
why I wanted to get some now."

She comprehended that: an officer had to behave as one. She said without
thinking: "I'm out in this van somewhere every day. I'll get cow parsley
for you, if you like."

He took her up eagerly. "Oh, would you? It'd be terribly kind if you did
that. A rabbit ought to have a lot of green stuff, much more than he's
been getting."

She felt it was absurd; the juxtaposition of the flame-throwers and this
rabbit simply did not make sense. "You think a lot of your rabbit," she
said curiously. "Has it got a name?"

He said: "Well, I call him Geoffrey."

"Have you had it long?"

"Not very long," he said shortly. He did not want to talk about his
rabbit much. It was decent of the Wren to offer to get cow parsley for
him, but he was not sure that she was not laughing up her sleeve at him,
and this made him reticent. He felt that a girl whose interests lay
with books and arty things would be scornful of the practical matters
that pleased him, such as the care of a buck rabbit or the solubility of
organic solids in soya oil.

They drove down into Dartmouth to the net defence store; he got out
there and put his foliage just inside the gate. He dismissed the Wren,
and she drove back to the Naval garage. It was time for tea. Rhodes
walked back to his rooms and washed his face, had a quick cup of tea,
and went out to report his visit to Lieutenant-Commander Marshall.

An hour later he was in the ward-room of H.M.T. _Gracie Fields_ drinking
a glass of gin with Boden. They were alone together; the captain was on
shore. "I saw the devil of a thing to-day," said Rhodes. "I believe it
might be useful in our racket."

"What sort of thing?"

"A flame-thrower." He told the trawler officer briefly what he had seen.

Boden said thoughtfully: "A flame-thrower..." He stood staring out of
the scuttle at the tide flowing past, bright in the evening sun. He was
silent for so long that Rhodes looked curiously at him, noting the
staring auburn of his hair, the white strained face, the rather sunken
cheeks. Boden wasn't looking quite so good to-night, he thought.
Sometimes he looked about sixty.

Boden turned to him. "Is it a big flame?" he enquired. "Big in diameter,
I mean--not just in length."

Rhodes told him.

"I mean, if you turned it on anyone--a German--he wouldn't be able to
jump back and get out of it?"

"Lord, no," said Rhodes. "You ought to see the thing."

"And is it all blazing oil inside the flame, in all that width?" He
paused. "I mean, what would happen to anyone caught by it?"

"It wouldn't do him a great deal of good," said Rhodes decidedly. "It's
flame temperature, of course, the whole of it. But there is solid oil
all through it, I think, in a sort of spray form, burning as it goes.
Your German would get blazing oil all over him, and when he gasped he'd
get it blazing down into his lungs. He wouldn't come up for a second
dose."

Boden said: "Were you thinking we could have one in _Genevive_?"

"That's what I had in mind. I sounded out the chaps up there about the
possibility of getting an equipment. They said they thought there'd be a
chance."

They spent some time together, talking it out in detail. To Boden the
suggestion came like the opening of a door. It gave a form and substance
to the whole proposal to use _Genevive_; he ached to use a weapon of
that sort against the Germans. Anti-submarine work was all very well,
but it needed so much imagination. You could not actually see them
smothering and perishing deep down in the black sea, trapped in a bubble
of chlorine-polluted air in the split hull. Sometimes, if you were lucky
as he had been, you could hear them tapping as you listened on the
hydrophones, but then you had to build up all the rest with your
imagination. With this new thing, if you could bring it to the enemy,
you would be able to see them curl up and burn and die before you as you
watched.

"The difficulty will be to bring it to the enemy," said Rhodes.

Boden said: "Well, that's our same old tactical problem. But this put a
new angle on it altogether. I think we ought to have another talk with
Simon soon as possible, and see what he thinks of it. I must say I'd be
in it right up to the neck myself if there were any chance of using
anything like this."

"Simon's in London," said the Special officer. "He isn't coming back
until to-morrow night."

There was nothing much more to be done that night. Rhodes stayed and had
supper in the trawler, then went on shore again. He walked up to the net
defence store to give his evening meal to Geoffrey; rather to his
surprise he found a few stalks of the cow parsley already in the hutch.
He wondered if it were the Wren who had been there to feed his rabbit.

He did not object to that. He had a little sixpenny book on rabbits
which informed him that a rabbit liked a full stomach, and Geoffrey had
given him no cause to disbelieve that statement. He stayed there for a
quarter of an hour in the dusk, teasing the rabbit with the cow
parsley, playing with it, and stroking the furry little coat. It was a
playful, friendly little beast and he had grown very much attached to
it, but it would never be to him what Ernest had been; it would never
have the faithful devotion of a dog. He still missed Ernest terribly. If
only this flame-thrower business could come off!

Two days later he met Captain Simon, alone, because Boden was at sea on
a routine patrol. They met in the Boom Defence office; Rhodes showed the
army officer the finished report of his visit to Honiton, and told him
of their plan to put a flame-thrower in _Genevive_.

In the hour that followed Rhodes and Simon got to know each other better
than before. Hitherto Rhodes had regarded Simon as an odd, dilettante
Frenchman, romantic, like most foreigners. Simon had regarded Rhodes as
a dreamy, ineffective young officer. He now became aware that this young
officer was very much alive to the technicalities of flame-throwers,
that he was an industrial chemist with a good background of experience,
and that he had considerable knowledge about what could and could not be
done with oil. Once launched upon his own subject he showed an energetic
and a penetrating mind. Simon very quickly revised his views about
Rhodes. This was a young man who could be used in war.

In turn, Simon displayed himself as a keen manager, accustomed to quick
decisions upon the basis of hard technical facts. He asked the right
questions, he asked all of them, and he asked them in short time; when
he had got his data he made the right decision without further ado. He
was obviously a man who was accustomed to control an engineering
business; the sort of man, Rhodes felt, that he would like to work
under.

They talked over the report for an hour. In the end Charles Simon leaned
back in his chair in the bare, whitewashed little office. He lit a
cigarette, blew a long cloud of smoke, and stared out of the window at
the sunlit street of the small Devon town.

"So..." he said, half to himself. "Here is the temporal weapon that
crops up again, the sacred weapon of the Holy Church."

Rhodes said: "What's that?"

Simon turned to him, deadly serious. "Listen, my friend," he said
quietly. "This thing that you have now suggested--it is frightfully
important. How much, you do not know. But now I shall tell you secret
things which you must keep under your hat, that happened to me on the
other side, not many months ago."

He leaned forward to an ash-tray, and brushed the ash from the
cigarette. "Listen to me," he said. "You know, I was employed and worked
all of my life in France. I used to be chief engineer of a cement works,
in a town called Corbeil...."

Three days later Simon was back in London sitting in Brigadier McNeil's
office in Pall Mall, at the conclusion of a long discussion.

"There is the matter, sir," he said at last. "This is the way to help
the people of Douarnenez." He paused for a moment. "Their minds are
running upon fire," he said. "Let me bring fire to them."

The brigadier sat for a minute deep in thought. "We'll have to get the
Navy interested," he said.




5


Two days later I went down to Newhaven with Brigadier McNeil to see my
admiral about the proposal. Admiral Thomson was a young man for a
vice-admiral, not much over fifty; on the morning of our visit he was
much engaged on a forthcoming operation, and had little time to spare
for fishing-boats with flame-throwers. Yet he had found time to read the
memorandum I had sent him; he discussed it with us for about ten
minutes, and asked one or two questions.

In the end he said: "All right--I have no objection." He turned to
McNeil. "I wish you all good luck with it," he said, "and on our side we
shall do all we can to help. There are one or two restrictions that I
have to make. It must not conflict with any major naval operation, and I
must be the judge of that. And then, it must stand on its own feet. I
can't promise you any naval support. I can't send destroyers up to the
front door of Brest to help you out if you get into trouble. But you
don't want that."

McNeil shook his head. "That isn't the idea at all. The expedition is a
minor one, and I don't want to see it grow into a major operation. But
it will serve a useful purpose, I assure you, sir."

Vice-Admiral for Channel Operations was silent for a moment. "I think it
will," he said at last. "I hope it does. I think there is some danger
that you'll lose your vessel and her crew."

McNeil shrugged his shoulders. "We have to take that risk each time we
send a party over to the other side."

"Of course." Admiral Thomson turned to me. "I shall leave all the
details in your hands, Martin. I shall inspect the ship before she sails
on operations. See Captain Harrison about her routing when the time gets
near. Keep me informed from time to time how it is getting on."

I said: "She will require a navigator, sir. An R.N.R. lieutenant would
be suitable. Can I get her one?"

"See the Second Sea Lord's office. That will make three of our officers
in her--there are two R.N.V.R. already?"

"Yes, sir. A lieutenant in an A/S trawler, and a sub. in Boom Defence.
Both in Dartmouth."

"And the ship is at Dartmouth, too?"

"Yes, sir."

"What is her name?"

"_Genevive._"

He turned away. "Very good, Martin. Do everything that you consider
necessary, and keep me informed."

McNeil said: "It's very good of you to give us so much help, sir."

"Not at all. I wish your venture every success."

We left him dealing with far more important matters, and we took the
next train back to London. I parted from McNeil at Victoria; when I got
back to my office I found a note upon my desk asking me to ring the
Second Sea Lord's office.

I rang up Lovell at once. He said: "That navigator you were asking for,
who wanted to do fire. Do you still want him?"

I said: "I do indeed. I've just got permission from V.A.C.O. to take him
on."

He said: "Is it for a major war vessel?"

"No," I said. "It's for a very minor one. One of these harum-scarum
shows."

"I see," he said. "I've got a very good navigator, but he's not
everybody's kettle of fish, if you understand. He might be suitable for
you. He's ringing me again this afternoon; would you like to see him?"

"Certainly. Send him along. Is he R.N.R. or R.N.V.R.?"

"Oh, R.N.R. He holds a master's ticket."

"What's his name?"

"Colvin. A lieutenant."

Lieutenant John Colvin came to see me in my office next morning. He was
a man of about forty-five, a fine-looking chap. He was over six feet
tall, a lean, hard-looking man. He was deeply bronzed. He wore the
ribbons of the last war on his shoulder. He had a fine head with short,
curly, iron-grey hair, and he carried himself well. He had a firm chin,
a humorous twist to his mouth, and grey eyes. When he spoke it was with
a marked American accent.

I made him sit down. "Well," I said. "What have you been doing so far in
this war?"

He said: "I was in an ocean boarding vessel, sir." He told me the name.
"We paid off last week, on account of the repairs that had to be done,"
and I knew about that, too.

I asked: "Were you Number One in her?"

"No, sir. Lieutenant Johnson, he was Number One." I glanced at the
papers before me, wondering a little. On paper, Colvin's record should
have made him first lieutenant. It might, of course, be whisky--but a
glance at him convinced me that it wasn't.

"Did you join her at the beginning of the war?"

"No, sir. I joined her in February, 1940." There was a momentary
silence and then, as if feeling that some more explanation was required,
he said: "I had quite a way to come."

"Where were you when it started?"

"I was in San Francisco, sir. I was Marine Superintendent with the
Manning Stevens Line."

I did not know the name. "Where do they run?"

"Down to Chile, and around. Nitrate tramps, under the Chilean flag. Five
of them, there were."

I nodded. "Did you come back across the States?"

He shook his head. "I hadn't that much jack," he said softly, smiling a
little. "I worked a passage home as deck-hand on a tug."

He told me that the Salvage Department had been in the market for tugs
all over the world, and they had bought a thing called _Champion_ in San
Francisco at the beginning of the war. She was not very big, she was
twenty-three years old, and when loaded with a deck cargo of coal for
the Atlantic crossing she had fourteen inches freeboard. They left San
Francisco in November, 1939, bound for Liverpool.

Her auxiliary machinery gave continuous and increasing trouble. They
came by Rosario and Acapulco to the Panama Canal, and from there by way
of Kingston in Jamaica to Bermuda. Here they waited for a fortnight to
join a convoy. Sailing with the convoy, they blew a gasket out of the
condenser pump when they were three days out, and had to stop engines
while they made repairs, rolling their fourteen inches freeboard under
twice every twelve seconds. Six hours later they were going again and
chasing on to catch the convoy up, and nine hours after that they blew
the gasket out again. They turned and steamed back slowly to Bermuda to
face up warped castings in the dockyard shops.

When they were ready to start off again they were routed up to Halifax
to join a convoy there. It was January by that time, and a tug with
fourteen inches freeboard in the North Atlantic in mid-winter is no
joke, especially for the deck-hands. They elected to try it, however,
and sailed with a convoy for Liverpool as soon as they arrived. Nine
days later in longitude twenty-eight west the condenser pump passed out
again, this time with a broken piston. They were about six hundred
miles from Ireland.

The convoy went ahead and left them, and they followed after it
thirty-six hours later. They sailed unescorted into Londonderry in the
end, rested for three days, and completed the trip to Liverpool to hand
the vessel over to the Salvage Department.

"A very good show," I remarked.

He smiled gently. "It was quite a trip," he said. "I'm glad we made it
all right." I was coming to the conclusion that this was rather an
attractive man.

I turned again to his papers. "I see you put down here that you wanted
to be employed in fighting with fire," I said casually. "That's rather
unusual. What put that into your head?"

He said: "Oh, that was just a fool idea I had at the beginning of the
war. That doesn't mean a thing."

"What sort of fool idea? I'd like to know."

He glanced at me curiously. "The Germans used _Flammenwerfer_, in the
last war, an' I think we should have done. It's what you want to give
these Nazis."

I said: "Have you ever seen a _Flammenwerfer_?"

"I did see one once," he said. "It seemed to be rather an unwelcome
subject."

"Where was that?"

"In the United States."

"When?" He was telling me no more than he had to.

"About 1927, it must have been."

I wrinkled my forehead, trying to think of an easy way of extracting
what I wanted to know. "Was that a demonstration?"

"That's right," he said. "A kind of demonstration."

I had no time to waste in going on like that. "I want to know about that
flame-thrower you saw," I said. "How did you come to see it?"

He seemed very reluctant. "I was in the import business," he said at
last.

"Import business? What were you importing?" And suddenly I saw the
answer to my question, and smiled. "Rum?"

He looked confused. "Hard liquor," he admitted. "It was mostly rye. I'd
been going through a bad patch, sir," he said.

I grinned at him. "I don't suppose that you're the only ex-rum-runner in
the Navy," I said cheerfully.

"I know damn sure I'm not," he said.

"About this flame-thrower," I reminded him. "Was that in a ship?"

He said: "It was in a ship it happened. Off the coast of Massachusetts,
way back in twenty-seven."

I nodded; he was easing up. "What ship was that?"

He hesitated. "_Heartsease_," he said. "Or...it might have been
_Judy_. They changed her name," he explained. "She was called _Oklahoma
City_ in the end."

"I see," I said. "How did she get mixed up with flame-throwers?"

He told me the whole incident, and it took a quarter of an hour. I
didn't cut him short, partly because I was curious, but also because I
wanted to know all I could about John Colvin. And what he said was this:

Rum-running in those days was an affair of queer, tortuous politics. In
the beginning ships used to arrive in Rum Row and used to sell cases of
liquor indiscriminately to the fast motor-boats that came out from the
shore to them; there was never much difficulty in disposing of the cargo
in this way. Presently the shore end of the trade became more organized
as the small individual operators were amalgamated into powerful groups,
were squeezed out and murdered, or were taken by the law officers. The
repercussions of this development upon land were felt upon the sea.
Sleek, Italianate gentlemen began coming out in fast armed boats and
bought options on large parcels of the cargo. The old customers would
come along next day and would be told that no Scotch was for sale, or
else no rye: that it was all reserved. Then there would be trouble.
Sometimes the two parties would meet on board and there would be a
showdown, usually with a settlement to the profit of the Italians.

Occasionally the settlement was not so amicable. Shots were exchanged in
_Heartsease_, once in the saloon and once in a desperate running battle
round about the bridge that lasted for a quarter of an hour and left the
ship with a good deal of washing down to do before returning to Nassau.
John Colvin disapproved of this, as did his captain, but there was
nothing much that they could do to stop it.

It was at this juncture that they had their trouble with Bugs Lehmann.

Colvin had known Bugs Lehmann for some months. He was a German American,
they thought; at any rate he spoke with a thick German accent. They were
lying anchored some miles off Cape Cod at that time, and had come back
to the same place for a number of successive trips. Bugs came out with
half a dozen other men in a big launch; he paid cash on the nail with
never any trouble. He did not buy large quantities, but he was a good,
steady customer. They thought he came from one of the little harbours on
the north side of the Cape; his trade was almost certainly in Boston.

It was only when it was all over that they came to know the origin of
his name, Bugs. It was, they found out later, short for Firebug.

Bugs Lehmann came on board one day just after an Italian that they knew
as Mario had left. Mario had bought an option for a week on the
remainder of their cargo of hard liquor, and had paid good dollars for
his option. About five hundred cases were involved. When Bugs arrived in
an empty launch, there were five hundred cases staring at him from the
open hatches, but all they had to sell him were three barrels of
Algerian red wine, an unwanted sample that they had carried with them
for some months and proposed shortly to dump overboard.

Bugs Lehmann was a very angry man. He argued for some time and was
exceedingly unpleasant, but the ship's officers were obviously armed and
he had only three men with him. Presently the captain, a red-headed
Ulsterman, took him down to his cabin and split a bottle of whisky with
him. They were rather sorry for Bugs Lehmann in their way; there were no
other ships about and it was clear to them that this option was one move
in a shore battle of the gangs which would end in his elimination from
the Boston trade. But there was nothing they could do to help him out.

He went over the side to his launch after a couple of hours, sullen and
silent.

The captain stood with Colvin by the rail, watching the launch as it
drew away. "That's another of the little chaps," he said. "We won't see
him again."

"I reckon Mario's got his number," said the mate.

"Aye," said the captain, "Mario's got his number. Got his tombstone
ready for him, like as not."

Colvin laughed. "Maybe. In any case, we deal with Mario from now on."

But they were not quite right in that. In the late afternoon three days
later, Bugs came to them again. He came with six or seven men beside him
in the launch. Colvin met them at the head of the companion ladder; the
captain was in his bunk. Before Colvin realized what was happening he
found himself covered by a Thompson gun.

He was not greatly worried. He said: "Say, Bugs, you don't have to act
like this."

The German said: "I haf no quarrel with you, eider with the captain. You
chust keep quiet, and you don't see nodding, and you don't say nodding.
Nor de crew eider."

The captain came up, and was covered similarly immediately he stepped on
deck. Their guns were taken from them and they were locked into the
chart-house; the crew were ordered below and went very willingly.

From the chart-house windows Colvin and his captain had a good view of
the head of the companion, and could see most of what went on on deck.
They saw a queer harness brought up from the launch, comprising a back
pack of tanks and cylinders; there was a length of hose that terminated
in a long metal pipe or nozzle. They watched as this equipment was
buckled on to Bugs Lehmann by his satellites.

"What in the name of God is all that gear?" whispered the captain. "Is
it for squirting gas?"

"I reckon it must be," said Colvin. "Do you think it's Mario they're
laying for?"

"Must be Mario. I didn't expect him till to-morrow. I wish we'd never
got mixed up in this."

They waited for an hour, as dusk fell. Then from the mist towards the
shore they heard the deep rumble of a heavy launch. "Mario," the captain
whispered.

They watched from the chart-house, tense and apprehensive. Bugs
Lehmann's boat was evidently lying off some distance from the ship,
because the new launch circled normally to the companion. They could see
Bugs crouching down behind the bulwarks, uncouth in his equipment, the
nozzle poking out towards the ladder.

There was a hail from the launch. "_Heartsease_?"

One of the men on deck, dim in the evening light, hailed back in a good
English voice. "_Heartsease_ it is. Watch out for our companion as you
come alongside."

There was a pause, tense, pregnant.

And then a horrible thing happened. A violent blast of cherry-coloured
flame shot out from the long nozzle down the companion ladder, crowded
with six or seven men coming up the side. They saw Bugs Lehmann rising
to his feet, directing the jet of fire full on the bodies of his Italian
enemies. A burst of Tommy-gun fire followed from the bulwarks down into
the launch; there were hoarse, tortured screams, and a loud sighing,
windy noise of flame. The fire lit up the whole ship with its light,
died, and burst out again in sudden, dreadful jets, hideous,
devastating, and inhuman.

In the chart-house the two officers watched, utterly appalled. The jets
of fire, full twenty yards in length, went on and on; they could not see
all that was happening over the ship's side. But in the end it stopped,
and there was only the faint smoky flame of the burning companion
ladder, and the blaze from the launch burning upon the water, and
drifting away astern.

Presently they were released from the chart-house by an exultant gang.
"I guess you got whisky to sell me to-day?" said Bugs Lehmann grimly.
"That Mario, he ain't going to need it now, I t'ink."

He showed them his equipment with great pride; they examined it with
horrified interest. It was a German type pack flame-thrower, and he was
tremendously proud of his prowess in handling it. It seemed to mean
nothing to him that he had just murdered seven or eight men horribly.
Colvin got the impression from something that was said that Lehmann had
served in the First World War as a German _Flammenwerfer_ soldier, and
that he had built the equipment himself from the German model.

They sold him all the liquor that he wanted, about two hundred cases. It
was slung down into his launch and in an hour he was away, and they were
left to cut away the burnt companion ladder and remove the scars of fire
from the ship's side before returning to the Bahamas. They sailed that
night, resolved to work on the Virginia coast thenceforward and to give
New England a long rest.

A fortnight later they saw in a newspaper that the body of Bugs Lehmann
had been discovered in a ditch between Chatham and Hyannis.

Colvin told me all this, sitting in my room at the Admiralty; I was too
interested to cut him short. "It was just a fool idea I had," he said
apologetically. "But it stuck in my mind these fourteen--fifteen years:
the proper way to treat them Nazis. Treat 'em the way they understand.
So when the admiral asked at my interview if I had any preference in my
employment, I just upped and said what I thought, and it went down like
that in the record. But you don't want to pay any attention to that,
sir."

That, of course, was my affair, not his. Before I took him into my
confidence, I wanted to know one or two more things about him.

"Are you married?" I enquired. One must give some weight to that sort of
thing.

"No, sir," he said. He said it with just that momentary hesitation that
convinced me he was lying; it was, I thought, the first lie he had told
me in the interview.

"About to be?"

"No, sir."

His private life was no affair of mine, of course, and he had given me
the answers that I wanted to hear. It seemed to me that I could safely
leave it at that.

"Well, now," I said, "the duty that you are proposed for is a special
operation in a very small vessel. It's something rather in the nature
of a Commando operation on a very small scale. A good navigator is
needed, and that's what you've been recommended on. The vessel will be
under the command of an army captain; if you accept the job you would be
a sort of sailing master under his command. There will be one other deck
officer under you, a lieutenant R.N.V.R. Most of the crew will be Free
French."

He said quickly: "I learned some French, one time up in Quebec." He
seemed keenly interested.

"That helps," I said. "Does that sort of thing line up with what you
want to do?"

"And how," he said. "I got a bellyful of ocean boarding vessels."

He said: "This means some close-up fighting with the Jerries, I
suppose?"

I nodded. "It's genuine Commando stuff. There is some risk in it--in
fact, a lot of risk. There always is in this short-range fighting. It'll
be practically hand-to-hand. Essentially it's a job for volunteers."

"Well, I'm a volunteer for anything like that," he said. "I guess that's
why you asked if I were married?"

"Yes," I said dryly. "It's as well to know."

"Sure." He thought for a moment. "Say, is that why you wanted to know
all that about the _Flammenwerfer_?"

This was a first interview. "That's as it may be," I replied. "Plenty of
time to talk about that later on."

"Okay," he said. "I certainly would like to have a job like that."

I thought about it for a minute or two. I liked the man quite well
myself, but I wasn't in the party. "I'm going to send you down to
Dartmouth," I said at last. "A little ship like this has got to be a
happy ship; before you get this job you've got to meet the commanding
officer, Captain Simon." I told him how to get in touch with Simon at
the port. "You'd better take the next train down."

"Sure," he said. "But I can work with anyone. I never get no personal
trouble in a ship."

That was confirmed in his record. There was one question I had forgotten
to ask.

"You are a British-born subject, are you?" I enquired.

"Surely," he replied. "I was born in Birkenhead."

Colvin went down to Dartmouth on the evening train, and got to Kingswear
in the middle of the night. He reported at the Naval Centre and they
fixed him up with a bed. Next morning he reported back to the Naval
Centre after breakfast, and there Simon went to find him.

McNeil had arranged the release of Simon from his coastal defence work
some days before, and he had been putting in most of his time upon
_Genevive_; the shipyard were already working on the vessel. He had
made two visits to the place at Honiton. On my part, after finishing
with Colvin, I had spent the remainder of the afternoon telephoning
other Admiralty departments and visiting the Second Sea Lord's office,
with the result that signals went off late that night releasing Boden
and Rhodes for special duty.

Simon met Colvin in the Naval Centre, where these two unusual men took
stock of each other. Nobody had thought to tell Colvin that Simon was
half French. They walked together down to the ship, and as they went
Simon was asking questions about the other's navigational experience.
What he heard satisfied him; Colvin, I think, was taciturn and wary.

They reached the quayside, and Simon indicated _Genevive_. "There is
the ship," he said bluntly. "That is what you are to work in and to
navigate, if you come with us in this thing."

Colvin was startled. "What in hell kind of a ship is that?" he asked. "A
fishing-boat?"

Simon said: "Certainly--a fishing-boat from Brittany. In that sort of a
boat one can sail unquestioned anywhere upon the other side."

The other looked her over, noting the high bow, the steep sheer and the
sloping deck, the wide beam, and the sharp-raked transom. "Sure," he
said at last. He turned and smiled at Simon. "Well, try everything
once."

He jumped down on the bulwark from the quay, and so to the deck. In one
quick tour from bow to stern he took in everything, noting the heavy
timbers of the vessel, and her powerful engine. Then he turned to Simon.

"Say," he said quietly. "Nobody told me yet just what it is this ship is
supposed to do."

Simon said: "There is the cabin, what they call the cuddy in the
shipyard here. Suppose we go down there."

They went down there for an hour, the July sun streaming down upon them
through the little skylight. "There is the matter," Simon said at last.
"That is the job that this ship has to do."

"The oil-tanks, and that, go down into the fish hold, I suppose?"

"That is the place for them," the other said. "There is room there for
everything, for all the oil we shall require. Only the gun itself, the
flame-gun, will show up above the deck, and that we shall pile over with
a net."

He glanced at Colvin. "This is the way I want to fight the war, myself,"
he said simply. "It may not be the way for you. If it not your way, then
you should say so now."

Colvin said: "Sure it's my way. The way I look at it"--he paused and
sought for words--"if you're going to have a fight there's no good
sticking to the Marquis of Queensberry's rules, if you get my meaning.
If the other chap's out to hurt you, why, then kick him in the belly and
have done with it. That's how I look at it. And this fire racket is as
good a way of hurting Nazis as any that I know."

Simon got up. "So--then we are agreed. It is a terrible weapon," he said
reflectively. And then he smiled. "Almost good enough for the Germans."

They went up on deck. "A little can of beer?" he said politely to his
navigator.

That afternoon Colvin met Boden, released that morning from his trawler.
He met him in the ship. "They're reckoning to put me into this as
Master," Colvin said, "as near as I can make it out. In that way you'd
be working under me. But as I understand it, this was your idea right
from the start."

The other said: "Don't worry about that. I've never had command."

"What have you been doing in the Navy?"

"I've been in trawlers--about eighteen months."

Colvin grunted; it was not a bad recommendation. An R.N.V.R. who could
stand trawler life was obviously no pansy. "I reckon we'll make out all
right," he said.

They talked about the ship for half an hour, going over every part of
her in detail.

"This army chap, this Captain Simon," Colvin said at last. "Where does
he come from, and who is he? Is he French?"

Boden said: "He's an Englishman by birth. He's a pretty fine sort of
chap, I think. He's done at least one spying trip upon the other side."

Colvin said: "It's certainly a change from ocean boarding vessels."




6


McNeil was very busy in the next few days, and I was not idle myself. He
got the flame equipment down to Kingswear in forty-eight hours from our
meeting with the admiral, and installation started in the shipyard. I
went down there to organize accommodation about that time. I saw the
Naval Officer in Command, an elderly retired commander, much puzzled by
the unorthodox and secret nature of the party that had been established
on his doorstep, but willing to help in any way he could.

After a short talk with him, I decided to put the party up the river, at
Dittisham, three miles above the town. It was a quiet, isolated country
district for one thing; for another, there were a few empty houses
there. I got a couple of modern villas standing side by side; one was
already empty and we requisitioned the other at twenty-four hours'
notice. Messing had then to be arranged, and finally transport.

Sitting in N.O.I.C.'s office I came to this one. "Transport," I said.
"While they are out at Dittisham, say for two months, they'd better have
a light ten-horse-power truck with a Wren driver. That should make them
independent of your organization." I made a note. "I'll get an extra
driver and a truck appointed to you right away," I said. "In the
meantime, for the next few days, can you help them out?"

He said: "Of course. I've got an Austin van that they can have the use
of. It's usually pretty busy; we shall want another."

The old commander played a typical old-stager's trick over that van. Up
at the Admiralty next day I thought it out and came to the conclusion
that the lightest sort of truck might not do all they wanted in the way
of transporting all the various stores and ammunition that they might
require. I went one size larger, and sent them down a new,
fifteen-horse-power truck with a very efficient young woman as a driver.
This outfit was attached to N.O.I.C. for administration, of course; when
the old commander saw it it appeared to him to be a gift from heaven. He
put it straight on to his routine work, and attached the little old
Austin van with Leading Wren Barbara Wright as driver to work for
Captain Simon's party.

Colvin knew all the details of the exchange within twenty minutes. He
went to Simon in great indignation. "What d'you think?" he exclaimed.
"That bohunk up there in the office went and pinched our truck!
Commander Martin sent us down a dandy truck from London, a new one,
bigger'n this. I just seen it in the garage. What say, we go and have a
showdown with the old bastard?"

Simon said: "It is very wrong, and we are very much misused, but we will
not make a quarrel over it. If we have too big loads for this one, or if
this one breaks, then we will ask for our own truck again. But N.O.I.C.
is helping us in many ways; we will now let him get away with this."

Colvin grumbled. "I wouldn't let him get away with it."

Simon smiled. "Think of the junior officers, and do not spoil the fun.
That other woman with the big truck, she has a face like a boot."

They were on deck, with shipyard men all around them; the old truck
stood on the quay. A gang of men were unloading cans of cooper's grease
and drums of tar from it. Rhodes, newly promoted to a lieutenant, was
standing talking to the driver.

She said: "I put some cow parsley inside the gate last night, sir. Did
you find it?"

He said: "Oh, yes--it was frightfully good of you to bother. I gave him
half last night, and the other half this morning." He hesitated, and
then said: "I was away at Honiton the day before yesterday, with Captain
Simon. Somebody fed him while I was away. Was that you?"

She said: "I wasn't sure if you were coming back that night, so I
thought I'd better. Mrs. Harding isn't allowed in there, is she?"

"No. It was very kind of you to think about him."

She flushed a little, and said: "Oh, that's all right. I let him out for
a little run, but I was scared of him getting under that heap of depth
charges, so I didn't let him out for long."

He was immensely grateful to her. He had been very worried on that trip
to Honiton that they would not get back in time for him to take Geoffrey
out for his daily constitutional, and now, it seemed, he need not have
worried at all. Miss Wright, as a naval rating, had access to the net
defence store at any time, and she was willing to look after Geoffrey in
emergency, it seemed.

He said: "He can't get under the depth charges if you put the plank up
across the ends. Didn't you see the plank?"

She shook her head.

He said diffidently: "If you like to come down there this evening when
I'm feeding him, about seven o'clock, I could show you how it goes. Then
if you want to have him out again, you can."

She said: "All right. I've got to go over to Brixham this afternoon, so
I'll be able to get some more cow parsley. I'll bring that along with
me."

"Fine--I'll be there."

There was a little pause.

"You've got another stripe," she said. "That makes you a full
lieutenant."

He smiled self-consciously. "I get a bit more money now."

"Did you get it because of this show?" She inclined her head towards the
vessel at the quay.

"I was about due for it anyway," he said. He hesitated, and then said:
"Are you going to be attached to us now? I mean, we're going to have a
truck with a Wren driver."

"I think I am. It was to be the new truck with the Wren who drove it
down from London--Miss Roberts, I think she's called. But they seem to
have switched things round."

He said a little shyly: "It'll be fun if they keep it like that." And
then he said quickly: "I mean, it'll be interesting for you, seeing the
whole thing right through from the start."

She said: "I'd like to see it all, I mean, having seen it at the very
beginning." She coloured slightly. "I must go now, or I'll be late."

He stood back from the van. "If you're not doing anything, I'll be down
there about seven."

He was there before her, standing over the rabbit as it hopped about the
little yard of the net defence store, eating the dandelions. She found
him there cleaning out the hutch.

"Good evening," she said. "I see you're busy."

He straightened up, pan and brush in hand. "I do this in the evenings,"
he said, "because then the ratings aren't about."

She said: "Is this the hay you give him?"

"That's right," he said. "That goes in his sleeping quarters."

"I'll do that," she said.

They worked together for ten minutes, making a boudoir for the rabbit
between the Oropesa floats and the depth charges. He showed her the
plank that he had set up across the ends of the depth charges to prevent
the rabbit getting in between them and eluding capture.

She said, half laughing: "You aren't afraid that any of these will go
off?"

"They're not fused," he said. "We couldn't keep them stacked like this
if they had pistols in."

"Does that mean that they're quite safe?"

"I think so," he replied. "Just how safe they are, I'm not quite sure."

They stooped down together to the rabbit, and began feeding it young
carrots. Geoffrey nibbled them seriously right to their fingers; he was
very tame. "He _is_ fun," said the girl. "Have you ever kept rabbits
before?"

Rhodes said: "No, I've never had a rabbit." And then he said: "I had a
dog once, but he died..."

She said: "You seem to know all about rabbits."

"Well, they're decent little beasts," he said. "I mean, it's something
ordinary to have, to look after. He isn't really mine, of course," he
said. "He belongs to Mrs. Harding."

"But you look after him, don't you?"

"Oh, yes," he said. "She hardly ever sees him."

The girl turned to him. "I do think you're funny," she said.

He was immediately on the defensive, and a little hurt. "Because I like
rabbits?" he said. "'Pansy' is the word you want."

She said quickly: "Not like that. But things like flame-throwers--and
rabbits--they don't seem to go together."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I can't help that. If that's the way you are
you can't help it."

"No," she said, "I suppose that's so."

They fed Geoffrey the remainder of the carrots. "Was that the
flame-thrower that they were putting in this afternoon?" she asked. "All
those tanks and things?"

He nodded. "We're going to move up to Dittisham the day after to-morrow,
to finish off the job up there."

"Is that because it's more secret up there?"

"That's right," he said. "We don't want this equipment in the shipyard
for too long."

She indicated the rabbit. "Will you be able to come down here and look
after him from there?"

He said: "I've been thinking about that. I can get the trot boat down
each evening, or else come in with you in the van."

She said: "You don't need to worry about him. I shall be living in the
Wrennery and coming out to Dittisham every day, so I can always do him
if you can't."

He said warmly: "I say, that's awfully nice of you."

They moved up to Dittisham one Thursday, and went on a mooring two or
three hundred yards above the landing. The four officers moved into one
of the houses requisitioned for them, the other being held in reserve
for the crew. Simon spent most of his time away in London at Free French
Headquarters during these days, interviewing and picking his crew. The
bulk of the work of getting the ship fit for sea fell inevitably upon
Colvin and Boden, and they worked solidly from dawn to dusk each day.

Colvin found Boden to be unlike any R.N.V.R. officer that he had met in
this war or the last. Most of these amateur seamen had definite shore
interests, seldom shared by the R.N.R. Boden, it seemed, had no such
interests. He never seemed to want to go on shore; he had no
correspondence to speak of. He never seemed to want any relaxation; he
seldom read a paper or a magazine. Colvin himself was no great reader,
but he liked the _Daily Mirror_ and he liked looking over the pages of
_Picture Post_ in the evening. The other officers very soon discovered
that what this handsome, grey-haired merchant seaman really liked was
pictures of bathing girls. Sometimes he would find one in a periodical
and hold it up for their inspection. "Say..." he would breathe, "just
get a load of this! Ain't she a dandy?"

"I knew a girl one time that used to sit for them pictures," he said
once. "Miss Oregon, she was. Her real name was Susie Collins."

Rhodes said curiously: "How did you get to know her?"

"I was one of the judges," Colvin said simply. "A guy what knows his way
around can always get to be one of the judges in a beauty contest. Ankle
competitions, too."

Simon laughed. "And then you can take your pick!"

Colvin was a little offended. "You don't want to talk that way," he
said. "This was all regular. I used to go visiting with her folks."

They tried to get more detail out of him, but he was put off by their
ribaldry, and would tell them nothing more.

The man who got to know him best was Boden. Boden had very few interests
outside the ship, and in the ship his duty lay continually with Colvin.
He grew to admire the middle-aged merchant officer immensely; he was the
first really competent and efficient commanding officer that Boden had
served under. He learned continuously from Colvin. If they had had much
paper work on board the defects of the older officer would have become
apparent, but their constitution was such that there was practically no
paper work of any sort to do. What little there was in the way of
requisitions and indents, Colvin was content to leave in Boden's hands.

On his side, Colvin had never had a junior officer so hard-working as
Boden, or one with so few shore interests. After a week or so it seemed
to him that there was something almost queer about the lad. Rhodes he
could understand: Rhodes was running after the Wren in the truck, a
reasonable occupation for any young chap in Colvin's opinion. Boden, it
seemed, had no such inclinations.

Ten days after they began it was a Saturday. Three or four Breton lads
had joined them under the command of a petty officer called Andr, who
spoke a little English; Colvin arranged that they should knock off work
at five and that Andr should take these lads on shore. Rhodes, they
knew, would be in Dartmouth; Simon was in London.

Colvin turned to Boden. "Let's you and I go into Torquay an' see what's
to be found," he said.

"I don't know about me," said Boden. "Think I'll stay on board."

The older man looked at him, puzzled. "Say," he said. "You'll get enough
of sticking around here before we're through. Come on into Torquay, an'
make a break. I don't want to go alone."

The last remark bore weight with Boden. "If you like," he said.

He would genuinely rather have stayed on board. Six little long green
boxes had arrived on board that day, containing six Thompson guns; other
crates and boxes had arrived with them full of drums and ammunition.
Boden had never handled any weapon of that sort; to prepare for it he
had bought a book about the Thompson gun. He would rather have sat all
evening in the cuddy with his book and with the gun and with a handful
of clean rag, learning, assimilating. Still, Colvin wanted to go to
Torquay, and didn't want to go alone. In his loneliness he was becoming
fond of Colvin.

They got to Torquay at about six o'clock. Boden had no particular wish
to go anywhere or do anything; he was content to let Colvin take the
lead. He suspected that Colvin was on the look-out for a bathing beauty,
for Miss Torquay. If he achieved his end, thought Boden, he would make
off and leave him to it; he could get back to the ship and have an hour
with the sub-machine-gun before bed.

They strolled from the station down the front towards the town. There
were young women by the score there, sunning themselves; most of them
turned and glanced at the two naval officers. The white-faced,
red-haired young R.N.V.R. was commonplace, but they looked very long at
the tall bronzed officer beside him, with the ribbons on his shoulder
and the iron-grey hair.

"Get anything you want to here," said Boden presently.

The other gave a little snort. "I don't go in for them kind," he said.
"All giggles an' silliness, and in the end you get what you don't want,
as like as not."

Boden was surprised. "I couldn't agree with you more," he said. He had
never picked a girl up on the beach and didn't want to start; it warmed
him to find that Colvin held the same views.

The R.N.R. officer said presently: "What say, we find the best hotel and
have a drink or two, an' then a durned good dinner--oysters and that?"

"Suits me," said Boden. "What about the Metropole?"

"Is that where you get the best food?"

"The food's supposed to be better at the Royal Bristol, and that's got a
garden. But it's full of old ladies."

"They won't hurt us any."

They found their way to the Royal Bristol Hotel, and had a couple of
pink gins on the terrace overlooking the garden and the sea. It was a
quiet, pleasant place. The service was unobtrusive and efficient; the
sun was warm, the garden bright with flowers. As Boden had foretold, it
was full of well-to-do elderly people.

"I call this a dandy place," said Colvin. "It must cost a raft of money
to live here, like all these old Buddies do."

Boden knew something about that. "I had an aunt who came here once. They
took eight guineas a week off her."

"Sure. Was that with a bathroom and a sitting-room, and that?"

"Not on your life. She had just a bedroom."

"Nice business, if you can get it."

They sat in silence for a minute or two. Then Boden said: "Have you ever
fired one of those Thompson guns?"

"Not against anyone. I fired them once or twice at barrels and that."

"What's the muzzle velocity?"

"Oh, shucks, I dunno. Fifty to a hundred yards, that's all you want to
use them at. It's only a little bullet, like an automatic has."

His mind was evidently not on the subject. Presently he indicated a
couple of chairs in the lounge over to their right. "I bet that Jane
don't see much life," he said.

Boden glanced over and took in the scene. A very old lady dressed in
black was sitting primly in a chair, knitting. A girl, or woman, perhaps
thirty years of age was sitting by her reading the evening paper aloud
in a low tone. She wore no rings. She had a blonde, fair head and a
resigned, bored expression. Once she must have been a beautiful girl;
now she was growing old before her time.

Boden shrugged his shoulders. "She looks after Mother," he diagnosed.
"Somebody's got to look after Mother."

"Sure," said Colvin. "And when Mother dies the girl gets all the
berries."

"Probably."

The gong for dinner rang, and the old lady and her daughter went in
almost immediately. Colvin and Boden followed them ten minutes later. At
the entrance to the dining-room the older man paused, reading a notice.
"Got a dance on here to-night," he said thoughtfully. "Fancy that!"

They did not get oysters with their dinner, but they dined quite well.
They talked very little, both occupied with their own thoughts. Boden
was still preoccupied with the sub-machine-gun; if the shells were
really automatic pistol ammunition, then the muzzle velocity was
probably quite low, which agreed with the short range that Colvin had in
mind. That, probably, was what made the gun handy to fire; there would
not be very much recoil.

Colvin was also absent-minded. Half-way through dinner he said to the
waitress: "That old lady dining over there. What's her name?"

"That's Mrs. Fortescue, sir."

"She live here?"

"She's been here since March."

"That her daughter sitting with her?"

"Yes, sir. That is Miss Fortescue."

"Okay."

The waitress moved away; Boden awoke from his ballistic reverie and
cocked an eye at his companion. "What's all this about?"

Colvin smiled. "I was just thinking," he said, "that it was quite a
while since I went dancing."

Boden shook his head. "You'll get us both thrown out if you try that."

But he had underrated Colvin. They finished their dinner and went
through into the lounge for coffee. The old lady and her daughter were
sitting a little way away from them; presently the old lady wanted
something from her room. The girl went to fetch it. Colvin, who had been
watching, immediately got up and crossed over to Mrs. Fortescue. Boden
sat still, appalled.

He had great charm of manner, an air of distinction. He bent slightly
towards Mrs. Fortescue and said: "You must forgive me, ma'am. Would you
consider it all out of order if I asked your daughter for a dance
to-night?" He smiled charmingly. "I've been out of England a good many
years, and I've rather forgotten the way things go back home here,
socially. I didn't want to do what folks might think was rude--but I
don't know anybody here..."

The old lady looked at him and took him all in, the firm, handsome
features, the grey eyes, the iron-grey hair. He looked like an
ambassador in naval uniform. "I am sure my daughter would be delighted
to have a dance," she said. "Sit down and talk to me."

He sat down readily, retrieving her spectacle-case from the floor as he
did so. "That's very, very kind of you," he said. "My name is Colvin.
One gets kind of lonesome when you don't know anybody in a place."

"I am sure you do," she said. "Have you been here long?"

"Only a week or two," he said. "Before that I was in the North
Atlantic on patrol since war began, with convoys and that. And before
that again I had a job in San Francisco for a raft of years. It's
fifteen--seventeen years since I last lived in England."

She dropped her knitting to her lap. "And did you come home all the way
from San Francisco to fight in this war?"

"Yes, ma'am." He had a good story to tell without departing from the
truth, and he told it with modesty and humour. Half-way through the girl
returned carrying a shawl; she approached them with surprise and
interest giving new life to her face. Colvin got up as she approached.

Mrs. Fortescue said: "Elaine, my dear, this is Mr. Colvin.' He has been
telling me such a marvellous story of his journey home from San
Francisco. Quite thrilling!"

The girl smiled at him and they all sat down together. Boden watched
from his seat a few yards away; it had been a smooth, competent piece of
work which increased his respect still more for his commanding officer.
He did not want to join them. If he left in half an hour he could get
back on board _Genevive_ by half-past nine, with an hour's daylight
still to go in which he could become acquainted with the gun. In the
meantime, he would sit and smoke.

Presently there was the sound of a dance band from the dining-room and
Colvin took Miss Fortescue through to dance; a faint flush of colour in
her cheeks made her attractive. The colour had deepened when Boden
passed them in the corridor on his way to the cloakroom for his cap and
gloves. He overheard her say:

"You mustn't call me Wonderful, Mr. Colvin. My name is Elaine."

He said pleasantly: "Oh, shucks, that's my American tongue running away
with me. You don't want to worry about that."

Boden treasured up that one to tell Rhodes.

I went down to Dittisham for the gun trials a few days after that. The
installation of the flame-thrower was complete and the full crew of ten
Free Frenchmen and two Danes were on board. One of these Danes spoke
English and was an engineer in civil life; Rhodes took him as his
second-in-command upon the flame-gun, and trained him in the rather
complicated mechanism. I got to Dartmouth early in the forenoon, having
spent the previous day at Teignmouth on another job. Simon met me at the
station with a little shabby truck, driven by a Wren. He wore the
uniform of a captain in the Sappers, battle-dress; he saluted me very
smartly.

I paused before I got into the truck. "Is this the lorry I sent down?" I
asked. It seemed so old.

Simon laughed. "It is not the same," he said. He told me the
circumstances as we started off. "He is very pleased with us because we
got him a new truck," he said. "We can get anything we want now--ropes,
paint, anything."

I grunted; there was nothing much to say, and Simon went on to detail to
me all that still had to be done before the ship was fit to sail on
operations. We got to Dittisham in about ten minutes, and drew up
outside the officers' villa.

I got out. Simon said:

"I am going to change my clothes before we go to sea." He paused, and
looked me up and down, hesitant. "We do not call attention to ourselves,
or to the ship," he said. "We usually go out in rough clothes, as
fishermen. I could lend you an old pair of trousers and a jersey..."
And then he added: "But you can wear your uniform if you like, sir. It
does not really matter."

"Not a bit," I said. "I'll do whatever you do."

I went and changed with him in his room; when we went down to the boat
on the hard a quarter of an hour later I was the complete fisherman, in
blue jersey with S.Y. _Arcturus_ in white letters on the chest, rather
torn and old, blue serge trousers and gum-boots. It was the first time I
had ever done a gun trial in those sort of clothes.

Colvin met me as I scrambled over the side. They were all dressed as
fishermen, and their salutes were humorous in their incongruity. I spent
about ten minutes going round the ship with them; then we cast off the
mooring and got under way.

We slipped down past the town, out by St. Petrox; at the harbour mouth
we set a course south-east out into the West Bay. We steamed on on that
course for an hour or so; I did not want to do our stuff within sight of
land. I was busy all that time, because I had to satisfy myself that
they would be ready for the admiral's inspection. I went around the ship
with Colvin and with Boden making a list of the defects that they still
had to rectify. I spent some time in the engine-room, crouched in the
confined space beside the pulsing Diesel. Then on deck I had a long talk
in bad French with Andr, the C.P.O. in charge of the Free French and
Danish crew. He was a decent, fresh-faced, smiling sort of chap who had
been in the French Navy for eight years, much of the time in the
_Dunquerque_. His home was in St. Nazaire; he said his wife was there
still.

That put an idea in my head, and I asked him if any of the crew came
from Douarnenez. But Simon, I found, had considered that point
carefully. None of them came from anywhere closer to Douarnenez than
Audierne.

I left Andr, and found the ship's armament laid out on deck for my
inspection: six Tommy-guns and several revolvers. They were all well
oiled and cared for; we put a barrel overside and cruised around it,
firing a few rounds from each. Then we turned to the flame-thrower.

We did not fire that at a target; I did not want to draw attention by
creating a blaze. We had a good look round the sky for aircraft, waiting
a quarter of an hour till one away over to the west went out of sight.
Then Rhodes slipped into the little bucket seat, we pulled away the
camouflaging nets, and I gave him the word to open up.

He fired three shots of three or four seconds each, traversing as he
fired. The thing belched out its flame in a great terrible jet that
dripped blazing oil upon the water underneath its fury; above it thick
black smoke wreathed up into the sky. On deck the heat was intense; one
could hardly bear to keep one's face exposed to it. He fired three
times, and each shot plunged its burning, lambent tip into the sea many
ships' length from us. Rhodes seemed to have no difficulty in training
and in elevating the weapon.

I stopped him then and got into the little seat myself. He stood beside
me till I was entirely familiar with the controls; then he stepped aside
and I fired three shots with it myself. The heat was very great, but not
unbearable, and the view of the target seemed to be fairly good. Within
the limitations of the thing it seemed to work all right, and I could
pass it off for service. I told Rhodes that he must have a pair of
goggles up upon his forehead to pull down if firing had to go on for a
length of time. Three shots was all I wanted without some protection.

That was the end of our gun trials, and there was a great column of
black smoke above us towering up to show what we had been doing, six or
seven hundred feet high. We turned and steamed towards the north end of
Torbay at our full speed to get away from it, re-arranging the
camouflage as we went in case a Heinkel or a Dornier came up to have a
look. But nothing came except a Hudson of the Coastal Command, which
circled round us at a hundred feet, obviously puzzled. We had an Aldis
lamp in the little wheel-house, and I made a signal to him: _Admiralty
to Hudson--Go away_. He waggled his wings at us and went off up Channel.

We held on our course till we were within a couple of miles of Hope's
Nose, then altered course for Berry Head and Dartmouth, making a wide
circuit to prevent our return being associated with the dark cloud that
we had made at sea. We entered the river and passed up by the town at
about 15.30, picking up our moorings at Dittisham a quarter of an hour
later.

We went on shore, changed back into our uniforms, and had a cup of tea
in the ward-room. Then I got into the truck and the Wren drove me back
to Dartmouth to catch the evening train to London.

I sat beside the Wren. During the short drive I said to her: "Are you
with this party permanently, or do other drivers share the duty with
you?"

She said: "I'm the only one that ever comes to Dittisham, sir. They put
me on to this job when it started. I do nothing else but this."

I nodded. "You know a good deal of what's going on, then, I suppose?"

"I think so, sir. I've driven them to Honiton three times."

"I don't suppose I need to tell you not to talk," I said. "One day this
party will be going over to the other side. If through some careless
word of yours the Germans get to know about it, they may be killed.
That's a real danger now, and you don't want to risk it."

She said: "I know that, sir. Lieutenant Rhodes warned me to be very
careful."

I was mildly interested; everything to do with that party was of
interest to me. Rhodes was the technician. I said: "Who gives you your
orders--tells you what to do?"

"Captain Simon, sir. When he is away, Lieutenant Colvin or Lieutenant
Boden."

I said idly: "But it was Rhodes who told you about secrecy?"

She said: "Oh, well..." and stopped. I glanced at her, and she was
flushing a little. Then she laughed. "I get the food for his rabbit,"
she said. "He told me then."

"Does Rhodes keep a rabbit?"

"Yes, sir. In the net defence store." With a little urging she told me
all about it; that is how I came to know about Geoffrey.

She took me to the station; I crossed to Kingswear and took the evening
train to London. Next morning from my office I rang Brigadier McNeil and
told him that the gun trials had been satisfactory.

He said: "I'm very glad to hear it. I say, you've got a very smart young
officer upon that thing." We were speaking on an outside line. "That
chap Rhodes."

I was pleased. "I think he's pretty good," I said. "He's colour-blind,
but I don't think that matters for this job."

"He's some kind of an industrial chemist, isn't he? In civil life?"

"I think he is," I said.

"They were very much impressed with him at Honiton. They seemed to think
you'd picked a really good man for the job."

"Well, that's pure luck," I said. "It was he who brought it forward in
the first instance. We didn't pick him; he picked us." And then I went
on to talk to him about the admiral's inspection of the ship.

I saw V.A.C.O. a couple of days later and told him, amongst other
things, that _Genevive_ was ready for him to inspect.

"Very good, Martin," he said. He turned to his engagement diary.
"Sunday--I am meeting Captain Fisher at Torquay to see the M.G.B.s for
Operation Parson. Suppose we say Saturday afternoon for _Genevive_ at
Dittisham? I should like Brigadier McNeil to be there, if he could make
it convenient."

"Very good, sir. Will you stay the night in Torquay?"

"I think so. The Royal Bristol is very comfortable. See if you can get
rooms for us there, Martin."

I did, and when the day came we travelled down to Torquay in the
morning, arriving soon after lunch. I had arranged a car, and when we
had dropped our bags at the Royal Bristol we started off in it for
Dittisham, Admiral Thomson, Brigadier McNeil, and myself. We got there
about four o'clock. Simon was waiting for us with a little motor-boat to
put us on board the vessel; we were not taking her to sea, so everybody
was in uniform and very smart.

N.O.I.C. was there. I imagine that they had been consulting him on
etiquette, because a boatswain's pipe shrilled out as the admiral
clambered up the short rope ladder that served as a companion on
_Genevive_ and swung his leg over the bulwark. I never saw such a
variety of salutes upon one ship before. Simon saluted army style, of
course, and the naval officers in navy style; nine of the Free Frenchmen
saluted the same way and one differently because he had been a rating in
their _Arme de l'Air_. The two Danes saluted differently again.

The inspection followed upon stereotyped lines. The admiral found a cat
on board. That was my fault; I knew that idiosyncrasy of his and I
should have warned the ship. "I have no objection to animals on
board--within reason--in harbour or in time of peace," he said
weightily. "But in a ship sailing against the enemy they are out of
place, and may even cause the loss of valuable lives. People do stupid
things, go back to save them when the ship is sinking. A great many
seamen have lost their lives in that way--yes, and officers too." He
turned to Colvin. "See that it is put on shore before you sail."

"Very good, sir."

He was interested in the flame-gun, and got down into the seat to handle
it while Rhodes explained the mechanism to him. "Yes," he said at last.
"A very dreadful weapon if you have your enemy within its range.
Unfortunately, he isn't always there."

The ship's armament--what there was of it--was laid out on the hatch. He
picked up a Tommy-gun, handled it for a moment, and put it down again;
then we went aft. He turned to Simon. "I understand you are the officer
who got the information which you hope will lead you to the enemy," he
said.

Charles Simon said: "I was in Douarnenez in February, sir. I went there
on my way back from Lorient."

"Yes--I remember. Tell me now, in your own words, what you hope to do. I
have heard it from Commander Martin, but I want to hear it from you."

Simon said: "On this first trip, sir--it is just reconnaissance. If we
can find the fishing fleet, mix in with them, and get away without
detection--that in itself is of much value. That way we can land agents,
open up communications with the country." He paused.

"I do not want to make a contact with the enemy, at any rate on this
first occasion," he said. "I would prefer we...how do you put it?
Find our feet--yes, first find our feet." He smiled deprecatingly. "And,
anyway, we cannot make a contact with the enemy even if we want. We have
twelve knots at the most, and a _Raumboote_ can do twenty. It is for him
to make the contact with us."

V.A.C.O. said: "That's very true. And if the enemy makes contact with
you?"

"Then he is almost certain to come up to shouting distance," said Simon.
"He can do nothing else, because to him in the night-time we are a
fishing-boat, that cannot read a signal. If he comes close, then we burn
him up."

"And get away into the darkness quickly?"

"That is the way. We must be many miles off shore before the dawn."

They talked about it for some little time, standing there in the calm
summer afternoon, the admiral and the cement engineer from Corbeil. The
tide slipped by us between wooded hills under a clear blue sky; in the
trees the wood-pigeons were calling. It was very quiet and peaceful
there.

"What English port will you sail from?" the admiral asked.

"From Penzance, if we may. That makes the shortest crossing of the sea
and the least risk of observation by the German aeroplanes."

"Very good." The admiral looked up and down the length of the little
vessel. "All the luck in the world," he said at last. "Come and report
to me when you get back."

We went over the side into the boat, and he followed us down the ladder;
we were ferried ashore. On the hard we turned and looked back at the
ship; they had draped the netting over the flame-gun again. But for the
men in uniform moving about on board she was every inch a fishing
vessel.

We got into our car and were driven back to the Royal Bristol Hotel. I
had to be with the admiral next day in Torquay; McNeil was going back to
London, but had missed the afternoon train. So we all stayed that night
in the Royal Bristol Hotel.

It was a Saturday, and I remember noticing as I went through the
entrance lobby that there was a dance that evening. I went up and washed
and then came down and sat with the others in the garden till dinner,
looking out over the bay.

We dined rather late. As we sat down to dinner I noticed Colvin sitting
with an old lady and a younger woman, probably her daughter; he seemed
to be keeping them amused, because I heard the girl laugh more than
once. They got up shortly after we went in and went through into the
lounge for coffee.

Admiral Thomson had noticed them. He said: "Wasn't that the
first-lieutenant in the ship we saw to-day?"

"Yes," I said. "His name is Colvin."

"A handsome-looking chap," said McNeil.

The admiral said: "I'm sure I know the old lady. Her husband was Chief
of Staff in Malta just after the last war. I was in _Tiger_. They used
to ask us up to tennis." He wrinkled his brows. "Now what the devil was
the name?"

He asked the wine waiter when he came. "Mrs. Fortescue, sir," the man
said.

"That's it--General Fortescue. I must go and talk to her after dinner."

When we went out into the lounge he crossed the room to where the old
lady was sitting with Colvin and the daughter. Colvin got to his feet as
the admiral went up, looking a little awkward.

V.A.C.O. said: "Mrs. Fortescue, I'm sure you won't remember me. But
years ago--in 1919 or 1920--we met in Malta. You were very hospitable to
my ship, and you came to a dance we had on board."

She looked at him from her chair. "Of course I remember you," she said.
"Commander...Commander--is it Thomson?" He nodded, smiling. "But I
see it's not Commander any longer--something much grander. I'm sure I
don't know what all those gold bands mean. Do bring your coffee and come
over here and join us. This is my daughter and Mr. Colvin."

V.A.C.O. bowed to the daughter and nodded to Colvin. "I have met Mr.
Colvin," he said. "Is this the little girl you had at Malta?"

He sat down with them and began reminiscing with the old lady. Colvin
was looking awkward still; I moved over to him.

"I say," I said in a low voice, "I'm damn sorry about that cat. I ought
to have remembered what he thinks of cats and warned you."

He said: "That's all right, sir. I'm glad that was the only thing he
found to bawl us out on."

"There was nothing else," I said. "I think he was very pleased with what
he saw."

We sat chatting about this and that for a quarter of an hour, then dance
music sounded from another room, and Colvin took the girl through to
dance. I heard the old lady say to the admiral:

"What a nice man that Mr. Colvin is! Is he under you?"

He said: "In a way he is. Commander Martin here knows more about him
than I do."

She smiled at me. "Elaine and Mr. Colvin are great friends," she said.
"He comes and takes her dancing whenever there is a dance. It's very
good for Elaine. Living as we do in hotels like this she meets so few
young men. Sometimes I feel it's rather selfish keeping her with me."

The conversation shifted on to something else, but I had heard enough to
make me just a bit uneasy. I was fairly certain Colvin had been lying
when I had asked him if he was married; at the time I was quite glad,
because that was the answer that I wanted. I watched when they came back
after two or three dances. The girl had got a colour in her cheeks and
she was as radiant as a bride.

_Genevive_ was due to sail on operations in a few days' time. A damn
good thing, I thought.

I went back to London with the admiral the next afternoon, Sunday. That
was some time at the beginning of September, and the nights were long
enough for what she had to do. I made the necessary arrangements, and
they sailed her round to Penzance on the Thursday and Friday, working up
as they went.

There was a full moon that week, and the weather was perfect, much too
good for them. I wasn't going to be any party to sending them over to
the mouth of Brest upon a blazing moonlit night half as light as day. I
talked it over with McNeil, and we kept them there at Penzance for the
best part of a week before we let them go. By then the moon was waning,
and we got a forecast of unsettled, rainy weather. That was more the
sort of thing we wanted, and I went down to Penzance with McNeil
overnight.

That morning, Thursday morning, was grey and dreary with a light rain
falling. _Genevive_ was anchored just outside the harbour; I went to
the Naval Centre and got a boat out to her. Colvin had been ashore to
report when they got there; apart from him none of them had left the
ship. They had been out each day exercising in Mount's Bay, but it was
very cramped quarters in the ship for the full crew, and they were
anxious to get away.

I had a conference with them in the cabin that forenoon, Simon, Colvin,
McNeil, and I. By the shortest route they had about a hundred and ten
miles to go to a point half-way between Le Toulinguet and the le de
Sein, where they might reasonably expect to find the fishing fleet. I
wanted them, however, to keep clear of Ushant by ten miles or so; that
made their route about a hundred and seventeen sea miles. At their
comfortable cruising speed of ten and a half knots, that meant a bit
over eleven hours.

I did not want them to get to the rendezvous before midnight, in order
that they should have plenty of darkness in which to approach the coast,
and I told Simon that he ought to get away soon after three in the
morning.

Colvin marked off their course upon the chart and measured it carefully.
"Get under way at one o'clock," he said. "Hands to dinner at twelve. I'd
better tell the cook." He went out to the galley.

I turned to Simon. "If you can make it, come to Dittisham direct on your
return," I said. "I shall go back to Dartmouth and wait for you there."

Brigadier McNeil said: "Is there anything more that you want? Anything
we can do for you when we go ashore?"

Simon brushed back the long, dark hair that had fallen over his
forehead. "There is nothing that we want," he said. "We now have
everything. Only if you are going back to Dartmouth, would you do one
thing for me?"

He said: "Of course."

"These Frenchmen that I have here in the ship," said Simon. "In England
they can none of them afford to drink the French wines, and they do not
like the heavy English beer. When we come back, in two days or in three,
they will be very happy. I would like that they should have each a
bottle of French wine to their dinner--cheap red wine, like Pommard, or
the St. Julien that English people drink. I will pay, but will you find
the wine for me?"

The brigadier said: "I'll look after that. I'll have it there at
Dartmouth waiting for you."

I straightened up above the chart-table. "Well, away you go," I said.
"Wish I was coming too."

We went on deck; the boat was waiting for us at the side. I took a last
look round. Rhodes was there, and he came up to me.

"You going back to Dartmouth, sir?" he asked.

I told him that I was.

"If you see that Wren, Miss Wright," he said, "would you remind her to
be sure and feed my rabbit? She's the Wren that drives our little Austin
truck."

"I'll do that," I said. "Anything else?"

He grinned and said casually: "Give her my love."

"I'll do that, too," I said. McNeil was already in the boat, and I went
over the side and joined him, smearing black, tarry paint over my bridge
coat as I went. We pushed off, returning their salutes, and made our way
back to the harbour in the rain.

It was nearly twelve o'clock. Neither of us wanted to leave Penzance or
to sit down to lunch till we had seen them on their way. We went into a
pub beside the harbour and had a couple of whiskies in silence; neither
of us could think of anything to talk about except what could not be
talked in a public-house. At a quarter to one we went out and walked up
and down on the sea wall watching the ship.

At five minutes to one we heard the rumble of her Diesel motor over the
water and saw that she was shortening her cable. The anchor came up to
the hawse, and she turned to the south. She put on speed, and very
quickly vanished in the rainy mist.




7


I went back to the Naval Centre and made a cryptic signal to V.A.C.O. to
tell him that the ship was on her way. Then we had lunch and got on to
the train; we arrived back in Dartmouth late at night and slept in the
Naval College.

I say we slept, but speaking for myself, I was awake for most of the
night. I had been intimately concerned with this venture from the
beginning, and I had come to know the officers if not the ratings more
intimately than was usual in operations that I had to do with. It makes
it difficult to sleep when you possess that knowledge; you lie awake
hour after hour, wondering whether, sitting at your desk, you could have
thought more deeply for them, organized them better, made them safer in
the perils that they had to face. It's really not so good to know a ship
so intimately as I knew _Genevive_.

We did not hurry in the morning. By the shortest route, close round by
Ushant, it is a hundred and seventy sea miles or so from the rendezvous
where they expected to find the fishing fleet, to Dartmouth. Assuming
that they left the area at two in the morning, they could not possibly
arrive before six o'clock in the evening; in all probability they would
be out another night unless they put in to some nearer port. There was
nothing for us to do all day but to keep within hail of the telephone in
the Naval Centre.

We made our way down there after breakfast. Outside the door the little
Austin van was parked; the Wren driver was walking up and down
disconsolately outside. She brightened when she saw us coming up the
street, and went and stood by her car.

I stopped for a moment. "Miss Wright," I said. She came to attention,
which rather put me off. "I had a message for you from Lieutenant
Rhodes. He wanted me to remind you to be sure to feed his rabbit."

She coloured a little. "Very good, sir," she said formally. And then
more humanly she asked: "Did they go?"

This girl already knew sufficient to blow the gaff if any gaff was to be
blown, and had known it for weeks. "They got off yesterday," I said in a
low tone. "They should have done their stuff last night. They may be
back here late to-night or very early to-morrow morning."

She said: "Thank you, sir, for telling me."

"Keep it under your hat," I said. "And don't let Rhodes come back and
find his rabbit hungry."

She smiled at that; she was really quite a pretty girl.

I turned away, then stopped. "Oh, and one other thing," I said. "He
asked me to give you his love."

She blushed suddenly scarlet; it seemed that I had hit the bull's-eye
quite unwittingly. "He did what, sir?" she muttered.

I grinned. "You heard me the first time," I said, and turned and went
into the Naval Centre with McNeil.

I rang up V.A.C.O. and told the duty officer where I was in case any
news came through, and I did the same with C.-in-C. Western Approaches.
It was then eleven o'clock in the morning, and there was nothing to do
but sit and wait for news.

It's very trying when you have to wait like that. McNeil and I did not
talk much; we sat there smoking our pipes, trying to read and
concentrate upon our newspapers in the bare little office. So many
things could have happened to them apart from enemy action. It had been
a dark night up till two o'clock, though it had not rained much; at
Dartmouth visibility had been poor, and it was probably much worse
around Ushant. We had sent them in in the dark night to close a coast
that was unlit and sown with reefs. To the north of their area ten miles
of half-tide rocks run out from St. Mathieu to Ushant; to the south the
Saints stretch a great tongue of reefs westward fifteen miles off-shore.
In the middle of the area the reefs outside Le Toulinguet stretch two or
three miles out; in amongst all that mess they had to find their fishing
fleet. The tides were strong round there; in places they ran four or
even five knots. If in the darkness and the run of tide they were five
miles out in their position at the end of a hundred-and-thirty-mile
trip, they might have met disaster absolute.

I sucked my pipe and tried to read the news, which was all bad. The
Russians were being driven farther and farther back, and now the Germans
were approaching the Crimea.

McNeil and I went out to lunch in turn, one of us staying by the
telephone. We walked up and down outside the office after lunch in the
fitful sunshine between bursts of rain; the Wren was still there
waiting with her little truck. At about four o'clock I went and saw the
secretary, an R.N.V.R. lieutenant.

"There's the Watch Point up on the cliff, sir," he said. "We've got a
direct line to that. Your Wren knows where it is, and I'll have any call
that comes put through to you there."

I went down with McNeil and got into the truck, telling the Wren to take
us to the Watch Point. She said eagerly: "Are they coming in, sir?"

"It's not time," I said. "They can't be here much before dark."

The Watch Point was a little camouflaged hut on the cliff-top, half sunk
in the earth. There was an old petty officer in charge and a signalman
with him; they had a good big telescope upon a stand and a couple of
pairs of field-glasses. Three hundred feet below us lay the sea, grey,
dappled, and corrugated with wind. It was a better place to wait than in
the office.

The signalman made tea, and I had the Wren in and gave her a cup. She
sat in a corner silent, waiting with us. We waited on there, smoking
patiently, talking very little, hour after hour. And in the end they
came.

The signalman first saw them at about half-past seven, when the light
was beginning to fade. He saw a vessel through the telescope many miles
out, heading for the harbour. We all had a look in turn, continuously;
even the Wren had a look, the signalman helping her with the focusing.
When they were three or four miles out and we were quite clear it was
_Genevive_ I rang through to the duty officer and told him they were
coming in.

"Make them a signal to go straight up to their mooring at Dittisham," I
said. "I shall go round and meet them there."

"Very good, sir."

I sent a message to their mess steward at Dittisham to get a meal ready,
and then we left the hut and got into the truck. Half an hour later we
drew up outside the villas, left the Wren there to help with the meal,
and walked down to the hard.

The vessel was already in sight down the reach, coming up in the last of
the evening light. Down at the water's edge there was an R.N.V.R.
surgeon-lieutenant waiting in the boat, who had come out from Dartmouth
on a motor-bicycle. A rating rowed us out towards the mooring as the
ship drew near, and we scrambled over the side before she was secured.

Simon met us and helped us over the bulwark. He was in fishing clothes,
dirty and unshaven, and very, very tired.

He said: "We got a _Raumboote_ with the flame-gun, sir."

McNeil said: "You did get one? God, that's fine! Did you sink her?"

He shook his head. "I do not know. I think she may have sunk in the end.
She was all burning end to end when we had finished, but we did not stay
around. And then the rain came down again, and we lost sight of her."

McNeil went on with Simon; Colvin came up to us. "This is a damn good
show," I said. "Did you get any casualties?"

"Not one," he said. "They never got a single round off at us. That
fire-gun surely is the goods."

I asked a few more hurried questions, but the men were obviously very
tired and I wanted them to get ashore. The full report could wait till
they had had a meal and some sleep; there was no urgency. I told Colvin
to get everyone ashore and hand over to the shore party for an anchor
watch.

Boden said: "What about the Jerry? Do we take him too, or leave him
here?"

Colvin said: "Leave him here the night. He's all right as he is."

"Do you mean a German?" I asked, startled.

"Sure," said Colvin. "We picked one up out of the water, but he died
pretty soon." He paused. "We put him down alongside the fuel-tanks. Do
you want to see him?"

I turned to McNeil. "They've got a dead German," I said. "Do you want to
have a look at him?"

"So I hear. I think perhaps we'd better, and then take him ashore
to-morrow."

Colvin took us down into the hold beside the tanks. There was a long
figure lying covered by a blanket. "He's not a pretty sight," said
Colvin. "He was pretty well burnt up before he got into the water."

He removed the blanket.

"No," I said, "he's not."

McNeil asked: "Had he any papers on him?"

Colvin shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno," he said. "To tell the truth,
we didn't kind of fancy going through his clothes. We reckoned that was
the shore party's job."

He replaced the blanket and we went on deck. The ratings were being
ferried on shore in batches. I found Rhodes and said:

"This is a damn good show. Did you have any difficulty?"

"Not a bit, sir. It went exactly as we planned."

"Fine. You'd better get on shore now and get a hot meal and some sleep.
We'll make out a report in the morning."

"Very good, sir."

He turned away; I stopped him. "I gave your message to the Wren," I
said.

"Thank you, sir."

"I should bloody well think so," I replied. "Next time you want a
go-between, just you give the job to Brigadier McNeil."

Andr was there. I spoke a few sentences to him in my lame, halting
French, telling him to tell the ratings that they had put up a damn good
show, and that the admiral would be very pleased with the ship. He
replied with a volley of which I understood one word in five, and we
beamed at each other, and then it began to rain.

It was practically dark and there were only a few of us now left on
board. Boden was at my elbow, obviously very tired. I said to him: "I
expect you could do with some sleep."

"I'm not tired, sir," he said. And then he said: "It's a fine thing,
that flame-thrower. There were three of them on the bridge, and they
were just blotted out. And the two by the aft gun--they just
disappeared." He paused. "I think it was one of them we picked out of
the sea."

"Very likely," I said. "We'll make out a report in the morning."

"Will we be going out again, sir?"

"I don't know. We'll have to think about that."

"We ought to go again, sir. It's a fine game this--better than
anti-submarine. I mean, you can see what you're doing."

The boat came back again. "Go on down," I said to him. "The thing to do
now is to have a meal and some sleep." And a bromide for him, I thought;
the surgeon would provide that. Boden went down into the boat; I
followed him, and we were ferried ashore in the darkness and the rain.

In the two villas most of them were at supper. I told Simon that I would
be out in the forenoon, and I had a word with the surgeon-lieutenant
about bringing the dead German ashore and about the bromide.

He nodded. "Two or three of them can do with something of the sort," he
said. "I'll look after that--I've got some stuff with me. I'll stay here
for an hour or two."

McNeil and I left them; they would not settle down while we were there.
We went back in the little lorry driven by the Wren to the Naval Centre,
and I put in a telephone call to V.A.C.O. The admiral was still in his
office and I spoke to him and gave him the substance of what had
happened.

"That's very satisfactory," he said. "Give the ship my congratulations,
Martin--no, I'll make them a signal. And I should like to see the
commanding officer, that Captain Simon, as soon as he has finished
making out his report. I shall be here for the next two days."

I rang off and we went back to the College for a late, scratch meal
before bed. Next morning we went back to Dittisham and settled down with
Simon and Colvin in the ward-room to hear the full story. And what it
amounted to was this.

       *       *       *       *       *

They left Penzance at about 13.00 in a squall of rain. It was warm and
rainy all the afternoon, with visibility varying between one mile and
five miles. They saw two aircraft of the Coastal Command and flashed
their code sign at them with an Aldis lamp; they saw no enemy aircraft.
They kept their speed meticulously, doing ten and a half knots in each
hour by the log and plotting their tidal drift each hour with wind
corrections. They set their course to pass seven miles to the west of
Ushant, and as darkness fell they were approaching the island.

They had a bit of luck there, because the fog-signal was going from the
lighthouse at Le Jument; they heard it faintly in the distance. It was
too distant and too faint to give them more than an approximate
bearing, but what they got out of it checked more or less with their
dead reckoning, and they changed course off Ushant according to plan.

They were then upon a course as if to enter Brest, and they were perhaps
twenty-five miles from the entrance to the Rade. There was some danger
that they might meet a patrol vessel, so they put on their red and green
sidelights and slung a white light half-way up the mast, fishing-boat
style. At the same time they manned the flame-gun and made ready for
action.

They were not intercepted. Visibility was poor, with occasional showers
of rain. They had time in hand, and slowed to eight knots, at which
speed their engine was much quieter. They stopped two or three times to
take a sounding, and went on upon a course for Cap de la Chvre.

They ran two and a half hours, about twenty miles upon that course, into
the region which the French call L'Iroise. At any point in that course
they might have met the fishing fleet, but they saw nothing of it. What
they actually saw, at about 23.45, was a flashing light, which they
identified as a minor lighthouse called Le Bouc, upon a rock about two
miles west of La Chvre.

Simon and Colvin bent over the chart-table together. "That's the boy,"
said Colvin. He put his pencil on the rock. "Just about where he should
be, and if that's not a bloody miracle, I'd like to know what is."

Simon stared fixedly at the little pencil-line that marked their course.
"The light must mean that there are vessels out to-night," he said. "So
much is certain: they would not have the lighthouse alight unless it was
necessary to them." He turned to Colvin. "This lighthouse, is it useful
to ships going in and out of Brest?"

The other shook his head. "It's right out of their way. It only serves
ships going to Douarnenez."

"Then it must be alight for the fishing fleet, or for their
_Raumboote_."

"Seems like it."

Their course for the last twenty miles had been south-east, parallel
with the string of reefs that runs from Ushant to La Chvre, broken by
the entrance to Brest. The fleet could not be to the north of that
course, therefore if it was out at all it must be either ahead of them
in the bay of Douarnenez or to the south down by the Chausse de Sein,
which we call The Saints. They stood on into the bay, still burning all
their steaming lights.

Visibility was a bit better by that time. They saw the great bluff of La
Chvre and went on past it right into the Bay of Douarnenez. They were
in the enemy's waters with a vengeance then, in range of batteries that
could have blown them out of the water with the greatest of ease. They
must have been seen from La Chvre; in all probability their steaming
lights protected them.

They got within about six miles of Douarnenez at about one o'clock in
the morning. There was no sign of the fishing fleet in the bay. They
turned and steamed along the south shore of the bay, about two miles
from land, heading back towards the west.

Near Beuzec, suddenly, a searchlight leaped out at them, and caught and
held them in its glare. From the wheel-house Simon shouted out in
French--"No firing. Two or three of you wave your hands at them.
So--that is good." The white light lit up every detail of the ship,
blinding, intolerable. They puttered on upon a steady course towards the
west, each moment expecting a shell.

Then the light went out, and for some time they could distinguish
nothing in the inky darkness.

Simon turned to Colvin. "We must look very like a fishing-boat," he
said.

"Sure," said the other. "If we didn't we'd be looking like a butcher's
shop by now."

At about one forty-five they saw a light ahead, and slightly to the
north, low down upon the water. Then there were several lights, and
presently a number, scattered rather widely in their course.

[Illustration: =WEST COAST OF FRANCE= USHANT TO THE GLENAN ISLES]

Simon and Colvin bent together over the chart. "They're all around the
end of the land," said Colvin quietly. "I reckon that the flood is
bringing the fish up through this bit they call the Raz de Sein...."

They were all on their toes as they approached the fleet. Coming from
the direction of Douarnenez their approach was natural enough, if it was
ever natural for a vessel to come out from harbour in the middle of the
night to join the fleet. They moved on towards the swaying lights, and
saw no sign of a patrol vessel. Then it occurred to them that the
_Raumboote_ would be to seaward of the fishing fleet, while they were
approaching from the land.

Presently they could see the hulls of the vessels. All had their bows
towards the south and their engines ticking over as they stemmed the
flood-tide, keeping their station with the coast, trailing their
gossamer nets in a wide, gentle bag not far below the surface. All of
the vessels wore a light upon the mast; about thirty per cent of these
were orange lights, and the remainder white.

They took station with the fleet, extinguishing their red and green
sidelights, leaving their white light burning on the mast. With bows
towards the south they rode for a time at the tail of the fleet. The
nearest boat, burning a white light, was within fifty yards of them;
they avoided the neighbourhood of the orange-shaded lights, the boats
that held the German petty officers. They rode like that for half an
hour, tense and waiting developments. But nothing happened at all. It
would have been very easily possible for them to go alongside one of the
boats wearing the white light, to exchange messages or to land an agent.
The first object of the reconnaissance was proved.

The officers discussed the position in low tones. Simon said: "Now we
should slide away, and make for England again. Next time we come, it
will be with a purpose."

Boden said: "We're not going home without having a crack at a
_Raumboote_, sir, are we?"

Rhodes was still at the flame-gun, growing a little tired, with the
thought of Ernest brooding darkly in the back of his mind. Colvin said:

"This sliding away. Do we put the light out here, where everyone can see
us put it out, and then slide? Or do we slide away with our light on?
Seems to me we get the _Raumboote_ on us either way."

Simon thought for a minute. "We will slide away with the light on," he
said definitely. "I think you are quite right. In either case the
_Raumboote_ will come to us, but if we drift away towards the north with
the light on we shall be some distance from the other ships, and what we
hope to do may then look like an accident."

He turned to Colvin. "Drop backwards very slowly with the tide," he
said. "Let it seem that we lost position accidentally, keeping the bows
to the south."

"Okay," said Colvin. "Now for the fun."

The slow beat of the engine dropped still lower, and the boats near them
began to draw ahead. In the dark night, misty and wet with a light rain,
they waited, peering over the water. Boden, in charge of the six
Thompson gunners, couched down behind the low bulwarks on the wet deck,
tense and listening. An alarm gong, sounded from the little wheel-house,
would bring them into action; till then they were to remain concealed.

Colvin was at the wheel himself, the engine controls at his hand. By his
side was Simon, with a speaking-tube to Rhodes at the flame-gun.

Nothing happened for a quarter of an hour.

They dropped further and further back from the fleet; by the end of that
time they must have been over a mile from the nearest of the
fishing-boats. Five minutes more went by, in unendurable tension.

"Don't believe there's any _Raumboote_ here at all to-night," grumbled
Colvin.

Simon said: "Well, you are wrong. She comes now, over there."

He pointed at a white light over to the west, and the faint glimmer of a
green light. A vessel was coming northwards under power, heading towards
them. A faint buzz of whispers ran around the decks.

Simon asked, whispering: "How large is she?"

Colvin measured the height of the lights from the water with his eye.
"She's only a tiddler," he said. "Not much bigger'n we are." In fact,
she was nearly twice their size; he meant that she was not a destroyer.

She passed a quarter of a mile away from them; the green light broadened
and a red appeared; then white and red alone were visible. "Coming up
along our starboard side," said Colvin. "I'll give her a sheer in a
minute, so as we get right up to her."

Simon bent to the speaking-tube. "She comes up now upon the starboard
side," he said. "You see her clearly?"

Rhodes said: "I see her."

In a minute Simon said again: "Rhodes, listen to me. There is nobody on
deck in front of the bridge. If there is a gun there, it is not manned.
Fire first at the bridge, and then to the aft gun, if she has one."

"Aye, aye, sir. Fire first at the bridge."

The tension was unbearable. The _Raumboote_ came up on their quarter
about fifty yards away; they heard the clang of her engine-room gongs as
she slowed. Her bow came level with their stern....

Colvin stooped and jerked the throttle half open, and gave the wheel a
twist to starboard, to close the gap between the ships. "Fire when you
like now, Bo'," he said laconically.

Simon shouted down the speaking-tube: "Rhodes--fire!"

A jet of blazing oil leapt out from the camouflaging nets, setting them
well alight. It lit up the _Raumboote_ coming up alongside them, dark
grey in colour and now only thirty yards away. Appalling, fascinating,
the jet seemed to travel slowly to its target. It was a horrible,
yellowish-red writhing spear; it carried at its point to strike the
enemy a dark blade of unburnt oil, ever consumed and ever sailing nearer
to the bridge. Its light went on before it, and in that light they saw a
bearded officer in an oilskin, leaning over the rail towards them,
megaphone in hand. In an instant that stayed etched in Colvin's memory
they saw him staring at this frightful thing sailing through the air at
him, horrified and immobile.

Then it hit him, and all sign of the bridge vanished in a terrible
furnace of bright flame. For three or four seconds the flame played upon
the bridge with a hoarse, windy noise, then it trained aft to the
petrified gun crew at the stern. It came very swiftly on them. They
hesitated; there were three of them. Then they broke and left the gun.
One of them dived for a hatch and may have got below; the others went
down in a violent belch of fire.

Colvin, watching intently, saw the _Raumboote_ start to fall astern. He
spun the wheel and sheered away from her; she dropped further astern,
and Rhodes could no longer bring his fire to bear upon the gun. He
traversed up her decks again as she fell further back. Then he cut off
his fire, and black darkness fell on them, lit only by the burning
camouflage nets on _Genevive_ and the blazing oil fires on the
_Raumboote_.

Simon roared out to the Breton crew, speaking in French, to get the net
fire out and to take down the mast-head light. Then he looked astern.
There were men upon the foredeck of the _Raumboote_; there was another
gun there.

"Turn quickly," he said to Colvin. "Or they will shoot us up." And down
the speaking-tube he said: "Fire at the forward gun, upon the foredeck,
when you can. There are men there now."

The gun was evidently stowed and unloaded; a long immunity had made the
Germans casual. The fire burst upon them as they were fixing a drum to
the breech, and they were hidden from sight in the violence of the
flame. In a few seconds Rhodes trained back on to the bridge.

The _Raumboote_ now was stopped. Colvin continued with his turn across
her bows, slowed, and drifted down her starboard side as she lay
burning.

Simon said down the speaking-tube: "Rhodes, give her oil now." The flame
died away; there was a moment's pause, and a great hosing jet of black
oil burst from the gun. Where it fell upon a flame it blazed up and fire
ran along the deck; in other parts it made great dripping, smearing
pools.

"Now the fire."

The flame blazed out again and trained the full length of the ship; she
became a furnace from end to end.

The fire from the gun ceased, and they lay rocking by the burning ship,
watching what they had done. "Time we were out of this," said Colvin
tersely. "What say, we get going now?"

There was no sign of life now on the _Raumboote_: nothing but a great
sea of flame. She was alight down to the water's edge. She lay between
them and the fishing fleet; they were well placed to get away towards
the north. Moreover, it was time. Other ships must be making for the
burning _Raumboote_ at full speed; it could only be a matter of a few
minutes before they were discovered in the light of the blazing ship.

They put on power and began to draw away. Almost immediately one of the
Bretons shouted from the bows; there was a body in the water ahead of
them. Simon spoke to Colvin and shouted a command to Andr. They
reversed engines to check way upon the ship beside the man, now seen
clearly floating in the water by the topsides. In urgent haste they made
a bowline on a rope and lowered one of the Bretons down into the sea; he
made a rope fast round the body and it was unceremoniously hauled
aboard. They put on speed again at once and drew away towards the north;
they were barely a quarter of a mile distant when they saw other vessels
coming up behind the burning ship.

Colvin said: "Let's hold on this way for a couple o' minutes more. Then,
what say we jink a bit?"

They went on for half a mile or three-quarters, doing their full twelve
knots. Then they turned sharply to the west, and in a few minutes turned
again and made for the south-west. Several vessels were around the
burning ship, and amongst them was at least one other _Raumboote_. They
went on, tense, expecting every moment to be picked up by a searchlight.
But no light came, and presently they altered course again towards the
west. They saw the blaze upon the water till they were distant about
five miles from it; then it was blotted from their sight by a rain
squall. The glow on the horizon lasted for half an hour.

After a time they turned to the north-west.

Boden came up to the wheel-house presently. "That German that we picked
out of the water died," he said.

Simon said: "Died? Was he alive at all?" He had risked waiting by the
burning ship to pick the body up because he wanted to bring home a
trophy of some sort, something to show for certain that they had engaged
the enemy.

"He was alive, within the meaning of the act," said Boden. "Caspar gave
him a shot of morphia with the hypodermic." Caspar was one of the Danes
who had been a chemist in his previous existence. The morphia he gave
was a full lethal dose, and presently the body on the deck found peace.

"Where had we better put him?" asked Boden. "I suppose you want to take
him home with us."

"Sure we do," said Colvin. "What do you think we stopped to pick the
mugger up for? Sure we take him home."

"What'll we do with him?"

They were well clear now of the burning ship, which showed as a faint,
distant glow on the horizon. Colvin called Andr to the wheel and handed
over to him. He went forward with Boden, and surveyed the body on the
deck.

"Two of you get him down the aft hatch and lay him between the
fuel-tanks," he said. One of the Danes translated into French. "Then get
a blanket to put over him, the way that we won't keep on seeing him."

So they brought him back to England. I do not think that anybody in the
ship was much affected by the sight of him, unless perhaps Colvin
himself. Bitterness had warped most of the rest of them; if they had any
feeling in the matter it was satisfaction.

Certainly Boden displayed no regret. He squatted on the steering-cable
case in the lee of the wheel-house with Colvin, just before the dawn.
They had been ten miles off Ushant by their reckoning at 04.30 and had
set a course for the Lizard, planning to get as far as possible from the
French coast before day betrayed them. In the east a greyness was
beginning. They had empty mugs, which had contained hot cocoa, on the
deck beside them. It had stopped raining, but the decks were wet and
their oilskins hung in stiff, clammy folds. It was rather cold; there
was the strong saltiness of a small ship at sea.

Colvin said: "You'd better go down and turn in for a spell. I'll call
you in a while."

"I'd rather stay on deck. I don't want to turn in."

"Not sick, are you?" There was some motion on the vessel, but though
Colvin had watched for it he had never yet seen the R.N.V.R. officer
seasick. His time in trawlers had hardened him.

"I'm not sick, sir. But I shouldn't sleep if I went down. I'd rather
stay up here. You go on down; I'll call you if we see an aircraft."

"Why wouldn't you sleep? You're not thinking about that dead Jerry, are
you? You don't want to think of that."

Boden said: "Just what I do want to think about."

"What's that you said?" The older man was puzzled.

Boden turned to him. "I don't mind looking at that Jerry. I wouldn't
mind a hundred or so like him, all stretched out in rows and stinking."
He paused, and then he said: "I was married, you know."

Colvin glanced at him in wonder. "I never knew that."

"I don't tell people, much." He hesitated. "She got burned to death in
one of the first London blitzes. She had to go to London because we were
going to have a kid. And the Jerries got her...."

He stared out over the dim sea. An early gull rose from the water at the
bow, wheeled crying above their heads, and soared away into the murk.

Colvin said: "Say, I'm sorry. It's tough when a thing like that has to
happen. I never knew a thing about it."

Boden said: "I sort of keep it under my hat."

Presently Colvin asked: "How long ago did that happen, lad?"

"Just a year--almost exactly." He turned to the other. "I'd rather that
you didn't tell the others," he said. "I sort of like to keep it to
myself. I wouldn't have told you but for something that you said."

"I'll not say anything." From the depths of his experience the older man
sought for something that was comforting. "Was you married long?"

"Nearly two years."

"How old was you then, when you got married?"

"Twenty-two. She was nineteen."

Just a pair of kids, the merchant sailor thought. It was plenty tough.
"Had you known each other long?"

"We'd known each other all our lives. Her father and my father are
partners in the firm, you see." He turned to Colvin; for the first time
in a year he was speaking freely. "We very nearly didn't get married at
all, because of that. We'd always done things together, all our lives,
and it seemed so--so unadventurous to go and marry somebody that you'd
known all your life as soon as you were old enough. As if we might miss
something. And then we thought we might miss something bigger if we
didn't...."

Colvin said: "I guess you had all your eggs in the one basket."

"What?" And then he said: "Well, that's so. I never got much fun out of
going around or dancing with anyone else."

The older man said: "It's just dandy if it happens to work out like
that. But then when something happens, like it did with you, you're in
an awful spot."

"I know."

The dawn was grey now, over a cold grey sea that foamed past them and
slopped in at the scuppers as they rolled. "I never got so deep as that
with any one woman," said Colvin. "Maybe I'm not the kind for a great
lover. Maybe I think too much of myself."

Boden glanced curiously at the handsome, middle-aged man by him. "Were
you ever married?"

"Lord, yes," said the other. "I was married earlier'n you, way back in
the last war when I was twenty-one. I been married five or six times,
maybe more. Over'n over again. But it never took."

For the first time in a year Boden was intrigued, taken out of himself
by interest in someone else's affairs. He said: "What used to happen?"

"Most times I lost my job," the merchant sailor said. "That happens
pretty frequent in the shipping business. Like when I was in Halifax,
Nova Scotia, in the import trade. Then they repealed the prohibition
law, and we was all on the beach, all the lot of us together. Well, some
stuck around in Halifax till they were down and out, but that was never
my way. I just drew all I had and gave it to the wife--and there was
quite a wad, close on two thousand dollars. I took fifty of them and
skipped out to look for work some other place--shipped as a deck-hand on
a freighter going south. Three months later I was master of a coaster
sailing from Shanghai. Chinese, of course, but better'n nothing."

He paused. "Well, there you are," he said. "I never was much of a hand
writing letters, nor was she. After saying I was quite well and was she
quite well and the weather was lousy I was finished, 'n you can't keep
married upon that when you're eight thousand miles apart. Even the Pope
of Rome himself couldn't keep married that way."

"No," said Boden. It seemed the only thing to say.

"It's the way things are in the shipping business," said Colvin. "Mind
you, I'm not saying that I'm not to blame. I guess I always wanted to go
places and do things more'n I wanted to stay home with the wife. And
then you get stuck down in some foreign place like Shanghai that I was
telling you about, or else maybe in Sydney, and every month you think
that you'll be on the beach again, and it drifts on for years. And then
maybe you get a notice that you've been divorced for desertion, or else
maybe you get so God-damned lonely that you just say what the hell, and
go and marry someone else. And in a year or two it starts again all
over."

Boden said: "You never felt like chucking up the sea and getting a job
on shore, and settling down?"

Colvin laughed. "I did do that one time," he said. "I got a shore job in
Frisco; I was Marine Superintendent of the Manning Stevens Line. Not a
lot of jack attached to it, but I don't need much. We got a little
apartment out in Oakland, and everything was dandy while it lasted. But
it didn't last."

Boden asked: "What happened?"

"The bloody war came," the older man said simply. "Just another thing,
like happens all the time. It didn't work then, going on in Oakland. I
stuck it long as I could, 'n then I gave her all the jack I'd got saved
up, about six hundred dollars, and skipped it back to England in a tug."

"Where is she now?"

"I dunno. Eight or nine months since I had a letter. She don't write
much. Time she's got the ink and the pen and the paper all together in
one place she's forgot what she wanted to say and lost the stamp."

Boden grinned. "When did you last write?"

"Oh, shucks, I couldn't say. Longer ago 'n that."

There was a long silence.

"I did think, one time, I was settled down for good," Colvin said. "The
job was steady and all regular, not like it was in Halifax. The last
marine superintendent that they had held it down till he was
sixty-eight, 'n only quit then because he wanted to. And one time I was
all set to do the same. We was even talking about having kids, which is
a thing I never held with in my way of life. But now, it's just the same
as it's been all the time--I dunno why. Two years since I skipped out of
Oakland, 'n six thousand miles--maybe seven."

He sounded tired and depressed. Boden said gently: "Why don't you write
and get her over here?"

The other shook his head, "It wouldn't be practical," he said. "Junie's
a small town girl from a burg called East Naples, in Arkansas. Maybe
she's gone back home by this time. I did think once that I might try and
save the jack to get her over. But when you come to think of it, I'd
have been a sap. Like as not by the time she got here I'd have been in
Capetown or some other place; we went 'most everywhere in my last ship
before we settled down to convoy duty. And then she always did have a
bad break if it was possible to get one; like as not she'd have been
sunk coming over, or if not that, then I'd have been sunk by the time
she got here and then she'd be stuck here with not enough jack to get
back to East Naples. You got to be practical."

Boden nodded.

Colvin laughed. "As for this bloody racket that we're in on now," he
said, "she'd likely be a widow before ever she left Oakland to come
over."

He got stiffly to his feet. "Toss you which of us goes down and has a
caulk."

"You go on down," said Boden. "I shouldn't sleep."

"Okay." He fumbled in his oilskins and pulled out a watch. "Send someone
down to give me a shake at twenty to eight, 'n tell the cook I'll want a
mug of tea and a hot sausage ten to eight. Give you a spell at eight
o'clock."

"All right," said Boden. "I'll give you a call if we sight anything
before."

"Aye. I don't want to miss nothing."

They rolled on steadily towards the north, over a grey sea covered by
low cloud. We had picked our weather well; they saw no aircraft until
shortly after noon, when a Hudson picked them up and took the
identification signal which they flashed at him. At 12.30 they sighted
the Lizard about ten miles to the north and altered course up Channel.
They entered Dartmouth at about 20.30, shortly before dark.

       *       *       *       *       *

Simon wrote out his report and I had it typed that morning by one of the
Wrens in N.O.I.C.'s office. At midday, McNeil, Simon, and I left for
London. V.A.C.O. was at his office on the coast; we got there very late
that night and saw him first thing in the morning.

He was very pleased with the ship, and listened very carefully to Simon
as he was telling him about the raid. He was interested in the state of
unreadiness of the _Raumboote_. "You mustn't expect to catch them in
that state again," he said. "The Germans are very quick to pick up
points of that sort."

McNeil said: "It seems very doubtful if there were any survivors from
the _Raumboote_ to pass on the information."

Presently V.A.C.O. asked: "Well now, what is the next move? Are you
going to pay off the ship, or have you any plans for going on?"

Simon said quickly, before anybody else could speak: "My officers and
crew, they all want to go out and do it again. I think we ought to go
again, sir."

McNeil said: "I agree with that, in principle. But before any operation
of that kind is planned, we must have information about this one. I
should oppose doing it again if the Germans are aware that it was a
British ship operating a flame-thrower, for example."

I said: "I agree absolutely with you there."

McNeil said: "If the Germans are ignorant of that and treat it as an
accident, then I think it might be done again. At some later stage we
can arrange to tell the people of the town that it is British and Free
French action against the Germans. But first of all we must have
information."

V.A.C.O. said: "I should think you're right. Well, go ahead and get your
information, and when you want to do another operation let me know." He
turned to me. "You will see that the ship has everything she may
require, Martin, and keep in touch with Brigadier McNeil. Then, when
you're ready, come and talk to me again."

We went back to London, to my office in the Admiralty. There Simon said
to McNeil: "I have been thinking about getting information, sir. I see
that it is necessary; I do not want to see my crew lose all their lives.
I know Douarnenez, myself. In one day I could find out everything. If I
could be put on shore one night, from _Genevive_, not very far away,
and picked up the next night, I could learn everything."

I said: "Who's to say that you wouldn't land straight into the arms of a
German patrol? Then the ship might be caught as well."

McNeil said unexpectedly: "I think we could avoid that, with the
information that we have."

I was silent. He said to Simon: "I was thinking rather on those lines
myself."

McNeil turned back to me. "I should explain," he said, "that we have
been paying more attention to Douarnenez recently. It comes into our
Class A category, the places that are ripe for armed revolt. The
situation in the town is very tense."

"Apart from that," he said, "a landing in that neighbourhood is not
difficult. We have done that several times recently."

I knew nothing of the work of his department. "You have, have you?" I
said. "Isn't the coast guarded by the Germans?"

He said: "Oh, well, it's guarded against an invading force. That is to
say, there are patrols and strong points on the beaches, at the ports,
and at all points where troops or armoured fighting vehicles could land.
But, obviously, the Germans can't even patrol the whole extent of
coastline that they have to cover, from the North Cape to the Pyrenees.
They guard the salient points, and they keep strong reserves at nodal
points inland ready to concentrate at any place that may be attacked.
But in between the cliffs, where no landing in force could take place,
those places are unguarded usually. They simply haven't got the men."

"I see," I said.

"There is no difficulty in putting one man on shore from a rowboat in
the night, upon the rocks at the foot of the cliffs between the Saints
and Beuzec," he said. "We have done that more than once. The only danger
is the fishing fleet and the _Raumboote_; you've got to keep away from
them."

"All this is really rather outside my province," I remarked.

He nodded. "Let me have a day or so to work upon it," he said. "I think
we could arrange an operation to put Simon on shore there and fetch him
off again without too great a risk, say in a week from now."

He went away and took Simon with him, and I set about the arrears of
work that had piled up while I was away. I worked on at the Admiralty
till ten o'clock on other matters; from time to time my mind drifted
uneasily to _Genevive_ and had to be jerked back to the work in hand.
And over a late supper in my flat before I went to bed, the matter
crystallized. I was not happy about what we had decided, not quite
content. _Genevive_ was a slow ship, though fast for her type, and we
were proposing to send this slow ship right back into the same area
where she had done much damage. She was a very vulnerable ship,
unarmoured and almost unarmed, except for the flame-gun. A _Raumboote_
would only have to withdraw out of range of our ship's flame, which it
could do easily with its high speed, and then we would be at its mercy.
It could lay off and sink _Genevive_ at leisure.

We were getting terribly dependent upon secrecy, much too much so. We
had had luck with a surprise attack; we must not overplay our hand.

If she could have a gun as well as the flame-thrower, a gun that would
sink a _Raumboote_, that would enable her to fight it out on even terms,
handicapped only by her less speed. Couldn't we possibly install a
20-cm. cannon in her--for example, an Oerlikon or a Hispano?

These thoughts raced round in my head all night and spoilt my sleep.
The matter seemed so important to me in the morning that I passed the
rest of my work over to my runner and went across to Naval Ordnance, and
got a handbook and an installation drawing of the gun. By midday I was
in the train again upon my way to Dartmouth, to see if we could not
possibly find room for it, somewhere, somehow.

I got there too late in the evening to do anything before dark. I had
arranged for a naval constructor to meet me on the ship at Dittisham
next morning, and early in the morning the truck called for me to take
me out to Dittisham, driven by the Wren.

"'Morning," I said, and got into the truck. "How's the rabbit?"

She smiled and flushed a little. "He's very well, sir," she replied.

It seemed to me that I had pulled her leg a little clumsily, and so I
said:

"I used to keep a rabbit when I was a boy. They're rather fun. But I
haven't had much to do with them since then."

We turned out of the College grounds into the main road. "This one is
tremendous fun," she said. "He's very tame with Lieutenant Rhodes. You
ought to see them having a boxing match together. I've never seen a
rabbit play like that. He plays just like a dog."

I said: "Rhodes is very good with animals, I suppose."

"I think he is," she said. "He gets very much attached to them. He had a
dog once that he had to put away when he joined up. He's still very much
cut up about that."

We drove on to the ship, where I met the constructor. I had a short talk
with Colvin about the gun; he was enthusiastic for it, but doubted if
they could find room for it. He got hold of Rhodes and we went down to
the hard and were put on board the ship; Boden met us at the gangway.

It was a disappointing forenoon. I had hoped that we could have sunk the
gun down the aft hatch; I had forgotten how much gear the ship already
had on board in the shape of extra fuel-tanks and the equipment of the
flame-gun. We worked over the problem for an hour, and came at last to
the conclusion that it was insoluble. For the gun to have any field of
fire at all it would have to stand up clear above the deck, betraying
the nature of the ship. It was impossible to fit that gun and still
maintain the appearance of a fishing vessel.

In the middle of this rather gloomy conference the air-raid sirens went
in Dartmouth, and in a very few minutes planes were overhead.

At that stage of the war a daylight raid in any force was quite unusual,
but there were eighteen aircraft in a squadron for this one. It was
probably the last raid to be made by Ju.87s upon England. I can't
imagine what the Germans did it for; there was nothing of real value to
them in the port at that time and they must have known that they would
lose heavily in the attack. It may be that they had wrong information of
the movements of our ships.

Each of the aircraft made two dives on Dartmouth and its shipping: in
the first they each dropped one five-hundred-kilogramme bomb, in the
second dive they dropped a pair of one hundreds. From our position three
miles up the river we had a grandstand seat of the whole thing. We saw
them screaming down in almost vertical dives and saw the bombs leave the
machines. In the crashing bursts of the explosions they zoomed up again,
perhaps to about five thousand feet, but a flight of three Hurricanes
was there by then.

There was little we could do to help, but Boden and Andr, with a couple
of men, were tumbling the Tommy-guns on deck. I said to Boden: "Those
things aren't much good. Don't waste ammunition on anything but a
close-range shot."

"Very good, sir."

Nevertheless, he worked on frantically to get the guns ready. The second
dive was spoilt for the attackers by the Hurricanes. The last German
aircraft zooming up from the first dive saw two of his comrades shot
down in savage bursts of fire, and saw the Hurricanes turning to attack
again. From being a disciplined and planned attack the thing developed
into something like a raid of wolves upon a flock of sheep. The
Hurricanes seemed to be everywhere at once; a third 87 went down in a
trail of flame, and then a fourth.

It was too hot for them. They made their last dive on the town and did
not zoom again; they swept on at a low altitude, hedge-hopping across
country and scattering, working round towards the sea. In that way the
fighters could no longer dive on them and, coming up behind, would be a
target for the rear-gunners in the 87s.

They scattered across country. One of them came jinking up the river
towards us between the wooded hills. Boden said, by my side: "Andr.
_Quand j'ai dit 'Tirez,' tirez en avance par deux longueurs de fuselage.
Compris?_"

The Breton said quietly: "_Oui, monsieur_. Lay off _deux longueurs en
avance_." The other Bretons nodded, fingering the guns.

There was a tense wait as the thing swept on towards us, only a hundred
feet up, taking cover in the valley between the hills. Then Boden
shouted: "_Tirez!_"

The Tommy-guns crackled out. I crouched down beside the wheel-house with
the naval constructor. I did not think this Tommy-gun fire would do any
good, but it was better than nothing. But I was wrong. The Jerry swerved
and pulled up violently. He passed very nearly over us, and his
rear-gunner gave us a vicious burst of fire. Nobody was hit and
presently the Tommy-guns reluctantly fell silent, but as the 87 went
away low across the hill towards the east it left behind it a white
plume of smoke that was not there before. "Glycol," I said. "You got his
radiator," and no one disagreed with me.

Later we heard that one had come down in the sea seven miles south-east
of Berry Head. There was no real evidence till the body of a German
rear-gunner was washed up ten days later and the surgeon found two
little Tommy-gun bullets in it. I claimed the machine then for
_Genevive_, and it was marked up to the ship.

After that interlude we turned back to the problem of the gun. In ten
more minutes we came to the conclusion that it was impracticable. If her
camouflage as a fishing vessel were to be maintained we could not fit
her with a cannon; it was not possible. The most that we could do was to
give her a few Bren guns in addition to the Tommy-guns she had; I
decided to see McNeil about that.

There was nothing then for me to wait for, and I had to get back to
London. It was doubtful if the raid would not have stopped the train
service temporarily from Kingswear, but I knew that V.A.C.O. would be
interested to hear the state of the town, and so I told the Wren to take
me into Dartmouth.

Rhodes came up just as I was getting into the truck with the
constructor. "May I have a lift in with you, sir?" he said.

I said: "By all means," and he got into the back.

We drove to N.O.I.C.'s office through streets littered with broken
glass, making a detour once to avoid a great heap of debris and dust
strewn across the road. At the Naval Centre I dismissed the truck, and
Rhodes drove off in it with the Wren in the direction of the net defence
store.

In the office I got the reports of damage as they came in; I stayed
there for about an hour. It was not a very bad account, considering the
determination of the Germans. An M.L. had been sunk by a near miss, but
it was in shallow water and she could probably be raised. Two lighters
had been sunk, and a number of ships slightly damaged. The total of
naval casualties was about thirty, of whom ten or twelve were dead.
Among civilians the casualty list was heavier. None of the schools had
been hit, but there was a fair list of damaged dwelling houses. One bomb
had fallen in the almshouses, and some of the old people had been
killed. And they had killed one rabbit!

Blast had burst down the doors of the net defence store yard, and had
thrown down the hutch. Within it the little furry body was stretched,
hardly cold; it had been very sudden, for a part-eaten frond of cow
parsley was clenched between the teeth. The body was unmarked, the fur
unruffled. A rabbit does not stand blast very well.

The naval officer took out the body gently, but it sagged limp in his
hands; there was nothing they could do. The girl said unevenly: "He
couldn't have known anything about it, Michael. He wasn't even
frightened. Look, he was still eating."

Rhodes turned to her, and she was shocked at his expression. He was
dead-white, and tears were streaming down his face.

"They had to pick this street, of all the streets," he said.

There was a pause; the girl did not know what to say to help him. Very
carefully he laid the body down upon the grass and stood erect,
thoughtful. Mechanically he got out his handkerchief and blew his nose.

The problem of burial occurred to her. She looked up at him. "What had
we better do, Michael?"

"I'll have to go to Honiton," he said. "I'd better go to-morrow. I'm
going to do something horrible to them for this."




8


I met McNeil in his office a few days later, at his request, and he told
me the arrangements he had made for Simon's journey to Douarnenez.
"There is this family, Le Rouzic," he said. "Once he gets to the farm he
should be quite all right."

I asked: "What name did you say?"

"It doesn't matter. They'll look after him, and take him in with them to
Douarnenez. They go in every Sunday morning. Most of the farmers go in
to Douarnenez on Sundays. I'm told that as many as fifteen hundred
strangers from the country go in in fine weather."

"We don't want that," I said, thinking of the approach to the coast.

He agreed. "What we want is a nice wet, misty Saturday night."

"What does the fishing fleet do on Saturdays?"

"Goes into harbour, late at night. They never go out on Sunday. They
sail again on Monday morning, very early, before dawn."

"The _Raumboote_ go in too?"

He nodded. "The coast should be quite clear around the Saints late on
Saturday night. It would be sheer bad luck if they ran into anything."

We discussed the arrangements for a little; given the right weather, it
seemed pretty safe. The weather had broken up nicely, and it looked as
if we were in for a good long spell of rainy, unsettled stuff coming in
from the Atlantic.

Presently he said: "I saw Major Carpenter, from Honiton, on Tuesday.
They're very busy with the new stuff for the flame-thrower."

I said: "What's that?"

He grinned. "I thought you knew about it. They're going to run the thing
on Worcester Sauce."

I stared at him. "What's Worcester Sauce? I thought they ran on oil."

He said: "Well, oil is still the basic part of it, of course. But
they've got this sort of cocktail now--oil with a lot of solids in
solution in some way. Carpenter was giving Rhodes a pretty good boost
over it, as a matter of fact. Making solid things dissolve in oil is
what he knows about, it seems."

I thought about the perfumes and the soya oil. "That's true enough," I
said. "That is his line in peace-time."

"It all sounds very complicated," he said. "They do it during the
cracking process. I didn't understand, but the result is Worcester
Sauce."

"How does it differ from oil?" I asked.

"It's hotter, and it leaves a nice warm glow behind," he said. "That's
why they call it that."

I did not smile. "What's it got in it?" I enquired. "What are the solids
that they put into the stuff?"

He told me.

I sat in silence for a minute. I am no chemist, and I don't know much
about what those things do to you. "That's pretty nasty stuff," I said
at last.

"Well," he said, "I wouldn't like to get a burn with it myself."

"It's all right--internationally--is it?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "It's not gas and it's not an acid. But
anyway, if the _Boche_ had thought of it first he'd have used it against
us fast enough."

There was no denying that. All I said was: "Well, they'll have to be
damn careful in handling it that they don't burn themselves."

I went away soon after that, but I was troubled about Worcester Sauce. I
went down to the club for lunch and there I saw Margeson, the
surgeon-commander. I got him on one side in the smoking-room. "Look," I
said. "There's something I want to ask you. Keep it quiet, though."

"What'll you have to drink, old boy?"

"I'll have a gin."

They came, and then I told him about the oil and the other things.
"Suppose you got a little splash of that on you," I said, "burning.
Would it be very bad?"

He stared at me, gin in hand. "You mustn't do that," he said. "You'd be
better off if you drank it."

"It makes a very nasty burn?"

He laughed shortly. "That's putting it mildly. I don't believe that it
would ever heal at all."

"I mean, just a little splash, about the size of--that," I said.

"Small or large, it'd go septic right away. And it would go on going
septic for a very long time. It's horrible stuff, that."

"It'd heal in the end?"

"It might do, if it didn't start a cancer."

We went in to lunch.

I went up to the library that afternoon, still troubled in my mind, and
got a copy of The Hague Convention, and took it down to my office. I
read it through that evening. But in those far-off days before the last
war nobody had even thought about flame warfare, so it seemed. Certainly
they had never visualized the use of Worcester Sauce against the enemy,
and there was nothing in the wording to prevent the use of it. There was
no paragraph to say that if you hurl a jet of blazing oil against the
Germans you must use clean oil.

I took the Convention back to the library and went to bed, but I didn't
sleep very well. I suppose I had been doing too much work.

About a week after that we sent _Genevive_ out again, one Saturday. The
weather forecast was fairly promising, and she left Penzance about
midday as before. She had definite instructions to avoid the enemy this
time; all she had to do was to land Simon and stand out to sea,
returning the next night to pick him up. McNeil went down to see her
off; I did not go.

By midday the next day she was back again. The weather had cleared up
off Ushant and turned into a fine starry night, with visibility
unlimited after the rain. It only lasted a few hours, but it spoilt
their game. If Simon had been ashore already Colvin would have risked
going in for him to take him off; as things were they abandoned the
venture and came home. I was very pleased with them for that. It was the
proper thing to do, and sensible.

It meant they lost another week, however. We had planned the whole thing
for a Saturday night, so that Simon could go into the town with the
peasant crowd on Sunday; I was unwilling to consent to a fresh plan to
save the week. I kept them where they were, kicking their heels in
Dartmouth for that week. Rhodes, I know, spent a good deal of that week
away with the Honiton organization and at the refinery, so that when
they finally did sail they had Worcester Sauce for fuel in the
flame-thrower tanks. I shut my eyes to that. If she had been a proper
naval vessel I should have had to have taken notice of it, but a fishing
vessel requisitioned by the Army was another matter, and I let it go.

They sailed again on the next Saturday, this time from Dartmouth. Three
weeks had elapsed since they had destroyed their _Raumboote_ and the
nights were much longer; it was the second of October. It was a nuisance
going to Penzance, and another possible source of leakage of
information; they were all in favour of sailing direct from their base
over to the other side.

The lapse of three weeks had both favourable and adverse features. It
would be more difficult, perhaps, to find out after that time whether
the loss of the _Raumboote_ was considered to be accidental--or it might
be easier, because there had been more time for gossip to get out. If
the Germans _were_ suspicious, as it seemed to me they must be, it was
clearly a good thing to go over on a night when the fishing fleet would
be in harbour and the _Raumboote_ too; _Genevive_ would be less likely
to run into trouble on the other side, especially after three weeks.
Time would have elapsed for things to simmer down a bit, and vessels
which had been urgent on patrol for a week might have gone back to other
duties.

The forecast for the region between Ushant and the Saints was wet mist
and fog, probably lasting over the week-end. I was down at Dartmouth to
see them off that time with McNeil. Simon was wearing a dirty, torn blue
suit of poor cloth and a continental cut, with pointed yellow shoes, a
yellow celluloid collar, and a vivid orange-and-blue tie, rather torn.
He had a very old black felt hat on his head with a blue band. He looked
like nothing that you ever see in this country; I hoped he knew his
stuff for Brittany.

The rest of them were in their fishing clothes; as usual it was raining
when they went. There was no ceremony or leave-taking. I stood on the
hard at Dittisham with McNeil and watched them cast off the mooring; the
little truck was close behind us with the Wren. They passed a warp from
the mooring to the transom and let her swing to that as they cast off
because the tide was on the ebb; then they let go and went away between
the wooded hills, down past the town, out past the harbour mouth on
their way over to the other side.

We turned back to the truck; they would be gone more than two days and I
was going back to London. The Wren opened the door for us to get in, and
I noticed she was looking tired and worn. She looked as if she wasn't
sleeping well.

I said: "You don't look so grand, Miss Wright. When did you have your
last leave?"

"About six months ago, sir."

"About time you had some more," I said. "I'll mention it to N.O.I.C."

She turned to me. "Please don't do that. I'm quite all right, and I
couldn't go on leave just now."

"Why not?"

"Not in the middle of all this, sir. I'm quite well, really. I don't
want to go away."

I thought before I spoke again. She was quite calm and not hysterical or
anything like that, but she was looking rotten. The officers were used
to her, of course, and that went for something; a strange driver would
be just a little bit more burden upon them. And then there was security
to think of too--and Rhodes.

I turned to McNeil. "We'll have to think of leave," I said. "It might do
the whole outfit good if they had a spell off between this and the next
operation."

       *       *       *       *       *

That was on Saturday morning. I worked on Sunday at my office in the
Admiralty because with all the time that I was spending upon _Genevive_
my normal work was getting in arrears. I had arranged with McNeil that
we should meet at Paddington next day and go down on the midday train to
Dartmouth; the ship could not arrive before Monday evening at the
earliest. But at about ten o'clock on Monday morning, when I still had
an hour and a half more office time before I went, McNeil rang me up.

"Martin," he said urgently. "Look. We're talking on an outside line.
Something has happened in the town we know about. It happened last night
or early this morning. Can you come over right away?"

I said: "I suppose I can. Is it good or bad for us?"

"Good for the war. I don't know anything about--about our closer
interest."

"I'll come round," I said.

I was with him in his office about ten minutes later. He had a flimsy on
his desk marked in red MOST SECRET. He passed it over to me. It said:

     DOUARNENEZ. October 4th. Two _Raumboote_ lying alongside the
     west harbour jetty have been destroyed by a violent fire
     commencing about 01.00. The fire involved two 75-cm. HA/LA guns
     mounted in emplacements on the jetty. German casualties are
     believed to be considerable. Allied action is suspected, and
     the civil population are greatly excited. Germans have been
     attacked and murdered in the streets. Ends.

I read this through a second time without speaking. Then I said: "This
is to-day's date. This all happened only a few hours ago."

"That's right," he said. "It was early this morning."

I waved the flimsy at him. "Where did this come from?"

He said a little shortly: "We get these reports." He screwed the flimsy
into a spill and lit it with his lighter, held it until it burned down
to his fingers and dropped it in the ash-tray.

"What do you think it means?" he asked. "Did they go right inside the
harbour in the middle of the night to do their stuff?"

I sat there brooding for a minute or two. "If they did that, I don't see
how they possibly could get away," I said at last. It was better to face
the facts. "Do you?"

"No," he said heavily. "I don't."

There was nothing we could do about it, and no chance of further news.
McNeil took some action of his own that was not my affair, and we went
down together on the midday train as we had fixed. It was a silent,
anxious journey for us both.

We got to Dartmouth at about five o'clock and walked up to the Naval
Centre. The truck was parked outside it and the Wren was there with it;
she stood up and saluted when she saw us. "Wait a bit," I said to her.
"I shall want you." We went into the office.

Nothing had come through about our ship. It was too early anyway for us
to have heard anything unless she had put in to Falmouth or Penzance,
and she had not done that. I had arranged this time for her to be
admitted to the port during the hours of darkness on the proper signals;
the nights now were so long that that was necessary. I checked up that
this was all in order, and then went outside with McNeil.

There was still about an hour of daylight. I said to the Wren: "Take us
up to that Watch Point again--where we went before."

"Very good, sir."

As we drove out of the town McNeil said cheerfully: "How's the rabbit?"

She did not answer for a moment. Then she said: "He's dead, sir."

"Dead? How did that happen?"

"He was killed in the air-raid."

I said: "I'm very sorry about that." She did not answer, and we drove on
to the Watch Point in silence.

The evening light was grey upon the sea when we got there; the rain held
off, but it was heavily overcast. There was no report of our ship;
indeed I had not expected that there would be. I had a word or two with
the old petty officer and told him what we were expecting; then there
was nothing we could do but hang around and wait. We should have been
more comfortable in the hotel, perhaps, but after London the sea air was
fresh up on that cliff.

I went aside presently and found Wren Wright sitting in her truck. "Miss
Wright, I'm very sorry to hear you lost that rabbit," I said. "Was
Rhodes upset?"

"He was a bit," she said. "He was such a nice rabbit." She hesitated. "I
think he felt it frightfully," she said. "You see, there was his dog as
well."

I hadn't heard that one, and with a little encouragement she told me all
about Ernest. She seemed to know a good deal about Rhodes. She told me
how they had found Geoffrey in his hutch.

"It was after that he went and worried them at Honiton to get out this
new oil," she said.

"Worcester Sauce?"

She nodded.

"Did he tell you what was in it?"

She shook her head. "He only said it makes burns very bad to heal. He
was terribly--bitter, sir, after the raid."

There was nothing to be said to that; it was just another little drop to
swell the flood of misery that comes from war. I turned back to the
Watch Point, but there was nothing new. It was now very nearly dark.

There was no object in staying there; they might come in any time during
the night, or else they might not come at all. McNeil and I went out
presently and got into the truck again. I said to the Wren: "Take us
down to the hotel--the one upon the quay."

"The Royal Sovereign." As we drove down I was thinking out what we had
better do. I felt that it was necessary for me to meet the ship as soon
as they came in, whatever hour it was. I had arranged for the young
surgeon-lieutenant with his ambulance to be at Dittisham all night if
need be; that was fixed up. But when they came in, quite apart from
wounded men, they might want anything. They might have prisoners--all
the officers might have been hit--they might have urgent news for
V.A.C.O.--anything. There might be any kind of an emergency demanding
energetic action, when my brass hat and McNeil's red tabs would carry
weight.

They could ring up the hotel from the Naval Centre when news of the ship
came in. I could get the Duty Officer to do that.

We drew up outside the hotel and got out; it was dark by that time. I
said to the Wren: "I shall want this truck to-night, Miss Wright, as
soon as they get in. You'd better park it here and let me have the key.
Then you can get along."

She said: "That's quite all right, sir. I'll be here."

"They may come any time," I said, "or they may not come in till
to-morrow." It was blackly in my mind they might not come at all. "If I
want the truck to-night I'll drive myself."

She said: "I'd rather wait." And then she said quickly: "It might be
very awkward if they came in and they--they kind of wanted anything and
you hadn't got a driver, sir."

I hesitated; there was truth in what she said, although I knew that
wasn't her real reason. She followed up before I could speak.

"I'll just slip back and tell them at the Wrennery and get my coat, sir.
I won't be more than ten minutes."

I said: "All right," and turned into the hotel with McNeil. We decided
that the only thing to do was to have dinner and sit by the fire till
something happened. I rang through to the Duty Officer and told him
where we were, and then we went and washed and had a gin in the bar, and
presently we had another. McNeil said: "Is that Wren of yours outside?"

It was raining in the street; I could hear it rippling in the gutter. "I
expect she is," I said. I went out to the door; in the dim light I saw
the dark mass of the van parked by the pavement a few yards away. I went
out in the rain and tried the door, and there she was, sitting at the
wheel.

"You'd better come inside, Miss Wright," I said. "It's cold as charity
out here."

She said: "I'm quite all right, sir."

"You'd better come on in. Brigadier McNeil wants to buy you a drink."

She laughed shyly and got out. I took her into the hotel and took her
coat; we went into the bar. McNeil was very good with her. "On a cold
night like this I should think you'd like a ginger wine," he said. "With
or without gin?"

She said: "Lieutenant Rhodes gives me a tomato-juice cocktail when we
come in here." She was refreshingly nave. "I think I'll stick to that."

He ordered it for her. I was not very familiar with the drink, and said:
"Does that have gin in it?"

"Non-alcoholic," said the brigadier. He took it from the barmaid. "It's
just tomato-juice and...other stuff."

"Worcester Sauce," the barmaid said. "Tomato-juice and Worcester Sauce,
that's all it is."

That made a little silence; we none of us could think of anything to
say. We talked about the weather and the war for a bit, but none of the
subjects that linked us together could be talked about in a bar, and in
the background of our minds was Worcester Sauce.

We took her in to dinner with us, after a little argument. "I had my tea
in the Wrennery before you came," she said. Still, she managed to do
pretty well in spite of that, and we gave her a glass of port to top up
with, and then we settled down in long chairs before the fire in the
smoking-room to wait.

We were still waiting there at midnight, half asleep.

I stirred as it struck twelve. I said: "You'd better go on back to the
Wrennery and go to bed, Miss Wright. I don't suppose they'll come now."

She said: "What are you going to do, sir?"

I yawned. "I'm going to have a double whisky. I shall stay up a bit
longer."

She said: "I think I ought to stay, sir. I'll go and see if I can make a
cup of tea."

She went and raked out the night porter, and presently she came back
with her tea while McNeil and I drank whisky. There was nothing we could
do but wait. McNeil made up the fire. Then we sat on before it, half
asleep, hour after hour.

At twenty-five to three the telephone-bell rang. I roused and heard the
night porter going to it in the passage. I went out and took the
receiver from him.

"Duty Officer here, sir," it said. "Your ship has just signalled for
permission to come in."

A great load slipped from my shoulders. "Fine," I said. "I shall wait
here till I hear her pass up-river; then I shall get along to Dittisham
and meet her there."

I rang off; behind me were McNeil and the Wren. "Coming in now," I said.
"We'll wait here till she passes and then get along."

McNeil said we'd better have another whisky, and I didn't disagree. The
Wren was radiant. "It's splendid--I've been terribly anxious. It's
silly, I know."

"They've done a bit of good this time," I told her. And then the
telephone-bell went again.

"Duty Officer here, sir. Your ship has just made this signal: 'Request
permission to berth alongside at Dartmouth to land casualties.' Is that
all right?"

"That's all right," I said. "Where will you put her?"

He thought for a minute. "It's raining so hard. The west ferry pontoon
is vacant, and that's got a roof. The ambulance can back down there and
we can have some light. I'll put her at the west ferry pontoon, sir."

I said: "Right. Make that signal to her. Then ring up the hospital and
tell them to prepare for casualties." Behind me I could feel the Wren
listening. "Ring up Dittisham and get that ambulance and the surgeon
back, quick as they can get. See if the hospital can send down a few
ratings for stretcher-bearers, and get a rating or two down to the
pontoon to help them berth her."

"Very good, sir."

I put down the receiver and turned to McNeil. "She's got some casualties
to land. She was bound to have, from what we heard. She should be
berthing before long now."

By my side the Wren said timidly: "Have they been in action again, sir?"

I glanced down at her; all the sparkle had gone out of her and she was
looking tired and worn. I could not tell her much. "They were in action,
I think," I said. "If what we heard was true, they've done very well.
But we shall know before long."

We gulped down the whisky and put on our coats. It was pouring with
rain; outside it was pitch-dark and windy, a dirty kind of night. The
streets and the quayside were quite deserted. The pontoon was only a
hundred yards from the hotel; I sent the Wren to drive the truck round
and McNeil and I walked across through the rain.

For a time we three huddled on the pontoon, finding what shelter there
was in the black darkness between bales and crates, staring down over
the black running water to the river mouth. Then she came. We saw her
moving white mast-head light and then her red port light; we stood there
watching those two slowly moving lights till she loomed up on top of us
out of the darkness to the slow uneven chugging of her engine in the
rain.

A truck drew up just before she berthed, and a petty officer and a
couple of ratings in oilskins tumbled out of it and began fumbling with
a flood-light of some sort to get it rigged. I moved up to a bollard and
caught her heaving-line myself, and with McNeil pulled in her warp and
made her fast. The ratings took her stern line and the light came on;
then we were over the bulwark and on board.

In the shadowy light we saw that she had taken punishment. There was a
gaping hole in deck and bulwarks at the bow, starboard side, close up
beside the stem; they seemed to have stuffed it up from the inside with
sails or mattresses. Around the flame-gun it looked as if they had had a
fire. One hatch was open. Half of the little wheel-house had been
carried away, and the same burst had damaged the engine, cracking one
cylinder casting; they had come home on five.

Colvin came to meet me from the wheel. "'Evening, Colvin," I said. "What
casualties have you got?"

"One stretcher case," he said. "Louis Richier got a splinter in his
back. Then there's two walking cases. Captain Simon lost two fingers,
sir--left hand. Jules Clisson--he's got a wound in the throat and jaw."

I said: "Any dead?"

"Two, sir. Andr, the _matre_, he got killed right out. I made that
chap Rollot _matre_ in his place right away; them Frenchies won't work
right without they have a straw-boss. And then Caspar, one of the two
Danes, he died about midday."

It was a heavy list for so small a ship's company. "I'm very sorry you
got this bad luck," I said. "Did you go into the harbour?"

He stared at me. "How in heck did you know that?"

"We got a report a few hours afterwards from somewhere on the other
side. It said you got two _Raumboote_ moored up against the quay."

"Sure we did," he said. "We made a proper muck of them. But then one of
them little cannon, like you wanted us to have, got going and did all
this to us in two shakes just as we were getting back into the rain."

"You're not hurt yourself?"

"Not a scratch, nor Boden, nor Rhodes. Rhodes got a bit of fire all
round about him when they split his oil-pipe for him, but he hopped out
all right. I reckon his asbestos overall saved him."

"Did he get burned at all?" I asked, thinking of Worcester Sauce.

"I looked him all over this morning myself, but I couldn't find nothing.
I reckon he was too darned quick."

The rain streamed down upon us steadily; in the shadowy half-light
everything was soaking wet. The ship had water in her, too; I could hear
it swishing as she moved at the pontoon. "She's not making much," said
Colvin. "We pump her out each watch, 'n that's enough to keep it under."

The ambulance came slowly backing on to the pontoon, and the young
surgeon came on board. "It's a fine show," I said to Colvin. "Far better
than I ever thought you'd do. Now let's get these casualties on shore."

Simon, still in his blue civilian suit, his left hand grotesquely
bandaged and in a sling, was talking to McNeil down aft. I had a word
with him, and then set to work with the surgeon to get the stretcher
case on deck and to the ambulance. I glanced aside as the stretcher was
eased over the bulwarks on to the pontoon. In the dim semi-darkness
Rhodes was standing on the pontoon with his Wren, in among the crates,
in the wet, windy rain. He was in fishing clothes, as they all were. The
two were standing very close together, holding hands, watching what went
on on board the ship. They did not seem to be talking.

We got the casualties into the ambulance and it moved off. McNeil was
taking Simon independently to the hospital; it was necessary that he
should get his information out of Simon before the doctors got at him to
dull his mind with pain or drugs. They went into the truck with the Wren
driving them; I saw them off and turned to Rhodes.

"You've had a pasting," I said. "I'm very sorry. How did you come to go
in there?"

He was dead-tired, almost falling over as he stood. "Simon told us when
he came back," he said. "You couldn't miss a chance like that. If
there'd been fifty men behind us we could have taken the whole town."

He was too tired to give a proper story, and I didn't ask for more. "As
it is," I said, "you'll take a drop of leave." I turned back to the
ship. Colvin was there on deck, and Boden with him. "Would you like to
leave her berthed here for the night?" I asked. "I'll get you transport
up to Dittisham. Or will you take her up?"

He said: "The ferry comes here in the morning. And besides, she's not
just like we'd care to have the public looking at her, sir, in daylight.
I'd like to take her to the mooring 'n finish off the job."

I nodded; it was better so. I went to telephone the shore party to get
out in the motor-boat to meet us at the mooring with a lantern, and to
telephone to the young surgeon to get back to Dittisham. Then I got back
on _Genevive_; we cast off and felt our way up-river in the darkness
and the rain.

Boden was standing by me at one time. I said to him: "You're not hurt,
Boden?"

He shook his head. "I was lucky. But we hurt a lot of Jerries, sir.
Rhodes must have got over fifty with the flame-gun this time, on the
_Raumboote_ and the jetty."

"The French got some," I told him. "They seem to have risen and attacked
them in the streets."

"The French did? Oh, that's fine..." he breathed.

I saw them all on shore and the ship safely in the hands of the base
party. Back in the villas I stayed with them while they had a meal; most
of them were too tired to eat and took only a drink of cocoa or of wine
before they tumbled into bed to sleep. One or two wanted the assistance
of the surgeon and his sedatives; I stayed there till they were all
asleep. The young surgeon would stay with them till they woke, sleeping
himself upon an empty cot.

It was six o'clock and very nearly dawn before I was ready to go. The
Wren was waiting there for me with the truck, looking about all in. She
drove me back to Dartmouth in the rain.

This is the story of what happened on their operation, made out from the
official report and from what they told me in conversation from time to
time:

       *       *       *       *       *

After they left Dartmouth they set a course to pass ten miles off
Ushant, and they held to that all day. It was raining practically the
whole time that they were out, with only short intervals; we had chosen
those conditions for their trip, of course, but it didn't make it easier
for them. Apart from navigation difficulties, they were all wet after
the first few hours, and stayed wet for the remainder of the time.

They saw a German aeroplane towards the evening of the first day,
perhaps thirty miles from the north coast of Brittany, flying
north-west. It was a Heinkel III; it passed within a mile and it paid no
attention to them. No report it may have made of them flying low and
purposeful just underneath the clouds, did them any harm.

They were off Ushant at about eight o'clock at night in darkness and wet
mist, and altered course down into L'Iroise. From then onwards it was
tricky, anxious work for Colvin and Boden. Visibility was practically
nil; from time to time they heard the foghorn at Le Jument, but not
clearly enough to take a bearing of it. They went ahead boldly trusting
to their tidal calculations and dead reckoning, and stopping every now
and then to make a sounding to compare with the depth shown at their
estimated position on the chart.

Two hours later they had run their distance. They were making for a
little rocky cove that lies between Beuzec and the Saints. The cliffs
run straight along that portion of the coast a hundred feet or so in
height, but at this cove a sheep-track ran down to a tiny beach,
completely covered at high water. They had a good map of the country
behind. Simon had studied it till he knew the way from the beach to Le
Rouzic farm by heart, but now their trouble was to find the beach.

They were surrounded by a wet, clammy mist; it was pitch-dark and they
could see nothing. Soundings supported their dead-reckoning position,
more or less, but that meant little over a sea bottom that was generally
flat. They stopped their engine and lay for a minute or two listening.
They heard nothing.

They put the engine on again and went ahead dead slow, peering into the
darkness, ready to go hard astern before they struck. They went on for
ten minutes, stopped again to listen, and went on. Then they stopped
again, and this time they heard the wash of waves upon rocks and
sea-birds crying in the darkness. Immediately Colvin anchored, and they
had a consultation in the tiny chart-room.

"This is the coast all right," the navigator said. "But where your beach
is I'm darned if I know. It might be three miles either way of us."

Simon said: "Three miles only? Not more than that?"

Colvin shook his head. "We should be within that much." They had
confidence in him.

Simon folded up the map and put it in the inside pocket of his blue
civilian suit. "I will go and see if I can climb the cliff," he said.
"To-morrow night I will be at the beach at midnight. If it is clear, you
steam along the coast if you cannot find the beach, and I will flash the
torch. If it is thick, like this, then Boden lands and comes to meet me
at Le Rouzic farm; the boat waiting on the rocks. That is quite clear?"

"Okay."

"If you do not find me, you must not stay here after three o'clock. You
must go back to England; I will get back in another way."

They turned out the little oil lamp over the chart-table, pulled back
the hatch, and went on deck. The Bretons had put the light punt that
they carried over the side; it lay against the topsides in the running
tide. Two of the Bretons dropped down into it and Simon followed them;
Boden came last of all.

From the deck Colvin said softly: "All the best," and Rhodes said: "Good
luck." The painter was dropped down into the bows and the punt slid
astern; she vanished from their sight before the oars were shipped.

Presently, pulling straight inshore, they came to rocks on which the sea
was breaking. They skirted them eastwards till they found a possible
landing in a cleft, and Simon clambered out in the dim light, slipping
and stumbling as he went. From the boat Boden watched him venturing
towards the shore for ten yards; then he was lost to sight.

It was arranged that he should flash a series of dots with the torch
from the cliff-top if he were safely up; a series of dots and dashes was
a call for help. They lay off in the punt a little distance from the
rocks where he had landed, straining their eyes into the darkness. A
quarter of an hour later came a series of dots well up above their
heads. They turned the punt and rowed out to sea, heading a little bit
up-tide and steering with a dim light over the boat compass. They found
the vessel with some difficulty and got the punt on board. Then they
weighed, turned to the north-west to give a wide berth to the Saints,
and put to sea.

       *       *       *       *       *

Simon had little difficulty with the climb. He found a spur of rock and
went straight up the ridge; it grew steeper, but presently he felt grass
roots and earth beneath his hands. He went on up a steep, grassy slope,
scrambling upwards with hands, feet, and knees. The darkness and the
mist prevented him from seeing what he was doing, which was perhaps as
well; it struck him presently that the sea noise was very nearly
straight below him. Then the slope eased, and presently he could stand
up. He turned, and with his torch shaded by his open coat, made his
series of dots in the direction that he judged he had come from. Then he
faced inland and went on.

He had a little luminous compass, and by this he made his way inland. He
came to a stone wall, crossed it, and went on over what appeared to be a
pasture, stumbling among gorse-bushes. Then came a field of stubble and
another pasture, and then there was a wood before him.

He shaded the torch carefully and looked at his watch. It was ten
minutes past twelve; he had been on shore about an hour. Counting the
time that he had taken to climb up the cliff, he judged that he had come
about a mile inland; half a mile farther on there should be a road
running parallel to the coast.

He skirted round the wood and found the road immediately.

He stood behind the hedge with the road before him; if there were German
patrols they would very likely be upon it, and he did not dare to risk a
meeting. No French civilian would be innocently wandering the roads
beside the coast at midnight on a night like that; an encounter with the
Germans would mean certain arrest. He was uncertain which way he should
go. The road ran roughly east and west; it was marked on his map, but he
might be anywhere along the length of it.

He stood there, sniffing at the wind and rain. Presently it came into
his mind that he was too far to the east; he turned west and began to
follow the road, skirting along behind the stone walls that bordered it,
following the field. His eyes were well accustomed to the darkness by
that time; he could see about ten yards through the driving rain. He was
soaked to the skin.

He went about half a mile, and came to a cart-track leading into the
road and a ruinous barn beside it. He gave the barn a very wide berth;
it might well be a German strong-point full of enemy troops. Two hundred
yards farther on he huddled down into a thicket of brambles, pulled out
his map, and very cautiously examined it in a faint glow from his torch.
He was all wrong. The wood and the barn and the track were shown
approximately in the relationship that he had discovered, but he was a
good two miles too far west. He must go back and go the other way.

At about half-past two the buildings of Le Rouzic farm loomed up before
him. In London, in the office in Pall Mall, warm, well lit, comfortable,
and secure, he had been told what he must do. The lad in the French
uniform had told him in great detail. He must not go through the yard
because the dog was there. He must be very careful in case Germans were
billeted there, as sometimes happened. He must go through the orchard;
in the darkness and the rain he found his way. He must leave the pond
upon his left and he would come to the _laiterie_; counting from the
door, the first two windows must be passed by. The third window was the
one.

Simon stood there, drenched in the rain and wind, tapping in the rhythm
that he had been taught.

Presently the window stirred and opened a chink. The voice of an old man
whispered in the Breton dialect: "Is anybody there?"

Simon said: "I have a letter for you from your son."

The old man whispered: "There is a door along this way. Go there and I
will let you in."

Ten minutes later he was sitting by the fire, newly revived with wood,
stripping the wet clothes off him. A candle stood upon the table. The
old man, in night-shirt and a jacket over it, was reading the letter
aloud, slowly and carefully. His wife stood by him, bare feet showing
under her black dress, hastily put on; the grey hair hung down on her
shoulders. Hovering in the background there were other women, partly
dressed, keeping out of sight, and listening.

The letter came to an end:

     I send my most devoted love to _chre mama_, and to you, _cher
     papa_, and to my sisters and to Aunt Marie. I am well and I
     have been to the dentist for my teeth and I may be sent to
     Syria before long, which will be better because here everything
     is very dear and there is no wine. Help the man who brings this
     letter if you safely can. I am your most devoted and loving
     son,

                                                             PIERRE.

The old man came to the end and there was silence in the room, broken
only by the crackle of the wood upon the fire. There was a long pause.
Then the old woman passed her hands down her dress, evidently an
habitual gesture. "Is he hungry?" she enquired. "There are eggs--and
milk."

Simon turned to her: "I have eaten recently," he said in French. "I
would like to sleep till dawn."

"There is a box bed." She pointed to a recess in the wall of the
kitchen.

The old man said: "In the morning what will you do?"

Simon said: "I want to go into Douarnenez for the day. I have the proper
papers. In the evening I will come back here, if it is safe. At night I
will go back--where I have come from."

The old man said: "All the world goes into Douarnenez on Sunday. There
is the bed. Leave your clothes out for them to dry before the fire. In
the morning we will devise your journey; one does not start before nine
o'clock. Perhaps I will come in with you myself. Perhaps we will all go,
as if it is a party."

Shortly before eleven the next morning Simon reached Douarnenez.

He got there by train, in a slow train that ran along the line from
Audierne, that they had joined at Pont Croix. To reach the station they
had driven through the rain in a very old victoria once painted brown,
drawn by one of the farm horses. They were a mixed party. There were Le
Rouzic and his wife, dressed in their Sunday black. There was a Madame
Jeanne with them, a formidable old lady with the makings of a beard
whose status Simon did not understand. There was a little girl about ten
years old called Julie, who seemed to be a great-niece of Le Rouzic, and
there was a fat bouncing girl of twenty-two or so called Marie, who
seemed to be a daughter of the house. She had a baby called Mimi about
six months old.

Simon carried the baby. It was explained to him, and he readily
understood, that it was correct in Brittany on Sunday for a father to
carry his baby. He knew that very well, and he knew also that a baby was
as good a cover as any spy could wish to have. He explained to them at
the farm that he had never been a father and did not know a great deal
about the matter, so before they started they showed him how to change
its napkin.

He walked stiffly because of a strip of hoop-iron from a barrel in the
farm-yard bound behind his right knee; it would not do to seem too
able-bodied. So he passed through the station wicket into Douarnenez,
carrying the baby, leading little Julie by the hand, and arguing with Le
Rouzic about brands of cement--one of the few subjects that they could
maintain an argument upon. Le Rouzic put up all his own farm buildings.
So they passed the German sentry and the Gestapo official, showing their
passes and continuing the argument in a slightly lower tone while their
papers were glanced over. Pressed by the crowd behind they were urged
forward into the street.

The rain had stopped for the moment, but it was still windy and wet. By
arrangement they separated in the town. The old people went off to mass,
taking Julie with them; Simon, still carrying the baby, went with the
daughter down towards the harbour.

As they went he said: "Madame, in spite of everything, it would be
better if you went to church with the others. There is danger for you
and the little one in being seen with me."

She shrugged her shoulders. "There is danger everywhere in these times.
Besides, you will spend more money for our refreshment than my father,
and that will be a change for me, and interesting."

He said quietly: "Madame, I will do that very willingly."

They went down the narrow, cobbled streets towards the harbour. There
were a few Germans in the streets, strolling around awkwardly in pairs
or little bands. They did not seem to mix with the people or even to use
the same cafs; there was an air of sullen uncertainty about them.

"Bad things have happened in this place," the girl said by his side.
"There have been very many murders."

Simon shifted the baby on his shoulder and said nothing.

The harbour opened out before them, and he paused to look around,
flogging his keen, retentive memory. There were two _Raumboote_ moored
at the stone jetty which formed the north arm of the harbour; there were
no other warships in sight, though the anchorage was crammed with
fishing vessels lying close-packed at the moorings, jostling each other.
On the jetty there were two guns opposite the _Raumboote_ pointing to
seaward over the stone wall, with steel shields and concrete
emplacements open to the harbour side. There was a searchlight post at
the extreme seaward end of the jetty, put there, no doubt, to pick up
vessels coming into port. There were no other guns or armament in sight.

He did not linger to look at the harbour; that was not in the part of a
farmer from the country. Carrying the baby and with the young woman at
his side, he turned into the Caf de la Rpublique; it was nearly empty,
with only a few fishermen in Sunday black discussing at the tables.
Simon and Marie picked a table near the back of the room by the wall,
set down and unpacked the basket that she carried, and commenced the
domestic operation of changing the baby's napkin.

From behind the bar mademoiselle, the daughter of the house, came to
them for their order and to view the operation. It had begun to rain
again. She said something about the weather, and Simon replied in the
French of Seine-et-Oise.

She glanced at him in curiosity. "Monsieur is from the east?"

Simon nodded carelessly: "_She_"--indicating Marie--"is Breton. Myself,
I worked in a factory near Paris till the English came and bombed it
flat--no higher than one metre, mademoiselle, no part of it. Now I am to
work upon the farm."

The girl nodded; it was not an uncommon story. She took his order for a
coffee for Marie and for a Pernod. Simon said: "Does Monsieur Bozallec
come here on Sundays?"

She said: "In the afternoon. In one hour or one hour and a half. If
monsieur wants to see him, he lives in the Rue de Locranon, just round
the corner."

"I have a message for him from my father-in-law," said Simon. He took
directions from her how to find the house and ordered _djeuner_ for
them when it was ready.

Ten minutes later he was knocking at the door of a rickety fisherman's
stone cottage in the narrow street, having left Marie with the baby in
the caf. The old fisherman opened the door to him, dressed in the usual
suit of Sunday black with no collar. Simon said: "Good morning,
monsieur. Have you yet tied the Germans up in bundles and set fire to
them?"

The old man stared at him. "It is the traveller in cement. I remember.
What do you want with me?" He stared suspiciously at Simon.

Simon said: "If we may talk in your house, monsieur." Rather unwillingly
the fisherman let him in; they stood together in the tiny, littered
kitchen.

Simon said: "I was a traveller in cement when I came here last time, but
that is not true now. Now I come as one who has been bombed in the east,
and works upon a farm out by Pont Croix. I am a wandering man, monsieur,
and not quite what I seem, but I serve Brittany in my own way."

The old man said: "What way is that?"

Simon hesitated for an instant, and then took the plunge. He said: "I
carry information to the English."

The fisherman glanced at him shrewdly. "To the English or to the
Germans?"

"To the English, Monsieur Bozallec."

There was a silence. "I will believe what you say," the old man said at
last. "But I will tell you this. If you are lying, if you serve the
Gestapo, you will not escape. You come from the east; I know that by
your talk. In this place we do not have Quislings. They do not live
long. Remember that."

Charles Simon said: "Those who carry information to the English
sometimes do not live so long."

There was a short silence. Bozallec asked: "What have you come here for?
What is it that you want?"

Simon faced him. "I want information," he replied. "News for the
English, so that they may fight the Germans better. I have come to you
because I think you are an honest man and a brave one, and one who can
find out the things I want to know. You can betray me now to the
Gestapo; you can have me killed. That is a matter that lies wholly in
your hands."

The fisherman said: "What is it that you want to know?"

Simon bent towards him. "There was a ship destroyed by fire," he said,
"three weeks ago." The other nodded. "A German _Raumboote_. Did any of
the Germans escape from the fire? Were any of them picked up?"

Bozallec said: "Three were picked up, all dead and burnt and floating in
their life-belts in the water. One was a _Leutnant_; I think he was the
captain. He once had a beard. I was out myself that night in my boat,
fishing, and I saw the body. Then there was a _Seekadett_ and a seaman.
All were dead and floating in the water, burnt."

"There were no living survivors?"

"None at all."

"How do the people say the fire began?"

The old man stared at him. "It was an explosion of the fuel-tanks on
board the _Raumboote_. Perhaps some idiot fired a flare into a tank, or
possibly the engine went on fire."

"Is that what the Germans think?"

The old man shrugged his shoulders. "I do not keep in company with swine
like that."

Charles Simon said: "Listen, monsieur. I have my duty to perform, the
information that I have to find. I do not always understand the reason
why the English want to know these things, hardly ever. But now I have
to find out what the Germans think about that accident. Do they accept
it as a simple accident? Or do they think that it was sabotage? Or else
perhaps some English aeroplane had dropped a bomb? What do the Germans
think?"

Bozallec stared at him keenly. "Did the English do it?"

Simon shrugged expressively. "I do not know. Only I am to find out what
the Germans think. If you can help me, do so; if not, I will go
elsewhere."

"And find yourself betrayed." There was a silence. "How long are you
here in Douarnenez?"

"Till four o'clock this afternoon only. Then I go out by the train. I
will come back again if it is necessary, but that is dangerous."

The fisherman said: "It is very short, the time. But the Lemaigne woman
who cleans the offices hears much of what the German officers are
saying. And also the girl in the Caf Raeder..."

Simon left the cottage shortly after that and walked down to the quay.
The _Raumboote_ had not stirred; evidently they were in for Sunday with
the fishing fleet, having their day off. They lay along the quay, bows
in towards the shore; the nearest fishing-boats lay at their moorings a
hundred yards or so from their beam. Yet there were fishing-boats at
sea.

The rain was lighter momentarily and he could see a little way across
the bay. There were several boats out there in the shallow water; they
seemed to be trawling, though it was a Sunday. He strained his eyes, but
could not see a _Raumboote_ guarding them. He turned back to the Caf de
la Rpublique; this would require some explanation.

Marie was sitting where he had left her, the baby on the seat beside
her; she was sewing some little garment made of pink linen. Mindful of
his part, Simon took the baby and made a fuss of it in what he hoped was
a convincing manner; immediately it wetted on his knee. He sat there
with it, chatting to Marie, until their _djeuner_ was ready; he ordered
a carafe of red wine, which pleased the girl. They fed the baby through
the meal on bits of bread sopped in milk and wine. There was nothing
that he could do but wait till Bozallec arrived.

Outside it started to rain hard, and they had coffee.

At about two o'clock the old fisherman came in, wet through, and dropped
down in a chair at their table after the introduction. He glanced around
the room. "This is a safe place," he said. "We can talk, but not too
loud."

Simon bent towards him. "You have information for me?"

"I have information." The old man paused. "The Germans say that it was
sabotage," he said, "and they are still busy trying to find evidence
against us. They may do so by inventing it; it is all one to them."

"Was it sabotage, do you think?"

Bozallec shrugged his shoulders. "Not that I know of. Not by anybody
here."

"Why do they think it was?"

The fisherman said: "It is interesting, that. Both Lemaigne and the girl
say the same, and it is this. The Germans say that there was a long
streak of flame outwards from the _Raumboote_ a long, long way. It was
all distant, you understand; perhaps two kilometres. It was not easy to
see clearly. But several of them saw this streak of fire right outwards
from the ship."

Simon said: "How could that be?"

"They say there was a time-bomb planted inside one of the fuel-tanks.
When it went off it burst open the fuel-tank and possibly the ship as
well, and burning oil flew outwards in a streak." He paused. "It was a
good idea, and well thought of if it was true."

There was a long pause. Simon ordered Pernod for them both. Bozallec
said: "That is all I could find out."

"It is all that the English wish to know at present."

They sat in silence for a time. Presently Simon asked: "Those vessels in
the bay. I thought you did not fish on Sunday?"

The other spat on to the floor. "Some do. They trawl around the bay near
here. The Germans pay double for Sunday fish in this worthless money."

"Are _Raumboote_ out there with them?"

The old man shook his head. "There are two only in the port just now and
there they are. They have their Sunday off. Each of the boats trawling
has a German in it, and they are not allowed to go out far. They cannot
get away, if that is what you think."

"Do they stay out at night?"

"Till eight o'clock. Sometimes all night, but not often."

"And each boat after dark must show an orange light?"

The old man nodded casually.

Simon sat staring out of the window at the harbour for several minutes,
thinking hard. Presently he turned again to Bozallec.

"I see two guns upon the jetty," he said quietly. "The English will be
interested in that. They are manned at night?"

"Assuredly. They are manned all the time."

"Are there any other guns about the harbour?"

"No big ones like that. Those are seventy-fives. There are more of them
at Beuzec and at La Chvre. The soldiers have their tanks and guns, and
little guns, of course."

They talked about the harbour and the defences for some time. An idea
was growing in Simon's mind, the outline of a game that he must play out
to the end.

He said presently: "One day the English will arrive here, and they will
force a landing. It will not be this year; it may not even be next year,
but one day they will come. The _Gaullistes_ will be with them; when
that day comes France will be French again, and free. When that happens,
will the people of Douarnenez assist the landing?"

Bozallec said: "If we are told the day, the people will fight like
demons, with fire and nails and teeth against the Germans."

Simon eyed him keenly. "If the British sent you guns--small automatic
rifles that they call Tommy-guns--they would be used?"

The old fisherman drew in his breath. "If the British sent us guns like
that the whole country would fight. Not only the people of Douarnenez,
but the people on the farms also."

"It would be necessary to hide them till the day."

"Assuredly."

"I will tell the English what you say," said Simon.

He bent towards the fisherman. "We have not very much more time,
Monsieur Bozallec," he said. "Listen carefully to what I have to tell
you now, because I shall not come again. The _Raumboote_ that was burnt
was attacked, and burnt up, and destroyed by the English." The old man
stared at him. "I cannot tell you how they did it, but that is true. Let
the people know."

"Some of the people believe that already, but it is what they wish to
think."

Simon said: "I will give them proof that the English did it. Very soon
now another _Raumboote_ will be destroyed by fire. It may be next week,
it may not be for a month, or it may be to-night. When that happens you
will remember what I tell you now, that the English are killing Germans
on your own doorstep."

The man's face lit up. "I will remember that."

Simon said: "Now there is another thing. That _Raumboote_ first will be
destroyed by fire, as the last one was. You will then remember me, and
believe what I am telling you. And after that a message will come to
you. It will tell you what you have to do to get the guns that the
English will send."

He paused and thought for a minute. "I cannot tell you how that message
will arrive, or who will bring it," he said at last. "But you will know
it in this way. I am Charles Simon. The message will begin: 'Charles
Simon says...' and then will follow what you have to do to receive
the guns. That is understood?"

The old man said: "Perfectly. First another _Raumboote_ will be set on
fire, and then the message will arrive beginning: 'Charles Simon
says...' We shall not fail to do our part, monsieur."

Soon after that Simon left the Caf de la Rpublique. Carrying the baby,
and with Marie at his side, he walked back to the station through the
rain.

       *       *       *       *       *

In _Genevive_ the day passed very slowly. They had steamed out
west-north-west from the Saints for about thirty miles in the darkness
and the rain. By that time they were out of the direct route for Brest
from any other port, unlikely to be picked up by patrol vessels. They
shut down their engine then and set their big lug sail upon the mast,
and stood on slowly upon the same course, towing a weighted drogue
astern of them to simulate a trawl.

The dawn came, wet and windy. They were far out in the Atlantic by that
time and their danger lay in German aircraft and in German submarines.
It was quite on the cards that they would be picked up by a submarine
homing into Brest or setting out upon a cruise. They had to take their
chance of that. The _matre_, Andr, took the wheel ready to hail back
in Breton to any submarine that accosted them. Rhodes flaked down a sail
below decks beside the flame-thrower and went to sleep on that, ready
for instant action; Colvin and Boden went down to the cuddy. Only the
Free French Breton lads remained on deck. Colvin was taking no chances
with the scrutiny that a submarine would make by periscope before
approaching them.

In the cuddy the day passed slowly. Boden and Colvin slept, and lay
awake, and ate, and slept again; the vessel heaved and strained and
water dripped in through the skylight, making the place wet and squalid.
Colvin had a dog's-eared copy of an American paper magazine entitled
_True Stories of the West_; he lay on his back on the bunk reading about
cowboys and their broncos till the light began to fail in the dim cuddy
about mid-afternoon. From time to time he got up and called up to Andr
in the wheel-house, but there was nothing to report.

He sat down on his bunk at last, idle, and stared around. "Time goes
slow, don't it?" he observed to Boden.

The R.N.V.R. officer said: "Fed up with reading?"

"Aye. It's getting too dark. We ought to have a radio." It had never
struck them that they would have time to listen to the wireless on
operations in that ship.

Boden said: "Try the light over the chart-table. You can read there."

Colvin shook his head. "No. I like them stories well enough, but when
you read the one you've read the lot." He paused. "You didn't think to
bring them poker dice?"

They had nothing, not even a pack of cards. Boden said: "Try writing
letters. Use the back of the signal-pad."

"Who'd I write a letter to?"

The other said: "You might try Junie."

There was a silence lasting into minutes. "You want to keep your mouth
shut about what don't concern you," Colvin said at last. He got on to
his bunk and turned over for sleep, his back to Boden.

They stood into the coast with the last of the light and picked up their
bearings again. In the darkness they edged in till the cliffs loomed
near them and they heard the wash of waves on rocks; then they anchored,
not quite knowing where they were. At about eight o'clock the weather
cleared for a brief spell; the moon was setting down near the horizon
and gave light enough for them to take a bearing on the high bluff of La
Chvre. They got up anchor, crept a short way back westwards along the
coast, and found their cove without great difficulty.

They went right inshore there, anchoring barely a hundred yards from the
beach. Presently they put their dinghy into the water to be in
readiness.

At midnight, punctually, they saw the flashes of the torch that meant
that Simon was there. Two of the Breton lads went tumbling into the boat
and Boden followed them, carrying a Tommy-gun in case of accidents. A
few minutes later they were back with Simon, still in his civilian
clothes and very wet.

Simon went straight to Colvin. "Is all ready for fighting?" he enquired.

The other said: "Sure it is. Who do you want to fight?"

"Listen, and I will tell you." The other officers gathered by them; he
told them all that he had seen in Douarnenez. "They are there now," he
said, "moored up beside the quay. It is a snip; we will get both of
them, and also the two guns as well."

Colvin laughed. "Try everything once," he said. "How are we going to get
in the harbour without being spotted? Like as if we was one of them
trawlers in the bay, got left out late? We'll want an orange shade over
the light."

It had begun to rain again. "Can you find the entrance to the harbour in
the dark?"

"I guess so," Colvin said. "It's not so difficult, built out into the
bay the way it is. If we hit up against a rock that's just too bad."

They weighed anchor and made off to the north in the direction of La
Chvre. Half-way there they altered course for Douarnenez; it was
raining steadily by then and visibility was very poor. They lit their
lantern, fixed the orange shade on it, and set it up upon the mast,
confident that in that weather nobody would see the light come into
being. Then they set themselves to prepare for action.

They found the harbour without difficulty. Another orange light appeared
on their port bow converging on their course; they guessed correctly
that it was another fishing vessel making for the harbour after trawling
in the bay. It was then about one o'clock in the morning. They slowed a
little and set themselves to follow in her wake. Presently a green light
showed up through the darkness, high up and straight ahead of them.

"That's on the end of the jetty," Colvin said softly. He turned to the
_matre_. "Andr, be ready to get that orange light off her soon as I
say."

They slowed to a mere crawl. The orange light ahead of them turned the
end of the jetty under the green light and vanished behind the
stonework. Simon, in the wheel-house by Colvin, bent to the
speaking-tube.

"Rhodes," he said softly. "Is everything quite ready?"

"Aye, aye, sir. All ready."

"Listen then, carefully. We are going in now, and the plan is not
changed at all. The _Raumboote_ will be on our starboard side. We shall
go past the first one and stop between the two of them, and about fifty
yards away. It is quite clear?"

"Quite clear, sir. Oil first on the outermost _Raumboote_, then the
inner one, and then the two casemates. That's the right order?"

"That is right. And then the flame first to the guns, because the gun
crews, they will be the most alert."

"Very good, sir."

"Wait now, and do not shoot the oil until I tell you..."

They crept in slowly, the big engine just ticking over. The green light
passed above them, and the rough stones of the jetty. There was a man
standing under the green light looking down upon them, a man in uniform.
He made no movement; there was no hail. The orange light upon the mast
was passport for them at the harbour mouth.

The anchorage opened before them, thick with vessels. The jetty ran away
from them upon the starboard bow, seen dimly in the glow of their lamp;
ahead of them the anchored fishing vessels loomed dim in the rain. The
transom of the first _Raumboote_ appeared beside the wall, a dark mass,
unlit. Colvin threw out the gear; the Diesel choked and hunted
irregularly in neutral, and they crept slowly forward to the anchored
ships. The bow of the first _Raumboote_ showed upon the beam, and the
transom of the second one; above the jetty they could see the two faint
lumps that were the guns behind their shields.

Colvin put the gear into reverse to check way. Simon said down the tube:
"Rhodes, can you see the ships?"

"I see the ships, sir. I'm not sure about the guns."

"Look carefully," said Simon calmly. "Over the funnel of the inner boat
there is a sort of lump upon the jetty. Do you see it? That is the one
gun there."

"I see that now. There's another lump above the forecastle of the outer
boat. Is that the other gun?"

"That is quite right. One moment now..."

He turned to Colvin. Way was off the vessel and the engine was again in
neutral; they were poised motionless upon the water of the harbour. The
rain beat against the ship and dripped in little quiet trickles. "Get
going soon as you like," said Colvin quietly. "I can't hold her this way
for long. The wind'll carry us foul of them boats."

Simon bent to the tube. "Rhodes, go on and shoot the oil now."

"Okay, sir."

There was a whistling, wet hiss. They did not see the black jet in the
night, but they saw a great black splash upon the stonework of the jetty
up above the stern of the _Raumboote_. Simon leaped for the voice-pipe.
"Ten feet too high," he shouted. "Down a bit, Rhodes." But Rhodes had
corrected, and the oil was deluging the _Raumboote_ at the quay.

Very slowly, the jet travelled up her length. It paused for a few
seconds at the bridge, and then went forward, steadily and slowly. Quite
suddenly, a tumult of voices became audible. The jet travelled on to the
stern of the next boat and moved inshore along her length, slowly,
methodically. On the jetty lights began to flash from torches down on to
the vessels.

Colvin breathed tensely. "They haven't got on to it yet. Gosh, this is
better'n a play...."

The jet lifted from the bow of the _Raumboote_ and travelled blackly up
the jetty to the dimly seen lump at the top. There was an instant babel
of cries and oaths from the gun's crew. It paused there second after
second, a long time. Then it swept swiftly round towards the other gun.

A shot rang out, and then another one; they heard a bullet whip into the
hull. Simon bent down to the tube. "The flame, Rhodes! Now the flame!"

The fire burst from the nozzle of the gun and travelled in a fearful,
writhing arc towards the jetty, slowly, inexorably. They saw the
oil-soaked men around the guns turn towards it, watching it, appalled.
They saw some of them begin to run, and some of them crouch down beside
the ammunition lockers. Then it came to them, and fire hid everything
from view.

The harbour, ships, and town were now as bright as day in the huge
yellow light. From the wheel-house Colvin shouted: "Andr--get down that
mast-head light. Quick about it." Then he turned back to the jetty as
the fire swung swiftly to the further gun. The firing now had stopped,
and the sole noise was the hoarse rushing of the blazing oil and the
hoarse shouts of men. The flame dropped to the bow of the inmost
_Raumboote_, and they saw fire shoot along her decks before the jet.

Colvin heaved the gear over to reverse and lifted the brass throttle
lever slowly. "Time we was out of this," he said. "Tell him to watch his
training, because I'm moving out astern."

The engine of the boat plugged heavily; the water creamed in eddies back
along her topsides; she moved infinitely slowly. The whole quay seemed
to be ablaze, and every detail of _Genevive_ was visible. The flame
poured from her midships, travelling slowly to the outer _Raumboote_ and
to the men upon her deck; from somewhere a few shots came whistling
around them.

Simon leaned from the wheel-house and shouted to Boden, lying flat upon
the deck behind the low bulwarks with his Bren and Tommy-gunners.
"Boden," he shouted, "watch out soon now for the searchlights, when the
fire dies down. Shoot them immediately if they pick us up. Shoot them,
and put them out."

The other raised his hand and nodded. Simon glanced back at the blazing
boats; they were an inferno from stem to stern. The heat from them was
so great that it blistered; he threw his hand up to protect his face. He
bent down to the tube. "Cease fire!" he shouted. "That is now enough."

The flame pouring from the gun shut off abruptly; the truncated end of
it went sailing through the air and fell blazing to the water near the
_Raumboote_. They were now moving slowly astern; the _Raumboote_ were
ahead of them and the green light at the jetty end was now abeam. A
great fire was raging on the jetty and the boats, pouring black
wreathing clouds of smoke up into the dark sky in its own light. But
they were farther from it now, the heat was less, and the light on board
was not quite so intense. Behind them lay the friendly darkness of the
bay, and the safe shroud of rain.

From the shore on their port side a brilliant sheet of white light shone
out behind them, and focused instantly to a sharp pencil of great
brilliance, groping and searching astern of them. Another sprang out
farther along the shore, an intense white eye. In the white light Simon
saw the gunners, led by Boden, spring across the hatch; the Bren guns
spat and rattled and the second light went out abruptly. But now the
first had found them, and from shore rifle-fire zipped over them and
smacked into their sides.

They were driving astern from the harbour at a good speed now, making
stern first out into the bay and the shelter of the rain. From the shore
end of the jetty a stream of tracer came out suddenly, spraying around
them and a little to the port side. Then, providentially and mercifully,
Boden's gunners got the other searchlight, and the firing crossed them
and sprayed wide upon the starboard side, bright sheaves of little
yellow sparks. The white illumination vanished and they were back in the
half-light of the fire at the jetty, now much farther off.

Colvin, wrestling with the wheel, made heavy with their stern-way, said:
"Watch out for them searchlights." And as he spoke, a third blazed out
at them on their port bow from some point above the jetty in the town.
It lit them mercilessly, and in a moment the cannon fire was flying
through the air at them again, bright yellow sparks.

The gun was somewhere at the shore end of the jetty, firing down its
length at them. Colvin hauled madly at the wheel; a few feet more to
starboard and the jetty itself would interpose between them and the gun.
The Bren guns clattered at the third searchlight. There was a deafening
crack beside them, and the framework of the wheel-house on the port side
shivered and collapsed. Simon was on that side; he swung half round and
his left arm flew backwards; he staggered for a moment, and recovered
himself. At the bow there was a flash and flying timber. Amidships there
was a flash and a bright yellow fire that sprang up suddenly around the
flame-thrower. Then Rhodes, muffled in his anti-flash clothing, was
rolling on the hatch; the fire ran along the deck as if pursuing him.

Abruptly there were flashes on the jetty, and the tracer that had been
flying round them ceased. The Bren guns were still firing at the
searchlight, and in a minute that went out. Now there were only
isolated rifle shots directed at the fire amidships at the
flame-thrower.

Colvin roared out: "Get that fire out, quick!" and saw Boden with a foam
extinguisher. Presently there were two extinguishers in action, and the
fire died down.

The engine was stopped, but the ship had good stern way upon her still.
Already the blaze upon the jetty had grown dim; it was raining heavily
and the rain made a curtain to shield them. Unless there were another
searchlight very near they had respite for the moment. Another
searchlight came on a long way to the north--two miles away, perhaps. It
lit them up, but not intensely.

Colvin shouted: "Don't fire at that!" The curtain of the rain, he
thought, would shroud them from the shore in that weak light. The beam
wavered, and began searching farther out to sea, and they were back in
the half-light of the fire upon the quay.

By his side, Simon was holding the artery of his left arm; his hand was
a mess of blood. He said: "I am all right. The engine, is that hit?"

"I dunno." Colvin turned forward. "Andr, _la voile_."

Boden answered: "Andr's been hit, sir. You want the main-sail?"

"Aye, get it up quick, 'n let's get out of this."

The wind was in the south-west; under sail they could do no more than
reach across the bay in the direction of La Chvre or Morgat. They could
hardly beat up into wind at all; their sail was too small for that. The
most that it would do for them was to carry them out into the bay away
from Douarnenez.

Colvin called Rollot to the wheel, and leaped down to the engine-room.
The two engineers were uninjured and were already hard at work, but it
was clear that they had a big job ahead of them. Water was pouring from
the aft cylinder; a gaping hole showed in the deck above. In mixed
French and English Colvin heard their diagnosis. The engine was jammed,
immovable. The piston in that cylinder was cracked or seized; it would
be necessary to take off the pot. There were some fractured fuel
oil-pipes as well. There was no other damage. They would do all they
could, but it would be, perhaps, three hours before they could attempt
to start her up again.

Colvin went back on deck. The sail was up and Rollot was at the wheel;
they were drawing forward. The fire upon the jetty was now less intense,
and gave them little light. He spoke to Rollot about the course, then
went forward. Simon was sitting on the hatch and Rhodes was putting a
dressing on his hand; Boden was still watchful at the guns. One of the
Danes was very badly hit. Andr, the _matre_, was lying dead up in the
bows.

So, in the darkness and the rain, they drew away from land.

Two hours later they were about two miles east of La Chvre.
Searchlights were still groping for them in the bay, but the rain saved
them from detection. Their quiet passage may have helped, of course,
under the sail alone. They had a respite and down in the cramped
engine-room the men worked like beavers. With great difficulty they got
the cylinder off. The piston was cracked and useless, and the
connecting-rod distorted. They took off the piston with a hacksaw, undid
the big end and drew out the connecting-rod through the crank-case
inspection cover, and made a fibre plate to cover over where the
cylinder had been. They repaired the shattered water pipes and fuel
pipes with insulating tape and cod line, and at about 03.15 in the
morning Colvin heard the engine run. It ran with a good deal of
vibration and a hard, uneven beat, as was only to be expected on five
cylinders. But it gave them about eight knots of speed, and there were
still three hours of darkness before them in which they could clear the
land, and the rain held.

And that, really, is all there is to say about their venture. They
headed straight out into the Atlantic, meaning to give Ushant a wide
berth and make for Falmouth with their wounded. With the dawn the wind
began to veer towards the north, about force 5 or 6, and settled to
about north-west by 09.00. They were somewhere to the north of Ushant
then, and making only about four knots through the water on their course
for Falmouth against the foul wind; the prospects of getting in before
dark were poor. The only port open to them in the hours of darkness was
Dartmouth, so they bore away up Channel and hoisted their sail to give
them a lift along. They sailed and motored slowly through the day with
continual engine stoppages. They berthed at Dartmouth at about 03.00 the
next morning, and moved up to Dittisham soon after that.

One personal incident occurred that morning that I heard of some time
afterwards. They were going to bed in the villas; the doctor was looking
after them, and I had gone back to the hotel. Colvin went in to Boden's
room and found him sitting on the bed, still in his sea clothes, too
tired to undress.

"Say," he said wearily. "You want to get to bed."

The lad raised his head. His face was very white at all times, and his
hair a staring red; with his fatigue, in the hard light of the unshaded
bulb, he looked desperately ill.

"I just sat down for a minute. The surgeon gave Rollot and Jules a
draught or something. He's staying here till morning."

"I know that," said Colvin. "Did he give you one?"

"I don't need anything. I'll sleep all right."

"Let's see you do it. Give me your boots; I'll pull them off for you."

Obediently Boden stretched out his right leg; Colvin took the gum-boot
and wrestled it off. "Say," he said, grasping the left one. "I spoke
pretty sharp that time you said I ought to write to Junie. I ought to
have clipped you on the jaw."

Boden smiled faintly. "Do it now, if you like." The other boot came off,
and he lowered his leg to the ground. "Are you going to write to her?"

The older man stood silent for a moment. "I dunno," he said at last. "I
dunno why you want to get me talking about Junie all the time. It don't
do any good. Come on now. Get up, 'n get your clothes off, 'n get into
bed."

Obediently the other got up and stripped off his jersey. "Don't you ever
want to see her again?"

"I dunno. Junie's a young woman still. If she can meet up with some
proper guy that has a settled job, 'n can treat her right, I'd not want
anything better for her. Suppose I was to write, I'd only get her
unsettled all over again."

Boden stopped in the act of pulling off a sea-boot stocking. "It gets
you," he said, staring at the other. "It got me, just the same as it's
got you. So that nothing's ever quite the same again."

There was a pause. Then Colvin said roughly: "Go on and get into your
bed. I dunno what you're talking about."

Boden pulled off his clothes in silence. Presently he said: "How many
Jerries do you think we scuppered?"

"I dunno," said Colvin. "Forty-five--fifty, maybe. Rhodes said he put
eight hundred and thirty gallons of that Worcester Sauce on them, all in
next to no time. I reckon we got all there were."

Boden said: "Counting the ones in the first boat, that'd make sixty or
seventy in all."

"I guess so. What's on your mind?"

"Nothing." He got into his bed. "Thanks for tucking me up; I might have
sat like that till morning."

"You R.N.V.R. want a nursemaid with you," said Colvin. "Good night." He
switched out the light, closed the door behind him, and went to find the
young surgeon.

"Look in upon Lieutenant Boden, quiet, in half an hour," he said. "If
he's awake give him a sleeping dose."




9


I went up to N.O.I.C.'s office next morning and rang up the admiral. He
asked that Simon should go to him to report. I told him Simon was in
hospital, and he asked for Colvin; I promised to take Colvin to him as
soon as we had got the party straightened up.

I met McNeil and had a short talk with him; then he went back to London
on the morning train. I was left to do all that was necessary. I had a
talk with N.O.I.C. and made arrangements for _Genevive_ to go on to the
slip; she was leaking badly. While she was there we could survey her for
repair.

I talked of leave to the old commander. "I'm going to send the whole
ship's company away for ten days' leave," I said. "The shore party can
do anything that's necessary. About that Wren who drives their truck.
If you agree, I think she'd better go as well."

"If you like," he said amiably. "That's Wren Wright?"

"I think that's the one," I said. "She's refused leave recently, I
understand, because she wanted to see the thing through. They may as
well all go together; then they'll all be fresh when they get back."

He nodded. "What are you going to do next?" he asked. "Are you going on
to do it again?"

I was silent for a moment. "That depends on what the vessel's like," I
said. "I'd like to pack this party up, myself, and do something quite
different. But I'm afraid that other people will decide that one."

"Why do you want to pack them up?" he asked mildly. "They seem to be a
most successful ship, from what I hear."

I did not really know myself, to express it in words. I only knew that I
had a feeling that they'd done enough. "They don't run under proper
naval discipline," I said at last. "I don't think it's a sound
arrangement to mix nationalities in a ship's company like that. It may
work well enough for a time, but it can't go on."

I went up to the hospital soon after that to see Simon, but he was still
asleep. I went down to the dock and had a talk with the manager, and
then I went back to the hotel for lunch. I telephoned for a car after
lunch, and Wren Wright came with the little truck and we drove out to
Dittisham.

She was looking pale and drawn. "'Afternoon," I said as I got in.
"You're going off on leave. The whole ship's company are getting leave.
Has N.O.I.C. told you?"

"They told me at the Wrennery, sir," she said. "I think I'll probably be
going off to-morrow morning."

I said: "A change will do everybody good. Where are you going to?"

She said: "To Derby."

"I thought you lived in Norwich?" I said idly.

"I do. I'm going first to Derby, and then on to Norwich."

How she spent her leave was no concern of mine, but the mention of Derby
struck a chord somewhere. Derby, somehow, was a part of this affair. I
sat in silence for a few minutes as she drove through the lanes, and
then it came to me. Derby was where Rhodes's mother lived.

At Dittisham I found them all up and about, smart and clean in new
uniforms. Already _Genevive_ had disappeared, towed down the river to
the shipyard by a motor-boat. I told Colvin that all the lot of them
were to get off on leave. I told him that he'd got to produce the
report, since Simon was in hospital.

He said awkwardly: "I'll do my best, sir, but I don't write so good. I'd
rather someone else did it."

Boden was there. He said: "I'll write it, if you like."

"Aye," said Colvin, much relieved. "You write it, 'n I'll tell you where
it's wrong."

I left them to it, and went on to fix up the leave of the Free French
and the Danes. McNeil was arranging hospitality for them in London in
conjunction with their own headquarters; most of them had nowhere of
their own to go to. Presently I came to Rhodes.

"You'd better give me your address on leave," I said, "in case we want
to get hold of you." I got out my notebook and a pencil.

"I shall be at Derby for the first four or five days, sir," he said. He
gave me the address. "After that I'm going on to Norwich."

I shut my notebook with a snap. "I suppose I can get that one from the
Wrennery," I said. He grinned, and flushed quite pink. It was odd to
think that that lad had done what he had on Sunday night.

When I came round to Boden and to Colvin I ran up against a difficulty.
Each of them came to me in turn and asked if he could stay at Dittisham.
Boden came first.

"I don't want to go away," he said. "One of us ought to stay here to
look after things. I don't want any leave."

"I want you all to get away," I said. "The vessel will be in the
shipyard for ten days, and longer."

"I'd rather stay here. I've got nowhere special that I want to go to."

I knew that this lad wanted careful handling. "You've got a home in
Yorkshire, haven't you?" I said. "Your people will want to see you."

He was silent. At last he said: "I suppose I ought to go and see my
people. But I shan't stay there more than a day or two. After that I
think I'll come back here."

"No, you won't," I said. "You won't come back here till your leave is
up. That's an order." I paused. "I tell you what you can do, if you
like. If you get fed up with Yorkshire there's a lot of paper work about
this thing wants doing in my office. You can come down to the Admiralty
and give me a hand."

He brightened; he was evidently pleased. "That's awfully good of you,
sir. I'll be with you on Monday morning."

Colvin came next, and he said much the same as Boden. "I guess I'll
stick around," he said.

I put that idea out of his head. "You can go to Torquay if you like," I
said. "But nobody stays here."

He shook his head. "I don't want to go to Torquay." That rather
surprised me. "I got no roots in this country," he said. "Not like them
R.N.V.R. boys."

"You've got to come with me to Newhaven to see V.A.C.O.," I said. "After
that I'll find you a job if you want one, but you don't stay here."

He grinned. In the end I sent him up to Scotland with the East Coast
convoy out of London, to tell me how the double Vick formation against
E-boats worked out in practice. He put in a very clear and informative
report, written up for him by Boden, at the end of his leave; so that
was quite good value.

I had tea at Dittisham with them, and then went to Dartmouth in the
truck, with Rhodes in the back, to go to see Simon in the hospital. I
found him awake and in a bit of pain from his injured hand; moreover, he
was in an open ward, so I didn't stay very long. In any case, McNeil had
taken his account the night before.

He told me that they had taken off the remains of the third and fourth
fingers that morning, and tidied up the rest for him. "I shall not be
long here, in hospital," he said. "A week--no more. Then I shall be back
at duty."

It occurred to me that this was probably another one; none of these
fellows seemed to have much use for leave. "I don't know about that," I
said. "You won't be fit for duty, and I want everyone to have a spell of
leave."

He said: "There is no time for that. As soon as the ship is repaired we
must go again, with guns. How long will that be?"

"Ten days or a fortnight." McNeil had told me something about his new
idea that morning, but I was by no means sure that I agreed. "Tell me,"
I said, "what is it that you want to do, exactly?"

He leaned forward from his bed, tense, eager, and a little feverish.
"To-day," he said, "Douarnenez will be seething, hot for revolt against
the Germans. We have shown them what the English can do now. The next
step is to bring them arms. Seventy Tommy-guns, and about three thousand
rounds for each--Colvin says that we can carry that much in the ship.
Then, when we want to land a force in Brittany, we shall find them
fighting at our side."

A nurse swept down upon us. "This patient is not to get excited,
Commander," she said severely. "You may talk for two or three minutes
longer, but not if he goes on like this." She laid him back upon his
pillows and smoothed out the sheet.

"Over-enthusiasm," I said. "That's what you get, you see."

From his pillow he eyed me earnestly. "You will see Brigadier McNeil? I
cannot say how important it is. They will receive the guns and hide
them, secretly, to use to help us when our fellows have to land one
day."

I nodded. "I'll talk it over with McNeil," I said. "Have you thought out
how you'd get the guns on shore?"

He said: "The fishing fleet must take them from us, five or ten to each
boat; in that way they can be hidden and smuggled on shore easily. We
will arrange that there is an alarm one night, so that the boats must
scatter and put out their lights." He paused. "An alarm that British
raiders are near by. Then we can make a rendezvous, in the dark night,
to pass the arms to them."

If the fishing fleet would play, that was as good a way to do the job as
any other. Distribution before the arms got on shore was obviously
sound. "I'll see McNeil about it when I get to London," I promised him.
"It's a matter of high policy, of course. For all I know, they may not
want to give the Bretons arms just yet."

Simon said: "In a war like this, sir, policy depends on opportunity. And
now, we have an opportunity that will not come again."

He was obviously tired, and in a good bit of pain. I left him, and on my
way out stopped in the office to speak to the surgeon-commander.

"He's getting on very well, so far as we can tell at present," I was
told. "We removed two fingers--oh, he told you that. Apart from that,
he'll have the full use of the hand, I think."

"He said that he'd be back on duty in a week."

The surgeon snorted. "We might discharge him from here in a week if all
goes well, but there's such a thing as sick leave. I shall recommend him
for a month."

"You may recommend what you like," I said. "You won't get him to take
it."

There was a short silence. "I agree, he seems to be difficult upon that
subject," the surgeon said. "He's a funny sort of chap. Foreign, isn't
he? And an army officer?"

"Yes," I said shortly.

"Anyway, he won't be passed as fit for general service for at least a
month after he leaves here. If he goes back to work at all it must be
for light duty only."

I left the hospital, and went down to the shipyard to see _Genevive_.
She was just coming up on to the slip; I stayed there till the cradle
had come up and we could see the underwater body. Water trickled
steadily from a point by the stern-post where the planks had sprung; the
foreman said it was the engine and propeller vibration that had done
that. At the bow the damage from the shell hit by the stem extended to
the water-line; she had taken in water there. Apart from those points
she was sound enough, and they weren't serious.

I left for London on the early train next morning. Colvin came with me,
and all the Danes and Bretons travelled in the next coach to us; Colvin
was seeing them up safe to London. I rang McNeil from Paddington when we
got in; he was in his office and I went there with Colvin before going
on to Newhaven to see the admiral.

McNeil had two of the same typed flimsies on his desk; he passed them
over for us to read, without comment. They were marked MOST SECRET, as
before.

The first one read:

     DOUARNENEZ. Riots and anti-German demonstrations continued
     throughout Monday. There have been many arrests. There are not
     more than three hundred German troops in the town, and no
     effective reinforcements nearer than the Panzer concentration
     at Carhaix. Oberstleutnant Meichen, commandant, has telegraphed
     Generalmajor Reutzel stating unless reinforcements are sent he
     cannot guarantee to control the district. Ends.

The second one read:

     BREST. One officer and sixteen other ranks were executed by
     shooting at the Fort des Fdrs this morning. The officer was
     Leutnant zur See Engelmann, a native of Kassel. These men were
     part of the crews of _Raumboote_ R.83 and R.172, stationed at
     Brest. It is reported that they refused duty on being ordered
     to Douarnenez to replace vessels destroyed by fire. Ends.

"I don't get that," said Colvin. "Was this Germans that got shot, at
this place Fort des Fdrs?"

McNeil took the signals back from him. "What it means," he said, "is
that you started a mutiny in the German Navy. These _Raumboote_ were
ordered to go to Douarnenez, but the crews had heard what happens to
_Raumboote_ at that port. Some of the men mutinied, and were tried and
shot within a day. The _Boche_ won't stand that sort of thing."

"Say," breathed Colvin. "What do you think of that?"

I said: "The other one is interesting. I had no idea that the coast was
so lightly held."

McNeil said: "There are strong concentrations inland. But the control of
the population is evidently worrying them. They may need more men for
that."

"Well," I said, "the Russians can do without them." That was early in
October, 1941, when the Russians had been retreating steadily for three
months.

"That's the point," said McNeil. "That is why we must keep up the
pressure."

I pulled out my case and lit a cigarette. "I haven't seen V.A.C.O. yet,"
I remarked. "I'm going down there now. My own view is that this vessel
has done enough. She has been clearly seen now, at Douarnenez, and they
know she's easy meat so long as they don't get too close to her. I think
her usefulness is over."

"Is that what you're going to tell your admiral?"

"Subject to what you say--yes."

McNeil was silent for a minute. "In general," he said, "I think I agree
with you. I don't think we should send her out again on an offensive
operation; she's getting too well known. I think that she is valuable
still because of her great similarity to the fishing vessels of the
fleet. I've got in mind this gun-running that Simon wants to do."

"He told me something about that," I said. "Is it in line with your
policy?"

"Yes, it is. A town that's in that state of ferment should have arms.
Tommy-guns and ammunition are coming forward quite well now. I can find
seventy for Douarnenez, if Simon can think up a scheme to put them in
the town."

"He wants a diversion," I said. "He wants the fishing fleet to be broken
up one night, so that they scatter without lights. Then he can
rendezvous with them in some quiet cove, and pass the arms to them."

"From _Genevive_?"

I hesitated. "It would be best to use a ship that looks like another
fishing-boat of the fleet for the job, I suppose."

"I agree," he said. "She should be useful for some time to come for
missions of that sort. But I agree with you, she should not do offensive
operations any more."

"Personally," I said, "I don't care much about her doing anything at
all."

"She ought to do this gun-running," he said.

I nodded. "We might let her do that. But after that is over we should
give that district a long rest, or else start something different with
another ship."

We left it like that: that we should review the operations of the ship
again after this next trip over to the other side. I left McNeil, and
went on down to Newhaven with Colvin that same afternoon to see V.A.C.O.
It was dark when we got there, a fine starry night. It was fresh down by
the sea, after a day of travelling.

The admiral had us in at once. He got up from his desk as we came in.
"'Evening, Colvin. 'Evening, Martin. I understand I've got to
congratulate your vessel on another very good show."

Colvin flushed with pleasure. "It wasn't all that, sir," he said.

"Wasn't it? I've been getting reports all day about it. Flaps in the
German Army, mutinies in the German Navy, and I don't know what beside.
But first of all, how is Captain Simon?"

"He's getting on all right, sir," I replied. "I saw him yesterday. He's
lost two fingers, but he'll be out of the hospital in a week."

"That might be worse." He motioned us to chairs. "Sit down, and tell me
the whole thing. Smoke if you want to." He pushed forward his silver box
of cigarettes.

The story took the best part of an hour in the telling, because he
wanted to know every little thing, including every detail of the damage
to the ship. Once launched and over his diffidence Colvin told the tale
quite well, in simple direct terms. He had the report that Boden had
written out for him in his hand, and now and again he turned to that to
check a point.

In the end the admiral turned to me. "So much for that," he said. "That
brings me up to date. What's the next step, Martin?"

I said: "The next thing Brigadier McNeil wants us to do is to land these
arms," I said. I told him briefly what had been proposed, that the
fishing fleet should be scattered by a false attack one night, and in
the confusion certain of the boats should rendezvous with _Genevive_.
"Brigadier McNeil can find the guns and ammunition," I said. "I saw him
about that this afternoon. He very much wants the operation to be
carried out."

He eyed me keenly. "Don't you?"

I said: "I think it should be all right, sir. I don't think that the
ship should do much more after that. She must be getting pretty well
known by this time, over on the other side."

"I agree that we don't want to overplay our hand. Taking this operation,
though, what form would your false attack take?"

I said: "Would you consider sending a couple of destroyers in to get
behind the fishing fleet, and shoot up anything that they could find,
sir? It only needs a little gunfire between the fleet and their home
port--Douarnenez. That would scatter them all right."

He said directly: "No, I won't. I won't even consider it, Martin."

He got up from his chair, and began pacing up and down in front of his
fire, as was his habit. "I told you when this thing began," he said,
"and I told McNeil. I remember telling Brigadier McNeil in this room
that I wouldn't send destroyers up to the front door of Brest to help
him out if he got into trouble. And now that's just exactly what you're
asking me to do!"

I was silent.

He turned on me, though I had not spoken. "However small the risk may
seem to be, I won't do that. You must keep a sense of proportion. This
is a very minor operation of war, Martin. It has to do with a
fishing-boat and a few Tommy-guns. To make that operation a success you
say that we should risk a million pounds' worth of ships and upwards of
three hundred men. Well, I won't do it."

I knew my admiral fairly well by that time. "Very good, sir," I replied.
"Could we send a couple of motor-gunboats over for the job?"

He stopped short in his pacing. "That's more like it!" he exclaimed.
"All you want is something fast, to let off a few guns and make a noise.
They can drop a depth charge if they want to make a bigger bang. Yes, I
don't mind a couple of M.G.B.s. You'll have to see Rear-Admiral Coastal
Forces, though, and see if he can work it in for you."

We settled it upon that basis, and he made us stay and dine with him. We
caught the last train back to London after dinner and got back at about
eleven, very tired.

I fixed up Colvin for his convoy job next morning, which was Thursday.
Then I settled down to work, to clear up the arrears that had
accumulated while I was away. It took me all the rest of that week to
get my normal routine straight without touching any of the paper that
related to _Genevive_, so that by Monday morning I was glad to see
young Boden.

He turned up bright and early. I settled him down on the other side of
the table to me and got him going; he proved to be intelligent and apt
at office work. In fact, he was a good deal more accustomed to it than I
am; Dartmouth and life at sea don't fit one for an office chair or make
it easy to dictate to a shorthand-typist. He was a great help. He took
all my telephone calls when I was out and took them right, did the right
thing with people who looked in to see me, and got the _Genevive_
papers into splendid shape with only minor guidance from myself. I was
very sorry, I may say, when his leave came to an end.

He was sitting opposite me at the table one day when I happened to
mention Colvin. "The East Coast convoy gets to Methil to-morrow," I
said. "Colvin should be here on Friday."

"He'll be in time for the meeting with Rear-Admiral Coastal Forces,
then," said Boden. "Do you want him in on that, sir?"

"If Simon hasn't turned up by then, I do," I said. And then I said: "I
must say, you fellows have a queer idea of leave."

He smiled. "Colvin hasn't got anywhere to go to in this country. He left
it just after the last war."

I wrote my name at the foot of a minute and tossed it into the
out-basket. "He was going strong with a young woman at Torquay at one
time," I said.

"I think that's all washed up," said Boden. "He hasn't been over to
Torquay for the last month."

There was a pause. Presently he said: "After this next operation, sir,
the ship will pay off, won't she?"

I leaned back in my chair. "I think she will," I said. "We haven't come
to any decision yet, but that's what it looks like to me. If we decided
to pack the whole show up, what would you like to do?"

"Do you think I could get into Combined Operations?"

"In charge of one of the landing craft?"

"That's what I'd like."

I thought about that for a minute. "It's rather a waste of your
anti-submarine training, isn't it?" I said.

He said: "That's what I'd really like best."

I nodded. "I'll remember that. C. W. Branch may get a bit sticky; if
they do you may have to go back into anti-submarine. But I'll do what I
can."

"That's awfully good of you, sir."

"Not a bit. What about the others? What about Rhodes?"

Boden said: "He isn't a sea-going officer. He's colour-blind. I think
he'd be quite happy in a shore job after this."

"Maybe," I said, thinking of the Wren. There was a pause while I lit a
cigarette. "Do you know what Colvin wants?"

The lad said calmly: "I know what he wants well enough, but he won't get
it."

I stared at him. "What does he want?"

"He wants to go back to the West Coast of America. He left his wife out
there, in San Francisco."

"I thought he wasn't married."

Boden grinned. "That's what he likes people to believe. It may be true,
legally. Probably it is. But that doesn't stop him wanting to get back
to her."

This was the Admiralty in war-time, and here we were gossiping like a
couple of fish-wives. I thought of that for a moment, and relaxed.
"What's she like?" I asked.

"Her name's Junie," he said. "She comes from a place called East Naples,
in Arkansas. Beautiful, but dumb. She went to Hollywood for a screen
test, and got stuck there. She was a waitress in a cafeteria in San
Diego when he met her."

"How long ago was that?"

"About four years before the war. They got married, so to speak, and
went to live in Oakland, as nice a suburban couple as you'd wish to see.
That was when he had that shore job with the line of nitrate ships."

"The Manning Stevens Line," I said. "He had that for four years. Was he
still living with her when the war broke out?"

"Yes. But for the war he'd still have been with Junie and the Manning
Stevens Line, snug as a bug in a rug."

I thought of the long, difficult trip he had made in the tug before the
mast, to join up; of the eighteen weary months that he had served in
North and South Atlantic. "It's a rotten war," I said.

He took me up. "It's very hard on a couple like that," said Boden.
"After four years of quiet, settled life, the first he'd ever had. And
with people of that sort, it's such an undertaking for them to write
letters. It's not like you and me. He hates writing, and Junie doesn't
know what to do with a pen and ink when she gets them, so he says. And
if they do write, they can't think of anything to say...."

I stared at him thoughtfully. "If they can't keep together, they're
sunk," I said at last.

"That's right. He made a pass at that young woman at Torquay, but then
he dropped her. He's a pretty lonely man."

I glanced across the table at the white-faced, red-haired lad before me.
"You think a good deal of him, don't you?"

He said: "He's a fine chap, sir. He's nice to work under, and he's a
splendid seaman. I hate like hell to see a chap like that have such bad
luck."

We turned back to the work.

Simon came up to London at the week-end, and Boden went back with Colvin
to the ship, at Dartmouth. Simon was looking well enough, but for his
hand; he carried it in a sling, heavily bandaged, and came with me to
the conference with Coastal Forces. There was no great difficulty about
the M.G.B.s. Two of them would be available at the end of the month,
both armed with Oerlikons and depth charges and capable of about forty
knots in calm water. If the position of the fishing fleet could be found
out for them beforehand there did not seem to be much difficulty about
their job. All they had to do was to slink in behind the fleet upon
their silent engines, make a noise like a couple of battleships, and
beat it for home. From their point of view it was a very simple
exercise.

Provisionally we fixed it for the last day of the month, October. There
was a waning moon which rose at about 23.00 then; that meant that there
would be a little light but not too much. We wanted good weather for
this trip in order that the boats could find the rendezvous with
_Genevive_. We did not want to leave it later than that if it could be
helped, because of the moon and because we wanted to get guns ashore
before the fervour in Douarnenez had died away. At the same time, it
seemed to me important that Simon should go on the trip for political
reasons and for his fluent French; that gave another seventeen or
eighteen days in which his hand could heal. It was a short time, but it
was just possible he might be fit by then. Simon himself, of course, was
adamant that he was fit to go.

I want to Dartmouth for a day after that meeting. _Genevive_ was off
the slip, but still in the hands of the shipyard; they had repaired the
damage to the bow and the wheel-house, and a couple of engine-room
artificers were working on the flame-thrower under the direction of a
chap from Honiton. The engine repair was the longest job; it was
impossible to get spare parts and they were having to be made. The
estimated date for completion was the twenty-second, so if that date
were maintained the show might still take place on the thirty-first.

Simon, in the meantime, had found out from the Breton lads in his crew
the circumstances that governed the position of the fishing fleet in the
Iroise. He spread out the chart before me in the ward-room in the little
villa at Dittisham. "On the flood-tide it is easy," he said. "The fish,
the little sardines, they come northwards with the tide up from the Bay
of Biscay. The tide sweeps them up the Baie d'Audierne," he showed me
with his finger on the chart, "until they come to the Chausse de Sein.
Then the tide sweeps through the Raz de Sein between the Chausse and
the land--very, very quick."

"I know," I said. "It runs up to six knots through there. And the fish
go with it?"

He nodded. "The tide carries the fish through the Raz into the Iroise.
Always, at the first of the flood, the fishing fleet will lie in the
Iroise at the entrance to the Raz, stemming the tide with their bows to
the south, drifting their nets to take the fish as they come northwards
on the tide. That is the way we found them on that first night of all."

"The tide was on the flood then, was it?"

"Yes. Our Breton lads knew where the fleet would be the whole of the
time. But they did not know then just exactly what we wanted, and we did
not think to ask them."

"What's the tide doing on the thirty-first?" I asked.

He pulled over the nautical almanac and turned the pages. "It is good
for us upon that night." He showed me the entry. "Raz de Sein--the
flood-tide makes towards the north at 21.40, Greenwich time. That is
22.40 of our time."

From Dartmouth I went on to Plymouth about the motor-gunboats. I went
first to the Commander-in-Chief's office and spent ten minutes with him,
telling him what we wanted to do. Then I spent half an hour with his
Chief of Staff, bending over the chart. It did not seem to be difficult.
Zero, we decided, should be about the time of moonrise--say 23.00. That
was when the motor-gunboats would begin to do their stuff. It would take
them an hour to get into position on their silent engines at low speed,
and five hours from Plymouth under average weather conditions. That
meant that they should leave at 17.00, sunset time, which seemed
reasonable enough. They would have daylight for their departure. They
would be back off Plymouth at 04.30 or soon after; if the wind were in
the west they might anchor in Cawsand till the port opened at dawn. We
could arrange a tender for them there, in case of casualties. One of the
mine-sweeping trawlers could do that.

We wrote a draft of an operation order there and then, that I could talk
over with V.A.C.O. "This thing will have to have a name," the Chief of
Staff said. His eyes roved around the room. There was an iron bedstead
in his office, the bed made up with sheets and blankets; evidently it
was his habit to sleep there upon occasion. "Operation Blanket," he
said. "It's got to happen in the blanket of the dark." So Operation
Blanket it became.

The M.G.B.s were in the Cattewater. I went down to see them with a young
lieutenant-commander of the R.N.V.R., more for interest than anything
else. Boats numbers 261 and 268 were detailed for the job; the officer
commanding 268 was senior, and we went on board her. He was a lieutenant
in the R.N.V.R. called Sanderson. He was twenty-two years old, and
before the war had been at Cambridge studying to become a schoolmaster.
He was a very tough-looking young man with hard eyes and a prominent
jaw, dressed in a very dirty uniform. The officers of _Genevive_ looked
like a pack of Sissies beside that chap. His Number One was a sub. of
twenty with a great red beard. I never saw such a pair of pirates in my
life.

Their ship was one of the new Vosper-boats, and she was very
interesting. I spent an hour on board her, wishing that I'd had the
chance of a command like her when I was young. She was good fun, that
boat: well armed, comparatively seaworthy, and very fast. I thought a
lot of her.

I went back to London, and two days later I went down to V.A.C.O. about
Operation Blanket. It was shaping quite well; indeed, it seemed to be a
fairly simple little job, without great risk to anybody. McNeil was
gathering his Tommy-guns and ammunition together, two lorry-loads of
them. Their weight would put _Genevive_ ten inches lower in the water
and therefore slow her down a bit, but that didn't seem to matter very
much. Repairs were up to time and she came off the slip to schedule.
Finally, Simon's hand was getting on quite well.

Simon came up to London a few days after that, and I met McNeil with him
for a discussion of the message to Douarnenez. There was an agent over
there, I learned, who was to pass the message through: a man at Quimper
who supplied the fish-packers with tinned steel sheets. In some way that
I did not understand a message would reach him.

We settled to design the message. "Charles Simon says," it ran at last,
"the English will send seventy sub-machine-guns with three thousand
rounds for each. On the night of October 31st/November 1st gunfire will
begin about 23.00. Fishing vessels should put out their lights and
scatter. Seven vessels should rendezvous without lights in the Anse des
Blancs Sablons three miles north of Cap de la Chvre. Charles Simon will
be there to meet them in a Douarnenez sardine-boat painted black and
will give to each vessel ten guns and ammunition. Confirm that on that
night the fleet will fish north of the Raz de Sein. Ends."

Two days later a reply came. "Charles Simon's message received and
understood. Seven boats will meet him as arranged. The fleet will fish
north of Raz de Sein from 22.00 to 04.00 weather permitting. Ends."

I went down to Plymouth on the twenty-ninth with McNeil; Simon met us
there, and we had a conference in the Chief of Staff's office about
Operation Blanket. The commanding officer of M.G.B. 268 was there,
Sanderson, whom I had met before, and with him was a quiet young man
called Peters, who was in command of 261. In an hour we had settled the
detail of the operation. _Genevive_ would sail direct from Dartmouth as
before; her officers preferred the longer journey rather than the
inconvenience of making their last arrangements in a strange port. That
meant that she must leave in the forenoon of the 31st. We arranged to
confirm the operation by telephone that morning, in view of the weather
at the time.

There was no more to be done. I went back to Dartmouth with McNeil, and
we went on to Dittisham. There was a lorry down there at the hard
unloading Tommy-guns in their boxes into the boat to be ferried to the
ship. It would have been easier to bring her up against a quay, of
course, but Simon and Colvin had preferred the secrecy of Dittisham.

I went on board _Genevive_ and made a semi-official inspection of her.
She was in good shape; the damage had been well repaired and they had
taken her to sea one day to test the flame-thrower. Colvin said she was
as good as she had ever been.

So they went.

       *       *       *       *       *

We got them away at about 11.00 on the morning of the 31st, deep loaded
with their Tommy-guns and ammunition and a full tank for the
flame-thrower. I was at Dittisham to see them off; McNeil could not get
down, nor was there any need for him to be there.

The weather was quite good, with high cloud and occasional bursts of
sunshine. The forecast was for fine weather and moderate cloud off
Ushant during the night, with only a slight chance of rain. That suited
us quite well. It would make it easy for the fishing-boats to find the
rendezvous; if the forecast had been for thick weather we should have
been obliged to postpone.

I stood down on the hard with the shore party and watched them go. They
slipped their mooring and went down between the wooded hills by Mill
Creek till they were lost to sight. Then I turned away; the Wren was
going to drive me back to Newton Abbot in the truck.

She was beside me. "Wish them luck," I said a little heavily.

She said: "Do you think I'm not?"

I glanced down at her, smiling in what I meant to be a reassuring way.
"They'll be all right," I said. "It's not as if they were going out to
look for trouble this time." She knew well enough what they had gone to
do.

She did not answer that. I glanced at her again. She seemed to have got
much older in the last few weeks, much more mature. I saw for the first
time that she was wearing an engagement ring, turquoise and diamonds,
very little stones: a ring that a lieutenant who had nothing but his pay
might give his girl.

I said: "I see that I've got to congratulate you, Miss Wright. Is that,
by any chance, for any of our chaps?"

She raised her hand and looked at it. "It's for Lieutenant Rhodes," she
said. "You must have known. It's horribly conspicuous. I suppose the new
look goes away after a time."

She wasn't at all excited over it; she wasn't even smiling. That seemed
to me rather dreadful and unnatural.

"I'm terribly glad," I said as warmly as I could. "I hope that you'll be
very, very happy."

"That's awfully sweet of you," she said. "I'm sure I hope so, too."

The shore party had dissipated; we were momentarily alone by the
waterside. I did not want to go away and leave her in that frame of
mind. "You mustn't feel like that," I said. "You get a double lot of
troubles when you get engaged, but you get the hell of a lot more fun."
It wasn't quite what I had wanted to say, but it was the best that I
could manage impromptu.

She glanced up at me. "I suppose you had it in peace-time," she said
unexpectedly.

I did not understand her.

"Getting engaged, I mean," she said. "It must have been lovely to get
engaged in peace-time, when you had time to give to it. I suppose some
day there'll be a world again where people can live quietly, and fall in
love, and get married, and have fun. Where you can keep a rabbit or a
dog--or a husband, and not have to stand by and see them killed. Where
you can think of other things than burning oil, and rain, and darkness,
and black bitter hate."

I stood there thoughtful, looking out over the river. I was thinking
that the Women's Royal Naval Service has its complications and its
limitations. If _Genevive_ went on upon this work, Leading Wren Wright
would have to be transferred to other duty.

"Don't worry too much," I said as gently as I could. "This isn't going
on forever." I turned towards the car. "Let's get along to Newton
Abbot."

"Very good, sir."

We drove that thirty miles mostly in silence. She knew all the movements
in Operation Blanket; she knew that I was going to Plymouth to see the
supporting M.G.B.s away. At Newton Abbot station, as we drew up in the
yard, she said:

"Will you be coming back to Dartmouth, sir? Would you like me to meet
you here?"

I reflected for a moment. The M.G.B.s would be back very early in the
morning. _Genevive_ could hardly be back before dark; as before, I had
made arrangements for the port to be opened for her on her signal. I got
out of the truck, crossed to the time-table upon the wall, and looked up
a train. The afternoon train from Plymouth stopped at Newton Abbot at
3.40; that seemed suitable.

"You'd better meet me here at 3.40 to-morrow afternoon, Miss Wright," I
said. "I shall be coming back to Dartmouth then. This is going to be
another middle-of-the-night show."

She nodded. "Very good, sir. I'll meet you here at 3.40 to-morrow
afternoon."

"That's right," I said. I hesitated, and then said: "If I were you I
should go to the pictures to-night, and go to bed early."

She said quietly: "Thank you, sir."

I went on by train to Plymouth and got there early in the afternoon. I
got down to the dock at about four o'clock. The two M.G.B.s were running
their main engines to warm up, and taking on a few last-minute stores
from the pontoons that they were moored to. Captain (D.) was there to
see them off; I made my number with him as representing V.A.C.O. and we
stood chatting for a time. At five minutes to five Sanderson came up to
us, saluted, and reported that everything was ready and correct.

The captain took his salute. "Very good, Sanderson," he said. "Carry on
as soon as you can. The best of luck."

The young man saluted again and went back to his boat. The captain
walked up to the other vessel, 261, at the pontoon astern of 268. Above
the heavy rumble of the engines he shouted to the young officer upon the
tiny bridge: "Good luck, Peters." The young man smiled and saluted.

Then the boats slipped bow and stern ropes from the pontoon and moved
out into the stream, great clouds of steam vomiting from their exhausts
in the grey evening light. They turned downriver to the sea, and very
soon were lost to sight behind Drake's Island.

I had a cabin reserved for me in the barracks, but I didn't use it. I
dined in the ward-room; then, wanting to be on hand for anything that
might occur, I went back to the Commander-in-Chief's office. It was a
fine, starry night, without much cloud; I wondered if it were the same
over on the other side.

There was no news for me in the Operations Room; indeed, I didn't expect
any. The boats were bound to wireless silence except for the greatest
emergency; there would be nothing for me till they came back to Cawsand
at perhaps four-thirty in the morning. I left instructions with the Duty
Officer to call me when anything came in, went down into the shelter,
and fell asleep upon a bunk.

I woke up with a start and looked at my watch. It was nearly seven
o'clock. I was annoyed; it seemed to me that the boats must have been
back for some time. I smoothed my hair and uniform and went up to the
Operations Room again; in the east the sky was getting grey. But there
was no news of the M.G.B.s.

"Nothing has come in yet," the Duty Officer said. "There was no point in
waking you."

He lent me a razor, and I went and had a shave. I got a cup of tea and
stayed on in the Operations Room. It was about 09.15 when the signalman
passed a message to the Duty Officer.

"That's your Operation Blanket," he said. "268 and 261 are passing Rame
Head now."

He rang up Captain (D.) to tell him; I spoke to him myself and asked
permission to go down to the pontoon to meet the boats. Ten minutes
later I was down there watching 268 as she came first to the pontoon.

She came in rumbling thunderously, vomiting white clouds from her
exhausts. From the great flare of her bow to her squat transom she was
glistening with water all over; the few dry spots upon her upperworks
were streaked with salt. Her two young officers wore duffle coats; they
were surprisingly wide awake and fresh-looking after the rough, lumpy
trip they must have had across the Channel and back.

And then I saw she had no depth-charges left in her racks. 261,
following behind to the pontoon, had none either.

Captain (D.) stepped across on to the slippery little deck of 268 as
soon as she was moored; I followed him. Lieutenant Sanderson nipped down
from the bridge in time to salute him as he came on board.

"Good morning, Sanderson. Everything all right?"

The young man's jaw stuck out more prominently than ever. "Everything's
quite all right on board 268, sir. 261 reports one minor casualty. We
had to depart a little from the operation orders. After creating the
diversion, at about 02.20, we carried out a joint attack upon a German
destroyer with depth-charges. I don't think we sunk her."

He turned to me. "Before attacking we saw the destroyer sink a
fishing-boat by gunfire," he said bluntly. "I'm pretty sure it was
_Genevive_."

       *       *       *       *       *

This was his account: From the time that they left Plymouth everything
worked out to schedule for the first part of the night. They kept in
company at about twenty knots, each clearly visible to the other in the
darkness by the broad white wake they made. They were off Ushant at
about 21.45 and altered course down into L'Iroise; at 22.10 they slowed
to seven knots and went on upon their silent engines.

The sky, they said, was cloudless and starry, and though the moon was
not yet up, they picked up the high loom of land at Cap de la Chvre
without great difficulty. The next thing they saw was the lights of the
fishing fleet away to the south by the Raz de Sein, a little galaxy of
yellow and white lights low down upon the water in the distance. That
was all satisfactory and according to plan and they went on, meeting no
opposition and expecting none.

They kept to the westward of the searchlight which, they knew from
_Genevive_, was located on the cliff at Beuzec. They closed the south
shore of the bay somewhere near Goulin and reached a point about two
miles off shore at 22.50. There they stopped engines and lay side by
side upon the water for a few minutes, perhaps five miles from the
fishing fleet, and between them and Douarnenez.

At 22.57 they started up main engines and turned to do their stuff. The
wind was light and in the south-west; under the lee of the land and the
Chausse the water was fairly smooth. The boats had good conditions for
high speed. They went roaring down upon the fishing fleet at
thirty-seven or thirty-eight knots side by side. Their depth-charges
were all set for fifty feet, and when they got within a mile or so of
the twinkling lights 268 let one of them go to call attention to their
approach.

It burst behind them in a great column of water, and as they closed the
fleet 268 began firing tracer from her 20 mm. cannon low over the
swaying lights. 261 let go another depth-charge and joined in the
cannon-fire with her forward Oerlikon. The lights began to vanish one by
one. They did not dare to close the fleet at that speed, fearing a
collision, so they swung six points to starboard and went roaring round
the north of them. Each of the boats dropped one more depth-charge,
"just to help them with the fishing," as Sanderson put it, and then they
swung eight points to port again.

The fleet was now behind them, and all lights were out. They drew away,
still firing over where they thought the boats must be. Simon had told
them that the _Raumboote_ lay normally to seaward of the fleet, and they
hoped by their fire and by ramping round to seaward of the fleet that
they would draw fire from one of them and make it show itself. But if
there were a _Raumboote_ there at all it lay doggo; it would have been
no match for them, and probably realized it.

At 23.12 the fleet was far behind and they were getting rather near the
Chausse. They swung right round to starboard and headed north, slowing
to twenty knots. At 23.17 they stopped their main engines and lay upon
the water side by side, their silent engines ticking over slowly.

They had done their stuff. There were no lights now showing from the
fleet, and the moon was just coming up above the land south of the bay.
The night was fine and starry; soon it would be very light. By their
operation orders they should now have set a course for home, but as
sometimes happens, operation orders got mislaid.

In conversation with me, as distinct from his report, Sanderson was
quite frank and unashamed. "If we'd beat it for home then," he said, "we
couldn't have got into harbour before dawn. It only meant lying for two
or three hours in Cawsand Bay. Conditions out there were so good I
thought we'd lie out there and see if the good Lord didn't send us a
nice Jerry."

He said that there were several searchlights playing about the coast,
two from a point upon the mainland near the Raz de Sein and several up
on the high ground of the Cap de la Chvre. Several times he saw these
searchlights pick up a fishing-boat and hold it in their beam; from the
disposition of the boats so held it was evident that they had scattered
widely over the Iroise. He began to wonder about _Genevive_. The rising
moon, white in a cloudless, starry sky, was flooding the bay with light;
they could see the land right round from St. Mathieu in the north to
Penmarch in the south. It was a bad night for any ship to slink about
the other side, trusting to darkness for her safety.

That was one of the reasons that made Sanderson disregard his orders. He
stayed to support _Genevive_ if there should be trouble. He lay some
ten miles out from La Chvre, drifting slowly northwards with the tide
towards the rocks called La Vendre. It was a beautiful, calm, moonlit
night. The two motor-gunboats lay there stopped upon the water for
nearly three hours, watching the shore, running their engines now and
then to keep them warm, ready to dive inshore again to help out
_Genevive_ if there were any trouble, ready for action against any
German vessel that showed up.

They saw nothing to disturb the quiet of the night. Presently the
searchlights shut off one by one; there was no sign of anything upon the
waters. Simon had been uncertain of the time that he would leave the
coast; provisionally he had estimated that he would have finished his
transhipment of the Tommy-guns between 01.00 and 01.30. Sanderson was
quite happy lying as he was and he gave _Genevive_ another hour to get
clear. At 02.10 he came to the conclusion that the party must be over,
and he might as well get under way. He made a signal to 261, and the two
boats got going, laying a course to pass about ten miles outside Ushant,
planning to reach Plymouth about dawn and go straight in.

At 02.13 there was a sudden, blinding yellow glow upon the water four or
five miles astern of them. It lit up the whole sky, drowning the moon
and showing up both boats in yellow light. It was not sudden as a
gun-flash is. It was continuous, its origin a smoky yellow streak. There
was only one thing that could possibly create a light like that.

Both M.G.B.s turned violently to starboard, worked quickly up to full
speed on the reverse course, and went to action stations. They tore down
to the incident ahead of them at forty knots, half their length clear
out of the water, leaving a wide streak of foam behind. They each had
two depth-charges left.

They could see the flashes of gunfire now. In the last bursts of flame
they saw the scene; there was a destroyer there. It seemed to them that
_Genevive_ was engaging her bow and her bridge with the flame; an aft
gun, beyond the reach of fire, was pumping shells out on a forward
bearing. The bulk of the destroyer, lying head to the north, came
between them and _Genevive_; she was silhouetted to them against the
glow of flame. The engagement was going on upon her starboard, landward,
side; they were approaching from the port.

As they came near the glow faded and died; a searchlight blazed out from
the stern of the destroyer; in its beam the gun, perhaps a four-inch,
went on firing forward up her side at the unseen target. The destroyer
was on fire forward; there was fire on her bridge and wheel-house and
the forward guns were silent. A machine-gun was firing from her
midships.

The motor-gunboats roared into attack. It was not clear to them if the
destroyer was lying stopped, or moving ahead, or going astern; there was
no sign of wake or bow wave. 268 was to the north as they ran in side by
side and 261 to the south; so to make sure of her Sanderson attacked the
bow and Peters took the stern.

The destroyer was so busy with the target on the other side, and with
putting out her fires, that the motor-gunboats were not seen till they
were right on top of her. Sanderson thought that the alarm was raised
when they were about three or four hundred yards away. A machine-gun in
the waist got off a few rounds at them as they approached, and they
replied with their two Oerlikons, spraying the decks of the destroyer
with little bursts of cannon shell, white and scintillating in the
darkness. Then they were right on top of her.

Sanderson, in 268, attacked the bow. He approached at right angles to
her length, running at forty knots; thinking that she was stopped he
steered a course to pass under her bow about fifteen feet ahead. When he
was right on top of her he saw that she was moving slowly ahead through
the water. His fifteen feet slipped down to ten as his bow crossed her
track, to seven as the bridge passed her rusty cutwater, her anchors
vertically above their heads.

They dropped one of their depth-charges a few feet on her port bow, and
the other a few feet on her starboard bow. The quartermaster at the
little wheel swung 268 violently to starboard to clear the stern; but
for that they would probably have been cut down. The transom passed the
stem of the destroyer with not more than two feet to spare, and then
they were running free and blazing back at the big German ship with both
their Oerlikons.

They could now see what the Germans had been firing at, and what they
saw was this: There was a wooden vessel, or the remains of a wooden
vessel, floating bottom up about two hundred yards from the destroyer.
About ten feet of her hull was showing, keel and garboards. Lying out
upon this was a young man in a naval officer's cap, and he was firing at
the destroyer with a Tommy-gun. Beside him was another man, hatless and
in a jersey, passing him drums of ammunition. This showed up quite
clearly in the light of the fires on the destroyer, and in the wavering
beam of the searchlight when it came that way.

268 passed within about fifty yards of this party. There was wreckage
and survivors swimming in the water, and in the background there were
two or more fishing-boats, apparently coming forward to pick them up.
Sanderson swerved to port to keep away from any swimmers. He was now
under a heavy, concentrated fire from the destroyer, and was replying
with both Oerlikons. He said it was quite hot.

As he roared by the wrecked boat the two men upon the keel looked round
at the noise, and the one in the naval cap waved cheerfully at them.
They waved back, and saw him turn again to fire at the destroyer with
the Tommy-gun. The searchlight went out suddenly, but who put it out,
whether the Tommy-gun or their own Oerlikons, they did not know. Then
their two depth-charges detonated behind them, and almost immediately
there were two more explosions from the stern of the destroyer where 261
had laid her two remaining charges.

They went tearing on into the darkness, and the wreckage of the
fishing-boat was lost to view. With the searchlight out, the moon and
the fires still raging on the destroyer made the only light, and
visibility was suddenly reduced. They circled round to port, but it was
not easy for them to see what damage had been done. As the great columns
of spray subsided it appeared to them that the destroyer was badly
damaged at the bow; her forecastle appeared to be wrecked by the
explosion of the depth-charges beneath her. She had not been going fast
enough, however, for them to get under her midships section, and
Sanderson did not think that she was sinking. The two that 261 had put
down aft had probably done little damage other than shaking her up; she
had been moving away from them.

The two boats met presently, circling in the darkness. It was obviously
unwise to approach the destroyer again; she was still vicious and they
had no more depth-charges to attack her with; the fire from Oerlikons
could never sink her. There were other vessels near at hand to pick up
the survivors of _Genevive_. It seemed to Sanderson that there was
nothing more that they could do without exposing their boats to a risk
that was quite unjustifiable. So he set a course for Ushant and for
Plymouth, with the intention of reporting as soon as possible in order
that the Air Force could get out and finish off the destroyer.

He got back, as I have said, at about 09.20.

       *       *       *       *       *

At that time, in November, 1941, it was not too easy to produce a force
of bombers at a moment's notice. All we could get hold of was a flight
of three Hudsons, which took off at 10.53 and were over the Iroise at
11.31. But the Germans had been too quick for us. The Hudsons found the
destroyer just going into the Rade de Brest, in the part they called the
Goulet, towed stern first by two tugs with another at the bow for
steering.

The Hudsons had all the flak of Brest against them in broad daylight,
and they dropped their bombs from a high altitude. I don't know that I
blame them, but they didn't do much good. They took some photographs
which got to me in London a day later; these showed the bow of the
destroyer to be missing completely. It was as if she had been cut off
with a knife just forward of the bridge. They got her into Brest all
right and she was still there when I left the Admiralty and went to sea;
I don't know what became of her eventually.

There was nothing more for me to do at Plymouth. I rang up V.A.C.O. and
told him very shortly what had happened, and he told me to meet him in
London to report. I rang up N.O.I.C. Dartmouth and told him baldly that
_Genevive_ would not be coming back to Dartmouth for some days, and
that he need not keep a watch for her that night. Then I picked up my
bag and drove down to the station to catch the fast train for London.

It was not till I was sitting in the train that I realized that that was
the train I should have caught in any case, that it stopped at Newton
Abbot at 3.40, and that Leading Wren Wright would be there to meet me
with the truck. I thought about that for a time. I could not bring
myself to sit on in the train and leave her there without instructions.
It seemed to me that there was very little reason to defer a nasty job;
when I got to London I should have to send a note to Casualties, and
they would send out the telegrams to the relatives. There was no real
reason why I should not see Miss Wright.

The train stopped in Newton Abbot for less than five minutes. I got out
as soon as it drew to a standstill and went through the barrier; she was
there standing by the car. She smiled when she saw me.

I took her by the arm. "I'm not coming back to Dartmouth," I said. "I'm
going on to London on the train. Come on to the platform in case it
goes; I want a word with you."

She stared at me. "Is anything wrong?"

I did not answer, but piloted her through the barrier and to my
carriage. We stood by the door, and the people and the porters and the
trucks thronged round about us.

"Look, Miss Wright," I said. "We've had a bit of bad luck this time.
It's not been announced yet, and until it is I don't want you to talk
about it. Can you manage to do that, do you think?"

She had gone very white; her eyes were very big and dark. A truck of
mail-sacks came, and we had to move aside. "I think so," she said.

There was no point in beating about the bush. "They were sunk," I told
her. "A good many of them were picked up by the fishing fleet, I think.
I don't know any details or any names. I only know the fact. I don't
want that fact talked about just yet."

"I see, sir," she said. She stood staring at a jet of steam issuing up
between the carriages in the raw air. "Can you tell me how it happened?"

"They took on a destroyer," I said. "They did a lot of damage to it, but
they hadn't a chance."

She asked: "How long will it be before you get the names, sir, do you
think?"

I had to tell her that I didn't know. "I'll keep in touch with you, Miss
Wright," I said. "I'll let you know the minute anything comes in. Keep
your pecker up. It's going to be all right."

Behind us the guard blew his whistle. I got into the carriage and leaned
from the window. She said: "Thank you for telling me, sir."

She had very little to be thankful for, poor kid. The train began to
move. I said: "Try not to tell anybody. I know it's going to be hard,
but--try."

She said: "I won't tell a soul. Thank--thank you ever so much, sir."
Then I was sliding away from her down the platform, and she was standing
there, with tears beginning to run down her face, in the crowd and the
smoke and the steam. I sank down into my seat, thanking God that that
was over.

I got to London at about nine o'clock and went straight to the
Admiralty. V.A.C.O. was there, and I told him the story, and then we
telephoned McNeil and got him to come over. We had a long talk over it
that night, but there was nothing we could do.

"I'll probably get some kind of a report to-morrow," said the brigadier
at last, "--from the other side. We'll know how things stand then."




10


But no report came through.

We waited on, day after day, for news from Douarnenez, and nothing came
at all. We got a message from the other side about the damaged destroyer
at Brest; it only told us what we knew already from air photographs.
There was no news of _Genevive_ or her crew, and for some reason that I
didn't clearly understand McNeil could not ask for any. "We've just got
to wait," he said. "We'll get a message before long."

But when we did hear something, it was from quite a different source.

It came from the Casualties Section. They rang me up about midday on
November the 7th, a week after the action. "Is that Commander Martin?"

"Speaking," I said.

"That party of yours, that we notified as missing. One of them has
turned up--a lieutenant R.N.R. named Colvin. He was one of them, wasn't
he?"

"He's one of them," I said. "Is he alive?"

"Oh, yes--at least, he was alive when he was brought in. He was brought
into Portsmouth this morning in an A/S trawler. He's in Haslar Hospital
now suffering from exposure."

I said: "Where did the trawler find him?"

"He was in a boat, quite a small boat, so they said. Drifting about some
ten miles south of St. Catherine's. They said he seemed to have been in
it a long time. He was only just conscious, or not conscious at all. Of
course, it's been very cold these last few nights."

"I know," I said. I paused. "Was he alone in the boat?"

"Yes, quite alone."

"Thanks for telling me," I said. "I'll get through to Haslar." It is
about two hundred and thirty sea miles from the Iroise to St.
Catherine's. We had had half a gale most of the week, and it had
certainly been very cold. I rang up Haslar Hospital and spoke to the
surgeon-commander.

"I'd really rather that you didn't come to-day," he said. "He's sleeping
naturally now. He'll have a bad time when he wakes up, but I think he'll
be all right. He seems to be a man with a good constitution, but he
isn't a young man by any means."

"I know," I said. "What about to-morrow morning?"

"I think that should be all right, if you don't stay too long. Half an
hour at the most."

"I'll come down then," I said.

I went down next day to Portsmouth and over to Haslar by the ferry. I
went through to the officers' block in the garden quadrangle, bleak and
with a little snow lying upon the rose-beds. I found Colvin propped up
in a clean white bed in a cabin to himself. He looked grey and old, and
smaller than the strapping chap that I remembered from a week before.

"Say," he said, "it's real nice of you to come down, sir. We got shot
up and sunk. I guess you heard about that from the M.G.B. boys."

"I was very sorry to hear it," I said. "How did it happen?"

He said: "It was this way."

       *       *       *       *       *

They had gone creeping into the Iroise at about 21.30, without lights,
slowly and as quietly as they could. It was a clear, calm night with
very little cloud; the moon was not yet up, but there was fairly good
visibility under the stars. It was a bad night for them; they realized
that from the start, but they went through with it according to the
plan.

They had intended to anchor in the Anse des Blancs Sablons three miles
north of Cap de la Chvre before zero hour at 23.00 and let the
scattered vessels of the fishing fleet come to them there. They changed
that plan when the extreme visibility of the night was revealed. It was
too risky for them to approach the coast alone; they would certainly be
seen by the shore patrols. Instead, they hung about in the Iroise six or
seven miles out to sea, waiting for the diversion that the M.G.B.s would
make.

Five miles to the south of them they could distinctly see the lights of
the fishing fleet clustered about the Raz. It was risky for them,
waiting there like that; after the attacks that they had made on
_Raumboote_ an isolated fishing vessel in those parts would have drawn
immediate suspicion. They waited for an hour, stemming the tide with the
engine turning over slowly, tensely watching the horizon for the first
sign of a ship. But their luck held for the time, and nothing came to
worry them.

Exactly at 23.00 the show started, down to the south by the fishing
fleet. They saw the tracer-bullets flying through the sky and heard the
crash and rumble of the depth-charges; immediately every light went out.
The firing only lasted for about three minutes; searchlights came on and
began to sweep the sea. Once or twice a beam passed over them but did
not hold them; several times, away to the south-east, they saw fishing
vessels caught and held in the white light. Some of these were heading
to the north towards them, and some back to the east towards Douarnenez.
In a quarter of an hour the fleet was scattered all over the Iroise, and
the moon was just coming up over the hill.

They went forward then and began to close the coast. When they had come
within about four miles of the rendezvous a searchlight caught and held
them; they went on steadily, each man inwardly terrified and miserable.
It held them for the best part of a minute; then travelled on and
immediately they saw another fishing vessel outlined in the beam. She
was half a mile inshore and travelling upon a northerly, converging
course with them. Presently the searchlight, hunting for the enemy,
picked up another one.

They held their course towards the Anse des Blancs Sablons, and twice
more they were caught and held in the white, blinding light. It must
have been clear to the German searchlight crews by this time that a
number of the fishing vessels scattered over the Iroise were making for
the Anse, and _Genevive_ went in with the crowd. Presently the
searchlight ceased to bear, and they rounded up in the Anse at about
five minutes to midnight.

Seven other vessels were there to meet them, as had been arranged; in
the pale moonlight all the eight of them were as like as peas. They lay
together in a cluster about half a mile from the white beach,
manoeuvring about and shouting from boat to boat. Presently one of
them came alongside _Genevive_ and made fast to her with warps; they
lay grinding the fenders and the work of passing out the cases was
begun. Later on another came up on the other beam.

Several of the Breton fishermen came on board. Colvin saw Simon talking
to an old man from the first boat. "Chummy, they were, sir," he said.
"Like as if they'd met before some place. I'd say he was the one that
Simon fixed up with that time he went into Douarnenez."

"Bozallec," I said.

"Aye. That was the name."

It took much longer than they had estimated to tranship the guns and
ammunition. It might have been easier had they anchored _Genevive_ and
let the others come alongside one by one. Colvin said they had not done
that because they were certainly under constant observation from the
shore, and a successive manoeuvre of that sort would have roused
suspicion. Instead they kept under way the whole time, stemming the
tide that streamed up from the south. The fishing vessels were unhandy
in a close manoeuvre of that sort; there was much bumping and boring,
and long delays while circling for position. The effect from shore was
probably one of clumsy, innocent confusion, but it was about 01.50
before the last case had been passed and the last gulp of sour red wine
drunk to seal the ceremony.

By then the moon was well up; on the calm water it was very light
indeed. It would not do for one ship to strike out alone towards the
west while the others turned south and eastwards round La Chvre for
home. The Bretons saw that well enough and were prepared to accompany
_Genevive_ till she was off the land. They all left the Anse des Blancs
Sablons together heading about south-west, as if returning to the Raz to
go on fishing.

"Captain Simon, he was well in with them, sir," said Colvin. "They'd
have done anything for him, they would."

The eight vessels passed outside the Bouc. It seemed then that they had
gone far enough together; there was a good deal of shouting from boat to
boat, and then _Genevive_ altered course to west and went on out
towards the Atlantic and safety, towards Dartmouth and home.

Ten minutes after they had left the other boats a searchlight blazed out
dead ahead of them, not half a mile away, and held them in its glare.

"Properly caught, we were," said Colvin grimly.

Blinded by the light, they could only see the bulk of the vessel. It was
obvious from the height of the light that she was something much bigger
than a _Raumboote_. She began flashing at them with a signal-lamp. There
was nothing they could do but to hold straight on and try to bluff it
out as stupid Breton seamen. As the vessels drew together they prepared
for their last action.

All that this preparation could amount to was that Rhodes slipped into
the control seat of the flame-thrower and checked his pressures. They
could not man the Bren-guns or the Tommy-guns till action had commenced;
their deck was flooded with white light and any preparation of that sort
would have given them away at once. The Bretons played up well under
Simon's guidance. The gunners stood nonchalantly, hands in pockets,
cigarette in mouth, staring at the bulk of the destroyer as the vessels
closed. They must have looked very like a fishing crew.

They did not answer the flashing signal-lamp; that was not in the part.
In a real fishing vessel nobody would know how to read Morse. They just
held on towards the enemy, and presently they were lying stopped
alongside, about thirty yards away from her, opposite the bridge. She
towered above them. She was only a small destroyer, somewhat similar to
our V class, but to them she was immense.

The officer of the watch hailed them in bad French through a megaphone.
"What ship is that? Where are you from?"

Rollot, the _matre_, was standing by Simon at the entrance to the
little wheel-house. They whispered quickly together. Then Rollot called
out in rich Breton dialect: "Fishing-boat _Marie et Pierre_, from
Douarnenez. We left the fleet and came out here because of the firing."

There was a pause. Then: "Come in closer and take a line and come
alongside." It was very calm. "I shall send an officer on board you."

Simon turned to Colvin in the wheel-house and translated quickly. "This
is the end of it," he said. "Shall we give in to them, or shall we fight
it out?"

Colvin said: "I guess we'd better fight it out. The boys would like it
better that way. Can Rhodes get his fire down to the stern from here?"

"No. It is too far."

"Well, let him take the bow gun and the bridge in the first place 'n
then train aft. I'll see if I can work her down that way to help him."

From the destroyer a voice cried impatiently: "Come alongside, or we
open fire on you."

Simon bent to the speaking-tube. "Rhodes, fire at the bow gun and then
the bridge, and then work down the decks towards the stern. We shall go
slow ahead. Fire quickly now as soon as you are ready."

The young man said: "Very good, sir." Their gun drill was never very
formal in that ship.

The fire burst out and lit up the destroyer brilliantly. The jet curved
lazily towards the A gun's crew, landed amongst them and enveloped them
in flame. A great fire rose up from the forecastle of the destroyer
immediately; they must have had cordite charges open for loading.

From the wing of the bridge a machine-gun opened fire on them. They
replied with Bren and Tommy gunfire, and the flame jet travelled slowly
to the bridge. That machine-gun ceased to fire abruptly, but another
opened up upon them from the waist of the destroyer and began to spray
them. The flame paused upon the bridge, and then began to work along her
length towards the gun. There was a sudden clang of gongs, and screams,
and shouted orders.

The ships were lying bow to stern side by side. Colvin put on full power
to go ahead towards the stern of the destroyer. He turned to Simon. "We
want to get that flame to bear on their aft gun quick as we can," he
said. "Tell Rhodes."

If they had managed to do that, if they had burnt the Z gun's crew as
they had burnt the A gun's, I believe they might have got away with it.
The destroyer then would have had nothing but small arms and
machine-guns to fight them with, unless perhaps some A/A cannon. But as
it worked out, they never got the aft gun. As they went ahead she went
astern; she gained speed more quickly than they did and her stern kept
well out of range of their fire.

Then the Germans opened fire with their stern gun, probably about a
four-inch gun, loaded H.E. There was never any doubt about it after
that. The range was only about two hundred yards. The first shell
pitched over them and burst behind. The second was a direct hit
somewhere near the bow, and the ship disintegrated.

"She just came to pieces, sir," Colvin said. "One minute she was there
all right, and next thing that I knew there was a sort of flash and all
the planks and timbers were all separate, and we were in the water."

He thought there was a third shell, but he was not sure of that. He did
not know how he got into the water; probably he was blown clean out of
the wheel-house. All he knew was that he was in the water ten or
fifteen yards from the wreckage that had been _Genevive_, and that
there was nobody else near him.

"That happened at two-sixteen in the morning," he said carefully. "I
know that must have been the time, because my watch stopped, because the
water got in it. And it said two-sixteen."

I nodded. "That agrees with what the M.G.B.s reported," I said. He had
been talking for a quarter of an hour, and I wanted the whole story, if
possible, before I was turned out. "What happened next?"

He turned his head wearily and nervously upon the pillow. "It's on the
chest-of-drawers there with them other things," he said. "The watch."
His eyes were turned to a small pile of personal belongings, grey with
salt. "Could you get it for me?"

I got up and gave it to him. It was a silver pocket watch with a very
big white dial. There was still water inside the glass. He took it
gratefully.

"What happened next?" I asked again.

He said: "I'll tell you." And then his eyes dropped to the watch in his
hand. "I was wondering, would you do something for me, sir? It's had the
water in it for a week now, 'n I wouldn't like to think that it'd never
go again. Would you take it up to London to be cleaned? It was given me
by somebody I thought a lot of one time."

"Of course I will," I said. "I'll take it up this afternoon and get it
seen to right away."

He gave it to me gratefully. "You can see where it says on the back," he
murmured in a burst of confidence. "'Jack Colvin from Junie, September
17th, 1935.' That's what it says, isn't it?"

I glanced at the engraving. "That's right," I said. I slipped it into my
pocket. "I'll get it put right for you.

"What happened after that?" I asked for the third time.

       *       *       *       *       *

He said that he had begun to swim away from the wreckage. That was
panic--instinct--call it what you like. There was a lot of light from
the fires in the destroyer and from her searchlight, and he wanted
nothing more than to get out of it. It was only when he had swum
furiously and blindly for a hundred yards or so that he regained his
senses. What brought him to himself was M.G.B. 268, which passed within
a few yards of him after dropping her depth-charges at the bow of the
destroyer.

He saw her bearing down on him, and saw the great wave of her wash
sweeping towards him. In a quick glance around before he went down in
the wash he saw the men upon the M.G.B. quite close to him as she swept
past at forty knots. He saw the upturned keel of _Genevive_ with two
men on it firing with a Tommy-gun. He did not know who they were.

He saw the shapes of fishing vessels in the background half a mile or
more away. Then the wash came to him and he was smothered by it,
clutched and spun round under water by the swirl, and thrown up gasping
to the surface. He threw himself on his back for the concussion;
immediately the depth-charges went off by the destroyer not more than
two hundred yards away, and a great mass of water came down on him,
carrying him under again.

He had his inflated life-belt on, his Mae West, as they all had;
otherwise he would certainly have been drowned. But presently he came up
to the surface, feebly spluttering and gasping, and it was now much
darker, for the searchlight had gone out. He lay floating and winded,
supported by the Mae West and recovering his senses, for perhaps ten
minutes.

And presently it seemed to him that he was farther from the scene. He
was farther from the destroyer. Probably she then had stern way on her
to ease the forward bulkheads; in any case, she was much farther off. He
could see the coast clearly in the moonlight between La Chvre and the
Anse de Dinant; it was not more than two miles away. The tide was still
carrying him northwards, and would be for another two hours; from his
recollection of the tidal streams he knew that it would sweep him closer
to the land as it filled up into the Rade de Brest.

And with that his guts came back to him. "I didn't fancy swimming to
them fishing-boats," he said. "I reckoned if the Germans got any of us
we'd be scuppered out of hand, with having put the flame on them and
that." It seemed to him that he could reach the coast quite easily on
that calm, moonlit night. So he began to swim.

He said that the water was not very cold, although it was November. He
was in the flood-tide up from the Bay of Biscay for one thing, and that
was likely to be fairly warm. He was a strong swimmer. "Living in
Oakland, like I did," he said, "we used to spend a lot of time down on
the beach. Besides, I been swimming all my life, one place or another.
It wasn't nothing, that."

And so he swam for shore.

The tide bore him northwards faster than he swam, hampered as he was
with his clothes and his Mae West. He kept his clothes on for their
warmth, even in water, and because he knew that he would want them when
he got on shore. He finally landed, after being in the water for about
two hours, in a little rocky cove just north of Anse de Dinant, under
the shadow of the island rocks that they call Tas de Pois. That must
have been at about four or four-thirty in the morning. Immediately he
got out of the water he began to feel the cold.

The moon was still high in the sky, flooding the coast with light.
Because he was so cold he began to clamber along the rocks looking for a
way up the cliff. The cliffs in this part of Brittany are usually very
high and rugged; where he landed he had to climb nearly two hundred feet
before he got on level ground. Oddly enough, this gave him confidence to
go on. "I knew there wouldn't be none of them minefields top of a place
like that," he said. "There wasn't even any barbed wire." The Germans do
not waste material in the defence of places which can never be invaded.
Simon had found the same when he climbed up the cliffs near Goulin.

He found his way up the cliff at last, and wormed his way cautiously
forward over the bare, short grass. He knew just where he was; from long
study of the chart he held every feature of the coast firm in his
memory. He was about two miles due south of the little fishing village
of Camaret; he was on a small peninsula jutting westwards from the big
peninsula between the Rade de Brest and the Bay of Douarnenez. The land
that he was on was covered with heather, with occasional clumps of gorse
and bracken. There were no trees.

Very soon he came to a footpath, well worn, running through the heather
parallel with the cliff. He crossed it and went on away from the sea,
still crawling on his hands and knees. The moonlight was still so bright
that he was afraid to stand up; in that bare country he felt that he
would be visible a mile away. When he had passed the footpath by about
twenty yards he heard the tramp of feet; he curled up and lay still
among the heather. A German soldier came in sight, marching along in
tin-hat, his rifle slung over his shoulder. He was an oldish man, with
rather a slovenly appearance. He went straight down the path, looking
neither to the left nor the right. After a time Colvin crawled on again.

He went on for the best part of a mile, crawling all the way because of
the lack of cover. This was not a bad thing, as it happened, because the
effort and the use of his limbs that it entailed made him warm; his arms
and legs regained their normal feeling and his clothes began to dry upon
him. He had let the air out of his Mae West, but still wore it for
warmth.

Presently, in the first light of dawn, he came to a stone wall dividing
the moor from fields. He reached up cautiously and looked over, and
found that he was looking down into the village of Camaret, a mile to
the north of him. In the grey light he could see the entrance to the
Rade de Brest beyond, and beyond that again the rocky coast of the north
part of Brittany.

"I didn't know what was best to do," he said, fingering the sheet. "It
seemed to me that I was in a jam."

On that peninsula it was dangerous to go crawling about in broad
daylight with no plan. There was a big clump of bracken growing up
against the wall not very far away. He made for this and crawled into
the middle of it and lay down, safe from any observation but from the
air. And lying there he set to work to make a plan.

He had no need for any further survey of the country; he knew exactly
where he was. As he crawled there had been growing in his mind the idea
that if he could get on to the north coast of Brittany, the south coast
of the English Channel, some opportunity might arise for getting back to
England. He might somehow get a boat; he might even make a raft and try
to blow back on the south-west wind. In any case, the north coast was
where he ought to be.

He had a terribly long way to go to get there, seventy or eighty miles,
perhaps. He would have to travel eastwards on the peninsula inland into
France for twenty miles or so in order to get round the Rade de Brest;
after that he would have to turn north. He did not know the country or
the people. He knew that the main German concentrations were usually
held a few miles inland from the coast; that meant that the farther
inland that he went the greater would be the risk of being taken by the
Germans.

From that point of view, and because he was a seaman and had memorized
the charts, he longed to stay by the coast. He felt safe there; he had
knowledge of conditions and localities; the inland parts were unknown,
strange, and hazardous. He thought longingly of the north part of
Brittany to the west and north-west of Brest, that was in sight across
the sea. If he could get there he could go on round the coast until he
found what he was looking for, a means of getting back to England. On
the coast he would know what he was doing.

It was only just across the way, that part of Brittany. Could he
possibly...get there?

It meant swimming again, of course. He concentrated his mind upon the
chart and on the tidal streams. It must, he thought, be about five miles
across the entrance to the Rade. It was November, and resting motionless
in the grey dawn he was beginning to get very cold again. The thought of
going into the sea once more was an appalling one. He had just swum
about two miles in two hours, and he felt now that he had nearly died of
it. Another five hours might well mean the end of everything for him.

But it wasn't so bad as that. If he picked his time right, the tidal
stream that swept north-eastwards in from the Iroise to fill the Rade de
Brest would carry him along; it would be pretty well behind him. It ran
from two to two and a half knots, that stream did. That would reduce the
time a great deal. In theory he would be in the water for no more than
two hours; in practice it would probably be three. That made it
possible, perhaps.

He would have to enter the water about midnight, by his reckoning, if he
were to take the tide up with him in that way.

"I didn't see what else there was to do, sir," he remarked. "I reckoned
that the Germans would shoot me if they got me, 'n I thought I might as
well die swimming as that."

He grew very cold and hungry, lying in the bracken. He slept a little,
fitfully, from time to time; in his long waking hours his mind became
increasingly filled with thoughts of food. And what he thought about was
American food, clam chowder that Junie made out of a tin, and waffles
that Junie made on the electric cooker in the little kitchen of their
Oakland apartment. And Junie herself, in a clean print frock on a warm
day...Junie, who was seven thousand miles away from him in distance
and two years in time.

It was a still, clear autumn day with a light wind from the north-east.
It was sunny most of the forenoon, and that made his long wait
tolerable. He was so near to Camaret that he could hear the church clock
strike the hours and the quarters. As evening came on he was thankful
for that clock. He had resolved to try his luck at swimming to the
northern shore, but the whole matter hinged upon the proper use of the
tide. If he entered the water too soon he might struggle and exhaust
himself in the slack water, or be carried out to sea, and die. If he
entered it too late, it might be daylight when he sought to climb the
cliffs only a few miles from Brest. His watch had stopped, but now he
had the clock to help him, that and the rising of the moon.

When dusk came he began to crawl towards Le Toulinguet. That is a rocky
point with an automatic light on it, standing on a point of rocks down
by the water's edge. He got within half a mile of it in the last light
of the day, near enough to see the path that ran down to a little
concrete causeway on the rocks that led to the red tower. Between him
and that path there was a watch-hut, camouflaged with the heather and
occupied by German soldiers. From time to time one of them came out for
a natural function and went back inside again.

The dusk merged into starlight and he crept on. He passed behind the
watch-hut and about a hundred yards away, moving with infinite care
through the heather. "I was proper fussed about them land-mines that
they stick about sometimes," he said. "They might have had some planted
back of a little post like that." But if they had, his luck was with him
still.

He lay through the first part of the night at the border of the heather
near the path. When he heard midnight strike and saw the first gleams of
moonlight on the water, he crept down to the concrete causeway. He
paused to blow up his Mae West and to note the angle of the moon
relative to the course that he must swim.

Then he slipped down into the water and swam powerfully from the rocks.
A wave lifted him and crashed him down upon an underwater shoal,
scraping his left leg painfully. Then he was clear and swimming steadily
upon his course.

He said that the water was terribly cold, much colder than the night
before, he thought. It probably was just about the same, but he had had
no food and very little sleep. Very soon he was swimming mechanically
and numbly, his mind dazed and far away from Brittany.

"It was half-moon," he said. "It got me all muddled because Half Moon
Bay, that was the beach Junie 'n me used to go swimming at Sundays. We
used to swim a long way those times--'most as far as I was trying to
swim that night. But that was in the day-time and all sunny, 'n much
warmer, too."

Half-moon, Half Moon Bay, and swimming with Junie. The thoughts rolled
slowly round in his numbed brain as he ploughed on, hampered by the
clothes that he dared not abandon, held up by his Mae West, borne
forward by the tide. He kept the moon over his right shoulder in the
endless, mechanical cycle of his motions. And presently the California
sunshine was more real to him than the dark water he was swimming in,
and Junie swimming by his side was more to him than just a memory.

"She used to tan a sort of goldeny brown, like her hair," he said, and
his hands moved restlessly upon the sheet as he lay in the iron cot. And
then he said unexpectedly: "If I'd ha' died that time, swimming across,
I don't think I'd ha' minded much."

But he didn't die. He swam right across the entrance to the Rade de
Brest, and he got to the other side.

He landed on the north coast at a point about due north of Toulinguet.
He landed on a point of rocks and clambered slowly along it to the
shore, stumbling and falling on the seaweed in the darkness. He was so
numb that he could hardly stand; he fell, over and over again, before he
got to firmer ground. He was so cold that his mind worked very slowly.

He came to a little beach beneath an earthy cliff after a time and
rested there. The weather had deteriorated during the night; the wind
was now from the south-east and it was beginning to cloud over. He sat
resting for some time in a stupor that was half sleep; then he grew so
cold that he had to get up and move about, infinitely weary.

The coast that he had landed on was lower and more easily scaled than
the cliffs that he had left. The earth cliff he was resting up against
was barely thirty feet high; above that the fields began. He knew what
that would mean: barbed wire and land-mines, and a greater intensity of
German sentries. He got up presently and began to make his way westwards
along the rocks and beaches underneath the cliff.

After a time he came to a larger beach where a cart-track ran down from
inshore. It seemed to him that the cart-track, the low fields beside it,
would make a focus for defence; there would be a pill-box somewhere
near-by manned by a picket of Germans. In the low fields there would be
land-mines and barbed wire. He turned and went back for a quarter of a
mile to a point where the cliff was thirty or forty feet in height,
banking upon a paucity of defence in the more difficult locality.

He scrambled up the cliff without great difficulty and wormed his way
forward over the grass. There was barbed wire ahead of him, but only a
few strands of it on low, triangular supports. He lay watching for ten
minutes and then negotiated it without great difficulty, and crawled on
inland. Presently he came to a stone wall and began to walk upright,
finding his way from field to field, heading about north-west.

Dawn came, and found him three or four miles inland from Le Conquet.
Under a grey cold sky he saw a country of small fields surrounded by
stone walls, with a few scattered cottages and farms built of grey
stone. It was a country just like Cornwall over the sea a hundred and
ten miles to the north, Cornwall, where he longed to be.

He was desperately cold and weary, and tormented with hunger and thirst.
He found a little stagnant pool and had a long drink in the growing
light. Then he found a field of sugar-beet and grubbed up three or four
of them. Carrying them in his arms he skinned one with his knife and
began to eat it, wandering on from field to field seeking for a place
where he could lie hidden.

In that windswept country, cover was very scarce. He found a clump of
blackberry bushes growing up against one of the stone walls; fearing
immediate detection if he went on, he pressed himself feet first into
concealment under this beside the wall. The thorns tore his skin and his
clothes, but he dug farther into it till he was well concealed. And all
the time he went on munching at his beets.

Presently, cold and numb and tired, he fell asleep.

When he awoke it must have been about the middle of the forenoon. He
stirred and rolled around, tearing himself again among the brambles. And
immediately he did that, all Bedlam was let loose. A dog began to bark
and clamour at his bush. He lay dead-still, but the row continued. It
ran round barking and snuffling at various points of the bush till
presently it found where he had gone in. There it stayed barking at him,
just out of his reach. It was a mongrel, black and white, he said, about
the size of a collie.

There was nothing he could do about it, short of coming out and pelting
it with stones. He lay there and it went on barking. And then he heard a
footstep, and a voice, a woman's voice, calling off the dog.

"_Qui est?_" she cried sharply. "_Qui est l-dedans?_"

There was nothing for it; slowly he dragged himself from his concealment
and looked up at her. She was a peasant woman of thirty-five or forty,
roughly dressed and dirty; from the look of her hands, covered in soil,
she had been pulling beets. She stood there looking down at him,
sarcastic. "_Et  qui les betteraves?_" she said.

He spoke a moderate Quebec French, but he did not understand her accent.
He lay there on the ground looking up at her, puzzled. And then she
looked at him again and took in his sodden clothes, his draggled hair
and his torn hands. She said quickly:

"_Vous tes un chapp?_"

He understood that one. "_Suis officier anglais_," he said, and his old
charm came back to him. "_Il y avait un naufrage._"

She caught her breath. "Ah..." And then she said in her Breton
dialect: "Where do you want to go?"

He said simply: "To England, madame." He smiled up at her. "I have
important business to attend to there."

"Business?" she said. "What do you mean?"

He said: "I have to get another ship and come back here again to kill
more Germans."

She stared at him, and he smiled back at her. "There was firing and a
battle down in the Iroise the night before last," she said. "Were you in
that?"

He nodded.

"What do you want me to do?" she asked uncertainly.

There was no uncertainty in his reply. "I want to eat a very large hot
meal," he said, "and to drink beer. And after that I want to find a
boat. Any sort of boat will do, so long as I can steal it and escape."

She stared at him with wonder in her eyes. "You are a strange man," she
said at last. "Stay there and I will tell my husband. Do not come out at
all; get right inside again. There is a German post within a kilometre
of us here."

She went away, and he crept back into the bush, wondering what was going
to happen. He had not long to wait. Within an hour she was back again,
this time without the dog. She bent down to his hole beneath the bush
and thrust in a large, blackened tin dixie. It was hot to his touch.

"There is food, Englishman," she said urgently. "There is no beer. Now
listen to me. Stay here till it is quite, quite dark; do not come out at
all. Then, when it is very dark, you can come out, but leave the can
under the bush; I will get it to-morrow. Follow the wall to the west
till you come to the lane. Two fields down the lane, to the north, there
is our farm on the right. Knock three times on the door quietly and we
will let you in."

He repeated her instructions.

She said: "If you have bad luck and the Germans take you, do not betray
us." Then, before he could answer her, she was gone.

He lifted the lid off the dixie. There was about half a gallon of a
thick fish soup in it, stiffened with potatoes and vegetables, and with
a wooden spoon floating on the top. Lying in the bramble bush he got
down every drop of this; no food had ever seemed to him to be so good.
And then, warm again, he fell asleep once more.

It was very nearly dark when he woke up. He lay and watched the last of
the daylight fade, and presently he scrambled from the bush and made his
way along the wall. At about seven o'clock in the evening he was
knocking at the door of the farm.

It opened to him, and he went through a black-out curtain into the farm
kitchen. The woman was there, and there was a man about fifty years of
age, in shirt-sleeves and unshaven. They were a decent enough pair.

The man said: "Did you meet anybody in the lane?"

Colvin said: "Nobody at all." He paused, and then he said: "Thank you
for the food; I left the dixie under the bush. I had eaten nothing for a
day and a half."

The man approached, and laid a hand upon his arm. "She said that you
were wet," he remarked. "Are you dry now?"

"Aye," said Colvin. "I don't want any clothes." All this was carried on
in halting French, Breton on their side and Quebec on his.

The man said next: "She says that you are looking for a boat to steal.
That is now very difficult, because of the Germans. They put a guard on
boats with motors, and even upon boats with sails. You will not be able
to steal a boat in these parts."

"I don't want a big one," Colvin said.

"You cannot cross La Manche to England, rowing."

He said: "I can that."

"You must be mad."

"Sure I'm mad," he said. "So would you be, in my place."

There was a momentary pause.

"Is there a rowing-boat that I can take?" he asked.

The man said slowly: "At Le Conquet, when the fishing-boats are out at
night, they leave a boat upon the mooring--a very small, old boat, you
understand, that they can get to shore in when they have moored the
fishing-boat. But since the Germans came the boats, even the little
ones, are padlocked to the mooring chain, and the oars are taken away.
Each night the German soldiers go to see that all the boats are properly
secured."

By his side the woman said suddenly: "There are oars here in the loft,
but they are not a pair."

Colvin said: "That don't matter. Let me have a look at them?"

The man said: "Would you swim out to the boat, in the black night?"

Colvin showed them his Mae West, which he still wore beneath his jacket,
and they fingered it with interest. "Such thick rubber," said the man,
"in time of war!"

The woman turned away to the fire, lifted a pot and poured out a great
bowl of the same fish soup. She set it on the table with a length of
bread. "Eat this," she said. "I will fetch the oars."

He sat down gratefully to the meal, and she went out. The man followed
her, but returned after a minute. In his hand he carried a small, rusty
hacksaw. He laid it on the table in silence.

Colvin took it up, smiling. "Say..." he said. He felt the serrations
with his thumb; they were well worn, but it was sharp enough. "You got
everything."

The woman came back with the oars. They were worn half through by the
thole-pin and one was a foot longer than the other. "They'll do," he
said. "Now, how do I find this boat?"

"Finish your meal," the man said. "I will guide you there."

Colvin ate every morsel that he could; he ate on steadily for half an
hour. Then he leaned back and pulled out a wet, stained pocket-book and
searched in it. He found two sodden one-pound notes.

He got to his feet and laid the notes upon the table. "You folks been
pretty nice to me," he said in halting French. "Oars and a hacksaw, they
cost money, and not easy to get. And then there's the food, and that.
I'm real sorry that it's only English money I've got, but maybe you'll
get change for it one day."

The man shook his head, and pushed the notes back towards him. And then
he did what seemed to Colvin a queer thing. He stood straight up, as
straight and serious as a priest at the altar, and he made the V sign
with two fingers.

Colvin stared at him. He had seen the V sign in England chalked on walls
by little boys, _ad nauseam_. He had seen it in the newspapers, in
advertisements for motor-cars, salad cream, and tooth-paste. He had seen
a red-nosed comedian in a London theatre chalk it on the backside of a
young woman who happened to be bending over. Never before had he seen it
used by people who believed in it.

After a moment's hesitation, he stood up straight himself and repeated
it self-consciously. Then he turned to the woman.

"Madame," he said, "the British Admiralty will repay me this money, and
you have children to think of. There are children, are there not?" A
little enamel pot standing in a corner had not escaped his notice.

She said: "I took them to my mother to-day, in case they should talk."

He said: "When next you go to Brest, buy them a present from the British
Admiralty. Perhaps a ship would be most suitable."

They both laughed at that, and she took the money and stuffed it in the
pocket of her dress.

Ten minutes later he was standing in the darkness with the man, the oars
over his shoulder and the thole-pins in his pocket. Wrapped round the
oars there was a sheet of canvas that had covered a leaky pigsty roof,
and once had been a portion of a sail. It was all the fabric that they
had to give him. He stood with the man while their eyes grew accustomed
to the darkness, the echoes of the woman's "_Bonne chance!_" ringing in
his ears.

"I will go first, and noisily," the farmer whispered. "Follow me at a
hundred metres, and as quietly as you can. If I meet Germans I will make
sufficient noise that you will know."

The wind was still south-east, but it had strengthened; the sky was
mostly obscured by cloud, though here and there patches of starlight
showed. It was about half-past eight when they left the farm. The man
led Colvin by roads and lanes for nearly two hours, strolling ahead,
singing or muttering to himself.

They met one German picket. Colvin heard the challenge, and a long
incoherent argument commenced, and he got over the hedge into the field.
He made a detour round the argument, and when he heard the man
proceeding on the road he followed on beside him in the field. Presently
they were going on upon the road as before.

They walked for about two hours in that way through the night. Then the
lane that they were following petered out into a grass pasture, and here
the man was waiting for Colvin.

"This is the place," he whispered. "You must go very quietly now. Upon
the other side of this field is the sea, the north side of the little
bay that is Le Conquet. The village is on the other side, the south.
Over there," he pointed to the west, "is Kermorvan. I do not think that
there are any Germans here, but there are land-mines in places. In those
places there is one strand of barbed wire, on posts."

They went on towards the water over the field. They found a patch of
land-mines and followed the wire along till it ended; then they came to
a formidable hedge of wire. They threw the piece of sail on this and
negotiated it without great difficulty; then they were on the shore with
water lapping on the rocks at their feet.

The man pointed over the water at a dim mass, seen very faintly in the
thin starlight when you put your head down very near the surface. "There
is one boat," he said. "There may be others, but I cannot see."

He stood up. "There you are," he said. "This is all that I can do for
you. You have boat and oars now; may the good God be with you."

Colvin said: "One day, when peace comes, if I am still living, I will
come back here and we will talk of this."

He went back to the wire and the farmer recrossed it on the sail; Colvin
regained the sail with some difficulty and went back to the shore. It
struck him then that he had never learned the farmer's name.

Ten minutes later he was in the water again, swimming to the dimly seen
boat, towing the oars behind him by a cord around his shoulders. It was
not a long swim, not much more than a hundred yards, and that now to him
was nothing, helped by his Mae West. Before he reached the boat he saw
another one, a little to the west.

He climbed into the boat and examined it. It was about twelve feet long
and heavily built; it was fouled with sea-gull manure and seemed very
old. There was a little water in the bottom of it and there was a
cigarette tin at the stern, evidently used for bailing. A stout chain
over the bows, with a padlock, held it to the mooring.

He dropped into the water again and swam over to the other one, but that
was in a worse condition than the first, and he swam back again.

It was not much of a boat to cross the Channel in, but it would have to
do. He pulled himself into it and then, cold in the wind, he set to
sawing through the mooring chain. The wind was still in the south-east,
and freshening.

Presently the chain parted quietly in his hand. He made it fast with a
bit of cod-line, and then considered his position. He had oars and
thole-pins, and a piece of canvas that he hoped would make a sail. He
had no food or water; he had not attempted to bring any since he had to
swim out to the boat. He was wet to the skin, and his boat was very old.
Probably she would leak like a sieve.

"I pretty near chucked it up," he said to me from the bed. "But then I
thought that if the Jerries got me I'd be shot, as like as not, 'n if
that was to happen I'd be better off at sea. And so I went."

What he did was this: The wind was very nearly fair to carry the boat
out to sea into the Four Channel. He dropped into the water again with
very little buoyancy in his Mae West, and, swimming, tried to push the
boat towards the south. The wind took her and he worked on her, ready to
duck round to the other side of her if any firing started up. But no
fire was opened on him, and no light came. He slid past the rocks of
Kermorvan, fifty yards clear, and the wind carried him out into the
rocky channel.

The tide was running very strongly to the southwards round the land, and
the wind was southerly. The boat spun round and round in a heavy tide
rip; he had great difficulty in getting into her. When he was in her the
motion was so violent that he had difficulty in rowing, and in an hour
he was carried south nearly to Pointe St.-Mathieu. But by that time he
was about two miles off the land.

Then, with the moonrise, the tide turned and the wind veered more to the
south, and began to blow quite hard. Rowing north before it he was
carried up to Le Four at a great speed; he could not judge exactly where
he was, but he was probably off Le Four at about three in the morning.

There were still three or four hours of darkness before him. He had
stopped once or twice to bale out with the cigarette tin, but the leaks
were not too bad. He now stopped rowing, and bent about half the area of
canvas that he had to one of the oars as a sail, and stepped the oar at
the bow thwart, and sailed on northwards, steering with the other oar
over the stern.

"It was just dandy, that," he said. "I went on a couple of hours that
way, 'n if it hadn't been for the weather I'd have felt like a million
dollars."

But the weather was against him. In the dark night he went rushing in
his crazy little boat down the steep slopes of sea, with the water
tumbling and crashing all around him and a high crest raised behind him
overhead that threatened to fall down upon him and engulf him. Then, at
the bottom of the trough, his clumsy vessel would broach to and need the
whole of his strength and skill upon the steering oar to get her
straight again. While he was heaving and labouring she would rise
sluggishly as the swell passed beneath her, and then forward once again
in her mad rush.

"I was a durned fool," he said weakly. "But I wanted to get right clear
of the coast before the day. And then I broke the oar."

Struggling to get her straight after one of those rushes, he put too
much weight upon his steering oar, and it broke off at the worn part by
the thole-pin. He grabbed for the blade and missed it as it floated from
him; then she had broached to and in the dim light a wave crest towered
above him and crashed down.

"Lucky she didn't turn clean over," he observed. "Durned lucky."

He did the only thing: he threw himself down in the water on her flooded
bottom boards. A swamped boat with the weight well down in her seldom
turns over, and in a minute or two he got the oar down that had served
him as a mast. And sitting so, up to his neck in water as she rode over
each swell, he set to work to get her free of water, first by rocking
her and then by scooping out the water with his folded canvas. Time
after time she filled again just as he thought to get a little freeboard
showing, but in the end he won. The first light of dawn found him
sitting on the bottom boards of the lightened boat, bailing down the
water that he sat in with the cigarette tin.

"It was blowing pretty near a gale by that time, from about south-west,"
he said. "I reckoned that I'd better stay down, lying in the bilge, 'n
let her go."

In that weather it was all that he could do, and the safest course, but
there was another side to it. He was still very near to the French
coast. An open boat with a man rowing or sailing it northwards would be
an obvious target for machine-gun fire from any German aeroplane. But a
boat drifting in a rough sea with a body lying motionless in the bottom
of it was a common sort of sight; the German gunner might well think of
the labour of cleaning his guns when he got home again before he fired
on a thing like that.

He stayed down like that all day, numb and soaked and bailing every now
and then with his tin. Towards evening he got up on the thwart, thinking
to try to sail again, but the motion when he raised the oar was so
sluggish and alarming that he quickly struck his mast again, and slipped
down on the bottom boards. "She went easily that way," he said. "With
any weight up top, she wasn't so good."

The wind in the Channel was about Force 7 that night, south-west, and
the temperature about 38 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The wind kept up all
the next day and the following night, but it grew gradually colder.

"I thought I was done for," he said simply. "Days 'n days, and each day
worse and colder than the last."

All of us may one day have to face that sort of thing. It had never come
to me, nor has done yet, but I was curious to know what the threshold of
death looks like. "Did you think about things much?" I asked. "Or was it
kind of--numb?"

"I didn't seem to have no control," he said. "Half the time I was
blubbering like a kid."

"Because you knew that you were for it?" I said gently.

"Oh, shucks, it wasn't that. It was Junie's watch. She bought it with
her own money 'n give it me, back in San Diego. It was the only thing I
had of hers, and it was stopped and spoilt, with the water all in it."

The sick-bay steward came in for the second time, and I got up to go.
"Don't worry about that," I said. "I'll have it cleaned for you."

       *       *       *       *       *

I travelled back to London that afternoon, and went straight to my
office. There was a note there asking me to ring McNeil as soon as I
came in; I picked up the telephone and spoke to him at once.

"Is that Martin?" he said. "I've got a bit of news for you from the
other side. Two messages."

"I've got a bit for you," I said. "I've seen Colvin. He's in Haslar
Hospital." I told him very shortly how he had been picked up.

"That's fine," he said. "Look, would you like me to come round to you?"

"No, I'll come to you," I said. "I've got to go out anyway. I'll be with
you in half an hour."

I rang off, and then rang up N.O.I.C. Dartmouth. "Commander Martin
speaking," I said. "Admiralty. Look, sir, you remember that Wren who
used to drive the truck for my party?"

"Leading Wren Wright?" he said.

"That's the one. She was engaged to one of the officers, Lieutenant
Rhodes."

"Was she? I didn't know."

"I can't get any news of Rhodes," I said. "But one of the other
officers, Lieutenant Colvin, has turned up. He's in Haslar. Would you
tell her that? As a matter of fact, it would be quite a good thing, if
you could spare her for a day or so, if she went to Haslar to see
Colvin. They were all in it together, and he has no relatives in this
country. I think we might give her a railway warrant for that, if she
wants to go."

"All right," he said. "I'll see to that. I'd like to know as soon as you
hear anything further."

"I'll keep you informed," I said.

I went out then, and took a taxi to the London Chronometer Company in
the Minories. I asked to see the manager, and when he came I remembered
him and he remembered me. "I came to see you about five years ago with
the recording chronographs we had in _Foxhound_," I said.

He nodded. "I remember, sir. How are you keeping?"

"Not so bad." I gave him Colvin's watch. "It's had sea water in it for a
week," I said. "I want a really good job made of it, and I want it done
quickly."

"You don't want much, do you?" he said dryly.

"Look, do the best you can," I said. I told him a little of the story.
"It's a case we're interested in at Admiralty."

"What if I find it needs a new movement altogether?"

"Give it one," I said. "But get it looking like it was before."

I left it with him, and took a taxi back to McNeil's office in Pall
Mall. He passed me two messages across the table, both of them marked
across the top in red MOST SECRET, as was usual.

The first said:

     RENNES. The 145th regiment of infantry, part of the 64th
     Division, has arrived in Rennes. This division has been on the
     Russian front in the Rostov sector, and has now been
     transferred to Brittany because of the increasing unrest in
     this district. Units of the division are to be quartered at
     Morlaix, Carhaix, Douarnenez, and Quimper. The division is much
     under strength and is now not more than 5,000 men. The clothing
     and equipment of the men is in bad condition. Ends.

I glanced at McNeil. "This is very good news," I said quietly. "This is
what you have been working for."

"Anything that takes pressure off the Russians is good news," he said.
"Look at the other one." He said that in a tone I didn't like.

I picked up the second message. It read:

     DOUARNENEZ. A proclamation issued by the Commandant announces
     that thirty hostages have been arrested, comprising ten men
     past working age, ten women, and ten children. It is stated
     that the town is harbouring an English officer who is believed
     to be a survivor from a British ship sunk in the Iroise and to
     have been concerned in setting fire to German vessels. The
     hostages are to be shot on November 15th unless this officer is
     given up. Ends.

I stared at this thing, not knowing what to say. "It's probably Simon,"
I said at last. "He must have got ashore."

The brigadier said: "Simon is the least likely of the lot. Simon can
pass anywhere as a Frenchman; he'd have no need to go into hiding. No,
it may be Boden or it may be Rhodes. One of them, at least, is still
alive."

"Just," I said bitterly.

There was absolutely nothing we could do, and nothing much to be said.
It was one of those things it's really better not to think about too
much.

"How's Colvin?" McNeil asked at last.

I told him the story briefly. "He'll be all right," I said in the end.
"I suppose he'll be about a month in hospital. He must have been in that
boat for five days and nights, and that's not funny in this weather."

"No," he said, "it's not."

I left him soon after that, and went back to my office. It was November
the 9th, and there were six more days to go before November the 15th. I
turned to the arrears of my ordinary work as anodyne, but I could not
tire myself sufficiently to sleep.

I went down to Newhaven to see the admiral next day, to report to him
how the matter stood. It was a winding-up report, of course; as an
operation of war the _Genevive_ incident was over and done with. All
that remained to do was the final clearing of the paper work, dockets to
Casualties Section, and that sort of thing, and in that the admiral was
not much interested.

"Will you want to see Lieutenant Colvin, sir?" I asked.

"I don't think so, Martin," he replied. "Not unless he particularly
wants to see me. See the Second Sea Lord's office when the time comes
about his posting. See that he gets a job that will suit him."

"Very good, sir," I said.

It was a relief to turn to other work.

I went back to London and the days dragged on. They were grey, windy
days, raining most of the time. I heard indirectly that Barbara Wright
had been to Haslar to see Colvin and had gone back to Dartmouth next
day, but I did not get in touch with either of them. I had nothing good
to say.

No further messages came from the other side.

My two years at Admiralty expired about that time, and I raised the
matter with V.A.C.O. one day when he was in the office. "My two years is
up at the end of this month, sir," I said. "I'd like to get to sea
again, if possible."

He nodded. "I knew it was about this time." And then he said, rather
unexpectedly: "I shall miss you, Martin. You've been a great help to
me."

I said awkwardly: "That's decent, sir. Would you--do you want me
specially to stay on?"

He smiled. "I suppose you hate it here. You'd rather go to sea."

I said: "Well--quite frankly, yes. I'd rather be at sea. But if you want
me, sir, I'm quite willing to stay."

He shook his head. "I wouldn't stand in your way."

That was that, and I went on in the office in a better frame of mind.
And the next day I had a telephone call from Plymouth, from the Chief of
Staff.

He said: "Martin, is an R.N.V.R. officer called Rhodes anything to do
with that party of yours? Operation Blanket?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "He was the--er--the special gunner."

He said: "Well, he's back. He came back wounded, with a boatful of
French fishermen. They came into Falmouth this morning."

A sort of sick wave of relief passed over me. "I'm glad to hear it,
sir," I said. "Is he much hurt?"

"Chest and lungs, I think," he said. "He's in the naval hospital there."

I said in wonder: "It's nearly a fortnight old, that operation, sir. He
must have been ashore--on the other side."

"I think he has."

I glanced at my watch. "I think I'd better slip down to Falmouth myself,
right away."

He said: "Well, I think you might. There are one or two rather curious
features that I can't very well tell you over the telephone."

I said: "I'll go down there to-day."

"You'll find our Intelligence Officer down there," he said. "I'll ring
through to him and tell him that you're coming."

I rang up McNeil to tell him, but he was out of London. So I caught the
afternoon train to Cornwall alone, and sat all day wondering and
speculating about what had happened on the other side. The train was
late and we did not get in till nearly midnight; I turned into the hotel
and slept uneasily.

I was down at the Naval Centre early next morning, and met the
Intelligence Officer, a retired lieutenant-commander. He was most
interested in checking up the _bona fides_ of the fishermen and he was
taking them all off to London on the morning train. "I haven't seen this
officer, Rhodes," he said. "He wasn't very well yesterday." He paused
and then he said cautiously: "If what I've heard is true it's a very
queer story."

"What's queer about it?" I enquired.

He shrank back into the maddening caution of the Intelligence. "I'd
really rather not discuss the matter at the moment," he said. "It's all
got to be sifted."

I said: "I'm down here to see Rhodes and to find out what happened to my
party. The fishermen aren't my concern. Suppose I stay down here and see
my officer, and then meet you back in London? What I learn from him may
pad out what you get from them."

He agreed to that, and I went up to the hospital. I was beginning to
know the smell of hospitals quite well on this infernal job. I saw the
surgeon-commander first, in his little white painted office.

"You're Commander Martin?" he enquired. "I'm glad you've come. This
young chap Rhodes has been asking for you ever since he came in."

"How is he?" I asked.

"Not too grand. He's got a wound in the left shoulder and chest that
touched the lung. The trouble is that it's a fortnight old. It's had
attention of some sort during that time, but it's in a pretty nasty
state."

I said: "Can I see him this morning?"

The surgeon said: "Oh, yes. He won't settle down till he's had a talk to
you. Make it as short as you can, but he's got a lot he wants to tell
you."

He paused. "Before you go in there, there's one thing I should like you
to see," he said. "It's puzzled us a good bit."

He rang the bell and a steward appeared at the door. "Get that uniform,"
he said. The man went out and the surgeon turned to me. "I won't keep
you a moment."

The steward came back with a bundle of clothes tied up with string. They
unrolled it on the floor. It was a German petty officer's uniform with
short pea jacket of thick navy blue cloth bearing the eagle's wing and
swastika, a cap with the same emblem, a blue jumper with a blue naval
collar, and trousers to match.

"These are the clothes he was wearing when he was admitted into
hospital," the surgeon said. "It's a German naval uniform."

I turned the clothes over. "So I see. What were the men with him
wearing? The fishermen?"

"They were wearing ordinary Breton rig--black floppy tam-o'-shanters and
those rusty-coloured sail-cloth ponchos that they wear. They weren't in
any uniform."

I was handling the jumper, and my fingers struck a sticky mess. There
was a four-inch rent in the back of it; I looked at the cloth, at my
fingers, and then up at the surgeon.

"Yes," he said. "That's blood. The wearer of these clothes was stabbed
in the back." He picked up the pea jacket. "He had his coat on. Look,
here's the corresponding hole."

I laid the clothes down, wondering at the morbid imagination that had
made him show them to me. "I'll get along and see him, if I may," I
said.

He stared at me. "I'm not sure if you understand," he said. "Lieutenant
Rhodes wasn't stabbed. His wound is in the shoulder, and from the
front." He paused. "There's no mark on his back at all."

I said impulsively: "But the blood's still sticky! Do you mean that
somebody else was wearing this rig, and was stuck in the back?"

"I can't see it any other way." He paused. "I was very puzzled. I
thought you ought to see the clothes before you went in to see him."

I nodded. "It's probably as well."

He took me in to Rhodes. The young man was in a ward with about fifteen
other patients in it. He was lying raised a bit with pillows. He was
much thinner in the face than I remembered him; his black hair had been
cropped close to his head, making him look very different. His left
shoulder was a mass of bandages. There was a nurse with him.

"'Morning, Rhodes," I said cheerfully. "How are you feeling?"

He said in a thin voice: "I'm all right, sir. I've got a lot I want to
tell you."

The surgeon spoke to the nurse, and she began arranging screens around
the bed. "You'll be able to talk quietly in there," he said. "Don't be
any longer than is necessary."

I said: "Rhodes, we've got to be as short as possible, so that you can
get some rest. I'm going to do the talking first of all, and tell you
what I know. In the first place, Colvin's back in England. He's in
Haslar Hospital, and going on all right."

His face lit up. "Oh, good," he breathed. "How did he get away?"

I told him briefly what had happened. Then I told him what we had
learned from the M.G.B. lads, and from the secret messages that had come
over from the other side. It took about ten minutes. "Now, look," I
said. "I'm going to ask you questions, and you answer them. It'll be
easier for you, that way. First of all, what happened to Simon?"

He said: "He's still in Douarnenez. We've been there together. When
_Genevive_ was sunk, the shell hit the stem. I was just getting out of
the flame-thrower seat, and I got this in my shoulder. And then I was in
the sea, and Simon was helping me, sir, in the water. And he pulled me
along, and we got to one of the fishing-boats."

"I see," I said. "What happened to Boden?"

Rhodes said: "Oh, he was killed."

"Did you see him killed?"

"No, sir."

"Was he the officer who was on the keel of the boat, firing with a
Tommy-gun?"

"Yes, sir. They were all talking about it in Douarnenez. He put out the
searchlight. Jules was the other man with him, sir."

"How do you know he was killed, if you didn't see it?"

There was a pause. "He wanted to be killed," Rhodes said.

I left that, and turned back to the main story. "Just tell me now, as
shortly as you can, what happened when you got into the fishing-boat."

I have put together what he told me with what we learned from the
fishermen and from another source upon the other side. This is what
happened:

       *       *       *       *       *

When Rhodes was thrown into the water he bobbed up again at once,
because his Mae West was blown up. He said that there were several men
in the water with him. He knew that something had happened to his
shoulder and he kept coughing, and each time he coughed, he said, funny
things seemed to happen in his chest. He was in no great pain.

Presently he saw Simon, and Simon saw him, and swam towards him, and
began to help him. Simon was unhurt. He called Rollot, the _matre_, and
between them they took Rhodes in tow and began to swim with him towards
the fishing-boats, seen dimly in the background. Those were the boats
that had been with them in the Anse des Blancs Sablons.

While they were covering two or three hundred yards to the nearest of
the boats the M.G.B.s roared past, dropping their charges, the duel
between Boden and the destroyer went on, and the searchlight was put
out. There was still a fire raging on the bridge of the destroyer which
gave some light, and the moon was bright. The fishing-boats, as soon as
they saw survivors swimming to them, steamed in to pick them up. Rhodes,
Simon, and Rollot were taken on board one boat. He thought that about
five or six, out of their crew of twelve Free Frenchmen, were taken on
board another. He did not know their names, for a very good reason. As
soon as they reached Douarnenez all these Frenchmen, most of whom were
Breton lads, merged with the crowd and vanished quietly away. There was
no reason for them to do otherwise. It was the best thing they could do.

There was some urgency for the boat that had picked them up to get back
to Douarnenez without delay, because each of the rescuing boats had on
board ten Tommy-guns and ammunition. They were counting upon the events
of the night and the scattering of the fleet to relax the normal
supervision of the boats in harbour, and this actually happened. They
steamed straight to Douarnenez at full speed, and entered harbour at
about four in the morning, still in bright moonlight.

Rhodes, Simon, and Rollot came into harbour down in the fish-hold of
their boat covered over with a pile of nets. They had contrived a pad
and bandage for Rhodes's wound, but they could provide no dry clothes.
With the cold and wet, and with the stiffening of his wound, Rhodes was
becoming feverish, and from that time onwards he saw everything
opaquely, blurred by a high temperature.

The master of their boat, a man called Corondot, went on shore as soon
as they picked up the mooring. He went to the little harbour-master's
office on the quay, which was also the office of the German fish
control. Here, in a state of anger, he reported that he had brought his
boat back, having spent a few hours dodging about the Iroise being
chased by British gunboats. Where was the protection of the Reich? he
asked. For himself, he was fed up. The last thing he had seen was
another battle in the distance, with flame and firing and God knows
what. For himself, he proposed to stay in harbour till the seas were
made safe for honest fishermen.

There were five other skippers making similar complaint, each talking at
the top of his voice. Besides those, most of the old German petty
officers were there, each telling his own tale and adding to the din.
The telephone upon the little desk rang every half-minute and had to be
answered, the old harbour-master had one rating to assist him, who spoke
only German. It was a fine, confused party, all concentrated in the
harbour-master's office. Nobody paid any attention to what was going on
down at the quay.

The ten Tommy-guns and ammunition were landed quite easily, put on a
hand-cart, and pushed unconcernedly up into the town. Simon and Rhodes
with the Free Frenchmen landed at the quay. The latter melted quietly
away into the darkness of the streets.

Rhodes landed at the steps, feeling sick and faint, with a stiff
throbbing in his chest. It was moonlight still; he looked over to the
main jetty and he could see great blackened patches near the end of it,
the aftermath of the fire that they had made a month before. It was a
quiet, still night, and rather cold. It was incredible to him that he
should be standing there, listening while Simon spoke volubly in French
in a low tone, discussing with their rescuers a plan of action.

In a few minutes they made up their minds, and Simon turned to Rhodes.
"Stick it," he said in English, in a whisper. "There is a hide-out for
us here, till we can get away. It is about five hundred metres to walk.
Can you manage to walk so far?"

The boy said: "I'm all right, sir."

Simon said: "Try to walk naturally and easily, like a fisherman going
home. I will be near you. We will get a doctor for you very soon."

They set off, walking up-hill through narrow alleys, up stepped, cobbled
slits between the houses. The town was black and still. They came out
into wider streets, with shops; at one point they passed a German
sentry. There were six or seven of them walking in a bunch together;
the leader checked his pace, and said in slow French that the boats had
come back early.

The man nodded in his steel helmet. "What happened?" he enquired. "We
heard firing."

Their leader said sourly: "The _sale_ English made a raid. Here we are
back again, and without one fish--not one. If you Germans cannot keep
the English off, you'll get no fish. I don't care, either way."

The man stepped back, motioning them on. They went on and left him
standing at the corner of the street, his rifle slung over one shoulder.

They were taken to a net-store, a tarred shed behind a sail-maker's
loft. Rhodes was very, very tired by the time they got there. He
collapsed wearily upon a bolt of sail-cloth, and sat holding a candle to
light Simon and another man as they pulled nets about to make a bed, and
spread a blanket over all. Then the other man fetched a bucket of water
with some disinfectant in it, and they removed the blood-stained, soaked
pad from his shoulder, and replaced it with another.

It was dawn by then, and in the grey light that filtered in around the
eaves they laid him down upon the bed that they had made, and Simon
covered him with another blanket. "Try to get some sleep," he said in a
low tone. "A doctor will come presently to see your shoulder. In the
meantime, we will get our friends here to bring some food, some soup for
you, perhaps. Would you like that?"

Rhodes said: "I'm all right, sir. I don't want anything to eat. What's
the next thing? Can we get away?"

"Lie there, and rest, and try to get some sleep. I think we may be all
right to stay here till you are better. While you are resting I will
talk to our friends, and we will make a plan."

Rhodes lay back on the nets, and presently he fell into a feverish
sleep, the first of many that he was to endure in that shed. He dreamed
that he was in _Genevive_ firing the flame-thrower, but the gun was
filled with carbolic solution and when he fired it at the destroyer it
would not light, but sprayed the decks with disinfectant. And Brigadier
McNeil was there, smart in his khaki tunic, his red tabs, and his
brilliantly polished buttons and Sam Browne, and he said: "Time they
had a wash-down, anyway." And Rhodes said to himself: "What a fool I am,
of course, carbolic's no good in this thing. I must try it on Worcester
Sauce." And he turned the three-way cock with the brass handle to the
other tank, and fired again. And the gun lit and the flame hit the
destroyer, and her side flared up and burned away like tinsel, and
instead of men inside her there was only his black Labrador dog Ernest,
and his buck rabbit Geoffrey, perishing in the flame that he had turned
on them. And he burst into floods of tears, and in his misery Barbara
was there. In her quiet voice she was saying: "It's all right, Michael,
it's quite all right. It's only a dream. Look, you can wake up."

Then he was awake, tears pouring down his face, hot and stiff, and with
a raging thirst. That was the first of many such dreams that he had.

On the evening of that first day, the doctor came.

He was a short, plump, white-faced man called Dottin; he had a grey
moustache and he was very correctly dressed in a black suit. The old
fisherman, Bozallec, brought him to them and stood aside with Simon in
the darkness of the shed while he examined Rhodes.

"He is a safe man," said the fisherman. "You may talk freely to that
one."

Presently the doctor called for warm water and for his bag, and began to
put a dressing on the wound. When that was over he laid Rhodes down upon
the blanket, wiped his hands, and walked across the shed to Simon.
Together they walked out of hearing of the bed.

"You are his friend?" the doctor said. "I have not seen you before."

"I am an Englishman," said Simon bluntly. "I was with him in the vessel
that was sunk."

The man stared at him in amazement. "I would never have believed it.
He"--he jerked his head towards the bed--"he is clearly English. But
you, monsieur, you speak French to perfection. You have lived long in a
department in the Paris region, or perhaps in the north-east?"

"I have lived most of my life in France," Simon said.

"So. Well, your friend should be in hospital. He has a high temperature,
and while the wound now is still clean, it may not remain so. That is my
advice to you, monsieur."

"Is it possible to take him into hospital without the Germans knowing?"

The man shook his head. "That is not possible now. Once it was, but not
now, not since the shooting in the streets on the night of the great
fire at the quay. The Germans insist on seeing every person in the wards
each day."

There was a pause. "Can we keep him here and see how he gets on?" Simon
said at last.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Certainly. But you may have to
choose in the end, monsieur, between captivity for him and death."

Simon nodded. "That is understood. But while there remains any chance of
getting him to England, I will not give in. He has experience and
knowledge locked up in his head, most valuable to the Allies. It will be
of benefit to France, no less than England, that he should get away. I
tell you this, monsieur, from my certain knowledge--I, Charles Simon."
He spoke with true French vehemence.

Dottin glanced at him keenly. "I have heard of Charles Simon." He
paused. "This knowledge that you speak of," he said carefully. "Would
that have to do with--fire?"

Simon nodded. "He is the operator of the flame-gun," he said simply. "He
designed much of the apparatus himself. Now, monsieur, you understand
that it is necessary for him to return to England at whatever cost."

The doctor said: "I understand that it is very necessary to get him out
of Douarnenez."

Simon glanced sharply at him in enquiry.

"You do not understand the situation here, perhaps," the doctor said.
"One month ago, to the day, the English made a raid upon the port, with
fire, and they destroyed two _Raumboote_ at the quayside and two guns
upon the jetty. Was that his ship that made the raid?"

Simon nodded without speaking.

"That night, fifty-three casualties, German soldiers and sailors all of
them, were taken into the Municipal Hospital, monsieur, with burns. Some
of the burns were not extremely bad, but all of them got worse, in every
case. It has been most puzzling. The Germans have brought specialists
from Leyden with a new treatment, using Cilzamene, and they have done no
good, no more than we. Of the fifty-three men admitted, seventeen have
died and thirty-six are still alive, all of them very much worse than in
the first few days. I have never heard of burns like these. They are
beyond experience, monsieur."

Simon nodded. "That may be."

The man said: "If the Germans were to take a prisoner from that ship
they would make him talk, to tell what oil was used that burns like
that. They would stop at nothing to make him talk."

"They would use torture?"

"Most assuredly."

Simon smiled. "They would get nothing out of me," he said. "I do not
know the secret. But you see now, more than ever, monsieur, that that
one"--he nodded to the bed--"must get away."

The doctor turned and looked back to the bed. "He is not fit to travel,"
he said. "I have heard it said that men can get away from France in
spite of the Germans, if they have courage and determination, and great
strength. Two young men left this town about six months ago to walk to
Spain, to try to get to England to de Gaulle. I do not know how they got
on. But that one could not do a trip like that."

He turned away. "I will come again to-morrow, in the evening," he said.

Simon did not go out, but spent that evening and the whole of the next
day in trying to work out a plan, and in discussion with Bozallec.
Rhodes was no better; he spent much of the time sunk in a hot sleep. The
doctor came again at dusk to change the dressing, and that day ended
with no plan made, and no vestige of a plan in sight.

Next morning Bozallec came with a long face. "I have bad news," he said
bluntly. "The Germans know that there are English hiding in the town.
There is a proclamation of the _Oberstleutnant Commandant_ that is stuck
up at headquarters on the wall, and at the Mairie, and in the market."

"What does it say?"

"It says that there are English hiding in the town, survivors from a
ship sunk in the Iroise. It says that they are to be surrendered to the
commandant to-day, or else the town will suffer severe penalties."

"How did they find out?" Simon asked.

The old man said: "I, too, wanted to know that. In this town, soon after
the Armistice, there were a few informers, but they had bad luck with
their health during the winter. I do not think there are any informers
now living in Douarnenez. I wanted to know how the Germans came to know
this thing, because it seemed to me that an informer might have done it.
But it was not that."

"How was it?"

"It was the men in the destroyer. They were too busy with their fires to
note the boats carefully, but they saw several boats from the fleet
picking up survivors from the water. And when they got to Brest, they
remembered this. That is how the Germans know that there are English in
the town."

There was a short silence. "What will the people do?" asked Simon. "Will
they give us up?"

The old man said angrily: "This place is not a Vichy rabble. This is a
town of seamen, a man's town."

There was a silence. "Lie low," the old man said at last. "Do not, on
any account, be seen outside this place, even for one minute. It may be
necessary that you stay here for some days, or even weeks. I do not
think the Germans dare do anything against the town. They have not got
sufficient troops to face a rising here."

Three days later they were still there, with Rhodes in much the same
condition, though rather weaker. Bozallec's summary of the situation
seemed to be justified; the time for the surrender of the fugitives had
expired and two days had followed, in which the Germans had done
nothing. Bozallec came to visit them each day, more confident with every
visit. "It is blowing over," he said. "It will be necessary for you to
wait here for some time to come, but then we will be able to contrive
something."

On the morning of the next day he came later than usual, and at first
sight of him Simon knew that there was something wrong. "Bad news, I
think," he said quietly.

"Aye," said the fisherman, "bad news it is. They have arrested thirty
people to hold for your surrender. Ten of them are children. Jeanne
Louise is one, my own great-niece." He spat.

"They did not fear a rising of the town," said Simon, bitterly.

The old man said: "They did indeed. They waited for three days till they
were reinforced before they did this thing. Soldiers have come from
Russia to police Brittany, monsieur--thousands and thousands of them.
There are fifteen hundred new ones here to-day, a ragged, scruffy lot,
but with plenty of machine-guns. Now they have courage to arrest women
and old men and little girls of seven years. Good German courage!" He
spat again.

Simon asked: "What will they do with them?"

"They will be shot upon November the 15th," the old man said, "unless
you are surrendered to them first."




11


In the dark shed, stuffy with the fumes of tanning, there was silence
for a minute. Then Bozallec said angrily: "They cannot do that to us
now. It is not last year now. Last year they shot thirty people in one
day, in August, in the market-place, but then we had no guns. Now we
have Tommy-guns to use; it is different altogether."

Simon said: "You have seventy Tommy-guns, no more. Last week you might
perhaps have done something, but not now. Seventy men with Tommy-guns
cannot fight fifteen hundred with machine-guns."

He glanced at the fisherman. "You will have to give us up," he said
quietly. "It is the only thing that you can do."

The man shook his head. "I cannot speak for the others," he said. "They
must decide. But I have lived in this place fifty years, monsieur, and I
do not think they will do that. If you were ordinary fugitives, or
British agents, they might take that course. But you are different, you
two."

"Why are we different?" Charles Simon asked.

The fisherman said: "Before you came and started hurling fire upon the
Germans, things were very bad here in Douarnenez, monsieur. The war went
on and on, and we were impotent. The Germans were on top of us, and they
had everything their own way. We could not see an end, nor any hope, nor
anything before us but the life of slaves. Slaves! We Breton folk!"

He paused. "I want you to understand," he said. "The first _Raumboote_
that you set on fire, we did not fully comprehend. There were queer
stories that the English had done it, but no one knew. All we knew for
certain was that the Germans in it had died miserably in torment, and we
thanked God that some small part of all the misery that they had caused
had come to them."

He went on: "Then you came, monsieur, and told us that the English had
done it, and that they would do it again. And that same night you did do
it again, right in our own port here in Douarnenez. We saw the fire and
saw the Germans in the flames--and we saw your vessel, too, monsieur.
One of our sardine-boats, Jules Rostin's _Genevive_, that his son had
escaped in at the Armistice. It was even one of our own ships that did
this thing. Thirty Germans were burned to death that night, Monsieur
Simon, and over fifty taken off to hospital. And they are dying still...

"I cannot tell you what that meant to us," he said. "That there were
free men near us, fighting these foul oafs that had grabbed our city,
fighting them, burning them, and making them afraid. There was a mutiny
in Brest, monsieur, a naval mutiny. The _Raumboote_ crews would not come
here to Douarnenez after that night; they had to shoot a lot of them.
This town regained its courage from that day. Each time we passed a
German in the street we used to light a match, just to remind them of
the way that their companions died. We got them grey and nervous in a
week or two, so that they started and jumped round at a step behind
them. And their commandant appealed for reinforcements, saying that he
could not hold the town unless he had more men. That is true."

"I know," said Simon. "We heard that in England."

The fisherman went on: "And then you brought us guns, little
machine-guns that could be hidden away. A man with a sub-machine-gun has
something tangible to pin his courage to, monsieur; when things are very
bad he can go to it and caress it, and polish it and oil it, and think
what he will do with it one day. It gives a purpose to his life."

There was a short silence. "I do not think that you need fear to be
surrendered to the Germans, Monsieur Simon."

Simon said: "I think the next move lies with us; we must do something
now. But now I tell you this, Bozallec, and you must repeat this to your
friends. There is to be no fighting with those guns until the English
give the word. United with the English you can fight the Germans and
defeat them, but if you fight alone you will be wiped out and the town
destroyed. Understand that. Tell your friends this. Charles Simon says
that they are not to use the guns until word comes from England."

He paused. "And another thing," he said. "Tell your friends this: once
before Charles Simon told them what was going to happen, and he spoke
the truth. And now, Charles Simon says that they need have no fear for
their relations, for the thirty hostages, men, women, and little
children. Charles Simon says that all of them will be released, unhurt.
Tell them that."

He stood for a moment in silence, thinking hard. "Is Father Augustine of
the Church of Ste-Hlne still in Douarnenez?" he asked.

"He is still here."

"I should like to talk to him," said Simon. "Can you bring him to me, in
this place?"

"Assuredly," the old man said. "I will bring him to-night." He paused,
and then said curiously: "Does he know you, monsieur?"

Simon said: "We met and talked together once, in February last. I do not
think that he will know my name."

Bozallec went away, and Simon moved to the back of the store where
Rhodes was lying on his bed, awake.

"What's the news now?" the young man asked. "How's it all going, sir?"

Simon said: "Not too bad. I think I can begin to see my way out of this
place."

"Back to England?"

"Yes, back to England."

"How, sir?"

Simon said: "I will not tell you now. Lie still and rest, and think of
quiet things. When I am certain not to disappoint you I will tell my
plan and what your part in it will be. Till then, be patient."

Rhodes turned restlessly upon the blanket. "Give me a drink of water,
would you? It's so bloody hot."

In the middle of the afternoon there were steps upon the stair that led
up to their store. Bozallec came in, and he was followed by a priest in
black canonicals. Simon went forward to meet them.

"Good evening, father," he said quietly in French. "We have met before."

In the dim light the priest peered forward at him. "You are Charles
Simon?" he enquired. "I have heard of you, but have we ever met?"

Bozallec turned to leave them and clumped down the stairs. Simon said:
"I am the man you talked to in the night, on the platform of the station
at Quimper, in February last."

The priest drew in his breath sharply. "So!" he said. "You were the man
at Quimper; I have often thought of you. And you are now Charles Simon."

Simon motioned to a bale of net cord. "Will you sit down, father?" he
said. "I have much to say to you."

The priest sat down, and waited for him to begin.

"Father," said Simon at last. "Do you remember what we talked about that
night?"

"I remember very well, my son. We spoke about the Power of God, and of
fire."

"Yes," said Simon, "that is what we spoke about. I was a spy then,
father, in France on a mission for the English, to learn German
secrets."

The priest glanced at him curiously. "Who are you?" he asked. "You are a
Frenchman, from the East?"

Charles shook his head. "I am an Englishman," he said, "though I have
lived in France for half my life. I am a British officer."

The priest nodded. "I have heard of others such as you."

There was a momentary silence. "There are others like me," Simon said at
last. "We are lonely people, father, without homes or wives or
families--not quite like other men. It may be that we see more clearly
to the end than men who live more normally. I know that when you spoke
to me that night about fire, the temporal weapon of Holy Church, you set
me thinking, searching, and devising on the basis of your words. In
England, by sheer chance I came upon men learning the use of fire. So
that in the end, father, we brought fire to the Germans here, and your
words were fulfilled."

"There is no chance in these affairs, my son," the priest said gently.
"Only the hand of God."

Simon inclined his head. "There is a young man with me here," he said,
"wounded, and in no good condition. He cannot travel far; he should be
in a hospital. He is a British officer, like me, father, but he speaks
only English. He is the gunner of the flame-gun that we used."

He paused. The priest said nothing.

Simon went on: "When we were talking together in the night, at Quimper,
you said that God from time to time reveals the secret of the temporal
weapon to mankind, that they may fight the Powers of Evil in the world,
and beat them down. I am a sinful man, father, weak in the faith. I do
not know if what you say is true. But if it is, then I say this to you:
This young man with me, this young Englishman, has been touched by the
hand of God for the benefit of all mankind. All that we have done has
been made possible by his great knowledge of the principles of fire. He
is a chemist in times of peace. Much of the gun itself was made to his
design, and he designed the oil we hurl upon the Germans. There is
knowledge and experience locked up in his head which is possessed by no
one else. If he should die, or else be given to the Germans, knowledge
that has been revealed to him by God goes back to God, and we are as we
were. It may be that it is destined to be so."

Father Augustine said: "All things are in the hands of God, my son. But
that does not mean that we are to lie supine, or refuse to use the wit
and strength that God has given us, to work His will."

Simon nodded. "So I think. Father, we must get this young man back to
England, that the work may go on."

There was a pause. "You have done great things in Douarnenez," the
priest said slowly, "by the Grace of God. It was to the English that the
temporal weapon was revealed before; again it is the English who are His
instruments. I do not understand why this is so, why not the French. But
that is by the way. Through that Grace and the power of flame this
region has regained its courage. Men now go about our streets with their
heads up, spitting towards the Germans, who three months ago were sullen
and impotent, sinking into slavery. I have no need to hesitate, my son.
I will give you what help lies within my power."

He glanced at Simon. "There are only two of you to be helped out of
France?"

Simon said: "Only one." He nodded to the bed. "The others, they were all
Bretons. They have found safety, each in his own way."

"What will you do, yourself?"

Simon said: "I speak French well enough to pass in the crowd, father. We
need only think of him, of getting him to England."

The priest said keenly: "They are saying in the town, Charles Simon says
no harm will come to the hostages."

Simon coloured awkwardly, and said nothing.

"Is that correct, my son?"

"We have one thing to do, father, and one thing only. That is to see
that this young man gets back to England. Let us talk of that."

"As you will."

They sat in earnest conversation for an hour. Then the priest went away;
he came back late that night, to meet the doctor and Bozallec in the net
shed with Simon. They sat in earnest conference far into the night
before breaking up, the priest to walk boldly through the moonlit
streets, the others to slink furtively in the shadows back to the open
windows of their homes.

On November the 12th, in the forenoon, they roused Rhodes from a
semi-coma, and made him get out of bed. The doctor gave him an injection
in the unwounded arm; he began to feel stronger, and much clearer in the
head. They made him walk about a little in the loft, to ease his legs.
Then they told him what he had to do.

"It is only three hundred yards," Charles Simon said. "Whatever happens
you must walk that naturally. You will be quite alone, but we shall be
not twenty yards behind you. You must pay no attention to the hand
grenades. Walk straight down to the quay, and to the boat."

Rhodes said: "What will you do, sir?"

Simon said: "Don't worry about me. I shall be close behind you as you
walk, to signal for the hand grenades to be let off, if it is necessary.
If all is very quiet and safe, then I will come with you in the boat.
But you are not to wait for me. If there is trouble I shall merge in
with the crowd and I shall come back to England by the way I know, the
way I went before, in February. In that case I shall be in London before
you."

They brought water then and shaved Rhodes, and washed his face and cut
his hair to a close, stubbly crop. And then they led him downstairs from
the loft, into the sail-maker's yard. There was a light rain falling;
the cold air blew fresh into his face, making him dizzy and
light-headed. The injection that he had been given had cleared his head,
but he still had a high temperature; he felt his way uncertainly, as if
he were walking upon marbles.

Bozallec turned to Simon and the doctor. "He is very weak, that one," he
said. "He will never walk like a German."

Dottin eyed Rhodes critically. "I have another dose for him," he said.
"He will be better than this."

Simon said: "I will talk to him. He has great nervous strength to draw
upon, and it is only three hundred metres."

There was a hand-cart in the yard, a two-wheeled affair with a long
handle. Bozallec lifted up this handle to the horizontal, and Simon and
the doctor helped Rhodes to get up on to the platform. They laid him
down upon it, making him as comfortable as possible with a sail as a
cover and a pillow; then they covered him over with a heap of fine blue
sardine nets.

In that way they wheeled him boldly out into the street and half a mile
through the town, past ragged German soldiers staring into shops, past
German soldiers in brand-new uniforms walking uncomfortably in new
boots, past German sentries upon guard at the street corners. They
wheeled him into a small covered yard through double doors, which they
closed behind them. There they uncovered him, and helped him into the
house, and sat him down in a cane rocking-chair in the shabby little
back room of a shop.

Dottin bent over him. "Cognac," he said quietly in French.

"Just a little, with water, in a glass."

He felt better after that. An old man, whom he did not know, poured him
a bowl of soup from a great pot that stood upon the hearth; Simon
crouched down beside his chair and fed it to him with a spoon. "There is
still an hour to go," he said. "Stay quiet here, and rest."

Rhodes drowsed a little, hot and tired. From time to time he opened his
eyes; nothing was changed. He could see through the open door of the
back room into the shop; it appeared to be a small general shop, with a
few groceries, vegetables, and household goods upon the shelves. The old
man was pottering about behind the counter.

Presently there were more people in the back room, and in the shop.
There was a priest, Rhodes said, in a black soutane, as well as Simon
and the doctor and the old fisherman who had brought him there. The
doctor and the priest came into the back room and stood behind the
door, screened from the shop. Simon and Bozallec stood smoking in the
shop, chatting to the old man behind the counter.

In a few minutes the bell at the shop door jangled, and the door opened
and closed. A man came forward to the counter. He was a German petty
officer in uniform; over his jumper he wore a short pea jacket, with a
blue muffler round his throat. There was an automatic pistol in a
holster at his belt. He moved forward, and said something to the man
behind the counter. From the back room Rhodes watched, tense and
suddenly awake.

The old man stooped beneath the counter. "It is a special favour," he
said in Breton French. "I would not do this for everyone. One hundred
and fifty francs." And furtively he showed a duck, plucked and dressed
and ready for the oven.

The German said: "It is too much," and leaned across the counter to
pinch the breast. Rhodes saw Bozallec lift his right arm quickly and
strike it down into the middle of the German's back. There was a
thumping, rending sound and the man spun round, fumbling at his holster.
Then they were all on him and bore him down on to the floor. There was
one stifled cry, and then nothing but the heavy breathing of men
struggling upon the ground. And presently that ceased, and Simon and
Bozallec got up, dusting their clothes. The German lay motionless upon
the floor, face down, his scarf bound tightly round his face. It was
only then Rhodes saw the handle of the knife.

The old man said: "Quickly. Into the back room, before he bleeds."

They carried the body in and laid it down at Rhodes's feet; he saw the
old man with a bucket and swab cleaning the floor of the shop. Then the
door was shut, and they began to strip the pea jacket and uniform from
the German.

Simon said: "Come on, lad. Up you get, and get your things off."

Presently Rhodes had German trousers on and German boots; the jumper,
roughly wiped, was ready for him. Dottin, the doctor, opened his little
case, filled his hypodermic carefully against the light, and gave him
the injection. He wiped the puncture with a pad of wool. "So," he said
in heavily accented English. "Now you will be able to walk well."

They wiped his face over with a cold wet towel, several times, and wiped
his hands and his ears. Then, very carefully and gently, they inserted
his wounded arm into the jumper, and arranged the light blue, striped
collar on his shoulders. And then they helped him into the pea jacket.

Dottin said: "I will go down and warn them to be ready for him with the
boat." He left the room.

Rhodes stared around him, seeing everything with a new clarity. There
was a dead man at his feet, whose clothes he now was wearing. Simon was
adjusting the scarf at his neck; his arm was throbbing painfully. He
glanced down at the body. "What will you do with--that?" he asked.

Simon said: "Bozallec is going to look after him. I think he will stuff
him down a sewer, probably."

With every minute Rhodes could think more clearly. "I don't like it," he
said uneasily. "These people here are running a most frightful risk for
us. Everybody seems to be. If the Germans get to know of this they'll
all be in an awful jam."

Simon stood before him, face to face. "Rhodes, pay attention to me now,"
he said earnestly. "It all depends on you. These people, they have taken
a great risk for you; you must not let them down. If you are caught and
found to be an Englishman the Germans will make a search, and they will
find this body, and these people will be shot and all their wives and
little children will be shot also. That is what the Germans do, in a
case like this. That is what these men have risked, so that you may go
free."

Rhodes drew a deep breath. "That passes the buck to me," he said.

Simon nodded. "How are you feeling now?"

"I'm feeling pretty well all right."

"Can you walk straight and steadily now, stepping out like a German?"

"I think I can. Tell me the way again."

Simon said: "It is barely three hundred yards. When you go out of this
door turn to the right, _that_ way, and go straight down the street,
down-hill towards the harbour. Remember that you are a German, that you
walk stiff and erect. You must not stop, you must not look around you;
you are a German sailor upon duty. When you come out on the quay you
will see steps immediately ahead of you, down to the water. Walk
straight to them and down into the boat that will be waiting there. Sit
down in the stern exactly in the middle, and sit up very straight and
motionless as they row you off."

"Very good, sir."

Simon said: "If there is any trouble for you, we will make explosions as
I said. Pay no attention to them; walk straight on. A German upon duty
is like that."

The priest stepped forward from the background and spoke in French to
Simon. Simon turned to Rhodes. "He wants to bless you," he said quietly.
"You must kneel down." He took Rhodes by his arm and helped him down on
to the floor.

The scene stayed etched deep in Rhodes's memory. The dingy little room,
the murdered German on the floor by him stripped and squalid in his
underclothes, the Bretons standing by with inclined heads, the low words
of Latin passing over him. The priest followed with a few sentences in
French that Rhodes did not understand. Then Simon helped him to his
feet.

Simon said in a low tone: "He said this. He asked that you should be
taken safe to England through the dangers of the sea and the dangers of
battle and the danger from the air, so that fire might come again,
through you, against the Germans in France."

Rhodes turned to the father. "Fire will come again," he said, "whether I
get back or I don't. In England there are other chaps like me. But if I
get back safely to my country I shall remember what you people have done
for us, all my life."

Simon translated; Father Augustine nodded, smiling gently at Rhodes.
Then they led him out into the shop, now as neat and tidy as before. At
the door into the street they paused and peered out through the lace
curtain covering the half-window. "All is clear," said Simon. "Turn to
the right immediately you get out, and straight down to the quay. We
shall meet in London."

Rhodes opened the door, and stepped out into the market-place. A fair
number of civilians were passing, and there were a number of German
soldiers strolling about, newcomers to the town. He turned to the right,
and began to walk down the narrow, cobbled street towards the harbour.

He went dizzily, desperately trying to control the movements of his
limbs. Each step must be confident and firm--so. He must not look at the
ground at his feet, but well ahead of him. He must hold himself
straight--it was only three hundred yards. Only about two hundred and
fifty now. Here was a raised kerb coming that he must step over without
stumbling--that was a good one. Two hundred yards only, now. He was
feeling sick. God, he must not be sick. He must walk straight, he must
keep upright, he...must...not...be...sick.

Simon and Bozallec followed down the lane behind him, about twenty yards
behind. Now and again they saw him make a false step and sway a little;
each time he pulled himself together and went on firmly. At half the
distance Bozallec said: "He is doing well, that one. I did not think
that he would do so well."

Simon said: "I think he will succeed."

They followed on behind, watching him as he went. There were eyes on him
all down the narrow street, eyes that watched him from behind lace
curtains, through the chinks of doors, from behind and from in front.
Rhodes did not know it, but there were nearly fifty people watching each
step that he made, praying for him each time he stumbled, cheered when
he walked straight ahead down to the quay.

Simon and Bozallec, following behind, watchful, saw a German officer
turn from the quay ahead and enter the lane, walking up to meet Rhodes.
Barely fifty yards separated them. Bozallec said quickly: "That officer
is clever. He will see."

Simon drew a red bandana handkerchief from the trouser pocket of his
blue serge trousers and flourished it before blowing his nose.
Immediately from an alley by their side there was a sharp, cracking
detonation. The officer ahead shot into a doorway, grasping the Luger at
his belt. Another explosion followed a little way away, and then a
third.

Simon and Bozallec broke into a run, dashed forward past Rhodes
stumbling forward in a dream, and checked themselves in confusion
opposite the officer. They turned, looking backwards up the street.
Bozallec said to the officer, panting and excited: "An explosion,
_Monsieur le Capitaine_. Truly, that was a bomb."

Behind their backs, screening him from the German, Rhodes stumbled
forward to the quay. "I know that, fool," snarled the officer. "I know
what a bomb sounds like. This is your treachery again; this town will
pay for it."

Rhodes was clear; they turned and ran ahead of him again down to the
quay. A fourth explosion sounded up the street. They came out on to the
quay, and met a crowd of French and Germans flocking to the entrance of
the alley. Simon turned and pointed to the lane. "Up there," he shouted.
"Somebody has let bombs off, up there. The officer wants help!"

All eyes were on him; in the confusion Rhodes passed out of the lane on
to the quay. The steps lay before him. He passed through the crowd
unnoticed, walked steadily with a desperate concentration. He went
straight down the steps. There was a boat waiting at the bottom with men
ready at the oars.

A hand steadied him as he got into the boat, as he sat down at the
stern. "Sit stiff and upright--so," a voice whispered. "That is the way
they sit in boats, those swine."

They pushed off, and rowed out into the harbour to the black
sardine-boat lying at the mooring.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the quay the tumult soon died down. Bozallec stood with Simon leaning
on the rail, looking out over the harbour. One by one the fishing-boats
were slipping their moorings, backing and turning, moving out into the
bay towards the shepherding _Raumboote_. It was already evening.

Bozallec said presently: "That is the one. That one going astern behind
the tunnyman." He looked round at the weather. "Rain to-night," he said.
"It will be easy for them to work out to the north. To-morrow morning he
will be in Falmouth."

He turned to Simon with something like reverence. "What will you do,
monsieur?"

Simon stirred. "I shall go up to the hotel," he said. "The Htel du
Commerce. I want to sleep in a bed for to-night."

He was still in the fisherman's clothes that they had all worn upon
_Genevive_. He had a few hundred francs in French money; he went up to
the market-place and bought himself a suit of clothes, a new shirt, and
a collar and tie. He bought a very cheap fibre suitcase to put the other
clothes in, and carrying that he walked along to the hotel.

He spent the evening in the hotel, as he had spent so many other
evenings of his life in France, sitting in the caf reading a paper,
smoking, drinking Pernod, and watching a couple at the next table play a
game of draughts. The proprietor was not there that evening, and no one
noticed him. He dined well, with as good a bottle of Burgundy as the
house could produce, and went up early to his bed.

He slept late, and it was after nine when he came down to the caf in
the morning. He called through the kitchen door for a cup of coffee and
a _brioche_; the proprietor brought it to him himself. He stared at
Simon when he saw him.

"Monsieur has stayed with us before?" he enquired. "Your face is
familiar."

Simon said: "I was here in February last, on business. You told me then
about Father Zacharias, and the little boy, Jules."

"I remember," said the innkeeper. "You were travelling in cement."

He left Simon to his coffee, but presently he came back again, carrying
a big black book. He opened this and laid it on the table, with a pen
and a bottle of ink. "Monsieur did not register last night," he said.
"If he would be so good. Name, Christian name, occupation, and address."

Simon took the pen and put down "Simon--Charles." Then he glanced up at
the innkeeper. "My occupation is that I am an officer in the British
Army," he said, "and my address is in London. Shall I put that down?"

The man stared at him. "Charles Simon," he breathed. "Are you crazy? I
remember now--that was your name before."

"It is still my name. I have never had another."

"You do not understand. The Germans come each day to see this book." He
stared at the entry. "There are only three names above. I will take the
page out, and three separate people can then write the names again."

"What time do the Germans come?" asked Simon.

"After _djeuner_, always at the same time."

Simon got to his feet. "It will not matter to me if they see it then,"
he said. "Do as you like about the book."

The man said: "Where are you going to? Stay here, indoors, and I will
arrange something. There are people in Douarnenez who will help you,
monsieur."

Simon said: "The people here are in trouble enough over me. I am going
first to the presbytery."

He went out; the innkeeper followed him to the door and stood watching
him as he went down the street. The morning was bright and sunny after
the rain, the streets swept by a fresh, keen wind from the Atlantic.
Half-way to the presbytery a man stopped him, asking for a light for his
cigarette.

Simon passed him a box of matches; the man stooped by him to shield the
flame. "They got away," he said. "One of the boats was missing when dawn
came. The fleet has just come into harbour. The Germans are very angry
about it."

He straightened up. A German sailor passed by them in the street going
towards the harbour. The man lit another match and flipped it at him
scornfully. The German scowled angrily at them. The man spat on the
pavement at his feet, and gave the box of matches back to Simon.

Simon said: "That is good news for Douarnenez, and for all France. One
day the English will come back, and bring their fire again." He smiled
gently. "Charles Simon says so."

He went on down the main street past the great church to the small house
beside it, and knocked at the door of the presbytery. It was opened to
him by Father Augustine himself; when he saw who it was he pulled Simon
inside quickly and shut the door. They stood together in the narrow
passage.

Simon said: "Father, all has gone as we had planned. By now my friend
will be in England and in hospital in his own country. There is an
officer at the British Admiralty who will be looking after him. His
little friend, his fiance, will be with him and he will be happy. All
this is due to you, and I want to thank you for it."

The priest said: "We are all instruments of Almighty God. Give your
thanks to Him."

Simon inclined his head.

"And you, my son?"

"My time is getting short. I want to cleanse my soul, father."

The priest said gently: "You could have escaped with your friend quite
easily. Why did you not go with him?"

There was a little pause. Then Simon said: "I am practically a
Frenchman, father, though I have British nationality. But all my life I
have thought of myself as English. I wanted to be English, as my father
was. Now, for eight months, I have been an officer in the British Army.
A proper British officer would not go away and leave these hostages. I
do not want women and little girls of seven to be killed so that I may
go free."

He left the presbytery half an hour later, and walked down to the
harbour. All his life the sight of boats had fascinated him, the smell
of tanned sails and salt water, the lap and shimmer of the waves. He
spent an hour down at the waterside in peace, storing up memories. He
walked out on the jetty, still black from the fire, and wondered what
had happened to his own four-ton yacht at St. Malo. Then he went back
into the Caf de la Rpublique and drank a glass of Pernod.

Presently he left the caf and walked up the hill, towards the German
headquarters.

Under the great swastika flag he turned in at the door between the
sentries, stiff and erect with rifles and steel helmets. There was a
desk in the front room; behind it was an _Unterfeldwebel_ of the German
Army, and a private.

"I have come about the thirty hostages," Simon said in French. "You can
let them go. I am a British officer, the only one who landed in
Douarnenez."




12


It took Rhodes about three-quarters of an hour to tell me what he knew,
and he was very weary by the time we had finished. Towards the end the
nurse kept looking in every two or three minutes, mutely begging me to
pack up and go. I made it as short as I could, and got to my feet.

"You'd better rest now, Rhodes," I said. I hesitated, and then said: "I
shall be in touch with Dartmouth. Would you like to see Miss Wright?"

He said: "She's just had leave, sir. They wouldn't let her come down
here, would they?"

I laughed. "I'll certify it as a service journey. You'd like to see her,
wouldn't you?"

He flushed. "I don't know if you know. We got engaged--just before this
show."

"She told me," I said. I picked up my cap. "I'll see about that, Rhodes.
Come and see me in London when you're on your feet again, and we'll talk
about what you are to do next."

I left the ward, and went back to the surgeon's office. There I
scribbled a message for him to get telephoned to Dartmouth, and left in
a hurry for the station. I got the London train by the skin of my teeth,
and sat all morning as it wandered on through Cornwall.

The train drew into Newton Abbot station early in the afternoon; Leading
Wren Wright was on the platform there to meet me. It was my fate to tell
her things on Newton Abbot platform, in the clamour of the trucks and
milk-cans, the hissing of steam heat from the carriages, and the bustle
of the crowd. I got out quickly and went up to her.

"Look, Miss Wright," I said. "You got my message?"

She stammered: "He--he's all right, is he, sir?"

I said: "He's not a bit all right. He isn't going to die, but he's got a
very nasty and neglected wound in his left shoulder. He's in Falmouth
Hospital, and he'd very much like to see you down there."

She said: "Would I be able to get leave?"

I had written a note in the train, and now I gave it to her. "Take this
to the commander," I said. "Give him my compliments and tell him that
I'm sorry I haven't been able to telephone him. I've asked if he can
spare you for a week to be with Rhodes, in this letter. But it rests
with him entirely, you know. I can't give you leave."

She said ingenuously: "I'll get it if you've said you want me to have
it, sir. He thinks an awful lot of you. They all do."

"I've done nothing in this show," I said. "Nothing but sit on my
backside in an office and watch other people do the work."

There was a short pause. "Do you know what happened to Captain Simon and
Lieutenant Boden, sir?" she asked.

I said: "Simon got on shore all right"--I dropped my voice--"but he's
still over on the other side. Keep your mouth shut about that. I'm
afraid it's very nearly certain that Lieutenant Boden was killed."

She nodded; she had evidently expected that. "I was sure it must have
been him," she said. "He was the man with the Tommy-gun, when she was
floating upside down?"

"I think he was," I said.

She raised her head. "It was the best thing," she said. "He'd never have
settled down, after the war."

I did not agree with her. "People get over things."

She shook her head. "Not Boden. He was hurt too much."

It was not a matter one could argue, especially on Newton Abbot
platform; besides which, she was more his age and knew Boden better than
I did. Behind me a porter was shouting out for passengers to take their
seats, and slamming doors as he passed down the train. I moved towards
my compartment. "Look after yourself and see that doesn't happen to
Rhodes," I said.

She said: "It might be the other way about."

Down at the end of the train the guard blew his whistle, waving his
green flag. I got into my compartment and leaned out of the window for a
few last words to her. "Don't worry about that," I said. "He'll never
go to sea again--he never should have gone this time. Rhodes is a Special
Branch officer--green stripe. He'll be on shore for the remainder of the
war."

She said: "He'll hate that, sir."

The train began to move. I grinned at her. "I know he will," I said.
"But you won't."

She laughed at that; it was the first time that I had seen her laugh for
weeks. The last thing I saw of her was that she was still laughing on
the platform, waving to me with the letter in her hand that was to give
her leave. I'm not sure that it's correct for a Leading Wren to wave
like that at a commander.

I saw McNeil that evening in his office in Pall Mall, and told him what
I had been doing, and what I had learned from Rhodes. It took about half
an hour to tell the story as I then knew it. In the end I said: "Simon
is still in France, apparently. We might hear from him before so very
long."

He shook his head. "I don't think so. There was a message in to-day
about him." He unlocked a drawer and passed me one of his MOST SECRET
flimsies that I was beginning to dislike. It read:

     DOUARNENEZ. The thirty hostages which were to be executed on
     November 15th were all released on November 14th. A British
     officer named Charles Simon is said to have surrendered to the
     Germans on that day. This man is said to have been a survivor
     from a British ship sunk in the Iroise, and to have been
     concerned in some way with the recent fires in minor German war
     vessels. Ends.

I passed it back to him in silence. "That's the end of that," I said
heavily at last. "We shan't see him again till after the war."

"No," said the brigadier. He said no more than that. It seemed to me
that there was nothing more to say.

I left him and went back to my normal work. Nothing happened after that
for the best part of a fortnight; indeed, there was nothing more to
happen. That party was all cleaned up, or so I thought. Colvin came out
of hospital about the end of November and came up to see me at the
Admiralty one afternoon. I made him sit down and smoke, and we chatted
for a short time about this and that.

Presently I said: "What's your position now, Colvin? They're giving you
a decent spell of leave?"

"I wanted to see you about that, sir," he said. "The surgeon-commander
down at Haslar, he's being mighty particular. I get a month's leave now.
Well, that's okay, although I don't know what in heck you do with a
month's leave in this country in December. But after that, he says I'll
be for light duty on shore for six months at least, 'n possibly for
longer. That don't seem reasonable to me."

"How do you feel yourself?" I asked.

"I must say I get mighty tired with little things," he confessed.
"Walking upstairs, 'n that. And shaving, I keep cutting myself. But
that'll all go off, after a month."

"How old are you, Colvin?"

"I'm forty-eight." He hesitated. "I did knock off five years, but the
commander at Haslar, he got hold of all my papers when I was in
hospital."

"Bad luck," I said.

"You see the way it is, sir," he explained. "I don't want to get stuck
down in one of them places like the Clyde or Liverpool, not knowing
anybody in this country, 'n nothing to do but get into trouble. I'd be
better off at sea."

I bent down and opened one of the drawers of my desk. I pulled out a
little box. "By the way," I said. "I got your watch back. I think it's
all right now."

He was very pleased. He took the box and opened it. The London
Chronometer Company had done a good job on it; they had given it a
complete new movement and polished it up till it looked like new. They
had even sent it back in a little wash-leather bag.

"Say," he said, "that's dandy." He put it to his ear and listened to it
ticking. And then, unable to resist, he turned it over and read the
inscription that he must have known by heart: "Jack Colvin from Junie,
September 17th, 1935."

"I certainly am grateful, sir," he said. "How much do I owe you?"

"Nothing," I said. "I got the admiral's secretary to take it on his
petty cash account."

He said: "That's mighty nice of the admiral." He paused. "It worried me
more 'n anything else," he said, "the way I'd used this watch. But now
it's better 'n it ever was before."

I turned back to the job in hand; I had other things to do that
afternoon besides settling up Colvin. "Look," I said. "There's a shore
job that I think might suit you. It's the armouring of merchant
ships--wheel-houses, gun zarebas, and all that. It wants somebody who
knows merchant ships, to go on board each ship and say in each case what
has to be done--and then to see the work is done right. It's not
difficult work, but it wants a chap like you to do it. It means rowing
in with each skipper, talking it over with him, and then modifying the
standard scheme to suit the particular conditions in each ship."

I paused. "Could you tackle that?"

"I guess so. It sounds the sort of thing I used to do when I was Marine
Superintendent over on the coast."

I nodded. "That's what I had in mind. And more than that, it seemed to
me you might have local contacts that would help you." He looked up,
puzzled. "These are the Lease-Lend ships I'm talking about," I said.
"This job would be on the west coast of America. Your headquarters would
be in San Francisco."

There was a momentary silence. "Have I got this right?" he asked. "You
mean you want me to go out to 'Frisco for this job?"

"If you want to go," I said. "It's an opportunity I thought perhaps you
might like."

"Would I like it!" he breathed. "Say..." And then he stopped and
said: "Who put you up to this one, sir? Who told you that I wanted to
get back to 'Frisco? Was it young Boden?"

"He said something about it. I was very glad to know."

He stared down at his finger-nails. "He was a mighty fine kid, that," he
said. "They don't make them any better."

He raised his head and looked at me. "I do want to get back to 'Frisco,"
he said quietly. "I got a personal reason, sir--nothing to do with the
Navy." He was still holding the watch in his hand. "I said I wasn't
married when you asked me, first of all," he said. "That's right enough,
if you go by the law. I couldn't have drawn marriage allowance--at
least, I reckon not. It wasn't regular, you see."

"I understand," I said. "This is Junie, is it?"

"Aye," he said, "it's Junie. Seems to me some folks get married and it
takes right off, and they don't get no more trouble. Young Boden, he was
one o' them, I guess. But others never seem to hit it right."

I could not comment upon that.

"I been married a lot of times," he said simply, "and each time it
finished up in trouble, up till the time when I paired up with Junie. We
got married by a minister as if it was all regular, but it wasn't
regular at all, on account of all the other times." He paused. "Later
on, and when this war came, I'd have give my eyes if it could have been
made a proper marriage. But that's what you can't do."

"You lived together for four years, didn't you?" I asked.

"More like five," he said. "Close on five, it was. I don't want any
better time than that."

"Do you think she'll be there still?" I asked. "Two years is a fair
time." I meant, a fair time to expect a girl to hang around without a
letter and without marriage lines, but I didn't say so much.

"Aye," he said, "it's a long, dreary time. I think I'll find her hanging
on for me in 'Frisco still. If not, well, that'll be too bad. But any
way it breaks, I'm real grateful that you've given us the chance to set
up house again."

"If I were you," I said, "I should think up a cablegram and send it off
to her. You'll have a month to do on this side, getting hold of the job.
I should think you'd be in San Francisco some time in February."

He left me soon after that, and I went on with my work. I saw him again
a few days later, when he looked in to show me the answer to his
cablegram. He was as pleased as a dog with two tails, and insisted on me
reading it. It said:

     Got your cable but where you been all this time Billy died last
     autumn guess colic George and Mary send love will we live
     Oakland some dandy new apartments fifteenth street since you
     left oceans of love stop now no more dough--Junie.

"Billy was her cat," he explained. "I'm real sorry about Billy. He was a
good, tough kind of cat, 'n a match for any dog."

I handed him back the cable. "I should send her some dough to be going
on with, if you've got any," I remarked. "I've been finding out about
your marriage allowance. They cater for a case like yours. You can draw
it, but you've got to make a declaration. Look, this is what you've got
to do."

I went through the Admiralty Fleet Order with him and explained it to
him in detail. "I did hear something about this," he said at last.

Thinking of the girl in Oakland, I was a little short with him. "You
might have done something about it," I said.

He looked abashed. "Guess I never had a commander that I'd care to talk
it over with before," he said.

I told him he was a fool, and sent him away to make out his declaration.

About a fortnight later McNeil rang me up. "You might look in some
time," he said. "I've got a couple more flimsies in about _Genevive_."

I went round to his office after lunch. He took them from a drawer and
passed them to me. "Not very good news, I'm afraid," he said.

The first one read:

     RENNES. A British officer named Charles Simon was executed at
     the rifle range to-day. This man was convicted of an act of
     espionage at Lorient last spring, at which time his status was
     that of a civilian. It is believed that the severe damage
     caused to the U-boat base was due to information passed by this
     man to the British. Ends.

I looked up at the brigadier. "I'm very sorry about this," I said.

He nodded. "So am I." He paused. "I was very much afraid that this would
happen," he said quietly. "It would have been a miracle if they hadn't
spotted him."

"You think some German recognized him, and remembered?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Something of the sort. I don't suppose we'll
ever hear the details now."

"He must have known what he was doing," I said slowly. "When he gave
himself up, he must have known the risk."

McNeil said: "He was probably thinking of the hostages."

"Of course." I sat there staring at the message in my hand, and the slow
anger rose in me. "We've been a couple of bloody fools over this," I
said at last. "We should have managed better."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean just this," I said. "Simon was the best officer for working on
the other side this country ever had, or is ever likely to get. And now
he's dead. We should have thought more deeply before risking him again
in Douarnenez."

"It's not so easy to rope in these chaps," McNeil said heavily. "The
better they are, the more difficult they are to manage. You know that."
I did, and I was silent. "He was a damn good man," he said. "But there
are others just as good."

"You can't have so many Simons as all that," I replied. "We've gone and
wasted one of them."

"Wasted..." he said thoughtfully. "I'm not sure that you're right."
He glanced at me. "Did you read the other one?"

I turned to the other flimsy. This one said:

     BREST. The civil population have devised a means of harassing
     the Germans which is proving very effective. The name Charles
     Simon is written upon walls or chalked on pavements. This
     device is spreading rapidly, and has been observed as far away
     as St. Brieuc. In every case the Germans have reacted angrily,
     and show concern at the spread of the movement. A man of this
     name was executed recently at Rennes. Ends.

I stood there reading this again, and as I did so I could feel the hate
swelling and seething on the other side. I put down the flimsies, sick
of the whole miserable business.

"In any case," I said, "this winds up _Genevive_. Simon was the last of
them to be accounted for, and now that's over."

The brigadier nodded. "It's all finished now. I'll let you know if
anything else turns up."

"I shan't be here," I said. "I'm going back to sea." It was a relief to
talk of cleaner things. "They're giving me one of the Tribal class
destroyers."

"Glad to go?"

I said: "Yes. Somebody has to do this Admiralty work, of course, but I'd
rather be at sea with a definite job to do. Here you work all day in the
office, and nothing ever seems to be achieved."

He stared at me. "I don't know what you want," he said. "The operations
that we did with _Genevive_ have been a most successful show."

"We lost the ship and all her crew," I said bitterly.

"We lost a fishing vessel and two officers," he retorted. "Against that,
we destroyed three _Raumboote_ and damaged a destroyer. We killed not
less than ninety Germans. We landed seventy machine-guns, and put fresh
heart into a town that needed it. And not the least part, we drew off a
division from the Russian front."

"A pretty scruffy sort of a division," I remarked.

"I grant you that," he said. "It was a very tired division. But it was a
division, none the less, taken from the Russian front at Rostov."

He turned to me. "Who knows what that may mean?"






[End of Most Secret, by Nevil Shute]
