Howard said: 'For a time you would have to go to school, to learn English and the American way of living. At school they would teach you to earn your living in some trade. What do you want to do when you grow up?'
Without any hesitation the boy said: 'I want to kill Germans.'
There was a momentary silence. Arvers said: 'That is enough about the Germans. Tell Monsieur here what trade you wish to learn in America, if he should be so kind as to take you there.'
There was a silence.
Nicole came forward. 'Tell us,' she said gently. 'Would you like to grow up with horses? Or would you rather buy things and sell them for a profit?' After all, she thought, it would be difficult for him to go against the characteristics of his race. 'Would you rather do that?'
The boy looked up at her. 'I want to learn to shoot with a rifle from a very long way away,' he said, 'because you can do that from the hills when they are on the road. And I want to learn to throw a knife hard and straight. That is best in the darkness, in the narrow streets, because it does not make a noise.'
Arvers smiled a little ruefully. 'I am sorry, monsieur,' he said. 'I am afraid he is not making a very good impression.'
The old man said nothing.
Marjan said: 'When do we start?'
Howard hesitated, irresolute. This lad might be a great embarrassment to them; at the best he could only be described as a prickly customer. On the other hand, a deep pity for the child lurked in the background of his mind.
'Do you want to come with us?' he asked.
The boy nodded his black head.
'If you come with us, you will have to forget all this about the Germans,' said the old man. 'You will have to go to school and learn your lessons, and play baseball, and go fishing, like other boys.'
The lad said gravely: 'I could not kill a German for another two or three years because I am not strong enough. Not unless I could catch one asleep and drive a pitchfork into his belly as he slept, and even then he might reach out before he died and overcome me. But in America I could learn everything, and come back when I am fifteen years old, and big and strong.'
Howard said gently: 'There are other things to learn in America besides that.'
The boy said: 'I know there is a great deal to learn, monsieur. One thing, you should always go for the young women - not the men. If you get the young women, then they cannot spawn, and before long there will be no more Germans.'
'That is enough,' said Arvers sharply. 'Go back to kitchen and stay there till I call you.'
The boy left the room. The horse-dealer turned to Nicole. 'I am desolated that he should have said such things,' he said.
The girl said: 'He has suffered a great deal. And he is very young.'
Arvers nodded. 'I do not know what will become of him,' he said morosely.
Howard sat down in the silence which followed and took a sip of Pernod. 'One of two things will happen to him,' he said. 'One is, that the Germans will catch him very soon. He may try to kill one of them, in which case they might shoot him out of hand. They will take him to their mines. He will be rebellious the whole time, and before long he will be beaten to death. That is the one thing.'
The horse-dealer dropped into the chair on the opposite side of the table, the bottle of Pernod between them. There was something in the old man's tone that was very familiar to him. 'What is the other thing?' he asked.
'He will escape with us to England,' said Howard. 'He will end up in America, kindly treated and well cared for, and in a year or two these horrors will have faded from his mind.'
Arvers eyed him keenly. 'Which of those is going to happen?'
That is in your hands, monsieur. He will never escape the Germans unless you help him.'
There was a long, long silence in the falling dusk.
Arvers said at last: 'I will see what I can do. Tomorrow I will drive Mademoiselle to Le Conquet and we will talk it over with Jean Henri. You must stay here with the children and keep out of sight.'
Chapter 9
Howard spent most of the next day sitting in the paddock in the sun, while the children played around him. His growing, stubbly beard distressed him with a sense of personal uncleanliness, but it was policy to let it grow. Apart from that, he was feeling well; the rest was welcome and refreshing.
Madame dragged an old cane reclining chair from a dusty cellar and wiped it over with a cloth for him; he thanked her and installed himself in it. The children had the kitten, Jo-Jo, in the garden and were stuffing it with copious draughts of milk and anything that they could get it to eat. Presently it escaped and climbed up into the old man's lap and went to sleep.
After a while he found himself making whistles on a semi-production basis, while the children stood around and watched.
From time to time the Polish boy, Marjan, appeared by the paddock gate and stood looking at them, curious, inscrutable. Howard spoke to him and asked him to come in and join them, but he muttered something to the effect that he had work to do, and sheered away shyly. Presently he would be back again, watching the children as they played. The old man let him alone, content not to hurry the friendship.
In the middle of the afternoon, suddenly, there was a series of heavy explosions over in the west. These mingled with the sharp crack of gunfire; the children stopped their games and stared in wonder. Then a flight of three single-engined fighter aeroplanes got up like partridges from some field not very far away and flew over them at about two thousand feet, heading towards the west and climbing at full throttle as they went.
Ronnie said wisely: 'That's bombs, I know. They go whee... before they fall, and then they go boom. Only it's so far off you can't hear the whee part.'
'Whee... Boom!' said Sheila. Pierre copied her, and presently all the children were running round wheeing and booming.
The real detonations grew fewer, and presently died in the summer afternoon.
That was the Germans bombing someone, wasn't it, Mr Howard?' asked Ronnie.
'I expect so,' he replied. 'Come and hold this bark while I bind it.' In the production of whistles the raid faded from their minds.
In the later afternoon Nicole returned with Arvers. Both were very dirty, and the girl had a deep cut on the palm of one hand, roughly bandaged. Howard was shocked at her appearance.
'My dear,' he said, 'whatever happened? Has there been an accident?'
She laughed a little shrilly. 'It was the British,' she said. 'It was an air raid. We were caught in Brest - this afternoon. But it was the British, monsieur, that did this to me.'
Madame Arvers came bustling up with a glass of brandy. Then she hustled the girl off into the kitchen. Howard was left in the paddock, staring out towards the west.
The children had only understood half of what had happened. Sheila said: 'It was the bad aeroplanes that did that to Nicole, monsieur, wasn't it?'
'That's right,' he said. 'Good aeroplanes don't do that sort of thing.'
The child was satisfied with that. 'It must have been a very, very bad aeroplane to do that to Nicole.'
There was general agreement on that point. Ronnie said: 'Bad aeroplanes are German aeroplanes. Good aeroplanes are English ones.'
He made no attempt to unravel that one for them.
Presently Nicole came out into the garden, white-faced and with her hand neatly bandaged. Madame hustled the children into the kitchen for their supper.
Howard asked after her hand. 'It is nothing,' she said. 'When a bomb falls, the glass in all the windows flies about. That is what did it.'
'I am so sorry.'
