that, wouldn't you?'
Sheila said: 'May Ronnie and I go, Mr Howard? Can we all go with Pierre?'
He said: 'I'll have to see about that. Your Aunt Margaret may want you in England.'
Ronnie said: 'If she doesn't want us, may we go to Coates Harbor with Pierre?'
'Yes,' he said. 'If she wants you out of England you can all go to Coates Harbor together.'
'Coo,' said the little boy, unfeelingly. 'I do hope she doesn't want us.'
After a time they got the children settled down to sleep; they went downstairs again and out into the garden until supper was ready. The old man said: 'You know a good deal about my daughter's house in America, mademoiselle.'
She smiled. 'John used to tell me about it,' she said. 'He had been out there, had he not, monsieur?'
He nodded. 'He was out there with Enid for a time in 1938. He thought a great deal of her husband, Costello.'
She said: 'He told me all about it very early one morning, when we could not sleep. John loved America. He was amateur, you understand - he loved their technique.'
Not for the first time the old man wondered doubtfully about the nature of that week in Paris. He said absently: 'He enjoyed that visit very much.'
He roused himself. 'I am a little worried about Pierre,' he said. 'I had not thought of sending anybody over with him to America.'
She nodded. 'He is sensitive, that one. He will be lonely and unhappy at first, but he will get over it. If Rose could go too it would be all right.'
He faced her. 'Why not go yourself?' he suggested. 'That would be best of all.'
'Go to America? That is not possible at all, monsieur.'
A little fear stole into his heart. 'But you are coming to England, Nicole?'
She shook her head. 'No, monsieur. I must stay in France.'
He was suddenly deeply disappointed. 'Do you really think that is the best thing to do?' he said. This country is overrun with Germans, and there will be great hardships as the war goes on. If you came with us to England you could live with me in my house in Essex, or you could go on to America with the children. That would be much better Nicole.'
She said: 'But monsieur, I have my mother to consider.'
He hesitated. 'Would you like to try to get hold of her, and take her with us? Life in France is going to be very difficult, you know.'
She shook her head. 'I know that things are going to be difficult. But she would not be happy in England. Perhaps I should not be happy either - now.'
'Have you ever been to England?' he asked curiously.
She shook her head. 'We had arranged that I should visit John in England in October, when he could get leave again. I think he would have taken me to see you then, perhaps. But the war came, and there was no more leave... And travelling was very difficult. I could not get a visa for my passport.'
He said gently: 'Make that trip to England now, Nicole.'
She shook her head. 'No, monsieur.'
'Why not?'
She said: 'Are you going to America with the children, yourself?'
He shook his head. 'I would like to, but I don't think I shall be able to. I believe that there'll be work for me to do when I get back.'
She said: 'Nor would I leave France.'
He opened his mouth to say that that was quite different, but shut it again without speaking. She divined something of his thought, because she said: 'Either one is French or one is English, and it is not possible that one should be both at the same time. And in times of great trouble, one must stay with one's own country and do what one can to help.'
He said slowly: 'I suppose so.'
Pursuing her train of thought,, she said: 'If John and I -' she hesitated - 'if we had married, I should have been English and then it would be different. But now I am not to be English, ever. I could not learn your different ways, and the new life, alone. This is my place that I belong to, and I must stay here. You understand?'
He said: 'I understand that, Nicole.' He paused for a minute, and then said: 'I am getting to be an old man now. When this war is over I may not find it very easy to get about. Will you come and stay with me in England for a little? Just for a week or two?'
She said: 'Of course. Immediately that it is possible to travel, I will come.'
They walked beside each other in silence for the length of the paddock. Presently she said: 'Now for the detail of the journey. Focquet will take the boat tonight from Le Conquet to go fishing up the Chenal as far as Le Four. He will not return to Le Conquet, but tomorrow night he will put into l'Abervrach to land his fish, or to get bait, or on some pretext such as that. He will sail again at midnight of tomorrow night and you must then be in the boat with him, for he will go direct to England. Midnight is the latest time that he can sail, in order that he may be well away from the French coast before dawn.'
Howard asked: 'Where is this place 1'Abervrach, mademoiselle? Is it far from here?'
She shrugged her shoulders. 'Forty kilometres, no more. There is a little town behind it, four miles inland, called Lannilis. We must go there tomorrow.'
'Are there many Germans in those parts?'
'I do not know. Aristide is trying to find out the situation there, and to devise something for us.'
The boy Marjan passed through the paddock on his way to the house. Howard turned and called to him; he hesitated, and then came to them.
The old man said; 'We are leaving here tomorrow, Marjan. Do you still want to come with us?'
The boy said: To America?'
'First we are going to try to get away to England. If we do that successfully, I will send you to America with Pierre and Willem, to live with my daughter till the war is over. Do you want to go?'
The boy said in his awkward French: 'If I stay with M. Arvers the Germans will find me and take me away. Presently they will kill me, as they killed my mother and as my father will be killed, because we are Jews. I would like to come with you.'
The old man said: 'Listen to me. I do not know if I shall take you, Marjan. We may meet Germans on the way from this place to the coast; we may have to mix with them, eat at their canteens perhaps. If you show that you hate them, they may arrest us all. I do not know if it is safe to take you, if it is fair to Rose and Ronnie and Sheik and Willem and to little Pierre.'
The boy said: 'I shall not make trouble for you. It will be better for me to go to America now; that is what I warn to do. It would only be by great good luck that I could kill a German now; even if I could creep up to one in the darkness and rip him open with a sharp knife, I should be caught and killed. But in a few years' time I shall be able to kill many hundreds of them, secretly, in the dark streets. That is much better, to wait and to learn how these things should be managed properly.'
Howard felt slightly sick. He said: 'Can you control yourself, if Germans are near by?'
The boy said: 'I can wait for years, monsieur, till my time comes.'
Nicole said: 'Listen, Marjan. You understand what Monsieur means? If you are taken by the Germans all these little boys and girls will also be taken, and the Germans will do to them what they will do to you. It would be very wrong of you to bring that trouble on them.'
He said: 'Have no fear. I shall be good, and obedient, and polite, if you will take me with you. That is what one must practise all the time, so that you win their confidence. In that way you can get them at your mercy in the end.'
Howard said: 'All right, Marjan. We start in the morning; be ready to come with us. Now go and have your supper and go up to bed.'
He stood watching the boy as he made his way towards the house. 'God knows what sort of world we shall have when this is all over,' he said heavily.
Nicole said: 'I do not know. But what you are doing now will help us all, I think. To get these children out
