Once Howard asked: 'Where are we going to?'
The German said: To l'Abervrach. Your fisherman is there.'
After a pause the old man said: 'There was a guard on the harbour.'
Diessen said: 'There is no guard tonight - that has been arranged. Do you take me for a fool?'
Howard said no more.
At ten o'clock, in the first darkness, they ran softly to the quay at l'Abervrach. The car drew up noiselessly and the engine stopped at once. The Gestapo officer got out and stood for half a minute, staring around. All was quiet and still.
He turned back to the car. 'Come,' he said. 'Get out quickly - and do not let the children talk.' They helped the children from the car. Diessen said to Nicole: 'There is to be no trickery. You shall stay with me. If you should try to go with them, I shall shoot down the lot of you.'
She raised her head. 'You need not draw your gun,' she said. 'I shall not try to go.'
The German did not answer her, but pulled the big automatic from the holster at his waist. In the dim light he went striding softly down the quay; Howard and Nicole hesitated for a moment and then followed him with the children; the black-uniformed driver brought up the rear. At the end, by the water's edge, Diessen turned.
He called to them in a low tone. 'Hurry.'
There was a boat there, where the slip ran down into the water. They could see the tracery of its mast and rigging outlined against the starry sky; the night was very quiet.
They drew closer and saw it was a half-decked fishing-boat. There were two men there, besides Diessen. One was standing on the quay in the black uniform they knew so well. The other was in the boat, holding her to the quay by a rope rove through a ring.
'In with you, quickly,' said Diessen. 'I want to see you get away.'
He turned to Focquet, speaking in French. 'You are not to start your engine till you are past Le Trepied,' he said. 'I do not want the countryside to be alarmed.'
The young man nodded. 'There is no need,' he said in the soft Breton dialect. 'There is sufficient wind to steer by, and the ebb will take us out.'
They passed the seven children one by one down into the boat. 'You now,' the German said to Howard. 'Remember to behave yourself in England. I shall send for you in London in a very few weeks' time. In September.'
The old man turned to Nicole. 'This is good-bye, my dear,' he said. He hesitated. 'I do not think this war will be over in September. I may be old when it is over, and not able to travel very well. You will come and visit me, Nicole? There is so much that I shall want to say to you. So much that I wanted to talk over with you, if we had not been so hurried and so troubled in the last few days.'
She said: 'I will come and stay with you as soon as we can travel. And you shall talk to me about John.'
The German said: 'You must go now, Mr Englishman.'
He kissed the girl; for a minute she clung to him. Then he got down into the boat among the children.
Pierre said: 'Is this the boat that's going to take us to America?'
The old man shook his head. 'Not this boat,' he said, with mechanical patience. 'That will be a bigger boat than this.'
'How big will that one be?' asked Ronnie. 'Twice as big?'
Focquet had slipped the warp out of the ring and was thrusting vigorously with an oar against the quay- side. The stretch of dark water that separated them from France grew to a yard, to five yards wide. The old man stood motionless, stricken with grief, with longing to be back on the quay, with the bitter loneliness of old age.
He saw the figure of the girl standing with the three Germans by the water's edge, watching them as they slid away. The ebb caught the boat and hurried her quietly out into the stream; Focquet was heaving on a halliard forward and the heavy nut-brown sail crept slowly up the mast. For a moment he lost sight of Nicole as a mist dimmed his eyes; then he saw her again clearly, still standing motionless beside the Germans. Then the gloom shrouded all of them, and all he could see was the faint outline of the hill against the starry sky.
In deep sorrow, he turned and looked forward to the open sea. But tears blinded him, and he could see nothing of the entrance.
Ronnie said: 'May I work the rudder, Mr Howard?'
The old man did not answer him. The little boy repeated his question.
Rose said: 'I do feel sick.'
He roused himself and turned to their immediate needs with heavy heart. They had no warm clothes and no blankets to keep off the chill of the night sea. He spoke a few sentences to Focquet and found him mystified at their deliverance; he found that the young man intended to cross straight over to Falmouth. He had no compass and no chart for the sea crossing of a hundred miles or so, but said he knew the way. He thought that it would take a day and a night, perhaps a little longer. They had no food with them, but he had a couple of bottles of red, wine and a beaker of water.
They pulled a sail out from the forepeak and made a resting-place for the children. The old man took Anna and made her comfortable in a corner first, and put her in the charge of Rose. But Rose, for once, displayed little of her maternal instinct; she was preoccupied with her own troubles.
In a very few minutes she was sick, leaning over the side of the boat under the old man's instructions. One by one the children followed her example as they reached the open sea; they passed Le Trepied, a black reef of rock, with so much wailing that they might just as well have had the engine running after all. In spite of the quick motion of the boat the old man did not feel unwell. Of the children, the only one unaffected was Pierre, who stood by Focquet at the stern, gazing at the moonlight on the water ahead of them.
They turned at the Libenter buoy and headed to the north. In a lull between the requirements of the children Howard said to Focquet: 'You are sure that you know which way to steer?'
The young Frenchman nodded. He glanced at the moon and at the dim loom of the land behind them, and at the Great Bear shimmering in the north. Then he put out his hand. That way,' he said. 'That is where Falmouth is.' He called it 'Fallmoot.'
'In the morning we will use the engine; then we will get there before evening.'
A fresh wailing from the bows drew the old man away. An hour later most of the children were lying exhausted in an uneasy doze; Howard was able to sit down himself and rest. He glanced back at the land. It was practically lost to sight; only a dim shadow showed where France lay behind them. He stared back at Brittany with deep regret, in bitter lonely sadness. With all his heart he wished that he was back there with Nicole.
Presently he roused himself. They were not home yet; he must not give way to depression. He got up restlessly and stared around. There was a steady little night breeze from the south-east; they were making about four knots.
'It is going well,' said Focquet. 'If this wind holds we shall hardly need the engine.'
The young fisherman was sitting on a thwart smoking a caporal. He glanced back over his shoulder. 'To the right,' he said, without moving. 'Put it this way. So. Keep her at that, and look always at your star.'
The old man became aware that little Pierre was at the helm, thrusting with the whole weight of his body on the big tiller. He said to Focquet: 'Can that little one steer a boat?'
The young man spat into the sea. 'He is learning. He is quick, that one. It prevents sea-sickness, to sail the ship. By the tune that we reach England he will be a helmsman.'
The old man turned to Pierre. 'You can do that very well,' he said. 'How do you know which way to go?'
In the; dim light of the waning moon he saw Pierre staring straight ahead. 'Focquet told me,' he replied. The old man had to strain to catch his little voice above the lapping of the waves. 'He said, to sail at those square stars up there.' He raised his little arm and pointed at the Bear. 'That is where we are going to, m'sieur. That is the way to America, under those stars. There is so much food there that you can give some to a dog and have him for your friend. Mademoiselle Nicole told me so.'
Presently he grew tired; the boat began to wander from the Bear. Focquet threw the stump of his
