Howard lay resting on the hay near them, tired to death. In the last hour he had taken several nips of brandy for the weariness and weakness that he was enduring; now as he lay on the hay in the deserted farm fatigue came soaking out of him in great waves. He felt that they were in a desperate position. There could be no hope now of getting through to England, as he once had hoped. The German front was far ahead of them; by now it might have reached to Brittany itself. All France was overrun.
Exposure might come at any time, must come before so very long. It was inevitable. His own French, though good enough, was spoken with an English accent, as he knew well. The only hope of escaping detection would be to hide for a while until some plan presented itself, to lie up with the children in the house of some French citizen. But he knew no one in this part of France that he could go to.
And any way, no family would take them in. If he did know anybody, it would hardly be fair to plant himself on them.
He lay musing bitterly on the future, only half-awake.
It was not quite correct to say that he knew nobody. He did know, very slightly, one family at Chartres. They were people called Rouget - no, Rougand - Rougeron; that was it, Rougeron. They came from Chartres. He had met them at Cidoton eighteen months before, when he had been there with John for the skiing. The father was a colonel in the army; Howard wondered vaguely what had become of him. The mother had been typically fat and French, pleasant enough in a very quiet way. The daughter had ski'd well; closing his eyes in the doze of oncoming sleep the old man could see her flying down the slopes behind John, in a flurry of snow. She had had fair hair which she wore short and rather elaborately dressed, in the French style.
He had seen a good deal of the father. They had played draughts together in the evening over a Pernod, and had pondered together whether war would come. The old man began to consider Rougeron seriously. If by some freak of chance he should be in Chartres, there might yet be hope for them. He thought that Rougeron might help.
At any rate, they would get good advice from him. Howard became aware at this point of how much, how very much he wanted to talk to some adult, to discuss their difficulties and make plans. The more he thought of Rougeron, the more he yearned to talk to someone of that sort, frankly and without reserve.
Chartres was not far away, not much more than twenty-five miles. With luck they might get there tomorrow. Probably, Rougeron would be away from home, but - it was worth trying.
Presently he slept.
He woke several times in the night, gasping and breathless, with a very tired heart. Each time he sat upright for half an hour and drank a little brandy, presently slipping down again to an uneasy doze. The children also slept uneasily, but did not wake. At five o'clock the old man woke for good, and sitting up against a heap of hay, resigned himself to wait till it was time to wake the children.
He would go to Chartres, and look up Rougeron. The bad night that he had suffered was a warning; it might well be that his strength was giving out. If that should happen, he must get the children safe with someone else. With Rougeron, if he were there, the children would be safe; Howard could leave money for their keep, English money it was true, but probably negotiable. Rougeron might give him a bed, and let him rest a little till this deathly feeling of fatigue went away.
Pierre woke at about half-past six, and lay awake with him. 'You must stay quiet,' the old man said. 'It's not time to get up yet. Go to sleep again.'
At seven o'clock Sheila woke up, wriggled about, and climbed out of her bed. Her movements woke the other children. Howard got up stiffly and got them all up. He herded them before him down the ladder to the farmyard, and one by one made them sluice their faces beneath the pump.
There was a step behind him, and he turned to meet a formidable woman, who was the farmer's wife. She demanded crossly what he was doing there.
He said mildly: 'I have slept in your hay, madame, with these children. A thousand pardons, but there was no other place where we could go.'
She rated him soundly for a few minutes. Then she said: 'Who are you? You are not a Frenchman. No doubt, you are English, and these children also?'
He said: 'These children are of all nationalities, madame. Two are French and two are Swiss, from Geneva. One is Dutch.' He smiled: 'I assure you, we are a little mixed.'
She eyed him keenly. 'But you,' she said, 'you are English.'
He said: 'If I were English, madame, what of that?'
'They are saving in Angerville that the English have betrayed us, that they have run away, from Dunkirk.'
He felt himself to be in peril. This woman was quite capable of giving them all up to the Germans.
He faced her boldly and looked her in the eyes. 'Do you believe that England has abandoned France?' he asked. 'Or do you think that is a German lie?'
She hesitated. 'These filthy politics,' she said at last. 'I only know that this farm is ruined. I do not know how we shall live.'
He said simply: 'By Grace of God, madame.'
She was silent for a minute. Then she said: 'You are English, aren't you?'
He nodded without speaking.
She said: 'You had better go away, before anybody sees you.'
He turned and called the children to him, and walked over to the pram. Then, pushing it in front of hun, he went towards the gate.
She called after him: 'Where are you going to?'
He stopped and said: 'To Chartres.' And then he could have bitten out his tongue for his indiscretion.
She said: 'By the tram?'
He repeated uncertainly: 'The tram?'
'It passes at ten minutes past eight. There is still half an hour.'
He had forgotten the light railway, running by the road. Hope of a lift to Chartres surged up in him. 'Is it still running, madame?'
'Why not? These Germans say that they have brought us Peace. Well then, the tram will run.'
He thanked her and went out on to the road. A quarter of a mile farther on he came to a place where the track crossed the road; here he waited, and fed the children on the biscuits he had bought the day before, with a little of the chocolate. Presently, a little puff of steam announced the little narrow-gauge train, the so-called tram.
Three hours later they walked out into the streets of Chartres, still pushing the pram. It was as easy as that; a completely uneventful journey.
Chartres, like Angerville, was full of Germans. They swarmed everywhere, particularly in the luxury shops, buying with paper money silk stockings, underclothes, and all sorts of imported food. The whole town seemed to be on holiday. The troops were clean and well disciplined; all day Howard saw nothing in their behaviour to complain of, apart from their very presence. They were constrained in their behaviour, scrupulously correct, uncertain, doubtful of their welcome. But in the shops there was no doubt about it; they were spending genuine French paper money and spending it like water. If there were any doubts in Chartres, they stayed behind the locked doors of the banks.