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 of Europe must be a good thing.'
Presently they were called to the kitchen for their supper. Afterwards, in the salon, Arvers talked to them.
'Listen,' he said, 'and I will tell you what I have arranged.'
He paused. 'Lannilis is full of Germans. That is four miles from the coast, and the places at the coast itself, l'Abervrach and Portsall and places of that sort, are very lightly held or even not occupied at all. They do not interfere with the traffic of the country, and this is what I have devised for you.'
He said: 'Three miles this side of Lannilis there is a farmer called Quintin, and he is to send a load of manure tomorrow to a fisherman called Loudeac, the captain of the lifeboat at l'Abervrach, because Loudeac has a few fields on the hills and wants manure. I have arranged all that. The manure will be delivered in a cart with one horse, you understand? You, m'sieur, will drive the cart. Mademoiselle and the children will accompany you for the ride.'
Howard said: 'That seems sound enough. Nobody would suspect that.'
Aristide glanced at him. 'It will be necessary that you should wear poorer clothes. That I can arrange.'
Nicole said: 'How do we get into touch with Focquet tomorrow night?'
The horse-dealer said: Tomorrow night, Focquet will come at nine o'clock to the estaminet on the quayside. He will appear to be slightly drunk, and he will ask for Pernod des Anges. There is no such drink. In that way you will know him. The rest I will leave to you.'
Howard nodded: 'How can we get to Quintin's farm?'
'I will take you myself so far in the car. That will be safe enough, for it is this side of Lannilis and there will be no questions asked. But there I must leave you.' He thought for a minute. 'It will be better that you should not start from Quintin's farm much before five o'clock,' he said. That will make it reasonable that you should be in l'Abervrach at nightfall, and even that you should spend the night there, with Loudeac.'
Nicole said: 'What about Loudeac and Quintin, monsieur? Do they know that Monsieur Howard and the children will escape?'
The man said: 'Have no fear, mademoiselle. This is not so uncommon, in these times. They know all that they wish to know, and they have been paid. They are good friends of mine.'
Howard said: 'I must now pay you, monsieur.'
They settled down together at the table.
Soon after that they went to bed; refreshed by a restful day Howard slept well. In the morning he went down for coffee feeling better than he had felt for some days.
Aristide said: 'We leave after déjeuner. That will be time enough. Now, I have borrowed clothes for m'sieur. You will not like them, but they are necessary.'
The old man did not like the clothes at all. They were very dirty, a coarse, stained flannel shirt, a pair of torn blue cotton trousers, a dirty canvas pullover that had once been rusty pink iiucolour, and a black, floppy Breton casque. Wooden sabots were the footgear provided with this outfit, but the old man struck at those, and Arvers produced a torn and loathsome pair of boots.
It was some days since he had shaved. When he came down to the kitchen Nicole smiled broadly. 'It is very good,' she said. 'Now, Monsieur Howard, if you walk with the head hanging down, and your mouth open a little - so. And walk slowly, as if you were a very, very old man. And be very deaf and very stupid. I will talk for you.'
Arvers walked round him, studying him critically. 'I do not think the Germans will find fault with that,' he said.
They spent the rest of the morning studying appearances. Nicole kept her black frock, but Arvers made her dirty it a little, and made her change to a very old pair of low-heeled shoes belonging to his wife. With a shawl belonging to Madame Arvers over her head, he passed her too.
The children needed very little grooming. During the morning they had been playing at the duck-pond, and were sufficiently dirty to pass muster without any painting of the lily. Ronnie and Willem were scratching themselves a good deal, which added verisimilitude to the act.
They started after déjeuner. Howard and Nicole thanked Madame Arvers for her kindness; she received their thanks with calm, bovine smiles. Then they all got into the little old de Dion van that Arvers kept for the farm and drove off down the road.
Ronnie said: 'Are we going to the train that we're going to sleep in, Mr Howard?'
'Not just yet,' he said. 'We shall get out of the car presently and say good-bye to Monsieur Arvers, and then we have a ride in a cart. You must all be very careful to speak French only, all the time.'
Sheila said: 'Why must we speak French? I want to speak English, like we used to.'
Nicole said gently: 'We shall be among the Germans. They do not like people who speak English. You must be very careful to speak only in French.'