Free Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes Page A

enormous; it would be dangerous trying to explain things to her, trying to make her understand without giving too much information. And partly, he had to admit, because of the natural fear in every man that he is liable to be bossed by a woman. He opened the window defiantly before he climbed into the bed.
    Tomorrow he would examine these books and that room next door, and then when darkness came he would have his first long walk through these green fields down towards the plain and the main railway-line. Tomorrow and tomorrow, the nights after that, the next weeks... In the middle of forming his plans, he halted abruptly. He suddenly knew that long-term planning wasn’t necessary on this job. If he could manage to improvise from night to night, he would do very nicely. Now, he would be very much wiser to get what sleep he could. Later, he might not be so lucky.
    He didn’t waken until the sun had risen and the faint sound of the five-o’clock bells swung over the fields into his room.

7
    STRANGER ON THE HILLSIDE
    But next morning the books were not rescued from the wardrobe and placed on their shelves. Instead, the Germans came back to Saint-Déodat.
    The news arrived with Henri, who suddenly and unaccountably appeared at the kitchen door when Hearne was having breakfast. He stood there, breathing heavily, and then said simply, “The Boches are here.”
    Hearne, his elbows resting on the wooden table, looked up at the thin little man in the doorway, and set down his bowl of soup slowly. Albertine, bending over the heavy iron disk which was hung over the fire, hesitated as she turned over the paper-thin pancake baking there, and then moved so suddenly that the half-finished pancake was jolted into the flames. She clutched the wooden spade which she had been using as if it were now a weapon. There was silence in the long room, except for the sizzling of the dough as it spread over the glowing log. Afterwards, Hearne remembered that moment by the smell of burning which filled the room: that and Albertine’s eyes, and the toothless grin of Henri with the morning sun behind him.
    “They are here? Outside?” Hearne asked the old man. Henri shook his head slowly.
    “No. Going into the village,” he said.
    There was an almost audible slackening of tension. Henri’s capacity for holding only one idea at a time had certainly had its effect. He now slipped off his muddy sabots, and walked slowly towards one of the beds. From the chest in front of it he took out a knotted sock and a gun. The sock contained coins. Hearne heard them jangle as Henri stowed it away carefully inside his loose blouse. The gun was an old one, probably only good for shooting rabbits.
    “That’s no use,” began Hearne gently. “They’d only shoot you in turn.”
    But Henri wasn’t listening. He was absorbed as he began to take the rifle apart, slowly and yet methodically. Then he rummaged in the wooden chest once more, and taking a large piece of cloth which had served to bundle his clothes he tore it into strips and wound them carefully, almost lovingly, round the parts of his gun. When that was done, he carried them towards the door. Hearne rose quickly from the table.
    “I’ll help you,” he said.
    The old man was shoving his feet into his sabots. “Eh?”
    “I said I’ll help you.”
    They left Albertine, still holding the wooden spade raised in her hand, still standing beside the tub of dough. It looked as if the week’s baking of crepes was going to be a failure for the first time in Albertine’s life. Hearne paused at the door and caught her eye.
    “Better hide that ham-knife, Albertine,” he said with a grin, “or my mother will get us all strung up.” Albertine looked at him in surprise, and then there was the beginning of a smile in spite of herself.
    “God knows what Madame will say,” she answered, and looked at the black lava-like crust of dough on the log. She shook her head at the appalling waste. “These Boches,”