Pied Piper (7 page)

He felt a little foolish. ‘The little one is ill,’ he said. ‘When a child is ill, she should have room. I was quite comfortable.’

Her eyes softened, and she clucked her tongue again. ‘To-night I will find another mattress,’ she said. ‘Be assured, monsieur, I will arrange something.’

He ordered coffee and rolls and jam; she went away and came back presently with a loaded tray. As she set it down upon the dressing-table, he ventured: ‘I must go out this morning to look for my luggage, and to buy a few things. I will take the little boy with me; I shall not be very long. Would you listen for the little girl, in case she cries?’

The woman beamed at him. ‘Assuredly. But it will not be necessary for monsieur to hurry. I will bring
la petite
Rose, and she can play with the little sick one.’

Howard said: ‘Rose?’

He stood for ten minutes, listening to a torrent of family history. Little Rose was ten years old, the daughter of the woman’s brother, who was in England. No doubt monsieur had met her brother? Tenois was the name, Henri Tenois. He was in London, the wine waiter at the Hotel Dickens, in Russell Square. He was a widower, so the
femme de chambre
made a home for
la petite
Rose. And so on, minute after minute.

Howard had to exercise a good deal of tact to get rid of her before his coffee cooled.

An hour later, spruce and shaved and leading Ronnie by the hand, he went out into the street. The little boy, dressed in beret, overcoat, and socks, looked typically French; by contrast Howard in his old tweed suit looked very English. For ten minutes he fulfilled his promise in the market square, letting the child drink in his fill of camions, guns, and tanks. They stopped by one caterpillar vehicle, smaller than the rest.

‘Celui-ci,’
said Ronnie clearly,
‘c’est un char de combat.’

The driver smiled broadly. ‘That’s right,’ he said in French.

Howard said in French: ‘I should have called it a tank, myself.’

‘No, no, no,’ the little boy said earnestly. ‘A tank is much bigger, monsieur. Truly.’

The driver laughed. ‘I’ve got one myself just like that, back in Nancy. He’ll be driving one of these before he’s much older,
le petit chou.’

They passed on, and into the station. For half an hour they searched the platforms, still thronged with the tired troops, but found no sign of the lost suitcase. Nor could the overworked and worried officials give any help. At the end of that time Howard gave it up; it would be better to buy a few little things for the children that he could carry in the attaché case when they moved on. The loss of a suitcase was not an unmixed disaster for a man with a weak heart in time of war.

They left the station and walked up towards the centre of the town to buy pyjamas for the children. They bought some purple sweets called
cassis
to take back with them for Sheila, and they bought a large green picture-book
called
Babar the Elephant
. Then they turned back to the hotel.

Ronnie said presently: ‘There’s a motor-car from England, monsieur. What sort is it?’

The old man said: ‘I don’t suppose I can tell you that.’ But he looked across the road to the filling-station. It was a big open touring car, roughly sprayed dull green all over, much splashed and stained with mud. It was evidently weeks since it had had a wash. Around it, two or three men were bustling to get it filled with petrol, oil, and water. One of them was manipulating the air hose at the wheels.

One of the men seemed vaguely familiar to the old man. He stopped and stared across the road, trying to place where they had met. Then he remembered; it was in his club six months before. The man was Roger Dickinson; something to do with a newspaper. The
Morning Record—
that was it. He was quite a well-known man in his own line.

Howard crossed the road to him, leading Ronnie by the hand. ‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Mr. Roger Dickinson, isn’t it?’

The man turned quickly, cloth in hand; he had been cleaning off the windscreen. Recognition dawned in his eyes. ‘I remember,’ he said. ‘In the Wanderers’ Club …’

‘Howard is the name.’

‘I remember.’ The man stared at him. ‘What are you doing now?’

The old man said: ‘I’m on my way to Paris, but I’m hung up here for a few days, I’m afraid.’ He told Dickinson about Sheila.

The newspaperman said: ‘You’d better get out, quick.’

‘Why do you say that?’

The newspaperman stared at him, turning the soiled cloth over in his hands. ‘Well, the Germans are across the Marne.’ The old man stared at him. ‘And now the Italians are coming up from the south.’

He did not quite take in the latter sentence. ‘Across the Marne?’ he said. ‘Oh, that’s very bad. Very bad indeed. But what are the French doing?’

‘Running like rabbits,’ said Dickinson.

There was a momentary silence. ‘What did you say that the Italians were doing?’

‘They’ve declared war on France. Didn’t you know?’

The old man shook his head. ‘Nobody told me that.’

‘It only happened yesterday. The French may not have announced it yet, but it’s true enough.’

By their side a little petrol flooded out from the full tank on to the road; one of the men removed the hose and slammed the snap catch of the filler cap with a metallic clang. ‘That’s the lot,’ he said to Dickinson. ‘I’ll slip across and get a few
brioches
, and then we’d better get going.’

Dickinson turned to Howard. ‘You must get out of this,’ he said. ‘At once. You’ll be all right if you can get to Paris by to-night—at least, I think you will. There are boats still running from St. Malo.’

The old man stared at him. ‘That’s out of the question, Dickinson. The other child has got a temperature.’

The man shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, I tell you honestly, the French won’t hold. They’re broken now—already. I’m not being sensationalist. It’s true.’

Howard stood staring up the street. ‘Where are you making for?’

‘I’m going down into Savoy to see what the Italians are doing in that part. And then, we’re getting out. Maybe Marseilles, perhaps across the frontier into Spain.’

The old man smiled. ‘Good luck,’ he said. ‘Don’t get too near the fighting.’

The other said: ‘What are you going to do, yourself?’

‘I don’t quite know. I’ll have to think about it.’

He turned away towards the hotel, leading Ronnie by the hand. A hundred yards down the road the mud-stained, green car came softly up behind, and edged into the kerb beside him.

Dickinson leaned out of the driver’s seat. ‘Look, Howard,’ he said. ‘There’s room for you with us, with the two kids as well. We can take the children on our knees all right. It’s going to be hard going for the next few days; we’ll be driving all night, in spells. But if you can be ready in ten minutes with the other kid, I’ll wait.’

The old man stared thoughtfully into the car. It was a generous offer, made by a generous man. There were four of them already in the car, and a great mass of luggage; it was difficult to see how another adult could be possibly squeezed in, let alone two children. It was an open body, with an exiguous canvas hood and no side screens. Driving all night in that through the mountains would be a bitter trial for a little girl of five with a temperature.

He said: ‘It’s very, very kind of you. But really, I think we’d better make our own way.’

The other said: ‘All right. You’ve plenty of money, I suppose?’

The old man reassured him on that point, and the big car slid away and vanished down the road. Ronnie
watched it, half crying. Presently he sniffed, and Howard noticed him.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said kindly. ‘What is it?’

There was no answer. Tears were very near.

Howard searched his mind for childish trouble. ‘Was it the motor-car?’ he said. ‘Did you think we were going to have a ride in it?’

The little boy nodded dumbly.

The old man stooped and wiped his eyes. ‘Never mind,’ he said. ‘We’ll wait till Sheila gets rid of her cold, and then we’ll all go for a ride together.’ It was in his mind to hire a car, if possible, to take them all the way from Dijon to St. Malo and the boat. It would cost a good bit of money, but the emergency seemed to justify the expense.

‘Soon?’

‘Perhaps the day after to-morrow, if she’s well enough to enjoy it with us.’

‘May we go and see the
camions
and the
chars de combat
after
déjeuner?’

‘If they’re still there we’ll go and see them, just for a little.’ He must do something to make up for the disappointment. But when they reached the station yard, the lorries and the armoured cars were gone. There were only a few decrepit-looking horses picketed beneath the tawdry advertisements for Byrrh and Pernod.

Up in the bedroom things were very happy.
La petite
Rose was there, a shy little girl with long black hair and an advanced maternal instinct. Already Sheila was devoted to her.
La petite
Rose had made a rabbit from two of Howard’s dirty handkerchiefs and three little bits of string, and this rabbit had a burrow in the bedclothes
on Ronnie’s side of the bed; when you said ‘Boo’ he dived back into his burrow, manipulated ingeniously by
la petite
Rose. Sheila, bright-eyed, struggled to tell old Howard all about it in mixed French and English. In the middle of their chatter three aeroplanes passed very low over the station and the hotel.

Howard undid his parcels, and gave Sheila the picture-book about Babar the Elephant. Babar was an old friend of
la petite
Rose, and well known; she took the book and drew Ronnie to the bed, and began to read the story to them. The little boy soon tired of it; aeroplanes were more in his line, and he went and leaned out of the window hoping to see another one go by.

Howard left them there, and went down to the hall of the hotel to telephone. With great difficulty, and great patience, he got through at last to the hotel at Cidoton; obviously he must do his best to let Cavanagh know the difficulties of the journey. He spoke to Madame Lucard, but the Cavanaghs had left the day before, to go back to Geneva. No doubt they imagined that he was practically in England by that time.

He tried to put a call through to Cavanagh at the League of Nations in Geneva, and was told curtly that the service into Switzerland had been suspended. He enquired about the telegraph service, and was told that all telegrams to Switzerland must be taken personally to the
Bureau de Ville
for censoring before they could be accepted for despatch. There was said to be a very long queue at the censor’s table.

It was time for
déjeuner;
he gave up the struggle to communicate with Cavanagh for the time being. Indeed, he had been apathetic about it from the start. With the
clear vision of age he knew that it was not much good; if he should get in touch with the parents it would still be impossible for him to cross the border back to them, or for them to come to him. He would have to carry on and get the children home to England as he had undertaken to do; no help could come from Switzerland.

The hotel was curiously still, and empty; it seemed today that all the soldiers were elsewhere. He went into the restaurant and ordered lunch to be sent up to the bedroom on a tray, both for himself and for the children.

It came presently, brought by the
femme de chambre
. There was much excited French about the pictures of Babar, and about the handkerchief rabbit. The woman beamed all over; it was the sort of party that she understood.

Howard said: ‘It has been very, very kind of you to let
la petite
Rose be with
la petite
Sheila. Already they are friends.’

The woman spoke volubly. ‘It is nothing, monsieur—nothing at all. Rose likes more than anything to play with little children, or with kittens, or young dogs. Truly, she is a little mother, that one.’ She rubbed the child’s head affectionately. ‘She will come back after
déjeuner
, if monsieur desires?’

Sheila said: ‘I want Rose to come back after
déjeuner
, Monsieur Howard.’

He said slowly: ‘You’d better go to sleep after
déjeuner.’
He turned to the woman. ‘If she could come back at four o’clock?’ To Rose: ‘Would you like to come and have tea with us this afternoon—English tea?’

She said shyly:
‘Oui, monsieur.’

She went away and Howard gave the children their
dinner. Sheila was still hot with a slight temperature. He put the tray outside the door when they had finished, and made Ronnie lie down on the bed with his sister. Then he stretched out in the arm-chair, and began to read to them from a book given to him by their mother, called
Amelianne at the Circus
. Before very long the children were asleep: Howard laid down the book and slept for an hour himself.

Later in the afternoon he walked up through the town again to the
Bureau de Ville
, leading Ronnie by the hand, with a long telegram to Cavanagh in his pocket. He searched for some time for the right office, and finally found it, picketed by an anxious and discontented crowd of French people. The door was shut. The censor had closed the office and gone off for the evening, nobody knew where. The office would be open again at nine in the morning.

‘It is not right, that,’ said the people. But it appeared that there was nothing to be done about it.

Howard walked back with Ronnie to the hotel. There were troops in the town again, and a long convoy of lorries blocked the northward road near the station. In the station yard three very large tanks were parked, bristling with guns, formidable in design but dirty and unkempt. Their tired crews were refuelling them from a tank lorry, working slowly and sullenly, without enthusiasm. A little chill shot through the old man as he watched them bungling their work. What was it Dickinson had said? ‘Running like rabbits.’

It could not possibly be true. The French had always fought magnificently.

At Ronnie’s urgent plea they crossed to the square, and
spent some time examining the tanks. The little boy told him: ‘They can go right over walls and houses even. Right over!’