Assignment in Brittany Read Online Free Page B

Hearne sank breathless beside Sam on the cool, shadowed ground.
    “I’m a tree-lover for life,” he said, but the others weren’t listening to him. The boy, standing so rigid, suddenly groaned and moved away.
    “He’s ill,” said Hearne in alarm, although his voice was no higher than a whisper.
    “Don’t let him hear you say that. He’ll be all right.” But Sam was anxiously watching the trees behind which his friend had staggered. Hearne started to move, but Sam’s hand stopped him. “He wouldn’t have you near him. Sort of worries him for anyone to hang about him. He has these attacks regular as the clock every hour. Ate something which turns him inside out, even when he hasn’t anything left inside him to turn out.”
    They lay and waited. “Pretty bad attack,” Hearne whispered.
    “Aye.” Sam was more worried than he had pretended. “Plucky lad all right. Come all the way from a prison camp across the Rhine.” He was talking now for the sake of talking. Hearne welcomed that too.
    “Were you with him?”
    “No. Met him half-way. I was in Belgium.”
    “How the devil did you get as far south as this?”
    “There was some of us got lost, and we thought we’d fight our way back to the French. Funny, come to think of it. We landed in a French part of the line all right, and there we were, moving back and moving back, just moving back without ever a stand. It was right discouraging, I can tell you. Then they told us the fight was off, and there we were slap in t’ middle of France. An officer said we were to get a train to where the lastEnglish were getting off in boats. But the blasted engine-driver just spat and said the war was over. Then one of the Poles—”
    “Poles?”
    “Aye, Poles and Belgians and some Czechs and us. A proper tower of Babel, I can tell you. Well, this Pole, he had been an engine-driver, and we threw the Parley-voo off his cab—we were all raving mad, that we were, what with fighting our way south and then being left high and dry—and we started the train.” He paused and listened. “If you don’t mind, I’ll go and see how his nibs is now.” He slipped noiselessly into the further darkness of the trees. Hearne grinned to himself. And what had happened to the train, he wondered. It hadn’t got very far, obviously. He saw the two dim shapes returning to his tree. Sam barked his shin on a stump, and grunted.
    “Black as the Earl of Hell’s waistcoat,” he said angrily.
    “Sorry.” It was the boy. He sat down weakly beside Hearne. “Sorry. Tummy all skew-wiff.” He was wiping the sweat off his brow with his sleeve. Hearne nodded. Cold sweat it would be, and the twisting pains would still be clutching at his stomach and bowels. What he needed was a rest for a couple of days and a starchy diet to cement him up.
    “Do you know where you are going?” Hearne asked.
    The boy nodded. “Got a man’s name at Dinan. He will take us in his boat down that river towards the coast.”
    “Down the Rance? That sounds okay. But can you depend on him?”
    “Others have, and managed it. Well, I’m all right now for a while. Let’s move.”
    And then once more came the roar of a huge fleet of trucks. Hearne motioned silence, and kept his eyes fixed on his watch.When he had finished, he noted that the boy was looking at him curiously.
    “Let’s move,” he said again, and his tone was friendlier. “Can you lend us a map, by any chance? I lost mine while I was having a spot of trouble with a river, and I’m doing this sort of out of my head. We are fairly near Dinan now, aren’t we?”
    Hearne hesitated for a moment. “I’ll put you on the road for Dinan. You’ll reach it by dawn,” he said. “And I can give you some stodgy food.” He fished in his pocket and handed over what was left of his rations. “Rest up for a couple of days when you get there,” he added. “Keep warm. Don’t let them feed you shell-fish, or cheese, or butter, or heated wine. The Bretons