While they were covering two or three hundred yards to the nearest of the boats the M.G.B.s roared past, dropping their charges, the duel between Boden and the destroyer went on, and the searchlight was put out. There was still a fire raging on the bridge of the destroyer which gave some light, and the moon was bright. The fishing-boats, as soon as they saw survivors swimming to them, steamed in to pick them up. Rhodes, Simon, and Rollot were taken on board one boat. He thought that about five or six, out of their crew of twelve Free Frenchmen, were taken on board another. He did not know their names, for a very good reason. As soon as they reached Douarnenez all these Frenchmen, most of whom were Breton lads, merged with the crowd and vanished quietly away. There was no reason for them to do otherwise. It was the best thing they could do.

There was some urgency for the boat that had picked them up to get back to Douarnenez without delay, because each of the rescuing boats had on board ten Tommy-guns and ammunition. They were counting upon the events of the night and the scattering of the fleet to relax the normal supervision of the boats in harbour, and this actually happened. They steamed straight to Douarnenez at full speed, and entered harbour at about four in the morning, still in bright moonlight.

Rhodes, Simon, and Rollot came into harbour down in the fish-hold of their boat covered over with a pile of nets. They had contrived a pad and bandage for Rhodes's wound, but they could provide no dry clothes. With the cold and wet, and with the stiffening of his wound, Rhodes was becoming feverish, and from that time onwards he saw everything opaquely, blurred by a high temperature.

The master of their boat, a man called Corondot, went on shore as soon as they picked up the mooring. He went to the little harbour-master's office on the quay, which was also the office of the German fish control. Here, in a state of anger, he reported that he had brought his boat back, having spent a few hours dodging about the Iroise being chased by British gunboats. Where was the protection of the Reich? he asked. For himself, he was fed up. The last thing he had seen was another battle in the distance, with flame and firing and God knows what. For himself, he proposed to stay in harbour till the seas were made safe for honest fishermen.

There were five other skippers making similar complaint, each talking at the top of his voice. Besides those, most of the old German petty officers were there, each telling his own tale and adding to the din. The telephone upon the little desk rang every half-minute and had to be answered, the old harbour-master had one rating to assist him, who spoke only German. It was a fine, confused party, all concentrated in the harbour-master's office. Nobody paid any attention to what was going on down at the quay.

The ten Tommy-guns and ammunition were landed quite easily, put on a hand-cart, and pushed unconcernedly up into the town. Simon and Rhodes with the Free Frenchmen landed at the quay. The latter melted quietly away into the darkness of the streets.

Rhodes landed at the steps, feeling sick and faint, with a stiff throbbing in his chest. It was moonlight still; he looked over to the main jetty and he could see great blackened patches near the end of it, the aftermath of the fire that they had made a month before. It was a quiet, still night, and rather cold. It was incredible to him that he should be standing there, listening while Simon spoke volubly in French in a low tone, discussing with their rescuers a plan of action.

In a few minutes they made up their minds, and Simon turned to Rhodes. "Stick it," he said in English, in a whisper. "There is a hide-out for us here, till we can get away. It is about five hundred metres to walk. Can you manage to walk so far?"

The boy said: "I'm all right, sir."

Simon said: "Try to walk naturally and easily, like a fisherman going home. I will be near you. We will get a doctor for you very soon."

They set off, walking up-hill through narrow alleys, up stepped, cobbled slits between the houses. The town was black and still. They came out into wider streets, with shops; at one point they passed a German sentry. There were six or seven of them walking in a bunch together; the leader checked his pace, and said in slow French that the boats had come back early.

The man nodded in his steel helmet "What happened?" he enquired. "We heard firing."

Their leader said sourly: "The sale English made a raid. Here we are back again, and without one fish-not one. If you Germans cannot keep the English off, you'll get no fish. I don't care, either way."

The man stepped back, motioning them on. They went on and left him standing at the corner of the street, his rifle slung over one shoulder.

They were taken to a net-store, a tarred shed behind a sail-maker's loft. Rhodes was very, very tired by the time they got there. He collapsed wearily upon a bolt of sail-cloth, and sat holding a candle to light Simon and another man as they pulled nets about to make a bed, and spread a blanket over all. Then the other man fetched a bucket of water with some disinfectant in it, and they removed the blood-stained, soaked pad from his shoulder, and replaced it with another.

It was dawn by then, and in the grey light that filtered in around the eaves they laid him down upon the bed that they had made, and Simon covered him with another blanket. "Try to get some sleep," he said in a low tone. "A doctor will come presently to see your shoulder. In the meantime, we will get our friends here to bring some food, some soup for you, perhaps. Would you like that?"

Rhodes said: "I'm all right, sir. I don't want anything to eat. What's the next thing? Can we get away?"

"Lie there, and rest, and try to get some sleep. I think we may be all right to stay here till you are better. While you are resting I will talk to our friends, and we will make a plan."

Rhodes lay back on the nets, and presently he fell into a feverish sleep, the first of many that he was to endure in that shed. He dreamed that he was in Genevieve firing the flame-thrower, but the gun was filled with carbolic solution and when he fired it at the destroyer it would not light, but sprayed the decks with disinfectant. And Brigadier McNeil was there, smart in his khaki tunic, his red tabs, and his brilliantly polished buttons and Sam Browne, and he said: "Time they had a washdown, anyway." And Rhodes said to himself: "What a fool I am, of course, carbolic's no good in this thing. I must try it on Worcester Sauce." And he turned the three-way cock with the brass handle to the other tank, and fired again. And the gun lit and the flame hit the destroyer, and her side flared up and burned away like tinsel, and instead of men inside her there was only his black Labrador dog Ernest, and his buck rabbit Geoffrey, perishing in the flame that he had turned on them. And he burst into floods of tears, and in his misery Barbara was there. In her quiet voice she was saying: "It's all right, Michael, it's quite all right. It's only a dream. Look, you can wake up."

Then he was awake, tears pouring down his face, hot and stiff, and with a raging thirst. That was the first of many such dreams that he had.

On the evening of that first day, the doctor came.

He was a short, plump, white-faced man called Dottin; he had a grey moustache and he was very correctly dressed in a black suit. The old fisherman, Bozallec, brought him to them and stood aside with Simon in the darkness of the shed while he examined Rhodes.

"He is a safe man," said the fisherman. "You may talk freely to that one."

Presently the doctor called for warm water and for his bag, and began to put a dressing on the wound. When that was over he laid Rhodes down upon the blanket, wiped his hands, and walked across the shed to Simon. Together they walked out of hearing of the bed.

"You are his friend?" the doctor said. "I have not seen you before."

"I am an Englishman," said Simon bluntly. "I was with him in the vessel that was sunk."

The man stared at him in amazement. "I would never have believed it. He"-he jerked his head towards the bed-"he is clearly English. But you, monsieur, you speak French to perfection. You have lived long in a department in the Paris region, or perhaps in the north-east?"

"I have lived most of my life in France," Simon said.

"So. Well, your friend should be in hospital. He has a high temperature, and while the wound now is still clean, it may not remain so. That is my advice to you, monsieur."

"Is it possible to take him into hospital without the Germans knowing?"

The man shook his head. "That is not possible now. Once it was, but not now, not since the shooting in the streets on the night of the great fire at the quay. The Germans insist on seeing every person in the wards each day."

There was a pause. "Can we keep him here and see how he gets on?" Simon said at last.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Certainly. But you may have to choose in the end, monsieur, between captivity for him and death."

Simon nodded. "That is understood. But while there remains any chance of getting him to England, I will not give in. He has experience and knowledge locked up in his head, most valuable to the Allies. It will be of benefit to France, no less than England, that he should get away. I tell you this, monsieur, from my certain knowledge-I, Charles Simon." He spoke with true French vehemence.

Dottin glanced at him keenly. "I have heard of Charles Simon." He paused. "This knowledge that you speak of," he said carefully. "Would that have to do with-fire?"

Simon nodded. "He is the operator of the flame-gun," he said simply. "He designed much of the apparatus himself. Now, monsieur, you understand that it is necessary for him to return to England at whatever cost."

The doctor said: "I understand that it is very necessary to get him out of Douarnenez."

Simon glanced sharply at him in enquiry.

"You do not understand the situation here, perhaps," the doctor said. "One month ago, to the day, the English made a raid upon the port, with fire, and they destroyed two Raumboote at the quayside and two guns upon the jetty. Was that his ship that made the raid?"

Simon nodded without speaking.

"That night, fifty-three casualties, German soldiers and sailors all of them, were taken into the Municipal Hospital, monsieur, with burns. Some of the burns were not extremely bad, but all of them got worse, in every case. It has been most puzzling. The Germans have brought specialists from Leyden with a new treatment, using Cilzamene, and they have done no good, no more than we. Of the fifty-three men admitted, seventeen have died and thirty-six are still alive, all of them very much worse than in the first few days. I have never heard of burns like these. They are beyond experience, monsieur."

Simon nodded. "That may be."

The man said: "If the Germans were to take a prisoner from that ship they would make him talk, to tell what oil was used that burns Like that. They would stop at nothing to make him talk."

"They would use torture?"

"Most assuredly."

Simon smiled. "They would get nothing out of me," he said. "I do not know the secret. But you see now, more than ever, monsieur, that that one"-he nodded to the bed-"must get away."

The doctor turned and looked back to the bed. "He is not fit to travel," he said. "I have heard it said that men can get away from France in spite of the Germans, if they have courage and determination, and great strength. Two young men left this town about six months ago to walk to Spain, to try to get to England to de Gaulle. I do not know how they got on. But that one could not do a trip like that."

He turned away. "I will come again tomorrow, in the evening," he said.

Simon did not go out, but spent that evening and the whole of the next day in trying to work out a plan, and in discussion with Bozallec. Rhodes was no better; he spent much of the time sunk in a hot sleep. The doctor came again at dusk to change the dressing, and that day ended with no plan made, and no vestige of a plan in sight.

Next morning Bozallec came with a long face. "I have bad news," he said bluntly. "The Germans know that there are English hiding in the town. There is a proclamation of the Oberstleutnant Commandant that is stuck up at headquarters on the wall, and at the Mairie, and in the market."

"What does it say?"

"It says that there are English hiding in the town, survivors from a ship sunk in the Iroise. It says that they are to be surrendered to the commandant today, or else the town will suffer severe penalties."

"How did they find out?" Simon asked.

The old man said: "I, too, wanted to know that. In this town, soon after the Armistice, there were a few informers, but they had bad luck with their health during the winter. I do not think there are any informers now living in Douarnenez. I wanted to know how the Germans came to know this thing, because it seemed to me that an informer might have done it. But it was not that."

"How was it?"

"It was the men in the destroyer. They were too busy with their fires to note the boats carefully, but they saw several boats from the fleet picking up survivors from the water. And when they got to Brest, they remembered this. That is how the Germans know that there are English in the town."

There was a short silence. "What will the people do?" asked Simon. "Will they give us up?"

The old man said angrily: "This place is not a Vichy rabble. This is a town of seamen, a man's town."

There was a silence. "Lie low," the old man said at last. "Do not, on any account, be seen outside this place, even for one minute. It may be necessary that you stay here for some days, or even weeks. I do not think the Germans dare do anything against the town. They have not got sufficient troops to face a rising here."

Three days later they were still there, with Rhodes in much the same condition, though rather weaker. Bozallec's summary of the situation seemed to be justified; the time for the surrender of the fugitives had expired and two days had followed, in which the Germans had done nothing. Bozallec came to visit them each day, more confident with every visit. "It is blowing over," he said. "It will be necessary for you to wait here for some time to come, but then we will be able to contrive something."

On the morning of the next day he came later than usual, and at first sight of him Simon knew that there was something wrong. "Bad news, I think," he said quietly.

"Aye," said the fisherman, "bad news it is. They have arrested thirty people to hold for your surrender. Ten of them are children. Jeanne Louise is one, my own great-niece." He spat.

"They did not fear a rising of the town," said Simon, bitterly.

The old man said: "They did indeed. They waited for three days till they were reinforced before they did this thing. Soldiers have come from Russia to police Brittany, monsieur-thousands and thousands of them. There are fifteen hundred new ones here today, a ragged, scruffy lot, but with plenty of machine-guns. Now they have courage to arrest women and old men and little girls of seven years. Good German courage!" He spat again.

Simon asked: "What will they do with them?"

"They will be shot upon November the 15th," the old man said, "unless you are surrendered to them first."

Chapter 11.

IN the dark shed, stuffy with the fumes of tanning, there was silence for a minute. Then Bozallec said angrily: "They cannot do that to us now. It is not last year now. Last year they shot thirty people in one day, in August, in the marketplace, but then we had no guns. Now we have Tommy-guns to use; it is different altogether." Simon said: "You have seventy Tommy-guns, no more. Last week you might perhaps have done something, but not now. Seventy men with Tommy-guns cannot fight fifteen hundred with machine-guns."

He glanced at the fisherman. "You will have to give us up," he said quietly. "It is the only thing that you can do."

The man shook his head. "I cannot speak for the others," he said. "They must decide. But I have lived in this place fifty years, monsieur, and I do not think they will do that. If you were ordinary fugitives, or British agents, they might take that course. But you are different, you two."

"Why are we different?" Charles Simon asked.

The fisherman said: "Before you came and started hurling fire upon the Germans, things were very bad here in Douarnenez, monsieur. The war went on and on, and we were impotent. The Germans were on top of us, and they had everything their own way. We could not see an end, nor any hope, nor anything before us but the life of slaves. Slaves! We Breton folk!"

He paused. "I want you to understand," he said. "The first Raumboot that you set on fire, we did not fully comprehend. There were queer stories that the English had done it, but no one knew. All we knew for certain was that the Germans in it had died miserably in torment, and we thanked God that some small part of all the misery that they had caused had come to them."

He went on: "Then you came, monsieur, and told us that the English had done it, and that they would do it again. And that same night you did do it again, right in our own port here in Douarnenez. We saw the fire and saw the Germans in the flames-and we saw your vessel, too, monsieur. One of our sardine-boats, Jules Rostin's Genevieve, that his son had escaped in at the Armistice. It was even one of our own ships that did this thing. Thirty Germans were burned to death that night, Monsieur Simon, and over fifty taken off to hospital. And they are dying still...

"I cannot tell you what that meant to us," he said. "That there were free men near us, fighting these foul oafs that had grabbed our city, fighting them, burning them, and making them afraid. There was a mutiny in Brest, monsieur, a naval mutiny. The Raumboote crews would not come here to Douarnenez after that night; they had to shoot a lot of them. This town regained its courage from that day. Each time we passed a German in the street we used to light a match, just to remind them of the way that their companions died. We got them grey and nervous in a week or two, so that they started and jumped round at a step behind them. And their commandant appealed for reinforcements, saying that he could not hold the town unless he had more men. That is true."

"I know," said Simon. "We heard that in England."

The fisherman went on: "And then you brought us guns, little machine-guns that could be hidden away. A man with a sub-machine-gun has something tangible to pin his courage to, monsieur; when things are very bad he can go to it and caress it, and polish it and oil it, and think what he will do with it one day. It gives a purpose to his life."

There was a short silence. "I do not think that you need fear to be surrendered to the Germans, Monsieur Simon."

Simon said: "I think the next move lies with us; we must do something now. But now I tell you this, Bozallec, and you must repeat this to your friends. There is to be no fighting with those guns until the English give the word. United with the English you can fight the Germans and defeat them, but if you fight alone you will be wiped out and the town destroyed. Understand that. Tell your friends this. Charles Simon says that they are not to use the guns until word comes from England."

He paused. "And another thing," he said. "Tell your friends this: once before Charles Simon told them what was going to happen, and he spoke the truth. And now, Charles Simon says that they need have no fear for their relations, for the thirty hostages, men, women, and little children. Charles Simon says that all of them will be released, unhurt. Tell them that."

He stood for a moment in silence, thinking hard. "Is Father Augustine of the Church of Ste-Helene still in Douarnenez?" he asked.

"He is still here."

"I should like to talk to him," said Simon. "Can you bring him to me, in this place?"

"Assuredly," the old man said. "I will bring him tonight." He paused, and then said curiously: "Does he know you, monsieur?"

Simon said: "We met and talked together once, in February last. I do not think that he will know my name."

Bozallec went away, and Simon moved to the back of the store where Rhodes was lying on his bed, awake.

"What's the news now?" the young man asked. "How's it all going, sir?"

Simon said: "Not too bad. I think I can begin to see my way out of this place."

"Back to England?"

"Yes, back to England."

"How, sir?"

Simon said: "I will not tell you now. Lie still and rest, and think of quiet things. When I am certain not to dissap-point you I will tell my plan and what your part in it will be. Till then, be patient."

Rhodes turned restlessly upon the blanket. "Give me a drink of water, would you? It's so bloody hot."

In the middle of the afternoon there were steps upon the stair that led up to their store. Bozallec came in, and he was followed by a priest in black canonicals. Simon went forward to meet them.

"Good evening, father," he said quietly in French. "We have met before."

In the dim light the priest peered forward at him. "You are Charles Simon?" he enquired. "I have heard of you, but have we ever met?"

Bozallec turned to leave them and clumped down the stairs. Simon said: "I am the man you talked to in the night, on the platform of the station at Quimper, in February last."