Just for a week or two?'
She said: 'Of course.
Immediately that it is possible to travel, I will come.'
They walked beside each other in silence for the length of the paddock.
Presently she said:
'Now for the detail of the journey.
Focquet will take the boat tonight from Le Conquet to go fishing up the Chenal as far as Le Four.
He will not return to Le Conquet, but tomorrow night he will put into l'Abervrach to land his fish, or to get bait, or on some pretext such as that.
He will sail again at midnight of tomorrow night and you must then be in the boat with him, for he will go direct to England.
Midnight is the latest time that he can sail, in order that he may be well away from the French coast before dawn.'
Howard asked: 'Where is this place 1'Abervrach, mademoiselle?
Is it far from here?'
She shrugged her shoulders.
'Forty kilometres, no more.
There is a little town behind it, four miles inland, called Lannilis.
We must go there tomorrow.'
'Are there many Germans in those parts?'
'I do not know.
Aristide is trying to find out the situation there, and to devise something for us.'
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.