Howard got up and went to him.
'If you would like to join us in a glass of the rouge,' he said.
'Assuredly.'
The young man left the bar and crossed with him to the table.
Howard said quietly: 'Let me introduce you.
This is my daughter-in-law, Mademoiselle Nicole Rougeron.'
The young man stared at him.
'You must be more careful of your French idiom,' he said softly out of the corner of his mouth.
'Keep your mouth shut and leave the talking to me.'
He slumped down into a seat beside them.
Howard poured him out a glass of the red wine; the young man added water to it and drank.
He said quietly:
'Here is the matter.
My boat lies at the quay, but I cannot take you on board here, because of the Germans.
You must wait here till it is dark, and then take the footpath to the Phare des Vaches - that is an automatic light on the rocks, half a mile towards the sea, that is not now in use.
I will meet you there with the boat.'
Howard said: 'That is clear enough.
How do we get on to the footpath from here?'
FocqweT proceeded to tell him.
Howard was sitting with his back to the estaminet door facing Nicole.
As he sat listening to the directions, his eye fell on the girl's face, strained and anxious.
'Monsieur..." she said, and stopped.
There was a heavy step behind him, and a few words spoken in German.
He swung round in his chair; the young Frenchman by his side did the same.
There was a German soldier there, with a rifle.
Beside him was one of the engineers from the E-boat by the quay in stained blue dungarees.
The moment remained etched on the old man's memory.
In the background the fishermen around the bar stood tense and motionless; the girl had paused, cloth in hand, in the act of wiping a glass.
It was the man in dungarees who spoke.
He spoke in English with a German-American accent.
'Say,' he said.
'How many of you guys are Britishers?'
There was no answer from the group.
He said: 'Well, we'll all just get along to the guard-room and have a l'il talk with the Feldwebel.
And don't let any of you start getting fresh, because that ain't going to do you any good.'
He repeated himself in very elementary French.
Chapter 10
There was a torrent of words from Focquet, rather cleverly poured out with well-simulated alcoholic indignation.
He knew nothing, he said, of these others; he was just taking a glass of wine with them - there was no harm in that.
He was about to sail, to catch the tide.
If he went with them to the guard-room there would be no fish for dejeuner tomorrow, and how would they like that?
Landsmen could never see farther than their own noses.
What about his boat, moored at the quay?
Who would look after that?
The sentry prodded him roughly in the back with the butt of his rifle, and Focquet became suddenly silent.
Two more Germans, a private and a Gefreiter, came hurrying in; the party were hustled tb their feet and herded out of the door.
Resistance was obviously useless.
The man in dungarees went out ahead of them, but he reappeared in a few minutes bringing with him Ronnie and Sheila.
Both were very much alarmed, Sheila in tears.
'Say,' he said to Howard, 'I guess these belong to you.