They talk English pretty fine, finer 'n anyone could learn it.'
Howard took one of them hand in hand with him on each side, but said nothing.
The man in dungarees stared oddly at him for a minute, and remained standing staring after them as they were shepherded towards the guard-room in the gathering dusk.
Ronnie said, frightened: 'Where are we going to now, Mr Howard?
Have the Germans got us?'
Howard said: 'We're just going with them for a little business.
Don't be afraid; they won't do anything to hurt us.'
The little boy said: 'I told Sheila you would be angry if she talked English, but she would do it.'
Nicole said: 'Did she talk English to the man Jn the overall?'
Ronnie nodded.
Then he glanced up timorously at the old man.
'Are you angry, Mr Howard?' he ventured.
There was no point in making more trouble for the children than they had already coming to them.
'No,' he said.
'It would have been better if she hadn't, but we won't say any more about it.'
Sheila was still crying bitterly.
'I like talking English,' she wailed.
Howard stooped and wiped her eyes; the guards, considerately enough, paused for a moment while he did so.
'Never mind,' he said.
'You can talk as much English as you like now.'
She walked on with him soberly, in sniffing, moist silence.
A couple of hundred yards up the road to Lannilis they were wheeled to the right and marched into the house that was the guard-room.
In a bare room the Feldwebel was hastily buttoning his tunic as they came in.
He sat down behind a bare trestle table; their guards ranged them in front of him.
He glanced them up and down scornfully.
'So,' he said at last.
'Geben Sie mir Ihre legitimationspapiere.'
Howard could understand only a few words of German, the others nothing at all.
They stared at him uncertainly.
'Cartes d'identite,' he said sharply.
Focquet and Nicole produced their French identity-cards; the man studied them in silence.
Then he looked up.
Howard put down his British passport on the bare table in the manner of a man who plays the last card of a losing hand.
The Feldwebel smiled faintly, took it up, and studied it with interest.
'So!' he said.
'Englander.
Winston Churchill.'
He raised his eyes and studied the children.
In difficult French he asked if they had any papers, and appeared satisfied when told that they had not.
Then he gave a few orders in German.
The party were searched for weapons, and all they had was taken from them and placed on the table - papers, money, watches, and personal articles of every sort, even their handkerchiefs.
Then they were taken to another room with a few palliasses laid out on the floor, given a blanket each, and left.
The window was barred over roughly with wooden beams; outside it in the road a sentry stood on guard.
Howard turned to Focquet. 'I am very sorry this has happened,' he said.
He felt that the Frenchman had not even had a run for his money.
The young man shrugged his shoulders philosophically.
'It was a chance to travel and to see the world with de Gaulle,' he said.
'Another chance will come.'
He threw himself down on one of the palliasses, pulled the blanket round him, and composed himself to sleep.
Howard and Nicole arranged the palliasses in two pairs to make beds for the little boys and the little girls, and got them settled down to sleep.