Were you going to send her to America also?
Is she one of your children, may I ask?'
The old man shook his head.
'I would like her to go there,' he replied.
'But she will not leave France.
Her father is a prisoner in your hands; her mother is alone in Chartres.
I have tried to persuade her to come with us to England, but she will not do so.
You have nothing against her.'
The other shrugged his shoulders.
'That is a matter of opinion.
She has been helping you in your work.'
The old man said wearily: 'I tell you over and over again, I have no secret work.
I know that you do not believe me.'
He paused.
'The only work that I have had for the last fortnight has-been to get these children into safety.'
There was a little silence.
'Let them go through to England,' he said quietly.
'Let the young man Focquet sail with them for Plymouth in his boat, and let Mademoiselle Rougeron go with them to take them to America.
If you let them go, like that, I will confess to anything you like.'
The Gestapo man stared at him angrily.
'You are talking nonsense,' he replied.
'That is an insult to the German nation that you have just made.
Do you take us for a pack of dirty Russians, to make bargains of that sort?'
Howard was silent.
The German got up and walked over to the window.
'I do not know what to make of you,' he said at last.
'I think that you must be a very brave man, to talk as you have done.'
Howard smiled faintly.
'Not a brave man,' he said.
'Only a very old one.
Nothing you can do can take much from me, because I've had it all.'
The German did not answer him.
He spoke in his own language to the sentry, and they took Howard back to the prison room.
Chapter 11
Nicole greeted him with relief.
She had spent an hour of unbearable anxiety, tortured by the thought of what might be happening to him, pestered by the children.
She said: 'What happened?'
He said wearily: 'The young man, Charenton, was shot.
Then they questioned me a lot more.'
She said gently: 'Sit down and rest.
They will bring us coffee before very long.
You will feel better after that.'
He sat down on his rolled-up mattress.
'Nicole,' he said. 'I believe there is a chance that they might let the children go to England without me.
If so, would you take them?'
She said: 'Me?
To go alone to England with the children?
I do not think that that would be a good thing, Monsieur Howard.'
'I would like you to go, if it were possible.'
She came and sat by him.