“Excuse me,” Rambert said, “I’ve got to be off.”
On Thursday, the day of the appointment, Rambert entered the Cathedral porch at five minutes to eight.
The air was still relatively cool.
Small fleecy clouds, which presently the sun would swallow at a gulp, were drifting across the sky.
A faint smell of moisture rose from the lawns, parched though they were.
Still masked by the eastward houses, the sun was warming up Joan of Arc’s helmet only, and it made a solitary patch of brightness in the Cathedral square.
A clock struck eight.
Rambert took some steps in the empty porch.
From inside came a low sound of intoning voices, together with stale wafts of incense and dank air.
Then the voices ceased.
Ten small black forms came out of the building and hastened away toward the center of the town.
Rambert grew impatient.
Other black forms climbed the steps and entered the porch.
He was about to light a cigarette when it struck him that smoking might be frowned on here.
At eight fifteen the organ began to play, very softly.
Rambert entered.
At first he could see nothing in the dim light of the aisle; after a moment he made out in the nave the small black forms that had preceded him.
They were all grouped in a corner, in front of a makeshift altar on which stood a statue of St. Roch, carved in haste by one of our local sculptors.
Kneeling, they looked even smaller than before, blobs of clotted darkness hardly more opaque than the gray, smoky haze in which they seemed to float.
Above them the organ was playing endless variations.
When Rambert stepped out of the Cathedral, he saw Gonzales already going down the steps on his way back to the town.
“I thought you’d cleared off, old boy,” he said to the journalist. “Considering how late it is.”
He proceeded to explain that he’d gone to meet his friends at the place agreed on—which was quite near by—at ten to eight, the time they’d fixed, and waited twenty minutes without seeing them.
“Something must have held them up.
There’s lots of snags, you know, in our line of business.”
He suggested another meeting at the same time on the following day, beside the war memorial.
Rambert sighed and pushed his hat back on his head.
“Don’t take it so hard,” Gonzales laughed. “Why, think of all the swerves and runs and passes you got to make to score a goal.”
“Quite so,” Rambert agreed. “But the game lasts only an hour and a half.”
The war memorial at Oran stands at the one place where one has a glimpse of the sea, a sort of esplanade following for a short distance the brow of the cliff overlooking the harbor.
Next day, being again the first to arrive at the meeting-place, Rambert whiled away the time reading the list of names of those who had died for their country.
Some minutes later two men strolled up, gave him a casual glance, then, resting their elbows on the parapet of the esplanade, gazed down intently at the empty, lifeless harbor.
Both wore short-sleeved jerseys and blue trousers, and were of much the same height.
The journalist moved away and, seated on a stone bench, studied their appearance at leisure.
They were obviously youngsters, not more than twenty.
Just then he saw Gonzales coming up.
“Those are our friends,” he said, after apologizing for being late. Then he led Rambert to the two youths, whom he introduced as Marcel and Louis.
They looked so much alike that Rambert had no doubt they were brothers.
“Right,” said Gonzales. “Now you know each other, you can get down to business.”
Marcel, or Louis, said that their turn of guard duty began in two days and lasted a week; they’d have to watch out for the night when there was the best chance of bringing it off.
The trouble was that there were two other sentries, regular soldiers, besides themselves, at the west gate.
These two men had better be kept out of the business; one couldn’t depend on them, and anyhow it would pile up expenses unnecessarily.
Some evenings, however, these two sentries spent several hours in the back room of a near-by bar.
Marcel, or Louis, said that the best thing Rambert could do would be to stay at their place, which was only a few minutes’ walk from the gate, and wait till one of them came to tell him the coast was clear.
It should then be quite easy for him to make his “getaway.”
But there was no time to lose; there had been talk about setting up duplicate sentry posts a little farther out.
Rambert agreed and handed some of his few remaining cigarettes to the young men.
The one who had not yet spoken asked Gonzales if the question of expenses had been settled and whether an advance would be given.
“No,” Gonzales said, “and you needn’t bother about that; he’s a pal of mine.
He’ll pay when he leaves.”