Assignment in Brittany Read Free

rail and canal, new construction works, underground dumps, gun installations. You may not see much sense in what you observe, but your report will fit neatly into the other reports we’ll receive. Whenwe fit them together, they will make a pretty pattern. So don’t even let the little things escape you. Work at night. I think you’ll find plenty of material for your usual precise reports. Anything you pick up will probably be useful.”
    There was a note in Matthews’ voice which raised Hearne’s eyes from the map to the older man’s face. Anything you pick up... Was that inflexion on the you intended? If it were, then that was high praise.
    Matthews was speaking again. “I don’t think you’ll find this a difficult job.” Again there was that hint of emphasis on the you. “I think,” he was saying, “I think we can depend on you only to follow your instructions, and not to suffer from any attacks of misplaced brilliance.”
    Hearne’s elation faded, and then he saw the gleam in Matthews’ eye, and the repressed smile. He breathed again. So Matthews wasn’t displeased over his last attack of “misplaced brilliance,” after all. Hearne suddenly thought, perhaps he’s giving me this job just because I find it hard to be orthodox in my methods. Perhaps he isn’t so much against them as he always pretends to be.
    Matthews seemed to guess Hearne’s thoughts. “Seriously,” he said, “you did a good job at Bordeaux. But I’d like you to restrain yourself on this trip. No good getting lost to us.” And then, as if he felt he had been too expansive, he added, “Not after all the trouble I’ve had in training you.”
    “Yes, sir,” Hearne said.
    Matthews’ voice was matter-of-fact once more. “I suggest you memorise the contents of that folder. You’ll find all the necessary data in it, including observations on Corlay by one of his officers and by a man who had known him as a student.After you’ve got all that information memorised, you can start on Corlay himself. You’ll visit him each day in hospital, for two or three weeks. He can talk now. Find out everything you can to fill in the gaps. Study his voice, his expressions, all that sort of thing.”
    “What if he won’t talk? The Bretons can be very reticent, you know.”
    “I think he will. There is a certain amount of questioning which all strangers in Britain must go through at this time. We’ve never had so many aliens dumped so unexpectedly on our shores, and at rather a dangerous moment for us, too. There are rumours, even among the wounded, of what’s now called the Fifth Column. Fournier has seen Corlay, and dropped him that hint. He will talk, just to identify himself.”
    “Well, that sounds more hopeful... You say he looks like me?”
    “Looks? My dear Hearne, he’s the dead spit of you. If he could mislead me, you can mislead anyone who knows him.”
    “But his mother and father?”
    “Father killed in 1917. Mother bedridden. You’ll find it all in that folder. I investigated that sort of thing before I called you in. Now, if there had been a wife...” Matthews smiled, and shook his head slowly. When he spoke again, his voice was crisp and business-like. “I think you’re in luck this time, Hearne. You’ll learn more about your Celtic peoples in a month at Saint-Déodat than you did that year at Rennes University.” There was the sugar coating being spread on again. “What made you interested in the Bretons, anyway? Was it because you are a Cornishman yourself?”
    Hearne nodded. “That, and the fact that I like them, and that my father spent all his time in between his sermonswriting about the early British saints. A lot of them ended up in Brittany, you know.”
    “Déodat being one? Well, that makes one of these nice coincidences.”
    “I can’t think of any Déodat except St. Augustine’s son,” Hearne said with a smile.
    “St. Augustine?” Matthews looked startled. “Didn’t know he was