The platform was crowded with people. Outwardly they looked like the ordinary pre-war crowd of marketers going off to sell and purchase in the neighbouring town. Only on closer inspection did one realise how terribly little they had to sell.
The big baskets that before the war would have held half a dozen fat ducks, pounds of golden butter and scores of large brown eggs were now pitiably empty. And every owner of such goods was wearing an anxious worried expression as if the expedition was of desperate importance.
There was none of the jolly chatter, exchange of gossip and of cordialities that had been characteristic of the market train. Now the passengers stood silent, their shoulders drooping, a weary people for whom travelling was no longer an adventure but rather an imposition.
Fabian said ‘goodbye’, to Fleur before she entered the Station.
“Go up to the front of the train, mam’selle,” he advised. “There are fewer people on that part of the platform.”
“I will,” Fleur replied, “and thank you again, Fabian.”
She tried to tip him, taking a twenty franc note from her purse, but he refused it with a roughness which made him almost brusque.
“You will want it, mam’selle,” he said and then added with a sudden boyish seriousness, “We have not forgotten Monsieur Lucien, none of us in the village.”
Fleur felt the tears spring into her eyes. She could not answer, instead she turned swiftly away and went into the Station.
Her permit was scrutinised and passed back to her, she walked down the platform self-consciously, feeling that eyes followed her. But they were tired eyes, almost too apathetic to be curious.
The train came in belching foul-smelling black smoke, which came, Fleur had been told, from using the worst coal. The best had been taken away, taken into Germany to be used in the Nazi war effort. All that was left for the French was what was thrown out, difficult to handle and filthy in use.
They reached Bugalé and it was a relief to step out of the carriage and get away from that oppressive silence of people sitting, thinking and feeling side by side with one another and yet all too frightened to exchange even a commonplace courtesy among themselves.
After Bugalé, Fleur journeyed interminably and uncomfortably in silence and for hours. There were innumerable changes, there were as well many alterations that had to be made to the ticket and extra francs to be paid.
It was impossible not to realise how deeply France was suffering beneath the yoke of the conqueror. One had only to look out of the window at the crumbling walls, the lack of paint and unrepaired gates and fences.
There were more obvious signs, cows with their ribs distinct against their sides, horses that looked as if it was impossible for them to pull even the lightest load, pigs, undersized and in need of fattening and, above all, a shortage of livestock.
Where were the herds that had filled the green pastureland leading down to the winding rivers? Why did the farms as one passed them appear empty save perhaps for some mongrel dog, pitiably thin, dragging its way from the sunshine to the shade of a tree or bush?
It is a sad land, Fleur thought, and felt her heart contract with the pity of it.
The only cars on the roads were German Military vehicles speeding along, often flanked by outriders on motorcycles and everywhere they appeared there was the swastika, arrogant, dark and sinister.
The Germans looked well-fed, especially in stark contrast to the French men and women toiling in the fields.
‘No wonder they are hated,’ Fleur thought.
She remembered stories the previous year of crops being snatched away as soon as they were garnered and of whole families being left with little or nothing to eat when the potato crop had been commandeered.
There was a German aeroplane in the sky, moving slowly against a cloudless blue – so had Lucien soared once.
On, on she went, the wheels of the train turning monotonously over and over, appropriate accompaniment to the questions in her mind and relentlessly insistent.
‘After I get there – what then?’
CHAPTER FOUR
Fleur stood outside the little Railway Station and looked about her in a dazed manner. She was feeling so utterly weary that it was difficult to realise that she had really reached her journey’s end.
In the far distance she could see the sea, shining a dazzling blue in the hot sun. Seagulls, squawking noisily, were looking for food among the overturned earth in the adjoining fields.
She had arrived at last and reached Ste-Madeleine-de-Beauchamps after a journey which seemed to have lasted interminably.
Marie had warned her not to ask questions of anyone at the Station.
“They will be curious about you,” she said. “Walk straight on down the road towards the sea for about a mile and then turn left.”
“For about a mile!”
It seemed to Fleur now an insupportable distance.
She looked at the white dusty road along which several passengers who had disembarked at the same time as herself were already receding.
‘If only I could sleep,’ she mused.
She had spent part of the previous night sitting on a hard bench at a Railway Terminus. The waiting room had been closed and locked, German orders, she supposed. Several times during the night Officials had walked in, staring disdainfully at the waiting groups of chilled but patient travellers.
The innumerable times that she had shown her papers! Always the same questions and the same explanations.
Once or twice her heart had beaten faster and she had been afraid when she had thought that some inquisitor was staring at her too closely. But the drunken Officer who had signed the permits for Monsieur le Maire had been of high standing.
Each time, after disparaging remarks as to the impropriety of travelling long distances at such a time, her papers were returned and she would take them thankfully, conscious that yet another obstacle was passed and another barrier negotiated.
Now, at last, incredibly, she had attained her goal, but was too tired to feel anything save an utter exhaustion. The road stretched ahead of her.
Well, there was nothing for it, she had to go forward.
She walked on, dragging her feet, her luggage impeding her progress as if it contained lumps of lead rather than clothes.
It was hot and she could feel the sweat gathering beneath the stiff band of her hat and trickling down her forehead.
Perhaps it will remove some of the dirt, she thought indifferently, knowing how travel-stained and begrimed she was. The carriages in which she had travelled had been filthy, the floors covered not only with dust and dirt but with pieces of decaying food, paper and ash.
She walked on. Now she could smell and feel the tang of salt in the air. There was a fresh invigorating breeze blowing in from the sea and suddenly she was then overwhelmed with a longing for England and for home.
On, on, the dust rose with every step she took. On, on, would the road never come to an end?
More than once she stopped, putting down her luggage, half-tempted to leave it behind and go on without it and trusting to find it again.
She would have done so but for the fear that someone might open it and be surprised at the contents.
The road twisted, the fields on both sides were deserted and Fleur saw that now she was walking away from the village.
And she wondered how much further she must drag herself before she reached the farm.
“You