Most Secret

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Book: Read Most Secret for Free Online
Authors: Nevil Shute
like ourselves?”
    “We were told often enough,” said Simon grimly. “All the world told us that the Germans were a murderous and an uncivilised people, without decent codes of conduct. But when they conquered us, we thought they would be people like ourselves.”
    There was a long silence. When Duchene spoke again his voice had lost all its vigour; he spoke as a very tired old man.
    “I do not know what happened to France,” he said wearily. “I have been thinking and thinking, and I cannot understand. We
knew
that the Germans were like this in the old days—we knew it, and we fought them with the British as our allies, and we beat them down. And then we lost our faith.…”
    He stared at the designer with tired eyes. “It is as if all France had lain under a spell,” he said slowly. “From that place at Berchtesgarten there has spread an influence, malign, like a miasma, that has sapped our will. So that we laid down our arms, and never fought at all, and so became mere tools for evil in the hands of evil men.…”
    He got up wearily from his chair, swaying a little as he stood. “One thing alone saved the English from our lot,” he muttered, half to himself. “Running water—twenty miles of it, salt running water of the sea. That is why the English are still brave to fight, as we were once. No spell, no sucking weakening influence sent out by evil people can cross running water. When I lived in the country as a boy, everybody knew that much.”
    Presently Simon got him downstairs to the car. He took him to the
appartement
and gave the old man over to his housekeeper, before he went on to the station in the car to meet the Germans coming down from Paris on the midday train.
    At that time there was construction work of every description going on along the whole length of the Channel coastline of France. The little watering-place of Le Tréport, amongst others, was undergoing a radical reorganisation of its harbour under German supervision, with a view to making it more suitable for barge traffic. A fortnight later, Simon was summoned to a conference at Le Tréport, to deal with certain engineering problems at that port and at Saint-Valery-sur-Somme.
    It was not the first time that the Germans had used him in this way; indeed, the vast extent of their conquests made it necessary for them to use technicians from the countries they had overrun. Simon went with mixed feelings. He disliked open work on military matters; it did not seem so bad when one was working in the office at Corbeil, when he could forget the use to which the product would be put. On the other hand, the trip to the sea coast was a change and something of a holiday; he could spin it out over three days.
    He went on a Tuesday in late October, and spent the first afternoon walking round the watering-place and studying the little docks. Wednesday was spent with the Germans. They made a quick tour of the harbour in the morning, then settledto a conference on material supplies. They finished about four o’clock.
    Gathering together his papers, the German chairman of the conference said to Simon: “You are going back to-night?”
    The designer shrugged his shoulders. “I will go to the station and find out about the trains. I do not think I can get through to Corbeil to-night, and it is cheaper to stay here than in Paris. I shall only go to-night if I can get home.”
    The German nodded. “As you like.”
    Simon went back to his hotel, the one beside the station, and decided to stay the night. He had dined the previous evening in the hotel and had not cared for the dinner. That night he went out and found a café-restaurant upon the little front, and settled down to spend the evening there.
    It was not very full. He sat for an hour over a Pernod reading his paper and listening to the wireless, and passing a word now and again with the man on the other side of the marble-topped table, an engineer from the power station. Then he dined and sat for

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