“What do you suggest?” Major Stevenage put in his monocle.
“We must go and see the Maire, and get it withdrawn. Let’s see. Hondebecq? It’s the Communal Secretary Blanquart we must see. Shrewd fellow and all on our side. These schoolmasters hate the peasants.”
Dormer knew the area well. Hondebecq was the typical village of French Flanders. That is to say, it was a cluster of cottages in which rentiers—peasants who had scraped a few savings out of the surrounding fields—lived on about forty pounds a year English; in its centre, a paved grand’ place held a few modest shops, a huge high-shouldered church, carefully refaced with red brick, and a big, rambling “Estaminet de la Mairie,” next to the village school.
It was here that they found Blanquart, Communal Secretary, schoolmaster, land surveyor, poor man’s lawyer, Heaven only knows what other functions he used to combine. He was the only man in the Commune handy with pen and paper, and this fact must have substantially added to his income. But, like all his kind, he could not forget that he came from Dunkirk or Lille; he had moments when his loneliness got the better of his pride and he would complain bitterly of the “sacred peasants.”
They found him seated in his little front parlour—he only functioned in the official room at the Estaminet on State occasions—busy with those innumerable forms by which the food of France was rationed, her Army conscripted, her prices kept in check and her civil administration facilitated. In the corner between the window and the clock sat an old peasant who said only, “Bonjour.”
Blanquart greeted them effusively, as who should say: “We others, we are men of the world.” He made polite inquiries about the officers’ health and the weather and the War, leading up to the introduction: “Allow me to present you to Mister our Mayor! And now what can I do for you?”
Major Stevenage, a little lost in the mixed stream of good French and bad English, left it to Dormer.
“It is with reference to the claim of Vanderlynden! Can one arrange it?”
Blanquart had only time to put in: “Everything arranges itself,” before the Mayor cut him short.
“You have some nice ideas, you others. Arrange it, I believe you. You will arrange it with our Deputy.”