Dick telephoned Justin Stevens from the airport, and they arranged to meet for breakfast at a crêperie in the Rue de Rome, a narrow shop with a tall wooden counter, behind which madame cooked with a stack of prepared crêpes, while the patron received the customers and dispensed drinks and a shy jeune fille managed the half-dozen small tables. There, with the breakfast rush finished, they had the place to themselves, except for one late arrival in a dark suit who sat on a stool at the counter and opened a newspaper. He didn’t seem near enough to their corner position to overhear much.
Whoever had assigned Justin Stevens to Paris had known his man. He was a charming and fluent conversationalist, whose mobile, expressive face showed just that suggestion of the sardonic that finds favour with the French temperament. After Dick had updated him on Fleet Street and Stevens had declared how fortunate he was to be out of it, even if he sometimes suffered from the foreign correspondent’s malady of ‘peripheritis’, they got on to more urgent matters. Dick explained that he was on a project involving Churchill and de Gaulle in the early years of the war. There was no reason to bring Hess into the explanation, so he didn’t.
‘Marvellous stuff to work with!’ Stevens commented. ‘I envy you enormously. Literally great characters, each with a sense of theatre the like of which we’ve rarely seen in statesmen. And the bickering and backbiting: terrific! De Gaulle was constantly calling Churchill on the phone to press the case of the Free French over this and that, and poor old Churchill, who liked his meals, couldn’t even get through dinner at Chequers without interruptions.’
‘De Gaulle probably ate later,’ said Dick.
‘Quite. Anyway, on one occasion, Winston was determined to get through his meal. The soup was hardly served when Sawyers, the valet, announced that the General was on the line. Churchill set his mouth in the bulldog grimace and refused to go to the phone. In a few minutes, Sawyers came back, his ears buzzing from the haranguing he had just been given, and pleaded with Churchill to relent. Out to the phone storms Churchill, and when he comes back the soup is cold. He sits hunched in his chair for some time. Then he says, “Bloody de Gaulle! He had the impertinence to tell me that the French regard him as the reincarnation of Joan of Arc.” There’s a long Churchillian pause, and then he adds, “I found it necessary to remind him that we had to burn the first!”’
Dick had heard the story already, but he chuckled convincingly before homing in on the real business of the morning. ‘I’m hoping you can give me some background on the Syrian campaign. It was the turning-point for de Gaulle when Churchill agreed to back the invasion.’
‘Syria? Yes, it set him up. Terrible shambles, of course. He admitted it later. A civil war, in effect. The Free French had something like ten light tanks and eight guns between them. They went to war with camels, horses, private vehicles, buses, anything. And the British contingent sang “We are Fred Karno’s Army” as they moved in. Good thing the opposition was half-hearted.’
‘What I’d really like to discover,’ Dick persisted, ‘is how de Gaulle persuaded Churchill to support the campaign. When you did your colour feature on the Resistance, did you come across anyone, or hear about anyone, who was with the General in London about that time?’
‘You mean in Carlton Gardens?’
‘Yes, if that’s where he had his headquarters.’
‘He was more often holding court in a suite at the Connaught, old boy. Portraits of Joan of Arc and Napoleon on the wall behind his desk. Better food, too.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Dick, trying to be patient with this affable man. ‘The problem I have is tracing someone who was with him in London in May 1941, when the discussion with Churchill must have taken place.’
‘That’s not going to be possible,’ Stevens told him. ‘You see, de Gaulle wasn’t in London then. He was in Brazzaville.’
‘Brazzaville?’
‘His power base. Most of French Equatorial Africa rallied to him in 1940 and he saw that it was properly administered. He went there from London in March 1941, or thereabouts, and stayed until he moved to Cairo when the Syrian thing began.’
Dick was stunned, his visions of de Gaulle in secret conclave with Churchill, facing him with the truth about his dealings with the Germans and putting his demands in return for silence, were dashed. It couldn’t possibly have happened like that. Maybe it hadn’t happened at all.
‘Bad news?’ queried Stevens.
‘Makes a large dent in my pet theory,’ Dick admitted. ‘I thought there were discussions in London.’
‘There may have been,’ Stevens pointed out. ‘De Gaulle had his representatives in London.’
Dick shook his head.’The discussions I had in mind could only have taken place between the two leaders.’
‘There must have been some sort of communication. Cables, I expect. De Gaulle was a great sender of cables.’
Dick nodded, reassembling his thoughts.
Stevens continued, more to himself than Dick, ‘I was once given the name of a woman who was with de Gaulle as his cryptographer. Everything had to be in code. I wonder whether she was in Brazzaville with him.’
Dick was fully attentive again. ‘How could we find out?’
‘I could try a couple of calls to people who might know.’
‘Would you?’
‘It’s rather a long shot.’
‘It’s all I’ve got now.’
‘All right. We’ll use the phone on the wall.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t have any small change.’
‘It works on tokens. You buy them from the patron.’
After a couple of unproductive calls, Stevens located someone who could help. Yes, the woman had travelled everywhere with the de Gaulle entourage, so she was probably in Brazzaville in 1941. Her name was Madeleine Guillon, and she lived on the coast near St Malo.
‘How far is that?’
‘A good 350 kilometres. At least 220 miles.’