They walked for ten minutes before Lise finally turned toward Logan and spoke.
“I bear you no grudges, M. Tanant.”
“You’re not afraid I have come to impose my will on your organization?”
A corner of her mouth curved upward, amused. It was not a smile, but was as close as she had yet come.
“I see Claude has accosted you already,” she said. “He is forever thinking someone is trying to take over our operation. He imagines bogeymen everywhere. But I have no such fear. Even if it were your intention, you won’t get far with Claude and Antoine.”
“Then, what are you afraid of?” asked Logan. “From me, that is?”
“It has more to do with trust than fear.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Trust is a commodity I have learned to dole out skeptically and scantily this last year.”
She paused as a bicycle-powered velo-taxi came into sight. She waved a hand and it stopped. After she gave their destination to the driver and she and Logan had settled themselves into the rickshaw-like seat, she took up her speech again. “I don’t like it, M. Tenant. I despise this world in which I must exist. I despise what it forces us to become. But it is the only world I have left. I must live in it and still keep my honor. Someday I hope things will be different . . .” She said no more, leaving whatever else there may have been of the thought unfinished. She was not accustomed to revealing her heart to many.
“I think I understand,” replied Logan, saying no more. He allowed the sincerity in his voice and eyes to say the rest.
In another twenty minutes they had reached the building in which Madame Guillaume occupied a small flat. They had departed the cab a block away and walked the rest of the way to the building so they could reconnoiter the area. Lise feared that if the Gestapo did indeed have the place under watch, it might look suspicious for her to return so soon after her last visit. But a thorough examination of the street revealed that either Mme. Guillaume was mistaken or else the Gestapo had given up. Logan unwillingly reminded himself that there was one other possibility—that the Nazis had already raided the place. But he said nothing.
Inside the building, all appeared peaceful and normal. They climbed the stairs to the second floor, and Lise led the way to the door, where she knocked using a prearranged signal—two knocks, a pause of two seconds, and two more quick knocks. Only a minute passed before there was a response from inside, but to Logan it seemed inordinately long.
At last the door opened a crack. The woman on the other side smiled broadly when her eyes lighted on Lise. She opened the door the rest of the way and hurriedly ushered them in.
She was a gentle old soul, plump and wrinkled, with eyes that drooped slightly at the corners, giving her a sorrowful look like a woebegone basset hound. Yet whenever she smiled, the expression of her face was warm enough to make up for the eyes, and if there was indeed sorrow in her life, it seemed to make up for that too.
“Ah, Lise! I did not think you were ever coming back,” said the woman as she placed a chubby arm around Lise and propelled her into the living room.
“Have you seen any more of the Gestapo?”
“Non, thank goodness!” she replied. “I think it was a neighbor. I heard rumors that he was a collaborator, but I could not believe it. He has lived next to me for twenty years. We made too much noise last night getting the Anglais gentlemen in here. He must have reported me.”
“But they are not watching you now,” said Lise. “If that is so, why have they not yet made a move against you?”
“It is most peculiar.”
“Where are your men?” asked Logan. Whatever the Germans were up to, he doubted there was time to sit around analyzing it.
“This is M. Tanant,” said Lise, in response to the other woman’s questioning look. “He is here to help us.”
“Welcome to my house, Monsieur,” said the lady. “Please come this way.”
They followed her down a short hall and into a dimly lit bedroom. There were two beds in the room, and on each a man was lying. A youth of about eighteen years was bent over one of the beds holding a cup for its occupant.
“That is my nephew, Paul,” explained Mme. Guillaume, motioning toward the boy. “I was afraid to be here alone if the Boche should come, so I asked him if he would stay with me.”
Logan marveled at the woman. She appeared so fainthearted; what could have prompted her to take on such a harrowing task? No doubt she was like so many of her courageous countrymen and women who saw a need and did not stop to wonder whether she had the heart for it before offering her aid.
Logan did not have the chance to ponder this long, for the men on the beds required his attention. One had already started up to a sitting position at the unexpected intrusion. His eyes darted nervously toward these newcomers, and did not rest until he realized he recognized one of them. The other man simply lifted his head off the pillow and let it fall back in fatigue.
“Tisna the Germans, is it noo, Bob?” he said in a voice that sounded as if he hardly cared anymore.
“I’m definitely no German!” answered Logan in English, striding up to the man’s bedside. “An’ what else cud I be but a muckle Scotsman just like yersel’, lad!” he added, in the thickest brogue he could muster.
“Hoots!” exclaimed the man. “I must hae deed an’ gone to haeven! Whaur be ye frae? I’m a MacGregor mysel’ o’ Balquhidder.” As he spoke the sallow Scottish face spread into a huge grin, perhaps the first in many weeks.
“Logan Macintyre o’ Glasgow,” said Logan, not even realizing his error in revealing his real name. The Highland airman stretched out to take Logan’s extended hand, then, thinking better of it, instead threw his arms all the way around Logan in an emotional embrace.
There were tears in MacGregor’s eyes as he fell back on his pillow. “I’m thinkin’ ye’re as close as I’ll be coming t’ me bonny Highland fer some spell, laddie!”
“’Tis muckle nonsense, man!” exclaimed Logan. “We’re here t’ get ye back on yer way. Are ye up fer it?”
MacGregor glanced over at his companion. “What do ye say, Bob?”
The one whom MacGregor addressed as Bob rose and extended his hand toward Logan. He was as worn and emaciated as his companion, and his clothing was the same coarse garb that Mme. Guillaume had provided. There was, however, a certain cool refinement about him that the Scotsman had lacked.
“I’m Robert Wainborough,” he said in a genteel Eaton voice.
Logan knew the name. The elder Wainborough was an M.P. and a baronet. But Robert had carried the name to new heights as an ace R.A.F. pilot and hero of the Battle of Britain.
“Well, Wainborough,” said Logan, too hurried and anxious to be impressed by this celebrity before him, “shall we be on our way?” His words were half statement, half question.
“Look, old man,” he replied, then paused as he sat back tiredly on the bed and reached for a pack of cigarettes, “we don’t want to endanger these people. We’re ready to go. But this is the first real roof we’ve had over our heads since we flew that German coop two months ago. We thought here was a place where we could rest a bit, and start to feel like human beings again. We’ve been dodging patrols, living in ditches, stealing food—Lord, it’s been miserable!”
He paused and lit his cigarette with a shaky hand. “When they told us we had to leave here before we’d even had a full night’s sleep—it was more than we could bear!”
“I understand,” said Logan solemnly, but he wasn’t sure he actually did any more than he had really understood Lise earlier. He had been through his own trials and doubts, it is true, but he wondered if it was possible that he would ever understand either Wainborough or Lise in the way their words were truly meant. But before he had the chance to reflect further on what his future might hold, he was jolted back to reality; Wainborough was speaking again.
“Would you please explain it to them?” he said. “I flunked French at Eaton—never had much of an aptitude for languages.”
“I’m sure they know, Wainborough,” replied Logan. But he turned back to Lise and briefly related all that had passed between them. Then to his countryman he said, “I wish you could stay and recuperate longer, but we better start thinking about being on our way.”
“Mac is in rotten shape,” said Wainborough, “though he’d never admit it.”
“Can you walk, Mac?”
“Point me in the direction o’ me bonny Balquhidder, an’ then try t’ stop me, lad!” he replied with more spirit than energy. With the words he gathered his remaining strength and, with the help of Paul and Wainborough, got himself into a sitting position.
Logan turned to Lise. They spent a few moments discussing details of a plan that was beginning to form in Logan’s mind. It was several miles to the new safe house, but a tram ran about four blocks from the Guillaume place that would take them almost to the doorstep of their destination. They had merely to get the soldiers safely those four blocks. Logan wished they could move under the cover of darkness, but there was no time to wait for nightfall. Besides, roaming the city at night presented its own hazards. At length Logan turned back to the R.A.F. boys.
“Have you lads seen Gone with the Wind yet?”
“What?” exclaimed Wainborough. “Have you gone daft, man? What do we care about movies for now?”
Logan smiled. “Have you seen it?”
Both men nodded, but cast each other puzzled looks as they did.
“Well, you two are about to play Ashley Wilkes, and I’ll assume the role of Rhett Butler after a questionable evening at Belle Watling’s place.”
Yet another moment longer the airmen remained confused, until the light dawned on MacGregor as he remembered the scene where Rhett saved Ashley from the Union soldiers by claiming he and Ashley had just spent a drunken evening at a house of ill repute.
“I got ye!” said Mac.
“Then why don’t you explain it to our bemused war hero?” said Logan with good-natured sarcasm, “while I attend to a few other details.”