Kuporovitch’s journey to Lisbon took much longer than he had expected. The trains, like everything else in Unoccupied France, were horribly overcrowded, running only infrequently and at half speed. In normal times, having left Lyons on the morning of the 17th, he would have crossed the Spanish frontier that night, but the train took the best part of a day to crawl as far as Avignon, where, as it was going on to Marseilles, he had to change; and there was no connection which he could catch until the following day.
He spent the evening wandering round the ancient city; then on the 18th he left the towering Palace of the Popes and the famous broken bridge over the Loire behind, to roll gently through the grey-green olive groves, dotted with lemon-walled, rust-tiled houses, which make up the scene of Provence. It was nine at night before the train eventually pulled up at the little town of Cerbère on the Spanish frontier, and there everybody had to undergo two most rigorous examinations, first by the French police on leaving France, and secondly by the Spanish police on entering Spain.
As the Russian’s entire baggage consisted of a rucksack and the few items which he had bought in Lyons he had little trouble with the Customs, but he had to submit to being stripped and searched as a precaution against currency smuggling. The French officials detained half a dozen people who were on the train, and the Spanish turned back over a score who for one reason or another did not fully satisfy them; but at last the remaining passengers were allowed through, and shortly after midnight herded into a large waiting-room, where they were told they must remain until the train left for Barcelona in the morning.
The Spanish train which started at six o’clock reminded Kuporovitch of his native Russia, as both the Russian and Spanish railways have a broader gauge and carriages than those of the rest of Europe. On it he had looked forward to a slap-up breakfast, but Spain was now little better off for food than Occupied France, so to his disappointment he had to make do with rolls, some very wishy-washy coffee and an orange.
By 8.30 they reached Barcelona, where he had to change again, but this time the connection was a good one, and he spent the rest of the day travelling at a moderate speed through the arid, sparsely-populated Spanish countryside towards Madrid. It was dark when he reached the capital, and once again there was no connection to take him farther on his journey until next morning.
As the train did not leave until ten o’clock he had an opportunity of driving round the Prado district before catching it, and was by no means cheered by what he saw. The city still showed many traces of the Civil War, as much of the damage from shelling and bombs remained unrepaired. It was clear, too, that the population was very far from having recovered from the effects of its bitter and long-drawn-out struggle. An air of want and hopelessness pervaded everything. There were queues outside the food-shops, and most of the poorer people were dressed in clothes that were little better than rags.
He was sorry for the Spaniards, but felt that, although they could not appreciate it at the moment, their present poverty might stand them in good stead. Any hope of a Dictator country such as Spain coming into the war on the side of Britain had been remote from the beginning, as her rulers had much more cause to feel gratitude to Hitler and Mussolini for the assistance they had rendered in establishing the régime; but at any time pressure might be exerted on Spain to join the Axis. Kuporovitch considered that no country which was already in such a state of destitution could possibly afford a war, so there seemed a good chance that General Franco, who had never been a member of the Fascist Party and was by no means rabidly anti-British, might continue to use that as an excuse to save his people from being dragged into the conflict.
All that day the train carried the Russian westward. There were further rigorous examinations on the Spanish and Portuguese frontiers, then at last, on the evening of the 20th, he reached Lisbon.
Next morning, he went at once to the French Consulate in accordance with Lacroix’s instructions, but they told him that it would take a week at least before they could get him a seat on the plane leaving for England, so he had to resign himself to kicking his heels about the Portuguese capital.
Lisbon proved the exact antithesis of Madrid. Where the one had been half-dead from depression the other was hectic with a strange restless life. From the beginning of the war people of all nations had been flocking there as a safe spot to dig in for the duration. Escapists of all nations, including English, French, Germans, and particularly huge numbers of rich Jews, had made it their headquarters. When the blitz had come another hundred thousand people at least, from Holland, Belgium and France had fled to Lisbon in the hope of getting away to America; but passages were at an enormous premium and accommodation extremely limited. In consequence, the great bulk of them were still marooned there and now forced to live precariously upon the proceeds of the jewels, furs, and other objects of value that they had managed to bring with them and had intended to sell for their passage money.
It was a city of extraordinary contrasts, as the scarcity in certain commodities had already caused prices to rise to fantastic levels. The Government was doing what it could to check inflation for the protection of its own people, but the huge foreign element presented a special problem, over which it was almost impossible to exercise control. Great fortunes were being made and spent with the utmost recklessness by unscrupulous speculators on the one hand, while on the other scores of suicides were taking place each week among the unfortunates who were driven to it through utter despair and virtual starvation.
Each day Kuporovitch went to the French Consulate in the hope of expediting his chances of a seat in an outward-bound plane, but the British were adhering most strictly to their own system of priorities, and there was nothing he could do to bring influence to bear in that direction. A week passed, and his prospects seemed little better than when he had arrived.
In Lisbon he was able to get the English news as well as the German with equal ease, and he heard all that the public ever learned of the extraordinary affair at Dakar. On September the 23rd it was announced that General de Gaulle had arrived off the West African port with a force of Free French troops and an escort of British warships. Apparently he had expected to be welcomed by the French garrison with open arms, but it proved quite otherwise. It seemed that the cat had got out of the bag before the expedition had sailed from England, so that the Vichy Government had been able to take adequate precautions. They had even had so much time to spare that they had been able to replace the Governor with a man who was rabidly anti-British and to reinforce the garrison with reliable troops taken out in six French warships which, for some inexplicable reason, the British had allowed to pass through the Straits of Gibraltar.
When General de Gaulle had arrived his compatriots had simply made rude noises at him, and when he had sent an emissary ashore to parley with the Vichy French they had promptly shot at, and wounded, the officer. Whether any landing in force had been attempted was not clear, but the British Admiral had bombarded the harbour until his ammunition was exhausted, and the expedition had to sail away again, having accomplished nothing except to provide the Germans with fresh propaganda material for widening the breach between Britain and Vichy France.
Afterwards General de Gaulle declared that he had withdrawn his Free French Forces because he could not bring himself to see his compatriots killing one another; but why he had been allowed to go to Dakar if he were not prepared to fight was a great mystery, and the British Admiral appeared to have been badly let down by his superiors at home. Kuporovitch, who, largely owing to his friendship with Gregory had become intensely pro-British, felt ashamed and disgusted about the whole affair, as it had the effect of making the British a laughing-stock throughout Lisbon, and some Fifth Columnist revived the ancient tag concerning the Duke of Buckingham’s ill-considered expedition in the time of Charles I, which now ran round the Lisbon bars: ‘There was a Fleet that sailed to Spain, and when it got there it sailed home again.’
Meanwhile the strafing of the British cities by the Luftwaffe continued unabated; yet now that Lacroix had assured him that the figures of planes destroyed, as given by the B.B.C., were correct, Kuporovitch waited for them to be given out each night and morning with the acutest interest and anxiety. How the comparatively small R.A.F. managed to continue their magnificent resistance to the huge air armadas sent against them he still could not understand, but as a fighting man it filled him with the profoundest admiration, and on the evening of the 28th he got gloriously drunk to celebrate the news that the previous day the British had scored another outstanding success by destroying 133 enemy planes for the loss of 34 of their own, and only 18 pilots.
At last, on October the 6th, and then only because another passenger was detained at the last moment, he managed to get a seat on the plane for England. The journey was disappointing, since, even at the risk of being shot down, he had hoped that he might see something of one of the air battles; but the windows of the aircraft had all been blacked out in order that none of the passengers should have any chance of learning military secrets when over the English coast on the last lap of their journey.
The flight also took much longer than he expected, as the plane went far out into the Atlantic to avoid enemy aircraft before turning northward, but late that afternoon the Russian was safely landed at a West of England port. Once more he had to undergo a critical examination by Customs and Immigration officials, but at last he was allowed out through the gates.
It was then for the first time that he saw some of the bomb damage—ruined buildings and gaunt rafters projecting from burnt-out roofs—but the people of the town did not seem particularly concerned and were going about their business as usual. To his joy he found that the English Madeleine had taught him was sufficient for him to make himself understood and long sessions of listening to the B.B.C. broadcasts had enabled him to understand the language considerably better than he could talk it. He spent the night in the depressing atmosphere of a railway hotel, but there was no air raid, and the following morning he was on the train for London.
In view of the intensive air attack which the Germans had maintained against England for the past two months, he had naturally expected that the railways would be seriously disorganised and that he would meet with even greater delays than those with which he had been faced while travelling through France and Spain; but to his amazement the express carried him with peace-time swiftness through the heart of England, made lovely now with autumn tints. His surprise was increased when the steward in the restaurant-car served him with an excellent meal, at which, compared with Continental standards, there appeared practically no limit to what he could eat; and during the whole journey he saw only one partially-destroyed building which could be attributed to enemy action. By the time he reached London he had come to the conclusion that the accounts of the blitzing of Britain must have been grossly exaggerated.
His only previous visit to London had been between his arrival in England after Dunkirk and his departure for France again less than a fortnight later, so he did not know the city well; but as he set off in a taxi from Paddington to Sir Pellinore Gwaine-Cust’s mansion in Carlton House Terrace he began to revise his estimate as to the weight of the German attacks.
Although Paddington Station itself still remained unharmed at that time many buildings in its neighbourhood had suffered severely. In practically every street there were great gaps in the rows of houses, as though they had been large slabs of cake out of which some giant had hacked a complete slice. Many of the roads were roped off for short sections, so that the taxi had to wind about continually instead of taking a direct route, and on peering down the roped-off sections Kuporovitch saw that many of them were half-filled with rubble from collapsed houses, or had great craters, out of which huge broken drainpipes reared on end, and masses of wood-paving had been flung about. Here and there, still-standing frontages with blank, empty windows gaped roofless to the skies, having been burnt out with incendiary bombs; and even in the streets which were still free for traffic enormous numbers of windows had been shattered by the blast of high-explosive bombs.
At first he thought that the area through which he was passing must have suffered with particular severity from the Germans having attempted to put the railway terminus out of action, but only having succeeded in plastering the streets all round it; yet, as his taxi progressed, turning and twisting alternately through main thoroughfares and side-streets across the great shopping centre of the West End, he saw that the bombing had been entirely indiscriminate, and that the whole of central London appeared to have suffered equally from the sustained savagery of the attacks.
He noticed too that the streets were almost empty compared with when he last saw them. There was now little traffic, and the people, although still going about their work with a dogged look, were showing the strain in their faces.
On arriving in Carlton House Terrace he saw with some relief that Sir Pellinore’s house was still standing, although two others quite near it had dissolved into a great heap of rubble and twisted metal, which overflowed into the roadway. The elderly butler remembered him at once, but informed him that Sir Pellinore was out and would not be back until dinnertime. He thought, however, that Mr. Sallust was still living at his flat in Gloucester Road and rang up to find out.
As so many of the telephone exchanges and cables had been damaged it took the best part of twenty minutes to get through, but at last the butler secured the number. Gregory was not in, but his faithful henchman, Rudd, took the call and said that his master was expected back quite shortly; so Kuporovitch decided to go down there right away.
His second taxi-ride gave him a further opportunity to assess the damage which had been inflicted on inner Southwest London, and he now decided that the reports of the bombing had not been exaggerated at all. It was only the vast size of the capital, with its scores of square miles of buildings, streets, squares and parks, together with the fact that the Germans did not appear to have concentrated upon any particular area, which had enabled the population to carry on. Had the thousands of bombs which had been dropped been directed upon a smaller city it must inevitably have been wiped out.
At Gloucester Road Rudd received the Russian, and having installed him in a comfortable chair with a large whisky-and-soda proceeded to give him some account of the blitz.
‘Well, it ain’t exactly a picnic, as yer might say,’ he remarked cheerfully, ‘speshully when Jerry’s dropping them things abaht, and yer’s aht in the street, as me and Mr. Gregory is nah, every night—’im and me belonging to the Fire-Fightin’ Service; but it ain’t nuffin compared wiv what we ’ad to put up wiv in the hold war when we was at Ypres. Yer see, it’s this way, sir. London’s the ’ell of a big place, when yer comes to think of it, and I reckons little hold ’Itler bit off more than ’e could chew when ’e started in to knock it dahn. O course, I ain’t saying ’e ain’t done a tidy bit o’ damage, and it makes us just screamin’ mad when we ’as to pull what’s left o’ wimmen and kids aht from underneath great ’eaps of rubble; but I reckons that there American journalist ’it the nail on the ’ead when ’e wrote ’ome to ’is paper. ‘E said that at the rate the Nasties are going now it’d take ’em two thousand weeks to destroy London, and ’e don’t reckon ’Itler’s got another forty years ter live!’
Kuporovitch’s command of English was not yet sufficient to follow Rudd’s Cockney idiom entirely, but he got the gist of it, and it heartened him a great deal. He was just saying how wonderfully the English railways seemed to have stood up to the crisis when the door opened and Gregory came in. He looked a little tired and was clad in a dirty suit of blue dungarees, but as he saw the Russian his lean face lit up, and he gave a great shout:
‘Stefan! By all that’s holy!’
‘Gregory, mon vieux!’ exclaimed Kuporovitch with equal delight, and standing up he gave the Englishman a great bearlike hug, while the grinning Rudd slipped quietly out of the room.
‘And to think that I left you for dead in Paris last June!’ Gregory cried, breaking into French. ‘Yet here you are in London, looking as fit as when I first met you.’
‘I owe that to the nurse whom you so thoughtfully left to look after me.’
‘What! That pretty little Madeleine! You old devil! I only left her the money with which to bury you. If I know anything of your way with women I’ll bet that by this time the poor girl’s beginning to regret your resurrection!’
Kuporovitch came as near to blushing as such a hardened sinner could, but he covered his confusion with his hearty laugh.
‘No, no! The little Madeleine has nothing to regret on my account, thank God!’
‘Then your recovery must be very recent,’ Gregory teased him. ‘ “The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; the devil was well, the devil a monk was he!”’
‘No, no!’ Kuporovitch protested again. ‘I would not harm a hair of her lovely head.’
‘Then, dammit, you must have really fallen in love with her!’
‘I have,’ Stefan confessed. ‘Most desperately. But, tell me, what news of Erika?’
‘She’s better—practically recovered now, thank God! But she had a positively ghastly time, and for weeks after I got back it was still touch-and-go as to whether she’d ever get really fit again.’
‘Is she in London?’
‘No. Pellinore sent her down to Gwaine Meads, his place in Montgomeryshire, and I went with her. I was about all in myself after those terrific weeks we had between the invasion of Norway and the collapse of France. The old man absolutely insisted that I should kill two birds with one stone by helping her recovery through being with her and taking a proper rest myself.’
‘I suppose you came back when the blitz started?’
‘Yes, I’m still unemployed officially. Naturally, as soon as Erika had turned the corner and I was feeling more like my old self, I tried to get some sort of job. But there was no special mission upon which Sir Pellinore could send me, and my friends in the Services seemed to think that I should only be an awful misfit if they took me into one of them as a junior officer. That was pretty depressing but old Pellinore assured me that sooner or later something suitable to my peculiar talents was bound to turn up. Directly the Boches started knocking hell out of London I came back, and Rudd got me taken on as a member of his fire-fighting squad.’
‘Is that a permanency? Will it tie you here?’ asked Kuporovitch anxiously.
‘Oh no. If something in which I could be more useful offered I could always put in my resignation.’
‘Good! I’m glad of that, as I come from Lacroix with an invitation which, I think, will intrigue you.’
‘Lacroix!’ Gregory echoed the name almost in a whisper and with something of awe in his tone. ‘Is that great little man still with us?’
Kuporovitch nodded. ‘Very much so. He still holds his job but only so that he can the better sabotage collaboration between the Nazis and the Vichy French.’
Gregory’s brown eyes lit up his lean face as he murmured: ‘This sounds like something really in my line. I’m off duty tonight, so we’ll go out and dine somewhere, and you must tell me all about it.’
Dusk was now falling.
Rudd came back to do the black-out, and Gregory added: ‘Make yourself comfortable here for a bit while I get out of these things and have a wash.’
Soon after he had left the room the sirens began to wail, and gunfire could be heard in the distance.
When Gregory returned, spick and span in one of his well-cut lounge suits, he remarked: ‘It’s no good telephoning for a taxi. It takes ages to get on to a number in these days, but we’ll be able to pick one up in the street.’
‘Do they still run when an air raid is in progress?’ asked Kuporovitch doubtfully.
‘Good Lord, yes!’ Gregory assured him. ‘The London taxi-men are absolutely splendid. They don’t give a damn for the Jerries and carry on, however bad the blitz. I only wish it was the same with all our other services.’
‘What’s wrong with them?’ Kuporovitch inquired, as they went downstairs and out into the darkness.
Gregory suddenly began to speak with bitter fury. ‘In August, through the absolutely splendid show put up by our Air Force, we demonstrated to the world that there were still prospects of Britain’s emerging victorious from the war. In September the lack of resource, initiative and even common-sense displayed by some of our Civil Authorities is putting us well on the road to losing the war altogether. In the Spring before the war the people responsible for Home Security issued a thing called an Anderson Shelter, which was turned out by the thousand and distributed free among the poorer people for them to set up in their back-gardens. That was grand, but ever since the Ministry concerned has been sound asleep. Hitler might have blitzed London any day after September the 3rd, 1939, yet they didn’t even start to erect street air raid shelters until the bombs actually began to fall, and, when they did, they set about it in the most crazy way.
‘No attempt seems to have been made to secure designs from Britain’s leading architects and military engineers in order that various types of shelter might be erected on waste-ground and tested out for blast resistance. If they had done that the most satisfactory model could have been adopted as the universal type; instead, each Borough Council is being allowed to erect any old brick structure that it likes, and some of them are so flimsy that their ends fall in if a car drives into them in the black-out.’
‘I don’t wonder that happens,’ muttered Kuporovitch with an oath, as he stumbled over a sandbag.
‘Then the Tubes!’ went on Gregory angrily. ‘Any fool could have foreseen that the poor wretches who had been bombed out of their homes would take refuge in London’s only natural deep shelters—the Underground Stations—but the London Transport Board can have received no instructions from the Government. They even closed their stations in the daytime, every time those filthy sirens sounded.’
‘What! They shut the people who could shelter in them out in the streets? But that is incredible!’
‘Nevertheless, it’s a fact; and it’s only during the last week or two that unofficially, and entirely as a compassionate measure, the Transport Board have allowed homeless people to remain down in their stations for the night. But even now the Government hasn’t taken any measures for the comfort of these poor wretches, or to ensure proper sanitation. It’s a…’
A nearby anti-aircraft battery suddenly let off a terrific crack, and the rest of Gregory’s sentence was drowned, but a moment later Kuporovitch caught his words again.
‘Why the hell nobody does anything about the blitzed buildings I simply can’t think. This party’s been going on for over a month now, yet not the least attempt is made to tidy things up. Whenever a place is bombed and huge chunks of masonry crash down, half-blocking a street, they simply rope it off, instead of putting the unemployed on to clear away the débris and erecting a hoarding which would hide the worst effects of the mess. We’ve got millions of troops in this country. If they can’t get ordinary labour why not bring in the Army to lend a hand? As it is, half the streets in London are either blocked by bomb-craters or have a time-bomb in them.’
‘Yes, I noticed that when I was coming down here and on my way from Paddington to Sir Pellinore’s,’ Kuporovitch agreed. ‘No attempt at all has yet been made to deal with the damage that has been done and in time that is bound to have a very bad effect on the people.’
‘But that’s only a small thing,’ Gregory persisted. ‘All the municipal services such as water and gas are getting in a hopeless state. The bombing isn’t so bad, and people are standing up to it pretty well, but what does get them down is the awful inconvenience that it causes. In half the houses in London now the gas pressure is so low that one can’t cook anything, or it’s cut off entirely, owing to the damage to the mains; and water is even worse. Only a trickle comes out of the tap, so we’re lucky if we get a bath once a week these days. That’s pretty hard when one comes home black as a sweep from having been fire-fighting all night. And it’s all so damned unnecessary, because things could be reasonably straightened out in no time, if only the Government would call in engineer units from the Army to mend conduits and telephone cables and so on that have been broken in the raids.’
There was a horrid droning of enemy planes overhead. Somewhere south of the river bombs were falling, but only the practised ear could distinguish them from the detonations of the heavier anti-aircraft guns. Except for an occasional A.R.P. warden the streets were deserted, but some distance along the Cromwell Road they struck a crawling taxi, and Gregory having told the man to drive to the Hungaria Restaurant they climbed into it. He was evidently intensely bitter and continued to let himself go.
‘Worst of all is the way that the Post Offices are behaving. At Dunkirk the Army lost everything except its pants, and we were all told afterwards that not one moment should be lost in any form of national activity which might help to build up its strength again; yet the Post Offices all shut down the instant they hear a siren.’
‘What difference does that make to munition workers?’ Kuporovitch asked in some surprise.
‘My dear fellow, the Post Office is the index of all commercial activity in this country, because it’s the only shop in every High Street which is under Government control. If the Post Office shuts, and its staff seeks refuge in the basement, how can a private employer of labour be expected to ask his people to carry on? Countless offices and shops immediately followed this cowardly example. The custom has spread to the banks, the great stores and the factories. Even when a single raider comes over the Estuary of the Thames, all Government offices from Hendon to Croydon, with the exception of those of the Fighting Services, close down, and practically everything else, except the brave little individual traders, closes with them. You have a look around tomorrow if there’s an air raid in the daytime. You’ll see queues of angry people left on the pavements, who can’t telephone or send telegrams, often of the greatest urgency, cash cheques at the banks, or make applications at the Labour Exchanges, or even do their household shopping. Literally millions of hours of the nation’s vital time are being wasted through this criminally wicked funk and apathy in our Civil Authorities.’
‘But I thought Churchill was so marvellous,’ remarked Kuporovitch.
‘So he is—a man in a million, God bless him! But he can’t do everybody’s work, and I expect he’s much too busy running the fighting end of the war with the Naval, Military and Air Chiefs to know the half of what’s going on. I only wish I were a big enough shot to get ten minutes with him and tell him what the ordinary people are saying about some of their so-called leaders; then persuade him to let me loose in Whitehall with a hatchet!’
‘Calm yourself, my friend, calm yourself!’ purred the Russian. ‘After all, it is the British way to muddle along, is it not? And in due course no doubt things will improve themselves.’
‘That’s all very well,’ Gregory grunted, ‘but if Fleet Street can do it, why the hell can’t the Government?’
‘Fleet Street? What have they done?’
‘Why, carried on of course. I mean all the big national newspapers. Fleet Street has caught it worse than most places, and the majority of our big newspaper buildings have been hit in the past month; but they manage to get their papers out just the same. They only allowed the air raids to interfere for one single day—September the 7th, the first night of the blitz. They went to ground then like everybody else, but within twenty-four hours they had made up their minds that if the life of the country was to go on they’d got to stick at their jobs, blitz or no blitz! Although we’ve got no gas or water or air raid shelters worth the name, and it takes an hour to telephone and half the day to cash a cheque, we still get our morning papers as regularly as clock work.’
‘That’s a good show,’ Kuporovitch muttered, as the Ack-Ack batteries in Hyde Park blasted hell out of the night. ‘A very good show.’
‘Yes,’ returned Gregory. ‘That’s a very good show. But it’s pretty grim to think of all the heroism the people are displaying while these wretched Ministers and high-up Civil Servants are letting the country die standing on its feet.’
As they ran up Piccadilly Kuporovitch remained silent. He was at first inclined to think that the strain of being out night after night fire-fighting was beginning to tell on Gregory’s nerves; but when he considered the matter he realised that Gregory was the last man to get the jitters and that as there was no reason at all for him to lie about matters there must be real reasons for his intense indignation.
Bombs crumped in the distance, and the anti-aircraft barrage continued to play its hideous tune, but by the time they reached the Hungaria Gregory had calmed down. The restaurant on the ground floor was no longer in use, but the big grill-room below it was still carrying on, and the maître d’hôtel, Monsieur Vecchi, who was an old friend of Gregory’s, led them to a corner table in the low gallery.
‘Well, how are things, Josef?’ Gregory asked him as they sat down.
Vecchi’s unfailing smile lit his round face. ‘We must not grumble, Mr. Sallust. Many people have gone to the country but quite a lot of our old friends remain, and they still come here. We closed the big room upstairs because peoples prefer to dine and dance in basements these days; also we make arrangements for our guests to sleep here if they wish.’
‘By Jove! That’s a grand idea!’ Gregory grinned. ‘Do many of them take advantage of your hospitality?’
‘A dozen or so, every night. Those who have a long way to go to their homes; but for the rest we still manage to get taxis. What would you like to order for your dinner?’
As Gregory was entertaining a Russian he decided on a Russian meal: Vecchi’s famous hot hors d’œuvre, bortch and chicken à la Kiev, all of which were specialities that he had acquired when, many years before, he had been maître d’hôtel at the Astoria Hotel in St. Petersburg, before the Revolution.
Kuporovitch remembered the hotel well from the days when he was a young Czarist officer, and for a few moments they talked together in Russian. Then Vecchi left them to give instructions about their dinner.
The meal was excellent, and Kuporovitch was delighted to see pre-Revolution Russian dishes again, of all places in bomb-torn London. They washed it down with a magnum of Louis Roederer 1928, and over it Kuporovitch gave Gregory details both of his convalescence and of the mission which had brought him to England.
Gregory agreed at once about the importance of establishing proper liaison with Lacroix and that it could be best done by his going to France.
While they talked they could hear now and again the dull thud of a bomb or the more staccato crack of the light A.A. guns. Once the whole building shook as a big one landed somewhere in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly, but the band played on, and the fifty or so odd people who had braved the blitz to come out to dine and dance appeared quite undisturbed. As Gregory had been out fire-fighting both the previous nights they decided to make an early evening of it, so at eleven o’clock he paid the bill and they got a taxi.
The blackened streets now appeared completely desolate and the anti-aircraft had lessened, but the horrid droning overhead told them that Goering’s murderers were still at work, trying to pick out the most congested portions of the city in which to drop their bombs. As the taxi passed Hyde Park Corner a spent shell-splinter thudded on to its roof, but they reached Gregory’s flat in safety, tipped the stouthearted taximan liberally and brought him in for a drink. Rudd had made up the bed in the spare room for Kuporovitch, and, too tired to be kept awake by the raid, soon after midnight the two friends were asleep.
The next morning they rang up Sir Pellinore, who was as delighted as Gregory had been to learn that Kuporovitch was still alive, and said that he would be very happy to see them if they came up right away.
The windows of the big library at the back of Sir Pellinore’s mansion had been shattered by blast, so the fine view over St. James’s Park was now shut out by sheets of weatherboard. The house was just on a hundred years old and had not a steel girder in it, but to those of his friends who had urged him to move to safer quarters the elderly baronet had replied:
‘I’ll not let that damn’ house-painter feller drive me into some mouldy funk-hole. Think I want to die of pneumonia, eh? My old house is as comfortable as money can make it, and I’ve got the best cellar of good liquor in London. If the devils get me I’ll at least pass out as I’ve always lived—warm, well-lined, and in a place of my own choosing!’
The old boy’s bright blue eyes fairly sparkled when he heard about Kuporovitch’s mission, and for the best part of an hour they discussed it. Then Sir Pellinore left them to go and see a friend of his who was attached to the Foreign Office. Later he brought the friend back to lunch with him, and afterwards they entered into a full council of ways and means.
The P.I.D. man knew Lacroix personally and expressed the greatest keenness to co-operate with him in sabotaging the Nazis and fermenting revolt in France. He said that he could arrange matters with the Admiralty for Gregory and Kuporovitch to be given transport across the Channel and landed at the little island off Saint Jacut on a suitable night; but the date could not yet be fixed as they would have to go into the question of tides. The moon need not worry them as it was not full again until the 20th of October, but it was essential that the landing should take place as near high water as possible and, as nearly as could be managed, midway between the hours of sunset and dusk, in order that the boat that took them across should get the maximum amount of cover from darkness in both approaching and leaving the French coast. Before leaving, he promised to let them know on the following day the best night for making their trip.
That night the two friends dined with Sir Pellinore. Brushing up his fine white military moustache, he cursed the Nazis roundly for having interfered with his kitchen arrangements; in spite of that, they did themselves extremely well, killed two magnums of Krug 1928 and, ignoring the bombers that droned overhead, had a great yarn about the war.
On the following day a note arrived for Gregory by D.R. from the P.I.D. man to say the tide would be full at Saint Jacut on October the 15th between 11.30 and midnight. It would have been better if they could have made their landing an hour or so later, but to do that meant postponing the venture for another two or three days, and that would bring them into the period of the full moon, so they would either have to risk a rather early arrival, while a certain number of people on the coast might not yet have turned in, or put the whole business off until the moon had waned and the tide was suitable again, which was not before the end of the month.
Gregory and Kuporovitch agreed that they must not delay a single day longer than necessary, owing to the Russian’s long enforced halt at Lisbon, as, even if they sailed on the 15th, it would be just on a month since he had set out from Vichy. They went to see Sir Pellinore, and it was definitely decided that everything should be fixed for the night of the 15th.
As they had six days to spare Sir Pellinore suggested that they should spend them at Gwaine Meads with Erika. Anxious as he was to do so, Gregory expressed certain qualms at leaving his fire-fighting squad while the blitz was still in progress.
‘Nonsense, my boy! Nonsense!’ boomed the baronet. ‘You’re unofficially back in the Services now, and this is your embarkation leave. Once you get over to the other side God alone knows when you’ll see that young woman of yours again. There are more people still in London than there are in the whole British Army, and if they can’t look after their own city they deserve that it should burn. If I had a plane and a load of incendiary bombs I’d drop the whole lot on the Home Office myself; then perhaps the nitwits who run it would wake up to the fact that there’s a war on and make fire-watching compulsory. You’re under my orders. They are to pack your bags and get off to Wales.’
Gregory demurred no longer and with Kuporovitch left Paddington on the night-train.
Erika was overjoyed to see them both, and for the next few days they almost managed to forget the war with all its horrors and wearisome inconveniences. The staff of the lovely old Tudor mansion had been greatly cut down, and one wing of it was now a convalescent hospital for Air Force officers; but apart from occasional German planes passing high overhead at night to bomb Liverpool, and the sight of the blue-uniformed invalids sitting about the lovely garden when the weather was fine, there were no traces at all of the war. Instead of being two hundred miles away from grim determined London, they might easily have been two thousand, and they lived on the fat of the land from the products of the home-farm.
The wounds in Erika’s chest where she had been shot five months before were now entirely healed, but she was still weak from her long illness and had a rather nasty cough as a result of the injury to her lung; but she insisted that she was already as good as well again and that as soon as she was strong enough she meant to take up work which Sir Pellinore had said that he could get for her—translating the contents of German newspapers for the Foreign Office.
Little was said of the mission upon which the two men were going, and Erika made a brave show of hiding her fears from Gregory. Her illness had, if possible, made her more beautiful than ever, and Kuporovitch could see from the way Gregory looked at her that he adored her more than words could express. Although her body was still weak, her fine brain and shrewd wit were as quick as ever, and for hours at a stretch they succeeded in putting the war away from them while they laughed a lot together; yet always in the background of their thoughts was the knowledge that this was only a brief respite. There could be no real peace or prolonged happiness for any of them until the gangsters who threatened Britain and now held a hundred and forty million wretched people prisoner upon the Continent had been utterly destroyed.
At last, on the morning of the 15th, the final good-byes had been said, and Erika waved them away from the doorstep of the old manor-house, with her heart almost bursting, but no tears showing in her deep blue eyes. It was not until the car that was taking them into Shrewsbury had disappeared round the bend of the avenue of great limes that, stuffing the edge of her handkerchief between her teeth, she ran back into the house to give way to a passion of tears.
While in Wales, Gregory and Kuporovitch had received French money, French clothes of a rough-and-ready variety, cartes d’identité purporting to have been issued in Paris, and their final instructions; and most of the day was spent in a rather tiring cross-country journey down to Weymouth, which being the nearest port to Saint Jacut, had been selected for their embarkation. At four o’clock they reported to the naval officer commanding there. He passed them on to a Lieutenant Commander, who gave them a high tea in the mess, and immediately afterwards took them past the sentries on to a jetty, at the end of which a long, low, seagoing motor-boat was in readiness.
It was still full daylight, and dusk was not due for another hour or more, but for that time they would have the protection of the Naval Coast Patrol; and it was essential to make an early start if they were to arrive off Saint Jacut by half past eleven. The Lieutenant Commander introduced them to an R.N.V.R. lieutenant named Cummings, who was in charge of the launch. He was a fat, cheerful fellow, who before the war had been a keen yachtsman and knew the coast of Brittany well; and it was for that reason he had been selected to run them across. There were no formalities to be observed, so as soon as Gregory and Kuporovitch had installed themselves in the small cabin of the launch it cast off and with gathering speed slid out of the harbour.
The sea was moderately calm, but at the speed they were making the boat bumped a lot as she snaked through the little wave-crests, from which a constant spray flew over her. Fortunately, both passengers were good sailors, so they felt no ill-effects, apart from the strain of the constant rocking, since both of them had hoped to sleep for the best part of their six- or seven-hour journey in order that they might arrive fresh at its end; but that proved impossible, as their cramped quarters did not permit of enough space to lie down, or even to curl up in moderate comfort.
The coast of England dropped behind until it was only a grey smudge on the horizon and then became lost in the falling twilight. Gradually the stars came out, and a sickle moon came up, intermittently obscured by passing clouds. Hour after hour the launch scurried on, its diesel engine purring rhythmically. There was a great sense of loneliness there, in the little boat out on the dark waters.
For some reason he could not explain Gregory felt depressed. He thought that was due to his having so recently left Erika, yet if all went well he should be back in England quite soon, as he had been furnished with papers, now sewn into the soles of his shoes, which would secure him priority on a plane from Lisbon once he had seen Lacroix. Nothing had been overlooked in their arrangements at either end, as Lacroix could be relied on to handle the French part of the business, and if his man Henri Denoual, did his share, there should be no delay in their reaching Paris.
Even if he did not, Gregory had no doubts at all about his own ability to get there. They might have the bad luck to run into a German coast patrol, but that was unlikely since it was quite impossible for the Germans to keep an adequate watch at night along all the thousands of miles of indented coast between northern Norway and the Pyrenees. Had any considerable force attempted a landing it would soon have been detected, and in no time German armoured forces could be rushed up to cope with it, but one small boat was a very different matter, particularly as the moon would be well down at the time of their arrival. He had undertaken far more hazardous adventures before and had always felt an exhilarating excitement when about to set out on them; but somehow this time that was altogether lacking, and he had an unpleasant foreboding of which he could not rid himself that trouble lay in front of them.
At eleven o’clock the bulky Cummings came down to say that they had picked up the Brittany coast and were now making their way along it. His navigation proved excellent, as ten minutes later he fetched them from the cabin and pointed to a dark mound ahead, which rose out of the seas, vaguely silhouetted between two others against the lesser blackness of the night sky.
‘There’s your island,’ he said. ‘I’ve often sailed these waters in the piping times of peace, and I’d know that mass of rocks between the two headlands anywhere. Nobody seems to be about, thank God, but we’d better lay off for a bit until the tide runs as high as we can get it.’
Farther to the east they could see the beams of the searchlights sweeping the sea outside Saint Malo, and the next twenty minutes proved anxious ones as there was always a possibility that the Germans had mounted searchlights upon the headland of Saint Jacut, which might suddenly blaze out and catch the boat in their beams. If that happened it was a certainty that within a few seconds of their being spotted a coastal battery would begin to roar, and it was ten to one that they would be sunk there in the bay long before they were able to get away out to the open sea.
However, all remained quiet and no lights appeared. At eleven-thirty to the tick the boat was very gently beached on a sandy spit which ran out from the northern end of the island. Having shaken hands with the lieutenant and wished him a safe return, the two friends slipped overboard into the shallow water.
Once ashore they shook as much water off their legs as they could, then cautiously proceeded inland. Soon they came to great rocky boulders, with smaller slabs between them, over which, suppressing their curses, they slipped and slithered, as they dared not show a torch, and among the piles of big rocks the darkness was absolutely pitch. The tangle of stone sloped gently upwards for about a quarter of a mile, then it became interspersed with patches of rough sandy soil. The stars were now hidden by clouds, so there was no longer sufficient light to keep the great pile of rock in the centre of the island constantly in view. For some minutes they lost their way, curving off to the left-hand side of it; but finding that the ground sloped down again they turned and headed in a new direction. This brought them to still higher ground, and soon afterwards they stumbled into a small cultivated patch.
The clouds parted for a moment and to their relief they could now just make out the ruins of the old castle. It was on the landward side of the biggest mass of rocks, but in the old days the top of its single tower would have given a sentinel an uninterrupted view over the whole bay and far out to sea. To one side of the tower a biggish portion of the ruin had a sloping roof, and this was evidently the part that Henri Denoual had patched up to make a home for himself.
As they moved silently towards it the clouds closed again, but they now caught the faint sounds of music. Approaching a little farther, they paused to listen. Evidently Denoual, or one of his family, was no mean artist, as the music was a violin solo. Going forward again, they moved round a corner of the high stone wall and saw some thin streaks of light showing the position of the door.
The ever-cautious Gregory got out his automatic and turned back the safety-catch; then, with a muttered, ‘Well, here goes!’ he knocked.
The violin solo ceased abruptly. There was a shuffling of feet; the door was suddenly flung wide open. The place consisted of a lofty barn, but, temporarily dazzled by the brightness of the light, they could not see any details. Gregory only knew that his dark forebodings had been justified. The room was packed with German soldiers.