They walked on in silence that could almost be felt. Kuporovitch was in such agony of mind that he could hardly think coherently, and even Gregory was at a complete loss how to console his friend.
He knew that they were now really up against it. When they had had their first fears that Madeleine was in trouble there had at least been the Professor’s house which they could have used as a safe refuge, but obviously Pierre had given that away to the police, and it was now a heap of ruins. Had Ferrière’s been raided during the previous weeks, or even right up to the previous night, there were a score of places where they could have found safe sanctuary with other members of the movement; but now there was not a single roof in Paris which sheltered friends who could aid them. For a few moments Gregory was utterly stumped, then, on a sudden thought, he snapped his fingers and exclaimed: ‘Ribaud!’
Owing to his key position, the French detective alone of all Lacroix’s supporters in Paris was remaining there. If they could get on to him he might be able to give them particulars about what was likely to be done with Madeleine. They increased their pace to a run until they reached a call-box, from which they could ring up the Sûreté.
Whenever they rang up Ribaud, which was as infrequently as possible, they used the most guarded phrases and, in most cases, terms with a double meaning which had already been agreed on with him. On this occasion he was more abrupt than ever, and when Kuporovitch said that it was essential for them to see him he replied that it was quite impossible for him to come out. The Russian insisted, but Ribaud continued to refuse, and it was only when Kuporovitch threatened to come and see him in his own office that he at last reluctantly consented and said the he would meet them in the porch of Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois at 12.15.
When they arrived at the rendezvous they found him furiously angry. He had heard that von Geisenheim had done his stuff and turned in the expected list of addresses, but at about the same time he had also heard that a raid was being made on the Professor’s house; so he knew that things had gone very badly wrong somewhere. In view of that, he had decided that he must watch his own step more carefully than ever, and that the best way for him to protect himself was to remain in the Sûreté all night, so that he would have a perfect alibi and could not be accused of helping any of the conspirators to get away. By forcing him to come out Kuporovitch had wrecked his plan.
For a few moments the Russian and the Frenchman wrangled angrily in the darkened porchway of the old church, which served partially to conceal them from the strong moonlight that lit the street. Then Gregory intervened.
‘Listen, you two! We’re wasting time; and you, Ribaud, have damn’ well got to help us, whether you like it or not. You must for your own protection. Don’t you realise that once the Gestapo get their hands on Pierre Ponsardin he’ll blow the whole works and you’ll be the first for the high jump?’
‘Mon Dieu! You’re right!’ exclaimed Ribaud. ‘The little swine! It was his crazy jealousy for Kuporovitch which caused him to give the meeting-place away, and he meant to make a bolt for it with the girl: but now the Nazis have got him they’ll torture him until he reveals everything he knows. It’s not only myself but Lacroix we have to think of.’
‘Exactly,’ added Kuporovitch; ‘so you see how vital it is that, by hook or by crook, we should get him and Madeleine out of their hands.’
‘God alone knows how you’re going to do that!’ moaned the Frenchman despondently. ‘If I lift a finger to help either of them I’ll immediately become suspect myself.’
‘You might be able to lift a finger to help us, though.’ Gregory suggested. ‘I mean as a signal for the right time to go in and attempt their rescue. As they’ve only just been pulled in they’ll probably be transferred from their cells to the place where they’re questioned, or even from prison to prison, in the next twenty-four hours. If you could tip us off when that’s likely to happen we might be able to do something.’
‘Maybe,’ grunted Ribaud, ‘but wherever they’re taken you can be certain they’ll be heavily guarded. Anyhow, I’d better get back now and find out all I can about what’s being done. I’ll slip out again to meet you here for a few minutes in an hour’s time.’
Ribaud moved off along the moonlit street, but the other two remained where they were and sat down in the deep shadow on the steps of the church. There didn’t seem any point in their going anywhere else, and for the time being there was nothing at all that they could do.
They were both too anxious to talk of casual things, so for most of the time they sat in silence. The hour seemed a long one, but at a quarter past one they began to show a little more liveliness and keep a lookout for Ribaud.
The moments seemed endless now, but the short, dark figure they were expecting did not appear. Half-past one, a quarter to two o’clock, a quarter past—and still no sign of Ribaud. They had begun to fear now that Pierre, in his terror at being caught, had already denounced the French detective, but their only hope was to hang on where they were on the chance that he would yet turn up. Another half-hour dragged by wearily, then, at last, just after quarter to three, Ribaud came hurrying down the street.
‘They’ve been questioning them for the past three hours,’ he said, ‘and I knew that nothing would be settled until the preliminary investigation was over. There was no point in my coming out before, and I felt certain that you would wait.’
‘Is Madeleine all right?’ Kuporovitch demanded anxiously.
‘She was looking pretty washed-up after her grilling; but they haven’t started in on her physically yet.’
‘How about Pierre?’ Gregory enquired. ‘Do you think he’s split?’
Ribaud shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. It’s hardly likely that he would until the Gestapo people began applying their hot-irons to him. If he had I should probably already be under arrest. Anyhow, he’s past doing us any further damage now.’
‘You mean …?’ Kuporovitch muttered.
‘I mean that the little traitor’s dead. After our people had taken him down to a cell I saw him and gave him a cigarette.’
Gregory nodded. ‘That was much the best thing to do, in view of all that’s at stake. It was lucky that you had some on you.’
Ribaud’s smile was grim. ‘I always keep a few in my case; one whiff and the cyanide does its work. I know far too much about the inside of a Gestapo torture chamber now ever to let them get me alive.’
‘What do they intend to do with Madeleine next?’ Kuporovitch asked.
‘At the moment she’s in a cell at the Sûreté, but they’ll transfer her to the Cherche-Midi, where they keep most of the women these days. What time that will be I can’t tell. It all depends on when there’s a police car free to do the job; but I should think they’ll take her across within the course of the next two or three hours. Once she’s inside you’ll stand precious little chance of getting her out. The trick you played before won’t work a second time, even if you could find another Luc Ferrière.’
‘What happened to him?’ Gregory interjected.
‘The old chap’s protesting his innocence and offering to swear to it on Mein Kampf. They’re treating him quite decently at the moment, but I doubt if he’ll get away with it when they find that stuff you planted in his house. Serve him right, too! The dirty little Quisling was responsible for our nursing-home being raided; and if you knew what those devils have done to poor little Nurse Yolanda and the others who were there you’d be ready to tear that old man’s guts out with your naked hands. But, as I was saying, your only chance of rescuing Madeleine is to intercept the car that takes her to the Cherche-Midi. Now I must get back, otherwise I shall find myself having to smoke one of my own cigarettes.’
They gave Ribaud two hundred yards’ start, then followed him until they reached the Sûreté. Walking round it, they took up their positions in a deep doorway on the opposite side of the road to the entrance of the courtyard, from which the police cars always drove in and out.
It was now getting on for half-past three, but another long wait was in store for them. Occasionally it was broken by a sudden tense expectancy as a police car came out of the yard, and they strained their eyes to see if Madeleine was in it. Had it not been for the bright moonlight they would have had no hope at all, but as long as the moon lasted they felt reasonably certain that they would be able to pick out a woman’s figure, even if she were seated in the back of a car, some distance away. Four o’clock came, then an intensely worrying period when the moon disappeared behind the roof-tops, and semi-darkness partially obscured their view; but by five the street was lighting with the early summer dawn.
They were both very tired from their long vigil, and incredibly depressed by the thought that, even if they were able to make their attempt, it could only be a forlorn hope. Madeleine’s escort was certain to be armed, and the driver of the car would have only to put his foot on the accelerator for it to streak away. Their opportunity would consist of no more than a bare half-minute, as the car turned out of the courtyard before developing its full speed.
Suddenly Kuporovitch gripped Gregory’s arm, but at the same second Gregory had seen the same thing. A police car was running quietly out of the yard, and in its back they could plainly see Madeleine seated beside an agent de ville. They had long since discussed their method of attack in detail, and now, without an instant’s hesitation, they put it into operation.
While Kuporovitch remained concealed in the doorway Gregory stepped out on to the pavement and hailed the driver of the car. Just as the man was about to put on speed he turned with a look of surprise. Letting the car run gently on he called: ‘What d’you want?’
Gregory ran swiftly across the road to him, crying as he ran: ‘For God’s sake come and help me! Some men have broken into my apartment in that house. They’ve half-murdered my wife, and I only just managed to get away.’
The police chauffeur stopped the car and leant out of it, as he said quickly: ‘That’s bad luck, but we’ve got a prisoner and can’t leave the car. There are scores of our chaps in the yard of the Sûreté there. Give a shout to some of them.’
Gregory was now right close up to the man, and he waited on tenterhooks for the next act in their skilfully staged plot. Suddenly it came—a single shot rang out. Unseen by the driver, Kuporovitch had come up behind the car and fired through its window, shooting through the back the agent de ville who was sitting next to Madeleine.
The instant Gregory heard the shot his hand darted forward. Grabbing the police chauffeur by the throat he dragged him from the seat. Then, lifting his fist, he hit the man a hard blow between the eyes, dropping him in the roadway and, scrambling into the car, seized the wheel.
Meanwhile, Kuporovitch had run round the other side of the car. He jumped in beside Gregory, and with his gun still in his hand thrust it in the face of the agent de ville; but he had no necessity to shoot again. The man was lying back, either unconscious or dead.
The single report of the Russian’s automatic had been enough to raise the alarm in the courtyard of the Sûreté. Other policemen were now running from it, shouting at them to halt; but Gregory had the brake off. He let in the clutch and the car shot forward.
A pistol cracked, another and another. The shots echoed through the quiet dawnlit street. A bullet clanged on the metal-work of the car; another hit one of the rear tyres, which went off with a loud plop. The car swerved wildly, but Gregory managed to get it under control. Crouching over the wheel he drove on all out, in spite of the bumping rim.
But he knew that he would never be able to get clear away in the car now. The rim must be cutting the flattened tyre to pieces, and the stout rubber-covered canvas might catch in the axle, causing it to jam. In addition, there had been a number of other cars in the courtyard of the Sûreté. In them the police would give chase at once, and he could not hope to outdistance the pursuit with one of his back tyres gone.
He took the first corner to the left at full speed, ran on a little way, then turned right, into the entrance of a mews. ‘Come on!’ he cried, jumping out. ‘We’ve got to run for it!’
Kuporovitch had been leaning over the back of the seat examining the agent de ville. He found that his victim was still breathing, and he hoped the fellow would live. He had little time for the French police who were now co-operating with the Germans, but he knew that they were more or less forced to do so, and it had been particularly distasteful to have to shoot the fellow in the back; but Madeleine’s safety being involved, he had not hesitated an instant, as it was so obviously the one certain means of putting the man out of action before he could offer any resistance.
There was no time to examine the policeman further, so Kuporovitch extricated his body from the car and, seizing Madeleine’s arm, began to run. Gregory had only waited to see that the other two were out before setting off at a pace which he thought Madeleine could manage.
As it was still early the mews was empty, except for one chauffeur who was cleaning a car, which had a red label Médecin pasted on its windscreen. At first the man made as though to intercept them, but Gregory cried: ‘Get out of the way! The Germans and the police are after us!’
Immediately the man’s expression changed. He pointed to his garage. ‘Get in there! I’ll tell them you ran past.’
With a hurried word of thanks they ran into the garage and crouched down behind an empty trailer that occupied the back of it, while the chauffeur went on cleaning his car.
A moment later they heard a police car drive up. Excited questions were flung at the man who had hidden them; but apparently the police were satisfied with his replies, as they drove on, and silence again fell in the mews.
After another few minutes the chauffeur came in to them and said: ‘The coast’s clear now, but they may come back later to make a more careful search. You’d better get out while the going’s good.’
As they thanked him for his help he shrugged: ‘Oh, that’s nothing. It’s a treat to be able to put one over on the police, now they’ve gone in with those filthy Boches.’
Gregory went ahead, telling the other two to follow him at about fifty yards, so that they would have a chance to get away if he ran into trouble on going round a corner. At each corner he paused for a cautious peep into the street ahead before advancing further.
In this manner they gradually worked their way down to the south bank of the river and along it to the Pont de Bercy; but when they reached the bridge they suffered a grievous disappointment. It was now nearly six o’clock, and the Sans Souci with her string of barges was no longer there. The many delays with which they had met during the night had made them miss the boat, and now the one lifeline upon which they had pinned their hopes of reaching freedom was cut.
At the corner of the bridge they held a swift consultation. Apart from Ribaud, who dared help them no further, they now had not a single friend left in Paris, and full daylight had come. People were moving in the streets, and Madeleine’s description would soon be circulated to every police station in Paris. To attempt to pass the police posts on the outskirts of the city in daytime would be sheer madness, and it was imperative for them to find some cover until nightfall. It was Gregory who suddenly remembered the deserted warehouse into which they had emerged from the catacombs late the previous night.
The moment he suggested they should go there the others agreed to his idea, and they set off. The warehouse lay only a few hundred yards away, on the far side of the quay. Its door had been left ajar, and slipping inside they pushed home the wooden staple.
As their eyes became accustomed to the dim light in the old building they saw some discarded packing-cases in one corner, and going over to them sat down. Then, for the first time, Madeleine was able to bless her rescuers and tell them in detail what had happened.
On the previous night she and Pierre had gone upstairs at seven o’clock to get their things on, preparatory to leaving the house. He had walked into her room, locked the door behind him and told her that he had no intention of taking her to the meeting, as he felt certain that she meant to go off with Kuporovitch.
There had been a frightful scene, in which she had used arguments, entreaties and threats, finally telling him that if he really kept her there all night as he proposed to do Kuporovitch would come back in the morning and beat him to a jelly.
Upon that Pierre had let the cat out of the bag. He was so crazy with jealousy that he had given away the meeting-place to the police solely with the intention of getting his rival out of the way once and for all.
At this horrifying disclosure Madeleine had pleaded with him anew; but he had argued that it was now too late to do anything, even if he wanted to. She had disputed that, but he had pointed out that, although there might still be time to warn the people at the meeting before the police arrived, he would never now be able to conceal the fact that it was he who had given the meeting place away, and the result would be that they’d hunt him down and execute him as a traitor.
When she had asked him about his future plans he had said with all the conceit and stupidity of a weak man who is obsessed by one idea that, since he had put Kuporovitch out of the running, there was no further bar to her coming away with him the following day to his aunt’s home in Limoges.
She had been very tempted to claw his face to ribbons with her nails, but she knew that she was not strong enough to overcome him and that the thing which mattered above all else was for her to get a warning to the meeting. Madame Chautemps had gone off that afternoon, as arranged, to her relatives at Rheims, so there was no one else in the house except Luc Ferrière, and Madeleine had felt that she would not get much help from him if she brought him upstairs by shouting. On deciding that her only resort was guile she had then played the part of a weak female and pretended to be entirely overcome.
Pierre had attempted to console her, and after a little she had made a show of accepting her situation philosophically, in the hope that he would go away and leave her; as, even if he locked the door behind him, once she was alone she would have been able to get out of the window by a shed that lay below it, into the backyard. But he had made it clear that he did not trust her and meant to sit up with her all night.
She had then suggested that they might as well have some supper and unpacked the small parcel of things which she had been going to take with her. Among them was a thermos with soup in it, and as she always carried a sleeping draught in her nursing kit in case of emergency, she had managed to put it, while distracting his attention, into Pierre’s portion of the soup.
As soon as they had finished their picnic meal she had declared that, even if he was determined to stay there all night, she was not going to allow that to prevent her from getting what sleep she could, and, lying on her bed fully dressed, she had put out the light while he remained seated in an armchair.
Normally the sleeping draught would have done its work in half an hour; but Pierre was in such a state of excited tension that Madeleine began to fear that it was not going to work at all. For what seemed an age she had lain there listening to his breathing, till, at last, the drug and the darkness in which he was sitting made him drop off.
As soon as she heard him snoring gently she had got up, crept out of the room, locked him in and run downstairs to telephone.
To her horror she found that it was already half-past ten, but she had rung up the Professor’s as quickly as she could and got on to Kuporovitch, only to be cut off in the middle of their conversation. The line had simply gone dead, so it must have been the exchange, or more probably the police upstairs had switched off the extension to the laboratory by accident, in an attempt to listen-in to the conversation themselves.
She had just heard Kuporovitch say, ‘You are to go …’ before the connection had been broken. She did not know where he wished her to go, and she knew that, owing to Pierre’s treachery, the Professor’s house might by raided at any moment; so that if she went there she would very likely fall into the hands of the police. In consequence, she had decided that she had better stay where she was in the hope of Stefan getting through to her again. Half an hour later Luc Ferrière’s had been raided, and all its inmates had been carted off to the Sûreté.
When Madeleine had finished her account, as they were all terribly tired after their exhausting night, they agreed that the first thing to do was to get some sleep. After they wakened, refreshed a little, it would be time enough to discuss possible ways and means out of the wretched situation in which they found themselves. There was nothing that would serve for bedding except some dirty straw in the bottom of the packing-cases, but having collected that they made themselves as comfortable as they could. Since it was a warm June day there was no question of their suffering from the cold, so they soon dropped off and did not wake until the late afternoon.
All three of them found that they were now very hungry, so Gregory said he would go out and see if he could raise some food. That pleasant spicy smell which comes from the Paris grocers, and in normal times is so characteristic of the whole city, had now entirely disappeared, as the shops were empty of everything except small stocks of goods which were unobtainable without ration-cards. But he knew that food of sorts could still be obtained from the station buffets, since they were kept supplied as a convenience for the Germans, who in these days formed more than 90 per cent of the travellers on the French railways.
On reaching the Gare d’Austerlitz he obtained one sandwich, two large coarse biscuits, a bag of cherries and a packet of mixed nuts. He also managed to buy a bottle of cheap French red wine, for which he had to pay the exorbitant price of forty francs. Having purchased a paper, he made his way back to the warehouse. When he reached it his face was grave.
‘I’m afraid we’re up against it,’ he remarked, as he sat down. ‘Last night’s affair has given the Germans the jitters, and they’ve instituted that damn’ curfew again; so no one will be allowed out in the streets after eight o’clock without a special pass. That puts the lid on our attempting to get out of Paris tonight.’
‘I wonder how many days they’ll keep it up?’ speculated Kuporovitch moodily. ‘If only we could have got off tonight we shouldn’t have had any great difficulty in catching up with the string of barges; but if we’re forced to remain in concealment here for several days we’ll miss them altogether, and as far as I can see they’re our only hope of getting clean out of the country in safety.’
‘The curfew’s certain to last for several days,’ said Madeleine, ‘and while it’s on to go out in the streets at night without a pass is simply asking to be picked up by one of the patrols. I think we’d better risk making our first move tomorrow in daylight. If we could get as far as the suburbs we’d be able to hide in a garden there until after dark; then cut across the fields so as to avoid the police posts that they have on all the roads, outside the city.’
Gregory shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, we’re on the wrong side of Paris, so we’ve either got to go right through the heart of the city or make a long detour round endless streets to the east and south. We’d never be able to do that without somebody recognising us.’
‘Why?’ asked Madeleine. ‘Although I’ve been arrested three times now, I don’t suppose that more than twenty Nazis and police have seen me face to face.’
With a rueful grin Gregory held out the paper. ‘I’m afraid you underrate the enemy. They’ve published your photograph here, so every policeman in Paris will be on the lookout for you.’
‘Oh dear!’ she exclaimed. ‘Of course, they took our photographs soon after we reached the Sûreté last night.’
‘It’s not a very good one,’ he went on, ‘but it’s quite good enough to identify you by, and the devil of it is that they’re offering fifty thousand francs for your capture, dead or alive, and the same amount for information which will lead to the arrest of the two men who rescued you. They also publish a fairly accurate description of myself, given them, I suppose, by that police chauffeur I knocked out. The Germans don’t like admitting their own mistakes when they make them, which God knows, isn’t often, and, naturally, in this case they’re blaming your getaway on the inefficiency of the French police. Anyhow, the full story is given here, together with an account of Luc Ferrière’s arrest, and a statement that your companion Pierre Ponsardin, committed suicide in his cell at the Sûreté by smoking a poisoned cigarette.’
‘Oh, poor Pierre!’ Madeleine sighed.
Gregory ignored her interruption, as he saw no point in telling her that Ribaud had actually been responsible for Pierre’s death. ‘They blame the French police for that, too, as Pierre should have been searched, and anything he was carrying taken from him, immediately after his arrest. The little party in which you were involved forms the high spot of the night’s doings although there’s a statement in much more guarded language that many other raids were made, and that a conspiracy against the régime has been uncovered—hence the fresh imposition of the curfew. One thing stands out as plain as a pikestaff: fifty thousand francs is a lot of money, and there are still far too many Quislings in Paris for us to run the risk of letting you be seen in the streets.’
‘But we can’t stay here,’ Madeleine murmured, casting a glance round their gloomy and uncomfortable retreat.
‘I’m afraid we’ll have to,’ Stefan said despondently. ‘But God knows how we’ll ever be able to catch up with that string of barges now.’
‘Given a little bit of luck we might,’ Gregory spoke a little more cheerfully. ‘Léon Baras was trying not to depress the others too much when he told them they’d have to remain under the batches for a week. I had no dealings with the captain of the tug or his crew, but I made a few independent enquiries, and I doubt if they’ll reach Le Havre in less than ten days. If the curfew is taken off at the end of the week, and we can find some means of fairly rapid transport once we’re out of Paris, we might even be able to pick them up at Rouen.’
Kuporovitch nodded. ‘It seems that’s the best we can hope for at the moment. In the meantime, we must make ourselves as comfortable as we can in this dismal hole; or perhaps we ought to move down to the cellar. I expect the police are throwing a net over the whole of Paris, and some of them might quite well pay a visit to a deserted warehouse like this during their search.’
‘You’re right,’ Gregory agreed, and getting out his torch he went downstairs to examine the cellar. It was damp and evil-smelling, so pulling up the trap he descended still farther into the catacombs themselves. The air was much fresher there, as it came in from an old disused drain which ran under the street and gave direct onto the Seine. The stone flooring of the tunnel was rough and dry, so he decided that they had better take up their quarters down there and went up to tell the others.
Madeleine was reluctant to sleep down in the catacombs because she was frightened of the rats which she felt certain must swarm there. Gregory told her that the warehouse was just as likely to be overrun and that rats were not dangerous unless they were attacked or starving. In order to keep out of their way as far as possible, it was decided to carry down the packing-cases and make a high flat stack of them on which to sleep, instead of lying on the floor.
When they had carted down the empty cases and arranged the straw on top of them their next worry was light, since Gregory’s torch could not be expected to last for more than a few hours. With a view to saving it as much as possible they decided to stay up above as long as daylight lasted, but hold themselves ready to beat a quick retreat to the cellars if they heard anyone approaching the warehouse door.
While they had been talking and making their arrangements they had divided up the meagre fare that Gregory had obtained from the station buffet and made a scratch meal of it; but they were still hungry and greatly depressed by the uncertainty of being able to secure further supplies of food and light. The evening hours of the long summer twilight seemed unending, but at last, when full darkness had fallen, Gregory produced the ancient philosophical tag ‘He who sleeps dines,’ and suggested that they should go below and turn in.
As they stood up Kuporovitch suddenly announced that he was going out. Without even asking him why he wished to do so the others immediately protested that he would be absolutely crazy to risk himself in the streets now that it was after curfew; but he insisted, simply saying that he had a little job to do which would not take him very far or very long.
Gregory knew the Russian too well to argue with him. To quiet Madeleine’s fears Stefan swore that he would do nothing rash, exercise the greatest caution and be back within a couple of hours at most. Then he kissed her gently and slipped out of the door on to the quay.
He more than fulfilled his promise by returning in just over an hour, and with him he brought two heavy sacks slung over his shoulder. He had remembered that the office of the black market racketeer Lavinsky was only a stone’s throw from the Gare d’Austerlitz, and he had carried out a second successful raid on it for the benefit of himself and his friends.
As the sacks were emptied by the light of Gregory’s torch their contents gave rise to cries of amazement and delight. There were tins of all sorts of luxuries that Madeleine had not seen for many months; not only such things as tinned ham, pineapple, and foie gras, but, most precious of all, and only procurable now in Paris at the price of a millionaire’s ransom, there were four big bundles of nine-inch candles and two packets of matches.
They carried this almost fabulous treasure down into the catacombs, and the very sight of it had banished their previous despondency from their minds. With candles to light them Madeleine no longer had any dread of the rats, and sorting out the good things again they opened some of them at once to enjoy a first-class picnic supper.
On the following day they decided that, since Gregory’s description had been circulated as well as Madeleine’s, Kuporovitch was the only one of them who would be reasonably safe out in the streets in daylight, and that even he should only leave the hideout for a short time once a day to get news.
When he brought in the paper there was nothing more in it about the conspiracy which had been revealed the previous day, so they now felt happier in their minds with the thought that Léon Baras and his party in the barge must have succeeded in getting clear of the capital without arousing suspicion. There were, however, banner headlines in the paper. At dawn the previous day, Sunday. June the 8th, British and Free French Forces had invaded Syria, and their armoured units were already reported pressing forward towards Damascus.
Gregory was immensely cheered to know that we had at last taken the bull by the horns and openly thrown overboard all the absurd nonsense about the so-called rights of neutrals in a territory where the administration had definitely shown themselves unfriendly to us and was rendering every possible assistance to our enemies. He felt, too, that a successful campaign in Syria would make an immense difference to the Grand Strategy of the War, since, if Syria could be brought under British control, Turkey would no longer be isolated, and the road would again be open to give her swift assistance if she became the next victim of Axis aggression.
The days that followed proved dreary in the extreme. There was nowhere in either the warehouse or the tunnel below in which they could sit or lie in real comfort. Thanks to Kuporovitch they were quite well off for candles, but, as they found it necessary to keep a couple alight all night, in order to scare away the rats, they did not feel justified in using any during the day; and the warehouse was in a perpetual twilight which made it impossible to read the books and periodicals, which Kuporovitch brought in, for any length of time. He made a trip to the station each morning and evening to get the latest paper, and it cheered them a bit to see that the Syrian campaign was going well; but there was no news as to when the curfew would be lifted, and until that happened they had no option but to continue in their voluntary captivity.
At last, on Saturday, June the 14th, an announcement appeared that, after having been imposed for a week, the curfew would be lifted on the following night, but would be enforced again at the first manifestation of further activities against the régime.
On the Sunday afternoon they made their preparations. Kuporovitch had procured some coarse unrationed material, a big needle and some thick thread with which Madeleine made three haversacks to carry the remainder of their stolen food, divided up between them. For hours, it seemed, they waited while darkness gradually fell, then, one by one, they slipped out of the warehouse and joined up again on the next corner, a hundred yards down the street.
It had already been agreed that they must not take the Metro or a bus across Paris, owing to the danger that Madeleine might be recognised, even in a subdued light; so they were fully prepared to face a long and tiring walk. The moon had been full on the 9th, so it was now six days on the wane. As the night was fine it shone in an almost cloudless sky, giving them ample light to proceed at a good pace without risk of banging into lamp-posts or people in the black-out.
Taking the less frequented thoroughfares, they went up the Montparnasse Hill and down the other side until they reached the Seine again, crossing it by the Pont Mirabeau. A quarter of an hour later they left inner Paris by the Porte d’ Auteuil.
They now had the southern edge of the Bois on one side of them and some straggling buildings interspersed with vacant lots on the other, and they felt a little more cheerful, since if they were challenged now there was much more hope of their getting away among the scattered buildings than there would have been in a Paris street.
It was now just on midnight, and they had already walked the best part of six miles, but they knew that the most dangerous part of their night’s undertaking was yet to come. The road they were following formed the bowstring to a great southern bend in the Seine, so some two miles farther on they would have to cross the river again at Saint Cloud. From the intelligence supplied by their old sabotage parties they knew that one of the police posts forming the cordon round Paris was situated there.
When they were within a quarter of a mile of the river Gregory turned off the main road, leading his friends down a side road to the left. They followed this for several hundred yards, until they found a path which led towards the river and turning again went on towards it. Having reached the towpath they turned left again, now keeping their eyes skinned for any sign of a boat. It was not long before they came upon a small house, and the light of the moon was sufficient to show them from the weathered board erected outside it that at one time it had been a river-side tea-garden. In front of it, on the other side of the towpath, was a boat-house.
Scrambling down the bank, Gregory tried the door and found it locked, but with the aid of a piece of old iron, which they picked up, they forced it, and felt considerable elation on seeing that there were several boats inside.
The police cordon was more for the purpose of trapping the unwary who endeavoured to get in and out of Paris by road without a permit than with the idea that it would serve to keep Paris’s two million citizens inside their city. It would have needed thousands of police and troops on duty all night to do that, and the Germans were not the sort of people to deny themselves the pleasure of the river during the summer months to the extent of confiscating all boats. Thus, although Gregory had feared that it might take them much longer to secure a boat than it actually had, he had felt pretty certain that they would be able to find one sooner or later and get through the cordon by crossing the river in it.
There was still the danger that they might be seen while crossing and challenged by a patrolling sentry upon the other bank, and on this account they now had reason to dread the moon, but it was a risk which had to be taken.
Selecting a two-foot-six punt they lay down at full length in it, in order to make themselves less conspicuous. Then using two pieces of board as paddles, since there had been none in the boat-house, the two men began to propel the boat across, taking great care to dip their pieces of board into the water as noiselessly as possible.
To their great relief they reached the other side without being challenged. Having made the punt fast to a ring in some wooden steps they scrambled up the far bank and set off across a field, gradually edging north-eastward until they struck the main road again beyond Saint Cloud.
Wishing to get as far away from Paris as they could that night, they pressed on until nearly three o’clock in the morning. By that time, having covered over twelve miles, it was clear that Madeleine could go no farther; so they left the road and made themselves as comfortable as possible in a grassy hollow that was screened from view by some trees. Fortunately, as it was high summer, the ground was dry, and the night warm, so they soon dropped off to sleep.
In the morning they ate some of their iron rations, then set off again. On entering a pleasant village Madeleine recognised it as Marly, so was able to confirm that they were on the right road. Later they hoped to get a lift on a lorry, but Gregory did not wish to invite awkward questions until they were farther from Paris. With a few minutes’ halt every hour and a long rest at noon they walked for the best part of the day, except for a stretch of about three miles over which a countryman with a pony and trap had spontaneously given them a lift. By evening they had accomplished a further nineteen miles and were approaching the outskirts of Mantes.
After selecting a small coppice as their headquarters Gregory left the other two to rest, and went on into the town; his object was to find a carter who might be leaving the following day in the direction of Rouen. He spent the best part of two hours visiting several cheap bars and eating-houses, where he got into casual conversation with a number of workmen.
Madeleine and Stefan had long since eaten their supper and were getting a little anxious about him when at length he rejoined them about ten o’clock. He reported that he had had the luck to find a lorry-driver who was actually leaving for Rouen the following morning, and for a price that had been agreed he had been willing to take them with him.
After sleeping in the open again they were up very early next morning and walked through the town while it was still shrouded in the misty light of the summer dawn. Half a mile beyond it they waited on the crest of a hill with some anxiety to see if their man would, after all, arrive to pick them up. A quarter of an hour later he appeared. The lorry pulled up, and Gregory went forward to greet him.
The man was a dark, sinewy-looking little Basque whose name was Sabarros. Later they learned that he had been a soldier in the Maginot Line at the time of the collapse, but had managed to borrow a suit of civilian clothes and so escape capture and internment. Gregory paid over half the money that had been agreed on; then he and his friends settled themselves on the hard boards of the lorry among some great wicker-covered carboys containing acid, which screened them from view. It was hard going for them, and before the day was out they were wretchedly sore from the bumping they received. When the lorry made one of its periodical halts late in the afternoon Sabarros came round to tell them that they must get out as they were only a mile from Rouen, and he did not mean to risk taking them right into the city.
Having paid him the rest of his money they took a fork road. Some way along it they found a disused chalk quarry at the bottom of which some bushes were growing. Leaving the other two to scramble down into it, Gregory cut across the fields towards Rouen. During their long walk on the previous day they had passed quite a number of German troops, but nothing like so many as there were here. The old town absolutely swarmed with them, but none of them took any notice of Gregory as he wound his way in and out of narrow turnings down to the docks.
It was June 17th, exactly a year to the day since the collapse of France, and on every hand there was ample evidence of the damage which the British bombers had done throughout the year to this important invasion base. There were so many wrecked buildings on the waterfront that the Germans no longer troubled to try to conceal them; but in spite of the havoc, the port itself was still functioning, and there was a considerable amount of shipping there.
After looking in vain for the Sans Souci and her tow of barges Gregory got into conversation with several watermen until he learned that she had arrived on the 15th and left on the 16th.
He was not unduly disappointed as he had hardly expected to be lucky enough to catch her there. By a quick reckoning he worked out that as she had taken seven days to cover the hundred and sixty odd miles of water between Paris and Rouen she would be at least three days in covering the remaining eighty miles of water from Rouen to Havre. As against that his own party had succeeded in making the eighty-mile journey overland from Paris to Rouen in two days and a night; so, given equal luck, they should be able to get overland to Le Havre in thirty-six hours. As the Sans Souci had left on the 16th she was not due at Le Havre until the 19th, so they had, on his reckoning, at least a day to spare.
When he had worked this out to his satisfaction he began a discreet enquiry in the hope of finding another lorry-driver who would take them on to Le Havre the following morning; but there he met with much more difficulty than he had expected. All French territory between Rouen and the coast was now in the special zone occupied by the German armies which sooner or later might yet receive orders to invade England. With their usual thoroughness the Germans were leaving nothing undone to keep their preparations secret.
In consequence, there were special road patrols and innumerable barriers at cross-roads, at which all civilian transport was halted and examined. All the lorry-men he could contact told him that it was more than lives were worth to attempt to smuggle three people through, none of whom had passes. Late that night he returned to the chalk quarry, and as gently as he could broke the disquieting news to the others that they would have to make the rest of the journey on foot, and that it was now going to be a race against time as to whether they could reach Le Havre before the Sans Souci left it.
Early next morning they were on their way, and night found them at the little town of Caudebec after a most exhausting day. They had accomplished twenty miles of their journey, but in the late afternoon they had come into the area that was forbidden to all civilians without passes; so for the last two hours of daylight they constantly had to get off the road and take lonely by-paths, or hide in the woods when they saw German patrols approaching in the distance. To add to their distress, as twilight fell it had begun to rain, and they passed a most uncomfortable night in a small coppice.
Next morning they made another few miles, but they had to hide so frequently that they decided that it would be better to rest during the day and go on at night.
Night travel also proved to have its disadvantages. The moon was now ten days past full and only a waning sickle in a sky of scudding clouds. Bright moonlight would have added to their dangers, as sentries would have been able to take potshots at them from some considerable distance with a good chance of bringing one of them down; but in the darkness they had to face the peril of running into troops without warning, and three times during the night they had to take to their heels at a sudden challenge.
It was the night of the 19th, and the day that the Sans Souci could be expected to reach Havre; yet they had covered only another ten miles when from sheer fatigue they were compelled to camp again near Lillebonne. They still had the best part of twenty miles to go, and if the Sans Souci had arrived at Havre on the previous day she might sail with the tide in the morning.
Gregory tried to cheer the others by saying that the Sans Souci might easily take four days between Rouen and Le Havre. Three and a half was the absolute minimum, so the probability was that she would not arrive till the 20th and sail again on the 21st, but he knew that their chances of catching her were now decreasing with every hour, and in this troop-infested country they dared not go on in daylight.
As darkness fell on the night of the 20th they started off once more, determined to make the most desperate effort to reach Le Havre before the morning. The hours of darkness proved a veritable nightmare. Again and again they had to turn back or get off the road at the sound of movement in front. On five occasions they were challenged, and on three they were fired at. The two men helped Madeleine as much as they could, but when dawn came all three were desperately weary. By their unshakable determination they had succeeded in covering fifteen miles during the night, but they had only reached Harfleur, which lay the best part of five miles outside Le Havre.
On the flat uplands there was little cover, but they managed to find another chalk-pit which had a small cave in it. Kuporovitch’s haul of iron rations had served them splendidly, but they were now nearly exhausted, and to recruit their strength the little party ate the last of them before stretching themselves out to sleep.
Being old campaigners, Gregory and Stefan had both developed the capacity for waking at a given time. Before they settled down they agreed that they would only sleep till midday, as it seemed now that their last chance of catching the Sans Souci, even if she were still at Le Havre, would be a cross-country dash in full daylight, so that they could reach the harbour before the evening tide.
Shortly after midday they climbed out of the chalk-pit and set off across the fields. They could now see the city spread out below them, and the English channel, beyond which lay safety and freedom, calm and peaceful in the summer sunshine. To their great relief they found the last part of their journey much less hazardous than they had expected. There were not so many German troops about as there had been farther inland, and apparently the local inhabitants were allowed to roam about freely within a few miles of the city, so that the little party was not particularly conspicuous, owing to the numerous men and women working in the fields. At a little after two o’clock they entered the town and made their way down to the port.
It had been blitzed by the R.A.F. to an even greater extent than had Rouen, and here again the damage was so extensive that the Germans were making no attempt to conceal it. For a quarter of an hour they walked along the quays, their eyes frantically searching the shipping for the Sans Souci and her tow.
Suddenly Gregory raised his arm and pointed. He could have cried aloud with joy. The Sans Souci had not yet sailed, and was lying at the end of a long jetty. She was too far off for him to read her name, but he knew her at once from the fact that the third in her string of barges was considerably smaller than the other four.
The next thing was to be aboard her, but, as they had feared, they found the entrance to the jetty guarded. Two stolid-faced Germans, one with a rifle and fixed bayonet, the other with a tommy-gun, stood there.
Gregory took his party into a waterside café, and at once began to make discreet enquiries as to when the Sans Souci was due to sail. There were no German soldiers in the place, only French wharf-hands, so they answered his questions without any hesitation and seemed willing enough to help him in any way they could. None of them could give him the information he required, but one of them went out to make enquiries, and came back to report that she would sail about half an hour after midnight. Gregory then asked how he could best get aboard her. The men shook their heads glumly, and all agreed that there was no chance of that unless he could get a special pass.
He enquired if there were any way of contacting the tug’s captain or one of the members of her crew, but again the men shook their heads. No one was allowed on to such tugs, and no one was allowed off them. That was one of the German regulations, and they were extremely strict about enforcing it. The Sans Souci had put into Le Havre in order to pick up her escort, as she would be proceeding in convoy up the coast with a number of other vessels. She had arrived two days before and was there still only because the convoy had not yet been made up, but none of her crew had been allowed ashore, even to buy a drink.
A square-shouldered man, who seemed somewhat better educated that the rest, had proved most helpful, so Gregory took him outside and asked him if he could suggest any method by which three people could be smuggled on board the Sans Souci that night. The man said that, if they were prepared to risk being shot at, it might be accomplished after dark with the aid of a small boat. He even went so far as to say that he had a boat and would have taken on the job himself but for the fact that his niece was getting married from his house that evening, so he could not possibly let down his family and the friends who had been invited by disappearing for an hour or two in the middle of the party.
Gregory suggested that if he could be shown where the boat lay he and his friends would take it out on their own, and, as they would have to abandon it if they were successful in reaching the Sans Souci, he was perfectly willing to buy the boat outright. He further pressed his argument by stressing the fact that if they could do as he suggested his new friend would run no personal risk at all.
After a little discussion the waterman, whose name was Boucheron, agreed and led Gregory about a quarter of a mile along the quay to the place where his rowing boat was tied up. They did not approach it, but Gregory took careful note of its situation and that of the German sentries nearest to it. Then Boucheron asked: ‘What do you intend to do with yourself in the meantime?’
Gregory looked at his watch. It was only just on half-past three, so he and his friends had the best part of nine hours to fill in, and he replied with a shrug: ‘Goodness knows! Just hang about until it’s close on time for her to sail, I suppose.’
‘Then why don’t you and your friends come along to my place?’ suggested Boucheron. ‘It’ll be rough-and-ready, mind, but we’ve managed to collect a bit of food and a few bottles of wine for the occasion. This damn’ war’s grim enough, and one must try to forget it sometimes. Anyhow, I didn’t see why my little niece should be robbed of her fun on the day of her marriage.’
‘That’s awfully kind of you,’ Gregory replied. ‘There’s nothing we should like better. But before accepting it’s only fair to warn you that we’re on the run.’
‘That didn’t take much guessing,’ Boucheron smiled. ‘I tumbled to that the moment that you spoke of trying to get aboard the Sans Souci without a pass. I don’t want to know your business—it’s enough for me that you’re up against these German brigands; but we won’t tell the wife anything about it, in case she gets a bit nervous. I’ll just say that I used to know you when I was working in the shipyards at Brest and that I asked you and your friends to come along.’
They walked back to the café and collected the other two, whom Gregory introduced as Pauline Vaquière and Alexis Tambov, since he considered it wisest to guard against possible future complications that might arise if Madame Boucheron, or any of her friends, happened to remember Madeleine’s name in connection with the police notices which had been published a fortnight earlier.
Boucheron had a small house in the Rue Amiral Courbet, and on the way there they agreed on a story that the strangers had just arrived by train from Paris to take up work with the harbour authorities.
Madame Boucheron received them very kindly, putting down the state of their clothes and their untidy appearance to the fact that they were only poor working-people who had travelled third-class in one of the trains which now took a day and a night to get through from Paris to Le Havre.
Her brother was with her, as he had come to stay with them for the wedding. He was a tall man named Picquette, with sunken eyes and a ragged moustache. They were both hard at work preparing for the wedding-party, so Boucheron took his guests upstairs in order that they could tidy themselves and rest, turning over to them a room that had been his son’s until the boy had fallen fighting on the Somme during the previous summer.
When they had cleaned themselves up as well as they could Madeleine lay down on the bed, while the men stretched themselves out on the floor, and they all got in three hours’ badly needed sleep before Boucheron came up to tell them that it was now seven o’clock and the wedding guests were assembling.
The little parlour downstairs was soon crowded with people; the men were all dressed in their Sunday black, and the women had brought out their best bits of finery for the occasion. Their roughened hands and garlic-smelling breath betrayed the fact that they were all working-people, but they were a kindly, good-natured lot, only too happy to have this chance of forgetting the war for a few hours. There was much hearty laughter and a certain amount of crude fun poked at the bridegroom, a stalwart young fellow who looked most uncomfortable in his very high white collar, and at the bride, a pretty buxom girl of twenty named Colette.
The marriage was a civil one, and the functionary who performed it was treated with great deference. When it had been duly solemnised the whole party adjourned to a small hall nearby which had been taken for the reception and a dance.
Everyone exclaimed at the good things, so rare in these hard times, that Madame Boucheron had managed to provide for her buffet, although nearly all the guests had made some contribution to the feast themselves. Healths were drunk, there was much hand-shaking, and as the wine began to circulate they all gave free reign to their high spirits. Now that they had rested Gregory and his friends were able to join in the fun. He had a dance with the bride, and during it he asked her if she could keep a secret.
‘Of course I can!’ she smiled up at him. ‘What is it?’
‘Simply that my friends and I would like to give you a wedding present, but we’ve had no time to buy one, so we want you to buy it yourself; but you must promise me that you won’t say anything at all about it to your mother, or even to your husband, until tomorrow morning.’
As he spoke he pressed a mille note into her hand. It was his way of rewarding the Boucheron family for their kindness, but he knew that the gift of so large a sum coming from a poor workman would excite comment from the girl’s mother and friends if they learned about it before his party were safe out of Le Havre.
‘A thousand francs!’ the girl whispered. ‘But how can you possibly afford it?’
‘That’s all right,’ Gregory smiled. ‘Your uncle has done me a great service, and I have more money than you might suppose from looking at me. I hope your marriage will be very happy.’
All the time they were dancing or talking among the crowd round the buffet the three friends were keeping a watchful eye on the clock, and at half-past eleven Gregory caught the eyes of the other two. After a few minutes they disengaged themselves from their partners and joined him.
‘Time to go home,’ he said with a quiet smile. ‘We won’t make our adieux to anybody. Boucheron will understand and explain to his wife tomorrow. There’s a small ante-room at the far end of the hall, and it has a side-door leading on to the street. If we slip out that way nobody’s likely to notice our disappearance.’
Madeleine and Stefan danced the length of the floor while Gregory strolled slowly behind them; then all three walked casually into the ante-room. The cloak-rooms were just beyond it, and having collected their hats and coats they came back to the little room with the side-entrance. To their annoyance they found Madame Boucheron’s brother, Monsieur Picquette, standing in it. He had evidently just entered and closed the door to the dance-hall behind him.
‘Hallo!’ said Gregory cheerfully.
Picquette did not smile, but asked in a gruff voice: ‘Where are you three off to?’
‘It’s pretty hot in there, so we thought we’d go out for a breath of air,’ George replied lightly. ‘We didn’t want to catch a chill after dancing, though, so we thought it best to get our coats.’ Then he pulled a pretty bluff by adding: ‘Care to come along?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Picquette. ‘I’m not going out, and neither are you.’ Suddenly he produced a revolver from behind his back and pointed it at them.
‘What the devil are you doing with that thing?’ Gregory asked with a laugh, although he knew now that Fate was evening up the scales. The fickle goddess had sent them Boucheron in their hour of need, but now she had dealt them out this sunken-eyed fellow; and it was quite clear that he meant to make trouble of some kind.
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ Picquette went on. ‘But I remember you all right—all three of you. Perhaps you recall a certain nursing-home in Paris that was raided by the police last November? I was one of the agents de ville that you tried to shoot in that affair. I’m only here on leave from Paris to see my niece married, but it will be a real pleasure to hand you over to the Nazis.’