V for Vengeance (19 page)

Gregory, who had spent several years of his boyhood as a cadet on H.M.S. Worcester, and still retained from those days the rudiments of managing small craft, was extremely puzzled by the seemingly incompetent handling of the two smacks that were bearing down upon them. They had ample room to manoeuvre in, and by putting about their tillers either could easily have sheered off on another tack, yet these Breton fishermen who were most excellent sailors, stood shouting and waving their arms as though they were completely helpless.

Suddenly it flashed into Gregory's tired brain that Henri Denoual's friends among the fisherfolk might know that his place on the island was used at times as a secret rendezvous and had now been taken over by the Germans. Perhaps this was a deliberate attempt at rescue. In any case, it looked now as though a collision was inevitable, and that at least would offer a chance of escape. Letting go one of his oars, he grasped the other with both hands and pulled it in, intending to use the butt as a lance against the Germans.

But they, too, evidently now suspected a plot. While the sergeant, grabbing the tiller-ropes again, frantically endeavoured to steer the boat, which was now rapidly losing way, between the two oncoming smacks, the other two soldiers, half standing up, had drawn their automatics. Kuporovitch, too, was fully alive to the possibilities of this unexpected situation. With a single heave of his great arms he had tossed one of his oars upright and sat there grasping it, but dared not bring it crashing down on any of the men in the stern as they had him covered.

The two German privates were thrown off their balance, and with splendid timing Kuporovitch let go his oar. It came crashing down, catching one of them with a dull thud on the shoulder. He let out a yell of pain, and his pistol dropped from his nerveless fingers.

Recovering himself, the other German fired at Gregory, just as he thrust with the butt of the oar at the fellow's chest. Had he fired a second earlier at that short range Gregory would have been riddled with bullets, but one of the fishermen, seeing his peril, had thrown a rope bumper with excellent aim. It caught the German in the face, his arm jerked upwards, and the spate of bullets from his gun sped harmlessly over Gregory's head.

At that instant there was another rending crash as the second smack rammed the boat on its other side. Crushed now between the two larger vessels, part of its planking was stove in, and it rapidly began to fill with water.

His blue eyes blazing in his pasty face, the Prussian sergeant had been about to launch himself on Gregory, but the second impact sent him sprawling backwards across the tiller between his two comrades. Thrusting them aside, he dragged out his gun, while screaming in one breath that he'd shoot both the prisoners and in the next that he would have every man, woman and child in Saint Jacut executed as a reprisal for this sabotage.

The boat was now sinking under them, stern first, owing to the greater weight of the three Germans who were massed there. Kuporovitch endeavoured to stand up, but his injured ankle gave way, and he fell back with a moan into the bows. Then as the boat tilted its bow was carried upwards, so that two of the fishermen leaning over the side of their smack were able to grasp him by the arms and drag him aboard, just as the boat went down, leaving the others struggling in the water.

In those few violent seconds while the three Germans were all in a heap in the stern of the rapidly filling boat Gregory could easily have scrambled aboard one of the smacks, but he deliberately refrained from taking the chance to make good his escape. His eyes were riveted upon the sergeant. He meant to kill the swine personally, even if he died for it himself.

He was terribly weak and very near collapse from the frightful time he had been through. The Prussian was a much younger man, fresh, taller, armed and as strong as a horse. The odds were terribly uneven, but Gregory had one advantage—a quickness of brain which far outclassed the Prussian's, and an unscrupulousness which even his enemy, try as he might, could not excel.

The German fired twice before he went under. Gregory ducked and both bullets missed. As the boat tilted he stood there, waist-high in the water, grinning fiendishly down upon his enemy. He caught one glimpse of the man's face before it splashed beneath the surface, and the stupid blue eyes were now filled with a horrible animal fear. But Gregory had no thought of mercy, or even that he was most probably throwing his own life away by going in, weak as he was, to a death grapple with his brutish foe. Stretching out his hands, he flung himself forward right on top of the sinking Prussian, and they went under together.

In spite of all the individual acts of stress and violence which had taken place, from the first certainty that a collision could not be prevented to the sinking of the boat had barely occupied two minutes. At one moment Kuporovitch was vainly striving to stand in the raised-up bow of the boat, and the next he was on the deck of one of the smacks propping himself up against its side between two Breton fishermen.

The boat had now gone right under and showed only as a wavy outline below the little lapping crests. Gregory and the sergeant had disappeared; the two other Germans were flapping about in the water. The one whose shoulder Kuporovitch had injured was already in difficulties. Yelling for help, he splashed his way to the side of the smack and thrust up his sound arm to grasp the small anchor which was dangling over the bow of the vessel. One of the fishermen near Kuporovitch grabbed a boathook, pushed it down towards the man, and hooked it into his uniform near the collar.

‘
Danke, Danker,
' gasped the German, but his thanks were premature. When the boathook was firmly fixed the fisherman muttered something in patois to his companion. The other swung a mop-handle he was holding over the side and banged the German sharply across the knuckles with it.

From hope and relief the young Nazi's face suddenly changed to ungovernable terror. A second hard crack over his fingers forced him to let go of the anchor, then the man with the boathook, instead of hauling it up, thrust it down, forcing the German under the water. For two or three minutes he was held there, while the bubbles of his life's breath caused little eddies upon the surface; then the two fishermen drew him up and threw his drowned body down into the hold as though it had been that of a dead rat.

The other soldier had struck out strongly for the shore, but he was not destined to reach it. The second smack got under way again and gave chase. When it came up to within a few yards of him, one of the fishermen in it cast out a heap of fishing-net, which fell on the German's head and unrolled in the water around him. Next moment he was enmeshed with his feet and arms caught in the clinging net, and unable to strike out freely any longer. For a moment he struggled wildly and almost got free, but another bundle of nets was thrown out, which half-buried him and carried him right under. The fishermen gave him time to drown, then he too was hauled on board, and his limp body flung face down in the hold.

Meanwhile, Kuporovitch was hardly conscious of these things, owing to his acute anxiety for Gregory. It now seemed an age since the boat had sunk, yet neither he nor the Prussian had so far come to the surface.

As Gregory went under he knew that he had not the strength to strangle his powerful opponent, and he did not mean to be dragged down with him if he could help it. With his left hand which was still sound, he grasped the sergeant by the collar, then he straightened his right thumb and with all his force plunged it into the brute's left eye.

There was no scream, since by that time they were both a good six feet under the water, but he felt the violent jerk of the Prussian's body, and the great hand that was clutching at his shoulder suddenly lost its grip.

For a full minute Gregory thrust and thrust with all the power of his strong right arm and rigid thumb, while they went down, down, down together, the Prussian squirming under him. Then there was a bump, as the man's back hit the
bottom. Had the water been deeper Gregory would have been able to get away, but his own impetus carried him forward right into the arms of his now stationary enemy.

Although two of the fingers of Gregory's right hand were useless, his instinct was to withdraw it, as his enemy's arms closed about his body in a deadly hug. In another second he had realised that his one chance of escape now lay in paralysing his enemy before his own lungs burst, and that the only way for him to do that was to get the point of his thumb right into the Prussian's brain. With maniacal force, and knowing that his life depended on it, he thrust and thrust again.

Suddenly the man's arms relaxed, slipping sideways from Gregory's shoulders, and he was free. Pushing the corpse from under him, he stood up and, cleaving the water with his arms, strove to rise to the surface. It was only then that he became conscious of a new peril. His feet and legs were nearly buried up to the knees in the mud at the bottom of the creek.

The deep breath that he had taken before going down after his adversary was now used up. His lungs were straining for fresh oxygen, but, flail his arms as he would, he could not jerk himself free from the clinging slime. For a moment he struggled violently, straining every muscle, but without result. Then he knew that he was trapped and must die there.

For a few seconds Gregory went dead-still, gathering all his remaining force together for one last effort. In his early struggles to free himself he had dragged first at one foot, then at the other; but as one had come up a little the other had only gone down farther into the clinging ooze. Fighting off his panic, he strove to think clearly, knowing now that his strength could not save him, but his wits still might. Almost instantly it came to him that if only he could get one foot out and place it on the dead German's body he might be able to drag the other free.

Exerting his overstrained muscles to their uttermost and flinging his body sideways, he strove to wrench out his right foot, but the slime seemed a living thing, with the grip of a giant octopus. With despair creeping into his heart he knew that his strength was ebbing and that his effort had failed.

His lungs were bursting. He could no longer control his jaws. A big bubble came out of his mouth, and the muddy water gushed down his throat.

He had always heard that drowning was a pleasant death, but had no cause to think it so. The water brought no relief, and the pains in his chest were more agonising than ever. It was too late now to curse his own folly in preferring personal vengeance upon this brutish lout, who lay dead in the slime beside him, to life and all the glorious things it offered. The game was up. He would never again know the joy of Erika's caresses, the thrill of a new adventure, the feel of a hot bath and a comfortable bed after a long hard journey, or the cool richness of a beaker of iced champagne. He was going to die there for the pleasure of having killed a stupid oaf and make
food for fishes on the bottom of a little creek which was no more then twelve feet deep.

At that thought his wildly whirling brain conceived the notion that the Breton fishermen had seen him go in and that when he did not come up would try to find him; but in a flash he knew that such a thought was only the wildest of wishful thinking. They would find him all right when the tide went out, but the water was too cloudy for them to see him standing there, and they might drag the creek with anchors and grappling irons for hours before there was any chance of one of them catching in his clothes; by then he would long since be drowned past all resuscitation.

Although his lungs were rapidly filling with water he began to fight again, yet weakly now, and his efforts to free himself were no longer controlled, but just the spasmodic jerkings of a desperate dying man. It was dark down there, but through the turgid water he saw what seemed to be a darker patch slowly weaving its way towards him. The pain in his chest became unendurable, his head was splitting, stars whirled before his eyes, then blackness engulfed him, and he lost consciousness.

Up on the deck of the fishing-smack Kuporovitch was half-crazy with anxiety. He knew that Gregory in his weakened state was no match for the hefty Prussian, and as neither of them had come up to the suface felt certain now that they must be locked in a death-grapple on the bottom. As soon as the two Bretons with the boathook had dealt with the German soldier who had tried to climb aboard, he gabbled out to them his desperate fears for his friend, and the younger of the two took a header over the side to see if he could find the missing Englishman.

After a minute he came up gasping, dived again, came up again, swam back a little nearer to the place from which the smack had drifted, and went down twice more; but his efforts proved unavailing. He shouted that the water was so dark and muddy near the bottom that he could not see more than a yard in any direction.

In the meantime, Kuporovitch had kept one eye on the other smack which was pursuing the unwounded German. He saw the fishermen cast out two bundles of nets which
enmeshed the swimmer, causing him to sink and drown. He saw them haul in the first net and pull up the drowned man's body; then they began to heave in the second net. That too was taut from a weight that dragged it down, and suddenly a second body appeared on the surface.

It was the trailing-net which Gregory had seen coming towards him as a dark patch through the murk. Even as his consciousness was leaving him it had wrapped round his body, while he instinctively thrust his fingers through the spaces, clutching at it with the fierceness of a dying man. His unconscious grip had held, and the way of the heavy boat going under sail through the water above had wrenched him from the muddy death-trap.

As soon as the two boats could be brought together Kuporovitch boarded the second. The men had just cut Gregory clear of the net, and he lay there on the deck—a loose sodden heap, with water slowly trickling from his mouth. One of the bronzed Bretons, a tall bearded man, who appeared to be their captain, was examining him. He said that he looked pretty far gone, but they would do their very best for him, and turning him over on his stomach they set to work to give him artificial respiration.