V for Vengeance (50 page)

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.