V for Vengeance (44 page)

‘Well, ours is a forlorn hope,' Kuporovitch made a grimace; ‘but I agree that we should delay no longer.'

‘All right then,' Gregory nodded. ‘All the arrangements for planting the stuff are made, and Ribaud had better warn two or three of his people to get out tomorrow. After that, we'll do a few more every day, then put the balloon up on the 7th.'

On the following afternoon Kuporovitch got Madeleine on her own and said to her: ‘Listen, my loveliness. In a few days now we shall be making our bid to alter the whole course of the war. As you know, I cannot even hint at the form our blow will take, but I can tell you that from now on every member of Lacroix's organisation will be in extreme danger. You know how, for weeks past, I have been typing night and day, and that Gregory brought back with him from London hundreds of other forged documents. Since his return we have been sorting and addressing them to various members of the organisation.

‘Each of these carefully varied sets of paper is to be planted in his own dwelling by the person to whom it is addressed. Then they will leave Paris with their families and be smuggled out into Unoccupied France, or Belgium, or Switzerland. On the last day of the operation our key-members will also plant their special documents, and arrangements are being made to get them away in a body. Then one of us will tip off the Germans that a vast conspiracy exists and turn in the addresses of our friends after they have gone. The Nazis will raid their homes and find all these incriminating papers which vary slightly, but tell the same story.

‘While Gregory was in London he made arrangements with the British Secret Service for a similar policy to be pursued upon a smaller scale in Norway, Denmark, Holland and Belgium; so that when it is uncovered the Germans will believe that this conspiracy has its ramifications throughout
the whole of their occupied territories. Upon their reactions to what we are leaving for them to discover depends the success or failure of our enterprise; but the next few days will be a period of extreme danger.

‘There is no way in which we can prevent individual members of our organisation reading the documents that we give them before they put them away in their secret files and leave their homes. If there is a traitor among us we are undone, since he might not only turn over the documents prematurely to the Nazis himself, but consider the time ripe to blow our whole movement sky-high. You know how dearly I love you. Will you, for my sake, agree to leave Paris?'

She smiled up at him. ‘No, Stefan, not even for you. It isn't fair to ask me. I don't know what you mean to do, but, whatever it is, you're doing it because of that outburst of mine the night that Gregory first returned to us. This is my party—my vengeance—and nothing in the world will persuade me not to be with you and Gregory when the blow is struck.'

It was so plain that her mind was absolutely made up that he forbore to argue, but he looked very grave as he went upstairs to work, for he knew the extreme risk that they were all now running.

For the next few days there was a great tenseness in the house, and Gregory and Kuporovitch talked very little. They were constantly on the move and held innumerable guarded telephone conversations from a call-box some way along the street with Ribaud and various other members of the organisation.

On July the 4th it was reported that German air-borne troops were already landing in Syria, and even Gregory was surprised and disturbed by this indication that within three days of their conquest of Crete the Germans were already so far advanced in the mounting of their next offensive.

On the night of the 5th a last conference was held at the Professor's house, in which Lacroix gave special instructions to his most intimate followers. They were not allowed into the main secret but were told that the night of the 7th had been agreed upon to stage a major blow upon the enemy, and this would necessitate their abandoning their homes with their families. With their relatives and with only such luggage
as they could carry in their pockets they were to assemble at the Professor's house during the course of the day—each individual being given a special time so that the seventeen of them who were concerned should not arouse suspicion by arriving in a body.

Lacroix had decided that to endeavour to smuggle seventeen people and their families over the frontier into Unoccupied France, at one time was too great an undertaking, but Ribaud had devised a plan for getting the whole company safely out of the country altogether. He alone was to remain in Paris, as his contacts in the heart of the enemy police system were too valuable to be jeopardised for the sake of one additional person planting some of the faked documents. Lacroix, too, would not be present, as it was important that he should be at his own headquarters in Vichy to get the first reactions of the Germans to the conspiracy when it was unmasked. In consequence, Léon Baras, the bull-necked Communist Deputy, was placed in charge of the arrangements for evacuating the main party.

During the past few days the patients in the Marquise de Villebois' house had been quietly evacuated one by one in Madame Idlefonse's ambulance, and the Marquise herself was to leave Paris with her daughter on the following morning, so on the 6th, for the first time in many weeks, Madeleine found herself without any night duty to perform.

As was his custom, almost immediately after supper Luc Ferrière went up to his room. Pierre, who was in the middle of an interesting book, said that he was going up to bed, and Gregory went out to make some last minute arrangements; so Stefan and Madeleine were left alone.

For a few moments they sat in silence, then he said: ‘Time's getting short now, my beautiful. Have you decided what you mean to do when the balloon goes up?'

She looked at him in some surprise. ‘Why, stay here with you and Pierre, of course. As there's no question of planting any documents in this house, we shan't have to leave Paris like the others, and we'll be able to see the results of our great coup at first hand.'

He shook his head. ‘But no, Madeleine, that is impossible. I thought I made that clear the other day when I urged you to
leave for Unoccupied France well before the party started.'

‘You asked me to go, and I said I wouldn't. But you didn't say anything about its being impossible for me to stay here after you had sprung your mine.'

‘Didn't I—are you sure?' He raised his heavy black eyebrows in well-simulated surprise, since he knew perfectly well that he had intentionally misled her, and went on: ‘I thought I'd made it plain that I was only asking you to go a few days earlier than you would have to in any case. That certainly was my intention.'

‘But why should we not stay on here?' she asked. ‘As I've just said, since Luc Ferrière is not one of us, you won't be planting documents on him, so there's no reason why the house should be raided.'

Kuporovitch looked away a little uncomfortably. He had no wish to discuss with her the matter of Luc Ferrière, as having lived in the Mayor's house for so many months a subtle change had gradually taken place in their relations with him. At first they had regarded him with open hatred, as the man who had betrayed a number of their friends to death and torture; but with the course of time, since they never talked politics with him, they had developed first an indifference and then a semi-friendly tolerance of their host, who from fear and dislike had slowly come to accept them as members of his household. Madeleine was completely merciless as far as the Nazis were concerned, but the Russian feared now that her natural compassion might lead her to make the strongest protest and all sorts of difficulties if he confessed to her that Ferrière was to be made a scapegoat for their enemies.

He had even been a little loth himself to agree to planting documents on the Mayor and leaving him there to be hauled in by the Gestapo, but Gregory had insisted. He had pointed out that the one weakness of their conspiracy was that, as they could not bring themselves to sacrifice any of their own people deliberately, when the raids were made no arrests would follow, which might make the Nazis suspicious.

To counter this they had succeeded in planting documents on a few of their enemies, who would naturally deny all knowledge of the conspiracy when they were arrested; but these were few, and people of no particular importance,
whereas Ferrière was a French official of high standing, who ever since the fall of France had been acting in collaboration with the Germans. As Gregory argued, it was the Mayor who had caused the nursing-home to be raided, and the fact that many months had elapsed since then should not be allowed to save him from an appropriate recompense; and just because they had been able to make use of him since was no reason at all why he should be spared when by turning him in they could so materially further the great plan upon which they were engaged.

Looking back at Madeleine, Kuporovitch simply shrugged his shoulders. ‘I do not myself know all the details of what has been arranged. I can only tell you that it is by Colonel Lacroix's orders that all of us are to leave this house. I have already spoken to Madame Chautemps, and she will leave in the afternoon to go and stay with her relatives at Rheims. Pierre, of course, knows nothing of the inside of the conspiracy, but will receive his orders to leave by an underground channel for Occupied France in the morning.'

‘I see,' she said slowly; ‘and where do you and Gregory intend to go?'

‘Arrangements have already been made for us to leave the country. Pierre has been given the impression that when the balloon goes up the four of us are leaving together for Unoccupied France, because we did not wish him to know that any arrangements had been made for the principal members of the movement to leave France altogether. As you were unwilling to go when I urged you before, I arranged matters so that you could make your choice at the last moment. You can come with us if you wish, but if you insist on remaining in France, for a time at all events, Lacroix wishes you to move into the unoccupied territory, so I shall fix up for you to leave with Pierre first thing tomorrow.'

He did not add that whatever she decided would also settle his own movements, and that if he could not persuade her to come with Gregory and himself he meant to join her in Unoccupied France as soon as possible. He was taking a big gamble, having intentionally left her in the air until the last moment with the belief she would be able to stay on in Paris
with both Pierre and himself. For him everything now hung upon her answer.

It came quickly.

‘But, Stefan,' she exclaimed, ‘except for those few weeks when you were in England, we've been together now for a whole year. I—I simply don't know what I should do without you.'

He suddenly stood up and took her hand. ‘Do you mean that, Madeleine?'

‘Of course I do. I couldn't bear to be parted from you, after all this time.'

Looking down into her eyes, he said very gravely: ‘A year's a long time, isn't it? Georges has been dead for a year. I know very well that you haven't forgotten him. You never will. But answer me one question: which means more to you now—Georges' memory or myself?'

She came to her feet and faced him. ‘Georges was very dear to me, but I never lived under the same roof with him for months on end, and even he could not have given me greater devotion and affection than you have, Stefan. I know you far better than I ever knew him. I don't know where you're going, but wherever it is will you—will you take me with you?'

He knew then that he had won, and his face was radiant. She knew, too, that, although she had refused to admit it to herself, she had loved him almost from the beginning, for his courage, and his chivalry, and the sweetness of his nature.

‘You've waited a long time, Stefan,' she whispered. ‘I only hope you'll find me worth it.' And as she put her arms round his neck, turning up her face for his kiss, they both knew a glorious moment of great happiness.

One moment later the door opened, and Pierre stood in the doorway, his face a mask of furious anger.

At the sound of the door opening Madeleine and Stefan came out of their embrace and swung round. For a moment there was dead silence. Then Pierre, his eyes blazing fury, snarled at Madeleine:

‘So this is why you wouldn't come with me to Limoges! All your fine talk about Georges' memory was just lies. You were in love with Stefan all the time.'

‘Yes, Pierre, I was,' she answered frankly; ‘but I didn't realise it until I knew that he was going to leave me.'

‘I don't believe you,' he stormed. ‘When I came down to get my book just now I heard you talking. I've known for days that something was on, but I didn't know that zero hour was tomorrow night. The two of you felt that I might make trouble, so you deliberately planned to fix me. You meant to get out together and leave me to be caught.'

‘If you think that, you can only have caught bits of our conversation,' Kuporovitch cut in. ‘We don't mean to sacrifice a single one of our members if it can be avoided, and the most careful arrangements have been made for everybody. You will receive your orders tomorrow morning to leave at once by one of the underground routes into Unoccupied France. I offered Madeleine the opportunity of going with you, but she preferred to come with me.'

‘That's the truth, Pierre,' Madeleine exclaimed. ‘I swear it!'

As he stared into her eyes he could not doubt her, yet he said stubbornly: ‘How
can
you think that I should ever have been willing to go off on my own? Wherever you go I'm going too.'

She shook her head. ‘I suppose it could be arranged for you
to come with us, but would that be wise? I mean, if we succeed in getting away I intend to marry Stefan, and you'd only be miserable if you remained with us.'

He caught his breath in a sob. ‘But, Madeleine, you can't. You'd never be happy. He's much too old for you.'