Codeword Golden Fleece (19 page)

In the streets the whole population of the capital seemed to be
engaged in sandbagging windows, digging trenches and erecting emergency air-raid shelters against the probability of further raids. Britain and France had not yet declared war on Germany, but the Poles had the utmost faith in their allies and expected that they would do so at any hour. In spite of the previous night’s raid, the population in the capital was calm, confident and solidly behind the Government. The morale of the Army was excellent, and, as they passed through on their way to the front, the troops were boasting that within a few weeks they would have taught Hitler a lesson.

‘Poor people,’ sighed the Duke. ‘I fear they are committed to a hopeless fight.’

‘Jan doesn’t think so,’ said Lucretia quickly. ‘He says that when they are fully mobilised their Army will be nearly three million strong, and they have quite a respectable Air Force, He thinks they will easily be able to hold the Germans until the winter brings about a stalemate, and that by the spring Britain and France will be ready to launch an offensive from the west.’

De Richleau shook his head. ‘That is simply wishful thinking, I’m afraid. One glance at the map is enough to show Poland’s hopeless strategical position. East Prussia cuts right into her in the north, and her main frontier makes a huge semicircle right round to the Hungarian border in the south. There are no chains of mountains or great rivers forming natural defence lines, the country is flat and lends itself perfectly to mechanised warfare, in which the Germans will prove immensely superior to the Poles; and, vulnerable as Poland is to attack on three sides, I don’t see how she can possibly hold out for more than a few weeks.’

‘But they are so brave,’ Lucretia protested; ‘and three million men are a lot.’

‘Yes, I doubt if the Germans will put more men in the field during the first few months; and no one questions the courage of the Poles. But, unfortunately, they are hopelessly old-fashioned. They live in the past and still put their faith in great masses of cavalry, just as though they were still living in the days of Jan Sobieski, who saved European civilisation by his defeat of the Turks in 1681. Great masters of modern war—men of the steel age—like von Geisenheim, will, I am sure, carry out the conquest of Poland with the ease and precision with which they would undertake a peace-time military exercise.’

‘Oh, it’s too terrible to think of!’ Lucretia suddenly turned
away her head, and Marie Lou and the Duke saw that there were tears in her eyes.

Marie Lou stood up. ‘You two have hardly seen each other since you parted at Lubieszow, so you must have lots of things to discuss,’ she said tactfully, ‘and if we are leaving again this afternoon I think I’ll go and repack my bag.’

When she had left them the Duke put his arm tenderly round Lucretia’s shoulders. ‘I’m afraid you must have thought me very brutal just now, but it is best that you should know the truth. I can understand how worried you must be if you are in love with Jan. You are in love with him, aren’t you?’

As she turned her face back to him it lit with a lovely smile. ‘Oh, of course I am, terribly.’

‘And he with you?’

‘Yes. Last week, before he returned to Lubieszow, it was absolute heaven being with him here in Warsaw. It’s the most wonderful place imaginable, and every one of our few nights together we danced ourselves silly. He simply smothered me in flowers and presents, and the days positively flew by before we’d said one tenth of what we had to say to each other.’

The Duke grimaced comically. ‘So Marie Lou was right. That’s why you neglected me so shamefully. I was worried out of my wits because you failed to telephone.’

‘Oh, darling, do forgive me. There seems to have been a terrible mess-up; but I thought you knew that I had gone on to Warsaw to wait for you. Then Jan turned up again, and I forgot everything except that I was once more in love.’

‘Of course I forgive you. My anxiety was a small price to pay for the thawing out of that stony heart of yours. Is the old wound really healed for good?’

Her radiant face forestalled her answer. ‘Yes. Poor Cristoval’s ghost is laid for ever. I can think of him now just as a dear friend of the past, and I’m sure he would be happy for me if he knew about Jan and me. We want to get married as soon as we can.’

‘That would be splendid,’ agreed the Duke, but he added after a moment—‘if it were not for this wretched war.’

‘I know. It’s a disgusting trick that Fate has played on us, isn’t it? Still, I see no reason why we shouldn’t get married all the same, if only Jan can get himself out of this scrape that he got himself into with that treacherous brute upstairs.’

‘I’ve already attended to that. I made Mack sign a statement
this morning that Jan’s attack on him was the result of a complete misunderstanding, and I don’t think he’ll be able to revoke it. Jan may not like the quite untrue inference that he didn’t know what he was up to, but if he is wise he will make no bones about it, as the document should give him complete immunity from any trouble that may be boiling up for him and—er—enable him to rejoin his squadron.’

‘Yes, I suppose he will have to do that,’ said Lucretia sadly. ‘Oh, what things I could do to that filthy Hitler! But Jan will get leave after a few weeks, won’t he? And we could be married then.’

‘My dear,’ said the Duke gently, ‘I have been trying to break it to you that for Poland this will not be like an ordinary war, I have been through too many wars and know too much of military affairs to be deceived at my age. The Nazi campaign will be swift, ruthless and terrible. The Polish Army will go down, fighting bravely to the last perhaps, but under a series of overwhelming blows delivered simultaneously from the north, west and south. There will be no leave for anybody, and I fear few Polish fighting-men will see their homes again until some final pacification releases them from the German prisoner-of-war camps.’

‘It is most unlikely that Spain will enter the war, so as a neutral I could stay on here to be near Jan, even if the Germans occupy Warsaw.’

‘Yes, I think the Germans will refrain from molesting neutrals—at all events to start with. If, however, you
had
married Jan in the meantime, as his wife you would have assumed Polish nationality, and I prefer not to think what might happen to you in a German-occupied city. Wouldn’t it really be best for you to leave Warsaw with us this afternoon, and, somehow or other, even if it means coming back here after the Polish collapse, Rex and I and the other two would get Jan out for you so that you could marry him in England?’

‘Oh, darling, I know you would! But I couldn’t possibly leave Warsaw without seeing Jan again. I simply couldn’t do it!’

‘Jan will, I hope, be bringing Richard and Simon here in the course of an hour or two. You will see him then.’

Lucretia put a slim hand to her white forehead. ‘I love him so very much. I don’t know what to do. Give me a little time to think things over.’

Much perturbed, but realising that he could do no more for
the moment, de Richleau left her and went downstairs again. Soon afterwards Borki returned, bringing with him irritating tidings of an unforeseen, but probably only temporary, hitch in their plans.

It transpired that the night before, after the air raid, Jan had gone out to join a volunteer first aid squad that was dealing with the casualties in his district. Apparently he had worked all night and telephoned the professor that morning to say that he was dead-beat, so he was accepting a bed at the house of one of his fellow workers and would not be back until early evening. As his old tutor did not know from where he had rung up, or the name of his host, it was impossible to get in touch with him until he turned up again.

Borki had left the two documents with the professor, requesting him to give them to Jan the moment he came in and to ask him to act on the one concerning the two English prisoners immediately.

The delay was annoying, but it could not be helped, and when they had lunched they pressed forward with their other arrangements for departure. Mack, having been confined to his room after their morning session, was once more out of the way, so Rex was free to overhaul the car—a big Mercédès-Benz—and fill it up with oil and petrol. De Richleau visited his prisoner to extract from him a short statement that Borki had assisted his captors with reluctance and only under compulsion, for the major-domo’s protection after they had gone; but, on giving it to the faithful retainer, the Duke urged him to take the extra precaution of leaving for his master’s estate in the country that night. About the other servants he was not worried, as none of them had played any part in Mack’s detention and were, in fact, still unaware of it. He then arranged with Borki and Marie Lou about food for the journey and assisted in packing a hamper with a plentiful supply.

It was decided that they should have an early dinner as Jan might arrive with their friends any time after eight o’clock, and the Duke wanted to get out of the city before dark, if possible, in case there was another air raid. The afternoon passed quite quickly, and they went in to dinner at seven o’clock. By eight the luggage was being carried down, and Rex was strapping it on to the grid at the back of the car.

De Richleau went up to pay a last visit to his captive and, to once, smiled quite pleasantly at him, as he said:

‘We are expecting our friends at any moment now, so we shall be leaving quite shortly. I have given Borki instructions to release you at midnight. That will give us the best part of four hours’ start in case you are so ill-advised as to play us any tricks. I should like to have kept you locked up for another twenty-four hours, but I want Borki to be able to say, without appearing to stretch the truth too far, that he came up to let you out as soon as he was reasonably certain that we should not return and flay him alive. In view of your transactions at Lubieszow, I trust you will see the wisdom of letting sleeping dogs lie. To explain away all the documents you have signed you would have to give a full account of your kidnapping, and once that goes on an official file all sorts of questions may arise which you would find difficult to answer satisfactorily; and, now Poland is actually at war with Germany, things would not be made very comfortable for anyone who was even suspected of having tried to climb over to the other side of the fence.’

‘I’m not a fool,’ grated Mack, ‘and the sooner you get out the better, I only hope that you all break your necks.’

‘I could not reciprocate any wish more heartily,’ replied the Duke, and opening the door, locked it swiftly behind him.

On his way downstairs he met Lucretia, carrying her dressing-case. ‘So you’ve decided to come with us!’ he exclaimed in delight.

‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve only prepared to do so—so as not to delay you if I do decide to go; but I haven’t decided yet. I mean to put the matter to Jan and tell him that, if he wants me to stay here, I’m ready to marry him tomorrow morning. On the other hand, if he thinks it wiser to wait, I’ll do as you wish.’

De Richleau heaved an inaudible sigh of relief. He felt that Jan was not the sort of man to place the woman he loved in danger, and that, however confident he might be of a Polish victory, he would insist on Lucretia’s leaving Warsaw—at least for the time being—with friends who could look after her, rather than allow her to remain on virtually alone in a city now subject to enemy bombing attacks.

As they reached the hall, Borki was just opening the front door. A smart little box-van stood outside, gaily painted pale blue and bearing in silver script the trademark of a well-known Warsaw florist. Jan was already halfway up the front-door steps, and Simon was scrambling out of the back of the van.

The Duke’s heart warmed within him, and he mentally congratulated
himself on the success of all his schemes. It has been a difficult and exhausting three days, but they had managed to evade many dangers, and by his skilful manipulation of Mack he had reunited the five people he loved best in the world. He felt reasonably confident that, for his own sake, Mack would not raise the issue of his kidnapping, and that the papers he had signed would carry them safely over the frontier. Given reasonable luck they might all be laughing over a good dinner at the Donapalata, in Budapest, in twenty-four hours’ time.

As Lucretia flung herself into Jan’s arms the Duke called out: ‘Hello, Simon! Thank God you’re back with us! I’ve secured safe-conducts for us all, and we’ve got a car. Now you and Richard have arrived we shall be leaving for the frontier in a quarter of an hour’s time.’

Simon came rather slowly up the steps, and on his thin face there was only the shadow of a smile.

‘Ner,’ he said, shaking his birdlike head as he uttered the curious negative he often used. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but we can’t possibly leave tonight.’

‘Where’s Richard?’ demanded the Duke abruptly. ‘Didn’t you bring him with you? I was expecting to see him jump out of the back of that van after you.’

‘He’s in there all right. But he won’t jump out. I’ve taken the hell of a risk in bringing him at all. Our car crashed, and he’s pretty bad. As a matter of fact, he’s still unconscious.’

For a moment de Richleau stood there speechless. He had felt so confident that, provided Jan met with no hitch in securing the release of the two prisoners, all would be well; and now, in one brief sentence, Simon had brought his edifice of skilful planning
tumbling like a pack of cards about his head. But his disappointment was almost instantly submerged in his concern for Richard

‘What happened?’ he asked, advancing at once to the open door. ‘What sort of injuries has Richard suffered?’

‘We had to pull up at an all-night garage in Brest-Litovsk for more petrol. Chap there gave it to us without any fuss, but for some reason or other it seems that the police were out to catch us. They may have learned from him later of our stop there, which would account for their knowing which road we were using. We met our first spot of bother at the outskirts of a place called Baila Pedias, about three o’clock in the morning. Lights were flashed at us on the road ahead. I pulled up, thinking it was only some workmen doing repairs. But it was the police. One of them jumped on the running-board and told me in broken English to drive on slowly into the town. Richard pushed him off, and I put my foot on the gas. It was dead easy, and we got away. We tumbled to it that there’d been a slip-up somewhere, and that the balloon had gone up much earlier than we expected. For a bit we thought of getting on to a side road, but we decided against it. Thought we’d probably get ourselves lost and waste too much time. At Siedlce, about fifty miles from Warsaw, another squad of police was waiting for us. Richard was driving then. He accelerated and drove right through them, but they fired on us. Shot burst one of our tyres, and we were doing eighty. Poor old Richard couldn’t hold her. We piled up against a telegraph pole. By a miracle I was flung through the roof. Didn’t get a scratch except for a nasty jolt and some bruises. But Richard’s head went through the windscreen, and his hip was smashed by the steering-wheel. They patched him up at the local hospital, then took us straight on to Warsaw. He’s been in the prison infirmary ever since.’