They Used Dark Forces (18 page)

‘Pardon me. I had not thought of that. I see now that I must abandon the idea.'

The next three days were uneventful. Sweating and moaning, Gregory submitted to the doctor's ministrations. Kuporovitch continued to bring up his meals, wash him and perform the functions of a nurse. For the rest of the time he sat on his own bed in the corner, talking a little, reading a little and apparently resigned at having had to give up his project of trying to get home.

On the morning of Saturday the 11th, Gregory awoke about seven o'clock and saw that Kuporovitch's bed was empty. To that he paid no special heed, assuming that his friend had left the room for some normal purpose. Ten minutes later Malacou burst in, gave one look at the Russian's empty bed, then lifted his hands, wrung them and wailed:

‘I knew it! The moment I awoke, I knew it! He is gone! He is not downstairs; he is not here! Iblis defend us from this madman. He will be caught! He will betray us. What are we to do? Oh, what are we to do?'

For the first time since they had met Gregory found himself regarding Malacou with a faint contempt. He felt no doubt that the doctor was right and that during the night Kuporovitch, ignoring the danger into which he might bring them, had
slipped away. But nothing could now bring him back. The doctor's loss of control seemed lamentable and his outburst entirely futile.

As Gregory lay looking up at the suddenly haggard face of the occultist he felt a little sorry for him, but he was far more grieved for a different reason. He took it hard that his friend had not told him of his secret intention; nor even left a written message near his pillow, bidding him good-bye.

For some minutes Malacou continued to wring his hands and lament, crying:

‘That accursed Russian will betray us. I know it! I know it! Those black fiends will come and drag us all to the slaughter. They'll strip us of our clothes and hang us up by our testicles. They'll shave Khurrem's head and thrust a red-hot poker into her. Oh, woe is me; woe is me! Was it not enough that I should be born one of the afflicted race? Have I not forsworn Jehovah? Where have I left the Path that this chastisement should come upon me?'

Lifting himself painfully into a sitting position, Gregory shouted:

‘Stop that! Pull yourself together, man! It will be time enough to start squealing when the Gestapo use their rubber truncheons on you. They've not got us yet.'

Malacou abruptly ceased his wailing, stared at him and muttered, ‘You are right. The thought of abandoning all the aids to my work here breaks my heart. But I must make preparations to leave Sassen at the earliest possible moment. If I can reach Poland I'll have little to fear. I still have many friends there who will aid me. These Nazi swine cannot know that I lived there before the war. I still own a house in the town of Ostroleka, north-east of Warsaw. In the country districts many thousands of Jews have been left their liberty, because the Germans cannot afford to deprive themselves of the produce they grow; and my Turkish passport will protect me from molestation.'

Gregory's heart gave a sudden lurch. Obviously Malacou would not jeopardise his flight by taking with him a stretcher
case and at that a man whom the Gestapo must still be hunting high and low. After a moment he asked, ‘Do you then intend to abandon me?'

The doctor hunched his shoulders and spread out his hands. ‘What else can I do? After all, it is you who have brought this terrible situation upon Khurrem and myself.'

‘That is not true!' Gregory snapped back. ‘You brought it on yourself by having Khurrem send that message about Peenemünde to Sweden.'

‘Well, perhaps. But I must have been temporarily out of my wits to do so. I succumbed to the temptation to strike a blow against the tormentors of my race, and see where it has landed me.'

‘Damn it, man! How can you stand there now and bleat to me that the risk you must have known you were taking was not worth while? Between us we have succeeded beyond our wildest hopes. Tens of thousands of your people have died without the chance to avenge themselves on a single Nazi. If we have to give our lives that's a small price to pay for the destruction of Peenemünde.'

‘But I do not want to die,' Malacou wailed, beginning to wring his hands again. ‘I have work to do; work of great importance. That I must leave you here distresses me greatly. But why should I stay here to be tortured and murdered with you when I still have a chance to escape?'

As Gregory could not yet even move from his bed he needed no telling that his only possible chance of saving his own life lay in persuading the doctor to remain at Sassen. If Malacou left it was certain that he would take Tarik, as well as Khurrem, with him. That meant that if Kuporovitch succeeded in getting away and the Nazis did not arrive to find the long-sought Major Bodenstein abandoned there, he would suffer a lingering death from thirst and starvation. He wondered grimly how Kuporovitch would feel about it if he ever learned the terrible fate that had overtaken his friend as a result of his decision to try to get back to England. Knowing that he was fighting for his life, Gregory racked his wits for a way to make Malacou change his mind. Suddenly one came to him and he said:

‘If you leave me here you are going to die anyhow. I'll see to that. By telling me of your plan to go to Poland you've played into my hands. Directly the Gestapo boys get here I'll tell them where you've gone.'

Malacou's dark face paled. ‘No! No!' he gasped. ‘You wouldn't do that. Think of all I have done for you.'

‘What you've done won't cut much ice if you leave me here to die of starvation.'

A sudden evil gleam showed in the doctor's black eyes and he shook his head. ‘You forget that you are at my mercy. I'd have no difficulty in seeing to it that you were dead before the Nazis got here.'

At this checkmating of his threat Gregory drew in a sharp breath. Then he exclaimed, ‘So you'd go to those lengths, eh? To save yourself you'd even murder a man who is your ally?'

For a moment Malacou continued to glower at him, then he muttered, ‘To do so will save you from torture; and, as you hold this threat over me, I see no alternative.'

‘There is an alternative,' Gregory retorted with assurance. ‘All this time you have been taking it for granted that Kuporovitch will be caught. But if he is not you have nothing to fear. And unless he's very unlucky I've little doubt that he'll succeed in getting away.'

‘You cannot really believe that.'

‘I do. His mild, happy-go-lucky nature is very deceptive. I've worked with him for months in Paris and other places, right under the noses of the Nazis. He is as cunning as a weasel, up to a hundred tricks and completely ruthless. If anyone gets in his way he'll kill him without the slightest compunction, and he possesses remarkable endurance. You have only to recall his extraordinary feat of getting me away from Peenemünde.'

‘You may be right, but I dare not risk it.'

Suddenly an inspiration came to Gregory and he said, ‘Listen. Before you set about murdering me, or exciting comment at the Manor by making arrangements for your flight, why not go downstairs and consult the oracles? You can't have lost your faith in the stars and that horoscope of Kuporovitch
that you drew up. Surely if there really is any basis for your beliefs you could find out what his chances are.'

Slowly Malacou nodded. ‘Now you speak sound sense. There are many reasons for my wishing to remain here if I can do so in safety.' Turning, he picked up from the bed a pair of pyjamas he had lent the Russian and added, ‘I can psychometrise these. Together with his horoscope that should tell me what we want to know.'

As he left the room Gregory relaxed on his bed with a sigh of relief. Yet he knew that he was still under suspended sentence of death. His thigh began to pain him, but his mind was so filled with apprehension that he was fully conscious of the throbbing only now and then. An hour dragged by and the better part of another; then Malacou entered the room again.

His dark, hooded eyes now looked tired from the efforts that he had made to concentrate, but his face was no longer grey with fear. Passing a hand wearily over his thick black grey-flecked hair, he said in a toneless voice:

‘I have done it. And the omens are favourable—very favourable. Today is the 11th and he could not have chosen a more propitious date. Not only is he ruled by the 2, but he was born on an 11th. Moreover, his two best days of the week are Sunday and Monday; therefore astral influences should continue to protect him tomorrow and the day after. His horoscope bears out what you say about his endurance, courage and resource; so with three fortunate days before him there is very good reason for hoping that he will get away from the district without accident. But probably not without a fight. I saw newly spilled blood in connection with him; and in some way he becomes involved with a servant of Mercury—perhaps a postman—but in what way I could not determine.'

‘Then,' Gregory asked eagerly, ‘you are prepared to stay here?'

‘Yes. For me to leave Sassen now would be to fly in the face of the omens. My own stars predict an uneventful period for me for some months to come. Besides, I have re-examined your horoscope and it is now much clearer to me. We are destined to work together in the future and you will be the means of saving me, probably from death.'

‘I am delighted to hear it,' Gregory remarked with unconcealed sarcasm. ‘Perhaps, then, you will set about giving me my daily dose of hell by redressing my leg, for I couldn't save a rabbit from a snare as long as I remain like this.'

Malacou shrugged. ‘You have cause to bear umbrage against me for my recent conduct. But I ask you to remember that I am endowed with very different qualities from yourself. You are a man of action, whereas I am a contemplative with an unusually vivid imagination. People like myself become frightened easily and liable to be panicked into taking any steps which they think may save them from physical pain. You have great fortitude, whereas I——'

‘God knows I need it,' Gregory cut in bitterly. ‘However vivid your imagination may be, I doubt if you can realise the gyp it gives me every time you treat my wound.'

‘I have a very good idea of it,' the doctor replied seriously, ‘and to show you that I am not altogether a coward I will, if you like, actually experience it.'

‘How can you?'

‘By taking your pain upon myself. You must have heard of that being done by psychic people who are also good Samaritans?'

‘Yes, I have,' Gregory agreed. ‘Very well, then. You owe me something for the scare you gave me two hours ago. We'll call it quits and I'll try to forget about that if you can do your stuff on my leg without causing me any pain.'

Rolling down the sheets, Malacou set about his daily ministrations. As he removed the bandages Gregory, to his amazement, felt only a slightly increased throbbing, but the occultist began to groan. Soon he was sweating profusely. Now and then he closed his eyes and, breathing heavily, had to stop. Twice his thick red lips quivered in an abrupt cry. By the time he had done his face was again haggard and as he stepped away from the bedside tears were running down his furrowed cheeks.

Collapsing in a chair he sat there for a few minutes panting and mopping his face. When he had recovered a little Gregory said, ‘I'm grateful to you for that. How I wish to God someone could take my pain every day.'

Malacou grunted. ‘For accepting it you have only yourself to blame. I told you a fortnight ago that it could be absorbed into your unconscious if you would allow me to hypnotise you.'

‘And I refused.'

‘To persist in doing so surprises me in a man of your intelligence. Do you not see how illogical it is to reject this method of killing pain, while being perfectly willing to let me inject you with pain-killing drugs? You would not refuse to be anaesthetised either, if you had to undergo an operation, would you?'

‘That's true,' Gregory said slowly, ‘but you are not an ordinary doctor, and Kuporovitch was convinced that you had entered into a pact with the Devil. Add to that, barely half an hour ago, you forswore your God in front of me. I'm pretty sceptical about that sort of thing myself, but——'

‘The Russian thinking that does not surprise me,' Malacou broke in. ‘They are a backward race and still greatly influenced by superstition. He, too, would be particularly imbued with such ideas, because he is subject to the Moon. Such people readily attribute every happening to the intervention of Christ or Satan. To suppose that is absurd, as people in Western Europe have come to recognise. As for my denying Jehovah, I no longer subscribe to the Jewish faith. It was only like a Protestant exclaiming “To hell with the Pope”. Anyhow, you at least appear to have an open mind on the matter, so I will bring you some books on hypnotism to read; then you will see for yourself that no question of good or evil enters into it.'

For several days, in spite of the occultist's favourable prognostications about Kuporovitch, Gregory continued to be extremely anxious about him, but by the Wednesday it seemed fairly certain that he had got away safely and by that time would have succeeded in establishing for himself a new identity.

About the latter possibility one matter gave both Gregory and Malacou food for speculation. It was that the village postman had also disappeared. He was an elderly dug-out who had returned to duty on account of the war, a widower and lived alone. He had last been seen on Friday evening working in
his garden and when he had not turned up at the village post office on Saturday morning it had been supposed that he was ill; so a girl had been sent out to do his round. As there was no delivery on Sunday, no-one had worried about his absence until Monday morning. The police had then been informed and had searched his cottage, but could find no clue to his disappearance; and no-one could suggest any reason why he might suddenly have decided to leave Sassen.