V for Vengeance (37 page)

At the doorway under the big
porte-cochère
Ribaud rang the bell, knocked twice and then rang the bell again, upon which it was opened by a man who was dressed as a servant but did not look or behave like one. He and Ribaud just nodded to each other, and the detective walked in with Kuporovitch behind him. Crossing the tiled hall, he led the Russian into a big
salon
at the back of the house, where eight or ten people were already assembled. Lacroix was among them, and he immediately came forward to greet the new arrivals.

Evidently the business of the meeting had not yet begun, and while they waited for another half-dozen people to arrive, either singly or in couples, Lacroix told Kuporovitch of his escape after the nursing-home was raided and that he hoped that by this time Gregory was back in England; but he had had no news of him. As the clock struck ten Lacroix seated himself at the head of a long table, and on the others taking seats round it he addressed them.

At first the proceedings did not mean very much to Kuporovitch, as the only person present whom he knew, other
than Lacroix and Ribaud, was Madame Idlefonse, and the first part of the Colonel's dissertation mainly concerned the excellent progress of the movement in the provinces of both Occupied and Unoccupied France. This was the result of a strong campaign, by means of the secret distribution of handbills and the pasting up at night on walls of subversive posters for strengthening anti-Nazi feeling; but Lacroix gave it as his opinion that they were now in a position to take more ambitious measures and to indulge in actual sabotage. He then asked for suggestions.

Various ideas were put forward, and Kuporovitch contributed as his quota the proposal that explosives should be smuggled into the cellars of the Hôtel Crillon and the German Headquarters blown up. Such an apparently impossible plan caused a certain amount of mild laughter until he related how he had actually got into the cellars himself, and, having done it once, saw no reason why he should not do it again; only this time, instead of delivering sacks of coal, it would be sacks of dynamite.

A big redheaded bull of a man, who proved to be an ex-Communist Deputy named Léon Baras, was all in favour of the idea, as were several of the others; but Lacroix vetoed it on the grounds that such an act would be certain to bring about the most ghastly reprisals. He pointed out that one of the great strangleholds which the Germans possessed over the French people was the fact that they still held over a million French soldiers who had been captured in the Battle for France, as prisoners in concentration camps. The Nazis were perfectly capable of butchering hundreds—if not thousands—of these unfortunate men. In his view, although lives should not be given undue value where the freedom of France was concerned, any such massacre, while causing the most bitter anger among the French people, would also antagonise them against the anti-Nazi movement, from fear that still more of their men might die as reprisals from the further activities of the freedom fighters.

He went on to say that he hoped, and had little doubt, that the time would come when the whole nation would rise to exterminate its enemies, but at present there was no sense in killing one German if ten, twenty, or even more Frenchmen
were to lose their lives as a result. Therefore, as yet they must confine their activities to the sabotage of German war materials and avoid killing, except in self-defence.

The majority of the meeting expressed itself in agreement with his views and proceeded to go into details with regard to the destruction of bridges, the derailing of trains and the firing of German supply dumps. Then, after a two-hours' session, it closed, and the members departed, singly or in couples, at intervals of about five minutes.

Kuporovitch remained with Ribaud and Lacroix until nearly the last, and he spent some more time talking to a little pale-faced man, with a shock of white hair whom the others had addressed as ‘The Professor'. It transpired that the Professor was the owner of the house, a distinguished chemist, and now engaged on the secret manufacture of time-bombs, to be used for sabotage.

At a little before one Ribaud and Kuporovitch made their adieux and left the house. As they went out Ribaud told the Russian to memorise the place and the way to it well, as he might be asked to attend future meetings on his own, since people were summoned in accordance with whom Lacroix wished to see at any particular time. He also reminded the Russian of the signal to secure admission; one ring, two knocks, and another ring. They then collected the car and Ribaud dropped Kuporovitch at the corner of the Rue Cardinet, from which he had to walk only a few hundred yards to Ferrière's house.

The first week in December was uneventful, except that on one night during it Kuporovitch participated in a plan arranged at the meeting by forming one of a squad of saboteurs who managed to get on board a row of barges in the Seine which contained valuable war material, and scuttle them. Pierre came to dinner again on Sunday, and Madeleine was upset to hear that her mother was suffering more acutely than ever from the cold, so that at times she even wept from it. But there seemed nothing that they could do to aid the invalid. All the fuel stores in Paris were now heavily guarded against night raids, and even Kuporovitch's ingenuity was not sufficient to devise a way in which they might heat Madame Lavallière's apartment. Gas and electricity for cooking were
now cut to the barest minimum, and the only heat that anyone in Paris, except the Germans and a few officials, could get was from crowding round a stove to warm their hands when a meal was being prepared.

In vain Madeleine cursed the Nazis for the distress they were inflicting upon her bedridden mother, but none of the others could think of any way to alleviate her sufferings. Madeleine wanted to risk a midnight visit to comfort her, but Kuporovitch still would not hear of it and Pierre too said he thought it would be most unwise. He said he was convinced that in recent weeks the Bonards had gone over to the enemy, because their son had been killed in a British air raid on Calais; and it was next to impossible to get into the block without the
concierge
or his wife being aware of it.

On the night of December the 9th they heard of the British offensive in Libya, and it cheered them a lot to think that after the great peril through which she had passed Britain now felt herself strong enough to launch an attack in force against one, at least, of the Axis partners.

The following night Kuporovitch was summoned to another meeting at the house of the Professor. Fresh plans for further sabotage were entered into, and he learned from Lacroix that, although the Colonel had no news of Gregory himself, their friend must have succeeded in getting back to England, as a large sum of money had arrived during the previous week via the trusted man at the French Consulate in Lisbon. This had lifted a great weight off the little Colonel's shoulders and enabled him to give all his plans a new impetus.

During the days that followed there was great excitement over the serious differences of opinion which had arisen in the Vichy Government. Marshal Pétain defied the Germans by dismissing Laval and appointing Flandin as Foreign Minister in his place. The French Senate and Chamber of Deputies were dissolved, and a Consultative Assembly substituted for them: then Laval was arrested. Otto Abetz, Hitler's
Gauleiter
in Paris, went personally to Vichy and secured Laval's release; but he was not reinstated, and Madeleine and her friends took this as a good indication that the first signs of resistance to the Nazis were now being forced upon the Vichy Government by the will of the French people.

They were cheered too by the news of the British successes in North Africa. In their first drive they had taken 26,000 Italian prisoners. By December the 15th they were fighting on Libyan soil, and by the 16th both Sollum and Fort Capuzzo, two great Italian strongholds, had been captured.

Kuporovitch was now out every night, either as one of the leaders of the gangs of Paris saboteurs or foraging for supplies. While attempting to fire a portion of the great Citroën motor works, which had been taken over by the Germans, he was very nearly captured, but he managed to get away by scattering the inflammable liquid that he was carrying over the two guards who attacked him, instead of on the roof of the shed, which had been his objective.

The Italians had now been driven far back into Albania, and two of their divisions, caught with brilliant generalship by the Greek Chief of Staff, General Papagos, had been entirely destroyed. On the 19th the British had surrounded Bardia, and the number of Italian prisoners taken to date had risen to over 31,000. It was on the night that this news came through that Madeleine was summoned to her first meeting at the Professor's house, and as she might not have been able to find it on her own Kuporovitch was instructed to take her.

Lacroix was now making secret visits to Paris from Vichy nearly every week, and he told them that he had at last had news of Gregory, but he feared that it was not too good. Gregory had got safely home but had been caught in the heavy raid on London of November the 15th. He had been crushed under the blitzed building, and it had been thirty hours before they had been able to get him out. Fortunately his head had been protected by a fallen beam, but his left leg had been broken and he had sustained severe injuries to his body. For some weeks he had hung between life and death, but he had managed to pull through and recently had been transferred to the country, where he was convalescing; but the Colonel thought it would be several months before he was fit to take an active hand in the game again.

Lacroix had wanted to see Madeleine because he felt that sufficient time had now elapsed since the police had been hunting for her for the majority of them to have forgotten her description; and he had work for her to do. Now that the
number of his sabotage squads was increasing, so too were their casualties through brushes with night-watchmen, sentries and police; so he had found it necessary to establish a genuine nursing-home where they could have their injuries attended to and remain in bed until they recovered.

She at once expressed her willingness to undertake such work, but Kuporovitch intervened to say that, although the police might have forgotten their description, if either of them were seen coming in and out of Luc Ferrière's house regularly in the daytime the neighbours would begin to wonder who they were. As they had no ration-cards for use at local shops, suspicion might be aroused through some officious gossip, which would lead to an investigation and an arrest.

The Colonel agreed, but thought that might be got over, and introduced Madeleine to a handsome white-haired woman, the Marquise de Villebois, who was running her house as a home for him.

When the situation was explained the Marquise said that she already had her own daughter and another girl, both of whom had trained as V.A.D.s in the early part of the war. They were quite able to run the house and look after the patients in the daytime; but she badly wanted a reliable night nurse, as she and the two girls were on their feet all day. The house was in the Boulevard Saint Germain, and they all agreed that if Madeleine set out after dark each night, and returned before the neighbours were up each morning, there was no great likelihood of her being recognised during her journeys backwards and forwards in the Metro; so everything having been fixed up she set about her new duties the following night.

The thought of Christmas, and to the French the even more important festival of the New Year, was now in everybody's mind; but little of the spirit of Christmas animated the gloomy captive city. The thousands of once well-stocked shops, in which the Parisians had bought their food luxuries and elegant useless trifles so casually, were now almost empty. Even wine, the very life-blood of the French people, was at a premium, and hard to come by. There were queues in every street each morning, while shivering housewives waited anxiously to see if they could obtain their meagre rations.
There was no heating in any of the great blocks, and coal, coke and firewood were as precious as diamonds.

Now that Britain had broken the power of the Luftwaffe and was actually taking the offensive in Libya, no one could see any possible ending to the war. Many people in Paris were now bankrupt and starving. Thousands of others had sons, husbands or lovers who had been in the Forces at the time of the collapse and were now in German concentration camps. Thousands more had wives, daughters, and sweethearts who were missing—just disappeared—they knew not where—in the terrible upheaval which had shaken the country to its foundations the previous summer. For days past there had been snow and bitter winds; the pavements were slippery with ice and the streets full of dirty slush. On every hand there was misery, destitution and despair.

Yet there was at least one person in Paris who thoroughly enjoyed the life he was leading. Stefan Kuporovitch was a man without a home, and for the time being Ferrière's house suited him admirably. It was roomy enough and as comfortable as they could reasonably wish, except for the cold, and even that caused him far less inconvenience than most people, because he was used to the Arctic winters of his native Russia.

He had long since made up his mind that their unwilling host set much too high a price upon his stamp collection to betray them; so, barring some unforeseen accident which they could not possibly guard against, they were perfectly safe as long as they chose to stay there. As he hated inactivity and was adventurous by nature, he got a big kick out of his nightly prowlings after supplies, or skilfully planned acts of sabotage. They had plenty to eat, and, as he had found means to supplement the contents of the cellar, plenty to drink. Above all, he was living in the same house as the girl he adored. For him the approach of Christmas meant only another excuse for one of his celebrations.

On Christmas Eve he took Madeleine to the house of the Marquise de Villebois, then paid another visit to the Zoological Gardens. The animals were not so numerous now, as it had proved difficult to get the right kinds of food to feed many of them, and the authorities had doubtless also decided that venison at this time of acute shortage was better in a
pot than running about on four legs. However, on his previous visit he had marked down a handsome Chinese goose with exotic plumage. Having broken into the cage he wrung the bird's neck and, skilfully evading the night-watchman, at which art he was now a past-master, brought it home to provide them with an excellent Christmas dinner.