Franco's Map

by Walter Ellis

  “I hope you are not here to make a fool of me,” he began. “My aide tells me you have information suggesting possible collusion between Germany and Spain to the detriment of France and its empire. Is that true?”

  “Yes, Monsieur, it is,” said Bramall.

  Laval ran a podgy hand down his languorous moustache. “Well,” he said, “If that is the case, we must do something about it. But first I need to hear the evidence. Where is it?”

  Delacroix leapt in. “It is on two gramophone records in my office.”

  “On gramophone records! That is certainly a novelty. Then fetch them, Alain – the gramophone, too, while you’re at it.”

  “Yes, Minister.”

  The newly re-elevated statesman, whose recent meeting in Paris with German Ambassador Otto Abetz had gone much better than he had hoped, was in no mood to antagonise Berlin. At the same time, he could not allow Franco to succeed in a bidding war for Hitler’s attention. An ardent capitulard, now a convinced collaborateur, he believed with all the contrived passion of a whore that his country’s overseas possessions were the key to its survival.

  Isabella could see that the Frenchman was staring at her. He looked as if he had forgotten to brush his teeth that morning. He scratched the back of his neck and snorted. “You say your father is an aide to the cuñadísimo?”

  “Yes, Monsieur. His chef de cabinet.”

  “How bizarre. And does it not bother you that in talking to me, you are betraying your father as well as your country?”

  “Yes, monsieur, it bothers me very much.”

  “So why do you do it?”

  “My principle concern is with peace in Europe. I do not see how peace can be recovered if the British lose Gibraltar and seize the Canaries, and then the Germans move into Morocco and end up confronting the French.”

  “Your logic is impeccable,” said Laval, “if a little hysterical. But affairs such as these, involving national pride and conflicting ambition are intricate, like a minuet.” His thick eyebrows rose dramatically, as if on springs. “Do you dance, Mlle La Roche?”

  “The waltz, the tango.”

  “Aah. Sheer frivolity. What of flamenco?”

  “As a child.”

  “Now there is passion. I love to watch gypsies dance.”

  Isabella stared at him in silence. There was no obvious response to such a remark.

  “In a few more moments,” Laval began. “we shall get to the truth of this matter. “And I must tell you that … ” But at this point the minister’s words were interrupted by a loud crash, indicating that his aide’s life had once more lurched into crisis. The flex of the gramophone, trailing down as he made his way the ten metres or so from his own office to that of his boss, had caught in one of the metal handles of an antique armoire. Just days before, the ornate piece of furniture, once owned by a sister of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, had been removed from Laval’s office, a former guest suite, to make way for a set of filing cabinets. As the chunky bakelite plug lodged in the handle, the gramophone jerked to a halt in Delacroix’s nerveless grasp Caxton’s records, balanced on the top, slewed forwards, hitting the hard parquet floor half a second before the gramophone.”

  The Frenchman let out an involuntary cry. Laval sprang up, Bramall rushed to the door. Delacroix looked thunderstruck. He was staring at the floor, where both records, spilled from their sleeves, lay shattered into a hundred pieces.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Bramall called out, in English.

  Delacroix, his face crimson with embarrassment, placed the gramophone on the ground next to the armoire, then got down on his hands and knees to gather up the fragments.

  Laval glared at him icily. “Alain, Alain! Is it any wonder your soldiers deserted you? What am I going to do with you?”

  Humiliated, Delacroix averted his eyes. He began to mumble to himself, picking up two pieces of one of the recordings and pressing them together. “Perhaps it can be repaired,” he ventured.

  Laval dismissed the spectacle of his aide and turned back to Bramall and Isabella, whose dismay was written all over their faces. He shrugged. “Desolé, mes enfants. So much for your evidence! But you present me a dilemma. Did you come to me in good faith? Was this all part of a trick? Have I missed out on the opportunity of a lifetime or been blessed by Fate? It is impossible to say. You burden me with concerns, but you do not provide me with any proof of the collusion you suggest. I will talk to Ambassador Abetz. I will seek the opinion of our own man in Madrid. What I will not do, on the basis of British hearsay, is put at risk a relationship between my Government and the Third Reich that has only recently been constructed and on which the success of France’s future standing in the world depends.”

  Isabella’s face fell visibly at this. Laval observed her for a second before turning to Bramall. “Have you nothing to say, monsieur?”

  By way of reply, Bramall sat down, lifted his left foot up so that it rested on his right knee and pressed a concealed stud in the heel of his boot. There was a discernible click. Isabella gasped in alarm.

  Delacroix, who had regained his feet and was now standing in the doorway, started back, as if Bramall had produced a grenade. Laval, however, looked on, intrigued, as the fellow twisted the heel to one side to reveal a six centimetre metal spool.

  “I see that your ingenuity has not entirely deserted you,” he said. “So what do you have there?”

  “This, Monsieur, is part of the original magnetic tape, recorded by the SD in the German Legation in Madrid. Everything, and more, that was on the gramophone records is contained on this reel. I appreciate that the necessary technology to play it does not yet exist in France, but if you will only bear with me, I feel sure that your scientists …”

  “ – Ah, but that is where you are wrong!” Laval slammed the door in Delacroix’s face, leaving the aide stranded in the hallway. “The technology, it does exist. If I am not mistaken, the tape you have in your hand is meant to be played on a Magnetophon.”

  Bramall could not have been more astonished if Laval had revealed his face to be a mask which he had now pulled off to expose himself as Serrano. “Why yes, that’s it exactly. But surely you’re not going to tell me …?”

  “ It arrived two days ago. It is not even out of its box. A gift from Ambassador Abetz. He thought it would be useful for the Maréchal and I when we are recording our speeches for the wireless.”

  The Frenchman walked purposefully over to a large crate in the corner of his office and drew open the flaps. Dipping inside, he rummaged through piles of wood shavings and shredded newspaper until he reached what he was looking for. There, inside, was a large metal casing. On the top were the letters AEG and the legend, “Magnetophon.”

  Bramall was overwhelmed. The irony was stunning. “I won’t say that I’m speechless, but it is hard to know which words to apply to this situation.” He turned to Isabella. “I can’t believe that we went to all that trouble, and then here, in the middle of occupied France …”

  “ – Free France,” interrupted Laval.

  “Yes. In the heart of free France, in the office of the man we were most trying to reach, is exactly the machine we needed.”

  Laval struck a heroic pose. Sometimes when destiny called, it wore white tie and tails. “So now,” he said, “if you will only help me to get this machine out of its box, we will discover what exactly it is that is so overwhelmingly important to my country.”

  A plaintiff knock could be heard at the door. Laval called out over his shoulder: “Yes, yes, Alain, you may come in. Everything is all right now. I have the situation in hand.”

  Playing back the tape was simplicity itself. Laval had been taught how to use a Magnetophon during his last visit to Paris and proved surprisingly adroit with both tapes and recorder. Caxton had also done a good job. The tape, though
more compressed than on its original reel, unwound without a flaw.

  Fifteen minutes later, the second most important man in France stubbed out a Gauloise in the ashtray on his desk and turned to his guests. He looked almost disappointed. “My apologies,” he began. “I underestimated you. You have brought me information that could prove vital to us in our continuing negotiations with Berlin. You may even, dare I say it, have saved the French Empire.”

  Bramall smiled sheepishly.

  “But,” Laval went on, “regrettably, you have also left me with a most serious headache. How do I explain to the Germans that I suddenly know everything about their plans? They will be suspicious, no?”

  “You can live with that, surely” Bramall volunteered. Isabella shifted in her chair.

  “Possibly,” said Laval. “It is true that we have our own agent in Madrid, who I may tell you has already divulged to us her view that Spain is conspiring against French interests.”

  “You mean the Comtesse?”

  “But of course. Even as we speak, she is on her way to Vichy. I expect her any minute/”

  “Then we should wait.”

  The Frenchman shrugged and wore a sad smile, as if he hated to be the bearer of sad tidings. As Bramall opened his mouth to speak, Laval lifted his hand, indicating that he had not yet concluded what he wanted to say. “How am I to resolve the dilemma in which you place me?” he asked, looking from Bramall to Isabella, then back again. “For we have reached an impasse, have we not?” He examined his fingernails, which were black, and quickly withdrew them beneath the parapet of his desk.

  Isabella looked uneasily between the two men. The tension in the air was unbearable.

  Laval pressed a red button on his desk. “You leave me with no choice,” he said. At once, two gendarmes entered the office. Both had their guns drawn. “Arrest these two,” Laval said. “They are foreign agents. Search them and take them to the cells.”

  Bramall and Isabella stared at each other. Delacroix’s face lit up with unexpected joy.

  “What did you expect?” Laval continued. “That I would take you to Pétain so that he could award you with the Legion d”honneur? That was never going to happen, my friends. Thanks to you, I have learned exactly what Berlin has in mind for the French and Spanish empires. This information will be greatly to our advantage in the weeks and months ahead. We can tailor our demands and responses in the light of what you have told us. But prudence dictates that I should also inform the Germans that we have shot two British agents who parachuted into Vichy and tried to foment rebellion among our young men. They will be pleased. They will know that we do not tolerate outside interference in our affairs.”

  Isabella struggled to take in what was happening. They had risked their lives, overcome all kinds of obstacles, presented, against the odds, a flawless, unanswerable case, and now this ill-kempt buffoon, concerned only for his own position, was dismissing them as of no account. “How dare you?” she began. “You can’t possibly … have you no sense of honour?”

  Keeping his hands hidden from view, Laval picked at his fingernails.

  Bramall wondered what chance there was that he could get to the Frenchman before the gendarmes opened fire or beat him senseless with their truncheons. One stride, a metre at most, he reckoned. Pulling up short, he glared at Laval, as if engraving his image on his brain for future reference. “You really are a bastard,” he said.

  “And you, mon vieux, are now a prisoner of the lawful government of France, in Vichy to incite murder and rebellion, a course of action for which the punishment, I fear, is death. Forgive me, for, truly, I am desolée.” He turned to the senior of the two gendarmes. “Take them away.”

  The sun was still shining in the garden outside. The rain had stopped and the sky was a brilliant blue.

  “This way,” one of the gendarmes said, jabbing the point of his gun barrel into Bramall’s back. “I’m glad I’m not in your shoes.”

  A metal door, down the hall and round the corner from Laval’s office, provided access to the newly built cellblock of the Hotel du Parc. But the door was locked and the gendarmes didn’t have the key. A messenger was summoned and, after several minutes’ delay, a sergeant appeared, somewhat out of breath. As one of the two gendarmes kept his gun on the prisoners, the sergeant tried first one key, then another. There were several, on a heavy metal ring, and it was going to take him a second or two to locate the right one.

  “Who are these two anyway?” he wanted to know. “Do I need to get a firing party together?”

  Isabella looked questioningly at Bramall, who nodded. It was now or never, do or die. Seizing her chance, she kicked out with the side of her shoe into the knee of the gendarme next to her. He swore and dropped his automatic, which clattered to the floor.

  Bramall swooped down to pick up the weapon. Grabbing the sergeant with the keys by the scruff of the neck, he pulled him back. “Bit of a change of plan,” he told him. “Looks like you won’t be needing the firing party after all.”

  “Not so fast, Monsieur!”

  Bramall and Isabella’s heads whipped round in unison. Delacroix was standing some 20 feet away, pointing a Mauser machine pistol straight at them. He must have kept the weapon in his office. “Put down the gun,” he said. “I warn you, monsieur, if you do not give yourself up immediately, this very second, I shall shoot both of you, starting with Mlle, Ortega.” He was trembling as he spoke, but there was no doubting his seriousness.

  Bramall weighed up the situation. The man was a hysteric – completely unpredictable – and he had a machine pistol pointed straight at them. Isabella’s life was threatened. If he didn’t act, she could die. He remembered Manuela at the Ebro. He remembered his promise to Romero. He had no choice. Shoving the sergeant in front of Isabella, he raised his automatic and ran straight at Delacroix. He had just managed to raise the barrel in the Frenchman’s direction when the Mauser went off. Three of the oncoming stream of bullets thudded into his chest and left shoulder, sending a shock wave of pain straight to his heart. Five more tore into the head and body of the sergeant.

  Isabella screamed.

  Delacroix raced towards his victims, howling with rage, almost tripping over the dead officer as he ran. “Imbeciles!” he roared. “Look what you m-made me do! But you won’t get away with it.”

  For a moment, there was total confusion. Isabella struggled to get to Bramall, who lay, bleeding profusely, on the floor. The second Gendarme held her back.

  Delacroix had meanwhile moved beyond all reason. “”You thought you were so clever,” he screeched. “But I will show you how ri-ri-diculous you were to ignore m-my order.” Hands shaking, he lifted the machine pistol and aimed it at Bramall’s head.

  “Put it down, Alain!” The voice, from the opposite end of the corridor, was steely and uncompromising.

  Delacroix froze.

  It was Dominique.

  She stood three-quarters on to the Frenchman, her feet apart, holding a silver automatic in a classic, two-handed grip. “I said, put it down.”

  “No!” Delacroix replied, twisting his head in the direction of his boyhood companion. He had been tormented enough for one day. “You m-may think you are in charge,” he stammered. “But you do n-not g-give me orders. I g-give you orders.”

  Dominique fixed her eyes on his hands and maintained a steady hold on her automatic. She had no wish to kill Delacroix, but she knew that in this mood he was capable of anything. “I have spoken to Laval. If you force me, I will not hesitate to shoot you. You must know that I am a much better shot than you. For God’s sake, for once in your life don’t be a fool and allow us to work this out without further loss of life.”

  It was more than Delacroix could stand. How dare she speak to him like this? And in front of the Gendarmerie! Who took the decisions round here? Was it him, with his year
s of service to his country, or Dominique de Fourneau, the child of privilege, who all of her life had enjoyed the natural advantages that were denied to him? He struggled to keep a hold of himself but knew he was in danger of losing control. He was sweating and trembling at the same time. His bowels felt loose. He turned round, spitting with rage, determined to assert himself.

  But then he saw her. She was looking at him down her nose, as she always did. And her hands were steady and she seemed entirely calm. He knew then that if he attempted to open fire, she would kill him, and, God help him, Delacroix did not want to die. He looked down. He could feel a knot in his throat and the shaking in his hands was getting worse. Sweat poured down his face. Uttering a strangled oath that was more of a drawn out admission of his defeat, he threw down his weapon and watched in despair as it skittered across the marble floor.

  Dominique waited a moment before lowering her automatic. With the slightest inclination of her head, she signalled to the Gendarmes. Immediately, they grabbed hold of Delacroix, who had begun literally to shake with rage.

  There was a brief moment of silence, then Isabella broke free of her captors and ran towards Bramall, fear gripping her heart. He lay still, face-down, not even twitching. A pool of blood was spreading out from his chest and leaching into the parquet. Dropping to her knees by his side, she lifted his head and turned it towards her. The eyes were pale and sightless, the irises contracted to mere points of black, like full stops on a page.

  She bent lower and began to turn him over to check if he was breathing. As she did so, Dominique reached down and gripped her by the shoulders, pulling her back. Isabella’s head shook violently. “No,” she screamed, seizing hold of the Frenchwoman’s wrists, desperate to free herself. “Let me go! Don’t you see what has happened? And it’s all my fault. First Teresa, then Eddy. Now Charlie. Everyone I have loved is dead!”