The Monte Cristo Cover-Up

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  Yorkshire Pudding

  Mix five or six eggs thoroughly with one cup of flour, two cups of milk and a little salt. Pour the mixture into the hot fat from which the sirloin has been removed. Leave it to bake for ten minutes in a hot oven until the bottom of the pudding is brown and the top lightly set. Cut it into portions and place them round the slices of roast beef. It is also possible to prepare the pudding with cubed bacon and serve it separately from the roast beef.

  Apple Pudding

  Take four cups of flour, one and a half cups of soaked and finely chopped suet, a heaped teaspoonful of powdered ginger and a little salt. Mix well with cold water to a dough until it no longer sticks to the hands. Roll a round of it. Put a cloth in a pudding basin, dust it with flour and put the round of dough on it. Fill it up with quarters of peeled, tart apples. Pull the

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  dough over the apples, press well and tie cloth. Boil for two hours in water containing two tablespoonfuls of salt Serve sprinkled with fine sugar and without sauce. The pudding can be much improved if the apples are mixed with butter, half a cup of each of sultanas and currants, a quarter of a cup each of finely chopped orange and lemon peel, a little sugar and rum. This mixture should be steamed a little before being placed in the basin.

  Nevertheless, everyone considered his roast beef tasted excellent. Only the vegetables which were served with it were criticized by the mayor. 'Tell me, is all that stuff invariably cooked in salt water?"

  "Yes, we English prefer it that way," answered Thomas, pulling a few mustache hairs out of his mouth. He was conducting two conversations at once, for at the same time Professor Debouche was telling him that the production of forged documents in Clermont-Ferrand had run into trouble. "Lately the authorities have invariably demanded passports as well as ration cards. Is there anything we can do about that?"

  The greedy mayor simultaneously wanted to know the ingredients of Yorkshire pudding.

  "One thing at a time," Thomas Lieven retorted. "The dough is made of eggs, milk and flour, thoroughly mixed. It is sometimes called 'dripping cake' when served with roast beef."

  He turned to Professor Debouche. During the next few seconds he founded a first-rate factory for the forging of documents. "The papers must be forged flawlessly, Professor. No doubt you have friends in every government office in the country. Every item must agree with all the others. Passports, army passes, pay books, census certificates, ration cards and tax cards must all bear the same false name, which must also be registered at all the offices concerned."

  This suggestion by Thomas Lieven was taken up and fully exploited to such an extent that it gave the Germans a terrible headache. France was flooded with such "genuine" forged documents. They saved many human lives.

  [13]

  At dusk on April 4, 1943, a Lysander aircraft landed on the small clearing over which Thomas Lieven had been dropped by parachute eighteen hours before. A pilot in British uniform sat in the machine. He came from Leipzig, and had been

  chosen by German Intelligence because he spoke English, though unfortunately with a Saxon accent.

  For this reason he spoke little, confining himself for the most part to saluting, but making Thomas Lieven's blood run cold by doing it all wrong.

  He laid his palm smartly against his cheek in the German fashion instead of turning the palm outward, as the British custom is.

  None of Thomas Lieven's new French friends seemed to notice this mistake. Embraces, kisses, vigorous handshakes and good wishes were exchanged.

  "Good luck!" shouted the partisans as Thomas climbed into the aircraft. At the same moment he hissed into the pilot's ear: "You idiot! You prize ass!"

  Then he turned, to see Yvonne standing motionless at the edge of the forest. Her hands were plunged into the pockets of her jacket He waved to her. But she did not reciprocate. He waved again. But she didn't move.

  He realized as he sat down that this girl had by no means finished with him yet. Notjby a long way!

  The Nightingale 17 scheme worked just as smoothly as Thomas had hoped.

  Every evening at nine o'clock the Crozant group reported to Corporals Schlumberger and Raddatz at the Hotel Lutetia, waited until the message had been decoded and then received replies from "Colonel Buckmaster, Room 231, War Office, London."

  Two other men were present at the Lutetia on these occasions. They were Colonel Werthe, who had rescued Thomas from the clutches of the Gestapo, and Captain Brenner, who had for a long time been following our friend's career with so much interest

  Thomas found Captain Brenner to be a typical professional soldier, dry, obstinate, pedantic, not unmannerly, not a Nazi, but just the same a parade-ground type, blindly obedient to orders, a military machine that worked without feelings, without capacity for criticism and almost without a heart.

  Brenner, a little man with meticulously parted hair, gold-rimmed spectacles and a brisk way of moving, consequently understood nothing, right from the start, about "all that Nightingale Seventeen melodrama," as he called it.

  At first Thomas sent the Crozant group instructions to mark time. But Nightingale 17 demanded action. The resistance men wanted to hit out They clamored for ammunition.

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  Thereupon the German crew of a captured British aircraft dropped four cases of ammunition, on a warm May evening, into the woods between Limoges and Clermont-Ferrand. There was only one thing wrong with the ammunition in question. It was unsuitable in type and caliber for use with the weapons of the Crozant group.

  Prolonged discussions by radio followed. Several more days went by. "London" regretted the mistake. It would be corrected, they signaled, as soon as the right ammunition for the Crozant weapons, many of which were of German and French origin, became available.

  "London" next instructed the Crozant group to lay in provisions. It was known that the population of those inaccessible districts was starving. And hungry men might well become dangerously aggressive.

  Once more captured machines with German pilots took off. This time they dropped packages of captured British rations, medical supplies, whisky, cigarettes and coffee.

  Captain Brenner couldn't understand this policy at all. "We liquor up with substitute Pernod and those much respected partisans scoff real whisky! I smoke Gauloises and I daresay they have Henry Clays! We're coddling up those rascals to make them tough and fat! It's sheer lunacy, gentlemen, sheer lunacy!"

  "It's nothing of the kind," Colonel Werthe retorted. "Lieven is right. It's the only way to stop those people from constituting a danger to us. If they once start blowing up railways and power stations, they'll be off all over the place and we'll never lay hands on one of them."

  In June 1943, Nightingale 17 grew so restless that Thomas changed his tactics. Captured British aircraft with German crews began to drop munitions over the territory of the partisans which really suited their weapons.

  But shortly afterward the Crozant group were told: "mar-seilles maquis about to sabotage and attack on grand scale— absolutely necessary for your weapons and ammunition to be temporarily at the disposal of your comrades."

  The group protested energetically.

  But "London" remained inexorable. Precise directions were given as to the time and place of the transfer.

  One stormy night in the woods by the road leading from Belac to Montemart the equipment changed hands. Its new owners, who had behaved like real Frenchmen, drove away in several heavy trucks. But as soon as they were on their own

  again they relapsed into their customary lingo, that of the German Army.

  At the beginning of July, Colonel Werthe learned from the treacherous wireless operator of the Limoges group that the Crozant partisans were "fed up with London." A certain Yvonne Dechamps, he said, was the ringleader in this attitude, suggesting that they might not have been in touch with the real London at all and that she herself had always thought "Captain Everett" a phony. She had also suspected the "RAF pilot" who had collected "Everett" and salut
ed "like a Boche"

  "Damn it," said Thomas Lieven when he heard the news. "I thought that would happen sooner or later. There's only one more chance now, Colonel."

  "And that is?"

  "We must order Nightingale Seventeen to carry out a perfectly genuine act of sabotage and give them the means and opportunity for it. We shall have to sacrifice a single bridge, railway or power station in order to preserve, possibly, a great many from destruction."

  Captain Brenner, who was present at this conversation, shut his eyes and groaned. "Cracked,. Special Operations Commander Lieven, absolutely cracked!"

  Colonel Werthe, too, looked worried. "There are limits, you know, Lieven. Really! What do you want me to do?"

  "Give me a bridge, Colonel," cried Thomas in a sudden access of excitement. "Hang it all, there must be a bridge somewhere in France we could dispense with!"

  Thomas sat down. "And yet the gentlemen in Berlin are still shooting off their big mouths. They go on and on and on.

  The two veteran, disillusioned corporals nodded sadly. They had heard a few things about Thomas Lieven. They knew that he had been tortured by the Gestapo before Colonel Werthe had rescued him from certain death in the cellars of the Security Service under the Avenue Foch.

  He had since more or less recovered from his imprisonment and savage treatment under interrogation. His body still bore certain ugly scars. But they were not visible when he was dressed in the immaculate clothing to which he had now reverted.

  "Colonel Werthe and Captain Brenner will be here shortly," he said. "Meanwhile, may I ask you to code this message, please?" He laid a sheet of paper on Raddatz's desk.

  The Berliner, after reading it, uttered an exclamation of astonishment. " 'Strath! Wonders never cease! That's a nice way to win the war! Just look at this, Karli!"

  The Viennese read the message and scratched his head, commenting briefly: "I give up."

  "Don't do that," said Thomas. "It would be so much better to code the message." It read:

  to nightingale 17—raf bomber will parachute special container plastic explosive 1 august 23 to 2315 hours over grid 167—on 4 august midnight precisely blow pont noir between gargilesse and eguzon—be exactly on time—best luck—buckmaster.

  "Come along, boys," said Thomas Lieven. "What are you making those big eyes for?"

  "It's the same old leg-pull again, George," said the man from Vienna. "Only a piffling little bridge what don't matter, see?"

  "That bridge, gentlemen," Thomas told them with a weary smile, "leads across the Creuze to Route Nationale Twenty and is one of the most important in central France. It's near Eguzon and the dam that supplies most of central France with current."

  "And that's the very bridge you want blown up?"

  "If God wills," said Thomas. "It took me long enough to get it scheduled."

  [2]

  On July 11, Thomas had visited the headquarters of the Todt building organization, where he had been directed to call upon one Heinze, a member of the Board of Works. Just before eleven a.m. Thomas pushed open a door with that name printed on it. The office contained two large drawing boards and two large men hotly arguing in front of them. The dispute had grown so fierce that neither of the men noticed Thomas Lieven's entrance. They were both dressed in long white coats and were shouting at the tops of their voices.

  "I decline all responsibility! Any tank that crosses the thing may bring it down!"

  "But the next bridge over the Creuze is at Argenton!"

  "I don't give a damn about that. Let them go the long way around. I tell you, that Pont Noir at Gargilesse is a menace. There are yard-long cracks underneath the fairway. My statics engineer nearly fell through it himself!"

  "You can reinforce it with concrete."

  "For God's sake—a fat lot of good that would be—"

  They're talking about the Gargilesse bridge thought Thomas. Fantastic! Absolutely fantastic! It's as though reality were chasing my wishes and dreams. Now it's caught them up. . .

  'Think of the power station, the dam! If we blow that bridge, the supplies of current will be cut—"

  "Not if we blow it ourselves. We could disconnect and switch over before blowing. But if the thing collapses tomorrow of its own accord you can start worrying about cuts all right! I tell you—what the devil are you doing here?"

  Thomas Lieven's presence had at last been discovered. He bowed, saying quietly: "I came to see Herr Heinze."

  One of the men exclaimed: "I'm Heinze. What's the matter?"

  "My dear sir," replied Thomas. "I think we are going to be of the greatest mutual assistance to each other . . ."

  And that was really what happened. As early as July 15 the plans of the Todt and Canaris organizations respectively regarding the future of the Pont Noir, south of Gargilesse, had been fully co-ordinated. Thomas then gave the following in-

  structions, as "Colonel Buckmaster, War Office, London," to the Crozant group: "list all important bridges your area plus full details local troop movements."

  The partisans lay in wait day after day and night after night. They squatted under bridges, crouched in the tops of trees and in the attics of old windmills and laborers' cottages. They had binoculars, paper and pencils with them. They counted German tanks, trucks and motorcycles. And every evening at nine they reported their observations to London. They reported bridges at Feurs, Macon, Dompierre, Nevers and the big Pont Noir south of Gargilesse, close to the Eguzon dam.

  On July 30, at nine p.m. Yvonne Dechamps and Professor Debouche, Cassier the mayor, Lieutenant Bellecourt and Emile Roirff the porter were sitting in the living room of the old mill at Gargilesse. You could have cut the cigarette smoke with a knife.

  Yvonne had her headphones adjusted. She was taking down the coded message which the somewhat overweight Corporal Schlumberger was tapping out in Paris.

  "sv. 21 54621 lhyhi rhwea riehr ctbgs twoee ..."

  The men standing around Yvonne Dechamps were drawing short, regular breaths. Professor Debouche was polishing his eyeglasses. Lieutenant Bellecourt repeatedly licked his lips.

  ". . . sante siane krodi lygap" Schlumberger sent out in Morse on the top floor of the Hotel Lutetia in Paris. The men standing around him, Thomas Lieven, the diminutive Captain Brenner with his neat hair style, and the taciturn Colonel Werthe were drawing short, regular breaths. Captain Brenner took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and gave them a thorough polishing.

  At twenty minutes past nine "London" stopped sending. In the picturesque old watermill on the bank of the Creuze the Crozant leaders began decoding the message: "to nightingale 17—raf bomber will parachute special container plastic explosive ..."

  As soon as they had the message in clear they all, except Yvonne Dechamps, began talking at once. The girl sat motionless in front of the receiving apparatus, her hands folded in her lap. She was thinking of the enigmatic Captain Everett, whom she had so deeply suspected.

  She paid little attention to what Debouche was saying. What she was thinking and feeling appeared senseless and per-

  verse to herself. Yet she knew, with painful certainty, that she would see Captain Everett again some time, somewhere.

  The voices about her grew louder. Yvonne gave a start. She realized that a dispute had arisen between the mayor, the potter and the professor. The self-important Cassier struck the table with his fist. "This is my area! I know it inside out! I insist on being in charge of the operation!"

  Professor Debouche said quietly: "There's no need for table thumping, my friend. Lieutenant Bellecourt will be in charge of the operation. He specializes in work with explosives. You will have to obey him."

  "I'm sick of everything being handed over to the lieutenant," cried the mayor furiously. "Who founded this group? It was I and Rouff and some of the local farmers."

  "Yes, that's right," the potter agreed. "At first we were all local people. You others only came in later."

  Yvonne forced herself to stop thinking about Captain Everett. Sh
e said coldly: "Stop quarreling. What the professor says goes. It's true we only turned up later. But it was we who first put the group on a proper footing. If it hadn't been for us you would never have got this receiver. And it was I who showed you how to use it."

  Neither the mayor nor the potter replied. But they exchanged glances over Yvonne's head, the sly looks typical of elderly peasants.

  [3]

  On August 3, 1943, about ten minutes past eleven p.m., a British bomber captured by the Germans parachuted over Grid 167 a big, specially constructed package containing captured British plastic explosive.

  On August 2, 1943, a certain Heinze, member of the board of works of the Todt organization in Paris, appeared at the Eguzon power station. He discussed with the chief German engineers, in the greatest detail, the consequences of the steps which would have to be taken if the bridge adjoining the dam were blown up.

  On August 3, Heinze visited the commander of the German battalion occupying the Gargilesse area, swore him to secrecy and impressed upon him that all German sentry posts should be withdrawn on August 4 between 11:15 p.m. and 12:30

  A.M.

  On August 4, at eight minutes past midnight, the Pont Noir duly blew up with earsplitting din. No one was hurt

  On August 5, at nine p.m., Corporals Schlumberger and Raddatz crouched, sweating, over their equipment in the Hotel Lutetia, Paris. Behind them stood Thomas Lieven, Colonel Werthe and Captain Brenner.

  Nightingale 17 reported punctually. Schlumberger murmured, as he scribbled: 'The girl's not signaling today. It's one of the boys this time . . ."

  Nightingale 17 sent a longer message than ever before. While Schlumberger was still taking down the signals, Raddatz was already decoding them. The first part of the message was just what Thomas had expected.