The whole situation was incredibly tricky, and, he felt, in some ways more difficult than when, during the early months of the war, he had been acting as a secret agent in Germany itself. There at least he had known that every hand was against him, whereas here one might be double-crossed half a dozen times a day through the temptation to trust people who appeared to be friends, but were, in fact, secret enemies. The more he thought about it the more he realised the extraordinary finesse, subtlety and courage required for the task that Lacroix had set himself, and admired the little man’s guts for having taken it on.
Gregory’s most urgent concern was to pick up the broken threads of the underground line that would get him to England. It was quite useless for him to proceed to Calais or Boulogne without further information, as Monsieur Dormey’s lorry-driver was to have put him in touch with the people there who would ship him across, and he had not the faintest clue as to who they might be. It occurred to him then that, although Dormey had been arrested, the lorry-driver might still be free. If he could get hold of him, even if the man could no longer take him to the coast, he would be able to tell him whom to contact if he could get there on his own. His next thought was that if he could get hold of the little typist she might be able to give him the lorry-driver’s name, and he soon saw that this, in fact, was his only hope of getting it. If she could not help him he was completely stumped.
His hurried progress through the succession of courts and alleys had brought him out in the Avenue Philippe Auguste, and he was now heading towards the Place de la Nation. Realising with fresh concern that by this time the police would have secured a detailed description of him from the treacherous Jamier, he decided that he had better get out of the area as quickly as he could. Hopping on a bus, he let it take him as far as the gates of the Bois de Vincennes, and getting off there he entered the park.
It was still before ten o’clock, and the earliest hour at which he could hope to catch Monsieur Jamier’s typist was midday, when nearly all French business premises close for lunch. To return to the Rue de la Roquette at all meant that he would be running into considerable danger, but that had to be faced. In the meantime, he had the best part of two hours to kill; so he amused himself as well as he could by wandering about the Bois.
On this grey November day it was by no means a cheerful spot, and its depressing effect was heightened by the fact that the great French Colonial Exhibition of 1931 had been held there. The main Exhibition buildings were still standing, now dreary, weather-stained and deserted.
As Gregory walked slowly down the Grande Avenue des Colonies Françaises, on either side of which stood the once colourful and splendid pavilions—exact copies of Moorish mosques, Algerian palaces, Indo-Chinese pagodas, and above all of the many-spired temple of Angkor Wat—he thought sadly of the departed glory of a once great France. Gone were the stalwart negroes in their red tarbooshes from Equatorial Africa, the Moroccan Zouaves, with their white turbans and baggy scarlet trousers, the little Tonkinese, the blue-jacketed Spahis and the khaki-clad Foreign Legion. They were now scattered, humbled, clinging precariously to their territories, their ancient Motherland in captivity and broken by disunion, unable to see any certain future for themselves.
Turning gloomily away, Gregory strolled down to the lake, but the memories it recalled only added to his depression. When he had last been there he had dined with a very lovely lady in the restaurant at the lake’s edge, and they had formed two of a crowd representing all that was brightest in the carefree Paris of that day. The food and wine had been the best that France had to offer, the band had played soft music, and as they had talked upon that most fascinating of all subjects—themselves—they had watched the myriad rainbow lights flickering among the fountains and waterfalls, turning them into sheets of liquid azure, emerald and gold. Where, he wondered, was the beautiful Clotilde now? And how little he had thought on that happy evening that when he next stood there it would be as a hunted man, in a crazy, ruined world.
Turning again, he strode rapidly away until he came opposite the great Château with its tall, strong-walled dungeon; yet that again reminded him of France in her happier and greater days. Catherine de Medici had lived there once, and her Florentine necromancer, René, had cast his horoscopes and spells in the topmost chamber of the tower. The gallant Henri of Navarre, the Grande Conde, Mirabeau, and a score of other great Frenchmen had been held captive there; but in their time France had been the first Power in Europe, unsurpassed for her culture and her chivalry, whereas now she was decadent, dying the unhappy prey of the Quisling maggots who were eating out her entrails for their own private gain.
At last the time came for him to leave the park, and, catching another bus, he returned in it to the Place Voltaire, which lies halfway along the Rue de la Roquette. Now that it was near midday there were many more people about, so he felt that while moving among them there was comparatively little chance of his being recognised on his bare description. After traversing a few side turnings he once more reached the end of the alley down which he had bolted, and having bought a paper from a newsvendor he stood just inside the entrance of the alley, pretending to be absorbed in it, while actually keeping a sharp eye on the doorway of Messrs. Dormey, Jamier et Fils, twenty yards down the street.
He had been there about ten minutes when he saw the blonde typist come out, and to his relief she turned in his direction. Stepping back into the alleyway, he waited for a moment, then as the girl passed he called softly: ‘Mademoiselle, one moment, if you please.’
Looking round with a start she recognised him at once, and on his beckoning entered the alley. Turning beside her, he led her a little way along it until they were hidden from the street by the nearest corner. Then he halted and began to thank her for the warning she had given him.
‘It’s nothing,’ she interrupted him quickly, ‘but you should not remain about here—otherwise they will catch you yet. The police are still in the office, and when they arrived they were furious with Monsieur Jamier for having let you get away.’
‘I had to come back,’ he told her, ‘to ask you what has happened to Monsieur Dormey.’
‘I told you. He was arrested by the Nazis three days ago. Poor fellow—I’m sure that brute Jamier betrayed him. Jamier is an Alsatian and half-German by birth. If I hadn’t my living to earn, and things weren’t so difficult in these days, I wouldn’t remain in his employment for a single second.’
‘You’re a brave girl, mademoiselle,’ Gregory smiled; ‘and I know that I can trust you. Monsieur Dormey’s arrest has placed me in a great difficulty, as he was to have provided me with secret transport to the coast. Do you by any chance know the name of the lorry-driver who was in his confidence?’
‘Hélas, monsieur,’ she sighed, ‘that I am sure, must have been Guillaume Truchet, who was arrested on the same day. I knew nothing of Monsieur Dormey’s affairs except that he was a patriotic Frenchman who hated the Nazis with all his heart; so I fear that I cannot give you any information at all which might prove of help.’
It would have cheered Gregory to talk with this pretty friendly girl a little longer, and she was obviously willing; but he knew that to do so would be to bring her into danger if anyone happened to recognise him while he was in her company; so he shrugged and smiled resignedly.
‘Well, there it is. I must do the best I can on my own. Thank you a thousand times for the warning you gave me.’ Then with old-fashioned chivalry he took her hand and kissed it.
She murmured: ‘Bonne chance, monsieur.’ Then they parted, the girl to return to the Rue de la Roquette, and Gregory to plunge deeper into the maze of alleyways again.
Having worked back to the Place Voltaire, he made his way north with the idea of having a look at the big railway stations that lay up on the heights.
When in doubt or difficulty he was a great believer in the old precept: ‘First things first.’ And by hook or by crook he now had to get back to England under his own steam. He certai
nly would not accomplish that by moping in Paris, and, although he had not the faintest idea as to how he could cross the Channel when he reached it, clearly the first step was to make for the coast. To go by train was obviously the quickest way, if that was possible, but he had grave doubts as to whether it was, and these were confirmed after he had spent some twenty minutes slouching about, but with his eyes very well skinned, in the Gare de I’Est and the Gare du Nord.
Cautious enquiries at both stations confirmed his impression that it was no longer possible to travel in Occupied France without a special permit, and he could see from the numbers of gendarmes and Germans at the platform barriers that there was little chance of getting on to any train without one.
He next spent three-quarters of an hour investigating the outsides of the great goods yards, with the idea that he might be able to smuggle himself out of Paris in a railway wagon. But all the gates were well guarded, and, although he felt confident that by waiting until night he could have got into one of the marshalling-yards, from such a centre as Paris it would be quite impossible to tell in the darkness in which direction any goods train which he jumped would be going, and he had no desire to find himself in Switzerland or Germany.
Feeling hungry now, he went into a small restaurant outside the Gare du Nord and had a meal which was dull but adequate, and while he ate he systematically ran over in his mind the various methods by which he might possibly travel to the coast.
Unless he was recognised from his description at one of the police posts on the outskirts of Paris there was nothing to stop his walking, but that would prove a long business; in addition, he had always believed that his brain had been given to him to save his feet, and was constitutionally opposed to any form of unnecessary exercise. He could, of course, buy a push-bike, but that again meant days of most uncongenial effort. The purchase or hire of a car was entirely out of the question, as the Germans were rationing petrol most strictly, and the few remaining people who were allowed to run cars had to have special permits. He could attempt to lorry-hop, but that meant exposing himself to the inquisitiveness of the drivers, and it was certain that any passenger entering the coast zone on a lorry would be subject to suspicion.
It was then he remembered that an hour or so earlier, on his way up to the Gare du Nord, he had crossed the broad Canal St. Martin, which penetrates deep into the heart of Paris, and that in it there had been numerous barges. He knew the North of France well, and was aware that it is furnished with an exceptionally fine network of canals, which serve practically every town of importance and link up with those of Belgium. It seemed reasonable to suppose that the Germans would be keeping a much less close watch on the slow-moving canal traffic than on that of the roads and railways, particularly as it did not run direct towards the coast. A moment later he saw too that the idea possessed the additional advantage that on the coast itself the Germans’ watchfulness was certain to be most highly concentrated in the neighbourhood of the French Channel ports, as these were nearest to England, so that if he could get into Belgium he would stand a better chance of getting away in a boat from one of the smaller harbours there.
When he had finished his uninteresting meal he set off up the Rue de la Fayette, at the extreme northern end of which lies the Bassin de la Villette, the great internal port of Paris’s barge traffic, where the cargoes from or to the industrial north are discharged or made up.
This is a part of Paris that visitors rarely see—a grimy workaday world in which there are no fashionable toilettes, and two sous are rarely spent where one will do. Across the cobbled street from the Bassin there was a long line of bars, small eating-houses and the food-shops where the bargees laid in their stocks of supplies before setting out on a fresh voyage. The food-shops were now almost empty, but the sordid little cafés were still doing a fair business, and even at that hour of the afternoon were half-filled with weather-beaten horny-handed men, sitting over their bocks or syrups and spitting occasionally on the pavement.
Had Gregory been wearing his London clothes he would have been the certain focus of comment in such an assembly, but, knowing the value of inconspicuousness on any secret mission, he had left England in old duds specially chosen for the purpose. These had by no means been improved by the rough handling he had received since, so he might quite well have been taken for a workman.
Knowing that the whole success or failure of his scheme lay in his finding the right type of bargee for his purpose, he spent the best part of two hours in sitting about several of the cafés, where he entered into casual conversations with a number of the men and stood drinks here and there as occasion offered. One thing which cheered him considerably was the fact that these brawny fellows were much more outspoken than any casual acquaintances that he might have picked up in a smart bar would have dared to be. The Quislings and Gestapo spies were out for much bigger game than these simple workmen, so none of them feared arrest on account of the frank expression of their opinions. As always, in French cafés of every class, politics was the principal subject of conversation. In the course of the afternoon Gregory heard a dozen apparently heated, but actually quite good-tempered, disputes between various groups of men who were either pro-British in sympathy, or wanted the whole war over and were in favour of a new deal under the Nazis.
At last he made his choice of a slow-spoken, middle-aged fellow, whom he had already learnt was setting out with his barge for Lille the following morning. The man had kind, honest blue eyes, and there was something about him that suggested a quiet courage and fine self-assurance. Unlike most of the others, he did not gesticulate violently as he talked, but his reasoning was clear and logical, and he did not seek to conceal the fact that his sentiments were one hundred per cent. pro-British.
When the little groups broke up Gregory walked out of the café beside him, and they turned together along the quay. For a moment neither of them spoke; then, when they were out of earshot of the others, Gregory said: ‘Could you take an extra hand on your barge tomorrow? I’ve got some money, and I’m quite willing to pay my way.’
The man turned and regarded him gravely, then he said. ‘You’re English, aren’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Gregory quietly. ‘How did you know?’
The man smiled: ‘Oh, just something about you. I’m English myself, you see!’
‘Really!’ Gregory looked quickly at him again.
‘Yes,’ he went on, breaking into English. ‘Relic of the old war, that’s wot I am, mate. I was caught in the St. Quentin show—March ‘18—you remember? But a French family hid me from the Jerries, an’ after the war I married the daughter, settled down and lived ‘ere ever since.’
‘Good Lord!’ Gregory laughed. ‘I was in that show, too. What division were you in?’
‘The 36th—the Bloody Hand of Ulster was our divisional sign; but I was a gunner, and they were mostly London chaps. Who’d have thought, then, that we’d have this bleeding business all over again, eh?’
‘Yes, who’d have thought it?’ Gregory agreed. ‘Anyhow, it looks like my lucky day. It’s only fair that I should be frank with you, though. I’ve been over here on a job of work, and I’m on the run from the Nazis. I’ve got to get back to England somehow and…’
‘You’ve bitten off something an’ no mistake.’
‘I’m afraid I have, particularly as I’ve lost touch with the friends who were to smuggle me across. Still, it’d be a big help if you could get me as far as Lille.’
‘Course I will, and thundering glad to do it! These last few months ‘ave bin fair ’eart-breaking, an’ I wouldn’t miss the chance o’ putting one over them Nazis for a ’undred quid. Bert Wheeler’s my name, and I’ll eat my Sunday pants if I don’t get you safe up ter little ole Lille.’
With this splendid break all Gregory’s depression of the morning vanished. Bert took him along to his barge and introduced him to ‘the wife’, a plump and still good-looking Frenchwoman. She was as pro-British as Bert himself, and on be
ing told the situation made Gregory heartily welcome. The three of them went ashore again to buy provisions for the journey, as Aimée Wheeler explained to Gregory that, scarce as things were in Paris, they were even worse in the provincial towns such as Compiègne, Noyon, St. Quentin, Cambrai and Douai, through which they would pass.
Gregory insisted on paying for everything, and by telling the story that they wanted a few delicacies to celebrate an anniversary, for which money was no object, he succeeded in persuading a number of the shopkeepers to produce luxuries from under their counters which his new friends would not possibly have been able to afford. At seven o’clock they returned to the barge, laden with their purchases, and an hour later Mrs. Wheeler produced for them a really excellent dinner from her little galley in the stern of the vessel.
Afterwards Bert gave them a concert on his accordion, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that Gregory dissuaded him from playing ‘Tipperary’, ‘Roses of Picardy’, Old Soldiers Never Die’, and at the end ‘God Save the King’; upon all of which he started without warning. Gregory was made comfortable in a small box-like cabin up in the bow, and he went to sleep that night thanking all his gods that he had found this splendid couple to help him on his way.
At sunrise the following morning the barge chugged out of the Bassin on its way north, and the next four days were a little oasis of happiness and calm for Gregory in the desert of nerve-racking uncertainty through which the track of his life was once again set. Hour after hour the barge steadily nosed its way along canals and rivers, through the peaceful countryside in which there were few traces of war, and he was amazed to see how little damage had been sustained by most of the towns and villages through which they passed; but that, he knew, was to be accounted for by the fact that the German invasion had been carried out with such extraordinary rapidity that in many places the French had never stood to fight.
V for Vengeance Page 20
