The Triumph

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘We have to take everything into account, sir. It would not be the first time the Germans have left behind an agent. I mean, think of it. Suppose I accepted her story and returned her to England. She says she was selected by Sir Murdoch personally. But Sir Murdoch isn’t there. Yet would she have access, however temporarily, to one of our most secret establishments while her true identity was sorted out.’

  ‘Yes,’ Fergus said. ‘How do I come into it?’

  ‘Well, sir, when I told her that Sir Murdoch was unfortunately unavailable to confirm her story, while she mentioned one or two other names in England, she also added that she knew Sir Murdoch’s son. She called you Major Mackinder, to be sure, but she did know the name of your regiment, the Royal Western Dragoon Guards, and seeing that I was aware you were in the vicinity...’

  ‘Yes,’ Fergus said. ‘She did know the name of my regiment. And I was a major when we met.’

  ‘You mean you do know the lady, sir? That would be a great relief. Would you be prepared to identify her as the Monique Deschards you knew?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fergus said. Oh, yes, he thought.

  *

  ‘I’m afraid she’s been rather knocked about,’ Captain Lamming explained as he led Fergus down the stairs.

  ‘Then how can you imagine she is a double agent?’

  ‘Ah, well, sir, the Gestapo would have knocked her about in that case, wouldn’t they? To make it look right.’

  Fergus made no reply to that, and Lamming was ushering him through a doorway at the rear of the outer office, into a corridor which ended in a flight of stairs. The corridor was narrow, damp, and had no windows; it was illuminated by a series of naked electric bulbs. It stank of disinfectant. Along one wall there was a series of very stout wooden handles, some six feet from the floor and projecting about eight inches.

  ‘Really a sort of, abandon hope all ye who enter here, atmosphere,’ Lamming remarked. ‘This is the first Gestapo headquarters I have actually been in. Well, we were given some idea of what to expect before the invasion, but frankly...I hope you have a strong stomach, sir.’

  ‘I am about to find out,’ Fergus said. Monique had spent two years in here?

  ‘After being arrested, and presumably charged,’ Lamming explained, ‘the suspects were first of all brought into this corridor to be searched. They stood with their legs apart and their hands up, grasping those handles, and their heads against the wall. If they moved during the search they were beaten. As you can imagine, this gave the policemen considerable opportunity for misbehaviour, especially where women were concerned.’

  Misbehaviour, Fergus thought. Monique would have stood here, to be raped.

  Lamming led him down the steps, into a fair-sized room. At the far end there was a desk, and facing the desk, occupying the entire rest of the area, were two rows of backless benches.

  ‘They apparently call this the tram,’ Lamming explained. ‘After arrest and charging, and having been searched, upstairs, the suspect was brought down here to await interrogation. He, or she, was told to sit down on one of the benches, facing the officer behind the desk. They had to keep absolutely still, until called for. They sometimes sat there for forty-eight hours.’

  Fergus gazed at the benches in consternation. ‘Forty-eight hours? No one can sit. bolt upright for forty-eight hours. No one could possibly sit down for that long. I mean, what about natural calls?’

  ‘It didn’t pay to have one, sir,’ Lamming said. ‘There were always guards in the room, armed with rubber truncheons. Anyone moving so much as an inch was hit with a truncheon. If the suspect fell off the bench, he, or she, was beaten until he resumed his seat. It was all part of a softening up process. Really rather dreadful, I suppose. Do you know, we have poured gallons of disinfectant down here, and the Germans used it liberally as well, hut you can still smell the stench.’

  ‘Yes,’ Fergus said. How long had Monique sat here?

  Lamming led him across the room and opened a door on the far side. Now here is where the real unpleasantness began,’ he said.

  Fergus followed him into another corridor, damper than the one at street level. Immediately facing him, an open door gave access to another office. Then to his right the corridor stretched past several iron doors, each with a peephole in it. Most of these doors were also open; each was guarded by an MP, and from inside the cells there came the sounds of voices, some speaking in low, well-modulated tones, others shouting, some weeping.

  ‘They are of course being interrogated now by our people, or discussing the situation with various padres,’ Lamming told him. ‘Somewhat different to what happened when the Gestapo were here.’ He pointed along the corridor, to the only article of furniture to be seen. It was a plain table, on which sat a large wireless set. ‘That used to be turned up to full volume when someone was being questioned in this office,’ Lamming said. ‘So the people on the street wouldn’t hear the shrieks of the suspects. But of course, everyone soon worked out that when the wireless was playing at full blast, some poor devil was suffering.’ He stood aside to allow Fergus into the office, and Fergus obliged. He wanted to know what Monique had suffered. ‘Almost medieval, really,’ Lamming suggested.

  Fergus gazed at the desk and its comfortable chair, and then at a stool set in the middle of the room facing it. The stool was some four feet high, bolted to the floor, and was shaped rather like a horse’s saddle, save that there was no middle except for two iron bars about six inches apart. Surrounding it, set into the floor, were four iron rings.

  ‘The suspect was made to sit on that horse,’ Lamming explained, ‘and his, or her, feet were secured to two of those rings. Their arms were carried above their heads and secured to those rings in the ceiling.’

  Fergus looked up, and was dazzled by the ubiquitous naked electricity; he wasn’t sure that wasn’t the most unpleasant aspect of the place — presumably the lights were never switched off.

  ‘This left them absolutely helpless,’ Lamming continued. ‘Of course by now their clothing had been removed. In that position, their, ah, thighs separated by the two bars on which they were sitting, they were subjected to a great deal of abuse.’ He pointed to the wall, where several instruments were hanging, and touched them with his swagger stick. ‘The whip, of course. Very primitive. Salt solution. Very primitive, and rather lengthy. Cigarette ends were used as well, of course. Mere pinpricks, you might say. These are the things they liked best.’ His stick touched what looked rather like small jump leads for a car battery. ‘These crocodile clips were attached to various, ah, convenient parts of the body, and then the wire plugged into that hand-powered generator over there. When the interrogator cranked the handle, an electric current passed along the wire. By using both alligator clips, it was possible to pass the current into the suspect’s body at one place, and out at the other. This is really quite excruciatingly painful, and the great thing about it is that the amount of current can be accurately controlled. Turning the handle slowly, you see, sir, produces just a trickle of electricity, enough to, shall we say, stimulate the suspect. Turning the handle faster increases the flow. By turning it at full speed, even death could be induced. But the Gestapo were experts at the art of interrogation. Still are, I suppose.’

  The art of interrogation, Fergus thought. Monique would have sat on that saddle, while those electrodes were attached to her nipples or thrust between her legs...

  ‘What is your profession in civil life, Captain?’ he asked.

  ‘Profession, sir? I’m a policeman.’

  ‘Ah,’ Fergus said. ‘Now would you mind taking me to Madame Deschards?’

  ‘Oh, yes, sir, of course. I just thought you might like to see how the other half lives, as it were.’

  ‘I found it fascinating,’ Fergus acknowledged, choosing his words with care. ‘I don’t suppose you...I mean, we, ever use methods like that to interrogate our suspected spies?’

  ‘Good heavens, sir, what a suggestion,’ Lamming protested.


  ‘But we do get the answers, presumably.’

  ‘Oh, indeed, sir,’ Lamming said. ‘We do get the answers.’ He had dropped his voice as they walked down the corridor. Fergus could not stop himself from glancing to his left as they did so, to see the shattered wrecks of human beings sitting on the narrow iron cots, pouring out their hearts to the various MP sergeants and officers who sat beside them.

  Suddenly he wanted to turn and run. He felt as if he could not breathe, was being choked to death by the stench of disinfectant, just as his ears were being pounded by the sound of people screaming in agony and of a radio playing music at full volume.

  He didn’t want to see Monique. Not if she had been reduced to a wreck.

  ‘This is the cell, sir,’ Lamming whispered.

  ‘Is she alone?’

  ‘Yes, sir. In view of her claim...well, we still have agents behind the German lines. I couldn’t risk allowing her to mix with any of the other inmates. Or even my men.’

  ‘Quite,’ Fergus said.

  ‘You don’t have to go in, sir. You can see through the peephole.’

  Fergus stepped up to the judas window, took a long breath, and put his eye to the aperture. He gazed at a cell, devoid of furniture save for an iron cot and a latrine bucket. The latrine bucket was presently empty, to his relief. On the bed there was a horsehair mattress but no clothes. And on the mattress there lay a woman, wearing a dressing gown. She appeared to be asleep, as her eyes were closed, but she lay on her back with her hands clasped beneath her head, and her face was clearly visible — needless to say there was a naked bulb dangling above her head. She did not present quite the horrifying picture Fergus had feared. Her hair had been cut short...or rather, he realized, it had once been shaved, like those women in the street, and was still in the process of growing back. The legs emerging from the hem of the dressing gown were thinner than he remembered, but still revealed firm flesh and muscle, and the dressing gown rose and fell from still very definite mounds at her breasts. The face had suffered most, he supposed, but even that wasn’t the gaunt mask of yellow skin, tightly stretched from bone to bone, that he had expected to see. It too had lost weight, and wore a less confident, more bitter, expression than he recalled, but it was pleasantly suntanned and with a touch of colour in the cheeks. And she breathed, slowly and regularly. He could remember that face smiling and laughing. As she would smile and laugh again, now. Relief flooded through his system almost like a physical dose. She might have been raped a hundred times, and beaten a hundred times, and subjected to the most humiliating tortures and treatment evil men could devise — he still wanted to go in there and take her in his arms.

  ‘As I said, sir she’s had a rough time,’ Lamming said. ‘We’re doing what we can, of course. We’ve given her food and milk, and she’s been examined by a doctor.’

  ‘And you still think she could be a double agent?’

  ‘Well, sir, everything is possible. The doctor says that she is basically quite fit. Suffering from malnutrition, of course, but only slightly, as you see; more a severe dietary deficiency than an actual lack of food. And while there is some evidence of physical mistreatment, much of it took place a good while ago. There are only a few recent injuries.’

  ‘Doesn’t all of that fit her story of being arrested two years ago?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But what has happened to her since then? Look at her skin. It is not the dead white one would have expected to find in someone locked up all of this time. That woman has been out in the open air, quite recently and over a considerable period.’

  ‘Have you tried asking her what has happened to her all of this time?’

  ‘Only superficially, sir. It is usually a waste of time interrogating a suspect until one is in possession of all the facts known about her, or him.’

  ‘I would prefer it if you did not refer to her as a suspect,’ Fergus told him.

  ‘Oh, quite, sir. Just a manner of speaking. What I would like you to tell me, sir, is...is she really Monique Deschards?’

  ‘Yes,’ Fergus said. ‘She is.’

  ‘There’s a relief. And she did work for your father?’ ‘I’m afraid I have no idea.’

  ‘Ah. That rather puts us back to square one’

  ‘Not necessarily. I would like to speak with her.’

  Lamming frowned. ‘Are you sure that’s wise, sir? Rather tips our hand, as it were. I mean, obviously I didn’t tell her you were in the vicinity.’

  ‘Captain Lamming,’ Fergus said. ‘I have not the slightest fear that Madame Deschards is a German spy, or indeed is anything other than she claims to be. She is a very old friend, and I would like to speak with her.’

  ‘Well, sir, if you insist...’

  ‘I do insist. And I wish to be alone. With no one peering through this ghastly contraption, either.’

  Lamming looked hurt. ‘As you wish, sir. Ten minutes do you?’

  ‘When I am finished, I will come and tell you,’ Fergus said.

  *

  Fergus opened the door, slowly and carefully; yet he could not avoid a faint squeak, and Monique’s eyelids quivered. It squeaked again when he closed it behind him, and this time her eyes opened, and she sat up, seeming to curl herself in a ball as she did so, careless of exposing her legs as she tried to cram herself against the wall behind the bed. ‘Don’t,’ she whispered in French. ‘Please...’ She stared at him, but at his uniform rather than his face. ‘I am sorry,’ she said in English. ‘One forgets. And then remembers.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Fergus said.

  Monique looked at his face for the first time. ‘Oh, my God!’ she whispered.

  He took a step closer, and she seemed to shrink away from him. His brain had gone blank — he had no idea what one should say at a moment like this.

  ‘They wanted you identified, you see,’ he said. Monique was desperately gathering the dressing gown around her.

  ‘Now that I have done so, they are going to let you go,’ he told her.

  ‘They do not believe me,’ Monique said. ‘I have seen this in their faces.’

  ‘Well...’ Fergus stood above her. How he longed to take her in his arms. ‘They find it difficult to accept that you could have been taken by the Gestapo two years ago, and not executed, or sent to a camp, or...’

  ‘I have been in a camp,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Would you like to tell me about it?’

  Monique licked her lips.

  Fergus sat on the end of the cot. ‘May I?’

  ‘I am your prisoner,’ she said.

  ‘You are nobody’s prisoner, Monique. It’s just necessary to tell me what happened, and you will be released.’

  ‘Where is Sir Murdoch?’ she asked. ‘They told me he could not come to see me, but I know they are lying. Bring him to me, and I will speak with him.’

  ‘I’m afraid they were telling you the truth. Dad went off to do a bit of cloak and dagger himself, and is still there.’ She frowned at him. ‘He’s not dead?’

  ‘Oh, no. But he won’t be back until after the war, and that could still be some time off.’

  Monique gazed at him for several seconds. Then she said, ‘I did not expect to see you. I did not ask to see you.’

  ‘You mentioned my name to the captain.’

  ‘I want to get out of here. That is all I want to do.’

  ‘And I have come to help you do that, Monique.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because...because of a great many things. But principally, I think, one night in Cairo.’

  She stared at him. ‘You are married?’ she asked.

  ‘Why, no.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well...I haven’t really had the time. And...’ but now was not the time.

  She sighed. ‘And now you wish to know about me. It should not be you, Fergus.’

  ‘I think it should, because I will believe you. And Monique, I have inspected this place. You do not have to go into any details.’

  She shuddered.
‘They brought me here when I was arrested. It was a raid, on the house where I was staying. They smashed down the doors and shot at everything that moved. I had no time to reach either my gun or my tablets.’ She sighed. ‘I do not know if I would have taken them. I was too young. Life was too sweet.’

  ‘I am glad you did not take the tablets,’ Fergus said. ‘Having found you.’

  She gave him another quick glance, and once again seemed to recoil against the wall. ‘I wished I had, when they brought me here. You say you have seen...’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘But you have never felt! It is more than the humiliation of being searched, of having their fingers...’ she sighed. ‘Or of sitting in the tram, hour after hour...it is the fear. When they have hurt you, time and again, so badly, your whole being is concentrated on not being hurt again. And you know, no matter what you do, how hard you try, that you are going to be hurt again, as badly as they choose.’

  She hugged herself, and he said nothing. Because there was nothing to say. She would tell him what she wished. Far more important, she would tell herself what she wished. That way would lie the essential dividing line between madness and sanity, for the rest of her life.

  ‘They kept me here for a week, and I wished I could die every second of those days. But I denied everything. Over and over again. I denied everything.’

  ‘And therefore betrayed nothing. You are a very brave woman, Monique.’

  ‘I screamed,’ she said. ‘I screamed so much I lost my voice. And I begged them to stop. When one begs, one humiliates even one’s tormentors. So they became tired of playing with me and sent me away.’

  ‘To a camp?’

  ‘A camp,’ she said. ‘Yes.’ She turned over her arm to show him the blue numbers on her flesh.

  ‘Good God! They branded you?’

  ‘It is their way of keeping track of their prisoners. There are so many people in those camps. They have no names, only numbers.’

  ‘And you survived there.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I survived there.’