by Kit Sergeant
Alouette sighed inwardly. Von Krohn must have been referring to the submarine leaving for a mission, probably to torpedo Allied boats, but, even though he spoke in a language he didn’t think Alouette understood, he was being deliberately vague.
The commander nodded before saying, “Alouette, before you go, I’d like to show you our megaphone.” He shot an apologetic smile to von Krohn. “If you don’t mind, of course.”
Von Krohn’s mouth turned downward as he nodded.
The commander led her down a narrow hallway to show her a brass funnel. “It dramatically increases the volume of the human voice.”
She ran her hand along the words crudely printed along the side. Gott strafe England. “What does this mean?”
He gave her a wry smile. “May God punish England.”
She reached for his hand and squeezed it. He responded back with another squeeze. “I’d like to see you again,” he told her in a low tone.
She turned to him with wide eyes. “I’ll be in Madrid in July. Perhaps you could visit me? I’ll be alone,” she emphasized.
“July is impossible. But perhaps we could meet in the fall.”
She pursed her lips into a pout. “Why not July?”
A look of sadness passed across his face before he smiled. A forced, mechanical smile, Alouette noted. “God keep you until we meet again, fräulein.”
He led her back to von Krohn, who helped her into the dinghy. The commander waved at them until they were out of sight of the submarine.
“What was that about?” von Krohn asked gruffly.
She shrugged. “I may be engaged, but I can still be flattered by the attentions of a handsome young man, can’t I?” She pointedly accentuated the words “handsome” and “young,” hoping von Krohn would take the hint that he was neither.
It worked. Von Krohn sulked the rest of the night, and, mercifully, did not venture over to her bed. Alouette fell asleep to the sound of the Baron’s snoring.
As soon as she got back to Madrid, she sent Ladoux a letter regarding what she’d learned about the submarine. She never received a reply.
Chapter 48
Marthe
July 1916
A few days after the ammunition store explosion, Alphonse called on Marthe at her house to offer to walk her to work. “They opened an inquiry as to the blast, but cannot find out any information,” he told her, the glee obvious in his normally stoic voice. “As all of the sentries remained at their post, they had nothing to report. None of them were injured, either.” His grin widened. “I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.”
“What was their conclusion?”
“That somehow an explosive device had been packed among the stores and ignited by accident.”
“So we’re in the clear.”
“Indeed.” They had paused outside of the Grand Place. Alphonse leaned in for a kiss and Marthe returned it willingly.
“What time do you need to be at work?” he asked as they broke for air.
Marthe lifted her arm to check the time, but froze as she looked upon her bare wrist. She realized she hadn’t seen her watch for at least several days.
“Is something wrong?” Alphonse’s sturdy voice broke through her panic.
“No,” she smiled up at him. “I just forgot my watch.”
When she got home from work that evening, she searched her room thoroughly but found no trace of the watch. The clasp had been loose for a while, and she’d meant to get it fixed, but obviously the plan for the ammunition dump had taken priority. It could be anywhere: under the hut, in the tunnel, at the dump itself.
Or maybe she’d just lost it during rounds at the hospital. For that reason, she decided not to tell Alphonse about her missing watch.
Chapter 49
M’greet
August 1916
M’greet August 1916
M’greet traveled to Vittel by train. She waited impatiently at the train station for the hotel motor-car and was disappointed to see a plain old horse and carriage pull up.
“Where are the automobiles?” she demanded as the driver pulled his horses to a halt.
“Requisitioned for the front, madame,” he replied.
“And where do you suppose we put these?” she gestured to her trunks. She was traveling lightly this time and had only brought four.
He made a face as he took stock of them. “I suppose I’ll have to come back.”
“You there,” M’greet called to the two men standing near the ticket office, pretending to be preoccupied with a bulletin board. The taller man looked up and, as suspected, she recognized him as one of the same men who had been following her around Paris.
“Yes?” he asked.
She gestured to her luggage. “Do you mind helping me with those? I imagine we are going to the same hotel.”
He shot a bewildered glance at his partner. His partner shrugged in return and the two of them hauled three of the trunks to the side of the road.
The driver held out a hand to assist M’greet into the carriage before dumping the other trunk unceremoniously next to her.
They drove to the Grand Hotel of the Baths, where M’greet was installed in Room 363. She took the waters the next morning and, upon returning, requested that room 362 be reserved.
Vadim arrived that evening. He had a silk patch over his left eye, tied by two ribbons.
“Oh, my poor darling!” M’greet covered the right side of his face with kisses, deliberately avoiding the patch. “What happened?” she asked when she was satisfied she’d kissed every square centimeter of skin.
“German gas. My mask had a leak in it.” He carefully sat on the bed. “The doctors say I might completely lose my eyesight.”
“Oh, my Vadim, I’m so sorry.”
“This war is horrifying, Marina, in a way you will never understand.” His face was as white as the bandage wrapped around his eye. “I was a boy when I first signed up. Then, at my first battle, I became a man. And now, now I don’t know what I am… a walking wounded, a cripple, a should-have-been left for dead.”
She grasped his hand. “You are none of those things. You are a brave soldier who will quickly recover from his injuries.”
“Marina,” he turned to her and she was once again shocked by his appearance. “Surely if this terrible thing comes to pass, you will not stay with a blind man.”
“Vadim, how can you say such a thing? I would never leave you. Never.”
A small smile appeared on Vadim’s lips. “I thought you might declare as much. In that case, will you marry me?”
She clapped her hands. “Of course! I’d be delighted!”
That night M’greet made a vow to herself that she would never deceive Vadim with other men; she would let go of the Marquis, of van der Capellan, even Harry. Of course, that meant she would have to ask Captain Ladoux for enough money to get by, to rent an apartment in Paris for her and Vadim to live. She had no concern of Vadim losing his eyesight. But if he did, she reflected, it meant he would always remember her as being beautiful, even as she inevitably became older, with deepening wrinkles and graying hair. As she drifted off to sleep, she dreamed of being the happiest woman on Earth.
Chapter 50
Marthe
August 1916
Alphonse no longer spoke about being a priest. Instead, he’d make plans for the both of them for when the war finally ended. “I will probably stay on as an ambulance driver in Roulers and walk you to work until we can get a place of our own,” he stated one morning when he met her at the café for breakfast. “Maybe I’ll even take classes to become a doctor.”
“A doctor?” Marthe asked.
“How else will we make money when you start having babies?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a laugh.
“Think it over.” He glanced at his own watch. “I can’t walk you to work this morning—I’ve been called in early.”
He kissed her before striding off.
&nbs
p; As Marthe passed by the Grand Place on her way to work, she happened to glance at the town bulletin board and a “Found” notice caught her eye:
A soldier of the Army of Württemberg has been arrested for theft. A number of articles found on his person appear to belong to the citizens of this town. Any person who thinks he recognizes the following articles should report to the Town-Kommandment’s office during normal business hours.
Fourth on the list was “a gold watch with the initials M.C. engraved on the back.”
Marthe gave a sigh of relief, pleased that her watch had been located. The thief had either discovered it on the street or stolen it from someone who had.
Without thinking, she strolled across the street to the Town-Kommandant’s office. The secretary gave her a funny look but told her to go through the inner office door.
Marthe had met the Town-Kommandant a few times—he was there when she’d been awarded the Iron Cross. He nodded at her and bid her good morning. After she told him her business, he opened a desk drawer to pull out an envelope, which he then tipped onto his desk. Everyone else must have already claimed their stolen articles as only her watch fell out of the envelope. “Is this yours?”
She picked it up and fingered the engraved initials. “Yes, Herr Kommandant. It was a gift from my father and I’m very glad to have it back.”
“Well.” His smile did not reach his eyes. “Then I am pleased to at last find the owner of the watch.”
As the clasp was still broken, she put it in her purse and forgot about the whole affair until she got home that afternoon. It was a slow day at the hospital and the Oberarzt had let her leave early.
Mother was at the door, a worried look on her face. “Where’s Alphonse?” she asked by way of greeting.
“He was called to the front. I haven’t seen him all day. Why?” Marthe asked.
“The gendarmes were here this morning.”
“Looking for hoarded food again?”
“That’s what they told me, but the way they went about their task this time, I don’t think it was food they were looking for.”
“What do you mean?” Marthe’s voice rose. “Did they mention my name?”
“Not directly.”
“Then there’s nothing to be concerned about.”
An hour later, Marthe was eating dinner when one of the waitresses told her that a roughly-dressed man was at the back door of the café, asking if the letter for Fräulein van Eurne was ready.
“What do you mean?” Marthe demanded. “I don’t know anyone of that name.”
She went to the back door. The man’s clothes were indeed shabby, but his look was too shrewd to be that of a laborer.
“Meneer, I believe you have made a mistake. I do not know anyone with the last name of van Eurne,” Marthe told him.
“Are you sure?” He leaned in, his breath smelling of bratwurst. “You can trust me.”
She tried to control the shaking in her voice. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
His face seemed to drop with disappointment as he bowed. She watched him walk away, feeling vaguely frightened.
She quickly walked back in the direction of the hospital, toward Alphonse’s barracks. The door to his cabin stood open, and it appeared to have been ransacked, but there was no sign of Alphonse.
When Marthe returned to the café, she found an officer of the Brigade Staff, along with two soldiers and a gefreiter waiting for her.
“I have orders to search these premises,” the Brigade officer told her. “Gefreiter, place your men at the doors so that no one can come and go while we conduct our search.” His steely eyes landed on Marthe. “Fräulein, please hand me all of your keys.”
Mother made a small cry as her daughter surrendered her key ring.
“Your search will be fruitless,” Marthe told the officer with more assurance than she felt.
He ordered her and Mother to wait downstairs. They sat in silence, listening to the sound of drawers falling to the floor and the clanging of a metal trashcan being tipped over.
Marthe could feel Mother’s eyes boring into her, but she focused on the pictures of the former owner and his family that still decorated the café walls. The same pictures Alphonse had once commented on so long ago. Marthe dug little crescents into her palm with her fingernails. Alphonse. She could never forgive herself if anything happened to him. She wasn’t worried whether or not she would be arrested—from the noise upstairs, it was clear the Vampires were intent on finding something incriminating. Just that morning she had written two coded messages to deliver to the chemist later that night. She’d hidden them under a loose strip of wallpaper in her bedroom.
Heavy footsteps descended the stairs and the Brigade officer got into Marthe’s face. “You see what I have found, fräulein?” He opened his enormous palm to reveal her messages. “You will come with me to the Kommandant’s office to be formally charged.”
Mother let out a cry, but the officer ignored her. “We have enough evidence to put you in front of a firing squad at our leisure. Gefreiter, grab her.”
“Please, no,” Mother begged.
Marthe did not say anything as the gefreiter took hold of her arms and marched her out of the café. She recalled what Aunt Lucelle had told her when she recruited her: If you are caught, in all probability it will be your own fault. She could feel a tear work its way down her cheek, but the gefreiter still had hold of her arms and she had no choice but to let it fall.
Chapter 51
M’greet
September 1916
M’greet and Vadim’s time together had been ideal: they’d taken the waters, posed for a formal photograph, and spent the rest of their time in her room, away from the prying eyes of the detectives, who resumed their pattern of following her every place she went.
She returned to Paris to find a mountain of bills waiting for her. She shuffled through them: outstanding balances from many of the fancy hotels she’d stayed in over the past few years and invoices from a myriad of dressmakers and perfumiers. Of course, she had nothing to pay them off with—she hadn’t worked for a long time, and had spent a good deal more money in Vittel.
She decided to call on her lawyer, Edouard Clunet, to see if he could be of help.
He examined the bills in silence, his characteristic austere expression deepening into a frown. “Some of these are nearly half a decade old.”
“I know. You’d think at some point they’d just give up.”
“We’re talking about money here, M’greet. People will pursue debts long after you are lying in your grave.” He looked up. “Do you have any savings?”
“No.”
He took off his pince-nez glasses to rub at his face. “We are going to have to start a repayment plan to get some of these bills under control.”
“But I have just become engaged and plan on moving in with my fiancé as soon as he is back from the front. There is no money for repayment.”
“You are getting married again?” Clunet threw his head back and laughed. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
M’greet grabbed the bills from his desk and shoved them into her purse. Clunet had been her lover many years ago and was clearly just jealous. “It’s true. I will become Mrs. de Masloff as soon as I can manage.”
“Good luck, M’greet,” Clunet said ominously as she left.
She headed straight to Ladoux’s office. “I need money,” she said by way of greeting.
Ladoux gestured for her to sit down. “How much are you talking about here?”
“A million francs.”
As usual, Ladoux’s expression showed no surprise. “To earn such a sum would require you to produce extremely sensitive information from the German High Command. The kind of information that would end the war. For you,” he gazed at her dismissively, “that kind of accomplishment would be nearly impossible.”
“Oh, not so impossible, Captain.” M’greet thought quickly, hoping to persuade Ladoux not to s
end her to Germany, where they might ask questions as to what happened to the 20,000 francs they had paid her. “I know just the man who could provide such information.”
Ladoux leaned in. “Who?”
“One of my ex-lovers was friends with the German army’s biggest supplier and can come and go as he pleases at the Grand Headquarters in Antwerp.”
“What is his name?” Ladoux demanded.
“General Von Bissing.” She’d once been introduced to the governor-general of occupied Belgium by van der Capellan. They’d only exchanged pleasantries at the time, but M’greet was sure that he, like most men, would easily fall prey to her considerable charms.
“And if you are caught?”
She waved her hand. “I’ve been in scrapes before. I can take care of myself.”
“Of that I don’t doubt. But this job is quite dangerous and you are taking the greatest gamble of them all—you will be playing with your life.”
“I am an adept gambler.” This was not true, but Ladoux did not know that.
He gave a loud harrumph. “I always bet on red in honor of France. Red is the color of the blood that flows for freedom at the front. Black represents your German friends. I warn you: red will win while black loses. Reflect on that before placing your bet. You have tonight to think it over.”
“I have already thought it over. I will play red.”
Ladoux pulled a cigarette case out of his desk drawer. “Do you care for one?” he held the case out toward her.
M’greet took a cigarette and put it in her mouth. “Thank you.”
He held a lit match up to the end of her cigarette. He took a puff of his own before asking, “Do you know how to use invisible inks?”
She refrained from rolling her eyes. “No. That sort of trickery goes against my nature. And anyway, I will not need them. I don’t intend to laze around for months, picking up tiny bits of information to send to you. I will make a grand coup, tell you all what I have learned in person, and then be finished.”
