When he came round it was night, and from a faint jolting he knew that he was moving, but his mind was practically a blank; he was conscious only that he felt desperately ill without being able to remember how he had become so. After a time he realised that he was half-sitting, half-lying, on the back seat of a car, but he had no idea where he was being taken or even what country he was in. His eyes ached intolerably and his head seemed to split in half with every jolt of the vehicle, which was moving at high speed.
He lay there comatose until the car suddenly pulled up and he slid off the seat on to the floor. The door was flung open, hands seized and shook him, then as he pleaded to be left alone a voice addressed him urgently in French:
‘It is I, Collimard—Collimard, the barber. I went back at ten and the butler said that you had left hours before but that he had not seen you go. I felt certain then that something had gone wrong so I held him up with my gun and forced him to tell me what had happened from the moment that you entered the house. He led me to the lower terrace and we found you there. What happened? You do not appear to be wounded. Did she suspect and give you a doped cigarette?’
‘Poison,’ Gregory moaned, as the whole series of events came back to him, ‘poisoned wine.’ Then the realisation that he had spoken, and all that it meant, dawned in his tortured brain. If he had got back the use of his facial muscles sufficiently to speak, the effects of the poison were wearing off, but, even so, he felt almost as though he were in extremis as he muttered: ‘Doctor—get me to a doctor.’
‘Listen,’ said Collimard swiftly; ‘Mussolini spoke at six o’clock. It is war. Italy will be at war with France and Britain on the stroke of midnight, and it is already nearly eleven o’clock. We are just outside the air-port. Desaix will be waiting there. If you can make the effort to pass the officials we still have time to get away in the plane, but if we delay to try to find a doctor we shall be caught here and arrested as enemy aliens. How bad are you? Do you feel that you could survive the journey, or are you so bad that if you do not have proper attention in the next few hours you will die? It is for you to judge, and we will stay or go—whichever you decide.’
Gregory closed his eyes and tried to think. It was nearly eleven o’clock. Then, some seven hours had elapsed since he had drunk the poison. If he had survived so long, the odds were that a doctor could do little for him but ease his pain and it was now only a matter of time before the poison worked itself out of his system. He would have given a fortune, had he possessed one, to have had cool poultices placed round his aching head, with a soothing drink to ease his parched throat, and to have been able to relax his tortured limbs between clean sheets, but there were Collimard and Desaix to think of as well as himself; and even had they not been involved his every instinct would have been to face any agony rather than become the inmate of an Italian concentration-camp.
He nodded and gasped. ‘I’ll be all right; we must get off—at once.’
‘Can you stand?’ asked Collimard anxiously. ‘The airport people may not let you through if they think that you are desperately ill or perhaps drugged, and that Desaix and I are taking you somewhere against your will.’
Gregory tested his limbs, knelt up and managed to struggle back on to the seat. ‘I’m pretty groggy,’ he muttered, ‘but I’ll manage somehow. Knees may give a bit, an’—difficult to hold up my head. Better tell them I’ve been on the binge—drunk.’
Collimard shut the door of the car, got back into the driver’s seat and drove on for a few hundred yards until he reached the entrance to the airport. Getting down again, he opened the door to help Gregory out and, as he did so, he began to sing The Marseillaise.
Two Italian policemen came hurrying up with a small crowd of other people and one of the officers addressed Collimard indignantly, asking him how he dared to sing the national anthem of France when in little over an hour France and Italy would be at war.
Collimard hiccoughed and declared drunkenly: ‘I sing because I am a Frenchman and I go home to fight for la belle France, This’—he thumped Gregory hard on the chest—‘is my gallant ally. He goes to fight by my side although he is a clergyman. But he is no ordinary clergyman—he is as drunk as I am. No; he is much more drunk than I am, because he can no longer sing. Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves. Come! let us pass—lead me to my fiery steed—bring me my bow and my arrows tipped with gold—we’ll show you—we’ll show all of you.’
This extraordinary declamation was received in astonished silence by the group of Italians. It was a bold policy to declare oneself so openly, when groups of blackguardly young Fascists were lynching French and British subjects in the streets. But—war or no war—all the world has a slightly cynical but nevertheless soft spot for a drunken man providing that his drunkenness is neither beastly nor quarrelsome. Several of the bystanders began to laugh and pushing his way forward the Italian policeman said, not unkindly:
‘I’m afraid you stayed too long in the bar, my friend. The last plane for France has gone.’
‘Ah,’ said Collimard, wagging his finger, ‘that’s where you’re wrong; I have my own plane. Come and look at my plane; I will show it to you.’ As he stumbled forward, supporting Gregory under one arm, the policeman said:
‘Wait a minute; you can’t leave your car here, you know.’
‘My car—but why not? I cannot take my car with me in the plane and, if I could, my car could not fight for la belle France as my friend, the clergyman, is about to do; so why should I not leave my car here?’
‘It’s against regulations,’ said the policeman. ‘You should have sold it or given it away before leaving.’
‘Ha, that’s an idea!’ Collimard exclaimed triumphantly. ‘The war is one thing; personal feelings are another. I have worked in Italy for years, I have earned good money here. Although I go to fight for France I shall still love Italy. To Italy I give my car. You shall sell it for the Italian Red Cross.’
This generous announcement completed his drunken conquest of the crowd. Some good-hearted fellow said: ‘Come on! There’s no time to lose; we must get these fellows off or they’ll be interned here. After all, we’re not at war with them yet.’
With voluble offers of assistance the little crowd then surrounded Collimard and Gregory, talked to the airport officials on their behalf, found Desaix, who was in the waiting-room, and, to the airman’s amazement, took them all out on to the flying-ground, where they were given a send-off as though they were national heroes instead of three potential enemies.
Owing to Collimard’s aid Gregory had somehow managed to keep his feet while their passports were being examined and they were making their way across the landing-ground, but immediately he got into the plane he collapsed.
Hours later he learnt that when they had landed to refuel at Marseilles, Collimard and Desaix had held an agitated consultation as to whether they should take him to a hospital there or fly on with him to Paris; but both of them had to get to the capital, and as Gregory had appeared no worse they had decided to take him on with them. When he came-to on being lifted out of the plane he found that they were back at the private aerodrome at Choisy. Desaix asked him if he would like to be put to bed at once in the house, but as Choisy was only a little over five miles outside Paris he said that he would rather be taken to the Saint Regis, as the manager there knew him and would take all further responsibility for him off their hands. Collimard telephoned the Saint Regis to have a doctor there to meet them while Desaix got out a car, and by five o’clock Gregory was tucked up in bed in his old room at the hotel with a professional nurse in attendance.
When he awoke it was two o’clock in the afternoon. The first thing that struck him was that he could once more hear the rumble of guns, then he realised that he was back in Paris. He remembered little of the journey of the night before and nothing at all of having been examined by the doctor; but seeing that he was awake the nurse, a pretty, dark girl who told him that her name was Sister Madeleine, gave him so
mething to drink which eased his throat, and gave him a telegram that had been waiting for him.
It had been handed in the previous Saturday and read:
ERIKA TOOK TURN FOR BETTER YESTERDAY STOP IN VIEW OF CRISIS CANNOT SUFFICIENTLY STRESS URGENCY OF YOUR COMPLETING JOB STOP GWAINE-CUST.
Gregory lay back and closed his eyes. Erika had turned the corner—Erika had turned the corner. That blessed throught kept playing like human music through his brain and he was still revelling in the marvellous relief of it twenty minutes later when the doctor arrived!
Apart from a certain haziness as to events after he had drunk the poison, Gregory could remember every detail of the events which had led up to his almost fatal experience and he knew enough about medicine to be quite certain that the professional skill could do nothing for him except keep him in bed until he had regained his health and strength; so he listened patiently to the doctor’s humming and hawing while making his own mental reservations as to what he meant to do.
He felt very weak but the pains had left him and he could now use his limbs quite freely again. Sir Pellinore’s telegram only confirmed his own feeling that for any man, however ill, who could stand on his own feet this was no time to lie abed, and the first step was to inform himself of what was going on; so when the doctor had gone he sent for the papers.
He saw with relief that Turkey had reaffirmed her obligations to the Allies on Italy’s entry into the war the previous midnight and that President Roosevelt had made a great speech condemning Mussolini and implying that American neutrality was dead. Malta had that morning been bombed by the Italians, while the R.A.F. had carried out raids on Libya and Italian East Africa, but he knew that all these things could have little bearing on the titanic struggle which was taking place close at hand.
It was Tuesday, June the 11th, the seventh day of the battle for France, and the French had been forced to withdraw to new positions south of the Marne. Just eight nights before Lacroix had told him the awful secret that General Weygand had no army of reserve, as every available man had had to be thrown in on the line of the Somme; Gregory could only pray that during the past week that had been rectified. In seven days it should have been possible to have brought over large bodies of troops from France’s North African possessions as well as many units which had not formed part of the original B.E.F.—and so still had their equipment—from Britain. If such a force was being concentrated somewhere south of Paris there was still hope, and Gregory felt that it must be so. Surely while France was in danger all other theatres of war entirely lost their significance. What did it matter if Mussolini invaded Tunisia or the Western Desert or the Sudan or Somaliland and gained a temporary foothold in any or all of these places, if only France could be saved? He could always be slung out afterwards.
It was now 14 days since the surrender of Belgium, 27 days since the capitulation of Holland and 32 days since the opening of the Blitzkrieg; so for nearly five weeks the Germans had been sustaining their incredible offensive at maximum pressure, it was said that they had already lost half a million dead, with thousands of tanks and planes. It simply was not possible for them to continue that way for very much longer; they must be nearing exhaustion point. If only they could now be halted, and a counter-offensive launched, there was a real hope that the vast, overstrained machine might collapse upon itself and even that the war might be brought to a victorious conclusion by one well-planned counter-offensive.
At half-past four he got out of bed and told pretty Sister Madeleine that she must help him dress. The poor girl was horrified, but he smilingly told her that he knew perfectly well what he was up to and that it was no good sending for the doctor because the doctor was only his paid adviser and had no power whatever to restrain him from going out if he decided to do so on his own responsibility.
Seeing that nothing would dissuade him from his purpose, she helped him on with his clerical suit—the only clothes that he had with him—and once he was up he found that although he was a little shaky he was quite capable of walking about without assistance. She saw him downstairs and on the porter’s securing him a taxi he drove to the Sûreté Générale. Having sent up his name to Lacroix he waited patiently in a room downstairs until nearly six o’clock, when at last a messenger came in to say that the Colonel would see him.
For once the little man was not seated behind his desk but was walking slowly up and down with his hands clasped behind his back. As Gregory was shown in he turned and, having stared at him for a moment, exclaimed:
‘Sacré Nom! But what has happened to you, my poor friend? You look as though you have just got up out of your coffin. Sit down at once.’
‘Thanks.’ Gregory sank into a chair. ‘You’re right, sir; I have just got up out of my coffin—or near enough. I spent six days chasing that damned woman round Italy and when I at last ran her to earth she made a complete fool of me. Collimard’s disguise was admirable, but my hands gave me away. She knew who I was from the word “go” and she put poison in my wine—the hell cat! This time last night I was as near death as makes no difference, out at her villa on Lake Albano, but I managed to save myself by the skin of my teeth, and Coîlimard behaved magnificently; he and Desaix managed to get me home.’
‘But, mon ami, you ought to be in bed.’
‘Of course,’ Gregory shrugged. ‘But how could anyone who has the strength to walk remain in bed at a time like this? I had to know what’s happening and I’ve come back to you again as a failure; but I mean to get that woman if I die for it. She’s here in France again—at least, she was leaving for France when I last saw her.’
Lacroix nodded. ‘She new from Italy yesterday evening and arrived back at her château in the Forest of Fontainebleau just before midnight. Directly I heard that I knew that you must have failed, so I’m having her watched; but, as you know, there is nothing that I can do against her.’
Gregory laughed a little weakly. ‘Maybe. But I’m still game to go after her. I’ll drive out there tonight, I’ve a feeling that she’s not going to be so lucky the third time that I get her on her own.’
‘I forbid you to do so,’ said the Colonel sharply. ‘You are in no fit state to undertake any such venture.’
Gregory’s chin came out in a stubborn line. ‘Forgive me, but I’m not under your orders, mon Colonel. I’m a free man and I shall make my own decision as to how and when I tackle Madame la Baronne. Still, before I go I’d consider it a real kindness if you’d let me into how things are shaping. The papers say so little.’
Lacroix flung out his small brown hands. ‘Matters could hardly be worse. It has been decided to declare Paris an open town, in order to save it from devastation. If it proves necessary our forces will be ordered to withdraw to fresh positions south of the city.’
‘Good God!’ Gregory exclaimed. ‘But the moral effect on your troops will be positively appalling. Paris is now a great, natural bastion in the very centre of your line. If every building in the suburbs were made a machine-gun nest the Germans would never be able to take the city, short of starving it into surrender. You could hold it for months while the old B.E.F. is being re-equipped and a far greater one being shipped over week by week to your assistance.’
‘And in the meantime?’ asked Lacroix. ‘We are no longer in 1870. The city suffered badly enough then from the German bombardments, but that is nothing compared to what the Germans could do today with both guns and aeroplanes.’
‘But Paris covers a huge area. If the Germans bomb and shell it for weeks they may do quite a lot of damage but they couldn’t destroy it beyond repair.’
‘Would you, I wonder, take the same view if it were London that was threatened with destruction?’
‘Yes,’ cried Gregory angrily. ‘I’m only saying what any Londoner would say when I tell you that I would rather die fighting among the ruins of Piccadilly than live to see the Germans march down it in triumph.’
‘I believe you. And many Frenchmen—myself among them—would
prefer to die crushed under the ruins of the Arc de Triomphe than allow the Germans to pass through it; but it is not to be.’
‘Think what such a surrender means,’ Gregory went on urgently. ‘It’s not only the moral uplift that the capture of the city will give to the whole German nation, and the disastrous effect that it will have on the mind of every Frenchman throughout the world, but if it is to be given up to save its buildings from destruction we won’t be able to bomb it afterwards. A million Germans will be able to live here in perfect security, immune from all attack, and its great railway network will give the enemy an enormous advantage for future operations. In the Paris area there are great munition-plants and innumerable factories. All these will fall unharmed into the Nazis’ hands and the loot that Hitler will collect is almost beyond imagination.’
The Colonel shrugged wearily. ‘I know, my friend, I know; but that is the decision of the High Command and the Government is leaving Paris tonight.’
‘Where for?’
‘I do not yet know. I am now waiting to hear from de Gaulle.’
‘Who is he?’
‘You have not heard of him, eh? Well, he is one of our younger Generals and a man in whom I, personally, have great faith. He is Under-Secretary for War and Reynaud’s general military adviser.’
‘Is it he who has advised the abandonment of Paris?’
‘On the contrary. He fought tooth and nail against it, but he was overruled. Today another great battle has been raging—a secret battle in which victory will go to those who succeed in influencing Reynaud to accept their policy. De Gaulle, Georges Mandel, who is the spiritual heir of Clemenceau, and their friends wish the Government to move to Quimpier, in Brittany, and to withdraw our forces to a line from Rouen to Orleans, and thence south-east along the Loire, so that we can make a last stand with our backs to the English Channel. His opponents wish the Government to retire to Bordeaux, where they would be further removed from the influence of the English should it become necessary to accept defeat and capitulate.’
The Black Baroness Page 42