'You're a wonder,' Gregory grinned. 'But how on earth did you manage to persuade the Baroness that you were the right person for such a job?'
'It wasn't very difficult, my sweet. Paula is completely under Stefan's thumb, and when we heard that her boy-friend the Comte de Werbomont was evacuating to Ghent it stood out a mile long that Leopold was going there too. Then Stefan learnt that the Baroness was also to be of the party. It seemed to me then that you must have slipped up somewhere in Rotterdam, so I decided that I had better take a hand in the game, and when we reached Ghent I arranged for Paula to introduce me to the Baroness.'
'Wasn't that mighty dangerous?' Gregory hazarded. 'Paula knows that you're not a Norwegian at all but Erika von Epp; and if the Baroness learnt that she would put the Gestapo thugs on your tail in no time.'
'Paula knows; but she will not mention it,' Kuporovitch cut in. 'I have told her that if she lets out Erika's real identity I will wring her pretty neck.'
'I see. You've got Paula into the state of mind where she's prepared to double-cross her paymasters.'
The Russian's smile was cherubic as he replied: 'She does not know any longer if she is standing on her heels or her head; and believe me, she looks just as lovely in one position as in the other when she has no clothes on; the only thing she knows is that while I do not interfere with her ordinary duties she must do just as I tell her in all other ways.'
'Good,' muttered Gregory, turning back to Erika. 'So you were introduced to the Baroness. What then?'
'She took a fancy to me and when Paula vouched for me as pro-Nazi I could almost see the Baroness's brain turning over as to what way she could best make use of me. On the next day she sounded my feelings and having found that I was willing to give myself body and soul in the service of that scum, Adolf Hitler, she proceeded to tell me how the air-raids were making such havoc of poor Leopold's nerves and hinted that what he needed was a little relaxation from his tiresome Generals in the company of someone just like myself.'
'Yes; I get the layout now,' Gregory agreed swiftly; 'but what I don't quite see is why she should have chosen you—a comparative stranger to her—for such a vitally important job.'
'There are several reasons,' Erika told him. 'Firstly, you must remember that Paula vouched for my pro-Nazi sentiments. Secondly, while Belgium was still neutral, no special comment would have been aroused if Leopold had taken to himself a German or Austrian girl-friend, but now Belgium is at war his entourage would make the position of such a lady difficult if not impossible; whereas, they could raise no objection to a Norwegian. Thirdly, the Baronne's choice is probably very limited now that the country is in a state of upheaval from end to end. Lastly, although you may not have observed it yourself, quite a number of people have remarked that I am passably good-looking.'
'Pax—pax!' laughed Gregory. 'You win hands down. Of course, the second the Baroness set eyes upon your loveliness she must have realised that if you were willing to take on the job you were God's gift from Heaven; no man, half-crazy from bombing or not, could possibly fail to fall for you. But what sort of state did you find him in?'
Erika shook her head. 'Very difficult. The trouble is that the Nazis have been at him for years. After his wife died they planted a German mistress on him; then there's Professor Teirlinck of Heidelberg University, who is one of his closest friends, and that old tutor of his, de Man; both are rabid pro-Nazis and Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, is as bad as either of them. All these people have preached the greatness of Hitler to him, and told him for so long that National Socialism is the cure for all ills, that his will to fight had already been seriously undermined before Belgium was invaded. He admires the Germans, their efficiency and particularly their Army, while he despises the French because their politicians are so crooked and their aristocracy is so decadent. He is very religious and he entered the war in all honesty, utterly shocked and disillusioned at the thought that the Nazis, whom he's been taught to regard as heroes, should have wantonly attacked him; but his Fifth Column friends have been dinning it into him that Hitler only invaded Belgium as a matter of strategic necessity and is perfectly willing to give him a decent deal any time he likes to ask for terms. As he is half convinced that Hitler will win anyhow, mine hasn't been an easy row to hoe; but fortunately his Cabinet and most of his Generals are pro-Ally so we've been managing to keep our end up, though how long we'll be able to do so now his Ministers have gone to Paris, God alone knows.'
'And what is the present situation?' Gregory asked.
'The situation is that in two minutes I must leave you for my evening's spell of duty. I shall be away for about an hour and a half. These sessions really last longer but I sit with him each evening now for about that length of time somewhere between ten o'clock and midnight. He is still keeping a brave face in front of his Generals and I think only the Baroness and myself, with one or two members of his personal entourage, realise the mental stresses that he's bottling up inside himself. He lets it all out to me, though, and for several days past he's been veering nearer and nearer to facing his staff and telling them that he means to quit. I'll let you know the latest directly I get back.'
As Erika stood up Kuporovitch and Gregory stood up with her and, having helped her on with her outdoor things, saw her off down the street.
When she had gone the two men settled down to drink some more of the Burgundy that Kuporovitch had bought earlier in the evening and Gregory asked the Russian to bring him up to date with the uncensored news which he had no opportunity of obtaining during his stay in Brussels.
Kuporovitch said that according to the British broadcasts the R.A.F. had been doing terrific work on the German troop concentrations and that at last they were going out practically every night to bomb the German cities. Hamburg and Bremen had already received several visits and during the previous week the power-station at Leipzig had been blown up. The British fighter aircraft were also very active and although they were greatly outnumbered by the enemy it was stated that Germany had lost 1,500 planes since the Blitzkrieg on the Low Countries had opened. In one case eleven Hurricanes had attacked ninety Junkers and Messerschmitts and had the best of the encounter. The British aircraft factories were now said to be working twenty-four hours a day and Lord Beaverbrook was performing prodigies of organisation which had called forth a magnificent response from the workers.
The Russian was a little vague about a new Act which the British Parliament had passed but said that the headlines had given it great prominence. Apparently, it virtually converted Britain into a totalitarian state, as the House had given the Government control over all persons and all property. They had also passed a Treachery Bill which made him laugh a lot, as it seemed quite inconceivable to him, having come from the land of the Ogpu, that Britain had been at war for nearly nine months without her judges having the power to pass the death sentence upon a German spy—even if he wounded Mr. Churchill so seriously that he was no longer in a fit state to carry on the nation's business but did not kill him, or elected to blow up Buckingham Palace provided that he did not cause actual loss of life by so doing. As a result of certain clauses in this bill Sir Oswald Mosley had been arrested with a number of other British Union of Fascist Leaders and also a Member of Parliament named Captain Maule Ramsay.
The invasion of the Low Countries had done in the United States the work that our own propaganda should have done many months earlier; it had brought home to the Americans the true facts about the world menace which the Allies were fighting, and the bombing of the hospitals, the machine-gunning of refugees and other acts of Nazi terrorism had swung American opinion to the point where the great Democracy in all but declaring war had now openly sided with Hitler's enemies. As had been expected by those who understood Russian policy, Hitler's successes in the Low Countries had caused Stalin to adjust the balance to the best of his ability by showing a cold shoulder to the Nazis and encouraging the Balkan States to resist further attempts by Berlin to dominate them.
On the previous evening fifteen French Generals had been dismissed from their commands and the French were now taking a new line with their war communiques. Instead of censoring all news except for official statements that everything was going splendidly, and that every withdrawal was according to plan, they admitted frankly that they had been taken by surprise in the Sedan sector by Hitler's heavy tanks and suffered grave reverses; but they declared that there was no cause for undue alarm as the position was well in hand and everything could be left with absolute confidence in the capable hands of their master strategist, General Weygand.
The British meanwhile appeared to have woken up to the fact that now that the Germans were in possession of the Channel ports it was quite possible that Britain might be invaded. In an extraordinarily short time they had formed a Home Defence army of men who had either not been called up or were over military age, and it had been announced that morning that a new evacuation was to take place in which all children were to be removed from the east and south-east coasts. In the same bulletin the news had gone forth that bluff General Ironside had been superseded by the younger, and reputedly more brilliant, Sir John Dill as Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
Kuporovitch had hardly finished giving Gregory these details when Paula came in. Up till that moment Gregory had not realised that she was staying in the same house, but accommodation in the village was extremely limited and the camp-followers of the Royal party were far too numerous to be accommodated in the Chatea. Paula's Count had managed to get off for a couple of hours that evening to give her dinner at the local estaminet but after a walk on the dunes, which lay between the village and the sea coast, he had had to drag himself away from his charmer to be in attendance in case the King required him.
Gregory did not wonder that the poor Count was badly smitten, for in spite of the nerve-racking experiences through which she was living Paula was glowing with youth and beauty.
She still believed that Gregory was Colonel-Baron von Lutz of the German Secret Service, so he regaled her with an interesting but entirely fictitious account of his doings since they had last met in Norway. He had, he said, got back to Germany in time for the invasion of the Low Countries, and with his splendid inventive powers he described the scenes of battle as the wedge of the German Army—which he had never seen—drove its way through central Holland to Rotterdam. He had just got to a description of the city as he had actually seen it in flaming ruins when a nearby church bell began to peal.
'Sacre nom!' exclaimed Kuporovitch. 'Another air-raid! Someone has given away the position of that wretched King yet again!'
'What do we do?' asked Gregory. 'Is there a cellar in this house where we can take cover?'
The Russian shook his head. 'No. I inquired of the landlady directly we arrived, but there is no cellar here, and not even a trench in the garden. We must just remain where we are and fortify ourselves with some more of this passably good Burgundy.'
As the planes moaned overhead they fell a little silent. It is one thing to be on a broad battle-field, or in some great city, when enemy planes come over and the chances are several thousand to one against their dropping their bombs within a mile of you, but it is a very different matter to be sitting in a small village within a few hundred yards of a building which you know to be the bull's-eye of a deliberately chosen enemy target.
Crump—crump—crump. Three bombs came down in rapid succession somewhere to the south, on the sand dunes. The windows rattled and the floor quivered a little, but no damage was done.
Crash! Another fell—much nearer. The floor-boards seemed to jump, the window shattered and the broken glass tinkled down behind the drawn curtains. Paula leant forward across the table and bit her thumb hard; she had gone very white. Gregory made no bones about it himself—he did not like it a little bit. Old soldiers never do. And as he caught Kuporovitch's eye they both knew that they were feeling the same about things; although the only way in which they showed their feelings was that they puffed a little more quickly at their cigarettes.
Suddenly a low whine overhead increased to a positive scream, there was an ear-splitting detonation followed by a reverberating roar. The whole house rocked, and for a second the table left the floor to fall back again with a thud as the glasses and bottles on it fell, rolled and smashed. Gregory was thrown sideways to the floor and Kuporovitch, in his seat opposite the window, was blown backwards so that his head hit the polished boards with a heavy thud. Paula gave one scream and collapsed across the table. A bomb had fallen in the street not a dozen yards from the window.
Half-stunned, Gregory and Kuporovitch picked themselves up, while fresh whines and crashes sounded further afield as the bomber passed over, but Paula did not stir. Her head was buried on her arms, which were splayed out among the spilt wine, and blood was gushing from her side. A bomb fragment had whizzed through the window and caught her under the left arm as she was leaning on the table. It had smashed her ribs and penetrated her heart, killing her almost instantly.
Kuporovitch stood over her, gently stroking her dark hair while he murmured, 'So young—so beautiful,'
and Gregory saw that large tears were streaming down his weather-beaten cheeks. In spite of the callous, casual way in which he had treated her, according to his own strange lights upon human relationships, the Russian had grown very fond of the beautiful German girl and it was obvious that he was suffering acutely at the thought that she was never to laugh again.
'Poor little devil,' Gregory said softly. 'None of us can blame her for what she was doing. It was those rotten Nazi swine who forced her to become a whore; it's pretty lousy, though, to think that in spite of all she did for them they got her in the end, Let's take her upstairs.'
Gently they carried her up to her bedroom and drew the coverlet over her warm-hued face which was now drained of blood but looked even more lovely in the peace of death. She could have felt little pain and she was gone now to a place where there were no Gestapo bullies to compel her to sell her body in exchange for her brother's life.
When they got downstairs again Kuporovitch took a bottle of brandy out of a cupboard and said: 'This is not my war, Gregory, but these Nazi swine shall pay for that. Not yet, though. You must not count upon me for help tonight in anything that you may decide to do; because I'm going to get drunk —I am going to get very drunk indeed—as drunk as only a Russian knows how.'
'O.K.,' said Gregory quietly. 'I'd keep you company and show you what an Englishman can do in that direction if it weren't that I may have to go out on the job when Erika gets back.'
Kuporovitch half-filled a tumbler with neat brandy and swigged the whole lot down, then he said: 'You'll notice, by the way, that they didn't bomb the Chateau.'
'No. Apparently not,' Gregory agreed. 'But what d'you infer from that?'
'Simply that they didn't mean to. Ever since we reached Ghent I've been living within a few hundred yards of King Leopold. I can't remember how many air-raids we've been through; I've lost count of them; but it's shown me one thing— they don't want to get the King—their game is to scare him. They drop the bombs any damned place where it's near enough for him to hear them crashing and they don't mind whom they kill in the meantime, but they haven't dropped a bomb yet that's even been remotely dangerous to him.'
'I get you,' Gregory nodded. 'If they blew him to bits the little Duke of Brabant would succeed, and he would simply be a puppet in the hands of his Ministers. Belgium would fight on, and that is not according to the Germans' programme. They want the Belgians out of the war so that they can encircle the British Army. Their game is not to bomb Leopold but to drop so many bombs all round him that he gets the jitters and lets his Allies down.'
'That's the game,' Kuporovitch agreed, tipping another quadruple brandy into his tumbler. 'Well, here's luck to you people who don't like Hitler! But now little Paula's dead and you're back with Erika there's not much point in my staying here. I can probably do just as good work for the A
llies in France now the battle has become general. I think I'll set out for Paris tomorrow morning. D'you realise, Gregory, that it's May again—just think of it, Paris in May.'
'Just as you like, Stefan. You've been a good friend to us. I'll be truly sorry to lose touch with you, but maybe we'll come across each other later on.'
The door behind them opened suddenly and Erika stood there. 'Thank God you're both safe!' she whispered, and sat down with a little sigh.
'We're all right, but we had one casualty, and a fatal one, here just now,' Gregory told her, breaking the news as gently as possible.
'What?' Erika's eyebrows went up. 'The old landlady—or— or—Paula?'
'Yes, Paula. One of those damned bombs fell in the street and a splinter sailed through the window; it got her through the ribs, went right into her heart. Don't take it too badly, sweetheart; she could hardly have known what hit her. It was all over in ten seconds and she was dead before we could touch her.'
Great tears came into Erika's eyes as she murmured: 'Poor Paula—she was very young—and those Gestapo devils threatened they'd kill her brother if she didn't do just what they told her to do.'
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