The Black Baroness (61 page)

‘Stop!’ cried the Baroness. ‘Stop! I will not listen.’ But he went on to point the moral with inexorable, relentless logic.

‘Even if the Nazis destroyed our air-ports and our factories we should still fight on from Canada; and the United States are behind us now. All the vast resources of that great Democracy will be placed at our disposal to help us smash the Nazis. Our Navy and Air Force will render your ports useless for years to come; the shipping in them must lie idle because you will be cut off from your colonies and your world markets. Every industry in France will be ruined through lack of fuel and raw materials, and the machinery in your factories will rust. Your great Army will have to be disbanded, but there will be no work for the men to do. By next winter you will have ten million unemployed. Your herds and your livestock will die because there will not be enough cattle-food to feed them. To keep their own people from revolt the Germans will be forced to seize the bulk of your agricultural produce. The spectre of famine will enter every home from Calais to Marseilles, and disease will take its terrible toll from Strasbourg to Biarritz. There will be riots and street-fighting in the towns and cities; the starving crowds will wreck the food trains which are taking your crops into Germany and they will murder the Nazi officials who are set over them. Then there will be ghastly reprisals—huge fines—and your most spirited young men—those who should be your leaders of tomorrow—will be shot in batches against the wall of your German-occupied barracks. Whole towns may be given over to destruction in a ruthless attempt to keep you under, and the country will fall into the same state of lawlessness that made life so terrible in the Middle Ages. Bands of desperate, hungry men will roam the country, breaking into houses, killing people who oppose them and torturing others in the hope that they will give away the hiding-places of secret stores of food. The very children upon whom you are counting to grow up as the citizens of the new France that you have planned will die in their cradles, or only reach maturity warped in mind from the horrors that they have witnessed and crippled in body from malnutrition. That,
Madame la Baronne,
is what you will have done to France.’

She cowered away from him, her scarlet mouth a little open,
her black eyes wide, then she whispered: ‘This is a ghastly picture that you paint,
Monsieur
.’

‘Yet it is true,’ Gregory insisted. ‘All that I have said is absolutely inevitable if Britain fights on—and Britain
will
fight on.’

Suddenly her red mouth twitched and she cried: ‘I hate you—I
hate
you! Never before have I been shaken in my belief, but you have made me doubt, and if I am wrong I deserve to die.’

Gregory put up his pistol and shook his head. ‘No. I’m not going to shoot you now. Whatever you may have done in the past, you have convinced me today that you did it believing that it was for the good of your country. I only wish, though, that we had talked together months ago, because I believe that I could have shown you that you were wrong and persuaded you to use your great powers for good instead of ill; but it’s too late now.’

‘Too late,’ she repeated. Then a new expression suddenly lit her dark eyes. ‘I wonder. The military situation in France is now beyond repair, but if France could be kept in the war the Fleet could be saved—and the colonies.’

In a flash Gregory saw that he had achieved the seemingly impossible. The swift, cold brain of this extraordinary woman had not only analysed and accepted his arguments but had gone on to estimate future possibilities in the light of a new conviction. Without any telling she had grasped the fact that, although France was lost, if Britain fought on the only hope of saving her country from the horrors he had pictured lay in aiding Britain to smash Hitler as rapidly as possible so that France might be freed again before she fell into a state of anarchy.

Starting forward, he seized her by the arm. ‘If there
is
the faintest hope still remaining we mustn’t lose an instant.’

‘Let me think,’ She closed her eyes for a moment. ‘What time is it?’

‘It’s getting on for four o’clock.’

‘Four. Then Reynaud is overdue; he should have been here half an hour ago.’

‘Here?’ Gregory exclaimed. ‘But the Government is still in Bordeaux. Surely he would never leave it at a time like this?’

‘You don’t understand,’ she cried impatiently. ‘It was part of the plan that he should resign and hand over to Pétain. He’s been fighting against it for days but we’ve all been at him, and before I left Bordeaux yesterday his resignation had been assured.’

‘Then, if he’s no longer in power it’s too late for him to do anything.’

‘Not necessarily. Paul’s instinct has always been to fight to the last ditch. I have only to say the word to him in order to reanimate him with the fighting spirit once again. When he arrives I could go with him to the local post-office, where we could get a priority call through to Bordeaux. If he could get in touch with de Gaulle and Mandel and the other leaders of the war party he could summon them to join him in Avignon. They could render the new Bordeaux Cabinet still-born by denouncing Petain as a usurper, or at least proclaim an Independent Government from there, which would have Britain and at least half France behind it.’

Before Gregory had time to reply they both caught the sound of a motor horn, and ran to the window. One glance at the small, solitary figure getting out of the dust-covered car that had driven up in front of the house was enough for Gregory to recognise Paul Reynaud.

‘Stand back,’ said the Baroness quickly. ‘Leave this to me. Your presence will only complicate matters.’

As Gregory stepped behind the curtains he heard Reynaud’s voice calling up to the Baroness. ‘It is finished. I resigned at eleven-thirty this morning and Pétain is forming a new Cabinet with Weygand as Vice-President. I took a plane to Toulon and hired a car from there. Thank God it is over!’

‘Wait, Paul!’ the Baroness called back. ‘Don’t come into the house—I am coming out to you. I have much to tell you but we can talk as we go. You must drive me down to the post-office at once.’

Turning from the window she said to Gregory: ‘Stay where you are. Poor fellow, he looks so tired that he will be as putty in my hands. We may not be back for an hour or more, but wait here.’

She was already at the door before she had finished speaking and next moment she was running from the house. For a few minutes Gregory remained deep in thought, trying to assess the new possibilities which had arisen from that extraordinary interchange of views that had taken place between himself and the Baroness. Then he lit a cigarette and stepped out from behind the curtains. To his surprise he saw that Reynaud’s car was still outside the house yet he could have sworn that he had heard it drive off. Next second he noticed that the rear off-wheel
of Reynaud’s car was deflated. He must have had a puncture and driven the last few miles on a flat tyre. Thrusting his head out of the window Gregory saw another car streaking down the hill. They had taken Grauber’s.

‘Step! Stop!’ he veiled at the top of his voice. ‘For God’s sake
stop
!’ But at that very moment the steering-gear with which he had tampered gave way. The car suddenly swerved across the road. With a horrid clang of iron on brick and the sound of shattered glass it charged straight into the wall of a villa at the bottom of the hill.

Swinging round, Gregory dashed out of the house and ran at the top of his speed down the slope. When he reached the villa its occupants had already come out and were lifting two bleeding bodies from the wreckage. Reynaud was badly cut about the head and face, and unconscious but still alive. The little Black Baroness was dead.

After he had given what help he could he sadly retraced his steps. There would be no new fighting Government of France proclaimed from Avignon now.

•    •    •    •    •   

When he reached
Les Roches
the villa was still silent and apparently deserted. The servants were in the far wing of the house and none of them put in an appearance while Gregory was carrying the steel deed-boxes and other things round to the van. At twenty to five he set off on his long journey back to Bordeaux.

The whole of that lovely south coast of France which had been a joy to so many million holiday-makers was now a terrible spectacle. There had always been little camps, with girls in beach-pyjamas and men in coloured shirts. Now the camps stretched through every wood adjacent to the beaches; but there were no beach-pyjamas and no gaily-coloured shirts. Five million homeless and foodless people had streamed into the area. They had reached the sea and they could go no further. The sun would warm them, but how they were to live and how many would survive the dark future no man could say.

But Gregory had no leisure now to speculate upon the awful fate that
La Baronne Noire
had brought upon her country and he had eyes only for the road ahead. Between ten to five and
seven o’clock, when the post-offices shut, he made six halts at different points along his route and from each he sent a telegram, with the same message, to Sir Pellinore:

‘GIVE ME UNTIL MIDDAY TOMORROW IF YOU POSSIBLY CAN.’

In the south and west communications had not been interrupted, apart from the congestion of the lines, and he could only hope that one of his wires might get through to Sir Pellinore before he left Bordeaux that night.

After that he made only two other stops, at Montpelier and Cahors, to fill up with petrol and to snatch a cup of coffee from a wayside buffet. All through the evening, all through the night, all through the early hours of the Monday morning, he drove on and on, crouched over his wheel, eating up the miles that lay between him and the Atlantic coast. If it had not been for the powerful Mercédès-Benz engine hidden beneath the bonnet of the van he could never have done it, but he pulled up in front of the Hotel Julius Caesar at twenty-five minutes to twelve.

Sir Pellinore was standing there on the steps, smoking a big cigar, in the bright sunshine. Beside him were two suitcases. The moment he saw Gregory he picked up the bags, ran down the steps and scrambled up beside him.

Gregory grinned wearily. ‘So my telegrams got through?’

‘Yes. I had two from you last night, and two more came in this morning. But we’ve got to get out of this place before it becomes too hot to hold us; we’re in enemy territory now. Off you go! Straight to the docks. I’ll direct you.’

As they drove through the streets Sir Pellinore gave Gregory the last grim bulletin. It was the seventeenth of June and the thirteenth day of the battle for France. The Army had collapsed and was now falling back in every sector, from its easternmost positions, near Dijon, to the sea. The last great German strategic operation, initiated five days before, had proved overwhelmingly successful. Hitler’s iron columns had battered their way east, from Saint Dizier, through Chaumont, across the Plateau de Langres, to Gray and Besançon, on the Swiss frontier, thereby cutting the entire Maginot Line off from Central France. That morning Marshal Pétain had broadcast that on the previous night he had asked for an armistice. The mighty five-week drama had at last reached its terrible conclusion and the curtain was about to be rung down.

At the dock gates some petty French officials refused to allow the van to pass, but Sir Pellinore had already made arrangements to be met in case he had trouble in getting on board. A British naval lieutenant came out of the gates almost before the argument had got under way, and behind him was a squad of armed bluejackets. Unceremoniously they brushed the French aside, jumped on to the running-boards of the van and took it through to the dockside, where a small cargo ship, crowded with English refugees, was tied up.

The naval officer had not bargained for the van, but his orders were to do all in his power to render Sir Pellinore any assistance required. The French dockers refused to load the van so the British seamen hoisted it with a derrick; the fore-well of the ship was cleared and roped off, then the van was lowered into it. Ten minutes later the hawsers were cast off and the ship put to sea.

As they steamed out into the broad Gironde, Gregory said: ‘Well, it looks as though we’re in for pretty tough times ahead.’

Sir Pellinore drew slowly on his cigar. ‘Yes; but there are always two sides to a question. You’ve read your history, Gregory, and you know a bit about military campaigns. Hasn’t it often struck you that it’s not so much numbers that win wars as singleness of purpose? When we fought Louis of France half Marlborough’s trouble was getting the German princes and the Dutch—and all sorts of other people—to line up with him; and it was just the same when we fought Napoleon—one after another of our Allies let us down. Allies mean divided councils. The weakness of one hampers the war effort of the others, so I’m not at all certain that what has happened isn’t for the best. We have no more Allies left to rat on us; but we have ourselves and the Empire. We can take all that’s coming to us—you may be sure of that; then, when the time is ripe, we shall be able to strike
when, how and where we will
. But tell me,’ he lowered his voice, ‘did you get that woman?’

Gregory shook his head. ‘No. I’ve an extraordinary story to tell you, but that will have to wait. Since I left Finland, thirteen weeks ago, I’ve travelled some seven thousand miles. That’s well over five hundred miles a week on average, and fourteen hundred of it have been done in the last three days, over roads choked with French refugees; so I’m pretty well all in.’

‘Of course, my boy,’ Sir Pellinore nodded. ‘I’ll see that naval feller and, whoever else has to be turned out, he’ll fix you a
berth. But even if you didn’t get her you haven’t come away empty-handed; you got the van.’

‘Yes; I got the van, with the letter-files that now mean so much to us, and a splendid fortune including a good hundred-thousand-pounds’ worth of old masters. There’s one there that I’d rather like you to have a look at before I turn in.’

They went down the ladder to the fore-well where the van had been chocked up, and wrenching away the broken padlock Gregory pulled open the doors, its contents were exactly the same as when the van had left the garage of the Julius Caesar, but for one addition. A big, bloated, paunchy man, with his wrists and ankles tied, was lying on the floor, breathing stertorously in a half-conscious state.