The Reckoning (33 page)

Finch drank from his glass.

‘I received a full report of the incident later from Alma. London insisted on it. She made it sound quite simple. It was certainly over quickly. She retrieved her pistol and put it in a basket hanging from the bicycle's handlebars. By the time she got to the barrier the three detained men were inside the hut, with two of the soldiers guarding them. The other two challenged her as she came up to them, and Alma shot them without warning from close range and then gunned down the officer, who managed to draw his pistol, but got no further than that. The noise had brought one of the other two soldiers running out of the hut, but Alma killed him while he was still in the doorway. At that point, however, her pistol jammed; but just as the last soldier was raising his rifle to shoot her, he was tackled from behind by one of the men and, as they wrestled, Alma grabbed hold of the officer's pistol, which was lying on the ground, and finished the job.'

He drank from his glass.

‘I still have trouble picturing the scene, and it took me a while to convince London that it had actually happened the way Alma described it. But in the end they reacted rather as you might expect. Although it couldn't be made public yet, Alma was awarded the highest decoration open to her, the George Cross; it was only granted for exceptional courage, for conspicuous bravery in circumstances of extreme danger. With the notification came a message from the King congratulating her. She was in tears when I told her. I knew she was thinking of her father.' He raised his glass to his lips.

Madden's gaze was thoughtful.

‘That officer's pistol must have been a Luger – did she keep it?'

Finch nodded. ‘It was better than the one she had, which had misfired anyway.'

‘And I expect you had a certain amount of captured enemy ammunition at your disposal?'

Finch shrugged.

‘Then that was how those iron-cored bullets ended up in England. She must have brought the gun back with her.' Madden brooded on the discovery. ‘She returned in the summer of '44 Miss Dauncey told us, quite soon after the Normandy landings. Was there a reason for that?'

Finch studied the wine in his glass. He took his time replying.

‘I don't imagine my answer will surprise you.' He spoke finally. ‘It's what you came here to confirm.' His tone was bleak. ‘As I said before, there was a side to Alma's character that had always given me concern. Unfortunately it was allied to what I most admired in her: her courage, her daring, her contempt for danger. But the speed with which she acted in a crisis, the confidence she had in her judgement, carried its own perils and I was aware that this certainty of hers, this lack of self-doubt, might one day lead to her undoing. Sadly I was proved right.'

He emptied the glass.

‘The occasion came a few weeks after D-Day. The Allies had forced their way off the beaches, but the fighting was still intense. My particular organization was engaged in disrupting German communications wherever possible, cutting phone lines and mounting attacks on road and rail links. We were in action more or less continually, and Alma as usual was tireless. She had been due to meet with a sizeable group of Maquisards in the countryside south of Caen. We were expecting one of the biggest drops of the war, and Alma had been engaged in selecting and preparing a site to receive it. More than fifty canisters were going to be delivered and there had to be enough men on hand to deal with them. As it happened, Alma was late in
reaching the rendezvous site – the Germans were scouring the countryside and the roads were more dangerous than ever – and just as she approached the place through a wood, she saw trucks filled with soldiers converging on it from all sides. There was nothing she could do but watch as battle was joined. It didn't last long. The Maquisards were outnumbered and a massacre followed. It was clear the men had been betrayed. They had walked into a trap.

‘She managed to reach their camp later, but not before nightfall, and when she got there she found it in a state of chaos. One of the party at the drop zone had escaped the slaughter and found his way back. He was a recent recruit, the son of a prominent lawyer in Caen, and he'd been accused by the others of betraying the plan to the Germans. They had wanted to know how he alone had got away, when the rest had either been killed or captured. He had been badly beaten and, according to his accusers, had confessed to being an informer.'

Finch grimaced.

‘One has to try to imagine the scene. For the moment no one seemed to be in control. The men were enraged: they had lost friends they'd fought side-by-side with for months. But at the same time it was clear to Alma that a more important question loomed. There was every likelihood that the traitor had given away the camp's location to the Germans. They had to move at once. There was no time to lose. Their captive was badly hurt, barely able to walk, but a solution was at hand. It was an unwritten law among the Maquis that they took no prisoners.'

Finch filled his glass again and drank from it.

‘I expect you can guess what I'm about to tell you. Alma had always had this clarity of mind – the capacity to see what the situation called for and the courage to act on her conviction. The men knew what had to be done, but no one seemed ready to do it. Perhaps they had doubts about the informer's guilt. They continued to argue among themselves, but there was no
more time to be lost. If they stayed there they might all be dead by morning. It was up to her to act on their behalf. She had the man they were holding dragged to his feet and taken a little way off. Then she carried out the execution herself.'

He buried his head in his hands.

‘As soon as I heard about it I knew she had made a terrible mistake. Never mind the moral aspects of executing a man whose guilt was unproven. She had absolutely no right, even under the iron laws of the Resistance, to do what she'd done. Whatever punishment the man might have merited, it was up to his own people to deal with him. Our role had always been to support the French, to help them in any way we could; but we didn't control them and we certainly didn't have the right to dispense capital punishment where one of their nationals was concerned. What Alma had done could well be regarded as cold-blooded murder, and I knew there would be a price to pay. It didn't take long for the bill to be presented. That particular group of Maquisards were Free French, Gaullist, and the father of the boy who'd been shot by Alma – the lawyer I mentioned – was an important figure in the movement. The situation only worsened when doubts began to crop up about the alleged traitor's confession. It became clear that it had been beaten out of him; there was no corroborating proof.'

Finch put down his glass. He rubbed his face.

‘I could see thunderclouds building up, and I wasn't surprised when I learned that Alma was being recalled to London. She was shocked when I told her. She was sure she had done the right thing and couldn't believe she'd be held to account for it. I put into her hands a detailed report I had written about the incident, which stressed the extreme urgency under which she had acted and pointed out that ultimately she had made the right decision, which was to get the men moving away from the camp site as soon as possible. I also sent a separate note to the head of our section pleading with him to stand by Alma and not forget her
magnificent service record. I said we should do everything we could to support her, and offered to return to London myself if it was thought that would help at all.'

He stared at his hands.

‘I don't know how much you know about our relations with the French, but they were never easy, and towards the end of the war they grew even worse. De Gaulle was determined that France should be an equal partner with this country and the United States, and he tended to take offence at any slight, real or imagined. It was Alma's bad luck to find she'd become a cause célèbre as far as the Gaullists were concerned. They were out for blood. They wanted her head. At first they demanded that she be arrested and charged with murder. The only concession they were willing to make was that the trial could wait until after the war, when it could be held in France. Our section head did his best. He fought hard, and in the end he got them to settle for her dismissal from the service. But she had to be disgraced; the French insisted on it. She was stripped of her George Cross and given a dishonourable discharge from the WAAF. When you arrived this morning and mentioned her name, my first thought was that the French authorities hadn't given up on the case and were trying to get her arrested and charged through the civilian courts. Needless to say, I had no intention of helping you.'

‘Yet you and Alma seemed to have fallen out, when you went to see her at Richmond?'

Madden had waited for a few moments before putting the question.

‘That's because she thought I had turned against her, along with everyone else. Apart from the report I sent to headquarters and the note I gave Alma, I wasn't permitted to play any part in what followed. The war was still going on, remember, and I heard about her only intermittently. The news of her disgrace didn't reach me until I had left France. I won't go into the
details, but once the work of the Resistance began to peter out, I was transferred: first to Italy and then to the Balkans. All that is still top secret – the Reds had become the threat by then – but the upshot was that I didn't get back to England until early in 1946, when I tried at once to get in touch with Alma. I knew how wretched she must be feeling and I thought I might be able to comfort her. I couldn't have been more wrong. I found her living in a flat here in London, but when I called on her she simply refused to speak to me. She shut the door in my face. I wrote to her and tried to see her again after a few weeks, but with the same result. I realized then that she held me as much to blame as anyone – perhaps more so, since I had been her commanding officer – and she wouldn't listen when I tried to explain how I'd been posted to another theatre and had been literally out of touch for months. And that was how it continued. I never gave up. I made several attempts to see her and talk to her, but I was always rebuffed. Alma was, as I've said, and as others may have told you too, a person of extremes. She could never strike a balance.'

He stared into his glass.

‘My visit to Richmond was the most recent attempt I made to see her, and you know the outcome. If anything, she seemed more disturbed than ever, and when she took me into the house I understood why. “Look at this,” she said, and thrust that War Office letter into my hands. I must say my heart turned to lead as I read it: just a single paragraph notifying the recipient that Private James Ballard had been found guilty of desertion by a court martial and executed on such-and-such a date. “Like father like daughter,” she said. Her voice was chilling. “But then we never know our true enemies, do we? Those we should really go in fear of?” And that was all. She refused to say another word. She simply stared me down until there was nothing I could do but pick up my things and leave.'

He got to his feet again and walked over to the window. As
before, he stood looking out at the grey curtain of fog. Almost motionless in the windless air, it seemed one with the silence that had fallen on them all.

‘I can see now that she must always have been at odds with life. There was a part of her that was always separate, as if her real life was being lived in her imagination. To the men she fought with, it gave her a sort of aura. They saw her as different from themselves – almost as someone sacred. She formed no relationships, you know . . .'

He turned as if to make sure that his listeners had understood him.

‘And although she was attractive enough – not beautiful, but with the sort of dash and courage that would have drawn men to her – they seemed to understand that she wasn't made of common stuff . . . that in a sense she was untouchable. And perhaps she preferred it that way.'

He shrugged.

‘I valued her more than I can say, and loved her for what she was – free and without fear – but I did find myself wondering how she would cope with life after the war; how she could keep that wild spirit of hers uncaged. I thought it unlikely she would ever be at ease in the world.'

He drew a deep sigh.

‘But I never dreamed she would turn her back on it.'

‘Forgive me.'

Finch turned from the window at last and crossed the room to rejoin them. He had been standing there for long minutes, silent and immobile; when he approached they saw the grief written on his face.

‘I've been thinking . . . I've just realized . . . This must be the saddest day of my life.'

He sat down.

‘Will she hang?' he asked.

‘That's not for me to say . . .' Billy began his reply, but then stopped. ‘No, I'll be honest with you, sir. I don't see how she can avoid it, not unless she finds a clever lawyer and pleads insanity.'

‘Insanity.' Finch's laugh was bitter. ‘Well, I doubt anyone could claim she's in her right mind, but that won't make any difference. Alma would never stoop to ask for pity. What she's doing now is her duty by her father as she sees it, nothing more. Call it insane if you like, but she won't be deflected. It's not in her nature. She'll play the game to the finish.'

He sat silent, nursing his pain. Then he gathered himself.

‘I would offer to help you if I could, but I doubt it would serve any purpose. Alma has turned her back on me. What I can offer you, though, is counsel. It sounds to me as though she has reverted to her time as an agent; she seems to be following the same rules, behaving as though she's living among the enemy. That means she won't be predictable. Look for her to surprise you. And one other thing: she'll have a bolthole, what we used to call a
cachette.
Most likely it will be a room somewhere that she only uses in emergencies. So even if you think you've got her on the run, she may still outwit you.' He looked at them. ‘Have you any idea of her whereabouts?'