staff officer who was responsible for mounting the operation, but the latter refused to see reason.
“You already know each other, since you came over here together.”
“But that was pure coincidence. . . . Mind you, I’ve nothing definite against him. He put on a good show. But I’m not sure he's the right man for this sort of job . . .”
“You’ll have to make do with him. We’re short of French specialists, and he’s a first-class radio operator.”
Cousin had acquiesced, with certain reservations. In his dealings with Morvan, while the preparations for their departure were being made, he occasionally felt a violent urge to humiliate him by revealing his contempt. He assumed a haughty, biting tone of voice. He discouraged the friendly relationship that, in special services, was more customary than a hidebound insistence on discipline. With a heavily patronizing air, he would say something of this sort:
“I don’t know if they've told you, Morvan, but the smallest detail of this mission is of paramount importance and must be treated as top secret.”
“Yes, sir,” Morvan would reply.
With his increased responsibilities. Cousin had been promoted to the rank of major, and with due regard for military hierarchy Morvan started calling him “mon commandant”, which flattered him but which might prove somewhat risky in France. Cousin pointed this out to Morvan, who thereupon had reverted quite naturally to plain “sir.”
“I just wanted to warn you. When we’re in enemy-occupied territory, of course, it goes without saying—we’ve been into that already and I hope you haven’t forgotten what you have to do when the time comes—but even here . . .”
Cousin had told him about the cyanide capsules. With a sort of relish he had re-enacted the scene to which he had been subjected in Dr. Fog’s office, the roles now being reversed. Playing his part with exaggerated gravity, he watched his colleague’s reactions with an almost morbid curiosity. He considered them pretty disappointing and felt even more proud of himself. Morvan, it must be admitted, was badly shaken. Then he pulled himself together. Even though Cousin
offered him a loophole, telling him there was still time to back out, that he would not hold it against him—how he longed and prayed for such an admission of weakness!—Morvan finally declared he could stick it out as well as the next man and that he was ready to leave, since he had been selected.
“. . . Even here in London, don’t forget that walls have ears and that any loose talk, no matter how insignificant it may seem, could lead to disaster . . .”
“I know that, sir. I’ll hold my tongue all right.”
“Have you got a girl friend here?” Cousin went on, looking him straight in the eye.
“No, sir,” Morvan replied, blushing scarlet.
“Good. This business is so important that even if you were married, your wife could not be told what you were up to. Do you understand?”
“Only my sister knows that I’m leaving, but it wasn’t I who told her.”
“It’s not your fault, but it’s a pity just the same.”
Claire knew about their mission because she now held a fairly important post, as secretary to one of the heads of the service. Cousin, although he was convinced of her discretion, was anything but pleased that she was acquainted with the project and never missed an opportunity to make her brother conscious of this. The Germans went on with their search and appeared not to bother about the two men. After feverishly racking his brains, Cousin came to the conclusion that there was nothing incriminating for them to find—except the radio set, of course! Even in his suitcase there was no document that could betray their activities. The only dangerous papers were the ones Morvan had burned.
Morvan had shown great presence of mind, admittedly. Quick reactions—Cousin was forced to recognize this, albeit reluctantly. But then, think of the ingenuity he himself had displayed in the six months he had been operating as a spy under the very nose of the enemy!
After looking into several enterprising schemes involving a submarine landing or a parachute drop, he had returned to France quite openly, with Morvan, in broad daylight and under his own name, crossing over from Spain with a group of his compatriots who had opted for the Vichy regime and were allowed to leave England. He played his part so well that he allayed all suspicion. He managed to pass himself off as a fervent supporter of collaboration, which made it easier for him to travel about the country and embark on his undercover intelligence activities. He established valuable contacts in several districts and gradually built up a network that provided a considerable amount of information. Living for the most part in the Free Zone, he succeeded in extending his organization into Occupied France. He had found an ideal infiltration point, the Lachaume farm, a tumble-down building just south of the border, whose owner, a rather simple-minded old man, lived alone and had agreed to put the place at his disposal for a modest remuneration. A born poacher, Lachaume knew every inch of the surrounding countryside, and crossing the line was child’s play to him. Cousin often used the farm as a meeting place for agents arriving from the north.
He chided himself for having made his visits there too long and too frequent, but the place suited him perfectly. Its peaceful atmosphere and isolated situa- tion were conducive to the vast schemes he kept turning over in his mind. On this occasion he had been there for over a week, having made it his headquarters for various operations—in particular, for an important raid that was to take place that very evening, in a few hours’ time, about thirty miles away: the sabotage of a railroad roundhouse.
He had planned the whole thing with infinite care, attending to every detail himself. It was the first time he had organized an operation of this kind. As he had been told in the course of his training, action groups, and those responsible for intelligence, should always restrict themselves to their own specific functions, and he belonged to the latter. But considering the cooperation he had managed to obtain in this district, the opportunity seemed so perfect that London finally gave
its approval to the scheme, forbidding him, however, to take part in the actual raid, as he was too valuable to risk. He had acquiesced with great reluctance, inveighing against the hidebound attitude of the bureaucrats who deprived him of this fun. The leader of the raiding party was to send him a runner on the following day to inform him of the result, which Morvan would then wire back from the farmhouse.
Morvan had been with him ever since his return to France. He had acquitted himself well; there was no denying it. Cousin even admitted objectively that he was a useful colleague and that his initial distrust seemed groundless. Morvan was obviously discreet and knew his job backward. Thanks to him, contact with London was maintained permanently, and he had succeeded in recruiting and training other operators in various parts of the country.
Cousin had not seen fit to conceal his satisfaction. Little by little he had abandoned his stand-offish attitude. He had even gone so far as to acquaint Morvan with a number of the network’s secrets and the names of several important agents. Morvan therefore knew all about the operation that had been planned for that night.
Cousin now cursed himself for having been so indulgent. How could he tell if Morvan, without any intention of doing mischief, but by letting slip some thoughtless remark, was not responsible for the disaster? Someone had talked, that was obvious. The dislike he had instinctively felt for Morvan at the start welled up all over again.
He was just beginning to convince himself that Morvan was at the root of the trouble when the Gestapo leader came over toward him with a deliberately casual air that sent a shiver down his spine.
7
The Germans had found nothing, but a mere glance at their officer’s face made Cousin realize they were not going to relinquish their prey. They must have been well informed to have made straight for the farmhouse. If they had accorded the Frenchmen a few minutes’ respite and had appeared not to bother about them, apart from slipping handcuffs around their wrists, this was not
due to hesitation on their part. It was part of their usual procedure to punctuate brutal treatment with intervals of inactivity that gave the victim fresh grounds for hope, so as to crush his spirit all the more thoroughly with a subsequent spell of violence.
The officer’s expression now indicated that the serious business was about to begin. He spoke French fairly well. He turned to Cousin.
“Mr. Cousin?”
Too terrified to speak. Cousin gave a nod of assent.
“I’ve known about you for some time, Mr. Cousin. I’ve suspected your activities for several months, but I wanted to catch you red-handed. I must congratulate you. You’ve been pretty clever up to now. I was beginning to think I might even have been mistaken about you.”
In spite of his mental anguish, Cousin felt a surge of childish pride at the thought of his merits being recognized by the enemy; but this petty satisfaction was soon destroyed.
“But this seems to me conclusive proof of your activities,” the Gestapo officer went on in an icy tone, indicating the radio transmitter. “I feel sure you won’t make any difficulty about giving me all the information I want on your work and your accomplices. There are several questions I should like to ask you, and this will do to begin with: What have you been doing in this place for over a week?”
Cousin did not reply. His mental turmoil was such that he could not think of a single excuse, no matter how improbable. The officer then turned to Morvan and put the same question to him. Morvan, whose face was ashen white, also held his tongue. Cousin sensed that he was trying to catch his eye, but he could not bring himself to raise his head.
“So you’re not prepared to answer, is that it?”
The officer stepped back and held a brief consultation in an undertone with one of his colleagues who appeared to be second in command. Cousin, who spoke German fluently, understood from this that they could not decide whether to take the prisoners away at once
or to hold a preliminary interrogation on the spot. The strange emphasis laid on the word “interrogation” made him shudder. His fears increased when he gathered that the officer, after hearing his subordinate’s opinion, was in favor of the second procedure.
“Don’t forget,” the latter reminded him, “that the Abwehr are also following this scent, and have been for some time, I know. If we waste any time, they’re liable to beat us to it.”
“You're right. Anyway, it’s best to strike while the iron’s hot. They’re still under the effects of shock; we mustn’t give them time to recover. The equipment we’ve got here will do quite nicely,” the officer added, glancing across at the stove.
He gave some brief instructions to his men. Two of them seized Cousin by the shoulders and dragged him toward the door. Two others took hold of Morvan, removed his shoes and socks, then proceeded to tie him up, while the second-in-command stirred the embers and put some more wood on the fire. Before being hauled off into the adjoining room. Cousin heard Morvan speak for the first time since the tragedy occurred.
“You can rest assured, sir, I won’t talk.”
Cousin opened his mouth to speak, for he felt it was his duty as an officer to say a word or two of encouragement in reply. His voice was stifled by an alarming sight that paralyzed him all over again—one of the brutes had smashed his clenched fist into Morvan’s face.
Taking their time, Cousin’s guards proceeded to light an old cast-iron stove similar to the one in the next room. Smoke billowed out and presently the flames began to roar. Then, before his eyes, they plunged a poker into the embers and left it there. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the horror of his plight. Until then his mind had refused to countenance it, so monstrous did it appear. Tears of despair welled up at the prospect that now confronted him in all its ghastly
reality—he was the one who was going to be tortured.
He was the one . . . An inhuman cry from the adjoining room made his blood run cold and reminded him that he was not alone in this desperate predicament. They had started on Morvan. The screaming lasted several seconds. At first it increased in volume as it rose in pitch, like a sound wave issuing from some infernal region augmented by the united shrieks of all the damned; then it gradually diminished and was succeeded by a sort of rattling gasp, ending up in an almost inaudible whimper.
In spite of himself, Cousin started to form a mental picture of the process of the torture. Its nature was only too clear, and it was childish to try to envisage each of its successive phases; but his mind had to have some sort of intellectual exercise, at the risk of breaking down altogether.
The Gestapo men were in a hurry. They were afraid their inveterate rivals, the Abwehr, might cut the grass from under their feet. They had neither the time nor the equipment for their usual methods of refined torture. They seized what chance provided—red-hot iron—and chance had provided one of the vilest atrocities imaginable. Morvan’s screams were the result of a glowing poker being applied to the soles of his feet. It was allowed to remain there, against the bare flesh, for a second, or perhaps not even as long as that the first time; then it was removed, giving the victim a respite to enable him to imagine the horror of further contact with it.
How long a respite? Cousin struggled pointlessly to try to estimate the space of time, while the whimpering sounded like a prayer that this pause be continued indefinitely. A second scream, more horrible than the first, was followed by the same throttled gasp, ending up in the same drawn-out whimper. Morvan was keeping his promise: he was refusing to talk. He had reassured
Cousin on that score but had received no word of encouragement in return. Cousin had not dared to reply.
He had not dared because of the blow of the clenched first that had been provoked by this defiant declaration. He was paralyzed, just as he had been when the Gestapo burst in, by the fear of similar punishment, against which his whole body rebelled. It had needed this morning’s incidents to open his eyes to the insurmountable repulsion that violence inflicted on him.
The infernal wave of sound punctuating his colleague’s torture reverberated through his body once more—for the fourth time. He went on trying to estimate each phase of this monstrous cycle and noticed that the frequency was being gradually accelerated as time went on. The butchers were in a hurry. Was it possible for Morvan to hold out much longer? In some incongruous way this question, which obsessed him, suddenly seemed to offer fresh grounds for hope. At first it was no more than a faint glimmer, onto which his mind fastened with desperate tenacity. He made a superhuman effort not to let it fade away, realizing that for him it represented the miraculous means of salvation that fate sometimes tenders to those it has crushed. Gradually it took a more definite shape, until it became crystal clear. If Morvan talked—he knew almost all the secrets of the network—if he talked ... 1 Cousin realized that for some time, ever
since Morvan had been dragged off, his subconscious had been hoping for this miracle to occur. This was a wonderfully tantalizing hypothesis to consider. If Morvan talked, it meant salvation for him, Cousin. His interrogation would serve no purpose. He would save his honor and his own skin at one and the same time.
He found himself listening to his colleague's groans with a passionate interest and mental anguish of a completely different kind. But Morvan had already been branded five times; presently, no doubt, the butchers would get tired of this and turn their attentions to him. The poker that had been earmarked for him was probably red-hot by now.
It was too unfair! Morvan was bound to give in. The Gestapo men must have thought so too, since they had selected him as their first victim. Cousin felt an absurd surge of pride at the thought that they were such expert physiognomists, such astute psychologists. Morvan was the one who was bound to talk, not he. Morvan’s lack of moral fiber showed in his uncompromising features. . . . Moreover, hadn’t he already indulged in careless talk, and more than once? Wasn’t he alone responsible for this disaster? How he, Cousin, regretted having taken the man into his confidence! A leader of hi
s caliber should keep his secrets to himself. For he was a real leader—London had congratulated him on his resourcefulness and courage. Always volunteered for the most dangerous jobs . . . whereas this fellow Morvan, who was about to betray them, who was probably giving everything away at this very moment . . .
Another scream brought him down to earth again. The shock of the vibration was so violent that his body gave a jerk and his jaws almost crushed the tiny glass capsule, Dr. Fog’s sinister gift, which he had succeeded in taking out of its hiding place and slipping into his mouth in spite of the handcuffs around his wrists. The two Gestapo men who were attending to the fire looked
up at him, then shrugged their shoulders and went on with their work.
The gesture of slipping the capsule into his mouth had been a desperate revival of his failing will, still fiercely trying to delude itself as to its true nature. He knew now—he had known it even at the moment of making the proud gesture—that he would never have the nerve to break the glass. But this parody of heroic determination succeeded in deceiving him; and, above all, this semblance of decisive preparation for the supreme sacrifice impressed the ever-present
witnesses to his dreams.
Meanwhile the cold, smooth surface against his tongue inspired him with horror. Deliberately bite through the glass? Out of the question! A new fear had seized him when he had given that involuntary start—supposing, in one of those spasms, he broke the capsule and swallowed the poison by mistake!
The whimpering had stopped and he waited in vain for the beginning of a fresh cycle. Had Morvan talked at last? The door of the room was pushed open and the creaking of its hinges appeared to him as a sinister portent. The Gestapo officer strode in. He looked extremely sullen. Morvan . . . ? Cousin shut his eyes for fear of reading the answer in the other man’s expression.