Vengeance 10

Memling closed his eyes a moment. Of course. They are dead, he thought. He knew the Germans had been waiting… Why had he refused to think about it until now? It wasn’t his fault… but it was and he knew it. How? How had Walsch known? He opened his eyes to see that everything was as it had been, the room still swirled with people, most in uniform, dishes clattered, and the gramophone swung into another record. The three faces were watching him with an intensity he found frightening.

Memling told them what had happened, speaking slowly and distinctly above the noise, smoking three cigarettes one after the other as he did so. He described his relationship to Paul’s group, his first request for contact, his meeting with Paul, and his subsequent interrogation. He left out the threat of hanging, his fear of Walsch, the terror tactics employed to break him, and, by doing so, aroused their suspicions. He described the attack on the Gestapo car following him, the wild ride into the Ardennes forest, and Paul’s explanations of why he was being taken out. When he finished, he was more exhausted than he thought possible. They asked a few more questions which he answered as well as he could, and the third man nodded grimly.

‘Tell us about this report that you felt was important enough to justify the possible destruction of an entire resistance cell?’

Memling swore and stood so abruptly his chair fell over with a clatter. Some people looked in their direction, but most paid no attention. The other two scowled at their companion, and the younger man urged him to resume his seat.

His anger came as much in response to the past eight months in Belgium as to the man’s implication. ‘Please, Mr Memling’ — he tried to soothe him — ‘please realise that we must dig into every facet of what happened while it is still fresh in your mind. What we learn may save someone else’s life. You have stated that Paul felt you must be got out immediately. Why? Did he give you any reason?’

‘Of course,’ Memling snapped. ‘He knew I was going to be arrested within hours. It was for the protection of his own people. His alternative was to kill me, which I am certain he would have done if he had not thought my information so important. He knew I would never be able to withstand a Gestapo interrogation.’ He saw them exchange quick, knowing glances, just as they had when he mentioned Paul’s alternative, and for an instant he wanted to smash their smug, well-fed faces.

‘You don’t understand,’ he snarled. ‘You think the Nazi plays by the rules, do you? Maria knew better. She committed suicide. You just do not know, you have never been there… you just…’

‘Did you witness the suicide of this young woman?’ the older man interrupted. ‘Then how do you know,’ he went on when Memling shook his head, ‘that she actually did kill herself?’

Memling clenched his fists under the table and tried to make them understand. ‘Because she would have! Because Paul told me she had!’

‘But surely that is not sufficient…’

‘Damn you.’ Memling pounded the table. ‘You have no idea what the Gestapo will do to you, especially to a woman. They begin with rape, many rapes, one after another. The beatings, the red-hot blades and electrical shock, the drugs…’

The three men were shushing him now as others in the room paused to listen. The young man poured something from a flask into his empty teacup, and they urged him to drink it. It was Scotch, fine old malt Scotch, but it only made him choke and cough.

‘Do you want to know what they did to me in a routine interrogation?’ Memling demanded, and brushed his hair back so that they could see the massive abrasion that covered half his forehead. But again there was scepticism and disbelief in their expressions. An hour later, after he had refused to talk to them any more, they put him aboard the train for London.

Jan Memling was shocked at his first sight of London. He had come down by train from Hornchurch where the Lysander had landed after an uneventful crossing. The train ran into Liverpool Street Station before dawn, and the fires lighting the skies above the city reminded him of a painting of Dante’s inferno.

The station was worse. Sirens wailed an all clear above the battered streets, and people streamed up from subterranean caverns like troglodytes, blinking in the relative brightness of the main hall and mingling in well-behaved, shuffling throngs with the passengers. There was something about them that Memling could not identify for a moment, that made them different from the people of Belgium. As he stood to one side, watching, it occurred to him that many were laughing. Laughter in occupied Europe was reserved for the Nazis.

Memling had expected to find a taxi, but as he came out of the station into the raw, dark morning there was only a single cab waiting with its light off. A military officer jumped in, and it drove off without hesitation. Memling turned back into the station then and went along to the Circle Line to join the long, long queue.