V for Vengeance Read online

  Kuporovitch’s command of English was not yet sufficient to follow Rudd’s Cockney idiom entirely, but he got the gist of it, and it heartened him a great deal. He was just saying how wonderfully the English railways seemed to have stood up to the crisis when the door opened and Gregory came in. He looked a little tired and was clad in a dirty suit of blue dungarees, but as he saw the Russian his lean face lit up, and he gave a great shout:

  ‘Stefan! By all that’s holy!’

  ‘Gregory, mon vieux!’ exclaimed Kuporovitch with equal delight, and standing up he gave the Englishman a great bearlike hug, while the grinning Rudd slipped quietly out of the room.

  ‘And to think that I left you for dead in Paris last June!’ Gregory cried, breaking into French. ‘Yet here you are in London, looking as fit as when I first met you.’

  ‘I owe that to the nurse whom you so thoughtfully left to look after me.’

  ‘What! That pretty little Madeleine! You old devil! I only left her the money with which to bury you. If I know anything of your way with women I’ll bet that by this time the poor girl’s beginning to regret your resurrection!’

  Kuporovitch came as near to blushing as such a hardened sinner could, but he covered his confusion with his hearty laugh.

  ‘No, no! The little Madeleine has nothing to regret on my account, thank God!’

  ‘Then your recovery must be very recent,’ Gregory teased him. ‘ “The devil was sick, the devil a monk would be; the devil was well, the devil a monk was he!”’

  ‘No, no!’ Kuporovitch protested again. ‘I would not harm a hair of her lovely head.’

  ‘Then, dammit, you must have really fallen in love with her!’

  ‘I have,’ Stefan confessed. ‘Most desperately. But, tell me, what news of Erika?’

  ‘She’s better—practically recovered now, thank God! But she had a positively ghastly time, and for weeks after I got back it was still touch-and-go as to whether she’d ever get really fit again.’

  ‘Is she in London?’

  ‘No. Pellinore sent her down to Gwaine Meads, his place in Montgomeryshire, and I went with her. I was about all in myself after those terrific weeks we had between the invasion of Norway and the collapse of France. The old man absolutely insisted that I should kill two birds with one stone by helping her recovery through being with her and taking a proper rest myself.’

  ‘I suppose you came back when the blitz started?’

  ‘Yes, I’m still unemployed officially. Naturally, as soon as Erika had turned the corner and I was feeling more like my old self, I tried to get some sort of job. But there was no special mission upon which Sir Pellinore could send me, and my friends in the Services seemed to think that I should only be an awful misfit if they took me into one of them as a junior officer. That was pretty depressing but old Pellinore assured me that sooner or later something suitable to my peculiar talents was bound to turn up. Directly the Boches started knocking hell out of London I came back, and Rudd got me taken on as a member of his fire-fighting squad.’

  ‘Is that a permanency? Will it tie you here?’ asked Kuporovitch anxiously.

  ‘Oh no. If something in which I could be more useful offered I could always put in my resignation.’

  ‘Good! I’m glad of that, as I come from Lacroix with an invitation which, I think, will intrigue you.’

  ‘Lacroix!’ Gregory echoed the name almost in a whisper and with something of awe in his tone. ‘Is that great little man still with us?’

  Kuporovitch nodded. ‘Very much so. He still holds his job but only so that he can the better sabotage collaboration between the Nazis and the Vichy French.’

  Gregory’s brown eyes lit up his lean face as he murmured: ‘This sounds like something really in my line. I’m off duty tonight, so we’ll go out and dine somewhere, and you must tell me all about it.’

  Dusk was now falling.

  Rudd came back to do the black-out, and Gregory added: ‘Make yourself comfortable here for a bit while I get out of these things and have a wash.’

  Soon after he had left the room the sirens began to wail, and gunfire could be heard in the distance.

  When Gregory returned, spick and span in one of his well-cut lounge suits, he remarked: ‘It’s no good telephoning for a taxi. It takes ages to get on to a number in these days, but we’ll be able to pick one up in the street.’

  ‘Do they still run when an air raid is in progress?’ asked Kuporovitch doubtfully.

  ‘Good Lord, yes!’ Gregory assured him. ‘The London taxi-men are absolutely splendid. They don’t give a damn for the Jerries and carry on, however bad the blitz. I only wish it was the same with all our other services.’

  ‘What’s wrong with them?’ Kuporovitch inquired, as they went downstairs and out into the darkness.

  Gregory suddenly began to speak with bitter fury. ‘In August, through the absolutely splendid show put up by our Air Force, we demonstrated to the world that there were still prospects of Britain’s emerging victorious from the war. In September the lack of resource, initiative and even common-sense displayed by some of our Civil Authorities is putting us well on the road to losing the war altogether. In the Spring before the war the people responsible for Home Security issued a thing called an Anderson Shelter, which was turned out by the thousand and distributed free among the poorer people for them to set up in their back-gardens. That was grand, but ever since the Ministry concerned has been sound asleep. Hitler might have blitzed London any day after September the 3rd, 1939, yet they didn’t even start to erect street air raid shelters until the bombs actually began to fall, and, when they did, they set about it in the most crazy way.

  ‘No attempt seems to have been made to secure designs from Britain’s leading architects and military engineers in order that various types of shelter might be erected on waste-ground and tested out for blast resistance. If they had done that the most satisfactory model could have been adopted as the universal type; instead, each Borough Council is being allowed to erect any old brick structure that it likes, and some of them are so flimsy that their ends fall in if a car drives into them in the black-out.’

  ‘I don’t wonder that happens,’ muttered Kuporovitch with an oath, as he stumbled over a sandbag.

  ‘Then the Tubes!’ went on Gregory angrily. ‘Any fool could have foreseen that the poor wretches who had been bombed out of their homes would take refuge in London’s only natural deep shelters—the Underground Stations—but the London Transport Board can have received no instructions from the Government. They even closed their stations in the daytime, every time those filthy sirens sounded.’

  ‘What! They shut the people who could shelter in them out in the streets? But that is incredible!’

  ‘Nevertheless, it’s a fact; and it’s only during the last week or two that unofficially, and entirely as a compassionate measure, the Transport Board have allowed homeless people to remain down in their stations for the night. But even now the Government hasn’t taken any measures for the comfort of these poor wretches, or to ensure proper sanitation. It’s a…’

  A nearby anti-aircraft battery suddenly let off a terrific crack, and the rest of Gregory’s sentence was drowned, but a moment later Kuporovitch caught his words again.

  ‘Why the hell nobody does anything about the blitzed buildings I simply can’t think. This party’s been going on for over a month now, yet not the least attempt is made to tidy things up. Whenever a place is bombed and huge chunks of masonry crash down, half-blocking a street, they simply rope it off, instead of putting the unemployed on to clear away the débris and erecting a hoarding which would hide the worst effects of the mess. We’ve got millions of troops in this country. If they can’t get ordinary labour why not bring in the Army to lend a hand? As it is, half the streets in London are either blocked by bomb-craters or have a time-bomb in them.’

  ‘Yes, I noticed that when I was coming down here and on my way from Paddington to Sir Pellinore’s,’ Kuporovi
tch agreed. ‘No attempt at all has yet been made to deal with the damage that has been done and in time that is bound to have a very bad effect on the people.’

  ‘But that’s only a small thing,’ Gregory persisted. ‘All the municipal services such as water and gas are getting in a hopeless state. The bombing isn’t so bad, and people are standing up to it pretty well, but what does get them down is the awful inconvenience that it causes. In half the houses in London now the gas pressure is so low that one can’t cook anything, or it’s cut off entirely, owing to the damage to the mains; and water is even worse. Only a trickle comes out of the tap, so we’re lucky if we get a bath once a week these days. That’s pretty hard when one comes home black as a sweep from having been fire-fighting all night. And it’s all so damned unnecessary, because things could be reasonably straightened out in no time, if only the Government would call in engineer units from the Army to mend conduits and telephone cables and so on that have been broken in the raids.’

  There was a horrid droning of enemy planes overhead. Somewhere south of the river bombs were falling, but only the practised ear could distinguish them from the detonations of the heavier anti-aircraft guns. Except for an occasional A.R.P. warden the streets were deserted, but some distance along the Cromwell Road they struck a crawling taxi, and Gregory having told the man to drive to the Hungaria Restaurant they climbed into it. He was evidently intensely bitter and continued to let himself go.

  ‘Worst of all is the way that the Post Offices are behaving. At Dunkirk the Army lost everything except its pants, and we were all told afterwards that not one moment should be lost in any form of national activity which might help to build up its strength again; yet the Post Offices all shut down the instant they hear a siren.’

  ‘What difference does that make to munition workers?’ Kuporovitch asked in some surprise.

  ‘My dear fellow, the Post Office is the index of all commercial activity in this country, because it’s the only shop in every High Street which is under Government control. If the Post Office shuts, and its staff seeks refuge in the basement, how can a private employer of labour be expected to ask his people to carry on? Countless offices and shops immediately followed this cowardly example. The custom has spread to the banks, the great stores and the factories. Even when a single raider comes over the Estuary of the Thames, all Government offices from Hendon to Croydon, with the exception of those of the Fighting Services, close down, and practically everything else, except the brave little individual traders, closes with them. You have a look around tomorrow if there’s an air raid in the daytime. You’ll see queues of angry people left on the pavements, who can’t telephone or send telegrams, often of the greatest urgency, cash cheques at the banks, or make applications at the Labour Exchanges, or even do their household shopping. Literally millions of hours of the nation’s vital time are being wasted through this criminally wicked funk and apathy in our Civil Authorities.’

  ‘But I thought Churchill was so marvellous,’ remarked Kuporovitch.

  ‘So he is—a man in a million, God bless him! But he can’t do everybody’s work, and I expect he’s much too busy running the fighting end of the war with the Naval, Military and Air Chiefs to know the half of what’s going on. I only wish I were a big enough shot to get ten minutes with him and tell him what the ordinary people are saying about some of their so-called leaders; then persuade him to let me loose in Whitehall with a hatchet!’

  ‘Calm yourself, my friend, calm yourself!’ purred the Russian. ‘After all, it is the British way to muddle along, is it not? And in due course no doubt things will improve themselves.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ Gregory grunted, ‘but if Fleet Street can do it, why the hell can’t the Government?’

  ‘Fleet Street? What have they done?’

  ‘Why, carried on of course. I mean all the big national newspapers. Fleet Street has caught it worse than most places, and the majority of our big newspaper buildings have been hit in the past month; but they manage to get their papers out just the same. They only allowed the air raids to interfere for one single day—September the 7th, the first night of the blitz. They went to ground then like everybody else, but within twenty-four hours they had made up their minds that if the life of the country was to go on they’d got to stick at their jobs, blitz or no blitz! Although we’ve got no gas or water or air raid shelters worth the name, and it takes an hour to telephone and half the day to cash a cheque, we still get our morning papers as regularly as clock work.’

  ‘That’s a good show,’ Kuporovitch muttered, as the Ack-Ack batteries in Hyde Park blasted hell out of the night. ‘A very good show.’

  ‘Yes,’ returned Gregory. ‘That’s a very good show. But it’s pretty grim to think of all the heroism the people are displaying while these wretched Ministers and high-up Civil Servants are letting the country die standing on its feet.’

  As they ran up Piccadilly Kuporovitch remained silent. He was at first inclined to think that the strain of being out night after night fire-fighting was beginning to tell on Gregory’s nerves; but when he considered the matter he realised that Gregory was the last man to get the jitters and that as there was no reason at all for him to lie about matters there must be real reasons for his intense indignation.

  Bombs crumped in the distance, and the anti-aircraft barrage continued to play its hideous tune, but by the time they reached the Hungaria Gregory had calmed down. The restaurant on the ground floor was no longer in use, but the big grill-room below it was still carrying on, and the maître d’hôtel, Monsieur Vecchi, who was an old friend of Gregory’s, led them to a corner table in the low gallery.

  ‘Well, how are things, Josef?’ Gregory asked him as they sat down.

  Vecchi’s unfailing smile lit his round face. ‘We must not grumble, Mr. Sallust. Many people have gone to the country but quite a lot of our old friends remain, and they still come here. We closed the big room upstairs because peoples prefer to dine and dance in basements these days; also we make arrangements for our guests to sleep here if they wish.’

  ‘By Jove! That’s a grand idea!’ Gregory grinned. ‘Do many of them take advantage of your hospitality?’

  ‘A dozen or so, every night. Those who have a long way to go to their homes; but for the rest we still manage to get taxis. What would you like to order for your dinner?’

  As Gregory was entertaining a Russian he decided on a Russian meal: Vecchi’s famous hot hors d’œuvre, bortch and chicken à la Kiev, all of which were specialities that he had acquired when, many years before, he had been maître d’hôtel at the Astoria Hotel in St. Petersburg, before the Revolution.

  Kuporovitch remembered the hotel well from the days when he was a young Czarist officer, and for a few moments they talked together in Russian. Then Vecchi left them to give instructions about their dinner.

  The meal was excellent, and Kuporovitch was delighted to see pre-Revolution Russian dishes again, of all places in bomb-torn London. They washed it down with a magnum of Louis Roederer 1928, and over it Kuporovitch gave Gregory details both of his convalescence and of the mission which had brought him to England.

  Gregory agreed at once about the importance of establishing proper liaison with Lacroix and that it could be best done by his going to France.

  While they talked they could hear now and again the dull thud of a bomb or the more staccato crack of the light A.A. guns. Once the whole building shook as a big one landed somewhere in the neighbourhood of Piccadilly, but the band played on, and the fifty or so odd people who had braved the blitz to come out to dine and dance appeared quite undisturbed. As Gregory had been out fire-fighting both the previous nights they decided to make an early evening of it, so at eleven o’clock he paid the bill and they got a taxi.

  The blackened streets now appeared completely desolate and the anti-aircraft had lessened, but the horrid droning overhead told them that Goering’s murderers were still at work, trying to pick out the most conge
sted portions of the city in which to drop their bombs. As the taxi passed Hyde Park Corner a spent shell-splinter thudded on to its roof, but they reached Gregory’s flat in safety, tipped the stouthearted taximan liberally and brought him in for a drink. Rudd had made up the bed in the spare room for Kuporovitch, and, too tired to be kept awake by the raid, soon after midnight the two friends were asleep.

  The next morning they rang up Sir Pellinore, who was as delighted as Gregory had been to learn that Kuporovitch was still alive, and said that he would be very happy to see them if they came up right away.

  The windows of the big library at the back of Sir Pellinore’s mansion had been shattered by blast, so the fine view over St. James’s Park was now shut out by sheets of weatherboard. The house was just on a hundred years old and had not a steel girder in it, but to those of his friends who had urged him to move to safer quarters the elderly baronet had replied:

  ‘I’ll not let that damn’ house-painter feller drive me into some mouldy funk-hole. Think I want to die of pneumonia, eh? My old house is as comfortable as money can make it, and I’ve got the best cellar of good liquor in London. If the devils get me I’ll at least pass out as I’ve always lived—warm, well-lined, and in a place of my own choosing!’