“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.
PART TWO
8
It was in Dr. Fog’s office that the young medical officer, Lieutenant Austin, heard Cousin’s
name mentioned for the first time.
He was at the hospital, in the middle of one of his routine visits, when he was handed a message from the military authorities asking him to report that very day to a certain branch of the War Office. Austin was not particularly surprised. After being wounded in France and subsequently posted to London, he had applied for fresh employment in a fighting unit. He assumed this summons was the answer to his request.
He began to feel some surprise only when the colonel who interviewed him asked him point-blank if he was prepared to join an intelligence unit. Austin, who had been bored with administrative duties for some time and longed for something more active, at once greeted this proposal as the fulfillment of his dearest wishes. In all good faith, however, he felt it was his duty to point out that he was merely a doctor and had no particular qualifications for a secret agent’s work.
“That’s no concern of mine,” the colonel replied impatiently. “I don’t have much to do with those gentlemen myself, but they’re the ones who’ve singled you out.”