The Thirty-One Kings Read online

  ‘Reading a meaning into the past is common enough,’ I said, ‘but predicting the future has never been more than empty speculation.’

  ‘Perhaps so, but we must make the effort to see where history is leading us,’ said Gabriel in a scholarly tone, ‘and consider what steps we must take if the disasters of a previous age are not to overwhelm us again.’

  ‘That would be a nice trick if you could pull it off,’ I agreed.

  Gabriel leaned forward intently, the pale glow of the lantern upon his face lending him the appearance of an ancient sage or storyteller hunched over a camp fire with a circle of followers gathered about him.

  ‘You will recall, Richard, that during the Dark Ages, after Rome had fallen to the barbarians, the light of knowledge was kept alive by a network of monasteries.’

  ‘I’m not quite that old, but I do remember reading about it.’

  This prompted the first smile I had seen from this earnest young man in our short but eventful acquaintance. The smile faded as he resumed.

  ‘Through that dark age those monks copied out innumerable manuscripts, preserving the knowledge of antiquity - science, philosophy and the arts - until civilisation dawned once more under the rule of Charlemagne, the first of the Holy Roman Emperors.’

  He paused for a moment and I began to wonder what this history lesson of his was building up to.

  ‘Now the barbarians are back’ - Gabriel’s mouth tightened - ‘and two years ago they occupied Vienna, the last seat of the Holy Roman Empire. There was a time when my people looked favourably upon the idea of a union with our kinsfolk in Germany, even though it was forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles.’

  ‘Anything that has been forbidden by others will always have a certain appeal, I suppose.’

  Gabriel’s expression grew even more sombre. ‘Well, that changed with the coming of Hitler and his thugs. The nature of such a union now looked very different, as it would amount simply to an annexation of our country. When Hitler’s supporters in the Austrian Nazi party assassinated our prime minister a few years ago, many of us saw what was coming. The fall of Paris, along with all that she represents, is just another step in the resurgence of the new barbarism. Some of us realised from the beginning that the brutal regime in Berlin was no passing fluke of history, but the beginning of a new dark age.’

  In spite of myself I was deeply struck by the stark prospect he presented. I said uneasily, ‘I hear the Führer thinks his empire will last a thousand years.’

  Gabriel nodded grimly. ‘If it takes root it might well do so. That is why there must be resistance everywhere, no matter how hopeless it appears, no matter what the cost. To this end I have spent the last five years travelling under a series of assumed names, making contacts with underground dissenters, organising such groups where there were none.’

  I could not help but be impressed - awed almost - by the magnitude of the task he had set himself. ‘So you’re saying that you have created a network of secret monasteries to resist the darkness.’

  ‘Many have been involved’ - Gabriel raised a selfdeprecating hand - ‘and many have risked far greater dangers than I, but yes, it exists. They must keep alive the very idea of freedom - the knowledge that obedience is not a necessity and that power is not righteousness.’

  ‘And this is what you refer to as the thirty-one kings?’

  ‘There are many more than thirty-one of them, and they come from all walks of life, but that is the name we assigned to this project.’

  ‘From what you say it must be a huge operation.’

  A taut smile crossed Gabriel’s lips. ‘We have agents all across Europe, Richard, a silent army, stretching from Warsaw to Athens, from Paris to Belgrade. Already they are gathering intelligence to pass on to your military and planning acts of sabotage. Many have even armed themselves for a future uprising. The individual groups are unknown to each other, so that they must be coordinated by code names and passwords - all of which exist only here.’ He tapped his temple.

  Now that I knew the truth, I felt in its fullness all the weight of the responsibility I bore for this young man’s safety. ‘I can see why the Germans are so keen to get their hands on you. If they had that information, they could use it to flush out these cells.’

  Gabriel laid an urgent hand on my arm. ‘It is vitally important that I deliver this information to your government, to give them the means to contact the many allies they have in the occupied nations. And in Germany itself.’

  ‘Plans are in place,’ I assured him. ‘Once we get out of here, we’re to make our way to Bordeaux. There’s a rendezvous point there where transport to London will be arranged.’

  Gabriel’s grip tightened. ‘It is just as vital that a message be sent to the whole of this unseen army to tell them that their efforts will not be in vain, that the British will fight on until Europe is liberated, however long it takes. They must know that even in the midst of this allconsuming darkness they have not been abandoned.’

  In his haunted eyes I glimpsed the bleak vision that had driven him these past five years. Cooped up as we were in this little bolthole, I felt I should attempt to lighten his burden, if only for the time being.

  ‘I hope we haven’t been abandoned,’ I joked. ‘I have to say I’m getting pretty peckish.’

  Gabriel’s expression lightened. He removed his hand from my arm and managed a chuckle. ‘Mother Véronique will take good care of us. You can be very sure of that.’

  He explained how only days ago one of the fleeing refugees she had helped had put him in contact with Beata van Diemen. Too late he learned her true nature and her true mission.

  I was telling him of my encounter with that terrible and alluring young woman when we were interrupted by a scuffling from above. It was the sound of the desk being moved. Instinctively I drew my pistol, ready to shoot if the enemy had cornered us. Then came a precise sequence of knocks. Gabriel pressed my gun down with the palm of his hand and shook his head to indicate that there was no danger.

  The trapdoor swung open and we climbed out to meet Mother Véronique who directed us to a tray of coffee and buttered croissants. The younger sister was also present with overcoats and hats for us which we slipped on while bolting our breakfast.

  ‘The streets are clear for now,’ the mother superior informed us, ‘but you must escape before they can close a cordon around the city.’

  ‘My car is ready?’ asked Gabriel.

  Wordlessly Mother Véronique reached into the folds of her habit and handed him a set of keys. He thanked her and we washed down our breakfast with a few last gulps of coffee. The nuns escorted us to the back door and we scurried across the garden.

  Once we were over the wall, Gabriel led the way with the same sure confidence as before. The streets were free of the enemy, though from the distance we could hear a rumble of engines and the drone of aircraft. I trusted that the Die-Hards had led our pursuers on a merry chase and I hoped the courage and resourcefulness of the four Glasgow lads would take them safely out of Paris. However, that was out of my hands. My business was to get Gabriel away, though for the present he was doing a fine job of taking command.

  He led me to a small garage tucked away at the back of a coal merchant’s yard. Gabriel unlocked the sliding metal door and opened it to reveal a compact Peugeot saloon. Wasting not one precious second, we jumped in. Gabriel started her up and we set off at high speed. There was so little traffic nothing impeded us from racing south and west to the outskirts of Paris.

  ‘Beata may be determined to capture us,’ said Gabriel, ‘but the priority of the German military is to occupy the key strategic points across the city. That is a time-consuming process and their full strength will not arrive until later in the day.’

  I hoped his assessment was correct and that Beata’s resources for search and pursuit would be severely limited.

  The large cosmopolitan buildings gave way to a suburban spread of modest houses and streets dotted with poplars a
nd sycamores. Even here almost no one was venturing out of doors. It was as if the whole of Paris were holding its breath, waiting to discover what the nature of the occupation would be.

  We were beginning to think we had eluded the occupying forces when we spotted a military lorry marked with the Teutonic cross obstructing the road ahead. A dozen soldiers had disembarked and one of them barked out a challenge when he saw us coming at high speed.

  He raised his rifle and fired a warning shot. At the same moment Gabriel gave the wheel a violent twist. More shots sounded as we swerved into an adjoining street. Such was our haste that we didn’t spot we were heading into more trouble until it was too late.

  Someone had spread oil across the street, not to trap us but to inconvenience the hated invaders. That small act of defiance was our undoing. When we hit the slick we were thrown into an uncontrollable spin and Gabriel spat out an uncharacteristic curse in his native tongue.

  He braked hard but could not keep us from skidding giddily across the road until our rear bashed into a cherry tree and we jolted to a stop. Both of us rebounded off the dashboard, and it took us a few moments to gather ourselves.

  When we came to our senses we found that we were surrounded by the enemy.

  19

  THE HOST OF HEAVEN

  Our captors marched us to a nearby school building that was being transformed into a makeshift barracks. Consigned to the janitor’s room, we were seated on a wooden bench with our backs against the wall. Gabriel and I assessed the quality of the twenty-odd soldiers stationed here. They looked young and relatively untried, but knowing how rigorously the new Reich drilled its men, that was no reason to underestimate them.

  Their fresh-faced officer was in something of a quandary over what to do with us. It was plain that we were a nuisance and he had more than enough to keep him busy without a pair of unwanted prisoners. He was, however, in some fear of letting us go in case we turned out to be saboteurs or some other kind of wanted fugitives.

  We had no means of identification as both of us had been deprived of such documents by Beata van Diemen, but this left us free to pass ourselves off as Frenchmen. I told the officer I was a watchmaker named Aristide Villon and that Gabriel was my son, Jacques. Gabriel was sharp enough to follow my lead as I spun a yarn about fetching him from the city to visit his sick mother. She was not expected to last the morning, which was why he had been driving with such reckless haste and why we had both rushed out without any form of identification. It was harder to explain my pistol, but I said I was in fear of the looters and brigands I had heard were roaming the streets of Paris.

  The young officer had only a basic command of French, so it was not difficult for us to pass ourselves off as natives. It also made it awkward for him to question us in any detail about why neither of us had as much as a wallet on our persons or how I had obtained my pistol. He departed with a scowl, leaving us under guard while he radioed for instructions and passed on a detailed description of us both to his central command.

  Assessing the number of troops around us, and the fact that they were all nervously alert during these first few hours in the conquered city, it was clear that our chances of making a run for it were almost non-existent - especially as we now had no means of transport. In fact, I had the feeling that if we were shot while trying to escape, it would relieve our custodians of an irksome burden.

  From the conversation I picked up among these soldiers, I gathered that what had brought them here was a report that one of their own pilots, downed a few days earlier, was hiding out in a sympathetic household in this district. If not for this perverse twist of fate we might well have found our route wide open. The sight of someone attempting to flee the city at this late stage was, however, immediately suspicious and it was only a matter of time before some line of dots was joined up between this small unit and Beata, who was no doubt in vengeful pursuit.

  Gabriel and I discussed our situation in muted French, satisfied that our guard was too bored to take any interest in our mutterings.

  ‘Richard,’ said Gabriel anxiously, ‘if you should get the chance to kill me you must take it.’

  I had been racking my brains for an escape strategy and his request came as a shock.

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘Look, if they turn us over to the Gestapo, which I feel is inevitable, they have drugs and methods of torture that might force from me the very information they want, no matter how much I try to resist. That would be a disaster. Many lives would be lost, and all means of communication between your government and the thirty-one kings would be lost.’

  It was clear to me that after days of apparently hopeless captivity, to be recaptured after so brief a period of freedom had left my young friend slightly overwrought.

  ‘Gabriel,’ I said in a calm voice calculated to steady him, ‘you can’t seriously expect me to do such a thing.’

  His steadfast hazel eyes met mine. ‘I would do it myself if the chance came, except that I can’t. It goes directly against my faith.’

  ‘In that case you should listen to your faith,’ I told him firmly. ‘Doesn’t it instruct you that you must never abandon hope?’

  He was silent for a few moments and I hoped that was a sign he was recovering his nerve. ‘You’re right, of course,’ he agreed in a voice much more like his own, ‘but it’s hard to see any way out.’

  ‘As long as we stay alive,’ I told him, ‘we’re giving Providence a chance to do its work.’

  He managed a weak smile. ‘I expect you have some experience of that.’

  ‘More than I can tell you. You hang on and one day I’ll share a few stories with you.’

  We fell silent when we saw the officer marching back towards us. ‘A vehicle is being sent for you,’ he informed us in halting French. ‘You will be taken to the proper authorities. If you try to escape you will be shot.’

  We nodded to indicate that we understood. He rapped out additional orders to the guard before returning to his other duties. The guard gave us a hard look and pressed a finger to his lips to inform us that conversation was now forbidden.

  We sat in strained silence, watching for his attention to wander, but if we as much as shuffled our feet, he uttered a threatening grunt and brought his rifle to bear. I had the sense that he was disappointed at the absence of resistance in Paris and would be only too glad of the excuse to open fire on the enemy, even a pair of unarmed civilians sitting on a bench.

  A mere twenty minutes later our new keepers arrived, and it was a sight as ugly as the gargoyles of Notre-Dame: an SS major and two tough-looking troopers. The major was slight of build, but his black uniform was as stiff as a suit of armour and from beneath the peak of his cap eyes as cold as a serpent’s fixed upon us through rimless spectacles. His mouth was contorted and there was a stoop to his left shoulder that suggested some injury sustained in battle. His voice was just as disfigured, a harsh clatter of words that sounded like two pieces of flint striking off each other.

  At his command his two brutish subordinates cuffed our hands behind us and ushered us at gunpoint to a waiting staff car, an open-topped Daimler flying a swastika from the bonnet. We were bundled into the back and one of the soldiers pressed in between Gabriel and the door.

  The officer slid into the passenger seat and addressed us in his grating voice. ‘I should advise you to attempt nothing rash. Corporal Schütz is an expert in every form of unarmed combat. I have seen him break a man’s neck with only one hand.’

  Leaving us to digest this disturbing information, he rapped out an order to the driver and the Daimler’s big engine roared into life. I did not hear him mention a specific destination and concluded that it must have been arranged beforehand. Nevertheless I was surprised to see that we were not headed directly into the centre of Paris.

  Instead we were cutting eastwards across the southern edge of the city. I speculated unhappily that we were being taken to a staging area from which we would b
e sent on to Germany, possibly by train. It was there that our true ordeal would begin.

  ‘Please, I don’t know who you think we are,’ I said in my mildest German, ‘but this is really a big mistake. I would advise you to take us to the American or Swiss embassy or you will be provoking a serious diplomatic incident.’

  Without looking round, the major snapped an order to Schütz who reached out and smacked me hard in the mouth with the back of his hand. I felt blood trickling from my lip and judged that our new captor was in no mood for small talk. I glanced at Gabriel who was doing all he could to contain his anguish, but I knew that inside he was torn apart with fear for the brave men and women spread across the whole of Europe who had entrusted their future to him.

  We pulled up in a barren stretch of wasteland surrounded by derelict buildings and rickety wooden sheds. The utter desolation of the place suggested only one reason for coming here, which was confirmed when we were ordered out of the car at the point of a rifle. This could only mean that we faced summary execution.

  The two subordinates stood aside as the major drew his pistol and prepared to deal with us personally. We met his snakelike gaze squarely and I saw no glimmer of conscience or compunction there.

  ‘I am well aware of your true identities,’ he told us in fluent English. ‘You are enemies of the Reich and for all such as you there can be only one penalty.’

  I was utterly baffled by this turn of events. If he knew Gabriel’s identity he was surely aware of the vital information he carried in his head.

  Gabriel, however, looked at peace now. A silent grave was a preferable fate to weeks of torture and the possible betrayal of the thirty-one kings.

  ‘Richard, I am sorry it must end like this,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Thank you for coming for me.’

  ‘It’s not the end, you know,’ I assured him. ‘As long as brave men are willing to die for something decent and honest, these brutes will never win.’

  The major’s next words came as a complete shock.