Nancy Wake by Russell Braddon

Author:Russell Braddon [Russell Braddon]
Language: eng
Format: epub

CHAPTER XIII

OLD ENEMIES AND NEW FRIENDS

DENIS had had terrible difficulty catching up with Nancy and Hubert. ‘My dear, swarms of Germans chasing me everywhere,’ he vowed. Now that he had arrived, all three of them felt elated, as if nothing were beyond them. Indeed, with the means of contacting London suddenly at hand, their status among the Maquis had been transformed. They had immediately become a source of power because they had Nancy’s money and plans, and Denis’s ability to summon arms, explosives and advice, and the specialized knowledge needed to instruct the Maquis in the use of every weapon London could send them. Even Gaspard, they knew, would at last be glad to see them.

But Gaspard, playing his own game (even whilst he had endeavoured to relieve Nancy of her money) had already made contact with another agent, a Frenchman called Patrice. Patrice, however, knowing that Nancy was supposed to be Gaspard’s official liaison with London, had refused to arm the ambitious Frenchman. Then Gaspard heard of a British team headed by an officer named Victor. Promptly he began to woo that group. But Victor also received instructions from London that Gaspard was to work only through Nancy and accordingly rejected his advances.

So eventually Gaspard found that he had lost the Frenchman Patrice, lost the Englishman Victor and dismissed the Australian Nancy to Fournier! And Nancy, far from being deceived by his duplicity, had all the time understood perfectly what he had been doing and had determined to bring him to heel.

‘I’m a wake-up to him, Den,’ she declared. ‘He just wants everything we can give him, except orders. Well, we’ve got to show him that London is boss, not him. So we’ll arm Fournier first and Gaspard can wait!’

They drove in Denis’s car from the cemetery at Lieutadès to Chaudes-Aigues where they found Fournier. Whilst Denis worked systematically to install his radio, rigging up an aerial, finding batteries and looking up codes, Nancy told the balding little Maquis leader that his group were to be the first to receive arms, at which Fournier was ecstatic with pride and pleasure—and with delight at having scored a point off Gaspard!

As Nancy and Denis coded their first message to London, he kept interrupting with new weapons he would like and more explosives that would be useful. At last, in spite of Fournier, the coding was completed. Surrounded by entranced Frenchmen, Denis began his accomplished transmission. Open-mouthed, utterly amazed, the forest-fighters listened to the magical tapping of the Morse key that could bring them Sten guns, grenades and bazookas from across the Channel. They breathed heavily and stood rigidly beside the Englishman, until their tension transmitted itself even to Denis.

‘Tell them all to clear out,’ he demanded. ‘They’re making me nervous.’ All the spectators left—except Fournier. He refused to budge so Denis continued his tapping. But suddenly he stopped, checked his time schedule and then whispered hoarsely to Nancy: ‘God Almighty. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m sending now at the time scheduled for to-morrow, not for to-day.

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