Jackdaws

He passed the cells and looked through a judas at Marie, the girl who had surprised him yesterday by showing up at the house in the rue du Bois with food for Mademoiselle Lemas's "guests." She lay on a bloodstained sheet, staring at the wall with a wide-eyed gaze of horror, emitting a constant low moan like a piece of machinery that was broken but not switched off.

Dieter had interrogated Marie last night. She had had no useful information. She had claimed she knew no one in the Resistance, only Mademoiselle Lemas. Dieter had been inclined to believe her, but he had let Sergeant Becker torture her just in case. However, she had not changed her story, and he now felt confident that her disappearance would not alert the Resistance to the impostor in the rue du Bois.

He suffered a moment of depression as he stared at the wrecked body. He remembered her coming up the path yesterday with her bicycle, a picture of vigorous health. She had been a happy girl, albeit foolish. She had made a simple mistake, and now her life was coming to a ghastly end. She deserved her fate, of course; she had helped terrorists. All the same, it was horrible to contemplate.

He put her out of his mind and went up the stairs. On the ground floor, the night shift telephonists were at their switchboards. Above that, on what had once been a floor of impossibly grand bedrooms, were the Gestapo offices.

Dieter had not seen Weber since the fiasco in the cathedral and assumed the man was licking his wounds somewhere. However, he had spoken to Weber's deputy and asked for four Gestapo men to be here in plain clothes at three a.m. ready for a day's surveillance. Dieter had also ordered Lieutenant Hesse to be here. Now he pulled aside a blackout blind and looked out. Moonlight illuminated the parking lot, and he could see Hans walking across the yard, but there was no sign of anyone else.

He went to Weber's office and was surprised to find him there alone, behind his desk, pretending to work on some papers by the light of a green-shaded lamp. "Where are the men I asked for?" Dieter said.

Weber stood up. "You pulled a gun on me yesterday," he said. "What the devil do you mean by threatening an officer?"

Dieter had not expected this. Weber was being aggressive about an incident in which he had made a fool of himself Was it possible that he did not understand what a dreadful mistake he had made? "It was your own damn fault, you idiot," Dieter said in exasperation. "I didn't want that man arrested."

"You can be court-martialed for what you did."

Dieter was about to ridicule the idea; then he stopped himself~ It was true, he realized. He had simply done what was necessary to rescue the situation; but it was not impossible, in the bureaucratic Third Reich, for an officer to be arraigned for using his initiative. His heart sank, and he had to feign confidence. "Go ahead, report me, I think I can justify myself in front of a tribunal."

"You actually fired your gun!"

Dieter could not resist saying, "I suppose that's something you haven't often witnessed, in your military career."

Weber flushed. He had never seen action. "Guns should be used against the enemy, not fellow officers."

"I fired into the air. I'm sorry if I frightened you. You were in the process of ruining a first-class counterintelligence coup. Don't you think a military court would take that into account? What orders were you following? You were the one who showed lack of discipline."

"I arrested a British terrorist spy."

"And what's the point of that? He's just one. They have plenty more. But, left to go free, he will lead us to others-perhaps many others. Your insubordination would have destroyed that chance. Fortunately for you, I saved you from a ghastly error."

Weber looked sly. "Certain people in authority would find it highly suspicious that you're so keen to free an Allied agent."

Dieter sighed. "Don't be stupid. I'm not some wretched Jewish shopkeeper, to be frightened by the threat of malicious gossip. You can't pretend I'm a traitor, no one will believe you. Now, where are my men?"

"The spy must be arrested immediately."

"No, he mustn't, and if you try I'll shoot you. Where are the men?"

"I refuse to assign much-needed men to such an irresponsible task."

"You rejl~se?"

"Yes."

Dieter stared at him. He had not thought Weber brave enough or foolish enough to do this. "What do you imagine will happen to you when the Field Marshal hears about this?"

Weber looked scared but defiant. "I am not in the army," he said. "This is the Gestapo."

Unfortunately, he was right, Dieter thought despondently. It was all very well for Walter Goedel to order Dieter to use Gestapo personnel instead of taking much-needed fighting troops from the coast, but the Gestapo were not obliged to take orders from Dieter. The name of Rommel had frightened Weber for a while, but the effect had worn off