V for Vengeance by Dennis Wheatley Read Free Book Online Page B

the English Channel Churchill was still roaring defiance at the common enemy of all mankind; but what could he and the British do now that France had deserted them? Were all Frenchmen cowards that they should have refused his appeal to fight on? No, that was impossible; there were Frenchmen who would still risk everything for the true honour of France. Georges would have done so had he lived. He had told her that he had secret orders to stay in Paris and operate from underground against the enemy, whatever might happen, until a full and proper peace was signed. There must be others like him. She herself would never, never submit to the Germans and treat them as friends. As long as she lived she would look upon them as the brutal beasts they were and hate them from the very bottom of her heart. Yet where could she find those who felt the same? She felt so desperately alone.
    It was just then that the door-bell pealed. Checking her sobs with an effort she quickly attended to her face and went to answer it. On the threshold there stood a middle-aged doctor, under whom she had worked on various occasions and who was a visiting surgeon at the Hôpital St. Pierre.
    â€˜I hope you’ll forgive my calling at such a late hour,’ he said, ‘but I’ve come to see you about your Russian friend.’
    For a moment she stood with her mouth open. In the terrible stress of the events of the last few days all thought of Kuporovitch had passed from her mind, and she now remembered her promise to Gregory to see that his friend received a decent burial.
    â€˜I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I ought to have called at the hospital long before this to make arrangements for the funeral. I suppose you’re anxious to have him removed from the morgue. When did he die?’
    The doctor smiled. ‘He didn’t die. Why, I can’t think. Hisskull must be made of steel to have survived the injuries that he received; but he lived through the night after you brought him in, and the following day, as his heart seemed perfectly sound, we decided to try a trepanning operation. I’m happy to say that it’s proved extremely successful.’
    â€˜But how marvellous!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m so glad! I must come round to the hospital tomorrow morning to see him.’
    The doctor hesitated. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, Mademoiselle, that’s just the point I came to see you about. It will be a long time before he’s completely recovered, but he seems to have the constitution of an ox, so he’s already off the danger list, and the Germans have commandeered practically every bed we’ve got for their wounded. You know how impossible it is to shift them once they’ve made up their minds about a thing, and they wouldn’t give us any time at all. We only heard late this afternoon, and the orders were imperative that we should have one hundred and fifty beds cleared before midnight, whoever we threw out. We’ve been making frantic arrangements to remove the patients all the evening, and, of course, most of them can be transferred to their own homes; but this Russian has no home, and all the other hospitals in Paris are in the same overcrowded state as ourselves. I hope I’m not wrong, but I gathered that you were more or less responsible for him, so the fact of the matter is that I’ve brought him along to you. He’s in an ambulance downstairs.’
    Madeleine was so surprised that she hardly knew what to say. Her mother’s apartment was a very small one, but there was the little spare-room.
    â€˜You see, if you can possibly take him in,’ the doctor hurried on, ‘it would be a great blessing, because as a professional nurse you would be able to look after him; but quite frankly, if you can’t I’m at my wits’ end to know what to do with the poor fellow.’
    â€˜But of course I’ll have him here,’ Madeleine said at once. In