'Now we can talk,' St. Briac said. 'But before we start there is something I must tell you. I didn't talk to you on the phone today. Pucelli did. That is why he said nothing to you in the car on the way here. You realize what I'm telling you, don't you, Craig? I promised you nothing.'
St. Briac picked up the Woodsman and pointed it at him. 'You will tell me what I need to know, and then you will be executed.'
CHAPTER 16
Grierson was taken to an outhouse built of stone, with barred windows. Ashford was there too, crouched in a corner. The man with the carbine was covering him once more, and again he was searched, this time by the jailer; a thorough, humiliating process. At last the man with the carbine left and the jailer produced a revolver, looked at its barrel, then struck at Grierson's neck. A great shock of pain ran through him.
'Discipline,' said the jailer. 'We must have discipline. Do you understand?'
'Yes,' said Grierson.
Again the barrel struck; again the sick wave of pain. 'Yes, sir,' said the jailer. 'Yes* sir,' said Grierson.
'Good,' said the jailer. 'You will now attend to this degenerate in the corner. There is water in that bucket, and a towel. Clean him up.'
Grierson walked over to the bucket and picked it up. It was half full of water, and he winced as its weight tugged at the spot where the jailer had struck.
The jailer went out and the door slammed behind him. Grierson began to clean Ashford's face, until the cold water acted and he could sit up and look about him.
'It didn't work,' he said bitterly. 'After all they've done to me, it didn't work.'
'There's still a chance,' said Grierson.
'They'll kill us,' Ashford said. 'You know that, don't you? They'll kill us all. Why couldn't you just have shot him and gone away?'
'We could never have got near enough,' said Grierson.
'You're near enough now.'
'Craig is. The colonel's interrogating him.'
'Oh my God.' Ashford hid his face in his hands. 'I didn't tell them you'd come to kill him. Not even when
Bobby-when he hurt me. That was dreadful, but I didn't tell them. I said…'
'I know,' said Grierson. 'La Valere told us himself. You did very well. Don't worry. We'll get out. How badly are you hurt? Can you walk?'
Ashford took his hands from his face. After Grierson had wiped away the blood and tears, he could see how bruised it was, how far from its former prettiness.
'This is what Bobby did to me,' said Ashford. 'I hate you.'
'Can you walk?' Grierson asked again.
'Yes,' said Ashford, 'but I won't have the chance to.' Grierson looked at his watch. They had had Craig for half an hour already. He yelled for the guard.
'What are you doing?' Ashford said. 'We'll be beaten for that. Anyway he won't hear you. He'll have gone sneaking off for a drink.'
'How long?' Grierson asked.
'Sometimes ten minutes, sometimes half an hour.' 'Oh my God,' Grierson said, and yelled again.
Duclos searched Craig again, and this time he found the cyanide pill Loomis had given him. It had been sewn into the lapel of his coat, and it told them a great deal. This might not be a private affair after all. Craig could have been sent for a purpose, and given the means of suicide instead of capture. St. Briac had never doubted that Craig had come to France to kill him, but now he wanted to know if someone else was behind it, and who that someone was. Before the pain started, he talked to Craig of those to whom he had sold death, and how right it was, how just, that Craig's turn to suffer had come at last. Perhaps they were right, Craig thought, but when the pain began it ceased to matter. Nothing in the world mattered but the pain…
When the jailer returned, Grierson was still yelling. He went in and looked at Ashford, crouched once more in the corner, then at Grierson, who was staring in horror at the bucket.
'What's going on?' he yelled.
'The water, sir. Just look at it,' said Grierson.
He held out the bucket and the jailer peered into it. As he did so, Grierson rammed it into his face, the narrow rim bit into his throat. He dropped it and struck twice, as Craig had taught him to do. The guard fell and didn't move, and Ashford stirred in his corner, looking at him in horror.
'You idiot,' he said. 'Now it'll be worse than ever.' Grierson took the guard's gun and dragged him over to Ashford, stripped off his shirt, pulled it on top of his own.
'I'm going out,' he said. 'I'm going to try for the generator. Now listen to what I'm saying. I haven't time to tell you twice. If I can do it, the lights will go off- all the power will go. You'll know it's going to happen because the lights outside will nicker first. When they do, you get yourself ready. When they go off, get over the wall as quick as you can-into the villa next door. There's a window open on the ground floor. Wait there for me.'
'You'll be killed,' said Ashford.
'I won't be tortured,' said Grierson, and left.
Craig was tortured, systematically, and by experts. His body was kicked, burned, twisted, and in the end, almost drowned. They held his head down in a basinful of water until it was impossible for him to hold his breath any longer, then, when he was about to open his mouth, let the water into his lungs, they wrenched his head up, let him breathe again for a few aching minutes, then plunged him down again into agony. He had tried to buy them off with the names of Algerian Arabs, but they wanted the man who had sent him. At last they let him rest for a while, until he could regain enough strength to suffer again. St. Briac put the Woodsman's barrel under his chin, tilted back his head
'La Valere is a fool,' he said. 'Very brave, very patriotic, very loyal-but very foolish. You wouldn't risk your neck by coming here just to expose me, would you, Craig?'
The gun barrel tapped him lightly on the cheek. 'No,' Craig croaked.
'You came here to kill me, didn't you?'
The gun barrel tapped again, over and over, always on the same spot, until each successive tap felt like a hammer blow.
'Yes,' Craig whispered.
'Who sent you?'
Tap-tap-tap-tap went the gun barrel, on and on until Craig could take no more. His head sagged forward, and St. Briac let the gun rest by his side.
'It won't be long,' he said, and Duclos laughed.
St. Briac snapped at once, 'If you find this amusing in the least, you had better leave now. You have no business here.'
His voice seemed to come from very far away, but even then Craig knew that he was serious. A gun-whipping wasn't an indulgence in sadism, it was a political necessity. The lights in the room flickered once, then continued to burn steadily. Craig sagged forward, and summoned the last dregs of his strength, willing himself to be ready to move. For a moment his tormentors hesitated -they were as wary as rats-but when the lights went on burning they relaxed.
'You can put him back in the water,' St. Briac said.
As he spoke, all the lights went out, and somehow Craig's mind dictated to his body what it must do. He twisted from his chair in an agony of bruises, and his good hand found St. Briac's wrist, levered, and pulled, until he held the Woodsman in the hand they had stamped on, and that hand moved across St. Briac's neck to his shoulder, and his forearm pressed into St. Briac's throat. The other men in the room heard the colonel groan, and they stood very still. Pucelli had already struck a match and as it flared they could see exactly what was happening.
'It's your move,' said Craig, and hauled on St. Briac's wrist until he groaned again. There was no fight in him at all; the pressure on his throat was too intense.
