Almost without thinking Malloy shook his head and the SS colonel reached for the phone, but left his hand just above the instrument. “If you don’t talk, Malloy, you’ll be handed over to people who’ll make you talk. We want to know what you and your network were doing and we’re in a hurry.” He paused. “If you want to play the hero—go ahead. On your head be it.”
The blue eyes looked at Malloy for long moments and then he closed his hand over the phone, lifting it to his mouth and speaking in German.
A couple of minutes after he hung up two men came into the room. Both wearing the uniforms and insignia of Gestapo sergeants.
The journey in the prison van took about fifteen minutes.
For four days they worked on him until his eyes were closed, his fingers broken, his body burning with pain, the stink of suppurating wounds around him as he lay on the concrete block in the cell.
Two days later a guard unlocked the barred door of the cell and a uniformed woman pushed a trolley inside. She stood looking at him for long moments and then turned to the trolley. Slowly and gently she wiped his bruised flesh, binding his fingers and putting a powder on his open wounds. When she was finished she stood back and looked him over.
“I’m arranging for you to have some soup and bread. Make sure you eat it up. You need to put on some weight.”
“Where am I?”
“You don’t know?”
He shook his head and cried out with the pain.
“You’re in Fresnes prison.”
“How long have I been here?”
“A week.”
“What’s happening? The war?”
“I’m not allowed to talk about that.”
As the walls and floor of the cell seemed to dissolve he lay back on the cement block and sank into a coma.
A week went by and the woman visited him every day, checking his condition. On the third day she said very quietly as she bent over him, “Are you the American captain?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your name?”
“Malloy.”
“I’ve got a message for you from another prisoner, the Russian.”
“I don’t know any Russian.”
“Says he uses the name Pascal.”
“What was the message?”
“To tell you that he didn’t talk. They don’t know anything from him.”
“Did they beat him up too?”
“Yes. I’m afraid they did.”
“Can you give him a message from me?”
“I can’t. He isn’t here any more. He was being sent to one of the German concentration camps. He left three days ago.”
“What date is it?”
“It’s the third week in July.”
“And the invasion?”
“People are saying that they’ll be in Paris in six weeks.”
“Are they sending me to a camp?”
“I don’t know.”
“How did you know that Pascal was a Russian?”
“He’s a well-known man in the Resistance. He lived here in Paris long before the war.”
“How long before I can get on my feet?”
“At least another two weeks provided you do as you’re told.” She paused. “You’ve got a high temperature. You must rest all you can.”
Two days later a guard had contacted the prison doctor and after a brief examination Malloy had been transferred to the prison hospital bay. He was diagnosed as having pneumonia. A further examination defined it as bacterial pneumonia and the only treatment he got was a hot-water bottle twice a day to ease the pain in his chest.
Day after day he lay there, panting, coughing blood, his temperature rising and falling erratically, delirious at night. It was three weeks before the fever subsided and Malloy’s mind got back into the world again. The pain on the left side of his chest was still there and sitting up in bed took all his strength. There were two other prisoners in the hospital bay and a guard with a pistol stood just outside the barred gate. An orderly came twice a day with food. A thin soup, a piece of acorn bread and sometimes offal, kidneys or liver swimming in a greasy gravy.
Then one day the guard unlocked the door, leaving it open, beckoning to him, but he was too weak to move. The guard walked over to him and helped him to his feet. With his arm round Malloy he led him slowly forward to the gate and then to a window in the thick stone wall. The guard pointed down to the streets.
There was a cavalcade of cars and khaki-clad troops but Malloy couldn’t see them, his head rolled forward and the guard dragged him back to his bed.
It was the 25th of August and Paris had been liberated. That night a Free French patrol had entered the prison, bringing food and medical supplies and two doctors and two nurses.
When the prison records had been examined by a French intelligence officer a call had been put through to SHAEF headquarters who in turn had contacted London. A few days later Malloy was in St. Thomas’s Hospital, London. An OSS officer came to see him. It seemed that Lieutenant Colonel Kelly was back in Washington. They were doing their best to get him a flight back to the States to save him the long sea journey.
He asked about why they had broken off radio contact but the man didn’t know. He gave the impression that it was all in the past and there were other more important things occupying OSS minds at the moment.
Two days later Malloy was flown back to an airfield in New Jersey, the only passenger in a bomber taking engines back for servicing, and half a dozen coffins.
CHAPTER 21
Kathy Malloy stood beside Lieutenant Colonel Kelly as the huge B-27 rolled to a standstill. The ground-crew wheeled over the ladder and Kelly took her arm and led her to the foot of the steps. The door in the fuselage opened slowly and a man appeared at the top of the steps, shading his eyes from the evening sun. As the man walked
