He resumed his pithy style in describing his escape. During the night his two guards started drinking and eventually passed out. He managed to slip out of his handcuffs, keeping a wary eye on the submachine gun one of the guards had left lying beside him. Cousin’s attempt was well timed. In one movement he had sprung to his feet, snatched up the weapon, and mowed down the Gestapo men with a couple of bursts. A chance in a million.
The end of his report dealt briefly with his flight, how he had reached another safe house and eventually managed to get in contact with London. A Lysander had come to take him off one night, after he had received a message ordering him back.
At this juncture Austin interrupted to ask a question, remembering he had noticed something was missing from this description when he had read it over the first time. What had become of Morvan?
“Yes, you’re right,” the doctor replied slowly. “That part has been omitted, but he gave the details verbally. He was ordered to leave them out of his written report. He had to leave Morvan behind, as he couldn’t walk. We also knew from a reliable source that the poor fellow was subsequently killed. The Gestapo officer no doubt took his revenge on him as soon as he got back."
11
“He left him behind!”
Dr. Fog gave a nod.
“Furthermore, he had very good reasons for doing so, which he’ll tell you himself. I’ve asked him to call here this morning.”
“Admittedly,” Austin muttered, “Morvan was responsible for a ghastly massacre. Just the same . . .”
“Just the same, any court-martial would have acquitted him in view of what he had been through. There would have been no charge brought against him, even by the service itself.”
“I suppose he had his cyanide capsule on him and knew what he was meant to do,” said Austin, who was already conversant with the customs of the service.
“Perhaps he wasn’t able to use it, and besides . . .”
“Yes?”
“I think I can tell you this,” said the doctor, after a moment’s hesitation. “We do indeed issue strict instructions on the subject, knowing only too well that they’ll hardly ever be followed. Generally speaking,, we're not too severe about it.”
“There are some, however, who have preferred to die that way.”
“There are,” Dr. Fog agreed, “but very few.”
Austin was about to ask another question, when the house telephone rang. After answering it, the doctor turned back toward him.
“Here’s our man.”
Austin felt a mounting excitement at the advent of this character who had occupied his thoughts for the past two days. A few minutes later Cousin was shown into the room.
His whole demeanor was perfect, Austin thought. He stood stiffly at attention in front of the doctor, in a deferential attitude but without a trace of servility. He spoke in a crisp, self-confident voice and answered the psychiatrist’s questions without equivocation. The doctor had greeted him in an affable manner and spoke to him in an encouraging tone in which Austin once again detected a professional attitude.
He told Cousin that he was fully aware of his splendid record. He could easily understand a man like him being bored to tears in an office. He knew that he had done all he could to get reassigned to active service, and thought perhaps he might be able to employ him.
“That’s all I ask, sir,” Cousin solemnly replied. “I’m not made for kicking my heels back here in London.”
“I am well aware,” the doctor went on, “of the outcome of your last mission. It’s the sort of thing that could happen to any of us, and I realize you’re in no way to blame. I’d like you to tell me the whole story in your own words, however. Nothing like getting to know a man thoroughly when one has to work with him,” he added in a wheedling tone that made his young assistant describe him mentally as a monstrous old hypocrite.
Cousin gave his account in a firm voice, without faltering, exactly as he had written it down. By judicious questioning the doctor made him include a few additional details.
It was just at the moment when one of the butchers was bending over him with a red-hot poker in his hand that he heard Morvan cry out in the adjoining room:
“Stop, stop! I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything, everything! I’ll do whatever you wish!” He remembered those dreadful words exactly. He felt like shouting out himself, to tell Morvan to hold his tongue, but the Gestapo man put a gag in his mouth. After that they didn’t bother about him any further. They had what they wanted. Morvan went on shouting: “I’ll tell you everything, everything! I'll do whatever you want!” Cousin repeated the words grimly.
When he described the hours he subsequently spent in the room with the wretched fellow, his voice, becoming less assured, betrayed the same emotion that had emerged from the corresponding passage in his report. It seemed as though the recollection of that proximity, of his companion’s face and visible shame, made him drop his customary reserve in spite of himself. The scene came to life with extraordinary intensity, and Austin had no difficulty in picturing it in all its horror.
Eventually Cousin came to the point at which he had killed the two guards, and paused for a moment. Dr. Fog asked him quietly to go on. He then assumed a calm, almost unfeeling, tone to explain why he had made his escape alone. He looked the doctor straight in the eye, and even, at times, with a sort of defiance.
“He couldn’t walk, sir. I would have had to carry him and I wouldn’t have gone far. Just then I saw the beam of a headlight in the distance. It was obviously the Gestapo coming back. Dawn was beginning to break. We should both have been caught. You see, sir, I considered I ought not to sacrifice myself pointlessly for the sake of a mere traitor. I left him there. I plunged into the woods alone ... I’d do it again if I found myself in the same position, sir. I’m willing to answer for my decision before a court-martial, if necessary.”
“There’s no question of that,” Dr. Fog assured him quietly. “This is just a friendly conversation and I fully understand your attitude and your conduct. Let’s leave it at that. . . . Incidentally, you know, don’t you, that Morvan atoned for his shortcoming? He was killed. The Gestapo shot him.”