Free Madeleine's War by Peter Watson Page B

opportunity would never come again, and that, if Celestine was confident herself of getting away with it, it was a risk worth taking, a risk we had to take.”
    I smoked my cigarette, hard.
    â€œWith the committee split fifty-fifty, all eyes turned to me. I asked Celestine to repeat, exactly, what she would do during the operation, and to explain again why the Germans wouldn’t find out. She repeated what she had said before, in a very matter-of-fact type of way. Her calm was impressive.”
    I looked up at the seagulls overhead.
    I glanced back to Madeleine. “There was one complicating factor that I haven’t mentioned. One of the men on the Resistance committee, who had voted against Celestine killing Möricke, was a man who had been a lover of hers before I came along. That night he made an impassioned speech about us
not
putting Celestine’s life at risk, arguing that she was more nervous than she was letting on. Then she made an equally impassioned speech about what a monster Möricke was, who thought nothing of killing children, and here was a chance to get rid of him. She knew her job, she said, and begged me to vote for the death of the German brute.”
    I took a deep breath.
    â€œSo that’s what I did. I voted for Möricke to be killed.”
    We had reached an inlet in the beach, a finger of water that flooded inland for several hundred metres, so we turned and began the trudge back to Ardlossan Manse.
    â€œThat night Celestine and I went back to the cottage we used, made dinner, and drank maybe too much wine. At least she did, I drank whisky. During the dinner I became aware that she was in fact more nervous than she had shown during the meeting of the committee. We talked and talked and made love endlessly. Just in case, she said, she gave me a gift, a lighter, which she had had inscribed. It said—”
    â€œDon’t tell me!” cried Madeleine. “I don’t want to know. That’s personal, between you.”
    I looked at Madeleine, and smiled. I thought it was a good thing for her to say.
    â€œMaybe that was a warning—the lighter, I mean; maybe I should have paid more attention. Maybe we made love too long, maybe it was her nerves. The long and short of it is that next day she botched the job. Möricke was dead even before the operation began. Celestine was arrested, an inquest was held, which showed that Möricke had three times the amount of anaesthetic in his blood that he should have had. There was a summary trial for murder, an abortive attempt to rescue her from prison,during which two Resistance men—one of them her brother—were killed, and, a day later, Celestine was shot.”
    Neither of us spoke for a while. The waves out at sea were getting larger and the tide was beginning to turn.
    â€œCan you really be blamed?” said Madeleine softly. “From what you say, she seemed to know her mind and was confident enough. We all have to accept responsibility for what we do.”

MARCH

· 5 ·
    AT THE BACK OF THE MANSE was a range of outbuildings, still in the same red-veined stone—mainly old stables and workshops. The windows fitted badly. Some of the old wooden stable hooks were still there, on the walls, no more than pegs really, along with a faint smell of hay, leather, and horse manure. On one especially wet and cold morning in early March, the recruits assembled there. I stood in front of them with Duncan Kennaway next to me.
    â€œDuncan is running the show today. He’s a bit of a whizz at certain forms of deception and tradecraft and he’s going to introduce you to a few techniques and substances that might help you out in emergencies. After that…Well, we have a little treat lined up for you. Duncan?”
    He was actually wearing his kilt today. Given the conditions, it must have been cold under all that tartan.
    â€œAye,” he said, in his Scottish lilt. “Aye. I’m going to