V for Vengeance Read Online Free Page B

door, and at that instant Madeleine had an inspiration. From the kitchen window of the apartment the wire cables of a small goods lift ran down into a courtyard in the centre of the block. If Georges could only get to the window and climb out of it while she flung herself in the path of the Germans he might be able to swarm down the cables and get away before they could reach the window to shoot at him. She had no means of conveying her plan to Georges in detail, but he knew the geography of the apartment well, and she felt certain that a hint would be enough. Turning, she sprang forward, and grasping the handle of the kitchen door, flung it wide open.
    Madame Lavallière’s voice came again.
    â€˜Madeleine! Madeleine! Why do you not come? What is going on out there?’
    Her cries were half-drowned by an order shouted in German by the major. His men raised their weapons and came rushing forward. The tommy-gun began to spit fire and suddenly a deafening series of explosions shook the room.
    Georges fired twice, hitting the man with the tommy-gun. He gave a stifled curse, stumbled and fell. Dodging round the table, Georges leapt backwards and reached the kitchen door. He had hardly done so when there was a second crash of shots, as the other S.S. men, firing over their fallen companions, let fly at him with their automatics.
    The reports were deafening. Blue smoke eddied from the barrels of the guns, and for a moment Madeleine could see nothing clearly. Georges’ pistol cracked again, but he hadnow fallen back against the jamb of the door, and she knew that he was badly wounded. Slowly he slid to the floor, but his hand still gripped his gun, and he made one last effort to raise it.
    Madeleine threw herself forward in a desperate attempt to cover him with her body, but Uncle Luc seized her and dragged her aside to prevent her being shot. As she strove to break free she swivelled round just in time to see the major level his pistol, pointing it downwards at the prostrate Georges. He fired at point-blank range, and where Georges’ left eye had been a second before there appeared a ghastly black hole, from which a trickle of blood was running.
    Madeleine gave a piercing scream and fell to the floor in a dead faint.
    Hours later that night Madeleine Lavallière knelt, dry-eyed and still stunned, at the foot of the bed in the narrow spare room of her apartment. On the bed Georges now lay rigid in death.
    In the interval Luc Ferrière, shocked out of his stupid complacency, had roused the neighbours and with them performed the last rites for his nephew. A white sheet now covered the torn body and disfigured face; around the still form tall, tapering candles which burned with a steady flame were set, and a crucifix reposed upon its breast. In the living-room outside Madame Bonard and another woman were sitting up, but the distraught girl had refused their endeavours to persuade her to lie down. She had insisted that she must watch and pray through the night by her dead fiance’s side.
    At last, as the early dawn was creeping through the closed shutters to make the candlelight wan and pale, something stirred inside her. Great spasmodic sobs began to tear her breast, then tears brought relief to her over-burdened heart; but with tears of sorrow tears of bitter, burning anger were mingled, and as she prayed she now cried aloud:
    â€˜Beasts! Murderers! Assassins! O God, give me the chance to avenge this wrong. Support me. Strengthen me so that I may never tire, until—until France shall be free of this pollution which—which Thou hast seen fit to inflict upon our soil.No matter what becomes of me! But before I die let me have vengeance for this—this brutal death that my dear love has suffered. Vengeance I beg of Thee, O Lord! Vengeance! Vengeance! Vengeance!’

2
City of Despair
    In the days that followed, Madeleine knew little of France’s agony. Her own tragedy was so near, and her mind