The swaying elevator slowly and softly lowered him to his death.
IX
In the dark, starless night a small black boat sailed down the middle of the Seine, from Pont de Bercy heading east, like a gigantic floating catafalque with its candle-chimney snuffed.
Two men were leaning on the bow rail, the four points of their eyes piercing the gloom.
On the horizon a blinding smear of light gleamed like a thick white line of chalk on the black dress of the night.
“In three minutes we’ll be at the first firing line. It’s five minutes to twelve. We should wait two minutes before approaching the line,” said one of the voices in a low whisper.
“It’s a perfect night, as long as the wind doesn’t scatter the clouds. I’d bet my head that we manage to get through unseen. Have one more look around the deck, comrade, to make sure we haven’t forgotten to shut off any lights. No one dare light a cigarette! I don’t want to hear a single word! We’re almost there.”
Comrade Laval was forced to squint for a moment. The tugboat floated around the bend. The river a quarter mile away was flooded with light, seemingly on fire. Comrade Laval bent down to the speaking tube and said in a throaty whisper:
“Stop!”
The screws spun into place. The boat came to a halt.
Now, in contrast with the wall of light, the gloom seemed even blacker and thicker. The spotlighted strip of the demarcation zone stretched into the distance both left and right, like a white-hot iron poker.
Comrade Laval strained his ears. An infinite minute passed. From somewhere in the city, in the perfect silence, came the sound of the first clocks tolling midnight. At almost the very same moment, from behind the city, came the first bang, the clatter of a falling projectile a second later, and then again silence.
“Missed!” hissed Laval through his teeth.
Soon two new shots rang out. A moment later – a third, fourth, and fifth. The cannons roared one after another.
Suddenly, almost in time with the thunder of the bursting projectile, the wall of light dividing the river collapsed, and the darkness whistled as it funneled into the breach. The artillery boomed relentlessly.
“Go!” Comrade Laval roared into the speaking tube.
The tugboat shuddered, jerked forward, and flew full steam into the black tunnel of darkness. Somewhere in the distance a spotlight spluttered, groping at the indifferent sky with a blind man’s trembling, open hand.
And then a black balloon swayed into the halo of light in the sky. Almost simultaneously, the tailed flare of a projectile shot toward it.
“Yes, everything’s going according to plan,” mumbled Comrade Laval, rubbing his hands. “Now they’ll occupy themselves awhile with the balloon until we pass. Come on, once more!”
Rockets danced and dashed through the sky time and again, aimed at the swaying balloon. Smothered in darkness, Paris responded with cannon fire.
Like a panting sprinter, the tugboat swallowed the space in large gulps. It left the jagged wall of light behind. Now, from both right and left, the banks sparkled and flashed with a thousand lights, rumbling with the hollow blast of the alarm.
Suddenly kissed by one of the flares, the awkward black balloon burst in a ball of flames and started to plummet like a gigantic glowing butterfly.
“A bit too early, damn it!” murmured Laval with an angry glare. “Now they’ll turn their attention to us…”
The cannons kept booming, though more weakly and at longer intervals.
Here the river visibly narrowed, and the lights falling upon it from the banks cut fantastical teeth in its uniform black braid. The cannons gradually grew softer. Just one, and then two last shots – like belated applause – and a thick curtain of silence fell into place for good.
His whole body tense, Comrade Laval held his breath and leaned on the rail, as if wanting to cover the noisy, panting tugboat with the stunted wings of his hands, like a hen with an unruly chick.
The lights on the banks gradually started to thin, the odd one popping up here and there, then scurrying behind the boat like will-o’-the-wisps. Just three or four more semaphores and the boat floated into the black crater of night.
They drifted for some time in total darkness, marking off the space with the tug’s heavy screw propellers. At last, Comrade Laval lit a cigarette and sucked at it greedily. He could make out his watch by the flickering light of a match: five past one.
Laval bent over his speaking tube:
“All hands on deck!” he loudly commanded.
An instant later the deck was swarming with a dozen brawny figures.
“You may smoke, comrades. We’ll be there shortly. Bring the lights on deck! We can turn on the smaller one. And now – careful! Somewhere nearby, on the left bank, there ought to be a dock with a few barges. Whoever sees it first, let us know. I fear we might’ve already passed it. Is Comrade Monsignac here? Didn’t you serve in the light marines, comrade? Are you any good at climbing ropes? Good. I’ll be needing you.”
“A barge! There’s a barge. There’s two, three, four barges!” sounded a few voices at once. “And there’s the dock!”
“Stop!”
The tug drew to a halt.
“Shine both lights. There should be a road by the bank.”
“There is! There’s a road!” came the voices.
“Good! Somewhere near the bank the road forks. One way goes inland. We must have missed it. Back up! Closer in on the bank! Right.”
The boat slowly started moving in reverse.
“There’s the fork!” shouted someone from the portside. “Stop!”
The tugboat halted.
“Turn on all the lights! Light up that place well for me! Good! Nice and bright. Now a bit closer! Stop! Enough! Comrade Monsignac, come closer. You see that junction telephone pole, with wires going out in three directions? How far do you think we are from it?”
“About thirty feet,” said the stout sailor, judging the space with a trained eye.
“Can you throw a line around it?”
“Why not? If you could just move up a bit closer…”
The boat moved another seven feet toward the shore.
“Stop! Don’t go right up to the shore!” Laval commanded. “Right. And now, comrade, try to toss the line over. Make a strong loop so that you’ll be able to go straight from the deck to the pole. You’re going to have to cut the wires on both the left and the right and attach ours to the remaining line perpendicular to the shore.”
“Then why do we need the rope, comrade? I’ll just jump ashore and be up the pole in a flash. The line will just waste time.”
“Don’t even think about jumping ashore! Whoever goes ashore gets a bullet to the head!” Laval warned. “If you’re a sailor and not a wimp you should be able to walk the line from the deck to the pole.”
“I can do what needs to be done, but it’ll take time. It’s a waste. The sun will rise on us.”
Comrade Laval dryly interrupted:
“We’ll discuss it when you get back, comrade. If it’s time you’re worried about, let’s not stand around dallying. Throw the line.”
Comrade Monsignac silently tied a lasso, aimed, threw, and missed.
“I said it wasn’t going to be easy…” he muttered, getting ready for another toss.
After fifteen minutes the line was finally fastened. The stout sailor reeled the wire over his arm, slung a pair of pincers and scissors on his belt and, rolling up his sleeves, adroitly began climbing the line toward the pole.
Laval pulled a revolver from his underarm holster.
“Comrade Monsignac – just in case it should enter your head to jump to the ground instead of returning to the deck, remember that a bullet from this revolver will crack your skull before you touch the ground.”