Young, Brave and Beautiful Page 4
‘Bet the bloody British scarper and leave us high and dry,’ said one angry young French fighter, part of the reception committee – still untrained, untried.
‘Wait and see,’ said Philippe, somewhat tersely. ‘It’ll be interesting to see how you stand up under the London instructor’s training regime, young whippersnapper, never mind the real thing!’
‘D’accord, d’accord, ne t’en fous pas!’
Although Philippe was coldly calm, his tone had made the young chap lower his defiant eyes. The general fear was still that the British would fade away and leave the French in the grip of the Vichy puppet government and the Nazi organisations.
Philippe grinned then, handing them a bulging packet. Dubras’ second-in-command gasped, ‘Mon dieu! Ça fera l’affaire pendant un bon moment.’
‘Damn well ought to last!’ Philippe said, adding to himself somewhat sourly, ‘Bloody hope so, anyway.’
‡
‘You know, Vi,’ Philippe had said, just before they left England for France, ‘It’s time for you to learn exactly what I’ve been up to in la zone interdite. But first you tell me what you know about this forbidden area.’ He was staying with her at her parent’s place, 18 Burnley Road, in Stockwell, south London. It was in a pretty terrace of small Georgian houses with a small garden at the back. Reine and Charles Bushell rented two floors from the owner to house their now rather large family.
‘Okay. As far as I understand it, the zone where my Tante Marguerite lives is the area the Germans are administering from German-occupied Brussels. That’s more or less Picardy and Nord. Then you’ve got the zone interdite that stretches from Calais through Amiens and Pont-Rémy, where Mum married Dad after courting for three years during the last war.’
‘Is that right?’ asked Philippe. ‘So when did they actually get married?’
‘At the end of the war. It was just a small ceremony in 1918 in Pont-Rémy’s Town Hall. They didn’t get married in church because Dad wouldn’t become a Catholic. He was darned handsome, you know, and very dashing in his best uniform. He was a champion welterweight boxer in the army. He couldn’t be a soldier or a pilot because early in his military service he’d been in an explosion that permanently caused him some deafness – not that he would accept that – so he became a driver on the front line – supply vehicles and ambulances, frequently horse-drawn, often bringing the wounded and the dead back from the front. He still won’t talk about it. Anyway, that’s where Mum and Dad fell in love and got married. Their romance was as sweet as roses to him, just a short distance away from the muck and blood of the trenches.
‘Alors mon chef, back to the present! This first forbidden zone stretches down south-east to Laon. It was extended in November 1943, all along the French coast off the Channel from Calais past Le Havre and Rouen on to Cherbourg and St Malo. I suppose it includes the occupied Channel Islands off the French coast. Then as far as Brest on the western tip of Brittany and all down the Atlantic coast as far as Bayonne and the borders with the French Basque and Spain. Is that about it?’
‘Yep. It was extended just as I was leaving the area. Seems the Germans were getting twitchy. Many arrests then. Which is why it’s going to be even more dangerous for you than it was for me.’
‘Why did you return then? Because you knew the zone was to be extended?’
‘I had very carefully and slowly set up an extremely good network, you know the one, the Salesman circuit. That was my mission – to set up and organise a secure network of men and women and to train the men in sabotage up to and after the invasion. This I did from April last year. I stayed with the Francheterre family the entire time in a small flat in a large cité ouvrière10 block of ninety-six. I couldn’t have found a better safe house. The people were extremely brave and generous. We had some great evenings with the whole family cramped in their tiny flat. Friends would drop by for un petit Ricard.11 I had spent over a month going backwards and forwards from Paris to Rouen when eventually Madame Micheline – I met her through my wife’s Tante Evelyn – said she had a branch of her fashion shop in Rouen run by a Monsieur Sueur. He’s a Gaullist – about forty-five or fifty – a bit old for all this stuff but he was overjoyed to be a boîte à lettres as well as a contact point. He proved a good dead-letter drop and store. It’s through him I met the Francheterres. I insisted they knew the danger they were running. They didn’t care. Longed to do something against the invader.
‘It’s odd, you know, in Le Havre they say the people of Rouen don’t have a lot of courage. They’re certainly different from les Havrais, that’s for sure. Dieudonné (one of Bob Maloubier’s noms de guerre) and I were the only two I could find safe houses for, but those couple of hundred or more who did help couldn’t have been braver. We owe them!’
‘Philippe, tell me what happened in Le Havre again. It’s good to go through it like this; I can remember it all so much better. You eventually met a chap there called Roger Mayer, a chemistry prof in a high school, I think you said.’
They were in John’s tiny bedroom, which Reine had made warm and comfortable for Philippe to stay in while John, one of Violette’s three younger brothers, was in REME.12 Another brother, George (Noël), was away in the navy and Roy had joined the army. Violette and Philippe were left in peace in the tiny bedroom to spend the necessary time going over and over the situation that Philippe had left in France and what Violette might expect when she eventually got there. Rick – Dickie as he was known then – was with his mother, Reine, running around, getting under her feet, and they were both laughing.
Violette sat in the armchair, resting her feet on the end of the bed while Philippe lounged on it, hands tucked behind his head. Both wore jumpers and slacks but still had their slippers on. They spoke almost entirely in French for Violette’s benefit. The operation ahead took up all their waking moments.
‘At this time in Normandy and Seine-Maritime,’ continued Philippe, ‘I found the area brimming with German troops. However, not many Vichy police were in evidence, as it seems the area is considered a safe zone of pro-German loyalties. Nevertheless, there is a head of the Milice who’s got a nasty reputation. The only other organisation I came across was the National Front, but it’s damned badly organised. That’s the French commies. Each time they got a hundred or so together, they were caught.’
‘They’re mostly pro-Communist, y’know,’ confirmed Violette. ‘I’m sure there’re many other groups. And I bet that each group is probably fighting for its own political survival as well as building up a strong Résistance entity, particularly as there’s something big in the air – an Allied invasion.’
‘True, Vi, true. Those that I had gathered had already been involved in obstructing the Germans and had had some pretty good successes – blowing up electricity plants – and I trained up some 200 men with Bob Maloubier’s help.’
‘He’s quite a character. Came to my flat in Pembridge Villas and met little Tania. Great fun to spend time with, dining and dancing, but his eyes are only for roaming.’
‘True,’ laughed Philippe. ‘But he’s a bloody good sabotage trainer and landing-committee organiser. Comes on a bit too strong, though, which has proved to be awkward in the field. On arrival he was shot, spent the night in a near-frozen stream, stumbled out and was holed up in a house, where the visiting doctor, Dr Delbos, pronounced the need to get a coffin ready as this fellow was sure to be dead by the morning. Blow me, if he didn’t defy the doctor to recover and carry on. He trained many men in sabotage techniques for before and after our invasion, to put obstacles in the path of the German military, to receive armaments from parachute drops, hiding them at secret dumpsites until just before we invade, and to sabotage railways, electrical plants and viaducts.
‘It certainly took courage to get through that injury and the conditions to survive after lone gunfights with the enemy,’ mused Vi. ‘I just hope he also has the courage to save or protect others in a similar tight spot.’
‘After I returned
to England, at least one chap in Rouen had talked, and one way or another pretty well the whole network has been compromised, if not utterly destroyed. It took me twelve bloody months to set it up – with the utmost care and attention to detail. And now men and women that I persuaded to do this dangerous work have been arrested, some tortured and some shot. I’ll tell you, ma petite, it’s hard to bear. All because my lieutenant in Rouen wouldn’t act quickly enough and wanted to wait for me to return! A brilliant lieutenant but incapable of independent thought. All those bloody people …’
Violette understood his agony. ‘I’m so sorry, Philippe. When my husband was killed, I didn’t think I wanted to live. I’d walk down to my flat – our flat – in Pembridge Villas with tears completely unbidden streaming down my face, knowing I’d never see Étienne’s face light up with pleasure,13 his gentle teasing and we’d never dance again. He was so quiet, yet so tough. I loved him and longed to live life with him in the south of France, having brothers or sisters for Tania.
‘One of his closest friends and his commanding officer in the Legion was the Georgian Prince, Lieutenant Colonel Dmitri Amilakhvari. I met him and their general, Koenig, in Liverpool where Étienne and I spent five wonderful days, plus a few in London, on a sort of second honeymoon two years ago. Étienne and Amilakhvari were both killed at El Alamein – eighteen months ago. It was lucky I had Tania. She was what kept bringing me back to reality. I had a child to protect and bring up. Mum will enjoy helping out, and meanwhile I’ve put Tania with a friend, Vera Maidment, in Mill Hill. I pay her enough to at least make sure Tania eats well and has whatever she needs. She seems happy enough there whenever I’ve visited. I miss her but I know she’s safe.’
‘On to money matters. Now – that is, last year, 1943 and this year, 1944 – the pay of a sergent in the French army is 2,000 francs per month. Under my codename of Beauchamp while in Rouen late last summer, I paid the wireless operator’s bodyguard, a Pole, 2,000 per month, about 10 quid – same as a British sergeant, I think. I raised it to 5,000 in November, and for my lieutenants in Rouen and Le Havre I paid 5,000 francs, raised to 10,000 in November. They did not always want the money but I insisted, and so some used the money to support underground newspapers, families of arrested Résistants in difficulties, general expenses and in other useful ways. It’s important for you to know this, Violette, when you discuss money matters for or with any of the surviving Salesman network.’
Philippe insisted on paying his men and women at what could be termed decent rates to ensure they did not have the extra burden of monetary worries and their families were properly provided for. He also ensured that money was made available from London to help families whose members had been taken by the enemy, possibly tortured, then shot or, at the very least, sent to Compiègne for deportation to Germany as forced labour in the German war machine.
‘En effet, my lieutenant in Le Havre, poor old Mayer, did not want a penny for himself and accepted it for the clandestine newspaper he’d been running prior to my arrival. As you said, he was prof of physics and chemistry at the Lycée, about thirty-two – my age – and very savvy and cautious. I told them all, paid or not, if ever they needed help, they could always come to me.’
‘Listen, Philippe, Maman’s calling us down for one of her “abominable” English meals doubtless cooked to perfection. You can lead me through the whole setup later.’
‡
Now, in this early April of 1944, in war-torn France they were enjoying a very comfortable evening, everyone friendly and helpful. The packet Philippe had handed to the group’s leader, Gaston Dubras, contained the substantial sum of 20,000 francs (equivalent to £115 at that time – a lot when a penny or two could still buy a meal!), and he promised them more parachute drops of urgently needed ammunition and other provisions. This largesse brought smiles all round. Philippe still had about a million francs. Violette had a further 250,000 in case they had to separate before reaching Paris and his wife’s aunt’s flat.
He had instructed her that she should have a large sum on her at all times: the larger part of it well-concealed in her worn-looking leather shoulder-bag with a cleverly disguised double lining and base, perhaps some in her jacket, more in her money-belt. Once she was on her own, which could be at any moment, she might need the extra cash for travelling and living expenses, for bribes, buying various clothes and accessories for disguises, getting and paying for forged ration cards or new forged identity cards, maybe even buying a car, truck or bike – with or without motor. Everything had to be considered.
Finally, Philippe impressed upon her that, although SOE boys and girls liked to joke that the weather was a greater hindrance to entering and operating in France than were any German activities, it was definitely not so in the area Violette was about to enter – the heavily defended zone interdite which was about twenty-five kilometres deep from the Channel coast. In spite of their jokes, the staff in London did take this very seriously and in the spring of 1944 the organisation of Allied ‘counter-scorch’ parties to keep French port facilities intact was being discouraged because ‘it is extremely difficult to infiltrate agents into the maritime areas as the Germans keep a very strict and careful watch on all the inhabitants.’ However, Violette, along with other agents, saw the zone interdite, with its special passes and regulations, as simply another set of hazards to overcome. One of the skills Violette had learned in training at Arisaig in Scotland was the technique of silently getting in and out of dinghies and skiffs. Peter Harratt14 noted in his interrogation15 on 15 December 1944 that, generally speaking, the best landing points were near a German pill-box, as their garrisons did not expect the British to be such fools as to attempt it. His best beach, which he used six times, was within 40 metres of an occupied pill-box. Ben Cowburn noted in his book No Cloak No Dagger that dinghies were ‘absurd little things … about as seaworthy as an inverted umbrella’.
‡
Violette’s gaiety put a smile on every face. They all noted that even during those first few evening hours her French had improved in leaps and bounds. How good it was to be back in France, and soon to be in pretty much the same region as Tante Marguerite, even if I can’t have any contact with her, she mused. She was surprised she was starting to think in French again. Speaking to the others, she concentrated on every word, every syllable, every nuance.
Philippe was amazed at the transformation of south London girl to young French woman, totally in control of herself. He could see the care Violette took, not only with respect to her accent, but also to build the best relations, not talking too much or too loosely and giving only essential information in clear, unambiguous words. He was feeling much more optimistic in his choice of courier. I think she’ll do just fine – and what a sweet demeanour she has, hiding the steeliness that I’ve glimpsed on more than one occasion, he thought to himself.
Retiring early to their bedrooms, they quickly washed from the jug of still-steaming water provided by their bustling hostess who continued to fuss over their clothes, ensuring they would be clean and dry and that they would be well provisioned on their journey to Paris with a little something left over on arrival. She knew, without being told, that it might be useful for them to have some little cadeaux in the way of friandises and good plain saucissons for distribution as special treats.
They rose with the dawn chorus and after a cold lick-and-promise from their refilled water jugs and a hearty breakfast, the pair set out on bicycles for the station, and the train that would take them to Paris.
They packed the generous lunch provided by Madame Chantelle and a bottle of the local wine plus a thermos of hot black coffee made sweet with black-market sugar. Knowing how hard rationing and food generally was in Paris, Madeleine felt they should take a gift for their loyal friends there, in addition to the little presents already deep in the basket. Very carefully she packed a dozen eggs, a large Berrichon pâté, goat’s cheese and a cured ham in an old cloth bag. Before securing their lunches, they first
strapped onto the rear of the bikes their small French leather suitcases, battered and scarred, containing a change of clothes and other essentials. The extra gifts of food went into the commodious basket at the front of Violette’s bike.
After hugs and kisses on both cheeks, a hurried allez hop, au revoir and adieu, they pedalled off into the distance along the poplar-lined byways of middle France.
‡
* * *
8 While Pinot is an old and distinguished grape or vine, un pinard is a wine to set your teeth on edge and you on fire. But it is, even today, quite acceptable to remark appreciatively that the wine being consumed is ‘un très bon pinard’ without necessarily giving offence, a bit like saying ‘a pretty good bottle of plonk’. Where the UK has ‘Poppy Day’ arising from the terrible slaughter of the First World War, the French, after victory in 1918, were encouraged to drink ‘le pinard des poilus’ – the fighting man’s grog – ‘poilus’ being the nickname given to them since they were unshaven and thus ‘hairy’. In fact, pinard was bought at quite a price after the war to help support the orphans and widows of France. Now the French have the blue flower of remembrance.
9 A group of communes in Beynat canton, in heart of lower Corrèze, near Tulle and Brive (Limousin), south of Limoges.
10 Cite ouvrière is a workers’ housing development, almost equivalent to council housing in the UK.
11 Ricard is an aniseed-based alcoholic drink.
12 REME = Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, British Army.