Young, Brave and Beautiful Page 6
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The two travellers finally arrived, tired and dusty, at Philippe’s aunt’s apartment. Philippe introduced Violette as Corinne, which was her undercover name for this mission. Tante Evelyn warmly hugged and kissed Violette on both cheeks in welcome. After being shown their rooms, bathing and changing, they came down to a warm celebratory dinner.
‘You know, Philippe,’ Violette noted that first evening, ‘your aunt is so courageous, putting her life at risk for us and the Allied cause. I wonder how she can do it.’
‘Because she loves me! Why else?’ riposted Philippe, with a laugh.
‘I’m old but not deaf, my dear nephew,’ came from the kitchen. ‘Apart from the fact that I might have some residual affection for you, I look around me each day in this city that I dearly love and watch it trampled underfoot by the enemy – an enemy we’ve fought many times before. I’ve watched bright, happy faces turn grey with apprehension, lack of nourishment and all manner of restrictions. I will not stand idly by; I am not an attentiste25 and I will do what I can to rid this city of such vermin.’
‘Corinne, you must make this your home while you’re in France. I’ll give you a key. This way, you come and go as you please. However, never bring anyone here. Meet them out walking in a park or one of the main squares nearby.’ Philippe’s aunt did not live very far from the Pont du Carrousel, the Tuileries and the Louvre.
To avoid endangering Violette and his aunt, Philippe would not stay longer than one night. He wanted to liaise with several circuits regarding the planned Allied invasion, to encourage them to carry out carefully timed sabotage, to get kit and equipment ready, continue training and check their vehicles. He later informed London of the sabotage groups’ requirements for munitions, money and other supplies during debriefing.
Philippe had a strict policy of shunning clandestine meetings in cafés and restaurants: it was too easy to be overheard or to appear conspiratorial – particularly true in Paris from late 1943 to early 1944. There had been hundreds of arrests and around a hundred Résistants shot. Parisians continued to resist, many continued to be caught, tortured and disposed of, leaving behind networks, friends and families to press on in imminent danger.
None of this prevented Violette living with Tante Evelyn in rue Saints-Pères. Her papers were expertly forged in the name of Corinne Leroy. She looked exactly like the young French woman she was, seemingly walking to work or to the shops in Paris’ wartime streets. Tante Evelyn became Violette’s base for this mission, her boite à lettres (that is, her dead-letter drop, meeting place or message relay), as well as the safe-house she could race to if necessary. The old apartment, in a grande maison of Paris, had some ideal places for concealing people or objects.
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The morning of 7 April, Vendredi Saint or Good Friday, Philippe left early and he knew the two women should spend as much time together as possible so Violette could immerse herself in all things French. He knew there was no faster or better way than for her to pass a couple of days with his aunt, allowing her to become accustomed to the occupying enemy and daily life for the French.
France does not close down on Good Friday and the shops were mostly open. It was the right weather for a long walk, and the two women strolled arm-in-arm, with Violette soaking up the distinct ambience of both banks of the Seine. She felt the enemy presence and saw it in action in the streets. If stopped and questioned, her story was that she was visiting her aunt for Easter.
Tante Evelyn had an idea to give Violette a treat before her hazardous journey. She suggested having lunch in Le Grand Café.
As Violette did not know it she asked what is was like. Even with the hateful Germans, Tante Evelyn explained that it was still a fabulous place. One of the most fashionable places of Parisian society – amazing art nouveau furnishings and décor, big, glamorous, and great fun. She felt sure that Violette would love it.
As they entered, Violette glanced around; it was certainly glamorous. Tante Evelyn was greeted by the genuinely smiling maître d’, whom she knew well, and he guided them across the thick carpets to a well-positioned discreet corner banquette, secluded enough for their own privacy but from where they could see the other diners. The menu was wonderfully varied, especially compared to war-torn London, and they accompanied their meal with house wine, a carafe of water and not-so-ersatz coffee. They chatted the whole time. Violette asked question after question about the fashions – so stylish and so different from London – about the politics of the day, about comportment in the streets and how to respond when stopped for papers. Tante Evelyn, happy to educate this lovely girl, thought Violette utterly charming. It amazed and frightened her that someone so innocent of the ways of the world and unused to present-day France should be embarking on a dangerous mission, so she told her everything she could, with many small but vitally important details about France generally and Rouen and Paris in particular.
Violette absorbed everything that, in the comparatively sterile atmosphere of the SOE training schools, would otherwise have taken her time to digest, understand and remember. But here, it was not only her mind that was learning but her eyes, ears, nose – in fact every fibre of her being.
The dining room resonated with laughter and the clink of cut-glass goblets. In the far corner, a tuxedoed pianist softly played the melodies of the day. The ornate stained-glass ceiling reflected shimmering light. Two steps from l’Opéra, the Grand Café’s richly lit windows glowed. War or no war, it continued serving the best and freshest seafood platters day and night.
The food was perfect. Violette handed Tante Evelyn her ration cards and sufficient francs to pay for the entire meal. Including wine, the bill came to the equivalent in today’s money of about £100 each, plus the mandatory 15 per cent tip. Violette was amazed by the opulence, never having paid more than a couple of pounds for her and friends at the local eating houses and pubs. It felt special and exciting: an antidote to bombed-out buildings and rubble-strewn streets.
They left the restaurant at about three in the afternoon, rosy cheeked and happy, yet careful about what they said within earshot of other people – Parisians and Germans alike. Tanks, guns pointing forward, moved slowly along the boulevard and some of the smaller streets, reminding the occupied city just who were the masters.
Violette had been introduced to the most cosmopolitan wartime Parisian restaurant. Near the grands magasins de luxe and the haute couturiers, it was the meeting place for business people, for friendly gatherings, and where Germans would take their wives or French mistresses. At times, German military and civilian parties took over upper halls for more private repasts – often with a bevy of beauties hired from a madame who rented the top floor of a building from a local villain and consummate Résister, François Véler.26 She therefore often provided him with good intelligence learned from the enemy in pillow talk.
The Paris streets stirred up distant memories of Violette’s young childhood when Charlie Bushell ran his private taxi service, driving wealthy US and British travellers from Paris to Switzerland and Italy. Charlie had been constantly at odds with the ‘blinking language’ and only rarely took on Parisian clients, but Violette’s mother, Reine, had adored being back in Paris, making beautiful couture clothes for the same group of wealthy ex-pats and Americans. Charlie, my grandfather, recalled driving his limousine, speeding around dangerously narrow hairpin bends high in the Alps, terrifying his rich clients. After her parents had left Paris, Violette, from 1928 to 1934 (age seven to thirteen) had also made a few special day-trips with Tante Marguerite to the capital.
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Violette’s emotions were torn between excitement and apprehension. She was doing precisely what she wanted to do, had volunteered to do, had trained so hard to do. At last she was going to be of real help in the effort to defeat the Nazis. She would be contributing, even on a small scale, to get the Germans out of her aunt’s life; to avenge her Legionnaire lover and husband, Étienne; she was fighting for her daughter,
and the rest of her family. For all these reasons she intended to do her level best to help win the war. Violette knew that in SOE, run by Colin Gubbins,27 and in SOE’s French Section under Maurice Buckmaster and Vera Atkins,28 many were of the opinion she was not quite the right material. She intended to prove them wrong on her first mission into an occupied country and so she did – solo.
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On Easter Saturday, 8 April, Violette went out once again with Philippe’s aunt. All apprehension had disappeared and she thought what a bonus it was to be in Paris prior to the difficult and dangerous task she would be facing alone in the next weeks.
‘I would love to stop for a snack in the brasserie,29 I forget its name, at the bottom of the Champs-Elysées to watch the passing people. Could we?’
‘Oh, Corinne, I think that’s an excellent idea. As we sip awful coffee and maybe have an equally awful omelette, we can bone up on your French with some useful idiomatic expressions of the ladylike kind while we watch the enemy stomp past.’ She laughed.
‘Merci beaucoup, Tante Evelyn,’ Violette laughed in her turn. Obviously, Philippe had been telling tales out of school.
Tante Evelyn continued on a more serious note that while they were in the Champs-Elysées, they should contact André Malraux,30 the writer, as Philippe had instructed. Claude Malraux, Andrés half-brother was Philippe’s second-in-command of the Salesman circuit in Rouen. Violette said that she would do her best and report back on her findings as she understood how desperate he must be for solid news about Claude.
Overnight fog had almost cleared by nine o’clock and, after chatting for a while, the two women slipped out of the apartment to stroll over the river to the Champs-Elysées. They mingled with the people of Paris, the less affluent looking terribly tired and wan, the result of strict rationing. To keep out the chilly air, Tante Evelyn loaned Violette one of her own fur coats: a dark brown three-quarter-length astrakhan coat made by one of the best furriers in Paris. Tante Evelyn wore her favourite fox coat. Coats thrown over shoulders in Gallic fashion, they would not feel the chill in the air as they sat on the terrace of the Brasserie d’Alsace. Violette felt like a million dollars – and looked it.
The sky was grey, matching the mood engendered by the grey/green-uniformed German military going about their wartime duties. There were many German civilians too: industrialists, government officials, wealthy Germans, all luxuriating in the safety of their conquered city. Their own cities were bombed night and day by the RAF and the US Air Force. Germans took short breaks in a Paris that still had much to offer in refinement, luxury goods, fine restaurants and thrilling cabarets. Paris, eternal seductress, eased many millions of Deutschmarks from German pockets, smiling politely while sneering behind their departing backs at their often coarse behaviour and arrogant ways.
In London, Philippe had remarked to Violette that she must be very careful of her accent. An English accent had already been the downfall of several agents. It was imperative for an agent to have an authentic French accent for missions in France. It was not so important with regard to communicating with the Gestapo but essential when talking to someone who might be an informer or when questioned by the Vichy police or Milice. Violette’s accent was hardly English but the regional accent of Pas-de-Calais. Still, she took Philippe’s digs about her accent to heart. Better he should notice it, than some French collaborator or informer. She had not realised she had a Nord accent at first and so was unable to challenge the error of those at SOE’s special training schools who insisted she had an English accent. Nevertheless, it ensured she paid direct and strict attention to what she said and how she said it.
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They finally met André Malraux after midnight, when they were attending the Easter vigil in the Sacré Coeur. The interior of the church shimmered with soft lights and hundreds of candles. The rejoicing of the choir filled the dome and filled hearts with hope and momentary joy.
André Malraux approached Violette and Evelyn on the steps outside, inviting them to the café in the square that was used frequently by the Résistance. He was often seen in Parisian café society, flitting easily from one café to another. He was a member of Combat (the Parisian group) along with Albert Camus, author of La Peste and L’Etranger. Unlike the very careful and circumspect Philippe, André was unconcerned, flamboyant even, in holding clandestine meetings in Parisian cafés and was delighted to entertain two such charming ladies. He quickly broached his request: he was greatly concerned for his half-brother, Claude Malraux, codenamed Cicero/Serge, and would appreciate her reporting to him directly on her return to Paris. Violette, a little taken aback by his rather arrogant assumption that she would do his bidding, replied that she would do her best and let him know through Charles (Philippe) anything that was pertinent to his brother. After that, they chatted about many things, including a little about his involvement and his remit directly from de Gaulle to bring the disparate groups of resistance into one fold. Dawn had broken when they parted, André assuming he had recruited a fine new courier, as he later claimed in his book, La corde et la souris.
Tante Evelyn had watched discreetly while Violette had André describe various events and, seemingly spellbound, listened as he talked about his pre-war travels and writings. Violette promised herself she would read one of his books one day. Even though she did not take to him particularly, she knew he was an accomplished author and had travelled to French Indochina where Étienne had served from 1937 to 1940. André Malraux was now involved at a high level in de Gaulle’s Résistance movement, and after the war he became Ministre de la Culture.
The two women walked slowly back to the apartment and Violette went to pack for her journey into the unknown.
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The strong defensive Atlantic Wall constructed by the Germans along the coast of Europe would soon become offensive under Hitler’s plan to invade and conquer the British Isles. Occupation of the Channel Islands was merely his first step. He ordered the use of forced labour from Russian, Polish and Spanish prisoners to excavate warrens of concreted tunnels to house not only hospitals and command posts but also weapons like the V rockets in the war tunnels of Jersey, for example. These Hitlerian plans were to be indefinitely postponed.
Churchill required SOE to co-ordinate sabotage along the Atlantic Wall and then to provide him with intelligence while contributing to the build-up to Operation Overlord, the planned Allied landings in France on D-Day. The War Cabinet agreed that Colonel Buckmaster, head of SOE’s French Section, should set up at least one circuit to cover Le Havre and Rouen, where the Germans had built depots for refitting U-boats. It was also rumoured that some technologically advanced secret weapon was being assembled in Normandy and, although SOE had some forty to fifty circuits dotted all over France, those most in danger were therefore those formed in Brittany and Normandy. By the end of 1941, twenty-nine agents had been sent by de Gaulle’s Colonel Passy,31 creating a constant trail of sabotage from Morlaix in western Brittany to Calais and beyond.
Violette knew that tomorrow she must take a train to Rouen. She felt that time was passing too quickly – it was already 9 April and she was still in Paris!
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19 J for jeunes = young people aged thirteen to twenty-one: from 1943 they could be issued with ration cards to receive more substantial rations than adults.
20 Pré, plural prés = meadow, plural meadows. Près = near or close.
21 ‘Get along, vitamin bag!’
22 ‘You’re a cardless sod!’ on the black market.
23 Bob was also known as Robert Mortier and Paco. He was a Frenchman who had been trained by SOE and often met Violette socially in London.
24 The Comité départemental de libération (departmental liberation committee) was part of the French Résistance. In 1944, there was a civil resistance structure (the Comité) and a military one (the French Forces of the Interior). The Comités developed out of the desire of the MUR (Mouvements Unis de la Résista
nce) and the Free French Forces in London under De Gaulle to give political representation to the Résistance forces in France. In each commune, a Comité local de libération (local liberation committee) represented the Comité départemental de libération.
25 Attentiste = a wait-and-see type of person.
26 François Véler, otherwise known as ‘Frank’, was the brother of Paul E.F. Holley’s mother. Both were involved in clandestine activities – Frank as a small-time racketeer and his sister as a wealthy self-made business woman. Their courage and spirit shone and they both survived the war. Paul, born in Jersey, was on the last boat out of Jersey when it was occupied and became an intelligence officer in the UK.
27 Major General Sir Colin McVean Gubbins, KCMG, DSO, MC, had a razor-sharp brain, great insight and tenacity. Diplomatic and experienced in intelligence activities, he was considered the linchpin of SOE. He was also a rare supporter of Charles de Gaulle, since most of the Allies were concerned about an unknown quantity taking over the government of France on liberation.
28 Vera Atkins was Maurice Buckmaster’s assistant in the French section of SOE. Sarah Helm’s biography of her – A Life in Secrets – is erudite, well researched and truly interesting.
29 In France a brasserie is a restaurant serving beer and other alcoholic and non-alcoholic refreshments with the food.
30 André Malraux, well-known French novelist, author of La condition humaine, a member of de Gaulle’s Résistance movement commanded directly from London. After the war he was rewarded by de Gaulle who appointed him Ministre de la Culture.
31 Colonel Passy was in fact André Dewavrin, head of the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action [militaire], (BCRA[M]).His codename was taken from the Paris Métro station of the same name.