They Fought Alone

by Maurice Buckmaster

  ‘They have arrested Maman,’ the daughter whispered as she cut him off on the stairs.

  ‘Why? What for?’

  ‘They were looking for the wireless set. They suspect her of concealing it.’

  ‘Did they find it?’

  ‘No, no, they didn’t. They’re watching the house. They probably saw you come in. If they find the set they’ll shoot Maman, that’s certain.’

  ‘I’ll take it with me.’

  ‘But they’ll see you.’

  Roger pushed past the girl and went upstairs to where he had hidden the set under a bed. It was still there. He took it out and went back down the stairs with it.

  Roger got out into the mews with the bulky set and balanced it on the seat of the bicycle and began to wheel it out into the main road. There were two Gestapo men standing at the end of the mews; they had come round from the front of the house. Roger walked slowly on. As he came abreast of the Gestapo men the bicycle bucked suddenly on a protruding cobblestone and the case containing the wireless set tumbled with a crash to the ground. The bicycle slewed and fell and Roger almost fell on top of it. One of the Gestapo men came forward. He bent down and picked up the wireless set and then he looked at Roger closely. ‘Let me help you,’ he said. Roger righted the bike and smiled. ‘Thank you,’ he said. The Gestapo man put the wireless back on the saddle of the bike and nodded courteously. Roger walked on out of the mews. Of course, Roger never used the house again and found a new one from which to send his messages to us. There was an interesting fact about the house in the mews which Roger realised only as he wheeled his bike into the shed at the back of the Barjou’s house: it had been recommended by Le Chef.

  Three days later Le Chef was released.

  Two days after that Jean brought a message saying that he had been in contact with Le Chef himself. Roger met him in a field outside the city.

  ‘Has he been badly treated?’ Roger asked.

  ‘He says he managed to bluff his way out. He wants to meet you.’

  ‘What did he say exactly?’

  ‘He said that unless he could see you at once there might be a very serious wave of arrests.’

  ‘Might be! We’ve already lost some of our best men.’

  ‘You think Le Chef is betraying us, mon Capitaine, don’t you?’

  ‘Since when do you ask questions? I think no such thing,’ was Roger’s reply. He did not care to take Jean too fully into his confidence. He was not altogether certain of the man, fearing all who had been in contact with Le Chef. ‘Tell Le Chef that I will send one of my staff to meet him at la Chèvre tomorrow afternoon at three o’clock.’

  ‘Very well. You will not go yourself?’

  ‘I will not go myself. Now go. And go carefully.’ Roger watched Jean as he walked across the field and disappeared behind the hedge. Who was on which side? Roger began to suspect everyone. He had to deal with Le Chef before the whole Réseau was smoked out. He would meet him himself at the field called La Chèvre. Desperate measures were in order. Le Chef, if he was the traitor, would think that.

  Roger was not Roger, but a messenger. He would therefore probably not have him arrested there and then, but would wait for the big fish, not realising that the man before him was the leader whom the Gestapo sought.

  That night two arms dumps were raided by the Gestapo. Both were in places recommended by Le Chef. There was little room left for doubt.

  Roger, in blue canvas trousers and a grubby white sweater, left the Barjou house at two o’clock the next afternoon in order to be at La Chèvre well before the agreed time. If Le Chef were bringing any of his German friends with him Roger would have a fair chance of spotting them and getting away. He had his revolver with him and was prepared for the worst. La Chèvre was a meeting place used with some frequency by our men: it was so-called because of a goat which was tethered in the field. There was a wooden shack near the goat’s pen and it was this that Roger intended to use for the interview. In general it was against policy to arrive at meeting places early, since one often became conspicuous hanging about and a policeman or German might grow suspicious.

  In general, an agent would be given several times (twenty minutes past every hour, for instance) and would go on returning until all hope of making the contact had to be abandoned. But this was a special case. Too many rules had been broken already.

  Roger reached the field. There was nothing in it but the goat on the end of his long chain. Roger ambled round the hedge and down the side lanes. No one was about. He dared not stop and search too closely, for then the purpose of his stroll would be too apparent. All the same, he was as sure as he could be that the Gestapo had not surrounded the place, at least not yet.

  He went back to the goat. At three o’clock a figure in a black overcoat entered the field and came across towards him. The man was about thirty-five, rather short, with a rim of black moustache across his upper lip. He walked quite jauntily, like a minor official. Roger sat down on a tin barrel and waited.

  ‘I have come on behalf of Monsieur Igor,’ the man said. ‘Mmm. And I have come on behalf of Churchill,’ Roger replied, giving the other half of the password he had agreed with Jean.

  ‘Well, where shall we talk?’

  ‘Have you got a message for Aristide?’

  ‘Not in writing, that would be too risky.’

  ‘For whom?’ Roger said.

  ‘Why, for us. No, I must give you the message verbally. You can remember it.’

  Roger put his hand into his pocket and closed his fist round his revolver butt. He led the way into the hut.

  ‘Well, what is the message?’

  ‘The Germans know about me.’

  ‘Did you talk?’

  ‘I had to – to tell them certain things.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘About the arms dumps and the wireless sets.’

  ‘And what else? About Charles?’

  ‘That was nothing to do with me. I was arrested myself. Charles was caught before I was arrested.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘You have betrayed us,’ Roger said. ‘Why should you not also have betrayed Charles?’ Roger glared with cold hatred at the man in front of him. He would have shot him there and then had he not feared that the Gestapo might be around the hut. If that was the case, were he to shoot Le Chef the Gestapo would close in, knowing that their stool pigeon would draw no further game.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am a friend of Aristide.’

  ‘You must learn to obey orders, my friend,’ Le Chef said. ‘You are here to take a message. Take it. This is what I have to say to Aristide. We are all in danger. Somehow the Gestapo have permeated the whole organisation. In that case we must save as many lives as we can. I have had to reveal some of the arms dumps. We will have to reveal them all if we want to stop the Germans shooting hundreds of people.’

  ‘Do you really think this will stop them?’

  ‘Take the message.’ Le Chef stopped and looked at Roger. He smiled sadly. ‘Yes, I believe it,’ he said.

  ‘I know what Aristide will say,’ Roger said.

  ‘How can you know? Are you so close to him?’

  ‘No one,’ Roger replied, ‘is closer to him than I.’

  ‘And what would he say?’

  ‘He would say that as an officer he cannot think for a moment of surrendering quantities of arms and ammunition to the enemy.’

  ‘You must make him understand. It is the only hope. The Germans will shoot him otherwise—’

  ‘They must catch him first.’

  ‘We know who he is and where he lives—’

  ‘Doubtless you know what he looks like?’

  ‘Of course. He is tall and fair—’

  So Jean was not in Le Chef’s gang. The courier was the only man who could have described Roger to Le Chef and he must deliberately have given a false description to him. That accounted for the fact that t
he Gestapo had not arrested Roger when he went to the house for the wireless set. They were looking for a man of a different description. Jean was neither a fool nor a knave.

  ‘Obviously you know more than I think,’ Roger smiled.

  ‘I have not told what I know, but the Germans can easily re-arrest me. You know how they can make a man talk.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Roger said, not without sympathy. In spite of the traitorous activities into which he had been drawn, Le Chef had been a loyal leader in the early days and it was clear that a dreadful strain had been put upon him to make him betray his friends. There could be no excuses. Le Chef must pay the penalty, but all the same he was to be pitied. But in this kind of war we could not afford pity.

  ‘You must take my message to Aristide at once,’ Le Chef went on. ‘The Germans will not wait long before they strike. I have done all I can, but I can’t stall them much longer.’

  ‘You must try,’ suggested Roger.

  ‘They are not so bad as you think. They – they realise that the Russians are the main menace. They are prepared to make a deal with us. They want us to go over to them and fight the Communists.’

  ‘Charles was a Communist,’ Roger said. ‘He was one of the bravest and the best.’

  Le Chef shrugged. ‘Tell your leader what I have said. Unless he makes up his mind soon I can do nothing.’

  Roger again felt the temptation to have done with the frightened man. But he decided to wait. ‘My leader will contact you soon,’ he promised.

  It was clear that Le Chef was under constant pressure from the Gestapo for new information. That night another arms dump was raided before Roger could get word through the BBC to its guards. He took the step of notifying us in London that he was severing all connection with Le Chef and he asked us to notify all sections to do the same. Nevertheless, Le Chef had too much information to be left at large. There was an account to be settled.

  The next day one of the gendarmes who acted as Roger’s bodyguard came and told him that the Gestapo were patrolling the town in an ordinary black Citroën disguised as railway officials. The number of the car was DJ 342951. Roger had the number circulated and went off to send a message to us giving the number for relay to all sections. He had to go to a house in a district considerably removed from the one in which he was living and accordingly he took steps to disguise himself. He put on a black wig and darkened in a small moustache. He also put on thick glasses. Disguises were generally more trouble than they were worth, but Roger knew that Le Chef might have given his description to the Gestapo, never realising who he was, imagining him to be small fry. He walked along one of the main boulevards and then turned off down a side street and so through to the outskirts of the town. Suddenly, walking along a narrow lane, he heard a car coming up behind him. He stepped into a doorway to allow it to pass. As it came up to him he saw the number plate: DJ 342951. At the wheel was a man in a railwayman’s uniform. At his side was a familiar figure: Le Chef. The car drove past. A million to one chance confirmed everything.

  The next day Le Chef sent a message through Jean: he must meet Aristide at once. He named the place: a small village called Haute Colline. Le Chef said he would be waiting at a farm called Violette. If Aristide came he could give him some vital news. The stage was set for the final drama. Aristide sent a message to Le Chef: he would come.

  Le Chef’s rendezvous was along the Angoulême road. Three hours before the proposed rendezvous Roger’s men were in place in a farm four kilometres from the farm Violette. Roger had delegated the command of this force to a man called Georges. He himself was in a secluded villa back on the edge of Bordeaux itself. An hour and a half before the time of the meeting three black cars full of men went past the farm where Georges and his men were. ‘There they go,’ Georges said. ‘Le Chef’s friends.’

  An hour later a lookout tipped them off. Le Chef was coming along the road in a cart. His wife was with him and so was a bodyguard. Marc, one of Georges’ men, was ready with a large plough which he now began to drive, very slowly, across the road. Le Chef’s cart approached. Georges’ men lined the farm wall. The plough stopped in the very centre of the road. The cart halted. ‘Get that thing out of the way,’ Le Chef cried.

  Georges and his men silently approached the cart.

  ‘What is this?’ began Le Chef.

  ‘Come on,’ Georges said.

  Le Chef made no resistance. The grimness of the men who surrounded him left him in no doubt of the outcome of a struggle. He and his wife and the bodyguard were all taken in the cart to Roger. The Gestapo were still waiting five kilometres up the road.

  He was taken into the room where Roger was waiting. The others were put into the cellar.

  ‘Where’s Aristide?’ were Le Chef’s first words. ‘There’s been a trap.’

  ‘I am Aristide,’ Roger said.

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’

  ‘It is you who have told the lies.’

  ‘What’s this – there’s been treachery – I never—’

  ‘You did,’ Roger said. ‘You did. What I want to know is how many times and where and why. You’d better talk. You have nothing to fear.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I have orders to return you to London, by air. You will go tonight. All three of you.’

  ‘Is this true?’

  ‘Yes. Now tell me why you betrayed us.’

  Roger questioned Le Chef systematically for six hours. By the end of that time a pattern had emerged. Le Chef had been a faithful and brave leader until the arrest of his wife. The Germans had threatened to kill her. He loved her. He had agreed to talk. Anyone, he said, would have done the same. The Germans were not satisfied and threatened to re-arrest his wife if he did not tell them more and more. He wanted to save the lives of the Resistance and that was why he had given away the arms dumps. Then they had asked for names. They had promised not to kill. They had broken the promise, but each time they made it again. Each time, because of his love for his wife, he had believed them.

  Towards evening, Georges – who had left the house on delivering Le Chef – returned with bad news.

  Roger left one of his men to guard Le Chef while he went out to hear what news Georges had brought. ‘They guessed we weren’t coming to the rendezvous,’ he reported, ‘so they put up roadblocks on all the roads round the place. Most of us managed to get through, but they picked up Marc.’

  ‘What have they done to him?’

  ‘We found him. He’s dead. He’d been tortured. In the farm, apparently. The people heard – noises. It – it’s not very nice.’

  At that moment Roger was determined that Le Chef should die. His resolution had weakened somewhat during the long afternoon, as he heard Le Chef’s excuses and asked himself what he would have done in the same circumstances. But now he knew he must die; in any case there was nowhere he could be imprisoned and it was out of the question to take him back to England, for why should the lives of an aircraft’s crew be jeopardised to save a traitor?

  Roger went back into the room where Le Chef was.

  ‘We are going to take you to the plane now,’ he said. ‘My courier came to tell us everything was prepared. We will have to take you through the town in the car. Your wife and the man who was with you will go also. Now I’m sure you realise that we cannot have you crying out or trying to attract attention. If you do so, we shall shoot your wife. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ Le Chef said, his eyes glazed with tiredness.

  ‘Let’s go then.’

  Georges, Roger and two of the gendarmes on Roger’s bodyguard marched the two men and the woman out of the house. It was dark by now. They all got into a large station wagon which one of the members of the Réseau who was a butcher had lent them. There were still roadblocks on the main road out of the city and that was why it was necessary to go through the busiest sections to the woods where the affair would be finished. Le Chef sat holding hands with his wife in the back of the car. Th
e other man sat in the front seat with Roger and one of the gendarmes.

  ‘Where is the plane landing?’ he asked after they had driven a few hundred yards.

  ‘You’ll see,’ was the reply.

  They entered the town. In the centre, they were forced to stop for a red light. A German field-policeman was standing on the crossing, scarcely ten feet from where Le Chef was sitting. Roger looked at him in the driving mirror. He was sitting quite serenely. He believed the story about the plane. The light changed. The car drove on.

  They traversed the town and entered the country. They came to a downhill part of the road which curved through thick woods carpeted with dead leaves. Roger turned the car into a lane felted with leaves and stopped.

  ‘Where can the plane land near here?’ Le Chef asked.

  ‘Never mind. Get out.’

  They all got out.

  ‘You lead,’ Roger said to Georges.

  ‘Come on,’ Georges said to the third man.

  ‘You next.’

  One of the gendarmes took Le Chef’s arm. The man turned to Roger. ‘Can’t we all go together?’

  ‘No. In case—’

  Le Chef nodded. He turned and looked at his wife. He kissed her and then he let the gendarme lead him down the path. Perhaps he knew. Roger followed with Le Chef’s wife. They walked briskly into the heart of the wood. Ahead there was a shot. Then another. Roger pressed his pistol into the nape of the woman’s neck. She shuddered. He pulled the trigger.

  They buried the bodies in the floor of the wood. Nobody felt very proud of the day’s work. But it had had to be done.

  Now began Roger’s really big job: to get the whole Bordeaux Resistance back on a fighting footing after the alarm and disruption which the betrayals had caused. It was now the end of February. A message was sent to us in London telling us of what had happened and asking that we notify all sections. Roger also needed a lot more arms to take the place of those which had been captured on Le Chef’s information. Everyone felt and hoped that the day would not be far off when Allied forces would again land in France. They were eager to do everything they could to help hasten the day. We set about rearming Bordeaux.