by Larry Loftis
He gritted his teeth and waited.
The light finally turned green and he was out. A moment later his parachute opened and he watched as five more chutes—supply crates—opened behind him.
He enjoyed the majestic view of the Alps and Lake Annecy for several seconds and then cast his gaze below, squirming in his harness.
Bloody navigator.
I’ll drop you on a six-penny bit . . .
Peter was dropping on a six-penny bit, all right—directly into the raging bonfire!
He yanked the forward set of cords, releasing air, and drifted backward. Below he could see two figures, the larger one—presumably Arnaud—running after a supply chute.
As he continued to drift, he saw that he was now descending directly over the second figure—apparently Odette—who was searching the sky. Just then a rising current caught his canopy and he was suddenly hovering only feet above her.
“Hallo, Lise. If you’ll take a step backwards, I shan’t land on your head.”
Odette cried out and stepped back, opening her arms to catch him.
Peter floated into her embrace and Odette squeezed him tightly. “Pierre, Pierre,” she whispered sweetly in his ear. It was in a tone that told Peter everything a man could ever wish to hear.
Arnaud came running, yelling, “Sacré Michel!” He hugged Peter as a long-lost brother and Peter beamed, an arm around each of his loved ones.
Jean and Simone arrived moments later, and Arnaud and Jean gathered up the five supply cases. Storing them in a nearby deserted hotel, they retrieved the parachutes and flung them into the fire. As they walked, Odette kept her arm in Peter’s and recounted what he had missed over the last three weeks. She told him that the betrayal had come from Roger Bardet—the man she’d warned him about—and not Marsac. The fact that Bardet had now vanished was proof enough.
They returned to the abandoned inn and Arnaud tore into the crates like a child at Christmas: dynamite, a Sten gun camouflaged as a log, two Colt automatics, a Belgian pistol, clips, radio parts, crystals, batteries, two suits, a mackintosh, two pairs of shoes, and two pairs of sheepskin gloves. Someone had to stay with the supplies overnight, they decided, and Arnaud was happy to oblige.
It was now 4 A.M. and Peter, Odette, Jean, and Simone began their descent. Seeing the steep drops—sometimes vertical—Peter was amazed that they had made it up. In daylight, he reckoned, the descent would have been done with ropes.
They had Peter’s flashlight.
Odette held Peter’s hand and did her best to follow their path. Rock, ice, and darkness, though, made tracking footprints impossible. They pressed on, one boulder at a time.
Stepping gingerly, Odette made her way along a sheer cliff.
It happened without a sound.
Her foot hit a patch of ice and she fell toward the precipice, her weight ripping her hand from Peter’s. He watched in horror as she dropped, her body bouncing off protruding rock like a rag doll.
There was a sickening thud thirty feet below.
Everyone scrambled down, sliding and skidding. Jean arrived first and was aghast; Odette’s body was sprawled across a fallen tree, lifeless. He cradled her head and saw that she was unconscious. Peter rushed up seconds later and shined his light on her face. She was deathly grey. Grabbing a handful of snow, he rubbed it on her face and neck.
Nothing.
He slapped her cheeks. Nothing.
“Lise, Lise, for God’s sake say something!”
He rubbed more snow on her forehead.
There was no response.
* * *
24. The Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, Germany’s highest military decoration.
CHAPTER 10
THE BEAM
Peter feared the worst. It was a horrendous fall and it appeared that Odette had broken her back. She seemed to be breathing but was unresponsive.
Jean fished out his flask and began pouring drops into her mouth.
Odette choked and opened her eyes. “What are we waiting for?”
At once she was on her feet and ready to move. Contrary to her demeanor, however, Odette was not well: she had a concussion and a shattered vertebra in the middle of her spine. She told no one of her pain, though, and the party moved out.
They arrived at the hotel at eight o’clock, and Odette washed and changed. A cup of coffee and she was out again to catch the bus to Annecy. There, she told a Maquis of Glières courier about the supply drop, and that Arnaud was watching everything until they arrived. When she returned to St. Jorioz, she and Peter had lunch and then rowed across the lake to inform Paul Frager’s wife of the latest events, and to pay for the rooms at the Glaieulles. Peter suggested they move that evening, but Odette didn’t think it was necessary. They had until the 18th, she said, before Colonel Henri would arrive.
“You should have gone before, Lise.”
She tried to, she said, but there was a lot going on. Couriers kept coming in asking for money and assignments and she didn’t think she could leave just yet.
“I still think you should have gone. My God, you’re an obstinate woman.”
“I know. But we’re all set to go tomorrow. I’ve arranged for a boat to take us across the lake and I’ve even found a new hideout for Arnaud.”
After lunch they cycled to Faverges to meet with Arnaud, who had messages for Peter, Odette, Tom Morel (leader of the local Maquis), and two others. It was late by the time they made it back to the hotel, and Odette told Peter more about the mysterious Colonel Henri over dinner. They’d move, they agreed, the next day. Going on forty-eight hours without sleep, they decided to turn in and shuffled up the stairs.
* * *
IN THE DISTANCE, A faint metallic echo.
Jean and Simone were in the hotel’s office updating their books when about eleven o’clock a small man in a large hat rushed in. He was pale and agitated. His name was Louis le Belge, he said, and he came on behalf of Roger and Paul and had an urgent message for Lise.
Car doors.
The Cottets hustled up to Odette’s room and informed her that le Belge was downstairs asking for her.
Odette put on her dressing gown and headed down.
Steps in general are dangerous for operatives because they are located at entrances and exits that can be watched, and because they provide no cover. Stairs are particularly bad because every corner is blind and one could stumble into an ambush.
Like the one at the turn to the lobby.
He was waiting at the foot of the steps.
Odette surveyed the reception party: the tall blue-eyed blond—clearly Gestapo—who seemed a bit nervous and jumpy; the short one in the scarf with his hat pulled so low she couldn’t see his face; and the Italian secret policemen milling behind them. She wondered if the one in the hat was le Belge.
Henri offered his hand but she didn’t take it; it was clear this was an arrest.
“I think a lot of you,” he said.
“I don’t care what you think.”
“You have done a very good job of work, and you almost won the game. It is not your fault that you lost,” Henri said, explaining in vague references that her people were bad.
Odette thought for a moment and pieced it together.
Bardet.
She had met with Riquet and Shifty Eyes on the 12th and told them that Baker Street was unlikely to approve exfiltration. They had been mad, she remembered, and chastised the organization and the British government. They were going to tell Henri that something was possible, they had said, regardless.
He was the Judas.
“Don’t try to warn Michel by shouting, Lise,” Henri said. “If you do, he’s sure to jump out of the window and I think I should tell you that the hotel is surrounded by Alpini troops who have orders to shoot. You’ve played the game well, Lise. But now it’s over, so kindly lead us to Michel’s room.”
It was checkmate. If she screamed and Peter made a run on the roof, they’d shoot. No, she’d lead the prid
e to the prey and they’d be arrested together like professionals. Still. She remained where she was until she felt the thing jabbing her spine.
They marched up the stairs and someone opened Peter’s door and turned on the light.
“There is the Gestapo,” Odette announced as the group entered.
Henri, the tall blond, and an Italian secret police officer encircled Peter’s bed.
“What’s your name?” asked the Gestapo.
“Chambrun.”
As the arrest team huddled around Peter, Odette slithered over to the foot of the bed where Peter’s jacket was lying. In a flash she slipped her hand in and out of his pocket and into her sleeve.
“Chambrun!” the German snapped, “or perhaps Chauvet. They both mean Captain Peter Churchill, saboteur and filthy spy. Put up your hands!”
Before Peter could comply, two automatics were in his face. He was ordered to dress while two of the agents searched for contraband. Odette was sent to her room to change and she transferred Peter’s chattel to inside her dress. When she returned to Peter’s room, he was in handcuffs. Grabbing another of his coats, she draped it over the cuffs and smiled to him, silently conveying a hundred thoughts and prayers.
“Do you want to go with the Germans or Italians?” Henri asked him.
Rifle or gallows, what difference did it make? None, but the expected Gestapo torture beforehand made the choice easy. Italian, Peter said.
Outside it was as Henri described: the hotel was surrounded by soldiers. Two cars awaited and Odette and Peter were placed in the back of one with a chauffeur. They were separated by the Gestapo agent and the Italian secret police officer, sitting in front, turned around to face them, gun in hand. Thankfully, Henri—gentleman that he was—didn’t handcuff Odette. As the car took off she figured this was as good a place as any. Pretending to adjust one of her garters, she slipped her hand inside her dress and, with a conjuror’s sleight, retrieved Peter’s wallet and wedged it under the seat. Neither Peter nor the German or Italian noticed.
Minutes later they arrived at the Alpini barrack in Annecy, and Odette and Peter stood together as Bleicher conversed with the Italian officer.
“Take good care of these two,” Henri told him, “we can’t afford to lose them.”
Odette reached for Peter’s hand, knowing this might be the last, and squeezed it tightly, pouring her strength into him.
Guards separated them and Odette was taken to an office with a camp bed.
Hell of a day. She was still without sleep, more than a day without food, and had a busted back. And yet there were a few bright spots. Colonel Henri had not captured Arnaud, after all, or Cammaerts, who was safe in Cannes. In addition, she and Peter had just distributed to the Maquis a Sten gun, pistols, ammunition, crystals, radio parts, batteries, two hundred blank identity cards, and a half million francs. More than a nuisance to the Germans.
She’d been lucky, really. The brothel in Marseille, Control on the return, the close call at Luberon, the German Shepherd—it had been quite a run. But now the beginning of the end; it was time to pay for her espionage sin. Nothing personal, she understood. Spies were denizens of darkness and every act of sabotage, every delivery of arms, every secret meeting meant that she was one step closer to capture. And what awaited.
She reclined on the bed but sleep, even now, was out of the question. Why had Colonel Henri come early? And how could she help Peter, who had trusted her in not leaving the hotel? She agonized over the fact that he, as head of SPINDLE, would be getting the worst.
She would find a way, she told herself—whatever the cost—to help him.
St. Jorioz
ARNAUD SWUNG BY THE Hôtel de la Poste the following morning to see if Peter or Odette had any messages and Jean and Simone informed him of the arrests. It had to be Bardet, Arnaud figured.
He should have killed the little charlatan when he had the chance.
But Bardet was only partially to blame. From the time he left Paris, Roger had telephoned Bleicher often to keep him informed of the progress of the plan, but he didn’t know for certain that Buckmaster had rejected the proposal. The principal reason Bleicher had left early, it turned out, was an intercepted radio message.
On the evening of April 12 Colonel Reile had called Hugo in.
“Your plan to penetrate the St. Jorioz circuit,” he said, “by promising Marsac to escape to England, was a first-class ruse. But will the Gestapo believe it? I have just heard from SS Sturmbann-Führer Kieffer25 that they have intercepted signals26 from an unidentified radio transmitter. Kieffer told me that some of these signals speak of a Luftwaffe officer trying to escape to England, together with his Resistance leader. So far, Kieffer had not connected you with this business. But at any moment, the Gestapo might discover the truth, and we shall all be in trouble.”
It was time to end the charade, Reile said. He ordered Hugo to arrest Bardet and Marsac’s wife, and then go to St. Jorioz and arrest anyone he could find.
Arnaud knew none of this, only that he was lucky to have been away when the posse arrived. And there was a minor victory, Jean told him. Before the arrest, he explained, Peter had given him a suitcase to hide in their back office. In it was a pistol, nearly a half million francs, and more than thirty cables exchanged with London; Bleicher and his men had completely missed it in the raid.
Arnaud accepted the booty and left. With two of the SPINDLE trio in custody, he knew they’d be coming for him next. Radio operators, after all, were the crown jewel of captives. If the Gestapo could torture an operator into giving his codes, they could “turn” a radio, contacting London as if the SOE operative were reporting in. This turning had caused the capture and execution of some fifty SOE agents dropped into the Netherlands the prior year, all parachuting directly into German arms.
The success of Operation North Pole, as the Abwehr called it, encouraged the Gestapo to use whatever means necessary to extract codes. One radio operator caught in France earlier in the year suffered a typical interrogation. “Jacques” had been in the country only a few weeks when he was arrested near Moulins. He was tied up and beaten but refused to cooperate.
When kicks and punches failed to produce, the Gestapo moved on to a more persuasive approach. They set a flame in front of his right eye, very close, and continued to ask for the codes. Jacques held fast and so the torturer began to poke at his eye—through the flame—with a steel bar as the instrument conducted heat. Again and again the interrogator poked but Jacques remained silent. The Gestapo team then decided to break for lunch and handcuffed him to the chair. While they were gone, he escaped—still cuffed—through a window.
Sight in his right eye, though, was lost forever.
Others were not so lucky. An eighteen-year-old Yugoslav Partisan who had been caught with his wireless transmitter was given the full treatment. When he refused to identify his circuit leader he was taken to the cemetery—“no longer recognizable as a human being.”
Arnaud had no intention of being a Gestapo guinea pig, or even being captured alive, but he couldn’t go to ground just yet. He radioed London to tell them that Peter and Odette had been arrested the night before and that he’d send further details when he could.
The following day, April 18, he sent a lengthy—and therefore dangerous—message explaining that a German secret police officer, backed by Italian Carabinieri, had raided the hotel and taken Peter and Odette, he believed, to an Italian prison. Buckmaster responded by urging Arnaud to return immediately to England through the Pyrenees–Spain escape route.
Arnaud declined. If Cammaerts wasn’t warned, Arnaud knew, he’d be captured within days. Only after Arnaud went to Cannes and warned the lieutenant personally would he return to London. He cabled Buckmaster and told him he was going to ground and that he’d report in when he surfaced.
Alpini Barracks, Annecy
THE BEAM WAS THE answer.
Peter had noticed it on the way in. It was only seven feet off the ground and ran
from the cell block to the security wall, behind which was the road to Geneva. But what about Odette? Would they take it out on her? Could he rally the Maquis to ambush the convoy that would transport her to the next destination?
The cell was suffocating and the smell of urine and excrement made sleep impossible, so he stretched out on the bed—a six-by-two-and-a-half-foot board without blankets—and recounted details of the arrest. Most upsetting was the loss of his wallet, which contained not only 70,000 francs, but names and radio codes for six operatives, including Arnaud. He knew it had been in his coat—which he now wore—when he had retired to bed. Had the Gestapo agent snatched it?
He shuddered at the thought. If he did, it was a death sentence for every name listed. He wrestled with the consequences and the fate of Odette all night.
At two and six in the morning the guards were changed. Someone brought him coffee at eight, and at noon he was allowed to eat lunch in the yard. He snuck glances at the beam.
Tomorrow.
* * *
THE SHUFFLING CAME PRECISELY at six; the new guard was in place.
Peter slipped the end of a cigarette stub through a hole in the door and asked for a light. Instead of lighting it, the guard came inside. Peter measured him quickly: young, steel helmet, rifle on shoulder.
Although an expert in William Fairbairn’s silent kill, Peter decided not to use lethal action. Instead, he’d strike with an uppercut and knock him out.
The Italian smiled warmly and, opening his case, offered Peter a fresh cigarette. The friendly gesture touched Peter, throwing off his aggressive plan. Instead of thrusting the uppercut, he shoved him toward the back of the cell. Peter’s assumption was that the young man would fall and Peter would lock him in and take off for the beam.