by Larry Loftis
He recited the Lord’s Prayer.
Give us this day our daily bread . . .
But deliver us from evil.
May 25, 1943
“TRIBUNAL!”
Odette jumped. It was six in the morning.
* * *
“TRIBUNAL!”
Peter stirred in his bed.
* * *
“TRIBUNAL!” THE GUARD SHOUTED again.
Odette began dressing and recalled the fate of inmates she had seen taken away for the dreaded interrogation. Most did not return.
She followed the trail of women being led to the underground passage and when they reached a holding area, she noticed that male prisoners were joining them.
Was . . . Yes, there was Peter! They held each other’s eyes as the guards waited for everyone. When the group began trudging along, she and Peter moved toward each other.
“Bon courage, mon chéri,” she said.
Peter echoed the sentiment and they shuffled together through the valley of the shadow of death.
Outside, they were separated and filed into two Black Marias—police vans.
They arrived at 84 Avenue Foch and Odette was taken upstairs to a small room and told to wait. Peter, meanwhile, was ushered to the fourth floor and seated before the Commissar—the chief interrogator.28 A tall German about forty, he wore a dark suit and had an intelligent face with cold, indifferent eyes.
The man spoke flawless French and they covered the basics—name, date of birth, nationality, family members, father’s profession, schools attended, degrees received, work history, and so on. Prewar history complete, the Commissar retrieved a stack of ten pages, single spaced—Peter’s dossier.
“You see, Mr. Churchill, or Monsieur Chauvet, or Monsieur Chambrun, alias Raoul or what-have-you, we know absolutely everything about you. Three visits to France—one by submarine and two by parachute. You organized fishing-boat landings of men and material in the south of France, aircraft landings for the exchange of personnel, parachute drops all over the place for the railway sabotage plan, and you were responsible for the arming of the Maquis of the Plateau des Glières by twenty-five British bombers.”
Peter feigned shock. “Who gave you all of that exaggerated information?”
He was responding straight out of the SOE playbook, which warned of the interrogation trick: “Reconstruction of offense exaggerating prisoner’s share of it.” The Commissar had everything right, of course, although the twenty-five bombers was a bit much. But what did the Germans actually know, and could prove, about him? It’s a basic rule of interrogation to imply that you already have the information to extract it the fastest, and the Commissar was likely hoping for a quick meeting.
But Peter had been prepared well, and the SOE manual set the game’s framework: “The Gestapo’s reputation has been built up on ruthlessness and terrorism, not intelligence. They will always pretend to know more than they do and may even make a good guess, but remember that it is a guess; otherwise they would not be interrogating you.”
The chess match continued and the Commissar made his next move.
“I don’t think you quite understand our respective roles today. It is I who ask the questions and you who do the answering. Is it true that you were the Chief of the southeast zone?”
Per his training, Peter had two options: to answer each question quickly—which increased risk—or quite slowly, playing the village idiot. He chose the latter.
“There was no such thing as the Chief of a Zone,” he said. “Each officer was in charge of the district to which he was sent.”
The Commissar asked for names of British officers running neighboring districts and Peter said he never knew them; everyone worked in watertight compartments.
The German spread a handful of photographs on the table. “Ever seen any of these men before?”
Peter cast his eyes from side to side. He had met four of them, including Eugene, a radio operator he had winked at that very morning in the underground passage.
“Never.”
“So you don’t know any of these men, you never knew any of your neighbors and you weren’t the Chief of the southeast zone?”
“No.”
The Commissar ground his teeth and typed something. “This affair of the Maquis of Glières, are you going to deny that you arranged for their being armed by those twenty-five bombers?”
Peter said, yes, it was a de Gaulle operation.
“What do you take me for?” the Commissar shouted as he jumped from his seat, “a complete ninnyhammer?” He stomped around several paces and then turned back. “You realize what to expect from your stupid attitude in denying what is already known against you?”
“I am your prisoner, but I cannot accept the responsibility of all the things my enthusiastic betrayer has pinned on me.”
The Commissar asked what Peter would accept.
“That I came over here to sabotage the German war effort, that I did my duty as a British officer, that I lived with forged papers in civilian clothes, was prepared to blow up anything and everything I was told to blow up, but that in fact I have never sabotaged anything, never carried arms and never killed a single German.”
The Commissar cooled, still disbelieving Peter’s answers but unable, at least for the moment, to disprove his lies. “What’s the idea of trying to make out that you and Lise are married?” he asked. “Everyone knows that she joined you for the first time on November 2nd 1942 as your courier.”
It was clear, Peter thought, why the Germans were pushing the marriage issue. If Peter was in fact related to Churchill, they’d use him as a bargaining chip, along with any supposed wife. But if they could prove that he and Odette were unmarried, they were free to execute her as any other spy.
“We are married,” he said.
“When were you married?”
“On December 24th 1941,” Peter said, using the date he had told Odette to remember.
More accusations, more denials, and the Commissar had heard enough. “I’m wasting my time with you. I’ll see you another day when you’ve had a little more time to reflect on what you’re letting yourself in for by this stupid attitude of non-cooperation.”
Peter was floored. He had denied what the Germans clearly knew and had given them nothing new. Why had he not been tortured? Odette was looking smarter every day. Don’t touch this one, Herr Commissar—nephew of Winston Churchill himself. We may exchange him, so the goods can’t be damaged. Get what you can.
* * *
SOMEONE FINALLY CAME TO Odette’s room and escorted her to a mess hall. They presented a hearty meal of meat, potatoes, and gravy, but figuring the food was designed to make her sleepy for the interrogation, she ate only half.
After lunch it was her turn to see the Commissar. He was polite and proper, she found, and smelled of eau de Cologne. Following some preliminary questions, he started in earnest by challenging Odette on her marriage to Peter, but she held fast to their story. Peter couldn’t have been the brains behind the organization, the German asserted, as he was “the dumbest nincompoop I’ve ever met.”
Odette almost stepped in it, but then saw the branches and leaves, carefully arranged.
She agreed, she said. Churchill really was a dolt. She was the brains of the operation. They carried on for another ninety minutes and Odette deflected, telling him next to nothing. The Commissar looked at the three lines of notes he had taken and ended the interview.
* * *
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, ODETTE heard it again.
“Tribunal!”
“But . . . but I went to the tribunal yesterday.”
“You go again today. Tribunal. Tribunal.”
Odette put on her skirt, her red blouse, and her only pair of silk stockings. When they arrived at Avenue Foch, she was taken immediately to the interrogation room on the fourth floor and put in a chair facing the Commissar, who was seated at a table.
“Lise, you wasted a great deal of my time ye
sterday,” he began without pleasantries. “You will not be permitted to do this again.”
Classic interrogation technique: alternate between geniality and hostility to get the prisoner to drop her guard. No buffet today.
The Commissar looked at her and seemed to be collecting his thoughts. He pointed to the window. “Have a look at those happy people outside.”
Odette ignored the request and the Commissar asked, “Why are you doing this?”
“My father was killed for France in the first war and my family has suffered repeatedly. And I’m British now and love England even more than France.”
“Are you doing this for money?” the Commissar asked, ignoring her patriotic motivation.
“No.”
“A pity.”
The Commissar then produced Odette’s handbag, which had been confiscated during registration at the prison. Pouring the contents on the table, he asked if she’d like to keep anything.
Odette shook her head. “No. Except, perhaps, the Rosary.”
The Commissar picked it up and extended his hand, but when Odette reached for it, he snatched it away.
Odette took it in stride, showing no emotion.
He returned it to the table and in a chilly tone said that he had three questions, all of which Odette would be made to answer. The first, he said, was the location of Arnaud.
Odette’s stomach knotted. The Commissar knew she had the information and there was no avoiding the heat.
She said she had nothing to say.
“We will see. It is known to us that you sent the British officer, Roger, from St. Jorioz to an address in the South of France. I want to know the address to which you sent him.”
Odette knew this as well, and she was the only one besides Arnaud who did. Cammaerts’s life was in her hands.
“I have nothing to say,” she repeated.
“Again, we will see. It is also known to us that you obtained from a French traitor a day or two before your arrest the layout of the docks at the Vieux Port of Marseille. I want to know the whereabouts of this document or the name of the person in whose possession it is.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Lise, there is a parrot-like quality about your conversation that I find most irritating.” He repeated the three questions and told Odette that she had one minute to answer.
He eyed the second hand of his watch.
Tick. Tick Tick.
Odette’s pulse raged. It was the most debilitating type of fear: fear of the unknown.
Thirty seconds. Tick. Tick.
Beatings were the norm, she knew. At least for stage one. No doubt they had torture devices, but those were typically reserved for men, as a woman’s body offered numerous options for sadistic Nazis.
Ten seconds.
Betrayal or pain. Very simple.
Tick.
The Commissar looked up. “Well, Lise, I would now like the answers to my questions.”
Odette sat there with her secrets.
“We have means of making you talk.”
“I am aware of your methods.”
Odette’s arms were suddenly wrenched back—someone had snuck up behind her. The Commissar came over and began unbuttoning her blouse.
“I resent your hands on me or on my clothes,” Odette snapped. “If you tell me what you want me to do and release one hand, I will do it.”
“As you wish. Unbutton your blouse.”
Whatever happens to amuse the Gestapo . . .
Odette unhooked the top two buttons and the man behind her yanked down her blouse, exposing her back. She never saw what was in his other hand.
She lurched forward in a visceral spasm as the red-hot fire iron scorched her skin.
“Where is Arnaud?”
It was for times like these that London had given her the L tablet. The cyanide was quite effective, Buckmaster had said, fast-acting and painless. But it wasn’t Odette’s style, and she didn’t have it on her anyway.
She took a breath as the stench of burned flesh filled the air.
“I have nothing to say,” she said again.
“You are more than foolish.” The Commissar opened his cigarette case and offered her one. She declined and he began smoking. “Did they tell you that in your school for amateurs in the New Forest, to beware of poisoned cigarettes?”
Odette said nothing.
“You know the three questions. Are you now prepared to answer them—after the hors d’oeuvre—or do you want the full meal?”
“I have nothing to say.”
The Commissar stepped closer, brooding over her, eau de Cologne unmistakable now.
“Perhaps you would prefer to take off your shoes and stockings yourself. If not, I can assure you that I am well experienced in the mechanics of feminine suspenders.”
Odette slipped them off.
“My colleague here, Lise, is going to pull out your toenails one by one, starting at the little toe of your left foot. In between each evulsion—to use the correct medical term—I propose to repeat my questions. You can bring the ceremony to an end at any moment by answering these questions. There are those who faint after the third or fourth toenail, but I don’t think you are of the fainting kind. If you do faint, we can always revive you with brandy and the ceremony will continue. Now, before we begin, where is Arnaud?”
The standard procedure with torture—with SOE and all organizations—is forty-eight hours. If the operative can hold out for two days, it gives others in the circuit time to hear of the arrest and go to ground. But Odette and Peter had been arrested on April 16, more than six weeks ago; Arnaud and Roger surely had long since disappeared and there was no reason for her to endure more torture. If she gave their addresses, it was likely the Gestapo would find nothing more than dirty dishes.
Still, Odette would maintain her silence. It was a matter of principle. Of never giving in. This was fortunate because—unbeknownst to her—Cammaerts was, in fact, still at the safe house in Cannes, and, perhaps foolishly, would continue living there another six weeks.
Odette wasn’t tied to the chair so fighting was an option—eye strike to the man stooping, groin kick to eau de Cologne—but what good would it do? She was in the bowels of Gehenna,29 the place crawling with guards. No, she would take the full ride.
She watched the man at her feet. He was French and young—maybe twenty-eight—and exceedingly handsome, with dark, thick hair, perfect teeth, smouldering brown eyes, and beautiful lashes.
He held Odette’s foot and with the steel jaws of the pincers clamped down on the nail of her little toe.
* * *
28. In all probability, this was SS Sonderführer Ernst Vogt, Kieffer’s interpreter and interrogator at Avenue Foch.
29. Hell.
CHAPTER 13
THE BLACK HOLLOW
With a slow even pull the man began to tear Odette’s toenail from its bed.
A soundless scream. Odette clenched her fingers into tight fists and sat perfectly still as blood seeped around the cuticle. As the nail came forward, blood pooled behind it. A final jerk and it was clear, dangling from the pincers like a transfusion bag.
“Now would you care to tell me Arnaud’s address?”
Odette tried to say “no” but her vocal cords had shut down. She shook her head.
The Commissar nodded to the torturer and the steel jaws clamped again. As he repeated the procedure, Odette squeezed her hands so tightly that her fingernails began to penetrate her palms. Blood collected on the floor and Odette’s body trembled as nerves shot scalding flashes up her spine.
The toenail fell from the pincers and the Commissar repeated his question. Again Odette remained silent.
Third nail.
Extended torture is a journey through a long, dark tunnel. When the agony reaches its apex—the black hollow—the body’s survival mechanism kicks in and the victim blacks out. The more skilled the torturer, the closer he brings his subject to unconsciousness without trigge
ring the reaction. The Commissar was an expert.
Fourth toenail.
Question. Silence.
Fifth.
Blood now surrounded her foot but Odette had yet to call out or cry. Her palms carried eight puncture wounds and they still had the right foot to go. The Commissar asked about Arnaud again and Odette glared at him, sitting innocently as he directed the show. It was by design; the Nazis preferred to torture using locals so that no one could say they were mistreated by a German.
Odette said nothing and the Commissar nodded again. The pincers moved to the right foot.
Sixth toenail.
Seventh.
Odette was in the black hollow, her face drenched in sweat and her body quivering, fighting delirium. But she maintained consciousness. No answers.
Eighth.
Ninth.
After the last one cleared the young man stood. Blood was everywhere, the floor littered with skin and nails.
“Well, Lise,” the Commissar said, “I think you will find it convenient to walk on your heels for some time.”
He had tea brought in and Odette tried to sip while nosing in and out of nausea.
“You are a woman of surprising endurance.”
She drank and tried to settle her nerves. She had taken the full ride through the long black tunnel and survived.
The Commissar asked how she felt and Odette said she had nothing to say.
“Conversationally we are becoming a bore to each other,” he said. “I keep on asking the same questions and you keep on making the same replies. No doubt you see yourself as a heroine at this moment and me as a monster. I am not. I am a servant of my Führer, Adolf Hitler, and I have no regret for what I do. You should know that I shall stop at nothing to get the information I require. Last night, the charming R.A.F. dropped two thousand tons of bombs on Dortmund. I do not know how many good German women and children were killed or maimed or burned. If mass murder by the R.A.F. is considered to be a legitimate act of war, do you think I care for the sufferings of a single, obstinate, renegade French woman?”
Odette said she thought it interesting that he found it necessary to defend what he had just done.