by Nancy Wake
I will never forget the sheer joy of arriving, at long last, in Barcelona. I got on well with this particular British Consul-General. Once I had related the good and bad news from France and details of our subsequent escape, he told me to go out and enjoy myself. I did not need to be told twice. He invited me to a luncheon party a few days later and gave me some money so I could go and buy some respectable clothes, as by this time I looked an absolute wreck.
The airmen and Bernard had been taken in charge by the various officials responsible for their welfare and safe journey back to England. All I had to do was to make the most of the time I had to spend in Barcelona, waiting for the Spanish police to issue me with an identity card which would enable me to continue my journey. The consulate advised me to make enquiries every morning at the appropriate office. Every morning I went religiously to this office and enquired when my papers would be available. Every morning, without fail, I was told ‘Mañana’.
I sent a postcard to Marcel, the barman in Marseille. He had worked for many years in Spain and frequently received correspondence from that country, so it was safe to send a prearranged message to tell Henri I had arrived in Spain.
Barcelona was a wonderful city for my little vacation as since I had left France I was sleeping badly, and now, no matter how late it was when I went to bed, I could not sleep a wink. So I would wander around Barcelona in the morning while everyone was at work, and enjoy the peace and carry on with the Spanish customs until the early hours. The food displays were mouth-watering and I spent a lot of time eating until I satisfied the cravings for certain foods.
I bought a pair of shoes, some stockings, two blouses and new underwear. The dresses and costumes were exceedingly expensive and not good value, so instead I looked at my own costume and decided I would have it cleaned, hoping the Consul-General would not notice it was my old one. The hotel manager was very helpful and sent it to his own cleaners while I spent the morning in bed.
During the war a British passenger liner, lying in the port of Marseille, had been bombed and remained partly submerged for well over a year. The cargo included rolls and rolls of beautiful English suiting material, some of which Henri obtained from a friend whose firm carried out the salvaging. Although it had been under water all that time, once cleaned it was perfect except for a few watermarks. I had selected some of the navy blue and my tailor had made me the costume I had been wearing for the past few months. It came back from the cleaners looking brand new. Not only was the luncheon a success, I had lots of money to spare.
Then came the morning when my Spanish papers were waiting for me. I was to leave the following day for Madrid with the two Frenchwomen who had been included in our group when we left Perpignan. One of them was from Marseille. She was snobbish and considered herself a cut above anyone else. She was staying with Françoise while I was there and she consistently complained about all and sundry. She never attempted to help us when we had all the dirty clothes to scrub, and in the Pyrenees she had moaned so much that Jean had taken delight in letting her fall in some water. I disliked her intensely and my feelings were reciprocated.
I had met some Frenchmen I knew when I was collecting my identity papers. They were sailing for North Africa the following afternoon; I was leaving for Madrid on the night express a couple of hours after their departure. We decided to have a farewell luncheon party the following day. They had no money but I had the money I had saved on my shopping spree. It was a disastrous session. We were all a bit run down, not having fully recovered from the long march over the Pyrenees. We made the mistake of drinking too many glasses of Spanish absinth, which is very strong and which the Spaniards serve neat with a little ice.
We were all quite drunk. I managed to hail a taxi and deposited them at their ship, which was just about to pull up its gangway, and continued on to the station. As I was early I took the best window seat in our group’s compartment and fell asleep; I probably snored into the bargain. The other two women arrived and sat as far away from me as possible. When I had slept for a few hours, I went to the toilet several times and disturbed them as I went to and fro. The fumes of the absinth must have been nauseating for the two non-drinkers. As I was getting some scathing looks I decided to stand in the corridor and sample some fresh air.
I must have dropped off to sleep as I stood there with my left elbow on the window rail. The train stopped suddenly and I fell backwards on the glass doors between the carriages. They broke into thousands of pieces. The glass was obviously poor quality! All the guards scuttled around and the security police travelling on the train came to inspect me and the damage. The broken glass was picked up and the doors boarded up with cardboard, and naturally the train was delayed for some time.
We had not been able to find out the time of arrival in Madrid; the answer always given to this question was ‘Wait and see’. The security guards checked our papers while they were there and took a great interest in mine, which stated I had entered their country illegally. The atmosphere in my compartment was by this time so icy that I preferred to talk to the police for a while. But in the course of our conversation they told me the time they expected to arrive in Madrid, which information I naturally could not pass on to my travelling companions as they pretended they did not know me.
When I guessed we were nearing Madrid I locked myself in a toilet, stripped, washed myself all over, cleaned my teeth, put on clean underclothes and my new Spanish silk blouse, put on my make-up, brushed my hair and sprayed myself with French perfume. I love purple orchids and I had been given one in Barcelona which luckily had survived the events of the previous day. I took it out of my handbag, brushed my costume, pinned it on my lapel and was ready for whatever the day would bring in Madrid.
We pulled into the station and the two women brushed by me. I suppose they wanted to be the first to see the British official who would be waiting for us. They looked absolutely dreadful. Haggard, ashen, grimy faces, dusty crumpled clothes, hair all askew, no sign of make-up. In a word, ghastly.
To my delight, there on the station, waving his hand, was a friend of mine, Jimmy Beaumont. He had just arrived from London and was on his way to the consulate in Barcelona, but had come to greet me. As I stepped down from the train he called out, ‘Nanny darling. How do you do it? You just look as if you have stepped out of a band-box.’ We kissed on the cheeks, then I turned and introducing my two scruffy travelling companions. If looks could have killed . . . !
Once my companions had been checked into the hotel where the British Embassy had reserved our rooms, Jimmy and I called at Thomas Cook’s to find my two trunks waiting for me. He couldn’t believe his eyes, as he had doubted they could arrive safely from Marseille. We returned to the hotel to have some refreshments and a chat until it was time for him to leave for Barcelona. Jimmy watched with great interest and amusement the proceedings as I registered at the desk. Whereas the other two had been left to fend for themselves, the reception made a great fuss of me. The assistant manager himself escorted me to an attractive room, with a balcony and view, adding, as he left, that I should call on him if anything was not to my satisfaction or liking.
The German officers sitting in the entrance hall and the lounge facing the elevator took a great deal of interest in me. They also took a great deal of interest in Jimmy. Why wouldn’t they? After all, he had left London hurriedly the night before and was still carrying his furled umbrella and bowler hat, as all good Foreign Office officials do.
We both had a keen sense of fun so we sat next to the highest ranking German officer we could find, talking in English about mundane matters only but laughing and cracking jokes all the time. The last thing he said to me when he left was not to forget to let him know what Jimmy Langley would say when I arrived in England with two trunks full of clothes. As he pointed out, this was not the routine procedure for an escaping courier. I reminded him of the proverb, ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’.
In Madrid I met dozens of Frenchmen on their
way to England. We had all crossed the Pyrenees so we had much in common. I was never short of compatible escorts and we generally went around in a group. We explored the city and visited the art gallery, which was full of famous paintings; we also went to a bullfight, which none of us appreciated. Although we enjoyed ourselves to a certain extent I think they probably felt like I did; our journey to England was coming to an end and they wanted to get on with it.
It was not long before the two Frenchwomen and I received word we would be leaving for Gibraltar the next day. After another tiring journey the gates of Gibraltar were opened to let us in, and I was at long last back on British territory.
I stayed at the flat of Donald Darling in Gibraltar; he was the link between London and the O’Leary organisation in France. He knew perfectly well that it would be absolutely impossible to ‘confine me to quarters’ although I gathered that he would have liked the authority and the courage to do so. He contented himself by giving me a talk on security which went in one ear and out of the other. Not that I did not believe in security, but he was always so devious and long-winded. If he could say a hundred words instead of ten he would do so. In any case I had always been careful about security in the field.
However, he made one brilliant decision. He put me in the charge of his assistant, Ron Anderson. I think D.D. hoped a nice, quiet young man like Ron would act as a brake on my exuberant nature. It had the opposite effect. Ron brightened up considerably. I liked him immediately. He was kind to me, always courteous, and we became great friends. He shared a flat with some other young men and I often spent the evening with them. During the daytime I used to wander up to the Rock Hotel and have a few drinks by myself. There was not much to do in Gibraltar.
One day Ron told me I would be going to England in the next convoy but he thought I would be on an American ship—a dry ship. I nearly passed out at the thought of a long hazardous sea journey, perhaps with the enemy up above and down below, and nothing but orange juice and milk shakes to pass the dreary hours. Dear old Ron told me not to worry as he would see that I had a few bottles to hide in my luggage. Now to be able to buy one bottle of whisky or gin, one had to buy a case of sherry. There was so much sherry on the Rock I am surprised it didn’t sink. We arranged that Ron and his flatmates would keep the sherry and I would take the spirits. Obviously Ron had never organised a transaction like this before, because it transpired that the entire order would have to be delivered to the ship. And it was a dry one.
At the last minute word came through that I would be sailing on a British ship with the two Frenchwomen. I don’t remember where they had been all this time; they had probably asked to be put on the opposite side of the Rock! There being no necessity to take a supply of spirits with me, I asked Ron to cancel the order. For security reasons we were taken on board early, to find we were accommodated in a four-berth cabin. The list on the cabin door indicated the fourth person as being a nursing sister. Now although these two Frenchwomen, especially one, were not my greatest admirers, they preferred the devil they knew to the devil they did not. Therefore we took possession of the three berths over by the porthole and left the other one by the door. They took my advice and put their worldly possessions on top of their bunks.
The Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar had been absent for a few days and he kindly came down to the ship to apologise for not having been able to see us beforehand and to wish us a safe passage to England. I was standing near the top of the gangway and just as he was leaving, up came a delivery man with six cases of sherry, three bottles of gin and three of whisky, and deposited them temporarily right in front of us. My name was marked in huge letters on each case. I thought I detected a twinkle in his eye as he wished me bon voyage. Our paths did not cross after Gibraltar, so I never heard his side of the story.
The cases had been taken to our cabin. I had a mental picture of the other two women seeing all that sherry in the cabin so I hurried to catch up with the steward. I caught him just in time, explained the situation and made him a present of all the cases except one. He was astonished but delighted with my gift, and promised to share it with the other stewards on ‘A’ deck. The rest of the sherry and the spirits having been hidden in my trunk, I gave a sigh of relief and raced back to the top deck to view the proceedings.
Being in a convoy is interesting. Masses of army officers were embarking. Apparently they had been in Malta and were on their way back to England. There were also dozens of Maltese women who were the wives of British soldiers, plus an assortment of civilians, all shapes and sizes and of all nationalities. A good-looking officer came up and introduced himself. I had seen him several times at the Rock Hotel but we had never spoken. The conversation was just becoming interesting when I heard someone shout ‘Nancy’. I turned around and to my amazement I saw my young friend from Cannes, Micheline, the girl I’d removed from an English convent when war was declared there. She was holding in her arms her son Patrick, aged six months. Micheline had made the same terrible journey across the Pyrenees as I had, and she had carried Patrick. She raced away for a few minutes, leaving Patrick in my arms. I turned to the officer, intending to explain but he had disappeared.
We sailed at dusk. Everything was dark around us except for the distant lights of Spain. Returning to the cabin I found two very glum Frenchwomen. They told me the nursing sister had come in, positively frightening in her full regalia, and changed our bunks around. They never seemed to make any attempt to stand up for themselves and always left it to me to do the dirty work. We three were talking in French when the sister returned. I looked her straight in the eye and asked her to remove her possessions from the bunk she had taken, and also to replace everything else she had moved. She was of an overbearing nature which did not intimidate me one little bit. She enquired if I was French. I replied that I was not, I was an Australian. Without a word she took her luggage to the bunk by the door and replaced the clothes she had removed. She never spoke to us after that confrontation. We only met when we were all in the cabin. We were three to one and we always spoke French. So peace reigned.
The evening meal was late and the service was deplorable, but we put it down to the late departure and first-night staffing problems. A large whisky in the bar was threepence so I was as happy as a sand-boy. Even my companions asked if they could join me, so they must have been feeling very miserable. None of us could sleep that night; there seemed to be parties going on in every cabin except ours. Breakfast was worse than the evening meal had been and we decided it was going to be an awful voyage.
We were having a pre-lunch gin in the bar when the voice of the colonel in charge of passengers came over the loud-speaker. He said that the shocking behaviour of unknown passengers on ‘A’ deck the night before was an absolute disgrace and if it occurred again he would close the bar for the rest of the voyage. I am glad to say that was one party I missed.
It was not difficult to establish the truth. The bar stewards, not the passengers, had been partying. The stewards on ‘A’ deck had invited their fellow stewards to a sherry party. Other passengers besides myself had been informed they were to travel on a dry ship and they had also given away their sherry. When I told this story to my friends in London they looked crestfallen. There was a shortage of sherry in England.
It was fun to be with Micheline again and catch up on one another’s news. Her experience of the Pyrenees had been traumatic, as I could well understand, because on top of everything else she had to feed her baby son. She was in a cabin in the bowels of the ship near the Maltese women, who were seasick from the time the ship left Gibraltar until it reached Scotland. The stewards cleaned the toilets once a day but as soon as they were cleaned the women would be sick again. The stench was nauseating.
Before long enemy submarines were sighted and the escorting destroyers would race around dropping their depth charges. Enemy planes flew overhead several times. I don’t know if there was any action as our ship was in the middle of the convoy, pr
otected by the escorting fleet.
The loudspeakers summoned us to boat drill every morning. Micheline did not attend, preferring to stay in the cabin with her baby. When the officer-in-charge noticed her absence he despatched a sailor to her cabin to request her attendance. I determined to watch the proceedings closely as I knew what Micheline thought about the boat drill as far as she was concerned. I was sure we would enjoy a little light relief. She arrived carrying Patrick in a little bath-tub which she deposited beside her. The officer was helpful and tied her up in her life-jacket, and proceeded to tell us exactly what we should do when the ship was torpedoed. Then Micheline piped up and said in her charming French accent, ‘Bon, now what I do with Patrick?’ Everyone exploded with laughter. The poor chap was embarrassed. Then he said that Micheline should take Patrick in her arms and then put the life-jacket on. Of course, this was impossible. He was getting redder and redder in the face and our laughter was not making it easier for him. He informed the CO of the difficulties he was experiencing with Mrs Kenny. To save face the CO ordered her to take drill lessons with the rest of us but a seaman was detailed to look after Patrick. We were not torpedoed, which was fortunate, as I feel sure they would have encountered problems with young Micheline and the even younger Patrick.
The officers who had been stationed in Malta disappeared every morning between breakfast and lunch time. One morning I was wandering all over the ship trying to pass time. The bar would soon be open and I was trying to retrace my steps, but I got lost. I walked along several corridors but all the doors were locked. Eventually I found one that was not locked and in I walked, to find that around the corner all the officers were being lectured on security by their senior officer. I was surprised, but they were spellbound. I excused myself and made for the door opposite, which was locked. The senior officer let me out and enquired as to how I had entered that conference room. I pointed in the direction from where I had come. They had locked every door but the back one. They used to call me Olga Polouski, the beautiful spy, after that.