White Mouse

by Nancy Wake

  They must have been saying prayers for me back in the Auvergne because as I was pedalling around Châteauroux I had run into a Maquisard I had met several weeks before in the Corrèze. He was looking for a Free French radio operator as their operator had been killed in action. We had both agreed to help each other if one of us found our contacts and I had left him at the bistro where he was waiting when I returned with the bad news.

  Off we pedalled to find his contact, who was also a patron of a bistro which was situated opposite the home of the radio operator. He warned us that the Germans had not caught the radio operator but they were in the house waiting to trap any callers.

  The town was literally swarming with Germans. They were completely surrounding areas and checking the houses systematically, so we decided to leave immediately. We separated and arranged to meet outside the town. Both of us were able to by-pass the road-blocks and, wasting no time, we headed for a Maquis group my companion knew in the Creuse. The leader belonged to the Free French and had come from Algiers, where his headquarters were. He was understanding when I told him the trouble I was in and said that if his radio operator did not object to sending my message, neither would he. The operator agreed to my request to send a message to Colonel Buckmaster in London via the Free French in Algiers. I wished my travelling companion good luck and was on my way.

  By now I was so tired I resolved to take the quickest route home. Every kilometre I pedalled was sheer agony. I knew that if I ever got off the bike, I could never get on it again, so I kept pedalling. Halfway across the Allier the companion I had left in Montluçon was looking out for me. He had guessed the road I would take if all went well. His wife had presented him with a baby son and they were both well, so he was happy. I arrived back in Saint-Santin twenty-four hours before the time they had anticipated I would, even though they were well aware I might never return. I had pedalled 500 kilometres in seventy-two hours.

  They greeted me with open arms and shouts of joy. All I could do was cry. When I got off that damned bike I felt as if I had a fire between my legs and the inside of my thighs were raw. I couldn’t stand up, I couldn’t sit down, I couldn’t walk and I didn’t sleep for days. But thanks to all the help I had been given by one and all, I had succeeded and all we had to do now was to wait and see if Algiers sent our signal on to Colonel Buckmaster. They did. As I said to Hubert, Denden and Bazooka, I never wanted to be told any more that the Free French agents in the field would not help the British ones, because I knew better. I never heard of that group in the Creuse after that so I have never been able to say ‘thank you’ in peacetime.

  It took me a few days to recover. The doctor from the village had dressed my thighs which were in a horrible state but there was little else anyone could do. My three close colleagues looked in frequently to see how I was faring, but I just wanted to be left alone. When I’m asked what I’m most proud of doing during the war, I say ‘the bike ride’.

  Finally the day came when I could move without experiencing too much pain, and I dressed and went out to lunch. To my surprise a strange Frenchman, to whom I was not introduced, was sitting at my table. He had arrived during my absence, stating that he was a full Colonel in the regular French Army and that he was going to take over our outfit and run it on correct military lines. Hubert had not been game to tell me that this man had been our uninvited guest for days.

  Normally one could ask for identity papers but in those days it was pointless to do so as everybody’s papers in the Resistance were false. Perhaps he was a Colonel. I neither knew or cared. All I could see was that now victory was so close too many people wanted to jump on the bandwagon and play that ugly game of politics. I had been a budding journalist in the thirties and witnessed the havoc caused by politicians and other power-hungry individuals, so I was not impressed by this ‘Colonel’s’ speech.

  When he had finished his pep-talk, obviously for my ears as the others had heard it before, I asked him what he was going to do for money and arms, because I certainly was not going to give him any of ours. Hubert looked embarrassed but Bazooka, Denden and the rest of our group did not try to conceal their joy. The four of us discussed this new situation later and they agreed with my suggestion that we all move further north towards Tardivat, the gallant Frenchman who greeted me when I dropped into France. Tardivat was not a politician. From then on until the end of the Occupation we never looked back.

  When Hubert and I drove up north to the département of the Allier and towards Tardivat, Bazooka was left in charge, with Denden detailed to listen to all the BBC personal messages in the event we received a signal from London acknowledging our SOS and perhaps confirming the parachutage we requested.

  Tardivat was delighted to see us. Immediately he found a suitable site for our group not far from Ygrande and near a field we had been using for air-drops. Hubert remained with him to prepare the camp, while I returned to Saint-Santin to fetch our belongings and the men, who were 200 strong.

  Not only did I find London had received our signal, they had already sent me my own radio operator, who would share his codes with Denden. Roger was a good-looking American Marine, aged nineteen. He spoke very little French but they all liked him and he fitted into our life-style smoothly. Unhappily for us all, Bazooka had been ordered to the Clermont-Ferrand area to instruct another Maquis group.

  Hubert had been working hard setting up our camp and we all settled in straightaway. The men were still part of the Maquis d’Auvergne but they were more or less our own special group attached to our Allied team. We were lucky to have them with us; they were all good men, we knew them personally and, like the Americans and British, they had no political aspirations. They only wanted to get rid of the enemy and return to their families. That night we were joined by thirty young Frenchmen, all evaders from the relève—the German compulsory labour force. They were enthusiastic but as yet untrained.

  I was heartily sick of sleeping on the damp ground and when one day Tarvidat asked me for an extra quantity of Bren guns which were in short supply, I bribed him by promising Brens for a bus. However, I stipulated a bus with two long seats in the rear, facing each other, so I could balance the big mattress (also procured by Tardivat) on top of them. He took a few men down to a main road and set up a road-block. As each bus reached the barriers he made all the passengers alight while he inspected the rear. This procedure continued until a suitable bus arrived. The poor passengers must have been petrified by the sight of the Maquisards, all armed to the teeth and looking fierce. The passengers in the unsuitable buses must have been mystified also when they were allowed to continue their journey. Naturally he received his Bren guns. He was going to get them anyway. So I used to sleep in the back of the bus, on a beautiful soft mattress with nylon parachutes for sheets, and entertain in the front.

  Somehow or other I’d managed to have with me a couple of pretty nighties, leftovers from another life. No matter how tired I was, after a day in a male world, wearing trousers, I’d change into a frilly nightie to sleep in my bus.

  Our immediate plan at Ygrande was to increase the level of security which had been impossible when we were attached to the oversized groups further south. We had a conference with our men and it was decided unanimously that we would never remain in one spot more than three or four days. If the site happened to be in a particularly favourable position we could stay one week, but no longer. As soon as we moved to one place we would agree on the next one and the leaders would be informed. In the case of a sudden attack my bus would be loaded immediately with wireless equipment, the operators themselves and my bicycle, and proceed to our rendezvous point. A driver and one man were detailed to enforce this rule.

  We had not been in Ygrande two days when our lookouts warned us that a large body of Germans were approaching. Our withdrawal went like clockwork. Three thousand Huns wasted all their ammunition to capture one empty farmhouse. We were all delighted, as can well be imagined.

  Two American weapons ins
tructors were to be dropped at a field nearby that same night. Remembering the complete lack of security when I had been introduced to the entire village of Cosne-d’Allier, I determined that things would be different when these two arrived. And they were different, almost unique, in fact.

  They arrived safely, although one of them had lost his suitcase and we took them straight back to our camp, where we entertained them in the bus. Naturally we greeted these two Americans, John Alsop and Reeve Schley, with French champagne. They did not speak much French but we didn’t mind as long as they could instruct the Maquis groups in the use of our weapons. They gave us news from London and we carried on talking and drinking until about four in the morning.

  They looked smart in their uniforms, especially Schley who had on beautiful leather cavalry boots. I knew that when our men saw how well dressed they were they would start moaning again about our uniforms. All we could give them were socks, boots, khaki trousers and shirts, and they were dying to have decent uniforms. We took them to their simple quarters which Denden and I had cleaned up; we had even put some wildflowers in a jamjar next to their beds. As we left, one of them asked quite casually if we ever got attacked, and quite casually I replied that we had just been attacked the day before but I didn’t think the Germans would be back that day. That proved to be the understatement of the year. They were already at our back door.

  I woke up when the Germans started firing and yelled out to the Americans who were close by to get up—we were being attacked. We couldn’t find Hubert; he had disappeared. As we learnt much later, he had got up early to find the missing suitcase before anyone else did. Schley must have been in such a hurry to get dressed that he put on his cavalry boots first and couldn’t get his trousers on, so reckoning he didn’t have time to start all over again, he cut his trousers with a knife and appeared in front of me in short scalloped trousers. I wasn’t much better—I hadn’t time to take my pink satin nightdress off and it was showing under my shirt.

  Our 200 men had disappeared to fight and our ‘High Command’, consisting only of Denden and me, were packing everything into my bus which had started to leave when I noticed the bicycle was left behind. Denden raced over and threw it on top of the bus, and immediately started screaming blue murder. He had got caught on some electric wires! Roger and the driver were laughing their heads off. I was doubled up, tears running down my face. All this time the Americans were standing there surveying the scene amidst the sound of machine-gun fire, grenades and what have you.

  Thank goodness they didn’t understand much French, as the scouts soon came back with the news that we were being attacked by 6,000 Germans. We were 200 plus two in the High Command, two newly arrived Americans and thirty new recruits. We were definitely outnumbered. For a while we hoped Hubert would arrive with some reinforcements, but he was trapped, kilometres away.

  Then some of our defenders came back and said the Germans were well entrenched but why couldn’t we try the bazookas that had been dropped the previous night and which they were obviously dying to try out. The problem was that the two instructors were the only ones who knew how to use them, and they couldn’t speak French. But our men insisted they could knock out a few German posts if only someone would show them what to do. Those poor Americans! It was like a scene from a comic opera.

  The wounded were being brought in so I put the other member of the High Command, Denden, in charge of them, irrespective of his plea that he didn’t like the sight of blood. I gave him plenty of bandages and a gallon of pure alcohol. I didn’t issue him with any arms as he didn’t like them either.

  We collected all the bazookas and prepared to face the enemy, the two non-French-speaking instructors, the interpreter (me), and two men for each bazooka. I think our new recruits must have thought it was going to be a piece of cake because twenty of them volunteered to carry some of our material. I warned them to stick to the woods but they unfortunately disobeyed my orders and took a short-cut. Seven of them were killed immediately by the German machine-guns. The other thirteen fled back to our camp.

  The rest of us carried on regardless. Everything was put in place, the Americans instructed on bazookas, firing of. I ran from one crew to another translating. They knocked out several German posts and when we had exhausted our supply of ammunition (some had not been unpacked) we withdrew. This may have been a first for the Americans but it was also a first for me. I had never been on a battlefield translating from English into French on how to fire a bazooka.

  We returned to our camp to find Denden with a loaded carbine slung over his shoulder, a row of grenades fastened on to his belt, and a Colt. The man who was afraid of guns! He was also very, very drunk. He had been drinking the pure alcohol as he tended the wounded, and it had given him Dutch courage. I removed the grenades as he could have not only killed himself, he could have killed us too, and I had enough trouble on my plate.

  I kept my fingers crossed as I told Alsop and Schley that everything would be all right and asked one of our scouts to show me the way to the Spaniards’ camp. We crawled across several fields and when I reached one of their outposts I asked the sentry on duty to ask his Colonel to send my SOS to Tardivat.

  When I returned to our camp Schley said he didn’t want the Germans to smoke the Havana cigars his father had given him back in New York, so the three of us sat down and puffed away as if we didn’t have a care in the world. Suddenly we heard the sound of Bren guns and mortars to the rear of the Germans. I yelled out to everyone: ‘Tardivat, let’s go!’ He gave us time to retreat, then retreated himself, leaving the Germans to conquer a deserted campsite.

  Tardivat and his men had been sitting down to lunch when he received my SOS. I was amazed that Frenchmen would leave their meal, and said so flippantly. All he said was, ‘Aren’t you glad you gave me all those Bren guns?’ However, he had saved our lives. We had smoked those cigars for nothing! All this happened during the first twelve hours after the Americans’ arrival, and I had planned such a pleasant and relaxed day for them, a day they would remember. They would certainly remember it, but for entirely different reasons.

  We found Hubert hiding in a barn. Having retrieved Schley’s suitcase he had been cut off from us when the fighting had begun and had therefore been unable to assist in any way.

  Several of our badly wounded men were smuggled into a private hospital run by a religious order. The seven reckless young men who had died so tragically were laid to rest in a nearby cemetery. They were buried with all the military honours possible considering the danger of conducting such a service.

  We stayed near the Spanish camp for a couple of days and moved onto a good site in the Forêt de Tronçais. It was well concealed, protected by Tardivat’s groups and, to our delight, near a large pond where we were able to enjoy the pleasure of bathing ourselves, instead of having to carry out our ablutions from a small bucket of water. If we were bathing during the daytime we either dived under the water or made a dash for the forest when German planes flew overhead.

  We were receiving new recruits every day. Alsop and Schley were kept busy all day long instructing them on the use of weapons and explosives, fortunately within the peace of our forest and not on the battlefield!

  The Americans had brought their cameras with them and they had, unknown to me, taken a snap of me getting out of my pink satin nightdress. Denden had told them of my famous satin nightdresses, one pink and one blue. However mannish I looked by day, I always slept in satin.

  I determined to get even. I waited until Schley went to bathe one morning. He undressed and left his clothes and camera by a tree. I took the camera and sat by the water’s edge, waiting for him to emerge. After being in the icy cold water for thirty minutes he was blue in the face but he would not admit defeat. The German planes appeared on the horizon and he was forced to reassess his predicament. We always found time to play jokes on one another and enjoy a good laugh. It became a battle of wits between the sexes.

  There had been
nothing violent about my nature before the war yet the years would see a great change. But in spite of my virulent attitude to the enemy I could not condone torture and brutality on our part, although I was not foolish enough to believe they would extend me the same courtesy. Consequently the day I was informed confidentially by a man in our Maquis that a group nearby were holding three females, one of whom was a German spy, I threatened to disarm them if they did not release the poor unfortunate women into my custody. All three had been ill-treated and used as if they were prostitutes.

  The leader of the group concerned was a married man. I had accepted his hospitality before he had joined the Maquis. When I learnt his wife had been aware of the brutality meted out to the women I was horrified to think I had been friendly with them both.

  The two French girls were no problem, but the German girl could not be set free. I interrogated her and she admitted she had been sent to spy on the Maquis and then to report back to the Gestapo. She hated the French and the British as much as I hated her people. Reluctantly I informed her she would have to be shot as there was no alternative under the circumstances.

  At first the men refused to shoot a woman and agreed to form a firing squad only after I had announced I would undertake the task myself. She spat at me as she passed and shouted ‘Heil Hitler’ before she died.

  For my part I showed absolutely no emotion as she walked to her death. How had this been possible? How had I become so aggressive? It was simple. I remembered Vienna, Berlin and the Jews. I remembered seeing a poor French woman, seven months pregnant, tied to a stake and bayonetted, crisscross, in the stomach by a German soldier. Her screaming two-year-old held her hand and she was left to die with her unborn child. A German officer stood by and watched the soldier carry out his orders. I remembered my friend in the escape-route network who was beheaded with an axe after he had been captured by the Gestapo. The enemy had made me tough. I had no pity for them nor would I expect any in return.