White Mouse

by Nancy Wake

  I have returned to Germany many times since their defeat. They have worked hard to rebuild their Fatherland. It is a lovely country to visit and although I am quite happy to be friendly with some young Germans I keep well away from the older generation in case I become involved with some ex-Nazi. I will never be able to forget the misery and death they caused to so many millions of innocent people; the savage brutality, the sadism, the unnecessary bloodshed, the slaughter and inhuman acts they performed on other human beings. I am inclined to feel sorry for the young Germans of today, knowing how utterly miserable I would be if I was descended from a Nazi.

  War is a calamity. It is destructive and brings great sorrow and loss of life. But at least it is, or should be, a clear-cut manoeuvre between two opposing nations fighting each other until one side admits defeat. Civil war is disastrous because it means two or more parts of a nation fighting for supremacy. Although I did not go to Spain during the Civil War I was always in close touch with people who did.

  By July 1944 there were so many branches of the Resistance it was difficult to keep track of them. There were right-wingers, left-wingers, red-hot Communists, government officials, civil servants, ex-Vichyites, ex-Milicians, secret army, regular army and dozens more, besides masses of individuals trying to get on the bandwagon. We kept our distance from the would-be politicians, concentrating on arming the Maquisards as efficiently and rapidly as possible.

  Hubert was fully occupied with the leaders of the adjacent groups, discussing and executing plans that would frustrate the Germans wherever and whenever the opportunity arose. They attacked the enemy convoys on the road, they intercepted and stole hundreds of wagon-loads of food being transported to Germany, they set up ambushes in the most unlikely places and generally made the existence of the Germans in the area a perilous one. Apart from these activities they manned the dropping zones at night and in their spare time they prepared the explosives needed to destroy the targets we had been assigned.

  Laurent had provided me with a new car and a driver who knew the Allier and the Puy-de-Dôme like the back of his hand. I would contact dozens and dozens of groups of men hiding in forests. After meeting their leaders I would assess their groups, most of whom impressed me, and would promise to arm their men and also contribute a certain amount of money towards their subsistence.

  Sometimes Roger accompanied me. He was not as good or experienced an operator as Denden but he was more relaxed and never complained about the conditions under which he worked. If he had to transmit or receive messages while we were travelling by car we would pull into the side of the road, he would throw the aerial over a tree, sit on the wheel or bumper bar, balance his set on his knee and tap away in Morse code. If we ran out of distilled water he never made a fuss like Denden did, he would simply substitute ordinary water.

  I had to find new fields where we could organise our airdrops. This was becoming more and more difficult as the Germans were attacking Maquis groups every day in retaliation. Roger and I had to shoot our way out of a road-block on two occasions and we were extremely fortunate to escape capture.

  One day I was obliged to go to Vichy. When my business there was concluded I decided to treat myself to a good meal in an expensive black-market restaurant before returning to the forest. A member of an unruly group of men (whom, incidentally, I had refused to arm) had apparently been informed of my extravagance and decided I had been spending money to which his so-called ‘Resistance’ group was entitled. He was quite wrong as Hubert, Denden and I always received our own personal allowances from London. This ignorant and uncouth individual was airing his views about our British team in a café in a little village where I was due at midday. My visit had obviously been discussed there. He became very, very inebriated and announced he was going to kill me. He then opened a case and displayed several grenades. The patron of the café became alarmed and was going to dispatch someone to warn me as soon as I arrived on the outskirts of the village.

  This village was old, with narrow streets. The only way a motorist could drive through it was to take a blind alleyway where a reflecting mirror warned of the traffic ahead. The café was only a few metres away.

  I was early, and blissfully unaware of the drama about to unfold. When the would-be assassin heard a car approaching he took a grenade out of the case, removed the pin and held it in his hand. When he saw a woman in the car he went to throw it but he was so drunk he had forgotten the pin was out and it blew up in his hand. I saw the explosion and bits of human flesh all over the place, but it was a few minutes before I heard the story. I could not feel sorry for him. He and his men were the types who pretended to be members of the Resistance and at times gave it a bad name.

  This story reached the forest via ‘bush wireless’ before I returned. It was decided there and then that I would have a bodyguard whenever I travelled by car. Tardivat suggested we approach the Spanish group and their colonel immediately delegated six of his best men to protect me.

  We must have made an impressive sight as our three cars sped along the roads. They had installed a Bren machine-gun in the windscreen of each car and another one at the rear. Whenever possible we remained on the secondary roads, which were covered in red dust. As I always travelled in the second car I arrived at our destination looking like a Red Indian, so after the first trip I transferred to the first car. I tried to explain in Spanish that it was because of vanity and not bravery but I don’t think it convinced them.

  These six Spaniards became devoted to me and I never had any worries when I was with them, even though at times we were obliged to use the National Routes. If we stopped at a village for a meal and anyone dared to look sideways at me they would stand there looking fierce with their Sten guns at the ready. They would inspect the kitchens and one day they forced two men to show their identity cards simply because they were staring at me during lunch. They were experienced fighters, having gone through the Spanish Civil War. I must have covered thousands of kilometres with my bodyguard. To me it was all very theatrical but the Spaniards took it seriously. I often wondered what the people thought of our little convoy as we passed through the villages.

  In the latter part of July and during August I was travelling continuously. Every night hundreds of containers filled with weapons and explosives were being parachuted on to our fields in anticipation of the Allied landings, which ultimately took place in the south of France on 15 August.

  The arrival of the Americans—especially as they were officers wearing such splendid uniforms—had boosted the morale of the Maquisards in the area to such an extent that we had intended to hold a banquet in their honour. The battle the morning after their arrival and several subsequent mishaps had forced us to abandon all major social activities. However, as Tardivat pointed out, we now had two important events to celebrate: firstly, the arrival of our American instructors and secondly, my lucky escape. We chose a night when the moon was low as we would be unlikely to receive an air-drop.

  Tardivat was in charge of all the catering arrangements. He conferred with a chef in a nearby town who prepared most of the food in his hotel. The morning of the banquet he was ‘kidnapped’ at gun-point and taken to our forest. The alleged kidnapping was to protect him in case he was interrogated by the Germans or the Milicians at a later date.

  Denden, assisted by several experts, installed an elaborate row of lights overhead which could be turned off immediately if our sentries warned us of enemy planes approaching. Our tables consisted of long logs covered by white sheets borrowed from friendly villagers. The chef served a magnificent eight-course meal, accompanied by some superb French wines. He hovered around looking impressive wearing his snow-white chef’s hat and apron, assisted by several volunteers from our group, suitably dressed for the occasion.

  It was a banquet I will never forget, and most certainly one that could never be repeated. Several hundred men attended and every single one had been spending hours trying to make his clothes look as smart as possib
le. The lighting system was a huge success—our part of the forest looked like a fairyland. Tardivat greeted the guests with typical French formality and the foreign guests responded with great dignity! We toasted everyone and everything. We swore our eternal allegiance and love to France, Great Britain and the United States of America. When we couldn’t think of anything else to toast we swayed to our feet and toasted the Germans and the Allied Forces for not having interrupted our gala dinner.

  Half-way through this extraordinary banquet a serious French Maquisard was escorted to my table by a sentry. He was delivering a message from his leader. Naturally we invited him to join our party. He looked at all the food on the tables and the piles of empty bottles on the ground and the full ones in the process of being consumed, and asked me if this was the style in which we dined every night. We managed to keep a serious face and everyone who had heard his question replied, ‘Yes, of course, don’t you?’

  In the early hours of the morning a violent thunder and lightning storm forced us to scurry back to our respective camps in a disorderly fashion. The bright and almost continuous flashes of lightning made it easy for me to find my way to my bus, but the ground had become like a bog and I was soaking wet and covered with mud by the time I reached it. Furthermore, I was feeling sorry for myself and for the unceremonious manner in which our banquet had been terminated.

  Soon after installing ourselves in the forest we had bought a horse, especially for Roger as sometimes he got bored, although Schley exercised it if he had the time. As I was trying to clean my clothes I heard the horse neighing. I looked through the window and there he was in the pouring rain making a terrible noise. Immediately I stopped feeling sorry for myself and proceeded to lavish all my love and sympathy on the poor unfortunate horse. We had a galvanised iron lean-to attached to my bus which we used as a makeshift bathroom and where we kept all our toilet necessities. I dragged the horse in, talking to him all the time, telling him not to worry about the storm as I would look after him. Then I fell asleep.

  I woke up several hours later. The horse and the galvanised-iron roof had disappeared. Actually he was foolish to run away as, with the meat shortage, he could not have gone far before ending up in some hungry person’s saucepan. We found the roof some distance away. The contents of our bathroom were ruined as they were all mixed up with horse manure. Alsop had been sleeping under a yellow parachute. The rain had soaked through it, so he appeared looking as if he had jaundice. Denden took one look at him and went back to bed. That night our personal message to the BBC was ‘Andrée had a horse in the bathroom’.

  Thank goodness the Germans did not attack that night.

  Without doubt, Tardivat was the man I most admired then. He was intelligent, disciplined, reliable, honest and very brave. He also had a fantastic sense of fun, which I appreciated. When I was not on the road he would invite me to take part in some of his escapades. We carried out several ambushes together and blew up a few small bridges. If any German convoys were foolish enough to pass through his area he always managed to do some damage to their vehicles. In suitable terrain we loved using what we called a ‘trip wire’. It was attached to a tree on each side of the road and the first vehicle in the convoy would blow up. We liked to be concealed on a nearby hill so we could watch the confusion before withdrawing to a safer spot.

  The most exciting sortie I ever made with Tardivat was an attack on the German headquarters in Montluçon. He and his men organised this raid from beginning to end. All the weapons and explosives used were hidden in a house near the headquarters, ready to be picked up just after noon when the Germans would be enjoying their pre-lunch drinks. Each one of us had received specific orders. I entered the building by the back door, raced up the stairs, opened the first door along the passage way and threw in my grenades, closed the door and ran like hell back to my car which was ready to make a quick getaway. The headquarters was completely wrecked inside the building, and several dozen Germans did not lunch that day, nor any other day for that matter. The hardest part of the raid was to convince the nearby residents that the Allies had not landed and that they should return immediately to their homes and remain indoors.

  In the early hours of the morning of 15 August, the long-awaited invasion of the south of France became a reality. Nearly 300,000 troops, comprised of Americans, British, Canadians and French, disembarked between Toulon and Cannes. The Resistance movements all over France had been anxiously awaiting the landings, as it would mean the beginning of the end for the Germans.

  The numerous Maquis groups in the Allier set about destroying the targets they had been assigned for the second D-day. I’d brought the plans for these raids from England in that handbag—the bridges, roads, cable lines, railways, factories—anything that could be of use to the Germans. They destroyed them all except one which was a synthetic petrol plant at Saint-Hilaire. Tardivat, who had seized the entire output of fuel two months previously, said it would be a shame to destroy the plant as another supply of fuel would soon be available. London gave us permission to leave the plant intact as long as we could be certain the fuel would not fall into German hands.

  Tardivat, plus the Anglo-American team, backed by several of our most bloodthirsty-looking Maquisards, called to see the plant manager at his home. He was not a bit co-operative when we informed him we were going to run his plant for the Allies. However, he was taken by force to the distillery and then to the boardroom, where he was interrogated by the male members of our team. He was warned that his failure to comply with their orders would have drastic consequences and that as he had traded with the enemy he would be put under arrest and placed under the charge of the Maquis.

  He was white in the face and trembling by this time and assured us he would reserve the total output of fuel for the Maquis, mentioning the amount we could expect. I had not been included in this particular conversation, I was just standing by, armed to the teeth and trying to look as fierce as possible. Nevertheless, I did not want to be left out of the proceedings so I piped up and said that according to the figures I had, the amount of fuel he promised was not the entire output. To everyone’s surprise, including my own, he agreed that perhaps it could be a little more. Tardivat left several men to protect our interests and keep an eye on the manager, but he was so scared of the Maquis he did not put a foot wrong after that day. Now we were all oil kings we made for the nearest bistro to celebrate our success.

  All our operations were not as comical as our Saint-Hilaire one had been, but as the weeks sped by and the Germans were on the run, both from the Allied Forces and the French Resistance, it was often possible to enjoy a little light relief as we carried on with our duties.

  At long last the Germans were paying a high price for the suffering they had inflicted on the French people. They knew the Resistance was lurking everywhere, just waiting to pounce. Too often the enemy had behaved like savages and now they were afraid for their own lives.

  We trooped over to Cosne-d’Allier, the little village where Hubert and I had stayed when we first arrived. As we had been introduced to the entire village, they all came out of their houses when they saw me and followed us around when we laid our charges on the bridges and road junctions. It was the most enthusiastic audience we had ever seen or heard. They jumped up and down as each was detonated, and clapped and cheered as we withdrew. The difficult part of the operation had been to keep the villagers at a safe distance.

  Tardivat decided, after his success with the German headquarters, that he would like to attack their garrison at Montluçon, where the force had been reduced to about 3,000. He set off with about 300 men and Alsop, Schley and Hubert. All the leaders were armed with bazookas—a popular weapon during World War II and especially suitable for the Maquis. Alsop and Schley led their groups while Hubert returned to our camp with a message from Tardivat inviting me to join in the fun. I had just finished coding my signals for London so I grabbed a bazooka, my carbine and several grenades, and set off for Mont
luçon in Hubert’s car. When we reached the town and made enquiries as to Tardivat’s position we were informed that he had captured half the garrison and we would have to cross a certain bridge in order to reach him. The only trouble was that as we began crossing the bridge someone opened fire with machine-guns. I got out of the car and started waving to Tardivat up in the garrison. It wasn’t Tardivat, it was a German, and we were on the wrong bridge. We did a quick about-turn but the others teased us for days.

  The fort was held for several days but the Germans sent over strong reinforcements from the east and the Maquis withdrew back to the forest. However, the whole town and the temporary victors could not conceal the satisfaction the event had given them.

  It had rained for days, and the forest was like a quagmire. We were soaked to the skin and thoroughly miserable. Now that the Germans had troubles of their own they no longer presented a great threat to the Maquis and we determined to find more comfortable quarters. We were told of Fragne, an empty château a few kilometres from Montluçon. The owner had inherited it from an aunt but as he had not been able to install electricity and running water it had never attracted the attention of the Germans. Hubert and I talked to the caretaker, and through her the owner gave us permission to occupy the château for as long as we wished.

  It was a huge place with spacious rooms. We slept on mattresses or in sleeping-bags and it was absolute bliss to be out of the rain. There was a lovely old clock-tower and a deep well at the rear of the château where we fetched our water for washing purposes, but for cooking the caretaker allowed us to fill our buckets from her kitchen tap. We moved in about one week before my birthday, which was on 30 August. As the men were all walking around looking secretive I guessed they were planning some kind of celebration.