The Best of Our Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  ‘We will see tonight.’

  At lunchtime Geraldine went out, telling Françoise she was going to ride into town to buy some bread and to see if she could find out any information. A block past the factory she stopped and dismounted and knelt down by the side of the road to tie her shoelaces. An open top lorry full of troops drove past. She was used to them calling out to her, but this lorry drove by in silence, the troops all looking sternly ahead. Secure that no one was watching, she felt under the saddle and sure enough, a note had been secreted there. Lange had been in touch, she was not surprised. She glanced at it and hurried off to his meeting point.

  She passed a bakery and noticed a smaller than usual queue and stopped to buy the bread, thankful that she had remembered her coupon.

  The church of St Nicholas was halfway between the Hôtel de Ville and the post office. Barely one building around the church remained intact. Women were hunched in the rubble, picking through it as if it was harvest time, not knowing quite what they were looking for. There would have been a time when you could have seen the church from far off, but the top half of the steeple had disappeared during an RAF raid in May. Miraculously, all the stained glass windows had somehow remained intact and the church still functioned, shrugging off the damage as an expected inconvenience.

  Although he varied his meeting places like the experienced Abwehr man he was, this was Georg Lange’s preferred rendezvous. He liked the mixture of noise and silence and the contrast between the damage which shocked people and the magnificence of the architecture which left them in awe. People came to the church to pray, or to seek shelter, or just to sit for a few minutes. Some came to meet friends. Many, no doubt, liked to believe that its sanctity gave them a temporary immunity from the war, even if they knew that was fanciful.

  Being lunchtime, the church was busy, but not packed – more people would be at the Notre Dame in the centre of the town. Lange was on a pew at the front of the church, to the side. He had taken care that no one was sitting around him and was on the seat closest to the aisle, apparently deep in prayer. Few people would feel able to disturb him and ask to be let through. Geraldine positioned herself in the row behind him, just to his left.

  She crossed herself and was seemingly lost in prayer too. Lange leaned back in his seat, taking care to look around. There was no one anywhere near them.

  ‘You have heard the news? The Allies have landed in Normandy. They are on the beaches, many of them have broken through. Tens of thousands of them. This is not Dieppe.’

  ‘Is this the main invasion then?’

  Lange turned round, looking directly into her eyes with a faintest hint of a very brief smile.

  ‘That is what I was hoping you would tell us.’ He turned back to face the altar, where an elderly and overweight priest with a dirty cassock was hobbling with the aid of a stick that threatened to snap at any moment. He picked up a candle holder and disappeared behind a curtain, releasing a shower of dust as he did so.

  ‘The information you have been giving us was very clear – that the main invasion will be in this region. It is probable that this is still the case and that the invasion of Normandy is just a diversion, but we need more hard information. I cannot tell you what it is like today. Some generals want to move troops from here to Normandy now, others think it is a trap. The Führer is convinced that the main Allied forces will still land in the Pas de Calais. One minute they want me back in Paris, the next I am to remain here. You are very important to our intelligence, I hope you realise that. What are your instructions?’

  ‘One of the coded messages last night was for our group. We are Plan Green, which means we have to sabotage the railway system. Heaven knows, we checked out the likely spots often enough. But we have to contact London tonight, we should get more detailed instructions then. We are going to the woodman’s hut in the forest. Can you arrange for the patrols to keep away from there?’

  ‘That is so difficult. I have not been able to tell anyone the real reason why I am here. The Gestapo just think that I am here for general intelligence duties, but they suspect. They know that I am running an agent, they aren’t complete fools. You know what those boys are like. They have no subtlety. They would just arrest the whole cell. They would ruin the operation. Lieutenant General Heim is the garrison commander here. I know him well enough, we’ve dined together a couple of times, we have mutual friends in Frankfurt. He has some idea as to why I am here. I will talk to him this afternoon and suggest he put extra patrols on the shoreline tonight. That ought to draw people away from inland patrols, but it would be too risky to ask for much more than that. You’re just going to need to be very careful. And Magpie ...?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I don’t want you blowing up railway lines, you understand?’

  ‘I understand, but our orders are to attack the railway lines. How is it going to look if we don’t do it? I am the one who has had the training. If we don’t carry out the attacks, the group will get suspicious.’

  ‘I know. You will have to be clever. But if the Gestapo finds out that one of my agents is blowing up a railway line, that will give them all the excuse they need. As it is, they would love to meet you. In any case, we can’t risk damaging the railways. We need them to transport troops and equipment. It is the best way to move tanks. We must not shoot ourselves in the foot. I will see you the same time tomorrow. Notre Dame.’ Lange had stood up now. As he walked past her he tapped her baguette and smiled.

  ooo000ooo

  The Forest of Boulogne lay to the north east of the village, across a range of upwardly sloping fields. The first line of birch and ash could be seen from the village itself and at night the forest gave the impression of an enormous black cloud that had floated down to earth. There were some small roads and tracks through the forest, but its sheer size did afford them some safety. It was very rare for German patrols to venture beyond the roads and tracks. You needed the lifetime experience of the woods such as Jean and Pierre had to be able to find your way around it in the dark. Within just a matter of yards from a track, the trees stood improbably close together and the undergrowth was heavily carpeted with bramble and ferns.

  Four of them went to the forest that night, the sixth of June. The plan was to travel in pairs, taking different routes to their destination. Geraldine would travel with Jean, Pierre with Lucien. Once they met up, Jean and Lucien would rig up the aerial then fan out to stand guard, while Geraldine and Pierre looked after the transmission. It was always perilous. There was the ever present danger of German patrols added to the risk of their transmission being intercepted. They would take the right precautions: keep the transmission short, change frequency if it went on for more than five minutes and then dismantle the equipment quickly as soon as it was over.

  The Germans would almost certainly intercept the broadcast and then triangulate its location, but if all went according to plan then by the time the Germans arrived at the forest the group would be safely back in the village. The danger was either a passing patrol stumbling across them by chance, or if a mobile detection unit was in the area that night.

  They met at a disused woodman’s hut in what had once been a small clearing in the centre of the forest, well away from any track. The hut had not been used for years, but it was a good place to meet. The clearing was now overgrown and the forest had begun the process of reclaiming the small parcel of land.

  The little moonlight around that night struggled to penetrate the canopy of the forest and a steady stream of cloud streaked across the sky. It was as dark in the forest as Geraldine could remember. She and Jean were waiting in the lee of the hut for the other two. She shivered. Instinctively he put an arm round her. She moved closer to him, placing her palm on his chest. He was about to speak when silently the other two came upon them. A brief conversation. Pierre knew every inch of the forest. They would walk five minutes to the east. The trees were very thick there, but there were a few that were easier to climb.

&nbs
p; When they found the spot, Pierre and Geraldine prepared the radio. Jean removed his jacket and strapped the aerial to his back and with Lucien’s help, climbed the tree – lowering down the cable so they could attach it to the transmitter. They were all carrying Sten sub-machine guns. Pierre and Geraldine lay theirs on the ground next to them. Jean and Lucien fanned out on either side. Within seconds they were out of sight.

  Pierre hated this business. He much preferred to rely on them receiving messages via the BBC, but recognised that there were times when they needed to contact London. As soon as they established contact he shone his torch on his watch. It was eleven thirty-three. If they were still transmitting at eleven-thirty eight then they would need to change frequency. The Germans would be able to pinpoint a position with an accuracy of around ten miles. That ought to be safe enough. It was the vans with the mobile receivers that bothered him.

  Geraldine was tapping away hard at the Morse code key and scribbling down the response on a pad which Pierre was illuminating with his torch. At eleven thirty-eight he signalled to her – need to change frequency. She held up one finger: one more minute. Three minutes later she pulled off the headphones and turned off the transmitter. Pierre made a soft owl hoot and within a minute they had been rejoined by Jean and Lucien.

  Pierre nodded at Geraldine.

  ‘What do they say?’

  ‘The main invasion will still be in this area. Soon. We are to be patient. They want us to begin the sabotage.’

  Five minutes later the aerial had been dismantled and the transmitter packed away. They would bury it nearer to a track and Lucien would collect it in the morning in his father-in-law’s car.

  Pierre and Lucien left first, taking the most direct route back to the village. Geraldine and Jean stood silently against the trees. They would wait for three minutes and then leave in a different direction which would take them to the north of the forest, further away from the village at first. They would then skirt back round the outside of the forest, making sure to stay inside the tree line. They ought to be back by half-past midnight. Geraldine stumbled once in the undergrowth and fallen over. She had allowed Jean to pick her up and he had continued to hold on to her.

  It may have been because of this or possibly because the cloud cover had grown thicker that they did not see the Germans until it was too late. They were approaching one of the tracks that threaded across the forest. The normal procedure would be to halt well short of the track and Jean would creep forward until he could see it properly. If all was clear, he would signal Geraldine forward, she would cross the track while Jean covered her and he would follow, with her providing cover for him.

  For some reason, they stumbled across the track before they noticed it. They only came to a stop when Geraldine was on the track itself and Jean right behind her. It was too late. A German motorbike and sidecar was parked on the other side of the track, no more than five yards from them. Standing with his back to them, lighting a cigarette was a soldier. Jean and Geraldine froze. Jean made a reversing gesture with his hands. They would move back into the cover of the trees and hide. At that moment the soldier stepped out into the centre of the track and turned casually towards them. They had the advantage of having had their shock a crucial two or three seconds before his. In the second that he stood there, stunned and transfixed to the spot, momentarily unable to react, they both rushed him. Jean threw himself at the soldier, diving at his hips and using his speed and momentum to bring him down in a rugby tackle. The soldier’s rifle fell as he went over. On the ground, the soldier and Jean struggled. The soldier was a large and strong man. Once he had got over the initial shock he seemed to regain his strength and worked his way on top of Jean, pinning him to the dusty ground. He was reaching for his holster.

  ‘Help me,’ Jean called out.

  From her side belt Geraldine pulled out the knife that was standard SOE issue. The only time she had used it before was on a straw dummy in a barn in Lincolnshire. Now she plunged it into the soldier’s back. There were two things that struck her in that moment. The first was that nothing had prepared her for the amount of bone that the knife would hit. She thought it would just go straight in. The other was the blood. She must have hit an artery, because a fountain of blood spurted up.

  As this happened, Jean threw the soldier over and pinned him down with his hands round his neck. He held them there, tightening his grip. The soldier’s eyes seemed to double in size and a look of utter terror was etched into every line on his face. Even in the dark, she could tell that he was turning blue.

  ‘Watch out, there will be another one,’ Jean panted.

  She turned round. Of course. A motorbike and sidecar. There would be two of them. The other one was coming towards her. He must have gone into the woods to go to the toilet because he was now running out with his trousers flapping loose around his thighs. He was using one hand to try to hold them up. Geraldine lunged at him with the knife, but he parried her blow, sending the knife skidding across the track. She remembered she must have put her Sten gun down when she got out the knife. The soldier was raising his rifle to her, his trousers now round his ankles and his finger on the trigger.

  The bullet that she thought would kill her came from behind and sent the second soldier crumpling to the track. She turned round. Jean had one knee firmly on the throat of the now still soldier. In his hands was his sub-machine gun with which he had shot the second soldier just before he was able to fire at her.

  He checked the pulse of the first soldier, nodded and walked over to her. She was now kneeling on the track, drained of all her energy. He picked her up, holding her close to him as he did so. At that moment he shrieked. The second soldier had lunged at Jean. He must have found Geraldine’s knife and despite his wounds was able to attack. Geraldine grabbed Jean’s sub-machine gun. The soldier and Jean were in a frantic struggle. She took aim, but in the dark it was hard to see who she was aiming at. She stepped over to the two of them and held the gun at the soldier’s back and pulled the trigger. His body muffled the noise and he slumped onto the track, a dark pool emerging from under his body.

  For one moment she feared that she had also hit Jean as well. His shoulder was covered in blood, but he climbed out from under the second dead German. It was a knife wound.

  ‘Quick,’ he said. ‘We have to move them. Now.’

  They dragged each soldier as far as they could into the undergrowth. They would be difficult to find at night and that would give them enough time to get back to the village. But the track was covered in blood and in any case the dogs would find them soon enough. Then there was the motorbike and sidecar. They wheeled it into the undergrowth on the other side of the track, but could not move it more than five yards in before the undergrowth made it impossible to go any further. They spent a minute or two pulling branches and shrub on top of it. It might just about cover it during the hours of darkness, but at first light the search parties would spot it easily enough. Geraldine checked Jean’s wound. The knife had penetrated the front of his shoulder, but it did not appear to be too serious. She gave him her scarf. ‘Keep this pressed against it.’

  It was nearly one o’clock when they crept into the house on the morning of 7 June. Within hours the whole area would be teeming with search parties. Fortunately for them, they had killed the soldiers on a track on the eastern edge of the forest, which was in the direction of Boulogne. Other villages were nearer. There would be nothing to link the attack with this village. They went upstairs. Both of them were covered in dirt and blood. She needed to deal with Jean first. He sat on his bed. The curtain in his room was very thick, so they could risk lighting a lamp. Even in the dim light she could tell that he was pale.

  ‘Remove your shirt.’

  He peeled off his shirt. The wound had stopped bleeding, but it would need cleaning up before she could tell if it would need stitching. She was worried that he might need medical attention. A couple of years before a doctor from nearby Isques had been sh
ot for helping a wounded résistant. From the bathroom she fetched a bowl of cold water and a sponge. They would need to burn their clothes. She cleaned the wound and then put ointment on it from the small first aid box that she had found in the bathroom. She placed a pad over the wound and told him to hold it while she found something to keep it in place. The wound did not seem too bad. The real concern now would be to make sure that it did not become infected.

  The priority was to remove all trace of the dirty clothing. If the Germans did a house to house search they would find them both filthy and covered in bloody clothing. She was trying to remain calm. When Lange realises what has happened he’ll be furious, but she had no alternative. The most important thing was to maintain her cover. She knelt down and untied Jean’s shoes and removed his socks. ‘You need to remove your trousers, Jean.’ He couldn’t do that while still holding the pad over his wound, so she undid his belt and unbuttoned his trousers before pulling them down. She sponged the filth and blood from a now naked body. A small pile of filthy clothes was now on the floor by the side of his bed. When she turned round, Jean had pulled over the bedspread to cover himself.

  ooo000ooo

  Pas de Calais, 7 June 1944

  She was woken that night by the muffled background of more bombing raids. They did not sound as close as Boulogne this time, but it had made for a strange and urgent background. She remembered she had to do something with the clothes. She tied them into a bundle and hid them in the loft. They would survive a random house to house search, but nothing more thorough. Jean would have to take them with him to work and destroy them. She was aware of vehicles speeding through the village, which was unusual at this time of the morning. The search was on for the missing soldiers.

  In the morning she checked Jean’s shoulder. It couldn’t have been more than a glancing blow. She cleaned it once more and dressed it. He would be fine.