by Jim Eldridge
She walked to the line, put the butt of the gun to her shoulder and fired two single shots, which thudded into the dummy, ripping the paper. Then she switched the trigger mechanism to the “automatic fire” mark, dropped the handle to her waist, and let fly with a hail of bullets that tore the dummy in half, the bottom half falling to the floor.
“And that, ladies, is how it should be done,” beamed Harry. He looked at Pete. “What do you think, Pete?”
Pete stood, silent, as if he was thinking it over, and then he shook his head and said, “Marvellous! Absolutely bloody marvellous!”
Chapter 9
The answer to Lisbeth’s skill came when we gathered for lunch in the Mess Hall. We’d filled our plates with what looked like a sort of stew and mashed potatoes – a far cry from the food at Winterfold House – grabbed a table for ourselves and were settling down to eat, when Lisbeth said: “Okay. I know you’re all dying to ask. I was with a circus. I was a sharpshooter, shooting at targets.”
All of us began to talk at once, asking questions like “What circus?” and “Was it cowboys?”, but Lisbeth held up her hand to silence us.
“I’ve already told you more than I should, but that was just to stop you thinking I was a bank robber or something. So, that’s it. And if you tell anyone I told you, I’ll deny it.”
I could see I wasn’t the only one looking at Lisbeth with even more respect. A circus performer! And a sharpshooter! Wow!
After lunch, Harry collected us and took us to a patch of waste ground at the far side of the site, one concealed from outside eyes by rows of wooden huts. A short thin man was waiting for us. Laid out near him was a range of formidable-looking weapons: knives, clubs, guns, swords, even a wicked-looking spear.
“This is Bill,” said Harry. He saw us looking at the weapons uncertainly, and grinned. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to sword-fight with one another.”
And with that, he left.
Bill gestured for us to gather round him in a circle.
“Right, ladies, I’m going to be your instructor in unarmed combat. That means exactly what it says. You haven’t got any weapons on you. Your gun’s jammed, you’ve lost your knife, so your only weapon is you. And that weapon – the human body – can be devastating. You can kill or disable your opponent within seconds. Your primary weapons are your hands and feet. Elbows and knees are good, but they are joints, and if you crunch them into something hard, like a human skull, you can damage them and disable yourself.”
As I stood there listening to him talking about deliberately hurting people – killing them – in such a matter-of-fact way, I realized how shocked I was. Not just by the extreme violence of what he was telling us, but by the fact that I was there listening, learning all this, and might have to use it. It went against everything I’d been brought up to think and believe, about being kind and caring to other people. And I realized that this is what war does. It changes people. It makes them brutal. I was being trained to kill people. To shoot them. Stab them. Kill them with my bare hands. But would I actually be able to do it?
And then I thought of Schnell, torturing my father to death, and the anger that filled me made me realize that if I ever met him, I could kill Schnell with no conscience.
Bill was still talking, explaining how to use our bodies as weapons. “Elbows and knees are fine when hitting soft areas – the groin, the stomach, the front of the throat – but for really effective damage, use your hands and feet as hard and fast as you can.
“For hands: either the fist, with the knuckles as the impact weapon, or the edge of the hand. And again, if you use the edge of the hand, it’s the outside length of the little finger that is the weapon. It’s hard because it’s bony, and it has the other three fingers behind it to give weight to the blow.
“Next: targets. Places where your opponent is most vulnerable. If it’s a man, the groin. A hard kick there will disable most men. The knees. Kick your opponent hard beneath the knee and you’ll dislocate the kneecap. The pain is excruciating. And he won’t be able to get up.
“Remember, when it’s him or you there ain’t no time for niceties. The longer he stays alive or conscious, the more danger for you. He’ll kill you, so you’ve got to stop him. And quick. Because if he shouts, there’ll be others coming, so you’ve got to finish him and get out of there quick.”
And so on, until I became almost frightened at the thought of how easy it was for someone to kill another.
Finally, Bill said: “Right, that’s the theory. Now, let’s try it out. In pairs. You two …” pointing to me and Lisbeth “… one pair.” He then put Natalie and Vivienne together, and then Josephine and Vanessa.
“At this stage, I want you to avoid actual contact with one another,” he said. “You’re too valuable to have you going off with a smashed windpipe at this early stage.” He handed me, Natalie and Vanessa a knife each, and I realized that the blade was actually made of wood and painted silver. “Later on we’ll be using the real thing, but at this stage … safety first.”
We went through the processes and the actions under Bill’s direction, our actions deliberately slow, almost like doing a mime play. Then we switched roles, Lisbeth the attacker and me the defender; and finally we each had a chance to attack Bill with whatever weapon we chose. Every time, Bill disarmed us, even when Vivienne chose a Sten gun. And not one of us got hit.
“But next time we’ll have contact,” Bill promised us.
I felt strange by the time we trooped into the Mess Hall for our evening meal. First the session on the firing range, then the unarmed combat practice. I suddenly realized I could do things with my body. Yes, I’d been pretty good at sports at school, but this was so much more, and so different! It was also frightening and shocking.
Over our meal we kept our conversation light, talking about the day’s events, the guns and the firing range and Bill and the unarmed combat session. We couldn’t talk about ourselves without giving something away about who we really were, or where we were from – we were on our guard the whole time. In that way, it was good practice.
All the others in the Mess Hall were men, talking and laughing. We knew that there were many more men in SOE than there were women, and I wondered how many of them were training like us, and going on missions.
“Looks like the other group has arrived,” said Josephine.
I looked towards the door and saw that the other group of women, with Yvette, had just come in and were heading for the food. Yvette saw me and came over, a smile on her face.
“Hi girls,” she greeted us. She grabbed a nearby empty chair, moved it next to me and sat down. I saw that the others in my group were curious at this arrival, but they continued chatting together, although I knew that they would be half-listening to Yvette. As I would, in their position.
“I just wanted to come over and say I’m glad you made it,” said Yvette. “All the time at Winterfold House when I was chattering away, trying to draw you out, I was hoping you wouldn’t.”
“Why?” I asked.
Yvette shrugged.
“Just a feeling,” she said. “I think you’ve got what it takes to do this job.”
With that, she got up, nodded at the others and
walked off.
Chapter 10
The next two days involved more weapons training, as well as introducing us to codes, secret inks and different sorts of disguises. Most of it, apart from the weapons training, took the form of lectures in a one of the wooden huts.
“This is just basic training,” said Vanessa at the end of the day. “We won’t get on to the good stuff until we’re doing the proper course.”
“What do you mean: the good stuff?” asked Natalie.
“Practical stuff. Explosives. Demolition. Assassination. Parachute jumping.”
“How do you know?” asked Lisbeth.
; Vanessa shrugged.
“I like to know what’s going on,” she said. “That’s what gives you the edge in situations.”
Vanessa’s predictions of what lay in store for us were confirmed on the morning of our last day, when we trooped into the lecture room and found Edward Swinton waiting for us.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said.
A quick look around at the faces of the others told me that they all knew who he was, and had all met him before. As in my case, it looked like he’d been the one who’d recruited them.
“I’m pleased to inform you that you have all passed the selection process. The next stage will be full and proper training to prepare you for action in the field. That will begin in a week’s time, so you will have time to spend at home with your families, those of you who have them.
“Again, I must stress that you cannot even hint to any of them what your real work is. And we will be monitoring you. We have agents everywhere, and if they hear even a whisper from your family or friends that you are engaged in any sort of spying or secret operations, you will be dropped.
“Now I know it’s asking a lot of you to lie to your family and friends, people you are close to, but a slip could put a whole operation at risk. People’s lives are at stake. The people you will be with in France are putting their lives at risk working with you. The Allies need you to succeed if we are to defeat the Nazis.
“You training will take about four months, at different locations. It will be in different aspects of your new trade. You’ve already had basic training. You will have further training in weapons and unarmed combat, as well as in fieldcraft, how to survive off the land, codes, radio communications, disguise, explosives and demolition, assassination techniques, and parachute jumping.”
I couldn’t resist a quick look towards Vanessa: everything he’d said was as she’d predicted. How did she know? Had she said it deliberately to see how we’d react? Was Vanessa a plant among us, an insider to watch us at close quarters and report back? Had she been looking for a reaction from us to her prediction about our future training, something she could report back?
Swinton handed each of us an envelope.
“Inside you will find a letter to you from the Inter-Services Research Bureau, addressed in your real name, instructing you to report to such-and-such a department for a period of four weeks as temporary cover. You can show this to your families to let them know why you will be going away. Each letter states a different location, just in case they fall into enemy hands, so there will be no co-ordination. You will also find a rail ticket to Cranleigh for next Wednesday.
“You will be met at Cranleigh station at 9.30am by a bus, as before. After one day at Winterfold House, you will spend time at a variety of locations on your final training. Providing that is successful, you will then be assigned your missions.”
……………………………………….
A few hours later we were packed up and bundled into the back of the same van that had brought us, and driven back to Cranleigh railway station. There, we caught the train back to central London and separated. There were no hugs, just waves of goodbye. We were a unit, almost comrades, but not close friends. It was as if the world we were being led into didn’t allow us to have close friends. We were separate, from everybody.
Aunt Abbey was pleased to see me, and full of gossip about what had been happening locally. As I listened to her talk about what the neighbours had been up to, and how the local butcher, Mr Higgs, had managed to get hold of a leg of lamb, I felt distant from it all. Even though I’d been away for just a few days, the world I’d been exposed to was so far removed from this everyday life – even in war-time, with the bombing and the air-raid shelters – that I felt like a stranger.
Luckily, Aunt Abbey didn’t notice anything different, or, if she did, she didn’t say anything, and for the next week we settled back into our old routine: going out to the shops during the day, listening to the radio in the evenings, and spending a couple of nights in the tube station when the air-raid siren sounded.
Aunt Abbey was disappointed when she heard I was going to be away for four months – “Four months! The war could be over by then!” – but she was pleased when I showed her the letter Edward Swinton had given me.
“They obviously think a lot of you, dear,” she said. “It sounds like an important job, and if you do well at it, who knows. There are always good opportunities for promotion in the Civil Service.”
Chapter 11
A week later I said goodbye to Aunt Abbey and reported back to Winterfold House. To my surprise, only five of us caught the bus from the station – Josephine was missing. We were all aware of her absence, but none of us wanted to say anything about her. Ask no questions, that was the rule.
It was Miss Penton who filled us in when we gathered once more in Room 6.
“You will notice that there are now only five of you,” she said. “I regret to inform you that the woman you knew as Josephine was killed in an air raid last week. Her death brings it home to us why it is so important that we bring this war to a quick resolution, and that is your job.”
And that was it. Just a simple statement. Josephine was gone. All of us had lost people in this war, and almost everyone had lost someone very close. But none of us in this room were allowed to be close to each other. None of us even knew the real names of the others, or anything about their lives.
After that first day back at Winterfold House, the next four months were a blur as we were moved from base to base for different sorts of training. I was no longer Violet Debuchy, I was Céline LeBlanc. Many of our lessons were conducted in French to keep us constantly aware that we would be French people in France; we had to think in French. All of us, I noticed, slipped back into talking in French quite easily, and I became aware of our different accents: Vivienne had a Paris accent, similar to my own, while Natalie’s was more southern France, and Lisbeth and Natalie had hints of Normandy.
Our course covered absolutely everything. As well as more involved unarmed combat and weapons training – including, as we’d been promised, learning to take a Sten gun apart and reassemble it blindfolded – we were give practical hands-on experience in radio communications, using explosives, sending messages using invisible inks and codes, disguise, fieldcraft, and what we might experience if we were caught and interrogated.
“The business of interrogation depends on the level of the person questioning you,” we were told. “If it’s just gossip and rumour that have led to you being questioned, then it may well be just at local level: the local French Police Chief. If so, it’s important that you stick to your story: you are just an innocent person. Don’t try and be clever, superior or blustering. Be upset, horrified, shocked at such a suggestion, but keep your reaction under control. Don’t annoy your interrogator, try to keep on their side. You know they are only doing their job, that sort of thing. Upset them, and they might well hand you on to the Germans.
“Again, if it’s just a German military bureaucrat, do the same: protest your innocence, but don’t upset or annoy them. Try and persuade them the stories must have been spread by someone who doesn’t like you for some reason, or it’s a case of mistaken identity. Keep to your story: you are innocent.
“The problem comes if the Gestapo take you in for questioning.”
Yes, I thought bitterly as I listened to the instructor, like Maximillian von Schnell with my father.
“The Gestapo are dangerous. The type of interrogator will change depending on the kind of person they think you are. Some will bully and threaten you. Others will appear to be gentle and kind, apologetic. Often they will mix the interrogators: first the bully, then the kind one, then the bully again. Sometimes they will put in an interrogator who seems really stupid and you think you can run rings round him. Don’t try. These are often the most dangerous types, because they are waiting to see if
they can trip you up.
“What they are after is not just you, they want the information you have: the names of the people you work with, and as much information as they can get from you about this organization. So they won’t kill you right away. But they will, once they feel they’ve got everything out of you that they can.
“I have to tell you that, once you get into the hands of the Gestapo, we will be able to do little to help you. All you can do is stick to your story of innocence, and hope they believe you. If they don’t, they will use every method at their disposal to get you to talk. That will include torture. It’s only fair that you know this before you embark on a mission. You can still pull out.”
None of us did. I had to admit I felt scared at the idea of being captured and tortured, scared to the point of feeling sick, but I’d come this far and I wasn’t backing out now. I was going to do everything I could to make sure the Germans paid for what they did to my father, and to my mother.
Our final training was parachute jumping. For this we were taken to the Parachute Training School at RAF Ringway near Manchester. I had to admit this was the part I hadn’t been looking forward to. I’d never been unduly worried about heights, but the idea of jumping out of a plane a couple of thousand feet high and relying on a piece of cloth to land safely made me very nervous. But to my surprise, I loved it! Hanging in the sky, learning to stay up for longer by manipulating the parachute, before landing was one of the most amazing experiences I’d ever known.
After parachute training, we were sent back home to await instructions. This was the hardest time for me. I was bursting to tell Aunt Abbey what I’d been up to the last four months, the incredible sense of power at being able to blow up a building, jump out of an aircraft, fire a machine gun, disarm an armed man with a kick and a chop of my hand, but I couldn’t. And I so wanted to tell her that I would be going behind enemy lines to help win this War, and I’d be doing it for Dad and for Mum and for her and for everyone in the country, and the whole of Europe. But again, I couldn’t say anything. Instead, I had to pretend to be lowly officer worker, Violet Debuchy, and chat away with her about mundane boring things, and pretend nothing out of the ordinary was happening for me. As we’d been instructed so many times: “You must never act in any way that makes people close to you wonder about you. Don’t be secretive, or suddenly extra-gossipy, if that wasn’t the ‘you’ before.”