by Kit Sergeant
“What’s the solution?” Mathilde asked. “Our people are working hard enough already.”
“It’s the communications.” Armand went to his wall map and stared intently at it. “There’s got to be a better way.” He tapped his finger first on Paris and then on London. “I’m going to Marseille in a few days to meet up with some London agents. Maybe they can help.”
Armand returned from Marseille with a large suitcase in addition to his small bag.
“What’s that?” Mathilde inquired as he hoisted the case onto the desk, not without effort.
“It’s a transmitting set,” Armand replied proudly. “Take a look.” He snapped open the suitcase, revealing a black box full of dials and gadgets. “I met an English agent named George Noble,” he went on while he fidgeted with one of the dials. “It seems that Baker Street, home of the SOE, has come up with a coding system to use for their agents. And get this…” he grinned. “The BBC is going to regularly transmit messages during their evening broadcast.”
Mathilde’s mouth dropped open. “How? The Boches monitor it constantly.” The Vichy government and the Germans had tried to ban listening to the BBC in favor of a Nazi-propaganda program called ‘Radio Paris;’ an effort stunted in no small part by the BBC slogan: ‘Radio Paris lies, Radio Paris is German.’ Most of Interallié’s contacts, like Mathilde and Armand, covertly tuned in to the BBC every night. The announcer ended every broadcast with les messages personnels from natives stranded in England to relatives back home in France. It was like a light shining on an otherwise darkened Paris, reconnecting it briefly to the rest of the world.
“The directive will be encrypted, of course,” Armand explained. “It will sound like a personal message, or even nonsensical to Nazi ears, but will make complete sense to the right person.”
Just then, the doorbell rang the signal and Mathilde opened it to find two burly men standing in the hallway.
“Ahh, wonderful timing,” Armand stated. “Marcel and Kent, I’d like you to meet ‘Madame la Chatte,’ my business partner.” He turned to Mathilde. “Kent is going to help us get the wireless working and Marcel will be our operator.”
Marcel nodded at Mathilde as he set up at Armand’s desk. He took out a pen and several pieces of perfectly square paper. “What shall our first message to London be?”
Armand paced up and down the small room. “How about, ‘From Interallié STOP very happy to establish the direct link STOP.’”
Marcel nodded as he started writing a series of numbers on one of the cards. Kent fiddled with the transmitter as Armand stood over him. Mathilde decided to leave them to their work while she went out to queue for bread.
When she returned, Armand told her Kent had left to go scrounge up more parts, but they were ready to send the message. Mathilde and Armand watched anxiously as Marcel tapped away on the Morse key.
“Is it working?” Armand asked when he had stopped tapping, but Marcel held up a finger with one hand while keeping the other clamped to his headset, appearing to listen to something. He motioned for his pen and Mathilde placed it, along with one of the square pieces of paper, in his hand. He furiously copied something down before signing off.
Mathilde peered at the sheet as Marcel handed it to Armand. It appeared to be a string of letters in groups of five.
Armand grabbed B. Kieski’s Dictionary before sitting on the couch. He started by subtracting numbers then rapidly turned pages in the dictionary. Mathilde fetched him a cup of tea while he worked. Finally he pushed the paper toward Mathilde. “We did it, Lily!”
She picked up their first decoded message and read it aloud: “To Interallié STOP Congratulations, we’re receiving you.”
Armand stood up and enveloped Mathilde in his arms. “We did it!” he repeated before planting a kiss on her cheek.
“The reception was perfect,” Marcel stated.
Armand released Mathilde to get back to business. “How many transmissions do you think you can make a day?”
Marcel thought for a moment. “We can fix up to four times a day. I suggest no more than five to ten minutes at a time, but I could convey about a hundred groups of figures that way.”
“That’s still four hundred words a day.” Armand’s voice was shrill as he shook his head in amazement. “Direct contact with London with four hundred words to send them.” He took a sip of tea. “What about safety?”
Marcel went to the wireless case. “I have quartz crystals for four different wavelengths. I will change the wavelength every two or three minutes, so even with such a strong transmitter, provided we work rapidly with short intervals, I think we can avoid detection.”
Mathilde made dinner as Armand and Marcel discussed ideal places from which to transmit. She had mostly tuned their voices out, but still overheard them agreeing that Mathilde and Armand’s apartment was unsuitable for operating the radio set.
In due time, Mathilde found a more accommodating apartment on the Colonel Moll with an extra room that Marcel could use for transmissions. Their new landlady had claimed to have a hatred for Germans—as she told it, they thrust a bayonet into her buttocks when they had first entered Paris—but that didn’t stop her from renting the apartment across from Mathilde and Armand’s to some Boches. Members of the Gestapo, if Mathilde was interpreting their uniforms right.
Armand seemed merely amused by their close proximity to the enemy; nevertheless, it made Mathilde nervous, especially given the presence of the wireless. She settled for keeping the radio playing dance music day in and day out and tasked one of their contacts with the duty of listening to the BBC and reporting any important messages.
Though her work and the presence of Armand kept her warm in their little apartment, the weather that fall became frigid and there was not enough coal in the city to go around. One particularly chilly evening, when Mathilde was queuing for food outside a butcher’s shop in the avenue d’Orleans, she had a sudden memory of when she had first moved to North Africa with her husband. She never thought that she—a graduate of the Sorbonne—would end up a teacher, married to the destitute headmaster of a European school in Ain-Sefra, Algeria. The first night they arrived in Africa, Mathilde had watched the sun set beyond the sand dunes, which had turned a bright scarlet, in contrast to the deep blue hue filling the rest of the sky as night fell. She’d thought then that everything would be all right, but when she returned to their cramped new apartment, she felt immediately stifled, a sentiment that never changed during the five years she’d been married.
She now gave an involuntary shiver, not from the cold, as the line moved forward. She might be hungry and freezing, but even in Occupied France, she had more freedom than when she’d been living with her husband. Though it was one of the frostiest Octobers anyone could remember, she’d found her place in the sun through Interallié, not to mention Armand. And she wouldn’t trade that for anything, not even a lifetime of warm weather and clear skies.
Identity papers were among the most important precautions with which Interallié armed its agents. Boby Roland, the policeman husband of Mathilde’s friend Mireille Lejeune, provided Armand with blank identity cards straight from the offices of the Prefect of Police. Another contact contributed the proper stamps, and Armand spent several long nights creating false identity cards for some of their contacts, using his own forged ID as an example.
He told Mathilde the next day that he’d had a scare as he was stepping off a Metro train. A policeman had demanded his papers, and Armand had opened his wallet only to find it empty. Too late, he realized he had mistakenly placed his own card in the apartment safe the last time he’d locked up his extra cards and stamps.
“What did the policeman do?” Mathilde after she finished rinsing the dinner dishes.
“He held the whistle up to his mouth, but he didn’t blow it. He just stared at me, and after what felt like an eternity, he waved me on my way.”
“What would you have done if he had whistled for more policemen?” She
wiped her hands on a towel. “Would you have run?”
Armand looked thoughtful. “I don’t rightly know. I suppose you never know what you would do in a dangerous situation like that until it actually happens.”
“I guess not.” She opened the closet door and retrieved her coat.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to the store. After a scare like that, I think you could use some good tea and biscuits.”
“Wait.” He got up from his desk to pull a box down from the closet. “Open it,” he told Mathilde. The box contained a shabby black fur coat.
“I know it’s not much to look at, but it will keep you warm,” Armand said.
She tried it on, admiring the way the coat matched her dark hair in the hallway mirror. “Where did you get it?”
“Remember that widow I told you about? The one who saved my life?”
Mathilde nodded.
“It was hers—I found it when I was unpacking. It’s too small for me, obviously, but it did its job. And now it will do it again, for you.”
“Thank you, Toto.”
Chapter 10
Odette
Once their initial training was completed, Odette, Jackie, Adele, and Claudine were sent to “finishing school” at Lord Montagu’s mansion among the vast trees of New Forest. Odette was beginning to think that the SOE really stood for “Stately Old Estates,” with all the old manors being requisitioned to train secret agents.
She did have to admit that the large grounds provided good cover for the would-be saboteurs while they were mastering outdoorsy skills such as canoeing, navigating through the woods using constellations as their guide, and cooking rabbits and chickens pilfered from neighboring coops.
The endless lectures continued as well. One day Odette and the other women sat in the library as their instructor pointed to the picture of a Boche on a colored chart. “Claudine, who’s this chap and what do his badges of rank mean?”
Claudine blinked rapidly as she thought. “He’s a feldwebel in the Luftwaffe.”
“Jacqueline, what’s the medal on his chest?”
“Iron Cross, Second Class,” Jackie promptly replied.
“And Adele, what about this one?” He gestured to another picture.
“He’s an oberleutnant in the Panzergrenadiers.”
“Céline, what about his medal ribbons?”
Odette shrugged, breaking the rhythm. “I don’t think that medal ribbons are of any importance.”
He tapped his hand with his pointer impatiently. “Your opinion does not happen to be shared by the staff. Céline, I must insist you pay attention to what we, the experts, know to be of importance.”
“Yes, sir,” Odette replied.
He fixed his unblinking gaze on her. “Can you tell the class about the topographical requirements for a Lysander pick-up?”
That was an easy one. “I would look for a flat field with a hard surface for it to land and no trees or poles or ditches around. The field would have to be at least six hundred yards long and four hundred yards wide. I would arrange for the pick-up to take place under a full moon.”
“It is London who organizes the pick-ups and drop-offs,” he answered dryly.
Odette frowned as the lecturer asked Jackie about the requirements to land a Hudson bomber. It was beginning to seem as though she could do nothing right.
They were always being watched, especially at mealtimes, by men in clipboards, who carefully noted which spoon they used for eating soup or how they cut their meat. It was essential to do everything the “French way,” for as soon as someone suspected they were British agents, they would find themselves under arrest.
It seemed the only place the men with the clipboards were blissfully absent from was their psychiatric evaluations. Odette’s doctor, a balding, bespectacled man in his late 40s, used a pad of paper to document everything she said and did. Sometimes he would show her ink-splattered pictures and record what she claimed to see, but other times he would just fire questions at her, like today. “Tell me your biggest fear.”
“Something happening to my children.”
He waved his hand. “That’s every mother’s biggest fear. I’m talking about recurring nightmares, the ones you’ve had all your life. Some people fear snakes, some twisters, some falling from heights. What keeps you up at night?”
She hesitated this time, weighing her words. “The dark.”
He picked up his pen. “Just being in the dark?”
Odette shook her head, thinking about those three years she spent completely blind, her vision robbed from her by polio. Her mother had dragged her from doctor to doctor, finally hiring an herbalist—some might have called him a “witch doctor”—who had provided a curing elixir. Once Odette’s sight had returned, the unnerving dreams began. “I’m running through a forest.”
The doctor started scribbling. “Go on.”
“Something is chasing me, some sort of beast, but I can’t see it. I have to make it through the woods, but there are trees everywhere and it’s so dark, and the beast is on my trail, I can hear its breath coming closer…” She stopped and pinched the inside of her hand to bring herself back to reality.
He nodded as if satisfied with her response. He flipped his pad to a clean page. “Tell me about your husband. Your instructors say you never mention him.”
“We’re required to remain undercover here, remember? We’re not supposed to disclose anything from our real lives.”
“Yes, but no one sees you pull out his picture and kiss it before you go to bed at night, or peek twice at a man who reminds you of him. It’s as if you were never married.”
“I don’t talk about my children, either. We’re not supposed to,” she repeated.
He pointed the tip of his pen at her. “Your face softened when you mentioned them just now. The same cannot be said regarding your husband. How old were you when you got married?”
“Young,” Odette replied, grateful for the distracting conversation. “I was barely eighteen, and twenty when Françoise was born.” She smiled to herself. “The night we married, I panicked about going away from home for my honeymoon, and made my mother and new mother-in-law go to the cinema with me instead.”
“You didn’t have a father growing up.” He folded his hands in front of him. “Your early marriage was an attempt to fill the male void in your life, but you don’t like to have any man dictate what to do. You were relieved when he went off to war so you could have your autonomy back. If he died, you will grieve for a bit, but gradually realize your life is more fulfilled without him.”
Odette stood. “Are we quite done?”
“For now.” He picked up his pen again.
“What’s the point of these evaluations, anyway?”
“We’re trying to make sure you have the right kind of grit, that you won’t go to pieces under the intense pressure of living undercover in France.”
“And what does any of that have to do with how I feel about my husband? And, by the way, you are completely wrong about him.”
His pen moved even more rapidly. “It has a lot to do with it. And I don’t believe I’m wrong at all.”
Odette left his office, shutting the door behind her with a little more force than necessary.
Early the next morning, Odette was jostled awake by someone shoving her. She opened her eyes to an intense light shining in her face.
“Get up!” a man in a black mask shouted.
Odette, suspecting that it was just another test, wanted to retort that she was tired and needed her sleep to get through the rest of her training, but then she saw other men in black hauling Jackie out of the room. She was shouting curses at them in French.
The men took Odette into one of the downstairs rooms and pushed her into a chair.
“What is your name?” one of the men demanded in a gruff voice.
The light was back in her eyes. “Céline,” she replied automatically.
She heard a
trigger cock. The spotlight prevented her from seeing the gun, but she could sense that it was aimed at her head. If this was a training exercise, it was certainly an authentic one. Odette’s heart was beating at a terrifying pace and she could feel pinpricks of sweat forming on her forehead under the heat of the lamp. “What do you want with me?”
“What is your real name and what is your occupation?”
“I told you, my name is Céline, and I’m just a widow from Somerset.”
The light left her face for just a second as the man holding it gestured to another, who came up behind Odette, cracking his knuckles.
The cajoling, blinding light, and threats continued for over an hour, but Odette never wavered. Finally, as the sun ascended above the horizon, they switched off the spotlight. Odette blinked several times as the men removed their masks to reveal themselves as Major de Wesselow, her Morse instructor, and the Greek Adonis from the Wanborough Manor tennis courts.
“You did well, Céline,” de Wesselow told her.
She rose to her feet, planting her hands on the desk. “What gives you the right—”
“It’s just part of the training,” de Wesselow interrupted, waving his hand as if the experience they’d put her through had been no big deal.
The alcohol that evening, as with most evenings in finishing school, flowed freely in the parlor. Odette, not usually one to partake, asked the bartender for a glass of wine.
When she noticed the normally reticent Jackie doing the same, Odette took her arm and led her to a remote corner. “Did you…” she trailed off with a glance around the room.
“Yes. You?” Jackie replied.
“With the major and the Morse and tennis guys.”
“I had Roger and the psychiatrist.”
“Only two? Lucky.” Odette took a sip of wine. “Who’s Roger again?”
As if on cue, the dark-haired man who’d informed Odette that London—not her—arranged for bomber pick-ups appeared. “You’ll have to forgive us, of course,” he told the two of them. “We want to make sure that you don’t break under pressure.”