by Kit Sergeant
Nora lifted her chin. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes.”
“Me too,” the other women chorused.
Philby nodded. “That’s the spirit.” Almost to himself, he added, “The spirit of Resistance.”
Chapter 56
Odette
True to his word, Bleicher did not return again. Odette’s days fell into a monotonous routine, broken only by intervals of staring at the window and speaking with Michelle.
The day she most feared occurred a week after she’d arrived at Fresnes. The day when the SS guard opened her door and shouted, “Tribunal!” Both Michelle and Bleicher had told Odette about this: it meant she would be taken to 84 Avenue Foch and grilled by the Gestapo. Michelle had also said that some women returned, but the woman who had occupied Cell 108 before Odette had not.
She dressed in her gray suit and ran her fingers through her hair, trying to untangle it as best she could. She was then bundled into a black, windowless van and driven down the tree-lined Avenue Foch. Number 84 was a beige edifice checkered with wrought-iron railing balconies. It had once been a residential building before the Gestapo had confiscated it and inside, with its marbled lobby and high ceilings, it still maintained its old grace.
Odette was taken to an upstairs room and instructed to wait. She must have been there for two or three hours before a tall man dressed in civilian clothes entered. He smelled strongly of cologne.
She had been told of these clean, non-uniformed Gestapo men. They had been handpicked by Himmler, the chief of the German Secret Police himself and their training in Himmler’s Geheime Staatspolizei school had been extensive. Odette knew their job was to make people talk, and she willed herself to not give anything away.
The man sat down and pulled out a pad of paper. “I have two questions for you.” He set a pen down and adjusted it so it sat perfectly parallel to the paper. “The first is this: where is your wireless operator, the man you call Alec?”
Odette’s response was simple. “I have nothing to say.”
“My second question is, where is Francis Cammaerts, the new head of Spindle?”
She repeated her previous statement.
He looked at her over the top of his glasses. “I find your parrot-like replies most irritating. Once again, tell me the location of your men, Roger and Alec.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “You have one minute to provide your answers.”
The silence that followed was almost worse than the stillness of Fresnes. Odette could hear the tick of his watch and counted to herself. At fifty-nine seconds, the man gave an expectant, “Well?”
“I have nothing to say.”
“That is very foolish of you. As you must know, we have ways of making you talk.”
“I do know,” she replied, feeling a drip of sweat make its way under her collar from the back of her hairline. “Do you think I came to France without knowledge of what you do to people?”
Another man entered the room and walked behind Odette. She could feel his presence but refused to look back. Suddenly he grabbed her arms and twisted them painfully behind her chair.
“Unbutton your blouse,” the first man commanded.
Odette did not move even as the second man released her.
“Unbutton your blouse,” he repeated, “or I will do it for you.”
With shaking fingers, Odette undid the first two buttons. The man behind her pushed her shirt down. She could feel cool air on her shoulders, but then a searing ache blazed down her spine, bringing tears to her eyes. She tried not to picture the hot poker being held to her vertebrae.
The first man’s voice seemed to come from somewhere very far away. “Where is Alec?”
She forced her voice to stay calm. “I have nothing to say.” She allowed herself a deep breath as the poker was removed, though her spine still burned.
He now approached her, his cologne tingling her nose. “You are still refusing to say anything?”
Odette nodded.
“Do you prefer to take off your nylons and shoes yourself?” He smiled, his white teeth glowing under the fluorescent light. “I can assure you, I am well versed in the art of removing female suspenders.”
“I will do it.” Slowly she slid her feet out of her shoes and unrolled her stockings before readjusting her gray skirt.
The interrogator gestured to his colleague. “Stefan here is going to rip your toenails out one by one, starting with the little toe of your left foot as I repeat my questions. As soon as you give us a satisfactory answer, he will stop.”
The other man came around to kneel down beside Odette’s legs. He glanced up and Odette saw that he had large brown eyes. She was not overly surprised to note that he, too, was handsome. He didn’t make eye contact with her, seeming to look past her, and Odette found his detached manner alarming. With freezing hands, he took her left foot and placed steel pincers at the tip of her nail.
“Where is Alec?” the other man demanded.
Odette shook her head. More than six weeks had passed since her and Peter’s arrest. Surely Alec had heard by now and made the appropriate arrangements to disappear. She could give them his former location in Saint-Jorioz and the Gestapo would most likely find no trace of him there. One address and this would end.
But refusing to give these men what they wanted had become a match of wills Odette was determined to win. She glanced down to see the blood emerge from the cuticle as her nail was pulled out. Her little toe felt as though it was on fire before a coolness settled over it.
“Where did Roger go?”
Odette tried to summon her customary answer, but no sound came out. The interrogator nodded at her torturer, who opened his pincers to drop her toenail onto the ground.
The agony spread to her next toe, and then the next. Trois, quatre, cinq. The perfumed man’s voice was once again far away. Now the burning extended to her other foot. Six, sept, huit. Odette bit her lip until it too began to bleed. Neuf, dix.
In a few minutes, it was all over and the kneeling man stood and glanced at his superior, who shrugged.
Odette gazed first at the bloodied spectacle of her feet and then at the pile of pale ovals on the floor, counting them to herself. Ten. They had removed every one of her toenails. She was grateful that she had lost the power of speech, so intense was the pain. Now they will never know the answers to their questions.
The interrogator put his hands in his pockets. “Though I didn’t take you for a fainter, I am surprised at your endurance. Congratulations, Lise, you’ve made it this far.” He looked at the other man, who still held the blood-soaked pincers in his hand. “Stefan, why don’t you fetch her a cup of tea?”
A wave of nausea washed over Odette and she squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself not to throw up. The wave passed, and she opened her eyes to see the perfumed man staring at her. “Well,” he asked. “How do you feel?”
Though her tongue felt as though it were coated with sawdust, she managed to eke out a reply. “I have nothing to say.”
“Conversationally, you have become quite a bore to me. No doubt you feel somewhat heroic for managing to not reveal anything. At the same time, you must think of me as a monster.” He sat in the chair beside her. “But you are wrong. I am a servant of my Führer, Adolf Hitler, and I do not regret what I do.”
She gazed at him, thinking that he was the one who was mistaken: he was indeed a monster, as hideous as Hitler himself. “It is interesting to me that you consider it necessary to defend what you have just done.” The speech was an enormous effort, but she refused to show him how much it cost her.
“We Germans do not need to make excuses to inferiors. Last night your RAF dropped thousands of bombs upon Dortmund. I do not know how many good German men, women, and children were killed or are hurt, but I do know that I care nothing for the sufferings of a single, obstinate Frenchwoman.” He stood, towering over her. “Are you going to answer my questions?”
“No.”
“Then it is time fo
r your fingers to receive the same treatment as your toes.”
Odette looked dully at her fingernails as another man in civilian clothes entered the room. He glanced down at the drying blood on the floor and then at Odette’s feet before turning to the perfumed man and speaking rapidly in German.
Her interrogator gave a resigned shrug as the other turned and walked out, the crunching of one of Odette’s toenails audible under his jackboot.
The perfumed man’s tone was slightly defeated as he informed Odette, “That was my major. He says that you will never talk and I am wasting my time. While I do not agree with him, I have no choice but to take you back upstairs.”
Odette’s torturer entered the room carrying a steaming cup. The perfumed man barked at him as Odette gathered her shoes and stockings. “You will find it more convenient to walk on your heels for some time,” the interrogator said before he left the room.
The other man, Stefan, held the door open for her, his hands stained with Odette’s blood. “Après vous,” he said in perfect French. It was with even more horror that Odette realized she had just had her toenails ripped out by a fellow countryman.
Chapter 57
Mathilde
Though London in spring was quite pretty, Mathilde began to chafe from boredom. Lucas had yet to return, and everything she did was scrutinized by Mrs. Brown, the woman who replaced Didi. She didn’t even have the courtesy to buy Mathilde flowers for her birthday. And for that matter, neither did Lord Selbourne, whose affection had cooled quite considerably in the weeks following the reception at Claridge’s.
The day after her, rather uneventful, birthday, Mathilde was relaxing with a glass of wine when there was a knock on her door. “Can you get that please, chérie?” she asked Mrs. Brown.
“I think you should,” was the terse reply.
With a sigh, Mathilde got up from her perch to find two plain-clothes men standing in the hallway.
“May we come in, Mrs. Carré?” one of them asked.
She swung her arm in a welcoming gesture, the ostrich feathers from the sleeve of her robe fluttering. “Of course.”
The men looked uncomfortable once inside. The shorter one pulled at his collar as he said, “We’ve come to arrest you.”
“Pardonnez-moi?”
The taller man stepped forward. “You’re being arrested by order of the SOE.”
Mathilde tightened the belt of her robe. “Is this from Colonel Buckmaster? He would never dare…”
“Yes, that’s exactly right.” The shorter man seemed to have regained his confidence as he declared, “Major Buckmaster decided you are a danger to our missions in France and that, according to Article 12-5A of the Aliens Order, you must be detained.”
“Here in England? Why? I could understand if maybe Hitler wanted my arrest, but not His Majesty.”
“I don’t know all the details, other than, yes, you will stay here in England for the duration of the war.”
“The duration of the war? Who knows how long that will last?” She decided to try to reason with them. “This is all just a misunderstanding. If you would please just contact Lucas, you’ll see.”
“Lucas has been captured,” Mrs. Brown called from the kitchen. “But even if he were here now, I don’t think he’d vouch for you.”
Mathilde stamped her foot. “Whatever do you mean? Lucas trusted me implicitly.”
She could barely hear Mrs. Brown’s mumbled reply. “You’re not the only one who can use charm to deceive people.”
The shorter man glanced over at his companion before stating, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Carré, but if you’ll come with us now, there will be no need for handcuffs.”
“Of course there’s no need for handcuffs.” She was fully aware that if she protested, they’d take her against her will, and without ample time to pack her things. As she swept by them on her way to the bedroom, she asked rhetorically, “What do you think I am, some kind of criminal?”
Neither man replied as they started to follow her. She shut the bedroom door in their faces.
She threw a few things into a suitcase, including the robe she was wearing, the dress she’d worn to the Claridge’s reception, and the necklace Bleicher had given her. She decided to leave on her customary black silk pajamas in lieu of changing. Finally she opened the bedroom door and announced, “If you insist on arresting me, I am ready.”
Mrs. Brown could hardly contain her look of glee as the two men led Mathilde out of the apartment.
Chapter 58
Didi
Didi was summoned back to Buckmaster’s office a few days after the interrogation practice. Once again she was told to sit in a cushioned chair while Buckmaster sat behind his desk. He started by saying, “I’ve heard the recording of your inquiry training.”
She folded her shaking hands in her lap. “Oh?”
“You were so convincing I couldn’t tell when, or even if, you were lying.”
“Does that mean I’ve passed?” Didi was so nervous she could barely get the words out.
Buckmaster laughed. “I’d be a fool to fail you. Not only are you one of our best wireless operators, but you lie seamlessly. On top of which, your sister’s field work has been extremely valuable for the SOE.”
Didi didn’t see how Jackie’s success had any bearing on her own prospects, but she nodded anyway.
Buckmaster turned serious. “You do know this is no ordinary job: there will be no time off for holidays, no regular hours, and you will not be able to contact anyone here on a regular basis.”
“I know that. Besides,” she shrugged, “I don’t really have anyone to keep in touch with.”
“And your mission is what we refer to as ‘unacknowledgeable.’ We obviously cannot claim you as an SOE operative, for that would admit to Hitler that there is such an organization.” He lifted his eyebrows in inquiry. “You’ve heard of Hitler’s Nacht und Nebel decree?”
“Yes.” Didi’s voice was soft. “Night and Fog. If you are captured as a suspected member of the Resistance, his secret forces will make sure you disappear.”
“We’ve lost a few members of the SOE already. Miss Atkins is, of course, trying her best to find them, but the trail is hard to pick up. The Geneva Convention offers no protection for spies.”
“I know.”
He cleared his throat. “Well, I just wanted to make sure you are fully aware of what you are getting into, especially in light of…” he paused. “Well, as I’m sure you know, our losses have been especially heavy lately.”
“Yes, sir. I’m fully aware, and I’m ready to do my duty for the Allies.”
“Good.” He reached into his desk drawer and took out a heavy envelope with the words TOP SECRET stamped on it. “This is everything you need to know about the person you’ll become in France: where you were born, your birth date and star sign, your brothers and sisters, et cetera. Memorize it down to the last detail and then burn the whole darn thing.”
“Yes, sir,” she repeated.
“To summarize, your new identity will be Jacqueline du Tetre, a rather empty-headed shopgirl. You will travel with your new boss, Jean Savy, who is to become the head of the Wizard circuit in a suburb just outside of Paris. There you will help Savy in his mission to raise Resistance support in preparation for an Allied landing in France.”
“Yes, sir. Will I be receiving parachute training then?”
“No,” Buckmaster replied, a bit cryptically, Didi thought. “Jean has no use for a parachute.” He reached into the pocket of his trousers and pulled out a small velvet box. “This is for you.”
“What is it?”
“Just a little thank you from Miss Atkins and me. It’s not much, but it might come in handy one day.”
Inside was a gold cigarette case containing an unfamiliar brand of cigarettes.
“Those are Gauloises,” he told her. “I suppose it’s worth mentioning that you can’t smoke your English brand over there.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome. And good luck, Miss Nearne.”
Buckmaster was right about Jean Savy: it turned out her new boss had a handicap: his left arm was much shorter than the other, and his left fingers were fused together.
Savy caught Didi staring at his arm the first time they met. “I know what you are thinking: how can a spy work under the radar with such a glaring deformity?”
“No, not at all,” Didi replied, though that was exactly what she was thinking.
“I’m also a fairly well-known lawyer in Paris, so there’s no sense in using a codename. I just have to outwit the Gestapo the best I can. Don’t you worry about me… I can shoot a gun just fine,” he said, lifting his disfigured arm in the air.
“Never mind that,” Didi said. “Are you going to tell me I’m too young for this position?”
Savy chuckled. “A child and a cripple. We make quite the pair, don’t we? Buckmaster is going to be thoroughly surprised when we establish the best underground network in France.”
“I don’t think he’ll be too surprised, after all, he’s the one that gave us the job.”
“Not that he had much of a choice, with the networks floundering as quickly as they do nowadays.” He laughed again, as if to take away the ominous meaning of his words, but Didi felt her heart start to pound anyway. “What’s your guise?” he asked.
“Jacqueline du Tetre, a boutique clerk with a weakness for cheap wine.”
“That was prompt.”
She shrugged, acting as nonchalant as she could, though last night she’d practiced in front of the mirror for hours. She decided to change the subject. “How long have you worked for the Resistance?”
“Since it began, really. I believe we have a mutual friend.”
Didi expected him to mention Jackie, but he named Adele instead. “She introduced me to France Antelme, of the Bricklayer circuit, who then brought me to Buckmaster.” He frowned. “One of the first things on my docket when I get back to Paris is to find Antelme. No one has heard from him in weeks. His new courier, Martine, also went missing as soon as she was dropped in.”