She was in a sombre mood that night when I sat with her by the fire, but I decided to broach the subject head on.
‘He’s changed since my last visit,’ I said gently.
She nodded, and I waited as she gathered herself to speak. ‘Everything is changing,’ she said. ‘It’s more than just old age and all that it brings with it.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
‘Well, the big change happened not long before your mother arrived here. Before the Great War, we could always find ten strong and able-bodied people to work the big field. Whenever a big storm passed through, the sea-wrack would be piled up three foot high along the shore, and we knew we had to get it onto the field before the next high tide came and took it away again. It was a struggle, right enough – long days with the wicker basket and the strap around our foreheads, carrying the stinking wet stuff up to the big field to mix with the manure from the byre – but it was so good for the soil. Then the Bochan or Mairi’s husband would work the garron and plough it in.’
I smiled. ‘Hard work.’
‘But good work. Productive work. Look at it now!’ She cast her arm in the direction of the big field. ‘The drain is filling in, the fence always needing patches. We can’t handle cattle with rushes and ragwort everywhere. Soon it will all be good for nothing. And there’s nothing to be done.’
I departed the following night with a heavy heart. I hadn’t realised how low spirits were at home. The winter had been hard, and with Grandfather so poorly everyone was worried. More than once, the conversation about moving to Arisaig had come up. ‘We must be the last people in Lochaber in black houses,’ Mother had said. ‘Even on Knoydart, that dreadful Nazi supporter Lord Brocket has rebuilt the houses.’
I couldn’t help but wonder, as I switched off the berth light in my sleeper compartment and settled down to sleep, whether there would be a community at Peanmeanach for me to return to.
*
My next stop was to rejoin the Lovat Scouts in Wales, where Sandy Wedderburn had been posted and had asked for me to be transferred to help train the battalion for its new role as a mountain recce regiment. I was enthusiastic, knowing that at last it was a role that the Scouts felt fitted them like a glove. The course was run by the commandos, so Sandy and I knew many of the instructors already, from Lochailort and Achnacarry. We had a fine month, climbing every mountain of merit in Wales, many of them at night. I was reunited with my old platoon commander Andrew MacDonald, now a captain. I had a lot to thank him for, because it was he who had encouraged me to join the special forces in the first place.
Andrew and I had a lot in common: three generations of being family friends. One evening, over a hard-to-find dram, I related to him tales of my father’s year in Canna helping my grandmother’s cousin distill the finest illegal whisky in Scotland. He was a handsome fellow with startling light-blue eyes and a ready smile, and he loved the people of the Highlands, seeming to know the history of all our men and who their fathers and wives were.
At the end of our Welsh training Sandy Wedderburn was made second-in-command of the Scouts, and it was he who petitioned for me to join the battalion in Canada, making the case that I should be made training officer as few in the British Army had the experience I had. I was delighted to be going. Andrew and I thumbed through an atlas to see where the camp in Jasper was in relation to Cape Breton, for not only did my Aunt Sheena and Françoise’s parents live there but Andrew’s cousins, too. I was dismayed to see that they were about three thousand miles apart. I was probably closer to Cape Breton now than I would be in the Rockies.
I wouldn’t be sailing with the battalion to Canada until after Christmas. I was to spend two weeks with the Norwegian SOE at Glenmore Lodge. I had never come across a Norwegian I didn’t like or who hadn’t impressed me; they had quite a reputation in the SOE. Many of them had escaped from occupied Norway by way of the fishing boats that operated what was called the ‘Shetland bus’, taking munitions across to the Milorg, their Resistance movement, and bringing back men to fight for the UK-based Royal Norwegian Army. Their SOE unit was called the Linge Company, after their commander who had died during a mission.
There were many stories of their bravery; for example, their ascent of a supposedly unclimbable six-hundred-foot cliff and subsequent destruction of the heavy-water power plant at Vemork, needed by the Germans in their development of a nuclear reactor. This had taken place only eight months before, and had demonstrated ingenious use of timed explosives to sink the ferry carrying what remained of the heavy water. The British contingent, codenamed ‘Grouse’ had been cooped up for three months in the depths of the Arctic winter before the Linge men had arrived. This heady combination of skiing, climbing and blowing things up appealed to me a great deal.
I arrived at Glenmore in early December, my arrival coinciding with a visit to the Linge Company by the Norwegian King Haakon and his son Crown Prince Olav. They had arrived at Aviemore by train and spent two days at the Lodge with their men. I took Prince Olav to shoot an out-of-season stag on the Rothiemurchus estate one blustery day. Sleet was driving horizontally across the hill and we were soaked to the skin within an hour. We tramped up and down several hills, but the conditions just weren’t right. However, I eventually found Prince Olav a beast in the dusk. He shot it at one hundred and seventy yards and was delighted. The stag was an old ten-pointer that we had passed on the way up the glen and I’d had him earmarked in case we had no joy further up.
The bedraggled but exhilarated prince returned to his father, with his face crimson from the stag’s blood. I had blooded him in the traditional way.
They were now running late for the London sleeper from Aviemore, so I had to drive them in an old jeep at full speed to get them there on time. What the other passengers must have thought when the blood-soaked royal and his father climbed aboard I can only imagine. The prince had loved his stalking and I was impressed with him. Despite the atrocious conditions, he was keen to come out with me again and so we exchanged addresses. As we parted I promised to get the stag’s head mounted on a plaque and delivered to them in London. No man would have slept more soundly on the sleeper south that night than Crown Prince Olav.
I was determined to learn as much as I could from the Norwegians. Every spare minute I had, I pestered them with questions about what they were doing: how best to wax skis, how they dug a snow hole to survive in the mountains, how to fish through ice holes, even how to manage working huskies (although, regrettably, the dogs they had brought over were shot by a local farmer for killing sheep).
With the Norwegian patrols we covered vast distances, over to Fort William to carry out a mock sabotage of the British Aluminium plant, to Falkirk to ‘destroy’ the Carron ironworks. They managed distances that in my opinion would be impossible to the normal soldier; I was gaining a lifelong fondness for these people.
They were serious men, not many jokes, but strong, determined and always planning for the long term. I noted that, for the rest of the SOE, civilian casualties were seen as the cost of war and inevitable whereas the Norwegians were simply not prepared to accept any. I admired their conviction and thought we could learn from it.
One night there was a dance in Grantown-on-Spey so we loaded up two truckloads of Linge men. I knew an old Lovat Scouts friend of my father who lived up behind Cluny and had an illicit still, and he generously acquiesced when I asked him to part with a dozen bottles of his notoriously rough whisky for the event.
I’ll never forget the women’s faces when all these tall, blond, blue-eyed, strapping young men sauntered into the hall. Soon, with the whisky going down fast and the men loosening up, there was no holding them back. There were three of us instructors who knew the dances and we soon had the soldiers and their willing partners doing the Dashing White Sergeant and Perthshire Reel. I borrowed one of the bandmember’s pipes, and soon there was an Eightsome Reel in full swing. The Norwegians did their own version, much to everyone’s amusement, and I
later heard the talk in Strathspey was of little else for months.
One Norwegian officer, having enjoyed a dram too many, confided that he was reluctant ever to go home. He’d been spending his free time poaching deer and salmon, loved the whisky and the dancing, and had fallen for a girl in the village to boot. We touched glasses, raised them in the elaborate Norwegian way, and said skol before knocking back yet another measure.
I then had to head back to London. I was keen to go; it had been eight long months since Françoise had been captured, with no news whatsoever, and I wanted to make another visit to the SOE and Red Cross. The latter, who prided themselves on keeping track of which prisoners were at which POW camps, again told me that they had no Françoise Villeneuve or Sophie Lacroix listed. If there was a French person in a French prison they wouldn’t be told anyway, so I clung to the hope that Françoise’s story had borne out. Being an SOE agent in a German jail spelled death.
After all my distractions and escapades up north, my mood sank. Every night I got on my knees and prayed for her safe return, but in truth I knew I would have to face the fact that she was dead. Right now, there seemed to be no more straws to clutch.
I had been debating for a long time whether to write to her parents and now, as I threw myself despairingly onto my bed at the Gubbinses’, I decided to throw caution to the winds.
17th December 1943
Dear Doctor and Mrs Lacroix,
I had the pleasure of getting to know your daughter during her time in London. I suspect you will have received the dreaded official letter; today I spoke again to the authorities here and fear that she is no longer alive.
Your daughter was a delight to me; amusing, intelligent and tender. She touched my heart in the short time we were together, and if we had had longer I dare to think she would have grown fond of me.
God bless you both.
Yours truly,
Captain Donald Angus Gillies
Lovat Scouts
Not long afterwards I went to Oxford University to spend Christmas brushing up my French-language skills. To my surprise I found myself enjoying it for the first time. Although I’d always been pretty quick at picking up languages, my experience in the field had highlighted my deficiencies and caused me to lose confidence in my abilities. The course was expertly taught and I knew that it would make all the difference to my ability to work with the Resistance. Clear communication was critical.
There were twenty of us on the course, ranging from female wireless operators to Foreign Office staff and a few soldiers. We had twelve hours of studying a day with native French instructors, not a word of English spoken, and there was homework at night.
A Christmas lunch was held in the dining room at Balliol College, a truly beautiful building in a lovely city. The College really went to town on our behalf with roast turkey and all the trimmings followed by Christmas pudding and, as I was informed by the professor who sat to my left, the best of their wine from their renowned cellar. It was as if rationing didn’t exist. Later, my face flushed from the jolly company and wine, I sloped guiltily back to my comfortable digs, doing my best not to think about all those in the trenches with their meagre ration packs.
Chapter 11
Françoise, Fresnes Prison
As the day of my trial approached, I had become reconciled to the likelihood of being transferred to a harsher prison and then execution. Alexandre, my lawyer, was not interested; he was merely going through the motions. I guessed he must have been paid per trial, and a nominal sum at that. I learned that prisoners who left to be tried for crimes against the Germans never came back, so we had no idea what happened next. We could only assume the worst. Most of the inmates were there for petty civilian crimes – theft, assault, avoiding the STO draft.
Shortly after I arrived, one inmate, who was believed to be the head of the Maquis in Paris, heard about my exploits and offered to meet me. I was thereafter feted by many of the other prisoners, once word got out that I had killed a high-ranking German officer. I met the man briefly in the food hall and we exchanged polite greetings. My hunch was that he was just curious.
Beatings and rapes were daily occurrences in Fresnes. The guards would swagger about the prison administering random beatings. My all-women cell was a haven of peace and protection in this tense environment, and we seldom ventured out. As well as the fear of violence, hygiene was non-existent and our diet was miserable. I felt weaker every day. Some lucky prisoners had food sent in by relatives, and occasionally Red Cross parcels arrived, although they were often confiscated by the guards or the gangs. We had heard that the people of Paris were starving, with rats and squirrels being hunted for food. In addition, summer got into its stride and the heat became unbearable in our tiny cell. We didn’t get outside at all. One small comfort was that, after all the massage and exercises I’d doggedly persisted with, my feet were much better. They were still disfigured, but I could walk now without too much pain.
On the day of the trial, seven of us were handcuffed, herded into an unmarked van, and locked in. The senior Maquis man was among us; he and I nodded at each other. Vichy armed guards climbed into the front and we set off.
We sat in silence for a long time as the van made its way to the courthouse, but suddenly there was an almighty crash and we were thrown to the floor by the impact. Then there was the sound of rapid gunfire. One of the prisoners screamed; he’d been hit by a bullet which had come through the van. It was pandemonium. The back door flew open to reveal Resistance fighters framed in the bright sunlight.
‘Come on! Go, go, go!’ they shouted.
The Maquis leader stumbled out, then disappeared around the side of the van and that was it. It was all over in seconds. The rest of us were left sitting in dazed silence. Silent Parisians watched nervously from a distance.
I saw my opportunity. I jumped out of the van, landed painfully, and hobbled as quickly as I could up an alleyway. How long would I last before being turned in, with my hands cuffed and a prison uniform on? I had to get clear of the area now. It would soon be swarming with police and soldiers. A woman’s voice called out: ‘Miss! Miss! Here!’
I turned my head to see a young woman beckoning me towards her. She looked around, then pulled me into a doorway.
‘Come with me,’ she said, taking me by the arm. She guided me through a shop selling kitchenware, straight out the back door and then for a hundred yards along a side street into a small house. ‘Wait here,’ she hissed. ‘I’ll be right back.’
I was dripping with sweat, shaking with nerves, and my feet were throbbing. Yet somehow I felt sure that this woman was on my side. Within a few minutes she’d returned, carrying a headscarf, cardigan and skirt.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘My name’s Clementine.’
Shaking her hand, I replied, ‘And I’m Françoise. Thank you so much.’ I made the decision to go with my instincts and trust her.
‘We need to get that uniform off you,’ said Clementine as she got out her scissors, ‘then we’ll go to see a metal-worker near here, a good friend of mine. He can get these off you.’ She tapped the cuffs. ‘Don’t worry, he’s discreet.’ She draped a light coat over my shoulders and arranged it to conceal the handcuffs.
By the end of the day, not only had I been relieved of my handcuffs and prison uniform but I’d had a good wash, my hair had been cut short, and I had clean clothes on.
‘You’ll have to wear a hat at all times and keep your head down,’ insisted my guardian angel. ‘With your looks, all the men will notice you.’
‘Are you Resistance? Maquis?’ I asked her as she carefully bandaged my damaged arm.
‘No, no. Far too dangerous,’ she replied. ‘I have children to protect. Helping you today is the only thing I have done for the struggle.’ She paused, looking me in the eye. ‘We all know people who have been dragged off in the middle of the night and never seen again. It’s about time I did something.’
I felt there was a lot mo
re to this story, but now was not the time.
‘You’re very brave,’ I replied, marvelling at the courage of a woman with children to do what she had just done on my behalf. She had brought me back to her own home.
‘What happened to you, my dear?’ she asked. ‘Your feet, your arm – and you’re so thin.’
I told her as much as I felt comfortable with: that I was helping the Resistance and had been caught and tortured for killing a Gestapo officer.
Clementine sat with her eyes wide in astonishment, her hand to her mouth.
Just then her two children arrived home from school. A boy and girl, aged about six and eight, they played cards and chatted, with occasional shy glances at their mother’s new friend. Their mother explained that I would be staying for a few days. They shrugged and obediently completed their homework, and later, after they had eaten, took themselves off to bed.
After a nourishing supper of rabbit stew which Clementine had likely procured with great difficulty, we had a long discussion about what I should do next. I had no papers, and she knew no one in the Resistance. We were in a dilemma. Clementine confirmed that the city was very tense, that a British invasion was expected soon, and that the Vichy and the Germans in the city were conducting random stop-and-searches. She told me that her husband had been in Munich for the past three years, that he’d been taken in the original round-up and was working in an arms factory. ‘The English have bombed it twice,’ she said. ‘He’s lucky to be alive.’ She had tears in her eyes. I hugged her tight. I was so euphoric about being clean and safe that my jaws hurt from smiling.
The next day my hostess told me she had to work at the shop for most of the day. Meanwhile, I slept like the dead, relishing the comfort of a mattress and sheet for the first time in months. Clementine returned with coffee and bread in the afternoon. I thought I was in heaven. We spent the evening dying my hair black. Angus would hardly recognise me now, I thought. I often found myself considering his opinion on many things. It was an entirely new feeling for me.
We Fought for Ardnish Page 14