Spy Princess

by Shrabani Basu

  To Noor, the ideology of the Nazis and their pogrom against the Jews was fundamentally repulsive and opposed to all the principles of religious harmony that she had been brought up with by her father. She was Muslim by birth but she had loved a Jewish man, and Noor felt the urge to do something to help the war effort. Her first thought was nursing, and she and Claire signed up for a training course in Nursing and First Aid with the Union des Femmes de France (the French Red Cross). Here the sisters learnt the basics of nursing and first aid so as to be able to help when the time came. When the war began, Noor and Claire remained at work till the hospital was evacuated and they were cut off from the unit.

  At this time, Noor also made a significant decision about her personal life. After years of emotional conflict, she finally broke off her engagement with Goldberg. She told Madame Prénat, her closest confidante, that she did so because she wanted to be free to go into action or serve as a nurse on the front line if the need arose.38

  On the afternoon of 4 June 1940, as the German guns pointed towards France, Noor and Vilayat sat down on a sofa near the big window in the living room of Fazal Manzil. Outside they could see Paris stretching out below them. They had to take an important decision.

  They had been brought up as Sufis, with the principle of non-violence firmly entrenched in them. Inayat Khan had taught them about Gandhi and his methods of peaceful protest in the freedom struggle. Many of the mureeds thought their first responsibility lay towards the movement. But brother and sister were confused. On the one hand they knew that war meant death and destruction, on the other they had seen the Germans’ activities at first hand.

  ‘If an armed Nazi comes to your house and takes twenty hostages and wants to exterminate them, would you not be an accomplice in these deaths, if you had the opportunity to kill him (and thereby prevent these deaths) but did not do so because of your belief in non-violence?’ Vilayat asked Noor. ‘How can we preach spiritual morality without participating in preventive action? Can we stand by and just watch what the Nazis are doing?39

  They knew that they could not stand by, and so they decided to act to ‘thwart the aggression of the tyrant’.40 Noor and Vilayat decided they would go to England and join the war effort. Vilayat would join the services and Noor would volunteer to help in whatever way she could, nursing or services. They went up to tell the rest of the family of their plans, feeling immensely relieved that they had come to a decision at last.

  Hidayat was the only one who was married and he said he would take his wife and children to the south of France where he would help the Resistance. The uncles would also stay behind. Noor and Vilayat would take Claire and their mother with them to England. Hidayat would drive them as far as Tours. They decided they would have to leave at once since the roads would be thronging with other people getting out of the city.

  Noor ran to her friends and neighbours around Fazal Manzil and said goodbye. She asked them to look after the house and remove and keep anything of value that they found there. On 5 June 1940 they packed a few essentials, took one last look at the house that had been their home for nearly twenty years and began their long journey. The family of Inayat Khan was on the move again. Noor hugged her mother and held on to her. She was fighting back her own tears.

  THREE

  Flight and Fight

  As Noor and her family left Paris on 5 June they found that masses of other people were also fleeing the advancing Germans. The streets were thronged with people, all on the move – with whatever possessions they could take with them and on any form of transport they could get. Cars, vans, trucks, cycles, push carts crawled slowly down the road as entire families scrambled to get out of Paris. The crying children, the anxious parents, the terrified expressions on the faces of the elderly told their own story. Noor held on to her mother. Vilayat drove in tense silence.

  More than two-thirds of the whole population of Paris went on the road to escape the city before the Germans arrived. The city’s population of three million had dwindled to 800,000 by the time the enemy reached Paris: in affluent areas only a quarter of the population remained behind.1 In poorer areas about a half stayed back. By June 1940, between six and ten million people in France are said to have left their homes.

  The countryside outside Paris was beautiful with flowers in the hedges and summer in the air. But the convoy of vehicles crawling out of the city presented a stark contrast with the natural beauty of the surroundings. All along the road there were abandoned cars which had run out of petrol or broken down. It led to more traffic jams and pile-ups. Rich, poor, old, young – every type and class of person seemed to be on the road. The full impact of the war had suddenly hit the civilians of France. But worse was to come.

  The roar of German Stuka bomber planes sent the refugees diving for cover. The low-flying planes dropped bombs indiscriminately over the convoy. Within minutes cars were ablaze and the green country roads smelt of burnt flesh and tyres instead of fragrant hedgerows. The sound of the planes would fade and then almost immediately it would return as the German bombers came to finish off what they had left undone. Vilayat swore he would join the RAF. Noor was devastated by this bombing of innocents. What sort of regime would bomb refugees, women and children? she wondered. It strengthened her resolve to fight such a force.

  After a harrowing day on the road, the family reached Tours at nightfall. Here they found shelter in an outhouse near the station, along with many other families. The next morning the family said goodbye to Hidayat and his family, and their uncles, and went to the station. They planned to catch the train to Bordeaux from where they could get a boat to England.

  When the train arrived it was already packed and the four of them struggled to get on it. When it reached Bordeaux, however, the station staff refused to let the passengers alight, saying the town was full and there was no room for any more refugees. Sheer panic followed as frantic passengers fell on the door trying to get out. But the doors were slammed on them and the train began to move. Finally at Le Verdon, 50 miles from Bordeaux, the train stopped and the passengers were allowed to get out. The little town was already heaving with people and the family made their way to the town hall. The British government was evacuating its citizens and Vilayat (who was born in London) asked if his family could get a place on the boat going to England. They were given permission, but told that the queue was long and they would have to wait a few days. The family rented a room to stay in while waiting for the boat.

  Noor’s account of how the family left France survives in her personal files. When the family found they had to wait in Le Verdon, Noor and Claire started searching for their evacuated hospital unit, which had been shut down when the Germans approached Paris. The British consul told them that the staff had left for St Nazaire. The girls desperately wanted to carry on working for the Red Cross, but their certificates were with the evacuated staff. On a whim, the sisters decided to dash to St Nazaire and try to track down the Red Cross boat. Despite the pleas of Amina Begum and Vilayat, they insisted on making the 200-mile trip; it was a measure of Noor’s stubbornness that she was prepared to take such risks just to get the certificates.

  The girls travelled through the night through the mass of traffic and finally made it to the docks of St Nazaire, looking for the boat carrying the Red Cross staff and documents. As they were searching the docks a suspicious policeman arrested them on charges of spying. Noor’s passport showed she was born in Moscow and the policeman was taking no chances in wartime. After a night spent in a cell the girls finally convinced the officer that they were innocent and he helped them make enquiries about the ship. Sadly, it had sailed the night before. The ship was contacted by radio and the crew agreed to take the two women on board as Red Cross staff if they could get a boat to drop them off, but Vilayat and their mother were in Le Verdon and so Claire and Noor simply had to go back.

  It was while Noor and Claire were on their mad dash for the Red Cross certificates that they heard the dreaded news
of the fall of Paris. The Germans had arrived there on 14 June to find a deserted city with empty streets, closed shops and shuttered houses. Tanks, armoured vehicles and German motorcyclists in heavy leather coats now drove through its grand boulevards. The swastika had swiftly replaced the tricolour. On 16 June the French Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, resigned and was succeeded by Marshal Henri Pétain, hero of Verdun in the First World War. France had fallen to the Germans. The next day Pétain broadcast from Bordeaux that he intended to ask Hitler for an armistice. The girls heard the news in silence.

  By the terms of the Armistice, Paris and the north of France and the entire Atlantic coast was to be administered by the German military command. A so-called ‘free-zone’ south of the Loire would be administered by the French under Marshal Pétain. His headquarters would be set up in Vichy in the Auvergne. The Vichy regime, sympathetic to the Germans, would administer this area.

  Unsuccessful at tracing their certificates, Claire and Noor headed back for Le Verdon. Meanwhile Vilayat was in a panic because he had been told that the last boat for British subjects was leaving the port in half an hour, yet Noor and Claire had not returned. He knew it would be a scramble to get to the port area from their lodgings at the town centre, and he bought a motorbike to ferry the family to and fro. Just at the point when Vilayat and his mother were giving up and thought they would miss the boat, Noor and Claire returned. They had taken a week to get to St Nazaire and back. Vilayat dashed on his bike to the harbour where the boat – a tiny Belgian vessel called Kasongo – was ready to leave. He explained his desperate situation and the captain agreed to wait till he fetched his family. There was no place for any luggage, however. Vilayat made three trips from the town centre to the boat carrying Noor, Claire and his mother one at a time on the pillion.

  Noor, as usual, was saying her goodbyes. To the people in town who watched them leave she shouted: ‘We shall come back.’2

  Barely had they managed to scramble aboard when the ship set sail. A breathless Vilayat looked out on the coast of France. On the harbour stood the abandoned motorbike that he had used to ferry the family back and forth. It was 19 June, his birthday, but there was nothing to celebrate. France, the country they loved so much, was occupied. Vilayat felt they had managed to leave just on time. Noor was determined to return.

  * * *

  After an uncomfortable journey in the cargo boat, which was infested with beetles, the family landed at Falmouth. Noor and Vilayat breathed a sigh of relief, as their mother was clearly exhausted and desperately needed to rest. They headed for the home of Basil Mitchell, an old family friend who lived in Southampton.

  They travelled all night and arrived early in the morning, exhausted, and were quickly taken in by the surprised Mitchells. But Southampton was not safe from bombs either and so Mrs Mitchell decided to take Amina Begum and her daughters with her to a friend’s house in Oxford. Basil Mitchell took Vilayat to London. Vilayat applied immediately for the RAF, but he came down with paratyphoid fever and had to return to Oxford where he was admitted to the Headington Isolation Hospital. The girls and their mother remained in Oxford, and Noor and Claire went to the hospital every day to enquire about Vilayat. Slowly they began to come to grips with their new life.

  Noor was cheered to learn that General De Gaulle had managed to escape from France and had reached Britain. De Gaulle was immediately allowed to broadcast from London and he called for a continuation of the struggle and rallied the Free French Forces to his side. They set up offices in Duke Street in London.

  On a trip to London the Mitchells introduced Noor to Jean Overton Fuller, who later became a close friend and wrote her biography after the war. Fuller describes Noor at that time as small in build, with brown hair and hazel-brown eyes. She had a gentle voice which was also high pitched and faint. She remembered that Noor had a most peculiar accent: a mix of Indian, English, French and American.3 Though the young woman didn’t say much, Fuller was immediately drawn to her.

  Noor was wearing the new emblem of the Free French, a double-barred cross in silver. It was clear she was impatient to do something to help. She even mentioned to Fuller that she felt it was wrong to flee France and she wished she could be used as a liaison agent. She was clearly pleased that the Free French had begun to organise under General De Gaulle.

  Already in August 1940, London was burning. The Battle of Britain had begun and in the skies people could see the German Luftwaffe take on the British Spitfires. In London, Noor experienced the true horror of the bombing. Every night the planes could be heard and the bombing continued till dawn. Offices and residential buildings were hit and people spent all night putting out fires. Many were homeless. It was a time of blackout paper, air-raid sirens and ration cards. Posters everywhere urged women to ‘Serve in the WAAF with the men who fly’, ‘Join the ATS’, or to ‘Come and Help with the Victory Harvest’ by joining the Land Army. Noor was desperate to do her bit to help.

  By autumn that year, after finally having managed to secure her Red Cross certificate, Noor joined the Fulmer Chase Maternity Home for Officers’ Wives near Slough. The family at this time was living on a very meagre allowance as the little money they had brought from Paris was running out. Noor’s job at the maternity home involved no serious nursing and mainly consisted of domestic chores. She longed to be of real use and volunteered to join the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), much against her mother’s wishes. Her decision to do so was clearly influenced by Vilayat, who had joined the RAF. But to her dismay her initial application was rejected on the grounds that she had been born in Moscow. This infuriated her and she shot off a letter to the ministry saying that as a person holding a ‘British Protected Person’ passport she should be allowed to serve her country. Almost immediately she was sent a reply – an apology and an appointment letter welcoming her to the WAAF.4

  The WAAF was created in June 1939 to help out the RAF and train women to take up jobs so that men could go into the field. Thousands of women were recruited as telephonists, teleprinter operators, plotters and radar operators for RAF stations. By 1940 recruitment increased so as to release more men for flying duties. The Air Ministry Committee agreed that ‘no work should be done by a man if a woman could do it or be trained to do it’. The WAAF Commandant in Chief was the Queen and thousands of volunteers poured in.

  On 19 November 1940, Noor Inayat Khan joined the WAAF as 424598 ACW2 (Aircraftswoman 2nd Class). She was registered as Nora Inayat Khan with her religion given as C. of E. (Church of England). She chose the name Nora because it sounded closest to Noor. She gave her religion as Church of England to avoid complications. It was Vilayat’s experience while trying to register his name that led her to take this option. (The clerk had got so exasperated at trying to register Vilayat’s full name that he simply called him Vic. He made no attempt to find out the young man’s religion, simply entering him as Church of England.) Noor thought it best to follow suit. Her civil occupation was entered as a ‘writer’ and her other qualifications were given as ‘Fluent French’5.

  Noor’s colleague Emily Hilda Preston remembered the day vividly. Once the girls were registered they went to the Grand Hotel at Harrogate to spend the first night. Thrilled with the novelty of it all, they jumped around on the soft luxurious beds. The next day they were taken to more modest accommodation at Ashville College. Noor was chosen with 40 other women for training in wireless operation becoming the first batch of WAAFs to be trained as radio operators. Emily was sent for training in telephony.

  The reason for selection as a wireless operator was completely random. Noor’s colleague, Irene Salter, recalled how she herself was selected. She had worn a jumper at the interview and was asked if she had knitted it herself. When she said ‘yes’, she was immediately sent for wireless training. Irene’s skill at knitting a patterned jumper had shown the board that she had nimble fingers, the necessary skill for a radio operator. The training at Harrogate included physical training, drill and races. Noor’
s progress was marked with an A and her character was described as V.G. (Very Good). It was a whole new world for Noor. For the first time she became part of a group, wearing a uniform and marching with the other women for meals, lectures and training. The recruits slept in dormitories in the college and had to assemble their kit for a monthly inspection. It was cold and bare and unlike any place she had lived in, but she was determined to get used to it.

  A month later, on 23 December 1940, Noor was sent to Number 34 (Balloon Barrage) Group, RAF Balloon Command in Edinburgh where she was to spend the next six months training as a wireless telegraphist. Once again, Noor got an A in her signals training. Her character was always marked with a ‘V.G.’. Begum Amina now moved to Edinburgh to be near her.

  After some initial hesitation, Noor soon settled down with the other young women and began to enjoy the camaraderie of the services. Eager to do her best, she worked hard at her radio training, memorising her Morse code and trying to build up her speed.

  Irene Salter remembered Noor as a gentle, shy girl, who suffered terribly from chilblains and had to wear shoes two sizes larger than normal. She was also unable to grasp the Morse key because of her swollen fingers.6 She remembered how when her mother joined Noor in Edinburgh, the girls were invited for tea in groups of two or three to meet the Begum. They found her warm and friendly and thoroughly enjoyed the tea and cakes she put out. Noor attended Church of England service with the girls on Sundays. They knew she was Indian because of her surname, but never felt she was different from them in any way. The girls had to learn Scottish folk dances and Noor wasn’t particularly good at them because of her feet. Moreover the hard, flat, black leather shoes supplied by the WAAF usually took a while to break in and gave her blisters. But though the other girls teased Noor about her dancing, she never dropped out and completed all the sessions, taking it all in good humour. Her gentle personality and sportsmanship earned her the respect of her colleagues and she made a number of friends.