The Lost Airman

by Seth Meyerowitz

  With German officials setting the policies, hunger prevailed. Arthur stood for hours in the long queues in front of food shops and was grateful that his diet was augmented by the black-market dealings of Taillandier and his Morhange operatives. In the rural safe houses outside Toulouse, however, he had found food more plentiful. Farmers who were not always under the scrutiny of the Germans and the Vichy police secretly slaughtered livestock, planted hidden vegetable gardens, and hid milk and cheese.

  Through Mademoiselle Thoulouse’s skills in amassing counterfeit and stolen ration books and coupons, Taillandier had access to additional sources of food and also dealt them on the black market to help fund Morhange’s lethal operations. He also garnered a sizable stash of francs and Reichsmarks (Nazi currency) by trading ration books, food, liquor, and cigarettes for weapons. Many of those arms were smuggled in from Algiers or dropped for the Resistance at night by Allied planes. Much of Taillandier’s illicit money went to purchase one of the region’s scarcest commodities—gasoline. Taillandier hoarded the precious fuel for Morhange’s hit-and-run operations such as the Courier de Nice ambush in January 1944.

  At 96, boulevard Deltour, Taillandier visited Arthur often and also met there with key Morhange members. Taillandier included Arthur in nearly all of the gatherings, and because the operatives, several women among them, conversed only in hushed French, Taillandier would turn to Arthur and explain much of what the agents were discussing. Because the Morhange leaders obviously trusted the American airman, the others quickly accepted him as one of them, at least in some ways.

  Arthur came to know several of the Morhange leadership well, but only by their first names. They made certain that they never mentioned their surnames in front of him, but not because they did not trust him. It was far safer for him not to know their complete names in case he fell into Gestapo hands. He sat down on numerous occasions with Taillandier and Andrés Fontes, who had “four fingers off his left hand” from an injury he suffered during the Fall of France in 1940. 1 A crafty Morhange agent named Jeno had infiltrated and worked with the Toulouse Gestapo and had full access to their operations and documents. Additionally, he and Taillandier had five other plants inside the local Gestapo. The man whom Arthur knew only as “Leo” was one of Morhange’s bravest and most cunning leaders under Taillandier’s command. Henri was a Vichy police officer and one of Taillandier’s most trusted operatives. At the wheel of a Citroën sedan for scores of Morhange hits of Nazis and collaborators was Robert, a gifted “chauffeur.”

  Arthur came to know all of them, as well as Yvonne, a young operative who came often to Thoulouse’s house for the meetings.

  On numerous occasions, Taillandier took Arthur for lunch or dinner at the Frascati, the downtown Toulouse café that was always crammed not just by the locals, but also by Vichy police, German soldiers, and Gestapo. Arthur realized that the attractive women who worked at the café were actually prostitutes who used the bedrooms upstairs to service clients, and also to pry useful intelligence from Nazis and collaborators and pass it on to Taillandier. In meetings at Thoulouse’s house, Taillandier had told Arthur, several times, that he and “his girls” blackmailed French police and collaborators to provide information to Morhange. Often, Taillandier’s operatives forced them to pass sensitive intelligence to Morhange or be tried and executed at Chateau de Brax. None of them ever saw Taillandier unless they refused to cooperate, in which case his face was among the last the collaborators ever saw. He made certain that no one could connect him in any way to the unit.

  To the patrons of the Frascati, Taillandier appeared the very picture of a dapper, French professional. His neat, pencil-thin mustache, dark, slicked-back hair, and well-tailored suit made him fit in perfectly. Arthur sipped his wine, admiring how Taillandier practiced what he preached about hiding in plain sight. The often ruthless Morhange chief moved seamlessly among his enemies.

  Once, when a known collaborator confronted Taillandier at the café and demanded proof that he was not a member of the Resistance, Taillandier sprang from his chair and knocked out the accuser with one swift punch. Standing over him, he shouted that no one could accuse him of being a member of the Resistance and get away with such a lie. His “outrage” duped the Gestapo agents watching with both amusement and alertness as several of his “associates” dragged the man out the back door. The man’s fate is unknown, but it seems reasonable to assume he “disappeared.”

  Arthur did not want to be taken alive by the Nazis and wanted a pistol so that he could go out fighting if the Gestapo tried to seize him. Again and again, he asked Marcel for one. Taillandier was reluctant to comply, knowing that if the American—a Jewish American no less—was ever discovered to be concealing a weapon, it would be all over for him.

  Arthur was subjected to increasing stop-and-checks by the Gestapo and police in mid-March. The American and British Air Forces were launching the Transportation Plan to soften up the Nazis for the imminent invasion. By day, American bombers pounded targets on the city’s outskirts, where Nazi munitions dumps were camouflaged but identified by the Resistance for Allied airpower; by night, it was the Royal Air Force’s turn. The bombers left the city’s center, which was devoid of bona fide military targets, alone. Even though Allied intelligence, thanks to the Resistance, knew where Gestapo headquarters and outposts in the heart of Toulouse were located, they did not strike the city center, believing that civilian casualties among the patriotic French would far surpass any damage to the Nazis.

  Though Taillandier had insisted several weeks earlier that the American go outside every day and Arthur was not afraid to do so, he did wonder if the escalating searches by the Gestapo and heightened fears among neighbors who collaborated with the Nazis might make some question the identity of Monsieur Thoulouse’s guest.

  During one of Taillandier’s frequent visits to the house on the boulevard Deltour, Arthur asked him, “Wouldn’t it be safer for all of you if I were to stay inside more?” 2

  Marcel, knowing that Arthur now relished his cautious forays into the city, leaned back on a battered divan, lit a cigarette, and took a drag. Smiling, he explained that with the Nazis and the police growing more anxious by the day, anything out of the ordinary attracted attention. If a suspicious neighbor noticed that Georges Lambert was suddenly absent, the Gestapo would show up at Monsieur Thoulouse’s door.

  Arthur was confronted the very next day. He left the house and walked to an open-air market to buy bread and fruit. Suddenly a Gestapo agent in the blood-chilling black uniform and jackboots emerged from behind a produce stall, munching an apple. He peered at Arthur, took a bite of the apple, and hurled it at Arthur’s shoes.

  The German strode up to him, Arthur’s heart racing. When the German snarled for the “Frenchman” to produce his papers, Arthur hoped that his face showed no tinge of anything more than the natural fear anyone would have for the Germans at that time.

  Arthur stared at him as if confused, then nodded in sudden understanding, and reached into his jacket pocket for his identification card and the letter embossed with the signature and official seal of the mayor of Soulac-sur-Mer and attesting that the bearer was town resident Georges Lambert.

  The agent glared at the photo identification card and letter, grunted something, flung them at Arthur, and stomped away to stop another passerby.

  The people of Toulouse were subjected to daily stop-and-checks. Even though the risk of discovery threatened him every time he went out, his practiced self-discipline and dread of capture had turned him into Georges Lambert to the outside world. In public, Arthur never reacted to loud noises, never reacted to voices, and never spoke. He communicated only through hand gestures. Although he had picked up some French in the weeks since Harmful Lil Armful had gone down, he never spoke a word of it outside the safe house.

  In late March 1944, Arthur took a bus to the city center of Toulouse to bring Monsieur Thoulouse his lunch: a bagu
ette, cold chicken, and fruit. As always, when Arthur stepped off the bus in front of the store, he fought a cold flush of fear raised by the giant swastika flag that was draped above the entrance of the adjacent building—the local Gestapo headquarters. Agents in black uniforms with skull-and-crossbones-adorned caps or dark suits with low-brimmed black fedoras bustled in and out of the building. It was a medieval structure with narrow-slit windows, parapets, and two steel front doors. To Arthur, it reeked of the horrors of the Inquisition and now those of the Gestapo.

  He shivered slightly and headed from the bus stop toward the store. A tall man in a black uniform strode down the steps of the headquarters, folded his arms, and fixed his light blue eyes beneath his visor on Arthur. Arthur walked by him as casually as he could.

  “Halt!”

  The harsh command exploded in Arthur’s ears, but he kept walking as he had been trained to do.

  “Halt!” the agent barked a second time.

  As Arthur approached Thoulouse’s door and reached for the knob, a huge hand clamped down on his forearm and spun him around. The Gestapo agent released his grip and leaned so close to Arthur that he could smell beer and onion on the man’s breath.

  “Papieren!” the German snarled. Every Frenchman and woman knew the word now—papers. Arthur stared with practiced confusion at him, saying nothing.

  Glaring, the Nazi shouted again at Arthur to show his papers. The agent took a step back, sizing up the “Frenchman” in his patched overcoat and neat but old brown woolen suit and worn shoes.

  Arthur widened his eyes, raised his hands slowly with his palms up as if in supplication, and shook his head.

  The German cocked his head, appraised Arthur for several seconds, and then reached into his pocket. He produced his Gestapo identification card and pointed to it. For a few more moments, Arthur feigned confusion. Suddenly he nodded and reached carefully into his coat. He pulled out his ID card and documents.

  The Gestapo agent studied the photo and looked up at Arthur at least a half-dozen times. Frowning, he handed the papers back, and as Arthur tucked them back in his overcoat, the German stepped quietly behind him. Arthur noticed the movement, steeling himself not to flinch no matter what the Nazi did. Still, Arthur would not have been surprised if his face somehow reflected the sudden dryness in his throat and tightness in his chest.

  CLAP! CLAP!

  Arthur felt every muscle constrict at the sound of those two giant hands slamming into each other, but did not react. He remained still.

  Finally, the German stepped back in front of him and thrust a thick forefinger in his face. As the man’s lips twisted into a sneer, he fixed his cold, pale blue eyes on the American.

  Arthur’s jaw tightened, but he did not flinch, not a muscle quivering with any hint that he understood. The German wagged his finger several times in Arthur’s face, still sneering. The German demanded an answer in English, waiting for any flicker of a response. To trip up Allied airmen posing as civilians, the Nazis routinely snapped questions in English during stop-and-checks.

  Arthur looked back at him vacantly.

  The German stepped back, grinned maliciously, and backed away a few steps. He turned, laughed, and stomped away.

  Arthur did not budge until the German vanished around a corner.

  As Arthur finally returned to the paint shop, Monsieur Thoulouse opened the glass door. Arthur, his face pale, hoped he would not run into the Gestapo agent again, although he would now watch for him every second.

  It became obvious over the next few days that the man was also watching for Arthur. Whenever he got off the bus to walk over to the paint store, the agent was always standing on the sidewalk nearby, smoking and staring at him with a tight smile. Arthur tried to vary the times of his trips back and forth from Thoulouse’s shop, but it did not matter. The Nazi was always lurking, always watching for Georges Lambert. Although Arthur feared that the Gestapo agent would one day follow him to 96, boulevard Deltour, the man seemed content for the moment with tracking him from the bus to the store.

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  A week after his first brush with the suspicious German, Arthur was sitting with Taillandier and another Morhange agent over lunch at a white-clothed table near the Frascati’s gleaming marble-topped bar. As Taillandier and the other man chatted in a low tone, Arthur played his usual role of Georges, unable to hear a sound. Taillandier rose from his seat and walked over to the bar, where he began speaking to the bartender.

  The door to the café swung open. Three uniformed Gestapo agents strutted into the restaurant, scanned the crowded room, and walked up to a table near Arthur’s, their hobnailed boots clattering against the floorboards.

  Arthur’s eyes widened. There was no mistaking it. The massive Gestapo agent who was so suspicious of him just a week prior now loomed a few feet from his table and was looking right at him. From the bar, Taillandier caught the look that the German shot at the American, and edged subtly to the end of the bar, out of the Germans’ line of vision.

  The trio stopped. A portly agent wearing a major’s insignia pointed at the other table’s two middle-aged Frenchmen and their female companions, two young women in low-cut dresses and slit skirts, unquestionably expensive prostitutes. The major ordered the two men to disappear and the women to remain with the snap of his fingers. The men sprang from their chairs and startled a busboy right behind Arthur’s table. The youth stumbled and dropped his overloaded bin of dishes, glasses, and utensils.

  Heads turned to the crash of ceramic, glass, and metal—Arthur and his two companions leaped from their chairs. The giant Gestapo agent smiled at Arthur and then lunged at him with frightening speed. Before he could pin Arthur’s arms, Arthur slipped his identification card and paper out of his jacket and under the table too quickly for the German to detect. Taillandier saw Arthur’s move, eased behind the bar, and waited.

  An instant later the Nazi grabbed Arthur. “Georges Lambert” could obviously hear something.

  Another Gestapo man handcuffed Arthur, and the three dragged him out the door. Arthur knew where they were headed. He knew he was a dead man.

  Taillandier had vanished out the back door of the café but not before waiting for the Gestapo to leave and deftly scooping up Arthur’s identification card and papers. By the time that one of the three Gestapo agents thought to race back into the Frascati to look for anyone who had been with Arthur, both Taillandier and the other agent were long gone.

  Arthur was tossed into a dank, windowless cell in the Gestapo headquarters next to the paint store.

  In an hour, two Gestapo agents in plain clothes stepped into his cell and closed the door. They removed their jackets and rolled up their white shirtsleeves. One pulled Arthur to his feet, twisted his arms behind his back, and held him so that he faced the other German.

  The man in front of Arthur said something to him in French. Arthur remained silent. Then, in English, the agent said, “Tell us the names of your friends at the restaurant, and we might let you live.”

  Arthur stared blankly.

  Again, the Gestapo agent asked something in French, and then in English: “Why don’t you have an ID and photo? Who are you?”

  He waited a few seconds for an answer.

  When none came, the German suddenly slammed his fist into Arthur’s stomach. The breath rushed from him, the hammerlock on his arms preventing him from doubling over. Again and again the Nazi’s fist thudded against Arthur’s stomach. Still, he said nothing.

  A swift, savage kick to Arthur’s groin caused him to pass out. The German behind him released his grip and shoved the airman to the floor. Slowly, he came to, pain rippling through him. Kicks now rained on him from every angle, to his face, his torso, his arms, and legs. Drifting in and out of consciousness, he lost track of time. All he sensed was the pain everywhere.

  At some point, the agents
pulled him from the floor and tied him to the cell’s sole piece of furniture, a cracked, sagging wooden chair. One of them tossed a pail of frigid water in his face.

  Grinning, the Nazi said in French, “Wake up.”

  His comrade grabbed Arthur’s chin, squeezed hard, and turned his face upward.

  “Now, your name,” he hissed, again in French.

  Arthur said nothing.

  The German’s fist smashed against Arthur’s left ear and sent the chair careening at a wall. Arthur crashed against the stone and grunted as he and the chair toppled to the floor.

  Both Germans loomed over him. The kicks thudded into him again for several minutes before the pair picked him up and drove the chair upright against the floor.

  His eyes were nearly closed from the swelling tissue around them, and the Germans’ faces were hazy. Arthur gagged from the blood pouring from his mouth to his throat.

  “Your name?” exploded in French again in his ears—and then in English. 3

  Arthur did not answer. The two men kicked the chair back to the floor and rained kicks on Arthur’s ribs, back, and stomach.

  Finally, the blows ceased. Arthur was barely aware of the Gestapo agents untying him, flinging him into a corner, and leaving him alone in the cell to await their return.

  CHAPTER 17

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  NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON

  Taillandier did not flee the city. Despite de Gaulle’s directive not to become too involved in escape and rescue of Allied airmen, Taillandier had no intention of abandoning Arthur to the Gestapo. However, he had to move fast before the torture began. Mere hours were all that he had, but he knew someone who just might be able to stroll into Gestapo headquarters and emerge unchallenged with Arthur. Even though it could jeopardize the survival of Morhange, Taillandier had made up his mind. He could not let the Germans go to work on the brave airman.