Upstairs in the room they had been offered for the night, Passy opened his suitcase and gasped. In the confusion of the dark reception grounds he had not, as he had believed, pulled his own suitcase from the crate, but one containing a wireless transmitter, hand grenades and explosives. Unwittingly the agents had been carrying equipment that would have marked them out instantly as spies to any curious German patrol and left them open to torture and death. Passy could not apologise enough, but the matter was over and Forest could only reflect on the Yeo-Thomas luck that had brought him safely to Lyons-la-Forêt.
The next morning they were on a bus for Rouen with Jacot. The vehicle had been converted to run on the fumes of burning green wood, as petrol was impossible to get hold of in France unless you were a Nazi or a collaborator. Forest looked around at the other passengers, grim-faced, thin and smelling of stale wine. They clutched parcels of food and produce, some carried whole suitcases ready to sell on the black market. The German ration books they also carried were pointless as their quantities were hopelessly inadequate and only enough to enable people to starve to death slowly. So the black market had become a vital resource, the only thing keeping some people alive, and farmers who sold their produce on it could make a good profit. Despite thoughts of the money they might make that day, the peasants on the run-down, groaning bus looked unanimously sullen and bleak. No one spoke. Forest wondered if they suspected he was a German spy. If only he could explain that the opposite was true.
On that uncomfortable journey Forest saw his beloved France in a new light. It had been three years since he had fled its shores and now he was returning to an almost alien world. Throughout those long years of exile he had found consolation by associating with other French refugees, particularly his comrades at the BCRA. They had sustained his hope, but also his despair. When they gathered together and drank to France, they also inevitably came to discussing its fall and Britain’s seeming heavy-handedness in their resistance work. General de Gaulle did not like feeling he had to cooperate with, or worse, ask permission of his British hosts and at times tensions were high. During spells of drinking Forest would sometimes resort to joining his BCRA colleagues’ abuse of Britain. This did not sit well with Barbara and not long before Operation Seahorse came into being she had kicked Forest and his BCRA guests out of her flat for being unpatriotic.
Now he looked at France under the Nazi boot and trembled with outrage. Those cosy dinner parties and half jovial rants at the British now seemed pathetic. They had been naïve in their abuse and now Forest rankled at having been away from his country for so long. How could he have sat and drank when SS men marched on his roads? Trampled his people? What was Pétain thinking of letting these men dominate one of the greatest empires in Europe?
‘Look out Shelley. If they see you looking at them like that you’ll be arrested.’ Jacot’s whispered words brought Forest out of his dark thoughts and he realised he had been glaring at the grey-suited Nazis walking outside. It would hardly do to fail in his mission so early by allowing his hatred to govern him.
They were due to meet Pierre Brossolette in Paris. The bus dropped them in Rouen where they would have to wait 2 hours before they could board a train for the capital. Jacot decided to use the opportunity to give them a crash course in ‘France under occupation’ etiquette. First he took them to a typical café, the patrons looking dowdy and cold, and ordered them ‘ersatz’ drinks. Ersatz was a German word meaning an inferior substitute, which became popular in the First World War, especially to describe POW food. As the Germans dominated the French streets, ersatz became a byword for a way of life. Ersatz coffee was the best-known example, made from chicory or acorns and hardly deserving of the name coffee. It only made drinkers crave the real thing. Forest tried ersatz alcoholic drinks, which did nothing to improve his mood.
Jacot worked his way through occupation protocol with his apprentices: there was no milk anymore, to ask for a café crème would bring instant suspicion on a person for being unfamiliar with French shortages. There were meatless days and days when even the disgusting ersatz alcoholic drinks were not served, except in black market restaurants. All this had to be remembered to avoid making a fatal blunder. Then he took the men’s ration books and tobacco cards and explained how they were used.
The train to Paris was another depressing affair. Forest spotted the first-class carriage with its ‘reserved for Wehrmacht’ sign and the various grey and black uniformed individuals who were boarding it, while the remaining passengers willingly hopped into the third-class carriages: who would want to sit with the Nazis anyway? Forest was shown to one of the few first-class carriages not restricted to the Nazis and once again was surrounded by bleak-faced French citizens, now numbed by the misery of life under Hitler’s thumb.
Forest was becoming familiar with the menacing presence of the German troops all around them. Semi-dozing in the train compartment he watched them march through stations, carelessly pushing aside civilians who got in their way. When he first saw this he felt a renewal of his outrage, but as the sight was repeated again and again he started to feel immune to it like the men and women around him. It became expected and therefore was no longer so threatening or insulting. As his first sense of shock subsided, Forest took the time to watch the Nazi troops more closely and begrudgingly acknowledged to himself that their discipline, even in the train carriages, was impressive. Every officer was saluted as he boarded the train and there was no relaxing of their manner as might be expected of other troops travelling. As impressive as it was, it was also chilling. Where was the humanity in this race of super-troopers?
Pierre Brossolette, his white streak dyed black to match the rest of his hair, was awaiting them in the rue de la Faisanderie. The friends shook hands and greeted each other warmly. Brossolette had organised a temporary safe house in the flat of a schoolteacher named Madame Claire Davinroy. He considered it a particularly amusing choice, as the rest of the apartments in the building were all rented by the Gestapo, who would hardly expect the resistance to be so brazen as to house their people among them. As Forest entered the building he couldn’t help feeling a twitch of anxiety at his friend’s audacious scheme: was it genius to lodge enemy spies under the Nazi noses or just over-confidence? Madame Davinroy was warmly welcoming but Forest was relieved when after dinner it was suggested that they split up and establish other safe houses around the capital in case they had to make a hasty move.
Forest left Passy and Brossolette behind to be escorted to another flat, this time the once-luxurious home of the son of the ex-vice-president of the senate, Roland Farjon. The Farjons had been hit by the restrictions of the German occupation like everyone else and their home had taken on a tomb-like quality, a memorial to better times. There was no heating, since there was very little fuel and the meagre breakfast they could offer Forest consisted of ersatz coffee, approximate jam and grey bread. It was a depressing meal, though the family swallowed it down with relish. It crossed Forest’s mind that if this was the breakfast of the rich under occupation, what were the poor living on?
By 8.30 a.m. Forest was outside taking his first good look at occupied Paris. It was a grim sight, and the grey sky above seemed to mirror his dismal mood. Around him swastikas appeared in windows or were scrawled on walls alongside posters listing the latest restrictions or announcing the execution of hostages in retaliation for the death of a Nazi officer. Notices in shop windows announcing that they did not serve Jews, sat above a paltry window display of fake goods, most of which could not be found in the shop and were a memory of pre-war conditions. Women wrapped in frayed coats formed lines or argued over a scrap of bread. Some rummaged behind displays in the hope of forgotten treasure, a cabbage maybe, or a carrot. When bare arms or legs were briefly exposed beneath the winter clothing they were stick thin and ghoulish grey. Forest struggled with the scene, trying to process such a medieval sight of famine in his beloved and once-decadent city.
For a time the utter silen
ce of the roads baffled him, then he realised the shortage of cars. The only petrol-fuelled motor vehicles were the polished black German staff cars that whizzed quickly through the streets. Troop transports rumbled along, while the odd French car that had been converted to producer gas bubbled its way down the road with its huge gas container either strapped to its fender or roof. Bicycles had become a necessity of Parisian life and everyone now had one. A new crime wave of stolen cycles was on the rise and Parisians carried their precious two-wheelers into their homes as tenderly as if they were newborn infants. The industrious taxi men had invented the vélo-taxis, a cart pulled by the driver on a sturdy bicycle. They became a distinctive Paris sight and Forest saw many of these strange contraptions as he wandered around.
Forest remembered Jacot’s words however, and tried not to look like a gawping tourist. Already as he was walking the pavements he was formulating the first of the ‘Yeo-Thomas Rules’:
1. Get used to operating while surrounded by the enemy.
2. Study the habits of the police.
3. Watch out for new regulations and merge with the population – you must not stand out!
At the same time Forest had to learn to be a secret agent ‘on the job’. No amount of cipher training and parachuting could prepare him for stepping into occupied Paris and being faced with an inquisitive, suspicious and deadly enemy.
It was not long before Forest faced his first real challenge as a spy. A whim of nostalgia and familial conscience had led him to his father’s apartment over the Passy Métro station (it was never an auspicious place for Forest to visit) where a combined German and French police blockade had been set up. From either side of the road a line of policemen barred the way and inspected anybody trying to pass. There was no knowing what they were after, or, more precisely, whom It might have been a routine spot check near a Métro station, or they may have been rounding up Jews or even looking for suspected resistance members. Forest hesitated, his instinct being to turn on his heel and flee, but his common sense overruled him – that would make him an obvious target for the police.
Instead he approached as calmly as he could. The police were working in pairs: a German and a French collaborator. Bitterly, Forest pulled out his forged identity cards and handed them over, trying not to glare at his countryman so ably helping the enemy. The checking of his papers seemed to take forever, and Forest knew now that he was entirely at the mercy of the skill of the SOE forgers. One slip – an incorrect stamp, an out-of-date signature – could lead him straight to the Gestapo. Trembling inside, he didn’t realise that even those with genuine papers felt the same way when faced with the German spot checks. After what seemed like an eternity the German policeman handed back his papers and waved him on. Forest walked through the line resisting the temptation to run as fast as he could and feeling a surge of elation that his SOE papers had proved their worth.
His delight quickly died when he saw that he was approaching a second police line. It was obvious now that this was not a routine spot check. The Gestapo were after someone and the fact that a Black Maria5 was parked nearby and three or four men were being pushed into it only confirmed his fears. Despite this he kept his cool and passed through the second line as easily as the first. He left as rapidly as he dared trying not to think of the poor souls being forced into the car and into the eager hands of the Gestapo.
* * *
Notes
1. General William Lendrum ‘Billy’ Mitchell (1879–1936) was considered a founding father of the US Air Force and was the only individual to have a type of American military aircraft named after them: the B-25 Mitchell.
2. As quoted in Seaman, Op cit.
3. French militia created by the Vichy government to hunt down the French resistance, often more feared than the Gestapo due to their more intimate knowledge of the country and its people.
4. Marshal, Op cit.
5. A slang term for a police car or van, usually painted a distinctive black. It was the standard euphemism for Gestapo vehicles during the Second World War.
– 7 –
Good Agents Always Arrive Punctually
THIN, TALL BROSSOLETTE STOOD at the Port Maillot with Passy as the clock struck eleven and Forest arrived with precision timing. Neither man noticed that Forest seemed a little flustered by his run-ins with the police; both had their minds on other matters.
With little talk Brossolette escorted his two comrades to the apartment of his cousin Hélène Peyronnet1 at 102 avenue des Ternes. Hélène was already an active member within the resistance and quickly organised separate safe houses for Passy and Forest. Passy’s flat was on the ground floor of a complex at Neuilly near the busy rue Demours and with a courtyard leading to another building, therefore offering good escape routes should the worst happen. Hélène had arranged for Forest to stay in a luxury apartment owned by the French film star Jeanne Helbling, which also overlooked a courtyard and offered easy escape, despite being on the first floor. Brossolette was to remain in the rue de la Faisanderie. After assigning these quarters the group also organised several secondary locations that they could retreat to if their cover was blown.
Finally they could begin the daunting task of assessing the resistance effort in France and what the British could do to unite it and assist it. Passy set to work on collating intelligence from various sources, while Forest and Brossolette started sending out feelers to existing agents in France, especially those involved in organising weapons stores and parachute landings. Some of these men, such as Michel Pichard, Jean Aryal, and Jean-Pierre Deshayes, Forest had already met in England, while others were new to him. Brossolette worked keenly to establish contacts with the various resistance networks, but this was easier said than done. Away from the action in London, many of the networks and smaller groups were unknown to him, while other names that he had believed were clandestine organisations were something else entirely. It had been assumed that Voix du Nord, Le Cerle, and La Ligue were all names of resistance groups. These had filtered into the SOE offices through various sources and, at a distance, seemed likely candidates. On location Brossolette and Forest discovered that Voix du Nord was actually the title of a clandestine publication produced by rather under-active resisters as a platform for their opinions. The other two were groups either purely political (and therefore not interested in the form of resistance SOE would propose) or associated with the Freemasons, a group that was regularly attacked by the Vichy forces and the Nazis, but that did not throw up active resisters.
After a few false starts Brossolette and Forest were able to start assessing the various resistance movements they came across. Some were too embryonic to be worth their time or could be absorbed into bigger groups, while others did not have the manpower or the leaders to maintain them. Eventually five important resistance groups presented themselves:
Organisation Civile et Militaire (OCM)
Ceux de la Libération
Ceux de la Resistance
Liberation
Front National (FN)
By 2 March a meeting had been arranged with the representative of OCM, Colonel Alfred Touny.2 Tall and imposing, Touny was now in his fifties and a strong figure in the resistance, and was accompanied by Roland Farjon, Forest’s former host; both would eventually be shot by the Germans, just two of the 4,000 members of OCM who perished fighting for their cause.
OCM would become one of the greatest resistance networks of the war, and even at the meeting with Touny it was clear that it was one of the most secure and complete organisations operating in France. In 1941 the organisation could only boast a few hundred members but by 1943 it was stated that they had around 45,000 members, many of whom were keen for military-style action.
At the meeting in March 1943 it was clear that the OCM was going to be a significant asset to the British plans for the re-invasion of France. SOE’s priority was to rally national resistance in France in order to harass the Germans and seriously hamper their forces when Britain lande
d its troops on D-Day. The resistance would never be able to retake France alone, they simply did not have the military might or political support, but by eating away at the Germans, pecking at their morale and their feelings of safety within Paris, delaying them and preventing troops from moving efficiently they were a vital tool to the Allies who knew the landings in France would be bloody and costly. Resistance helped pave the way for the advance of the British and Americans, as well as for the return of the exiled French troops, and also kept the country alive in those dark days and prevented it from slipping into a morass of despair and apathy.
Not all encounters were as successful as the one with Touny. Forest and Brossolette met with Colonel Henri Manhes, who while undoubtedly brave and keen for action, had come up with several completely unfeasible ideas for resistance work and seemed very reluctant to coordinate plans with London. His choice of assistant was also deemed questionable. Pierre Meunier failed to inspire confidence despite later becoming a significant figure in the resistance. The situation resolved itself quite quickly when Manhes was arrested.
Uniting the resistance movements was going to be a difficult task. Brossolette struggled to keep his temper and sarcasm under control in meetings and offended leaders and representatives. Among the resistance there was a feeling that the new arrivals were undermining the work of ex-prefect Jean Moulin, who was pursuing similar lines to coordinate the resistance. Moulin was a dashing, charismatic figure with a film-star presence and innocent charm, but he was a formidable personality who very rapidly crossed swords with Brossolette. Forest could only watch as the two passionate Frenchmen argued continuously in Madame Claire Davinroy’s apartment and wondered how long it would be before the lady’s Gestapo neighbours came to investigate. Despite their opposing politics the men managed to maintain a united front when in public, but it was a tense arrangement. Brossolette felt that Moulin was completely unequipped to deal with the resistance problem in occupied France when his previous experience had been with organisations in the unoccupied zone.3 His dominating personality and attempts to unite the military power of the resistance single-handedly under his own control also created tensions.
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