The Secret Ministry of Ag. & Fish

by Noreen Riols

  When my father retired from the Navy in 1936 we went to live in Durham. But before we had had time to settle, much less put down roots, my father was recalled to the Service during the crisis in 1938, so we moved to London. In 1945, since the London house had been badly damaged during the war, not so much by bombs as by the tenants to whom my mother had rented it when she relocated to Bath, my parents sold that house and retired to Essex. So by the time I finally said goodbye to England, and settled in Paris, it was without any fond attachment to or deep regret for any particular region. There was really nowhere I could claim as ‘home’. All the houses I had lived in had merely been places where my parents had temporarily settled.

  How different my life is now. After five years in Paris, where Jacques was born, we bought a rambling seventeenth-century house in Marly-le-Roi, a village outside Versailles, the place I now call home. For more than fifty years we have lived in this delightful village and brought up our five children, now all ‘flown’. We have filled the gap of the empty nest syndrome with outside activities, becoming active in an association, Entente Cordiale – shades of F Section! – which groups British with French people anxious to speak and improve their English. I joined the British Legion and became a poppy seller, and I am now secretary general of Libre Résistance, or ‘Amicale Buck’ as it is called affectionately.

  Libre Résistance was created in 1946, immediately after the war. It grouped together former F Section agents, something like the Special Forces Club in London, though not so grand – we’ve never had our own club house and survive on a shoestring. The organization has perforce dwindled to almost nothing as far as agents are concerned. I am the only woman survivor in France and there are now only three men. André Watt is, I believe, ninety-six or ninety-eight and no longer active. Marcel Jaurent-Singer is ninety-two and does all the administrative work for the association but does not feel up to attending ceremonies, although he still comes to Valençay and to the annual reunion before the memorial to the members of his resistance team who were massacred. And Bob Maloubier, now president, probably the greatest saboteur we had, is ninety but still active. He and I basically represent the ‘upright’ members of the group who attend ceremonies. We have many members: sons and daughters and other relatives of former agents, and also historians and writers who are interested in SOE but were not directly involved in it. Soon, the ‘younger generation’, who, if sons and daughters, are no longer young, will have to take over since we three are not eternal. We welcome new members, encouraging them to join through a ‘colloque’ (conference) held every year at somewhere grand – in 2012 it was at the École Militare in Paris and the year before at the Paris Town Hall – with speakers and usually a film, followed by a get-together dinner for those who wish to stay. Through these various activities, hopefully, Libre Résistance will continue to live and keep alive the memory of those who gave so much so that we might live in freedom today.

  In all these activities, remaining quietly in the background, Jacques has wholeheartedly supported and encouraged me. Without his help I could not have carried them out. After the children left home I began to write books, and Jacques became my unofficial editor. We didn’t always agree on the changes he made to my manuscripts. And I often went into a big sulk when he slashed my favourite passages, stating that they were hors sujet, they distracted from the main narrative or, worse still, I was being self-indulgent! But on reflection, when I stopped sulking, I nearly always had to admit that he was right.

  How inspired I had been all those years ago, in spite of my misgivings, to take the plunge out of the shadows of bewilderment, and the dark tunnel of unhappiness, to find fulfilment and contentment where the love I had been so desperately seeking, and not finding, was there where I least expected it: waiting for me to grasp with both hands. I had at last reached the end of the rocky road on which I had been stumbling and been led to the man who was able to restore my confidence, give me back my zest for life and would finally lead me home. The man who doesn’t allow me to take myself too seriously, who has brought love and laughter to my sometimes troubled world, teasing out the knots in my churning stomach and giving me his peace. Like all couples, we have had our difficult times, our dramas and our tensions, but overriding them all is the memory of a hundred fragile moments showered on us like apple blossom in the spring. Moments to cherish, shared with the man who has become my other self, and of whom, even in the midst of my tormenting doubts before my marriage, I was sure of one thing: in his company, I would never be bored. And I never have been. Perhaps after all he was the man who was destined for me. What a lot of heartache I would have avoided, not only for myself but also for others, had I only realized that before.

  Chapter 19

  In the year 2000, when the secret SOE files were finally opened to the public, the media in all its forms pounced on us few survivors, and one of the questions they often asked me was: ‘Did you know Fifi?’

  ‘Fifi?’ I puzzled. ‘Who was she?’

  ‘A very attractive woman who was used by SOE to find out whether prospective agents talked in their sleep.’

  I ridiculed the idea. ‘What nonsense,’ I always replied. ‘That’s just a figment of someone’s over-active imagination. There was no such person as Fifi.’ But afterwards I began to wonder whether I hadn’t known Fifi. Whether I hadn’t in fact lived with her.

  Dorothy, the third member of our team at Beaulieu, was older than Jean and I. She was also something of a mystery, though at the time it didn’t strike me as strange. Our lives in SOE were a mystery from beginning to end, and the order I received on my first day not to ask questions, had become a habit. Dorothy never came with us on local exercises in Bournemouth and Southampton, but she often disappeared to London for a few days. ‘Dorothy,’ I remember asking her when she returned from one of her jaunts. ‘Do you stay in your flat when you go to London?’

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘Usually in hotels.’

  ‘Whatever for?’ I pursued, in my innocence. Or was it ignorance? Probably just pig-headedness, not knowing when enough is enough.

  She smiled enigmatically and replied vaguely: ‘Oh, I do a bit of sleep-walking.’ And left it at that. And so did I.I didn’t understand. But something prompted me not to pursue the matter further.

  But, intrigued by the media’s persistent questioning, I began to wonder what Dorothy had been doing on her ‘sleep-walking’ jaunts to London. She was certainly not the kind of woman anyone could ever mistake for a ‘tart’: rather the opposite. But she knew a great many agents: their photographs in silver frames, with touching dedications to her, jostled for place on her dressing table. And I couldn’t help wondering whether perhaps Fifi had existed after all and wasn’t merely the figment of someone’s fertile imagination.

  After the war I met Dorothy by chance one afternoon in the Strand. I hadn’t seen her since I had left Beaulieu in June ’45, and we had tea together in Lyons Corner House.

  ‘I’m giving a dinner party next week,’ she announced, when the waitress arrived with our tray. ‘I’ve invited several friends from our Beaulieu days. It would be lovely if you could join us.’

  She raised her eyebrows expectantly. But I hesitated. When the war had ended all I had wanted to do was forget those dramatic years and attempt to make some sense of my life. My heart had been broken, an experience not uncommon to many women who worked for SOE, and I wanted to turn the page, pick up the pieces and start again. But it wasn’t easy. Those years cannot just be blotted out, however hard one tries. Dorothy knew this. She knew my story and let me pour out my pain, vocalize my impossible hopes . . . and my moments of despair. We had lived together in very close contact, but, looking back, I realize now that I had known very little about her . . . until that afternoon.

  When the flow ceased and the teapot had run dry, she reached across the table and squeezed my hand sympathetically. ‘Noreen,’ she said softly, ‘he’s not coming back.’ In my heart of hearts I knew that. He was one of tho
se who had disappeared without trace. But I had hoped against hope for the impossible. Soldiers behind bars or in prison camps had turned up. And airmen who had been reported missing, believed killed, had survived incredible experiences and finally returned, sometimes to face tragic situations: their wives, believing them dead, having married again. ‘If you find a good man,’ Dorothy went on, ‘marry him.’

  I looked at her in surprise. Good men were two a penny at the time. There were so many of them returning from the war, tired of fighting, sick of strife, wanting only to settle down and be happy with a loving wife. Every presentable woman had her choice. ‘Why should I marry?’ I asked belligerently, adding bluntly, ‘You didn’t.’ She must have been almost forty at the time.

  She smiled. ‘No. But I had lovers.’

  ‘Then why shouldn’t I?’ I countered, sullenly picking at the remains of the scones and cherry cake. The war had brought out a bitter streak in me. Dorothy smiled again, that enigmatic smile which was so intriguing and which many people, especially men, found irresistible. ‘Because,’ she replied, ‘you are different. You wouldn’t be happy living my way.’ She patted my hand affectionately and signalled for the bill. ‘You’re a born wife and mother . . . I’m not.’

  I looked down at my now empty plate, idly sketching patterns in the crumbs with one finger. I liked her and admired her, and her revelation had not really surprised me. I think I knew. I also knew that she was right about me: we were different.

  ‘Now,’ she went on, briskly changing the subject, ‘promise me you’ll come to my dinner party next Wednesday. Harry and Donald and their wives and . . .’ She mentioned a couple of other former agents who had ended up as instructors at Beaulieu, whom she’d also invited. ‘They’d love to see you again.’ She collected her gloves and handbag and stood up. ‘You can’t go on ignoring us for ever.’

  I was reluctant to go, but I went. I was curious. I knew the officers she mentioned, but I had never met their wives, and I told myself it would be interesting to meet the women they had married. Dorothy had a lovely flat in a fashionable part of London, and the dinner was superb. She was right: they were all very pleased to link up with me again; we had spent many poignant and amusing moments together during those difficult years. They knew about my heartbreak and all confirmed what Dorothy had said: he was not coming back. I think that evening was the catalyst I needed which propelled me to turn the page. It need not have been difficult but, true to type, wrapped up in myself, I made it so. When the evening ended we promised to all meet again very soon. They urged me to join the club which fellow SOE members had created in 1946 in order for former members to keep in touch. I said I would. But I never did: not, that is, until many years later.

  I never saw Dorothy again. I left for Copenhagen shortly afterwards, and we lost touch. I heard later that she had gone to South Africa, but wherever she was, our paths didn’t cross. Now, I can’t help wondering, was she the mysterious Fifi? If Fifi did exist, Dorothy was the only woman I knew at that time who could fit the description. The film company which made the documentary for the BBC never managed to track her down either, which was probably as well, should the few remaining agents have been watching the film with their wives. Even after all these years it could have caused friction.

  Although at Dorothy’s dinner party I had promised to join the SOE club, it was only many years later, urged by my little brother, that I did so. He happened to be lunching with an SAS friend at the Special Forces Club, and when they were leaving they bumped into the club secretary, a retired lieutenant colonel. When his friend introduced them, Geoffrey confided that he was sure I had been a member of SOE during the war. The secretary immediately asked him to persuade me to join. Having fought in Malaya with his regiment and spent his twenty-first birthday in a foxhole deep in the jungle had matured my little bro, and I think he guessed what my wartime activities had been. He gave me the address of the club with orders to present myself. So, remembering the promise I had made in 1947 at Dorothy’s dinner party, the next time I was in London I resolved to visit the club and see for myself.

  But I couldn’t find the place. I had the address and I knew more or less where it was, but the street seemed to vanish after a few numbers. Puzzled, I decided to ask the doorman at Harrods. He scrutinized the paper I gave him, then looked furtively round, bent down towards me and whispered out of the side of his mouth: ‘Do you mean the secret club?’ I was startled and whispered back that I thought it was secret. He nodded conspiratorially ‘Were you one of them?’ he continued, still hissing out of the side of his mouth in the best secret agent tradition. I blushingly admitted that I was, whereupon he drew himself up to his full height – and he was tall. I wondered what on earth he was going to do. ‘Madam,’ he said in a loud voice, ‘allow me to shake your hand.’ So I allowed him. It was midday. There were crowds of people milling about on the narrow pavement outside Harrods, and he was supposed to be opening doors for those who wanted to enter or leave. But the entrance remained inaccessible while we stood there, two elderly people holding hands, blocking the pavement so that shoppers could get neither in nor out of the shop. I don’t know what passers-by thought. But I was very touched by his gesture.

  Another touching experience linked to the club, and the activities of those who were its founders, happened to me only a few years ago. I had been staying at the club but was leaving that evening on the Eurostar to return to Paris, so I walked along to Harrods, where I knew I would find a taxi. I told the cabby I was going to Waterloo and asked him to stop at this address on the way, so that I could collect my luggage.

  When he drew up outside the door of the club, he was anxious to come in with me to pick up my case, but I assured him that there was no need, someone would carry it out for me. He seemed disappointed and, as soon as the front door was opened, he strained forward in an attempt to catch a glimpse inside. ‘That’s the spies’ club, isn’t it?’ he remarked, as he drove away. Again I was taken aback and asked him how he knew. ‘Oh, at the taxi school we’re told that’s where it is. But I’ve never picked anyone up from there before.’ He turned round and, echoing the words of the doorman at Harrods, said, ‘Were you one of them?’

  It was six o’clock in the evening. He was driving through the crowded rush-hour London traffic with his head screwed round at an angle of forty-five degrees, his eyes not on the road, but on me, eyeing me inquisitively, as if I were some kind of fossil he had picked up on the beach. I began to feel nervous, expecting a head-on crash at any minute, so suggested that he might keep his eyes where they should be: on the road ahead. But he didn’t appear to hear, enthusiastically telling me that he was passionately interested in Second World War history, had read all the books on the subject he’d been able to lay his hands on and watched every film and documentary. ‘My kids wouldn’t do what you lot done,’ he ended morosely. I assured him that they would if ever the occasion arose. But he didn’t seem convinced. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘You was a special generation.’ Not knowing his ‘kids’, I couldn’t argue.

  When we arrived at Waterloo – it was in the days before the Eurostar left from St Pancras – and I gave him the fare, he refused it. ‘I couldn’t take a penny, lady,’ he said, to my intense embarrassment. ‘You’ve made my day. I’m honoured to have met you.’ I tried to insist he accept the money, but he was adamant in his refusal. He dived into the glove compartment of his car and brought out a card. ‘Next time you’re in London,’ he ended, ‘ring this number and ask for Dave, and I’ll drive you anywhere you want to go.’ He insisted on carrying my case right up to the ticket gate. We shook hands warmly, and I walked through moved almost to tears, feeling humbled and undeserving of his unstinted praise and admiration.

  I remembered a conversation I had had one afternoon with radio operator Henri Diacono in the train on one of our journeys back home. We had been lunching in Paris with the other two F Section survivors, Bob Maloubier and Marcel Jaurent-Singer. And, of course, winning the war all o
ver again! Bob nicknamed us ‘les trois anciens et la gamine’ (‘the three old fogies and the kid’ – me!). Henri and I took the same train home, his station being two stops before mine. ‘If the opportunity arose would you do it again?’ he asked as the train trundled through the outskirts of Paris. I looked at him.

  ‘Would you?’ I countered.

  ‘I don’t know’, he reflected. ‘We were so young, weren’t we? We didn’t realize the danger.’ It was true. I don’t remember feeling afraid or in any kind of danger, even during the air raids. We thought we were invulnerable, immortal. Death was something which happened to other people. It couldn’t touch us.

  Perhaps all young people think this way. Perhaps that’s the way the agents felt when they left for the field. I don’t know, but I hope so: it would have given them courage, buoyed them up to face whatever lay ahead. That could be the reason why I was so disappointed when I was not allowed to train as an agent. I had wanted to go into occupied France, but I was too young. Then, when I could have gone, the war was almost over. Perhaps, like Henri said, I didn’t realize the danger.