They Fought Alone

by Maurice Buckmaster

  ‘Scatter,’ Michael said to Paul and the others. ‘Well done. Get going.’ They turned away from him and each man ran across the gleaming lines of the yard, anxious to get as far away as possible before the bang – and the Germans – came. Michael watched them go and smiled. He walked slowly away, his eyes still on the sheds, as dark, as massive and as silent as before. Five minutes to go. Michael climbed over the low fence at the edge of the yard and turned to watch the explosion. Promptly at two a dull orange bubble of flame burst at the far end of the sheds and a muffled crump followed almost at once – and almost at once the sheds were shattered with an uncontrollable series of explosions, here there and everywhere gouts of flame were spewed out into the night. Running footsteps and cries of pain and alarm. In the glare of the burning sheds, Michael could see guards and railwaymen running towards the explosions. A German was blown clean off the ground by a new explosion. The far end of the huge sheds crumpled slowly down, like an animal driven to its knees, and the flames stuttered and caught at the fallen wreckage. By twenty past two the sheds were an inferno. Michael turned away and ran down the alley towards Paul’s, where he was going to spend the night. Behind him the fires grew steadily and the wail of sirens filled the night.

  The next day I was in my Baker Street office when I had a phone call from the Wing Commander at Bomber Command. ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  ‘I haven’t heard anything yet,’ I replied.

  ‘The old man—’

  ‘I know all about the old man,’ I said. ‘And I’ll let you know as soon as I hear any news.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Not till five o’clock that afternoon did I receive a decoded message from Max in Paris. It read: ‘MISSION COMPLETED WHAT NEXT.’

  I phoned my man at Bomber Command.

  ‘They’ve done it,’ I said.

  ‘Have they though? How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve had the news from our man on the spot.’

  ‘How much damage have they done?’

  ‘Look, they completed the mission. What do you want – photographs?’

  ‘Might be an idea, old boy.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  VIII

  Michael looked at the message which had arrived from Max. ‘What the hell does this mean?’ he asked. ‘“WELL DONE SEND PHOTOGRAPHS.” What the hell—?’

  The fires had not been extinguished in the locomotive shops till nearly noon of the next day. By that time the whole enormous works were gutted skeletons. The engines inside the shops had been badly damaged by the explosions and further incapacitated by the firemen’s foam with which they had been deluged. The lines were blocked by the twisted wreckage and the Germans were in a frenzy of anger and frustration. The captain of the guard was under close arrest and all his men were in detention cells. The whole yard was swarming with Gestapo men and officials.

  ‘Send photographs,’ Michael said bitterly. ‘There’s headquarters for you!’

  The yards were closely guarded now and the well-dressed businessman with the camera slung round his neck had to go through a control before he could gain access to them.

  ‘What do you want in the yards?’ snapped the Gestapo man at the barrier.

  ‘I represent the Societé Nationale d’Assurance Maritime et Industrielle. There is a claim against my company for part of the damage in this dreadful affair. I must make a report, you understand,’ the man finished.

  They inspected his papers and allowed him to pass. He walked sadly towards the scene of destruction. It was obvious his company had taken a bad knock. He took out his camera and sorrowfully began to photograph the mess. There were tears in his eyes behind the thick glasses as he snapped the twisted girders, the ruined machinery and the smashed engines. After an hour of steady photography, the little man seemed more mournful then ever. He came back to the barrier through which he had passed earlier and his whole attitude was one of complete dejection. He was shaking his head and as he passed between the guards he could be heard mumbling ‘Dreadful, dreadful’. The guards felt quite sorry for him. In this way the Resistance leader managed to get photos of the wreckage sufficient to convince even Bomber Command. A week later the pictures arrived on my desk, ‘Avec les compliments de la Résistance.’ I passed them on to the Wing Commander with the acknowledgements unchanged. His reply came by return: ‘Compliments of Bomber Command to our friends of the Resistance.’

  I passed on the message from Bomber Command to Michael and his men. This appeal for photographic evidence that we had completed the sabotage which we said we had was the culmination of a long wrangle, at times verging on the acrimonious, between myself and the heads of other services. This attack on the locomotive shops at Fives-Lille did the trick and from now on the RAF were ready to believe that in certain cases we could carry out demolitions with greater accuracy and less loss of civilian life than they. Henceforth we were to get many requests for acts of sabotage which required a finesse impossible to achieve by bombing: often there would be one vital component of a factory which had to be destroyed or all other damage was pointless – sometimes a single well-placed stick of dynamite or plastic explosive could succeed where tons of HE had failed.

  By now the guard on factories was well maintained and some of our best men, even Peter Churchill and Ben Cowburn, were forced to abandon plans for the destruction of certain buildings because to approach them was suicide. After the war we were to be grateful that at least some of the power stations and other installations escaped the attentions of our men.

  From now on Michael extended his organisation in Lille with great rapidity. After the success with the locomotive shops, morale was high and recruits could be selected from large numbers of willing young men. He planned numerous acts of sabotage. Germans were shot and their bodies floated down the canals. At Tourcoing, on the outskirts of Lille, rolling stock was blown up and piled across the line. In Armentiéres a factory manufacturing breech blocks had its machinery so mangled that it could not resume production for months. All over the Lille area the Germans were on tenterhooks as each night some new sector exploded in twisted steel and smashed machinery. Michael was everywhere, planning and leading the sorties of resisters which made it dangerous for any German to go out alone. The Gestapo did everything it could to infiltrate the organisation. Two double agents were caught and shot and their bodies dumped outside Gestapo headquarters.

  One day Michael himself was driving a truck full of small arms ammunition from Cambrai into Lille when he was ordered to stop by a milicien. He slowed up and stopped. ‘Your papers.’

  He handed them over. The policeman looked at them and handed them back. Michael started up the engine again then the policeman said: ‘What have you got in the back?’ ‘Hospital material,’ Michael replied. ‘Bandages and things like that.’

  ‘I’ll take a look. Come on. Open it up.’

  Michael put a hand on the milicien’s arm. ‘Come now, officer, we all have to live—’

  ‘What’s this?’

  Michael took out his wallet. ‘We all have to make a little on the side,’ he said with a wink. ‘Selling a few eggs and things like that, you know how it is.’

  The milicien drew his pistol. ‘Open it up,’ he said.

  Michael got out of the cab of the truck and walked round resignedly with the milicien to the back. As they rounded the corner Michael turned and his arm flashed up, knocking aside the gun; the other hand slashed across the man’s windpipe. As the milicien gasped with shock and pain, Michael brought his knee up into the man’s groin. A punch to his belly finished him and he dropped limply into the road. Michael leapt back into the truck. A whistle blew. He slammed the gear into position and accelerated. Another milicien ran out into the middle of the road, his arms spread wide. Michael accelerated into him and he went sprawling into the gutter. Michael turned the van into a side lane by a sawmill and pulled up behind a pile of wood. He jumped out. Two miliciens on bicycles appeared at the far end of the road
. One saw him, clutched the other’s arm and fired a shot. Michael ducked through the sawmill yard where wood was stacked, and heard, beyond it, the whine of a police siren. He had to warn Thomas Franck, a butcher whose van he was using, before the Gestapo got to him. In a moment they would find the van, trace it and all would be up. Michael ran up some wooden steps to where the yard-foreman’s office was. There was no one in the office. A phone stood under the window overlooking the yard. He snatched it up.

  ‘Yes, Monsieur Eustache?’

  ‘Get me Tourcoing 23-97. Hurry.’ The pause was agonising. At last he heard Thomas’s voice saying ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Thomas.’ He could see two miliciens now in the yard. ‘Get out, get your family out and warn the others. Hurry, hurry.’

  ‘What is this—?’

  ‘This is Michael. Do as I say.’

  ‘There he is,’ called one of the miliciens, pointing up to the office. He fired a shot at Michael that smashed the glass of the window.

  ‘That is an order,’ Michael shouted. ‘Do you understand?’

  ‘I understand,’ Thomas said.

  The foreman came into the yard and was stopped by the miliciens. Michael threw open the door of the office and shouted: ‘Stand clear.’ The foreman jumped aside and Michael fired at the miliciens as he came running down the steps back into the yard. One of them clutched at his elbow and the other ran out of the yard. The foreman looked astonished, not committing himself to either side.

  With a scream of sirens a German van drew up at the gate of the yard. Michael had five clips of ammunition. He called to the foreman: ‘Tell them I went that way.’ The man nodded, still apparently dazed by the suddenness of this invasion. Michael ran between two high stacks of sawn wood towards the canal. There were five Gestapo men at the far end of the lane. Michael turned. Two miliciens fired at him. He fired back and one dropped. The men at either end began advancing. Michael was trapped. He started to try to climb up the steep sides of the woodpile, firing as he went. A milicien knelt and shielded his eyes against the setting sun. Michael fired off one clip of ammunition and paused to reload. The milicien fired and Michael fell, clutching at the side of the stacked wood. The Gestapo men advanced firing their submachine guns. Michael lay there, firing back. He dropped another one of them and then collapsed. So died Michael, one of the bravest and most effective of our men.

  By the time of his death Michael had so organised the Lille patriots that they could continue with undiminished efficiency after the loss of their leader. Under their original leader, they dealt the enemy many more devastating blows before the liberation for which they had all worked ended their dangers and revealed their glory. Michael was not forgotten, for when I myself visited Lille in October 1944, I noticed a huge banner suspended over the Avenue de la Liberte with the initials OFACM printed on it in enormous letters. I asked one of the men what they stood for.

  ‘They are the initials of our organisation,’ he replied.

  ‘OFACM?’

  ‘Organisation Française des Amis du Capitaine Michel,’ he explained. ‘One does not forget a man like Michael.’

  † George Starr, organiser of the WHEELWRIGHT Circuit.

  † Yolande Beekman. Field name Mariette. Code name PALMIST. Wireless operator for the MUSICIAN Circuit. Killed in Dachau on 13 September 1944.

  † René Dumont-Guillemet. Field name Armand. Code name SPIRITUALIST.

  Chapter 8

  Blackmail

  By late 1943, RAF raids on Germany and on enemy-held Europe had been greatly stepped up. This fact enabled us to put into general operation a plan submitted to us by Harry Rée, our Réseau leader in the Franche-Comté. Harry was a very tough and very daring man and his idea required a good deal of nerve on the part of an agent, for he was required to get in touch with the owner of a factory and ask his permission to destroy it! Harry first put it into operation with a Peugeot factory which was manufacturing tank turrets for the Germans.

  He rang up Robert Peugeot himself and after a number of secretarial intermediaries was able to speak to him.

  ‘Monsieur Peugeot, I am ringing you about a rather special piece of business I would like to conclude with you. I wonder if it would be possible for us to meet?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Shall we say my name is Léon? I want very much to speak to you. Could I come to your home tonight?’

  ‘You’ve got a certain nerve, my friend,’ Peugeot said. ‘What is this about?’

  ‘I’m sorry—’

  ‘All right. Come to the house at eight. I will see you.’

  The Peugeots lived in considerable luxury, for the factory was doing well in the service of the Boches. It cannot be concealed that a large number of French industrialists were finding it very rewarding to co-operate with the Germans; in Robert Peugeot’s case, however, it was with the greatest reluctance. For a long time he had resisted strong pressure to turn his factory over to war production and had only given in when threatened with expropriation and the removal to Germany of his trained technicians. Harry Rée was very direct with him.

  ‘We want to blow up your factory,’ he said.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Some friends and myself – we want to blow up your factory.’

  ‘Blow up … are you mad?’

  ‘I am a British officer, Monsieur Peugeot; I am not mad.’

  ‘A British officer? Really? Really? And how can you prove this? Why should I believe such a fantastic story?’

  ‘Does it make any difference whether I am a British officer or not?’

  ‘Of course it does. I don’t want to be – well, I don’t want to agree to anything—’

  ‘I understand.’ Rée saw that Peugeot was afraid that he might be a German provocateur trying to lure the industrialist into saying something incriminating. ‘Do you ever listen to the BBC?’ he went on.

  ‘Not as a rule, no.’

  ‘I will arrange for them to repeat any message you like to give me now before the seven o’clock news the evening after next. Would that convince you?’

  ‘You can arrange this?’ Peugeot asked. Harry nodded. ‘Well, prove it. Have them say “La guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu.”’

  ‘I will call on you at the same time the evening after next,’ Harry said. ‘If the message is sent. Otherwise I will not come again. I can tell you on Thursday what my plan is—’

  ‘I don’t guarantee to allow this,’ Peugeot said. ‘I don’t guarantee it at all.’

  Harry had his wireless operator send us an urgent message on his next sked. Peugeot’s message had to be sent on the very night which he had named or the plan might not go through. I got on to the Personal Messages section of the BBC French Service and told them the message. They promised to send it. I was very keen for Harry’s plan to work, for if it did I wanted to put it into general operation. We were now using the messages personnels extensively in order to confirm the identity of our men to Frenchmen with whom they got into contact. No more certain proof of an agent’s link with London could be provided than the transmission from the BBC of a message personally selected by his contact. There could be no deception, since positively any short phrase could be chosen by the Frenchman and the agent could not possibly have had prior knowledge of it or of what the BBC were going to broadcast.

  This means of confirmation was used in another way. At the beginning we dropped a lot of money with our men. This was both dangerous and wasteful, for a man carrying a large sum of money would undoubtedly be detained for questioning if it were discovered on him, while if he were captured the money – and the amounts were not inconsiderable – would be a write-off. We therefore decided to allow our men to borrow cash from patriotic Frenchmen on the promise of reimbursement after the war. Nothing at all was given to the lender as receipt for the loan. Naturally, however, the contact was not going to part with thousands of francs without being convinced that the agent was what he said he was. He had to show that he did come from London.
How could this be proved? Only by a BBC message confirming the claim. The Frenchman chose, quite at random, a phrase for repetition by the BBC’s French Service. Our agent transmitted the request to us. We had the BBC repeat it and the Frenchman was convinced, as if by magic. The money was handed over without a qualm, the contact being confident of post-war reimbursement. It was my job, in 1944, to go round and repay the money – in every case the Treasury met the claims without question – and the total sum involved was considerable.

  Harry Rée relied on us to transmit Peugeot’s chosen phrase. The BBC did not fail him or us: ‘Quelques messages personnels,’ came the announcer’s measured voice. ‘Charles est très malade … Marcel aime Marceline … Il n’y a pas de bananes … La guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu … Yvette a dix doigts…’ As soon as Harry heard the announcer repeat Peugeot’s message, he rushed out of his digs and hurried round to the industrialist’s house.

  ‘Monsieur—?’ the maid inquired.

  ‘Léon,’ Harry said.

  ‘Wait here please.’ The maid went away. She seemed to stay away a long time and Harry grew rather apprehensive. Then she returned. ‘Will you wait in here please?’ She opened the door to a small sitting room, expensively furnished and hung with tapestries. Harry went in and the door was shut behind him. He was alone. He went to the window and looked out. It gave on to an interior courtyard: he could not get out that way. Suddenly there was the sound of voices – German voices. Harry went to the door and he could hear them even more clearly. He ran to the window and heaved it up. There was a shout of laughter from outside and then he heard shouts of ‘Bon soir, Monsieur Peugeot,’ in rough French accents, the accents of Germans speaking French. There was the sound of the front door shutting. Harry’s heart stopped pounding and he shut the window. The door of the room opened and Robert Peugeot came in. When he saw Harry he smiled. ‘Were you about to make your escape?’ he asked.

  ‘What were the Boches doing here?’