They Fought Alone

by Maurice Buckmaster

  Harry told Gustave to take the wireless set upstairs and get it ready for transmission as he fortunately had a sked with London at 2130 hours that night. ‘We’ll leave the arms and things here in the car,’ he said. ‘There’s no sense in taking them into the house. They might be more of an embarrassment than anything else. Anyway, someone’s rather interested in our arrival.’ Harry had noticed a curtain in a neighbouring house pulled back to reveal an inquisitive face. ‘Let’s get this over and push on.’

  Harry had intended to stay the night in Sarlat, but he now considered it would be safer to push on as soon as they had sent their message. The face at the window worried him.

  ‘Denis, you keep an eye on the road and make sure no one pays too much attention to the car.’

  They started to send their message to London. Maurice stood at the window. A beam from a spotlight suddenly lit up the whole room. ‘A car is coming,’ called Maurice. ‘It must be the police with a light like that.’ The beam swept across the ceiling and the car passed. ‘Keep sending,’ Harry ordered. ‘The danger’s passed.’

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Poirier said.

  ‘Don’t be a fool. We stand a much better chance by keeping quiet.’

  ‘Let’s get the arms from the car.’

  ‘And if the car comes back with the Gestapo?’

  ‘It won’t come—’

  Poirier stopped in mid-sentence. The beam of light stabbed through the darkness again and exploded in a vivid white patch on the ceiling. The car was coming back. The six men stood still. Poirier went on with his message. The final morse groups were dispatched. The Gestapo car stopped outside the house. Harry said: ‘Send your emergency danger signal to London.’ No one else spoke.

  There was the thunder of knocking on the door. The six men were powerless. There was no back way out of the house. They were trapped. The front door was kicked in. Boots rang on the stone steps. The door of the room was flung open. Three troopers with machine-guns covered them. A corporal came in. The six men raised their hands.

  ‘Those are the ones,’ cried an excited voice. ‘Black marketeers, communists, traitors.’ A small female figure burst into the room, quivering with fury and righteous indignation. It was the inquisitive woman from next door. She had rung the Germans, thinking she had trapped a nest of black marketeers. She stopped short on seeing the wireless. She looked at the men she had betrayed, their faces impassive with hatred. She looked from them to the Germans and she burst into tears and ran from the room.

  ‘A lucky break for you, corporal,’ commented Harry bitterly. ‘You should get a promotion for this.’

  ‘Come,’ said the corporal.

  They were taken to a prison in Clermont-Ferrand. Harry was utterly dispirited. Ill luck had dogged him and now he blamed himself for the capture of the men with him. In fact, he had no call to reproach himself, for their capture had been so unlucky that no man could have been expected to allow for the circumstances which led to it. In Clermont-Ferrand they were all put into different cells. Harry was not badly treated by the authorities, for the prison was guarded by Georgian troops sent all the way from Russia. The Georgians – or some of them at least (Stalin was a Georgian) – were not much in favour of the Allies and a number had been recruited by the Germans for such tasks as the ones at Clermont-Ferrand were engaged upon.

  Harry was taken from his cell one night and led to the quarters of an officer of the Georgians. ‘Tomorrow,’ this man told him, ‘you will be taken to a concentration camp in Germany.’

  Harry bowed ironically.

  ‘I am going to give you a chance to escape.’

  Harry bowed again, surprised but suspicious. He no longer cared very much what happened to him. He had lost confidence to that degree. He knew that this trick of giving you a chance to escape was a common one among those who wanted to shoot you down. They could then report that you had been ‘shot while trying to escape.’ Some of the Germans made quite a little sport out of it.

  ‘I will give you my revolver,’ said the Georgian. ‘I know what you are doing here in France and I want to give you a chance to continue.’

  Harry stared at the man. He was holding out his revolver, his dark eyes glowing with what looked like a genuine friendliness. At the same time, the chances of making a successful escape seemed so remote and the faith of the officer so suspect that Harry hesitated. He shook his head. ‘I’ve heard that one before,’ he said. The officer smiled sadly and returned the revolver to its holster. Something in that second convinced Harry of the genuineness of the man’s offer. But it was too late to act upon it.

  The next day Harry and the others were taken to Germany. Harry was in a concentration camp till he was liberated by the Americans in the beginning of 1945. He came home with four other officers from the same camp. I met them at Victoria. All the men were walking scarecrows. Harry straightened himself and saluted.

  ‘I am sorry I failed in my mission, mon Colonel,’ he said.

  † Gilbert Norman. He was arrested in June 1943 and died in Mauthausen on 6 September 1944.

  Chapter 10

  Traitor

  Roger Landes was filled with cold fury at the capture of Harry and his friends. It now seemed that no mission could be undertaken with safety. Roger himself spent most of his time indoors, never straying from his digs except where it was absolutely necessary and never coming into contact with any of the other members of the Réseau. He had ten men who acted as his special bodyguard if he did have to go about, and these men were immune from the attentions of the police: for they were themselves policemen. The ten men were members of the Gendarmerie and they had been instrumental in getting Roger genuine papers. The man who actually issued these papers became a close friend of Roger and the latter sometimes spent the evening with his family which included a pretty daughter of whom Roger became increasingly fond. The father had also enabled Roger to get a carte de travail – an important piece of equipment if one were long to evade the grip of the German labour organisations who were always looking for unemployed men to ship to Germany. Roger had been introduced to a Vichy labour camp chief and claimed that he wanted to do forestry work for him. He asked, however, for a month’s leave to settle his personal affairs. The camp chief gave him a letter granting him a month’s leave, stating that he was to be unmolested, since he belonged to an accredited labour organisation. The date on the letter was susceptible to change and month by month it was advanced. The camp commander, of course, never saw Roger again.

  ‘Whom did you tell about Harry Peulevé’s mission?’ Roger questioned Jean, the courier, when he next saw him. ‘I did not tell anyone,’ protested the other.

  ‘Who did you talk to?’ snapped Roger.

  ‘I do not talk.’

  ‘Everyone talks,’ Roger said. ‘It’s got to stop. From now on anyone who does will be shot. Two vital section heads have been lost during the last month and a good many others as well. I want a message to all section heads that they are not to act at all without direct orders from me. They are never to use any house without sending a scout first. They are not to divulge the nature of any mission to anyone without express permission from me – and they won’t get that permission. They are to keep an eye open for anyone who could remotely be suspected of traitorous activities. If their suspicions are strong the man must be shot, if not he must be chucked out and all meeting places changed. Now get that out to all section heads before they are all arrested.’

  Jean looked bleakly at his leader. ‘Do you really believe that I would betray our men, mon Capitaine?’ he demanded.

  ‘It’s happening too often,’ Roger said sternly. ‘Someone as close to the centre of things as you – or me – is responsible.’

  ‘Surely not, mon Capitaine.’

  ‘Someone that close,’ Roger said.

  Jean left to take the message to Réseau heads. One of Roger’s bodyguards turned up at the house a few hours later.

  ‘You must leave here at once,�
�� he said. ‘They’ve made a lot more arrests.’

  ‘What the hell is this?’ Roger cried. ‘What’s going on?’ ‘You know damn well what’s going on,’ the gendarme replied. ‘We’ve got a traitor in the organisation.’

  ‘Whom have they arrested?’

  ‘They picked up Auguste last night. He had your telegram on him. I saw him when they brought him in. They also arrested the chief of the forestry camp.’

  ‘What? The man who gave me my carte de travail?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Aiding the Resistance.’

  Roger threw back his head and laughed – for the first time in many weeks. ‘Aiding the Resistance! Pauvre salaud! How did they get Auguste?’

  ‘It looked like a routine check – just bad luck. But I fancy they knew where to get him. The Commandant’s arrest looks like an informer’s work too.’

  ‘I’d better move right away,’ Roger decided. ‘You can stay and help me, can you?’

  ‘Of course,’ replied the other. ‘Incidentally,’ he went on, as they began to pack up Roger’s things, ‘there is one piece of good news.’

  ‘Oh, what’s that?’

  ‘They’ve let Fragonard’s wife go.’

  ‘Really,’ Roger said. ‘I never even knew she’d been inside.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ the gendarme said, ‘she was arrested in Paris; that must have been before your time. They had her on suspicion for a long time but they could never pin anything on her. Now they’ve let her go. Apparently our traitor whoever he is didn’t have any information about Fragonard or his wife.’

  ‘That’s rather surprising,’ Roger said. ‘I thought nearly everyone in Bordeaux knew about Le Chef.’

  ‘Well, apparently they don’t.’

  ‘Unless—’ Roger began.

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing.’

  Roger and the gendarme moved his belongings to a safe house of which the latter knew. The family said that Roger was their nephew and seemed very happy to have him with them. Roger was much encouraged by the cordiality of his reception and he was confident of the trustworthiness of his hosts. He decided not to tell Jean of his change of address, for in spite of his faith in the man, he could not afford to take the slightest risk. He knew that the way things were it needed only his own capture totally to destroy the effectiveness of the whole Bordeaux Réseau. He owed it to us in London and to Claude de Baissac who had built up the Réseau to keep it intact.

  For several days things were quite quiet. Then, one evening, there was a knock at the door while Roger and the family were sitting in the front room. Monsieur Barjou, Roger’s host, went and answered it.

  ‘I believe you have a newcomer in the house, Monsieur Barjou.’

  Roger sat transfixed in his chair. There was nothing he could do.

  ‘Ah, Monsieur Herbisse, good evening. Yes, my nephew is staying with us.’

  ‘He is a young man.’

  ‘Yes, he is in a reserved occupation.’

  ‘I wonder if I could speak to him.’

  ‘He – he is out just now.’

  ‘Isn’t that him sitting in your front room?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes, well – Jules, someone wants to talk to you. It’s Monsieur Herbisse from next door.’

  Roger went out into the passage where the two men were. His host left him alone with Monsieur Herbisse, their neighbour.

  ‘You are a young man, Monsieur. Are you also a patriot?’

  ‘I hope so, Monsieur,’ Roger replied, cautiously.

  ‘I am a member of the Resistance,’ whispered the other.

  ‘Yes?’ said Roger sceptically, uncertain where the conversation was going to lead.

  ‘Germany has lost the war,’ said the other.

  ‘It doesn’t look like it to me.’

  ‘It is certain. That is why we need your help.’

  ‘If it is certain you do not need my help.’

  ‘To hasten the day. We are very strong and we have arms dropped to us from England—’

  ‘Dropped? How?’

  ‘By parachute.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Roger said, ‘I just can’t believe in things like that.’

  ‘You will be sorry, Monsieur.’

  ‘That is possible. Goodnight, Monsieur.’

  Roger went back into the front room.

  ‘He wanted me to join the Resistance,’ he smiled. ‘Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous?’

  II

  So far no information from any quarter had come in which might give them a clue about the identity of the traitor. One idea, however, continually recurred in Roger’s mind: that the release of Le Chef’s wife had some place in the pattern of events. But there was no evidence of how this fact fitted in or of its significance. Roger could only wait.

  In the beginning of February four RAF men were arrested in a farm on the outskirts of Facture. Their safekeeping had been in the hands of a man called Pierre Culioli. He was taken to a barn by two of Roger’s special bodyguard and questioned for four hours. He was forced to give an account of every move he had made since the moment the four men were given into his care. He accounted for every minute except an hour on the previous day. The men went on and on at him. He tried to cover it with a journey, but their suspicions had been aroused and they refused to believe him. They said they had orders to shoot him if he refused to tell them everything. He refused to talk. They tied him to a beam and said they would shoot him. He said he had been doing nothing wrong.

  ‘Then why won’t you tell us?’

  ‘I have been told not to pass on information from one section to another. I cannot break my faith with my leader.’

  ‘Aristide is in command of all the Bordeaux Resistance,’ the gendarmes told him. ‘There are no orders superior to his. No one has any business to withhold anything from him.’

  ‘I was simply with Le Chef,’ the man said. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  The gendarmes reported back to Roger at once.

  ‘He was with Le Chef,’ they told him. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Tell me more about Fragonard,’ Roger said.

  ‘He’s been with us for years,’ they said. ‘One of the first – and the best.’

  ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘He did that derailing job at Angoulême.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’

  ‘Oh that must be seven months or so by now,’ the gendarme said. Then he looked up at Roger. ‘My God, you don’t think…?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Roger said. ‘Not yet. When can you get a message to René?’

  ‘Not till tomorrow. We have to go on duty soon.’

  ‘I understand. Well, tomorrow I want you to get a message to René. He’s to cut all contact with Le Chef and join our circuit. The same thing applies to all our men who are mixed up with Le Chef.’

  ‘You say he is a traitor?’

  ‘We must wait and see. I’m taking no risks. Get a message through to London telling them what I fear and asking them to tell our men to drop all liaison with Le Chef. All arms dumps are to be moved as soon as possible.’

  ‘We’ll see to it,’ promised the gendarmes.

  But they could not, as they said, notify René of the new orders till the next day. That night René’s house was surrounded by the Gestapo. The traitor was getting reckless in the amount of information he was giving. The pressure was on him. If he did not give enough information something would happen. What was it? Roger wondered. Could it be that his wife would be re-arrested?

  René held off the Gestapo in a gun battle for five hours. Then his ammunition ran out. The Gestapo entered the house. He hid in the attic. They found him. He fought them off with his fists, knocking one of them down the stairs and breaking his shoulder. At length he was overpowered and taken to the Gestapo headquarters. He was tortured at once. He managed to hold out for twenty-four hours, in which time Roger and the others were able
to notify all those who had had contact with him. Later he was shot. René was one of the best men in Roger’s Réseau and his brave resistance both to capture and to torture was a characteristic if tragic climax to his service.

  Roger’s suspicions became more and more fixed on the mythical character of Le Chef (whom he had never met) and he resolved to have it out with him. Then something happened to make him change his mind. Le Chef was arrested.

  III

  Roger had been meeting the daughter of the man who had first issued him with genuine identity papers. This man, by name Charles†, now told him, when next Roger visited his house, that he had been questioned by the Gestapo. Somehow they knew that he knew Roger. He had promised to work for them as the only way in which to secure his release. Roger at once arranged for the whole family to go into hiding.

  At the end of the week, Alphonse, another of Roger’s men, was arrested. Commandant Dhose, the Gestapo chief, was either very lucky or he was still getting expert information. Why had Le Chef been arrested? No news of him could be obtained.

  Roger had a wireless set in a safe house which was above a garage in a mews. He considered the set much too precious to be abandoned, so he decided to go himself to get it and move it elsewhere. Roger usually went everywhere by bicycle and accordingly he pedalled off, after dusk, to the house where the set was concealed. The enormous task of reorganisation which the wave of arrests had necessitated had made him somewhat neglect his own personal end of things; being a trained operator he used his own set, but the pressure of other work had led him to leave it where it was for several weeks.

  He entered the mews and leaned his bike against the garage door, entering the house by the side entrance. He was met by the daughter of the family who owned it.