The Best of Our Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  They went downstairs for breakfast. Jean prepared the coffee and they sat together in silence at the table. Neither of them felt like eating bread and jam. Yesterday had been Jean’s nineteenth birthday, which they had celebrated by killing two Germans.

  Pierre stopped by on his way to work. He commented on the amount of Germans on the road and they told him what had happened. Pierre paced up and down the small front room, trying hard to arrange his thoughts.

  ‘And there is nothing that could link the deaths with you... with us?’

  ‘Nothing – only the clothes and Jean will destroy those at work today.’

  ‘No, too dangerous. There will be roadblocks everywhere. They will search everyone. Keep the clothes where they are for the time being. You didn’t take their weapons?’

  ‘No, we didn’t think,’ said Jean.

  ‘Don’t worry. Maybe it is safer anyway. There will be reprisals when they find the bodies. Just stick to your routine. We had better delay the sabotage until later in the week.’

  So they stuck to their routine. Jean left as normal for the farm. He wore one of his father’s jackets; the extra bulk would help conceal his shoulder dressing and any awkward movements.

  Geraldine cycled into Boulogne. There were fewer troops at the roadblocks, so she assumed they had not found the missing soldiers yet and were still out searching for them. She did not say anything to Françoise at work. It would be too risky.

  At lunchtime she left for her appointment with Lange at the Notre Dame inside the fortified old town. There were roadblocks everywhere and they were stopping and searching everyone. Maybe they had now found the bodies.

  She was a few minutes late when she got to the church and there was no sign of Lange. She found an empty side chapel and went in, lighting a candle before sitting down. What if the Germans turned on her for this? Maybe they thought she was now an Allied agent who had misled them over the invasion and was now killing German troops. Why had she told Lange yesterday that they would be transmitting from the forest? He was bound to know she was some way involved in the deaths.

  Lange shuffled into the chapel and sat down in front of her before turning round.

  ‘You had better explain.’

  She did her best. If she had done nothing then she and Jean would have been arrested. Her cover would have been blown. She would have been useless after that. You would get no more intelligence from the Allies. No clues about the invasion. Nothing. What was she meant to do? And wasn’t he meant to make sure that there were fewer patrols inland last night? It was not her fault. It was bad luck.

  Lange calmed down. He was not so much worried about the deaths of two worthless conscripts, but if the Gestapo or the SD found that there was a connection with the Abwehr, well that was a different matter altogether. But they needn’t find that out, eh?

  What mattered to Lange was the information that she had received when she spoke with London. So there would be an invasion through the Pas de Calais after all. It would be soon. They were to be patient. The sabotage was to start.

  An old woman dressed in black came into the chapel. Lange left as she did so, Geraldine following behind.

  They walked down the steep flight of steps from the Notre Dame, turned left and then down a narrow alley, with tall buildings flanking either side. Lange was walking a few paces ahead of her. As they emerged, they could hear a commotion in front of them, from the direction of the Hôtel de Ville. She hesitated, unsure of what was going on. Lange stopped and waited for her to catch up with him.

  ‘You ought to watch this,’ he said as she came alongside. ‘It may teach you to be more careful in future.’ With that he doffed his cap, smiled and wheeled away.

  She was in the Place Godefroy de Bouillon now, immediately in front of the Hôtel de Ville. It was teeming with German troops, who had ringed off the perimeter of the square. Crowds of civilians were being forced to assemble around the outside of the square. In the centre there were a dozen SS, dressed in their black uniforms, laughing and joking with each other. Standing separate to them was a detachment of around ten Wehrmacht soldiers, guarding a small group of civilians.

  She was pushed to the front of the cordon. The sun was quite glorious now, streaming down into the square and bouncing off the neat rows of cobblestones.

  An SS officer moved up to a large lorry, took a microphone from the dashboard, tested it and then addressed what was now a large and tense crowd in fluent French.

  ‘Last night, two German soldiers were murdered in the Boulogne area.’

  Murmurs in the crowd.

  ‘These murders could only have been carried out by French criminals. Therefore, in accordance with the military orders governing the Nord Pas de Calais region, two French citizens will be now be executed. If there are any further criminal acts, two civilians will be executed for the death of every one German soldier.’

  She could hear sobs and gasps from within the crowd. Geraldine noticed some people surreptitiously crossing themselves. A woman behind her tried to walk away. A soldier shoved her back.

  From the group of civilians held at gunpoint in the centre of the square, a young man was dragged out. As he was pulled nearer to where Geraldine was standing she could see that he was probably not much older than Jean, quite possibly younger. His shirt had been torn and his face was bruised. Two SS men went over to where he had been pushed to the ground. One of them said something to him and he shook his head and screamed ‘Non.’ The other SS man lashed him across the face and kicked him hard in the stomach. The boy crumpled to the ground. The first SS man was now behind him, his Luger revolver drawn. He drew it slowly round, leaned down, held it against the back of the boy’s head and fired. The body lurched forward, the head contorting into a strange angle which meant it was turned to the sky. Small streams of blood began darting through the cobblestones with a surprising speed.

  Shocked silence in the crowd. Geraldine could hear the man next to her mumbling a Hail Mary.

  There was more screaming from the group of hostages. A woman was pulled out, her shrieks reverberating around the square, bouncing off the walls and through everyone standing there. She was dragged towards the still laughing SS men and pushed to the ground in front of them, no more than a yard from the body of the dead boy.

  She rose up to a kneeling position, begging the soldiers, her hands clasped in prayer in front of her. The SS men were circling her, laughing and smoking. One of them grabbed hold of her dress and tore it. She held her head in her hands as two soldiers drew their revolvers. They both shot her at the same time, but they were body shots and her body was still moving after it hit the ground, soft groans floating across the silent square. Even some of the soldiers guarding the cordon seemed shocked. After a minute, a Wehrmacht officer walked over and said something to the laughing SS men. They shrugged and the officer walked over and finished her off.

  The crowd was ordered to disperse. Geraldine went to collect her bike. It would be easy to justify where she had been and why she was late. She had better remember to buy some bread.

  ooo000ooo

  Berlin, 8 June 1944

  General Walter Schellenberg did not know what to make of these Abwehr types. Ever since Hitler had sacked Admiral Canaris in February, Schellenberg’s Sicherheitsdienst – the SD, or security service – had taken over the intelligence functions of the Abwehr.

  They certainly knew plenty about intelligence, with impressive networks of spies everywhere. But Schellenberg could see how Hitler had come to mistrust them. It almost seemed to be a badge of honour among the top brass of the Abwehr that you were not a Nazi. Indeed, Schellenberg was aware of a fair amount of evidence now emerging that some of them were actually anti-Nazis. He did not understand it.

  One of the few Abwehr officers still in place was Major Reinhard Schmidt from Abwehr 1. This was the department that looked after foreign intelligence, not without some success. They were responsible for some very useful intelligence, not least in th
e immediate aftermath of the Allied invasion of Normandy.

  Major Schmidt had now asked to see him in connection with that. His timing was good. He would have trouble in naming one of the French-based generals or one member of the General Staff here in Berlin who had not contacted him in the past forty-eight hours

  They all wanted to know the same thing: is this the real invasion? I thought you told us it was going to be in the Pas de Calais.

  Schellenberg did his best to reassure them. Normandy is a diversionary tactic and that the main invasion will still be through the Pas de Calais. That is our assessment. We stand by it. Do not panic and, certainly, do not abandon the Pas de Calais.

  We must remain at full strength there.

  But it’s not easy, thought Schellenberg. They want me to tell them what to do with the Fifteenth Army and where to send their wretched Panzer divisions.

  All he could think was that for a feint, the Allies had landed an awful lot of troops in Normandy. It was not looking good. This damned Abwehr intelligence had better be good. Schellenberg did not fancy having to explain it away to Hitler.

  There was a knock at the door and Major Schmidt entered.

  ‘It had better be good news, Schmidt.’

  ‘I think it is, sir. You remember I briefed you on our agent in London – Magpie? She is the one who ended up marrying the Royal Navy intelligence officer and from whom we have been getting such good information about the Allied plans to have their main invasion in the Pas de Calais. It strongly corroborates the information we have been getting from our other agents in Britain.’

  ‘I remember. Continue, Schmidt.’

  ‘As you know she was then recruited to the SOE and landed in France in April, on the Führer’s birthday as it happens. My man Lange has been up in the area since then to liaise with her. Magpie was in contact with London last night. She was told still to expect the main invasion through her area. We have also been following her husband. He went to Dover yesterday. He was seen entering Dover Castle, which we believe is General Patton’s main base for the First US Army Group, FUSAG. So he is behaving exactly as we would expect him to behave.’

  ooo000ooo

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Pas de Calais

  June 1944

  When Jean heard the news of the executions in the centre of Boulogne he was inconsolable. There was no doubt whatsoever in his mind that he was responsible for them. Try as she might, it was impossible for Geraldine to persuade him otherwise. The boy who was murdered was just seventeen and Jean had been at school with his brother. The woman was a mother of two young children; her husband had been sent to work in Germany. If he had been in the square at the time, Jean insisted, he would have given himself up to save the lives of the hostages. He could not understand why she had not done that herself. He wanted to give himself up now to stop any more hostages being killed. They were responsible for this.

  Their arguments had to be conducted in whispers in case the neighbours heard. That night, she could hear him pacing up and down and the sound of gentle sobs.

  It was only when Pierre came round the next morning that they managed to convince Jean that there was nothing they could do. They had not set out to kill the German soldiers, so they had not been deliberately reckless with the lives of civilians. And they were far more use by remaining an active resistance unit.

  By the Friday, Jean had calmed down. The prospect of beginning the sabotage at the weekend concentrated his mind.

  The tension in the area had heightened since D-Day. Before then, the Germans who were billeted in the village had mainly used it as a place to sleep, restricting themselves to the occasional patrol, but now the Germans were constantly asking people for their passes. On the Friday evening they even saw a German radio detector van driving through the village. Pierre decided they must do everything to reduce the risk to the group.

  ‘Our job is simple: sabotage of the railway lines. If we are caught before then doing something like breaking the curfew that would be irresponsible.’ He would listen to the BBC broadcasts on his own in the old lady’s attic. Her house was just a few doors down from his and he could slip in and out without being spotted.

  On the Saturday afternoon they all met in the house where Françoise and Lucien were staying. Her parents had taken the children to Samer, where Françoise’s sister lived and was expecting a baby any day now. Her husband had also been sent to Germany.

  They gathered round the table in the large kitchen. The cooker and oven were laden with food in different stages of preparation. If the Germans turned up when they were all there then they would say they had all come round for a meal. It would not be much of a defence, but even after four years of occupation, Germans were still bemused at the French obsession with food. They might just believe it.

  The kitchen was suffused with the aroma of roasts and baking and the noise of bubbling soup as Pierre opened up a large map of the area. It had been drawn on the reverse of a picture of cows and ducks painted by Françoise and Lucien’s young son. If the Germans came in, the map could be flipped over. It would give them a small chance of persuading the Germans that they had happened upon an innocent gathering of friends.

  From Boulogne, the railway headed in three directions. There was one route to the north, to and from Calais. That route then headed south out of the town. Just to south of where they were sitting now was the village of Hesdigneul-lès-Boulogne, on the other side of the main Calais to Paris road. At Hesdigneul-lès-Boulogne, the line split: one track continued east towards Lille and then Paris. The other track headed due south, to Abbeville and into Normandy.

  ‘The railways are the quickest way for the Germans to move large numbers of troops and vehicles. If the invasion is going to take place in this area, then they will want to send reinforcements, especially from here...’ Pierre pointed to the east and the centre of France ‘and here.’ Normandy. ‘At the moment, they must be uncertain – as we are. They are not sure if Normandy is the main invasion area. If they decide it is, then they will want to move the Fifteenth Army from this area down to Normandy, along with the Panzers. If there is an invasion here, then they will come in the opposite direction. Either way, the railways are vital to the Germans. Without them, their options for moving around are much more limited. They will be restricted to the roads and remember that other resistance groups will be Plan Turquoise, which means they will have the task of sabotaging roads.

  ‘So, our job is to stop the Germans being able to use the railways to either get in or out of the area. Lucien.’

  Lucien was a man of few words. He had a large moustache and was built, Geraldine thought, like a locomotive. A typical cheminot.

  ‘The RAF have been bombing the area, as we know. They have obviously been aiming at the railway lines, but with very limited success. It is difficult, they are flying at night and from their altitude it is hard to be accurate. Any damage they do cause tends to be fairly superficial – maybe a siding will collapse, but that is all repaired fairly easily, no matter how inefficient we try to be!’

  The others laughed. They knew that the railway workers, the cheminots, were at the heart of the resistance movements throughout France. Thousands of workers risked their lives every day by doing their best to compromise the system. It was not always the acts of sabotage that counted. As Lucien liked to point out to them, if five workers were sent to repair some track and they took two days over a job that they could have done in one, then the Germans had lost five days’ labour. Multiply that by what was going on across France and the effect was significant.

  ‘You see, what would really cause major disruption would be a direct hit on a track and that has not yet happened in this region. The only way to be sure, is by planting explosives in exactly the right position.’

  ‘And,’ added Pierre, ‘doing that just before a train passes over.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Lucien. ‘That way it takes many more days to remove the train before you can even begin
repairing the track.’

  ‘Not forgetting, of course, that if it is a military train then you will kill troops and damage vehicles,’ said Pierre.

  ‘Our instructions are to concentrate on this area.’ Pierre was using a fork to trace a small circle around Hesdigneul-lès-Boulogne. ‘Where the line splits. That way, we disrupt the routes to and from Lille and the centre and to and from Normandy. Other groups will look after the Calais line.’

  ‘Will there be reprisals against civilians?’ asked Jean.

  Françoise placed a hand on Jean’s arm. ‘Jean. Everything we do will help to end the occupation. How much longer can people be allowed to suffer? If we stop and consider all the consequences of our actions, then there will be no resistance and without the resistance, the occupation will continue.’

  ‘Tomorrow night,’ said Pierre ‘we will hit the track through Mourlinghen — where the Lille line goes through the woods. Geraldine, how much explosive do we have?’

  Geraldine asked Pierre to repeat the question. She had been thinking. She had no way of contacting Lange today or tomorrow to warn him of the attack. They had agreed that when she knew the location of an attack, he would arrange for a German patrol to be on the line, which the group would spot and abort their mission.

  ‘Is Sunday really such a good day to do it, Pierre?’ she asked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe it will be ...too quiet?’

  ‘But the attack will be late at night. It will not matter what day it is. In any case, Lucien is working tomorrow and finishes at six in the evening. By then he will have a good idea of what movements there will be on the line that night. How much explosive do we have?’

  ‘Enough for three major explosions. Maybe we could split some up and go for two major attacks and two or three smaller ones – like junction boxes or signalling equipment.’

  ‘Very well,’ Pierre was folding the map now and placing it back into the lining of his jacket. ‘We go for a major attack tomorrow night at Mourlinghen. We will meet at Jean’s house at eight. Be careful.’