This put Virginia in an unusual position. She was living legally in unoccupied France, but it was an entity within a country now occupied by a nation that had declared war against the United States. Diplomatic ties between Washington and Vichy France had remained intact. And Virginias only close call with the Vichy authorities thus far had been with the Brit in the café. Still, she didn’t know whether or not that incident put her name on a watch list. It was crucial now that, while she continued to lead her dual life, she pay close attention to any clues that might suggest she was an arrest target.
Virginia’s December article for the Post appeared lighthearted, given the gravity of events around her. But reading between the lines, her message was quite serious. It was a commentary on the sorry condition of her surroundings and the verminlike regime under which they all struggled. It was titled “La Charmante.”
La Charmante has returned to France in a big way after an absence of over a century. … La Charmante is the soubriquet given by Napoleon’s soldiers to the mange which they knew so well and so fondly. … Mange is a cowardly disease, veritably the soul of pusillanimity, and appears to plague man and beast alike when they are suffering from fatigue, under-nourishment with resulting bad physical condition, and are not as clean as they might be.
The mange that Virginia wrote about was an affliction caused by microscopic mites that burrow under the skin to lay eggs. The resulting rash itches horribly, particularly at night, and often causes the sufferer to scratch so radically that sores appear. Animal mange can’t be passed to humans, but the condition is extremely contagious between humans. She continued:
Hannibal, ever solicitous for the well being of his men and horses, discovered this cowardly character of mange too.… The cure which Hannibal used so effectively was to wash his troops in wine. … Such a delightful cure would, alas, be impossible in France today. … Its reintroduction into the country was slow, but with the progressive difficulties of food and consequent deterioration of the health of the population, with fatigue burdening people who no longer ride in trams, busses and taxis but who walk and bike and stand in food queues for hours at a time, with the increasing scarcity of soap and the decreasing frequency with which personal or household linen can be washed, mange has found an ideal terrain in which to flourish and spread.
While Virginia came from a fairly privileged family, other SOE agents came from elevated social circles as well. Baron Pierre de Vomécourt was one of them, a genuine landed gentry and a handsome fast-talker who was a good shot and a fast thinker. His family had rendered great service to France, most often in the form of combat against Germanic armies. His great-grandfather had been tortured and killed by Prussian invaders in 1870, his father died early in World War I, and his elder brother, Jean, lied about his age to join the fighting in 1917 and was seriously wounded. In short, the recent German invasion was more than Pierre could stomach. Attached to a British Army regiment as Anglo-French liaison officer, he was evacuated from Dunkirk just before France fell in 1940. In London, he was recruited into a British military regiment, and then, for obvious reasons, by the SOE. He knew the country, the language, and had contacts.
Of SOE, de Vomécourt believed that “the ultimate goal was to provide the French with the means to share in the liberation of their country, but the immediate objective was to thwart the enemy’s war production in France—by disrupting the transport and delivery of raw materials, sabotage at the work place, deliberate errors in the administration and planning munitions production, etc.”
More than a year passed before he was sent back to France and much had changed in the country, most of which British intelligence was not yet aware. Pierre was to discover that when, as the first Free French SOE agent, he parachuted in blind on May 10, 1941, there was no reception committee to meet him. He ordered a coffee with cognac the next morning, not understanding it was a jour sans alcool. He managed to escape the officials called by the café owner and eventually found his way to his younger brother, Philippe’s, château. Jean joined them at the château and Pierre recruited them both.
The de Vomécourts divided France into three parts to recruit anti-Nazis willing to take part in the Resistance. As Philippe’s château was near Limoges, he became responsible for the part of the country that lay south of the Loire River and started the ANTOINE circuit (réseau). Jean lived near Pontarlier, near the Swiss border, so he began the AUTOGIRO réseau in eastern France, while Pierre headed back to Paris to start up the GARDENER réseau. Although SOE normally funded its circuits, these men used a great deal of their own money for their réseaux.
Pierre arranged for SOE’s first parachute drop to be made near Philippe’s château. The latter enlisted the help of his gardener’s son-in-law to handle the reception and together they hid the stores. Included among them was a good deal of explosives, meant to create havoc on the railroad system. Moving it across the demarcation line into the occupied zone and his brother’s waiting réseau would be difficult. Shipments of goods by train were next to impossible, even for Philippe, who was employed as a railroad inspector. And all trucks were carefully searched. But Philippe had a farmer friend who was an apiarist and was sympathetic to the Resistance. They loaded the farmer’s truck with bees and beehives, hiding the explosives in one corner. No German guard wanted to thoroughly search among the bees, and the explosives arrived safely at their destination.
Although he had almost been picked up with the others in the raid against the Corsicans, Philippe had thus far remained untouched by the Nazis or their sympathizers. Having been in Paris on railroad business in January 1942, he passed through Lyon on his return to the zone libre and met with Virginia to give her a report on the situation in France’s sad capital. When the Nazis first arrived, they made quite an impression on the Parisians, Philippe told her. Their dress and demeanor were nothing short of perfect. They looked fresh and well fed. One elderly World War I veteran told him that the Germans really deserved their victory and if one had to lose, it was something to be beaten by such an army.
The Parisians were pleasantly surprised. The soldiers and officers let the women exit the Métro cars first and they offered to carry heavy loads for the elderly. But it wasn’t long before the Parisians realized that the Germans’ propriety did not make up for the fact that they were taking the food right out of the Parisians’ mouths.
Now, only the Germans rode in the first-class Métro cars, Philippe said. And if they rode in second class, no one sat on either side of them. Most people preferred to walk to their destinations, so Paris streets had become a popular place for conversations. The Germans soon figured this out, and the Gestapo sent over an army of well-dressed, French-speaking German women to infiltrate the streets and stores and eavesdrop on the conversations.
Worst of all were the food shortages, which were so dramatic that Parisians were literally starving daily. Some collapsed on the street, while others sat in doorways and stared vacantly into space. Food would arrive at the markets through the front door and was immediately taken out the back door to the awaiting Germans.
Paris, Philippe said, was two cities. Besides the city he had just described, food was plentiful in the other Paris. At the big restaurants, Maxime’s, Fouquet’s, Le Boeuf sur le Toit, one could have anything, as long as one was a German officer, one of his concubines, or a significant collaborator.
Not long after Philippe’s visit, Pierre also arrived in Lyon to see Virginia. His GARDENER réseau had lost its radio operator to the Gestapo shortly after he arrived, and Pierre was obliged to cross the demarcation line every time he wanted to send a message. And the message he needed to send this time was of extreme urgency. Just days earlier, Pierre had been in Caen in northeastern France when, sitting in a café, he recognized another agent from his training days in the Scottish countryside. The two made eye contact and left the café separately only to join up again shortly afterward.
The agent had valuable information regardi
ng a nearby airbase. Because of its proximity to the coast, the airbase was vital to the Nazis both in defending France from the British and in continuing the bombing runs into Britain. The agent not only knew the strength of the Luftwaffe there, but also potential sabotage targets to knock it out of commission.
Virginia was able to send the information on to London with a departing agent. But the communication with London, or more accurately, the lack thereof, was troubling. Radio operators were being picked off by the Gestapo within days of their arrival as the Nazis’ direction-finding equipment continued to improve, and collaborators continued to keep watch for telltale antenna wires hanging out windows.
Virginia’s last article for the Post appeared on January 22, 1942. It was now too risky for her to continue to flash her press credentials, and she was concerned that even the venerable New York newspaper may have been infiltrated by spies. The article’s title was “France’s Rabbits on Strike” and the dateline read “Somewhere in France.”
Buck rabbits have gone on strike. … The prospective fathers of thousands of rabbits have apparently lost interest in their wives and their pride in numerous progeny. They are listless and disinterested.
The rabbits’ unbalanced diet is at the root of the trouble… his vitamin intake is insufficient and unbalanced.
Pigeons haven’t gone on strike, but they are being eaten up rapidly. Bordeaux, for example, used to pride herself on its friendly pigeons, estimated at 5,000. … But now it is reported the latest pigeon census in Bordeaux is only 91. … Man, in France, doesn’t disappear in quite the same way. … He suffers from diminishment. His girth shrinks and shrinks. From statistics compiled last summer by a well-known doctor in Lyon, the average loss of weight at the time was 12 pounds, 12 ounces per person. … This doctor however, insisted that not lack of food alone was the cause of the loss of weight. Two other factors play a great role: increased physical activity and mental strain coupled with moral suffering.
People who used to ride in taxis or private cars or even street cars now walk or ride bicycles, and housewives spend hours standing in line to get provisions for the kitchen, all of which is very slimming.
Then, too, many families are divided brutally, part living on one side of the demarcation line, part on the other. … And many sons, brothers, fathers and fiancés are still prisoners in Germany.
Naturally, people who are separated from those they love, whose relatives are still prisoners, are living under constant mental strain, which reacts upon their physical condition.
As she wrote the article, Virginia thought of her friend Claire de la Tour and the marvelous meal they had had from the family’s new rabbit industry. Where were the de la Tours now? Were they safe, still living with relatives in the country? Or had they, too, fallen victim to this war that had already ruined so many lives?
10
No Rest for the Weary
The Geheimastaatspolizei was everywhere. They dressed in suits and skulked in darkened doorways or hovered in the corners of public places. Their eyes and ears were keenly attentive to any slip that a man or woman might make that would incriminate them as “enemies of the state.” They were notorious for insidious prying and remorseless brutality. They were known simply as “the Gestapo.”
Under the direction of chief murderer Heinrich Himmler, this secret police force had more than had twenty-five thousand agents roving Europe. Many came from the criminal underbelly of Germany and all were absolute Nazi disciples. The Gestapo operated without any restrictions by civil authority. Its members could not be tried for their police practices; whatever actions they took, no consequences would arise. This unconditional authority gave them a chillingly elitist air.
Gestapo agents were as omnipresent in unoccupied France as they were in the occupied areas of Europe. While Vichy and the collaborators were happy to root out Resistance members, they preferred to leave the really dirty work to Himmler’s depraved secret police. The Gestapo became notorious for the ruthless torture they used to extract information from the unfortunate souls they arrested.
Once the United States became involved in the war, any immunity Virginia had had from the Gestapo evaporated. She risked what all Resistance members did: arrest, secret and unexplained, followed by a mock trial without defense, all of it punctuated by torture. If she survived, she would be shipped off to a prison or concentration camp, where more torture, disease, starvation, and death awaited. These constant threats hung over her head like the sword of Damocles, just as they did for everyone in France. She portrayed the ironclad lady to those around her, but the facade didn’t protect her from her own thoughts late at night.
On January 12, 1942, a new agent arrived in Lyon. His name was Peter Churchill, no relation to the British prime minister, but equally gregarious. His code name was Michel. He was to deliver cash and orders to SOE agents as well as to supply and evaluate the CARTE réseau, led by Frenchman André Girard, who promised London an army of a quarter million men. Churchill landed on the French Mediterranean shore about twelve miles west of Cannes on January 9, having been brought to within eight hundred yards by a submarine. His family had vacationed in the area when he was young and he knew it intimately. He paddled a canoe to land and made his way to his first contact and then on to Lyon.
Churchill met Virginia in the lobby of her hotel one evening. He had checked into the Hôtel de France on rue de la Charité at de Guélis’s suggestion and had been in Lyon all day with no current ration books. He was starving, he told her. London was expecting him to bring back samples for the forgers. All he’d been able to consume since dinner the previous night was an unlimited quantity of grenache.
Virginia took him to a restaurant run by a friend of the HECKLER circuit and the owner hugged her as if she were his long-lost daughter. Virginia explained that this was a restaurant where no food coupons were needed and Allied agents were always welcome. To prove her point, she ordered her favorite cocktail, a Cinzano gin, which prompted Churchill to order one for himself. Virginia gave him an overview of life in the zone libre, and he brought her up to speed on news from Baker Street.
His purpose in France, he explained, was multifaceted. He was carrying a great deal of cash, as Virginia had, which was to be distributed among the various circuits, including hers. He was to collect current ration books and cartes d’identité to take back for the forgers. And he was to go to Marseilles to meet with a French colonel about releasing a group of captured agents and Resistance members.
Churchill told Virginia he needed some assistance with contacts in Marseille and asked if she would accompany him. Her life in Lyon had become a revolving door of incoming agents, all with requests for aid in their missions. Going to Marseille would be just one more task on her already long list, but she relished the work. It was exactly what she’d come to France to undertake. That and to prove to herself that she was not the outspoken, crippled woman the American State Department seemed to think she was.
Virginia and Churchill agreed to take two different trains for Marseille the next morning on the off chance that if one of them was stopped by Vichy agents or the Gestapo, at least both of them wouldn’t be picked up. Virginia took the early train at 7:10. They were always crowded now, because of the lack of fuel for cars and buses. Every seat was taken, and those individuals without a place to sit stood where they could, many spilling out into the aisles. An atmosphere of gloom and despair filled the car, replicated by the dark, gray scenery that sped past them. Passengers around Virginia either buried themselves behind newspapers or stared out the windows, avoiding making eye contact with others. Their expressions were grim in anticipation of yet another difficult day.
The train arrived in Marseille a little after eleven o’clock and Virginia waited on the chilly platform for Churchill’s to arrive an hour later. Once they found one another, she guided him into the station’s restaurant and out the exit door. Her Marseille contact, Olivier, had told he
r about the exit. The Gestapo hasn’t discovered it yet and it allowed agents to avoid their reception committee.
Marseille had become notorious among agents as one of the worst places in which to operate. It was an important port and had a mixed population of more than a million people, many from the low end of the social ladder. Added to that were the refugees from all over Europe who had poured into the city seeking escape from the Nazis. The Gestapo’s presence was evident. Official black Citroens cruised the streets, their passengers scrutinizing passersby. If someone looked particularly suspicious, they were dragged into the car and hauled off. Many never returned. The people on the streets looked terrified, starving, and cold. There was no snow, but the bitter temperatures had invaded France’s southern provinces as well.
As they walked, Churchill asked Virginia if the stories he’d heard about her leg were true. She admitted that she had a wooden leg but said she was sure the stories’ drama had grown in proportion to the number of times they had been retold. His praise for her work in spite of her disability made her uncomfortable, as that kind of thing always did. To distract him, she played tour guide, pointing out the Hotel Splendide, Marseille’s Gestapo headquarters.
They met Virginia’s contact, Olivier, in a café on one of the city’s squares. After Churchill got directions to his destination and set off for his meeting, Olivier and Virginia went to see Le Provost’s fishing contacts who provided passage to Spain for the HECKLER circuit’s people. Virginia chatted with the three men amiably, as if they were old school chums. She gave each of them a bonus of one thousand francs for the outstanding work they had already done.
The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy Page 13
