The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy

by Judith L. Pearson

  The train arrived in Perpignon just as the sun was peeking over the mountains. Virginia had slept lightly and little, as was her habit. An extravagance such as lounging in bed till noon had never been her style anyway, and it seemed an even sillier waste of time in the midst of all there was to do.

  Perpignon appeared to be a quaint town, with the mighty Pyrénées Mountains as a backdrop, far from the sounds of guns and marching feet. But it was actually a hive of activity. Agents for guides who led the expeditions across the mountains hung around every corner looking for a financial opportunity. Meanwhile, informers and Gestapo agents prowled the streets and cafés in search of victims.

  Virginia walked to the Hôtel de la Cloche and requested a room. She had gotten word that the proprietor was a Resistance sympathizer, and although she didn’t discuss politics with him, he appeared to be quite amiable. She signed in as Mlle Marie Monin and climbed the stairs to her room.

  Exits out of France began by hiking to Spain across the snow-covered Pyrénées, a trip of thirty miles or more. From there one took a train south to Barcelona and another west to Lisbon, Portugal, then a ship to England. Virginia’s first chore in Perpignon would be to go to the city square in search of Gilbert, a contact who could arrange mountain guides if the price was right. But since he could only be found there between two and three in the afternoon, she decided a couple of hours of sleep would be a good use of her extra time.

  She awoke at noon, hungry. After freshening up with cold water from the sink in her room, Virginia walked out into the brisk November air to a café for lunch. Then she strolled over to the square in search of Gilbert. Having met him once in Lyon, she recognized him immediately. Gilbert’s fee for arranging guides was twenty thousand francs, out of which he would pay the guide. Virginia was to pay him on the day of departure, which, he said, would probably be two days hence. He would send word to her hotel once he had the details organized.

  Several hours later, Gilbert called the hotel and asked Virginia to meet him at a café a few streets over. She saw him when she arrived, sitting with three other men, whom she assumed were guides. But when introductions were made, Gilbert explained that the men, two Frenchman named Antoine and Henri, and a Belgian army captain named Jean, were also in need of passage. They had been involved in the Resistance, but were now hunted men. They believed they had information that would be useful to London, after which they hoped to be sent back to France to continue the fight.

  Virginia asked them why she needed to be involved. Jean explained they had no money, to which Gilbert just shrugged. Although he was rabidly anti-German, he was a businessman first, with an opportunity to sweeten his agreement with Virginia. He seemed to trust these three men, however, and Virginia trusted him. She negotiated a fee of fifty-five thousand francs for the four of them. Usually escapees were passed from one guide to another during the course of their journey. But in this case, they would have just one to take them all the way to Spain, a man who was on his way home to visit family. He was the best guide in all of the Pyrénées, Gilbert assured them. Virginia hoped he was right.

  At 7:00AM on Wednesday, November 11, 1942, German troops crossed the demarcation line. There was no longer any zone libre in France, as the Axis powers now controlled the entire country. And the date was symbolic since it was the date the First World War armistice had forced Germany to her knees. Hitler never failed to incorporate irony into his strategic planning.

  In Vichy, Pétain became a virtual prisoner, while Laval continued to work toward a place for himself within the Nazi organization. He had, in fact, been summoned to Hitler’s presence in Munich two days earlier. Laval had hoped that the meeting was to discuss his future, but Hitler was interested in securing the bases in French Tunisia where he could mount his counterattack to the Allied invasion. Laval returned to France empty-handed only to discover that Vichy was now in German hands.

  With Pétain out of the picture, General Eisenhower, who had led the Allied troops in Operation TORCH, appointed Jean-François Darlan as civil and military chief of French North Africa. A naval admiral, Darlan had previously served under Pétain as commander in chief of French armed forces and as high commissioner in North Africa. Both Churchill and Roosevelt approved of the appointment on the grounds that it would assist military operations in the area. But de Gaulle was incensed by the snub. The French Resistance was none too happy either, as Darlan, next to Pétain, was the longest-serving and highest-ranking official in Vichy, and had been labeled a collaborator.

  The evening of the eleventh, Virginia left her hotel in Perpignon, carrying her valise, and walked to a street corner several blocks away. A car arrived a few minutes later, driven by Gilbert. Virginia climbed in, joining Antoine, Henri, and Jean. The two-hour drive to the town of Lavelanet was fairly quiet, with only an occasional utterance from one of them, to which the rest would reply oui or non. Around 8:00 PM, they arrived at the safe house in Lavelanet, ‘about twenty-eight miles from the border. There they met their mountain guide, Juan. Virginia told him that she spoke Spanish and would be translating for the group. He was not a man of many words but he did inform them that occasionally the snows on the mountain summits delayed departures. They were in luck, however. Based on the next day’s report, Juan told them, the weather would be favorable and they could leave as soon as they were dressed.

  Virginia had brought her heaviest clothes with her, and she was issued a pair of used boots, apparently included in the price. Her real concern was her amputation stump. She only had a single woolen “stump sock” to absorb perspiration and prevent blisters and sores from developing. But given the kind of exertion she was sure they would endure, she needed an additional sock to alternate with the one she had. That way, she’d always have a dry one.

  She didn’t want to appear greedy by asking for an additional pair of socks, nor did she want to go into detail about her leg. Juan was already grumbling because she was a woman. If he found out she was an amputee, he really wouldn’t want to take her. She pulled aside the owner of the house, a woman who had thus far tended to the group as if she were a mother hen. Virginia asked her if she had an “widow” sock, one that had lost its mate. The woman smiled and scurried off, returning with one, no questions asked.

  Virginia and each of the men, along with the guide, were given rucksacks already supplied with enough food for their journey. To that they added what few personal belongings would fit. Then they piled back into the car and were driven another ten miles, arriving at their embarkation spot around midnight.

  The night was clear and cold. A heavy blanket of snow covered the ground. Virginia looked up at the imposing mountains in front of her, a luminous bluish white in the moonlight. The Pyrénées’ highest peak was around eleven thousand feet. She guessed they were already at four or five thousand. The last line of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” came to mind: “and miles to go before I sleep.”

  Their climb began to the east of the ski town of Ax-les-Thermes through the Orgeix Valley. Those first several hours were hiking straight uphill and had to be walked in absolute silence. The French customs guards, along with guards from myriad German organizations, patrolled the area, known as the zone interdite, the forbidden zone. Anyone caught in it would be taken directly to the authorities in Perpignon. They sneaked past the towns of Orgeix, Orlu, the ironworks at Orlu, and the Bisp Bridge. The dark silence was punctuated only by the occasional bark of a dog. Each time the climbers froze in their tracks, but never saw another human.

  When dawn broke, Juan stopped them to have a snack, although they weren’t terribly hungry. Courtesy of the SOE, Virginia had supplied each of her fellow travelers with a tablet of Benzedrine, an amphetamine that suppresses the appetite and fatigue. But their guide insisted that they eat something and they all complied, like children under the watch of a stern nanny. Conversation remained at a minimum, but Virginia glanced at each of the men’s faces. Juan appeared completely in
different to the whole affair. This was his job, no different to him than if he was a merchant or a bar owner. The three Resistance refugees had grim expressions. Virginia couldn’t tell if it was fear or fatigue, or both, etched into their faces. But no one complained and after they passed around the flask of eau-de-vie, they continued on.

  The rising sun cast its rays over the diamond-studded snow. However, by 10:00 AM, the wind had turned glacial and an icy fog enveloped them. The drifts on the ground were now knee-deep and Virginia was exerting an enormous effort to make her prosthetic leg function. With the majority of Cuthbert buried in the snow, walking normally was almost impossible. She was forced to take every step with her good right leg, using it as a snowplow, after which she dragged Cuthbert. On top of that, they were continually going either uphill or downhill, always on an uneven surface. She redoubled her efforts, determined to keep up with her companions.

  To distract herself, Virginia took in her surroundings. On one side was a deep ravine, descending hundreds of feet. On the other side was a magnificent glacier. Under different circumstances, what fun it would have been to climb up the glacier and slide down into the ravine, just like she and her brother had on the hills surrounding Box Horn Farm. The snow in Maryland was never as deep, of course, nor was the air as bone chilling, but those gleeful winter hours building snowmen and snow forts along with the rousing snowball fights, were wonderful memories. Never would she have imagined she would one day be running for her life, zigzagging up the side of a mountain.

  Juan appeared to be following a stream, although there was no real path. It hit home that she and her companions were really at this man’s mercy. He had already collected half of his money. He could have easily led them into a trap, or left them to freeze in the dark of night. But desperate as they were, they had no choice but to trust blindly. Virginia hoped that Juan was worthy of that trust.

  Her rucksack weighed heavily, the straps cutting into her shoulders despite her many layers of clothing. Her traveling companions kept shifting their packs as well. When they finally arrived at a pass between the mountains, Juan wrote “2,460 metres” in the snow. Virginia assumed it was their altitude. She did some quick math and guessed they were somewhere around 7,900 feet.

  No wonder they were all struggling. At an altitude like that, breathing is difficult. In addition, the wind had picked up. Several times she thought it might lift her up, had her feet not been packed so far down in the snow. The terrain was growing trickier. The gradient was now steeper and there were very few handholds to help them along. For the first time, Virginia labored to suppress her fears. No longer was being arrested her primary concern. Now it was survival.

  They began to descend a little from the pass and less than an hour later, Virginia could see the outline of an ice-covered lake in the distance.

  It was the Lac des Bouillouses, Juan told them. Evidently he played tour guide as well as mountain guide. They struggled on until, directly in front of them, a mirage arose from the snow: a rough cabin with no windows and a chimney rising out of the top like the stem on an apple. Reaching to the roof on one side was a large pile of wood.

  Juan told his weary flock in broken French that they would stop here to rest. He dug the snow away from the door, pulled it open, and ushered them in. It was cold inside, but there were six wooden cots slung with canvas. Each had an old blanket lying on it. Juan disappeared and then reappeared with an armful of wood he deposited on the floor in front of the crude stone fireplace.

  Henri was concerned that the smoke would attract attention. But Juan assured him that he would only be making a small fire and the wind would dissipate it. He made a blowing sound imitating the wind to make sure they understood his meaning. Each of them chose a cot and lay down. Virginia was certain they all had hypothermia. How could they not after hiking almost twelve hours through snowdrifts in freezing temperatures? Antoine complained from his cot that his left foot was so cold he couldn’t feel it. Virginia smiled at the irony. If only her companions knew that she could never feel her left foot.

  They slept four hours or so before the cabin’s cold awoke them. Juan was crouched at the edge of the fireplace, spreading out the coals to extinguish the fire.

  Virginia wondered if he had slept at all.

  Still under the blanket, she unlaced the leather corset holding her prosthetic leg to her thigh. She wanted a dry stump sock before they resumed their trek. As she feared, blisters had developed from the pressure and friction. They had opened and were oozing, sticking to the wool. There was nothing she could do about it until she arrived in Barcelona.

  The men all complained that their legs were stiff, the result of going from extreme exertion to complete lack of motion. But at least the chill had worn off. They ate some of the food from their packs, drank a bit of the hot tea Juan had made with melted snow, and each took another pull from the bottle of eau-de-vie. Benzedrine tablets were passed around and the group trooped silently back outside to begin their journey again.

  Virginia guessed it was about four in the afternoon on Thursday, November 12. It seemed like weeks since she’d left Lyon. She wondered if the Germans had arrived in the city yet. More important, she wondered what her friends were doing and if they were safe.

  The group was climbing again, and arrived a short while later at another mountain pass. In the waning daylight, Juan again wrote the altitude in the snow, 2,392 metres, 7,650 feet. They began another descent, but mercifully the wind died down, as going downhill was much more treacherous than going up. The clouds parted and so many stars appeared in the sky that it seemed as though there were more of them than the velvety dark. They arrived at the shore of another frozen lake and followed the stream that fed it.

  When Virginia first saw them, she thought the lights ahead of her were stars at the edge of the horizon. But when Juan turned to his group and put his finger to his lips, she realized it was a village. The stream widened into a river and a second village also appeared on the other side of it. It must have been almost eight o’clock and no one was moving on the streets when they entered the village on their side of the river.

  Juan led them to the back of a house at the edge of town and rapped rhythmically on the door. It opened slowly revealing a young man. Behind him stood a young woman holding a baby. Juan entered and motioned the rest to do so as well.

  The young man introduced himself as Philippe and his wife as Anne-Marie. A fire crackled cheerily behind him and Virginia could see mats of straw laid out in front of it. She and the men sat down on them, which felt terrific. Juan had kept them moving at a rapid pace, but he was really a superior guide. He’d gotten them to cover a great deal of terrain at a good clip. He sensed when their exhaustion was about to do them in, and timed their rests to perfection.

  The two Frenchmen fell asleep on their mats as soon as their heads were down. Anne-Marie retrieved blankets from the other room and covered them, then brought blankets for Virginia, Jean, and Juan. Virginia didn’t remember much after that until the baby’s cry awakened her before dawn. She stretched and again changed her stump sock beneath the blanket. Her situation had become worse as the sores had grown larger.

  Philippe and Anne-Marie bustled around preparing a breakfast for the voyagers of coffee, bread, and jam. When they’d finished eating Philippe lifted the bottom panel from a bench against the wall and pulled out a suitcase. Virginia recognized it immediately: a radio transmitter. And he assured her that it worked, explaining that several months earlier someone who had passed through had left it behind in case it was needed.

  Virginia was elated. She’d left Lyon in such a hurry, London had no idea when or if she was coming. Nothing had been arranged in the way of passage for her from Barcelona. On top of that, she was bringing three additional people. She had been trying to figure out how she was going to make it all work. The sight of the radio felt like Christmas morning.

  She had often watched Gregoire at the Marchands’ and knew th
e necessary frequencies. And she remembered enough of her Morse code training to be able to tap out a crude message. She was able to raise London and send off her message. They radioed back that they were glad to hear from her and would make the necessary arrangements for all four of them from Barcelona to London. Were there any other pressing issues? they asked.

  “Cuthbert is being tiresome, but I can cope,” she radioed back. After several minutes of silence, she assumed that the communication had been terminated. Suddenly the radio came back to life with the message, “If Cuthbert tiresome, have him eliminated.” She smiled.

  Once she’d finished with the radio, the group reassembled for what Juan had told them would be the final leg of their expedition. They thanked Philippe and Anne-Marie for their hospitality and left the house in pairs, slipping into the woods behind it, to a prearranged meeting place. They headed south and when they reached the next summit, Juan stopped and turned to the group explaining that the land that lay below them was España.

  In the far distance, the snow disappeared. Spain was warmer, and the green valley was inviting and promising. Virginia looked behind her, comparing the Spanish vista to what they had spent the last forty hours crossing. The tall, imposing snow-covered peaks of the French side were quite a contrast. They had almost made it.

  But they still weren’t out of danger. Even Spain was honeycombed with German agents. Plus, Spain’s head of state, General Franco, had a police force that was vigilant in watching for clandestine travelers. And almost as dangerous as those two groups, Philippe had told them they also had to be on the lookout for the former Spanish Republicans. Exiled from their country and condemned to death by Franco after the insurrection, they lived in the wild. They were hungry, desperate, and bored. If they couldn’t steal food or money, they were just as easily inclined to torture victims for entertainment. On top of that, the Spanish border guards patrolled the area on skis.