by Mike Ripley
My papers, or rather those of Jean-Baptiste, were examined by a pair of surly port officials, and my single suitcase thoroughly searched, before I was allowed off the Maloja. I protested, good-humouredly, that this was no way to treat a visiting diplomat from a brother country such as Quebec, and shouted long and loud farewells to the crew, inviting them to Canada should they find themselves crossing the Atlantic. I doubt any of them understood a word I was saying, but there were enough pairs of ears within range to note that there was an unusual new arrival on the dockside and, like an idiot, one who didn’t mind who knew it.
A uniformed gendarme on the Quai du Port, which was now being called the Quai Maréchal Pétain, directed me to the Hôtel de Ville, where my papers were checked more thoroughly this time, my suitcase opened and my underthings rummaged through once more without thought for diplomatic immunity. Once again, I went through a pantomime of being the amiable idiot, this time for a particularly seedy individual, with a moustache stained yellow with nicotine, and stubby fingers with inky nails, who wielded a set of rubber stamps as if they were deadly weapons which, for some unfortunates, I suspect they were.
My details were laboriously copied down on to various official forms under the watchful gaze of two leather-jacketed and well-armed militia-men, though from which security service or private army I could not determine; they did not look the sort who would engage in polite conversation. The bureaucrat with the rubber stamps and a leaky fountain pen asked me what my business was in Marseilles and, with a straight face, I told him I was a diplomat and therefore my business was my country’s and not his, but it was no secret that I was en route for Vichy to take up my posting just as soon as I had used up the leave I was owed exploring Marseilles.
He stared at me in outraged wonderment that there were still such things as tourists these days, and I agreed with him that we were a dying breed and asked directions to the Hôtel Moderne. If I had requested that he carried my suitcase, I think he would not have been more offended but, having exchanged glances with his two militia thugs, he stamped my passport with far more violence than was called for and muttered directions which amounted to: ‘Outside, turn left, keep going.’
I thanked him profusely, gave him a broad grin and even tipped my Panama in salute, happy in the knowledge that he would not forget me, but just in case he or his two heavies remembered me too quickly, I set off along the quay at a fair clip and did not look back.
I knew very well where my hotel was, though I made a point of asking the way from a pair of dockers sitting in the shade of a pile of crates, passing a bottle between them. From their accents they were certainly local, and from the way they eyed me up I was pretty sure they were memorizing a description of me with a view to selling it to a third party.
I walked on what was known as the Quai des Belges and, as it joined the Quai de la Fraternité, I climbed the steps out of the Old Port and headed inland into the city centre along what had been the most fashionable of streets, La Canebière. I walked over the very spot where the tramlines intersected and where, in 1934, the visiting King Alexander of Yugoslavia was assassinated, along with the French Foreign Minister who was sitting beside him in the official limousine. Not many people remember King Alexander nowadays, but he was hot news at the time as the assassination, by a lone gunman, was caught on film by the newsreel cameras and showed in cinemas all over Europe twice nightly, with matinees on Saturdays.
My hotel, which eight years previously might have given me a ringside seat, was only a few yards along La Canebière.
The Moderne was the sort of hotel where the plumbing did not live up to its name but its prices did, although the paperwork of registering and much copying of passport details came before the haggling. The guardian of the reception desk, a hunched toad of a man in a suit so worn it shined (apart from the lapels, which were coated in a fine sheen of grey cigarette ash), reluctantly accepted that a reservation had been made for me by the Canadian consulate in Vichy, and begrudgingly admitted that he had a vacancy, although from the number of keys gathering dust in the pigeon-holes behind him, he had several. Then came the haggling, as he demanded twenty francs a night for a room, and not even one with a view over the famous assassination site.
He must have seen me blanch, for he quickly added that he would accept Reichsmarks and the rate would be 5RM a night. Remembering my adopted identity, I asked if he was prepared to take Canadian dollars, but that seemed to confuse him and so I magnanimously agreed to his terms and forked out enough cash to cover me for a week. Thanks to the foresight of Elsie Corkran and the advice of Kenneth Benton in Madrid, I had plenty of cash secreted in the lining of my suitcase, and in a rather fetching money belt around my waist and, for emergencies, three 1937 gold sovereigns rather uncomfortably concealed in the heel of each shoe, which I liked to think helped my posture and added to my deportment.
In my musty, dust-filled room, I opened the windows to let in a breath of sea breeze – the only thing, it was said, which made Marseilles tolerable during the summer – then drew a bath, quite grateful for the tepid water provided by the hotel’s groaning plumbing. Rinsing away the grime of that interminable journey by plane, train and then boat made me feel almost human again, refreshed and ready for the fray, or at least hungry.
Leaving nothing which I would mind being found by prying eyes or inquiring fingers, I set out to get the lie of the land, keeping the brim of my Panama pulled low until I found a shop on La Canebière which could sell me a pair of sunglasses. As a disguise, they did not put me in the Sherlock Holmes class, but the chances of running in to anyone in Marseilles who knew me were remote – or so I had convinced Elsie Corkran back in London, and almost myself in the process.
At a small tabac I spent fifty centimes on a copy of Marseille-Matin then splashed out on a pack of Gauloises Bleues and a box of matches, thinking that that was what a good French-Canadian would do. I took an impish delight in savouring the pungent black Syrian tobacco, knowing that back home Amanda would never have allowed me to light one up as the smell ‘would hang on the curtains for weeks’.
At a sidewalk table outside the Café de Glacier, I drank pastis, smoked and read my newspaper from behind over-large sunglasses, hoping that I was being conspicuously inconspicuous as the world went by me on foot, bicycle, tram, and in strange adapted motor vehicles which now ran on gas rather than petrol. I ordered a second drink and made a point of showing off my out-of-town accent by asking the waiter if this was a good place for an early dinner. After checking that the management was not observing him, he lowered his voice and recommended a restaurant back down La Canebière, on the corner with the Place de la Bourse. Should I tell the maitre d’ there that Pascal had sent me, I would be given a good table and Pascal, no doubt, would get a small commission.
I adhered to Pascal’s instructions and, under the circumstances, my dinner was very acceptable: onion soup followed by a pale steak which might have been horse in a spicy sauce, served on a bed of cracked grains almost certainly of North African origin. The cold, thin white wine was eminently quaffable, and I was presented with a complimentary Armagnac to make up for the awfulness of the coffee by a waiter who muttered under his breath that all the good coffee had been ‘diverted to Germany’.
So, I was sound in body if not mind, as I began a leisurely stroll back to my hotel as darkness fell, which seemed to be the signal for all traffic not afoot to disappear from the streets. I had gone no more than fifty yards from the restaurant before I was sure two of my fellow pedestrians, one on each side of La Canebière, were following me.
I could see the vertically hanging sign telling me that the Hôtel Moderne was well within sprinting distance, assuming of course that I could outsprint my followers. It would, though, be one way of proving they were after me and I was not just imagining things, and so I increased my pace to a fair clip.
What I had not counted on was that I had a third follower, who was very cleverly not behind me but in front, w
aiting in the shadows of a small side street; he was all too keen to make my acquaintance as I trotted by. Not that I appreciated his enthusiasm when he decided to attract my attention by means of a powerful punch to my stomach.
What followed was confusing to say the least. I had momentarily lost the ability to breathe and the laws of gravity seemed not to apply to me as I collided, horizontally, with the pavement. Something hard and painful in the chest area – a boot perhaps – propelled me into the gutter which, given how shamefully easy I was making life for my assailant, was quite appropriate really. A pair of knees landed on my chest, pinning me there, and then hands as delicate as meat hooks grappled at my jacket and shirt, despite the resistance I was putting up by pawing them away with all the ferocity of a tired, newborn kitten.
I concentrated on remembering how to breathe and attempted to heave my assailant from me, but he stuck to his task like a dead weight, his hands working his way through my pockets as we struggled in an eerie silence, apart from the pounding of rapidly approaching footsteps which I assumed to be his companions who had been following me. When a second pair of boots joined in the fun, I realized I was in for what an uncouth acquaintance of mine would have called ‘a right good kicking’.
There was certainly a flurry of fists and feet in the general area of my head and the sound of my shirt being ripped open. In a flash of awful clarity, I realized that I did not have any chance of winning this fight. The shadowy figures who were attacking me were younger, heavier, fitter, and had used the element of surprise to good effect. Yet, just as I was sinking into the slough of despond, I was aware of the sound of an engine and the gleam of headlamps coming down the street.
Surely this would be my rescue. I was being thoroughly pummelled by two assailants in the middle of the equivalent of Regent Street in one of the largest cities in France. Even in London after the pubs had closed on a Friday night, you would think someone would have noticed. Perhaps the driver of the approaching car had, although my attackers seemed blissfully unaware and stuck to their task with gusto.
It was only when the car squealed to a halt so close to us that I could smell the exhaust fumes, that the pounding ceased, although a pair of knees still pinned me to the concrete. I had lost my glasses, my head was in the street and my legs were on the pavement, so my blurred, supine view of things was limited to the car’s wheels, exhaust pipe and running board. And then a boot, a shiny boot which glistened even in the dark, descended from the running board so close to my face that I imagined I could smell the leather.
From somewhere miles above my head I heard a voice declaim in deep and threatening French, ‘Lâchez-le, espèce de con,’ and then a quite distinct, loud plopping sound followed by a scream.
I registered two things before I must have fainted. I felt a splash of something warm and wet on my neck and chest where it was exposed through my torn shirt, and then, in hypnotic slow motion, I saw a single spent cartridge case bounce off the road an inch from my nose and roll away under the car.
The next thing I knew, I had been hauled to my feet and was being manhandled into the back of the car, my face pressed into the rough serge of what was certainly a uniform of some sort. I slid and was pushed across the leather seat; a body pressed in next to me and the car sped away.
An interior light was clicked on and I attempted to focus on my fellow passenger, my rescuer. I had been right about the uniform; it was that of an officer of the old Gendarmerie Mobile, sometimes known as the ‘yellows’ because of their gold insignia, complete with riding breeches and a peaked kepi hat. The wearer was calmly unscrewing a stubby black silencer from an automatic pistol, which really should have given me a clue.
I squeezed my eyes to help them focus on the face under the kepi.
‘Robert?’
‘Hello, Albert, welcome to Marseilles. Unfortunately, you’ve arrived too late.’
EIGHT
Unsafe Houses
Marseilles. September – October 1942
Policemen do not usually carry silencers for their weapons, unless they are up to no good or not really policemen.
‘And you, my old friend, arrived in the nick of time, although I was just getting the better of those thuggees and was about to teach them a lesson, once I’d got my breath back.’
‘So I saw,’ said my rescuer without much conviction, ‘and I’m sure you would have done so had you not lost these.’
The gun and the silencer he had been holding had disappeared; he was offering me my spectacles, which were bent but mercifully intact.
‘You are, sir, twice a life-saver,’ I said, pleasantly surprised that the conversation was taking place in English, which somehow did not seem odd at all. ‘What happened to my over-friendly welcome committee?’
‘I thought it would save time if I shot one,’ said Robert Ringer with a coolness which said much for his Cambridge education, ‘so I aimed for the soft part of the shoulder. I’m afraid quite a bit of his blood splashed over you, but it seemed to do the trick. He and his friend took off for the docks at the gallop and did not look back.’
‘What about the other one?’
‘What other one?’
‘There were three of them. I spotted two of them when I left the restaurant, and then one was waiting in ambush.’
‘Oh, you mean the girl?’
‘Do I? What girl?’
‘The girl that was following the men who attacked you, not you. She hung back in a shop door when they jumped on you.’
‘Are you sure? I know I’m a bit hazy …’
‘A small figure in a seaman’s jacket and wearing a beret, easily mistaken for a man. She was on the other side of the street. I think she was as surprised as you were when the other two attacked, and when she saw me, she disappeared fast.’
‘And that was a girl? Are you sure?’
‘I am, and I even know her name.’
Even confused and hurting as I was, I could not but admit that my estimation of German military intelligence had risen somewhat.
Our car journey lasted no more than ten minutes, but through such a twisted maze of dimly lit side streets that I completely lost any sense of direction. When we stopped, it was in front of a small, shabby hotel which wasn’t mine. In the gloom of threadbare street-lighting and the shadows cast by the buildings crowded around it, I could make out a sign bearing – in flaking paint – the words ‘Hôtel Libéria’.
‘I thought the Abwehr might have run to something a little more salubrious,’ I said as Robert held the door to a small entrance lobby open for me.
‘Oh, it does,’ he said with a smile. ‘We don’t stay here, we just own it. To be pedantic, I own it – or rather my company does. It comes in very useful. Now let us find you a room and get you cleaned up.’
‘But I have a room at the Moderne, a room I’ve paid for in advance, though I’ve only spent about five minutes in it,’ I protested.
‘And Jean-Baptiste Hamelin will remain registered there, but Albert Campion will operate out of here. This will be your safe house.’
‘And is it safe?’
‘Well, that depends …’
For all its air of general decrepitude, its well-worn carpets, wonky light fittings and a distinct smell of mould, the plumbing in the Libéria was superior to that of the Moderne, which I put down to German engineering, and I was grateful for it as I took my second bath of the day, soaping carefully around the bruises on my chest and arms, which were developing an attractive purple hue. A certain tenderness suggested I might have a cracked rib or two, but I decided not to investigate too closely on the principle that ignorance is often bliss.
I made a concentrated effort with cold water and a nailbrush to get the blood off my jacket, just grateful that it wasn’t mine, but I realized that my shirt, now shredded and dark red, was beyond salvaging. I was to be grateful to the Abwehr for more than the plumbing, as a member of the hotel staff – almost certainly also a member of the Abwehr – had laid out a fr
esh set of clothes on the bed; and by ‘fresh’, I mean different.
I gathered that my identity as a smart Canadian diplomat was to be discarded in favour of that of an anonymous Marseilles working man who dressed in a blue shirt, dark brown cord trousers, a short and shiny leather jacket and, to complete the effect, a black beret and a blue and white spotted cotton neckerchief.
Robert von Ringer clearly used the Libéria as his personal wardrobe, for when I joined him in the hotel’s small cocktail bar, he had changed out of his police uniform and was relaxing in an immaculate white linen suit, crisp white shirt and a Brooks Brothers’ striped club tie tied in a perfect Windsor knot.
‘I see you got first pick at the dressing-up box – and, yes please, I’ll have a double,’ I told him as he pointed a bottle of cognac and a glass in my direction.
‘I thought it might be advisable for you to blend in more. Do you have another suit in your luggage?’
‘Only a dinner suit,’ I said, and immediately felt rather foolish. ‘The sort of thing no diplomat travels without in case of formal occasions.’
Robert gave me a look of exasperation. ‘Only the English would think a dinner jacket a good disguise for a spy. No matter: leave the suit you were wearing here and I’ll have it cleaned and pressed. Tomorrow it will be better if you go about unnoticed as a dock worker or a deck hand on shore leave; your Canadian diplomat disguise drew too much attention.’
‘It was sort of meant to. Those men in the street, they followed me from the hotel, I’m guessing.’
‘From the moment you stepped off the boat this afternoon, actually.’
Robert really could be unbearably smug sometimes. ‘I suppose your men were watching them watching me.’
‘We’ve been watching you since you got off the flying boat in Lisbon.’ He was not boasting, merely stating a fact.
