by Henry Landau
Train-watchers will receive from 8 to 10 francs per day of twenty-four hours; as for the couriers, they will be paid 110 francs for each batch of reports if they reach Flushing within two days, 100 francs for three days, and after that 5 per cent less for each day late.
The payments will be made to Léon 143 on his return to Holland, or to any delegate he may appoint, but only on results obtained. He will furnish us with receipts from his agents for each sum paid them.
On his return to Holland, Léon 143 will give us the name and description of each agent, and if possible their photographs. In addition, he will indicate the function of each in the service, and the payments each is getting; he will procure from each a declaration that he or she will work exclusively for our service.
These notes should at once dispel all ideas that the Allied agents in the occupied territories received large sums of money for their services. Léon was authorised to pay his train-watchers from 7 to 10 francs per day for twenty-four hours’ service; actually, this meant about 5 francs, for a train-watcher could not possibly work efficiently more than twelve hours per day.
In addition, it must be borne in mind that these agents had to live. The salaries they obtained, it can be seen, barely covered their living expenses.
The instructions about receipts, names of agents, and photographs are typical of the methods employed by some of the Allied agents in Holland. In their endeavour to prove their own honesty in the distribution of funds, they entirely lost sight of the dangers to which they were exposing the agents in the interior. A report containing this information, falling into the hands of the Germans, would have meant a death warrant for the agents involved. The accuracy of a report, and the dangers incurred in securing the information contained in it, should have been a sufficient guarantee of honesty – not only of the agents in the interior, but of those in Holland.
Looking at a map, and taking into consideration that all the areas mentioned were in the Etappengebiet, the most strictly controlled part of the occupied territories, one realises immediately what an enormous task had been assigned to Léon. Even for a man of mature years with large resources at his disposal, and a wide circle of friends, the undertaking would have presented infinite difficulties and dangers. How could a young boy of eighteen possibly overcome them?
Too young to win the confidence of older people, Léon turned to his youthful companions. On his return to Lille, he called them together; some were only fourteen years of age, the oldest was eighteen. Meeting in one of the many abandoned houses of the quarter, one can see him impressing on his youthful followers the importance of his mission, and one can picture the enthusiasm with which each one undertook to carry out the duties assigned to him.
The young band, with the limited means at their disposal, did their bit as patriotically and as bravely as any soldier in the firing line. Often their ruses, their tricks, and their camouflages were carried to boyish extremes – but were successful, and for two months, regularly twice a week, B received a report covering everything of military importance occurring in the Lille region. Sometimes it was Léon himself who carried the reports through to Holland, each time braving the electric wire and the perils of the frontier; on other occasions, it was Camille, a friend of Léon’s residing at Tournai.
The train-watching posts had not yet been mounted. This part of the programme, outlined by Carlot, had been beyond the boy’s power. Realising this, Léon had wisely confined himself to making the reports from the Lille area as complete as possible. Rut the inevitable happened.
One day, on approaching too near a new gun emplacement, one of his companions was arrested by the Secret Police. Léon was not greatly disturbed. He thought the boy would be able to find a satisfactory excuse. But on the next day events took an alarming turn. Raymond Derain, greatly agitated, sought Léon out in his hiding place. Raymond’s sister had fortunately been able to reach him before he returned home: the Secret Police were in their house; they had inquired after both him and Léon Trulin; she had overheard the conversation, and had slipped out of the back door to warn him.
There was only one thing to do, and that was to flee. Remaining in hiding for the rest of the day and night, Raymond and Léon set out for the Dutch frontier at dawn the next morning, carrying with them the last batch of reports which they had just collected.
Léon realised that he had to get across the border at all costs. He knew that he was hopelessly compromised both by the letter he had written his mother from Holland and by his arrested comrade, whom he was convinced had betrayed them. Fortunately, he knew the way. Travelling mostly at night, and hiding by day, they eventually reached the Dutch frontier to the north of Antwerp, on the night of 3 October 1915.
At this period, the Germans had not yet added a buried wire to the electric fence. Generally, by digging underneath the fence, the refugees escaped into Holland. Léon and Raymond Derain were stealthily digging their way through, when suddenly there was a cry of ‘Wer da!’ The searchlights were turned on. Léon and Raymond were in plain view. Several shots rang out. Sentries came running up.
They were trapped. Léon’s immediate care was to get rid of the reports. Grasping his pocketbook, he hurled it as far as he could into Dutch territory. But the Secret Police were no respecters of neutrality (later they were to arrest Fauquenot and Creusen on Dutch soil). Léon, to his horror, saw a member of the Secret Police cross over and pick up the compromising evidence. Raymond Derain made a desperate attempt to escape, but a vicious bayonet thrust in his thigh swiftly brought him down. In the morning they were taken to Antwerp, where they were confined in the prison des Béguines.
On 12 October they were transferred to Lille, where they were not surprised to find the rest of their band in prison. As they had surmised, their comrade had betrayed them.
The prisoners were quickly brought up for trial. In the face of the overwhelming evidence, it was clemency alone that they could hope for. Against Léon Trulin the following charges were filed:
Military espionage.
The recruitment of five members.
Possessing a pocketbook that contained:
– The reports of the five members from 20 to 27 September.
– Thirty-three photographs of trenches.
– Plans of aviation fields, munitions depots, and trenches.
Attempting to cross the Dutch frontier.
Having made several illegal journeys to Holland and England.
On 7 November the following judgment was rendered by the court martial: Léon Trulin, eighteen years of age, was condemned to death; Raymond Derain (eighteen years of age), and Marcel G. (fifteen years of age) were both condemned to hard labour for life; Lucien D., Marcel L., and André H., all under eighteen, were sentenced to fifteen years’ hard labour. The man who betrayed them was acquitted.
Léon’s mother was prostrated with grief. T00 ill to leave her bed, she was unable to be present at the one and only interview which the Germans permitted, the day before the execution. It was Léon’s three little sisters who came to say farewell to him. He received them with calmness and dignity. It was he who extended comfort and tried to dry their tears. Returning to his cell, he wrote the following letter – touching in its simplicity:
I am dying for my country without regret. I grieve for my dear mother, my sisters, and my brothers, who are suffering for what they are not to blame.
I embrace my poor mother with all my heart. I hope God will preserve her to watch over her other children who are so dear to her. I embrace also: Emile, Edgard, Edmond, Adolphe, Eva, Céline, René, and Angèle, also Alida and her children, and my other relatives, and friends. I forgive the Germans. I did my duty, but they have been very hard on me.
Dear mother, I hope you will forgive me before I die. I shall face death without weakening. – LÉON TRU LIN.
A postscript was attached to this letter; in it Léon bequeathed to his mother, his sisters, and his brothers, various small souvenirs which belonged to him at
home.
He was executed at dawn on 8 November. Refusing to have his eyes bandaged, he faced the firing-squad unflinchingly as he had promised in his letter.
Léon Trulin was the youngest spy shot on the Western Front.
Today, if one passes a small grey house in the rue aux Gades, in Lille, one will notice a large white marble plate on its wall, bearing the following inscription:
IN THIS HOUSE WAS BORN, 2 JUNE 1897, LÉON TRULIN,
SHOT BY THE GERMANS AT LILLE, 8 NOV EMBER 1915,
FOR SERVICES RENDERED TO HIS COUNTRY.
THOSE WHO PASS BY, REMEMBER THIS HERO.
The lot of Raymond Derain was no less sad. Three years of prison life left their mark. Released in Germany at the time of the Armistice, he died at Strasbourg towards the end of November 1918 before he could reach his parents who were waiting to welcome him home.
There were many young agents employed in the Allied secret services during the war, but the service Léon 143, or Léon Turpin as it was sometimes called, was the only secret service organisation composed entirely of minors. There were many Allied spies, but none was braver than Léon Trulin.
CHAPTER 12
THE BISCOPS SERVICE
WHAT I HAVE already written must have indicated that some of the spy’s greatest dangers came from note-books and stool-pigeons. Those who employed note-books often thought they were safe in using codes, false names or abbreviations, but they forgot that these secret notes would call for an immediate explanation if they fell into the hands of the Secret Police, and that German third-degree methods, if given a definite objective, had been known to break the strongest will.
Not only did the guilty suffer, but the innocent were often involved. Any person whose name was found in the possession of a spy was immediately arrested; they remained in prison until they had proved their innocence. To illustrate my point, even though it may be a digression from the main objective of this chapter, I shall tell, very briefly, the tragic story of Sister Xavéria.
Sister Xavéria’s brother was Alexandre Franck, the friend and companion of Backelmans (both of these men were eventually arrested by the Germans and shot as spies). One day, quite by accident, she met Backelmans on the street-car. Surprised to see him, for she knew that together with her brother he had left for England at the beginning of the war, she had 101 questions to ask; but she had arrived at her destination and had to take leave without all the information she wanted. When she got back to the convent she decided to get into touch with Backelmans again. She sent him a note asking him to call on her, and not being sure that he knew her convent name, she signed the message ‘Sister of Alex’.
In the meantime, Backelmans had been arrested, and his tell-tale memorandum book was in the possession of the Secret Police. In it Backelmans had noted down the name of Sister Xavéria as a reminder to tell Franck about the encounter. To make matters worse, the innocent Sister’s note fell into the hands of the Secret Police.
Here was a person whose name not only figured in Backelmans’ note-book, but who used a false name. Sister Xavéria was promptly arrested and, in spite of her protests, was confined for weeks in prison. At the trial, the German Prosecuting Attorney demanded a sentence of ten years’ hard labour; it was only the skill of her Belgian lawyer which eventually secured her acquittal.
We will now see how a foolish entry in a memorandum book led to the breaking up of the Biscops Service, which, although in no way to be compared with the ‘White Lady’ in size or importance, ranked next to it.
An Antwerp oculist, Dr ‘X’, a member of the Biscops Service, was arrested as a suspect in an affair which had nothing to do with his espionage activities; in fact, the worthy doctor was entirely innocent of the charges which had been levelled against him. The Secret Police had already realised their mistake, and were about to release him when they noticed in a memorandum book, which they had seized on him, the date of a rendezvous with ‘W’. The Secret Police wanted to know who ‘W’ was.
The doctor, having forgotten about the entry, was taken completely unawares. Disconcerted because ‘W’ stood for the name of the Biscops’ ‘letter box’ in Brussels, and not being able to think fast enough, he took refuge in refusing to answer. The Germans concluded that he had something to hide. They threatened to keep him in prison until the point had been cleared up. The doctor was taken back to his cell, and there found a companion installed in it. It was the stool-pigeon, Delacour.
The stool-pigeon told an appropriate story which completely won the confidence of his victim who, in turn, feeling in need of sympathy, gave an account of what had happened to him. In the course of his story he not only revealed that ‘W’ was Mademoiselle Marguerite Walraevens, residing at 128 rue Medori at Brussels, but that having had difficulty in finding the number, he had chalked a ‘W’ on the wall next to the door.
It was Captain Goldschmidt, in charge of Secret Police Bureau ‘A’ at Brussels, who undertook the investigation. He sent his agent, Jean Burtard, to the indicated address. There, finding the ‘W’ marked on the wall, Burtard was convinced the information was correct. Ringing the bell, he asked to see Mademoiselle Walraevens. With all the cunning which we have seen him employ in ensnaring his other victims, he tried to win her confidence by giving himself out to be a courier from one of the Allied secret services in Holland. But Marguerite Walraevens was on her guard; she knew of the doctor’s arrest; besides, Burtard appeared suspect to her; and so with a show of righteous indignation, she conducted him to the door. Taking no chances, she immediately burned all compromising papers in her possession; and when Burtard returned a few minutes later with reinforcements to arrest the inmates of the house and to make a thorough search, he found the ashes still warm in the hearth.
The Secret Police, as usual, took possession of Mademoiselle Walraevens’s house and arrested everyone who presented himself there. In this way, they not only caught several members of the Biscops Service, but also arrested a woman courier, when she arrived to deposit her reports.
Stool-pigeons were once again called in to play their roles. Time and again, the reader has seen them at work, and has no doubt wondered how it was possible that prisoners, whose lives were at stake, could have been so foolish as to compromise themselves with strangers, however trustworthy they might have appeared. But those who have been worn out by endless interrogations and third-degree methods, and who have been kept in solitary confinement for days, even months, need human sympathy, and someone to talk with. The stool-pigeons were invariably compatriots who claimed to be in the same cruel situation that they were in; the prisoners felt that surely they could be trusted. In many cases, they were actually fellow prisoners, whom the Secret Police by threatening with the death sentence had forced to work for them.
Louise de Bettignies was betrayed by a woman who was arrested in the Cavell affair; and now in the Biscops investigation, unbelievable as it may seem, the Secret Police employed the woman ‘Z’ whose husband had actually been shot by the Germans for espionage. To save her own skin, she proceeded to betray her fellow prisoners.
Having won the confidence of one of the principal members arrested – whom I shall call ‘Spelier’, for although criminally indiscreet he acted in good faith – the woman ‘Z’ cunningly laid her trap. She volunteered the information that she had means of communicating with the outside through her daughter, who had permission to come and see her once a week. ‘Spelier’, anxious to warn Léon Deboucq, the chief of the Biscops Service, as to what had happened in Brussels, wrote a letter to him, and communicated his address in Charleroi to the woman.
The letter, of course, was handed over to Goldschmidt who, after photographing it, sent three members of the Secret Police off to Charleroi to arrest Léon Deboucq. When they arrived at Deboucq’s house, in the early hours of the morning of 16 September 1917, the whole family was away at Mass. The governess, Emilie Fenasse, was the only one at home. Declaring themselves as members of the Secret Police, the three agents took pos
session of the house, and sat down to wait for the return of the family. They did not notice, however, that Emilie Fenasse had turned on the porch light. This was a warning signal which Deboucq had arranged. When Deboucq turned the corner into the street where his house was located, he immediately noticed the light. Sending his family home, he precipitously fled to Brussels.
By allowing Deboucq to slip through their fingers, the Secret Police had momentarily lost the thread of the organisation. Marguerite Walraevens, ‘Spelier’, and the other members of the Biscops Service who had been arrested in Brussels only represented a small section of it. Deboucq had been clever enough to organise his service on the basis of separate and independent nests; the sections at Malines, Namur, Charleroi, Mons, Maubeuge, Valenciennes, Tournai, and in Belgian Luxembourg still remained intact.
Deboucq, a man of about forty, an engineer by profession, extremely intelligent and resourceful, was neither a coward nor a man who would give in easily. Although his wife and one of his daughters had been arrested, he was determined to get his service working again, and to re-establish the connections with Holland, which had been severed by the arrest of Marguerite Walraevens. From his hiding place in Brussels, at the house of his aunt, Anna Verhegge, an old lady of seventy, he started spinning the thread again. He found a new ‘letter box’ in Brussels, in the person of Madame Descamps, another lady well advanced in years; and at Turnhout, close to the Dutch frontier, he enrolled Abbé Dierckx as a relay ‘letter box.’ All that now remained was to connect up these ‘letter boxes’ with a trans-frontier courier.
In his search for a frontier passage, one of his agents, Abbé Amceaux, of Namur, put him in touch with Dewé, Chauvin, and Neujean, of whom Abbé Anceaux had heard through a Namur priest, one of the ‘White Lady”s agents. Deboucq travelled to Liège and there met the three men, who were presented to him under the false names of Gauthier, Bouchon, and Petit.
