Churchill's White Rabbit

by Sophie Jackson

  Even his cleverness and disguises could not completely safeguard him from the vagaries of chance, however. On one occasion Forest was sent with another agent to inspect the Civile et Militaire at Nevers and had to board a train. Train travel was always dangerous as the Germans liked to perform regular check-ups on the passengers. In one notorious incident a resister boarded a train with a suitcase full of names and addresses of members of his resistance party. He fell asleep and when he awoke discovered that the suitcase had been stolen by a particularly astute Gestapo agent. The resulting arrests and deaths that arose from this failure were atrocious.

  Forest always travelled first class, just as he always wore good clothes and new hats, to give the impression that he was a well-to-do Parisian, and the only way to be a well-to-do Parisian in 1943 was to be an active collaborator with the Nazis. It usually worked and he was often overlooked by German officials, but on that particular train ride it was not a German he had to be concerned about.

  Just as the train was pulling out of the station another passenger entered the carriage. Forest glanced up automatically and to his horror recognised a man he had known before the war, and even worse he remembered that the man’s political views were very much pro-German and anti-British. A number of options whizzed through Forest’s mind, the immediate temptation was to retreat to the corridor and stand out there for the rest of the journey, but that was likely to attract more suspicion on him than braving it out in the carriage would. Forest resorted to his second option, burying his head in his paper and trying to ignore the man opposite him.

  It all went well at first, but there was only so long that Forest could convincingly read the rather brief newspapers that were now in circulation without appearing either an incredibly slow reader or deliberately hiding from view. He hoped the man might get off before he had to put the paper aside, but this time his luck was out. As calmly as he could he put aside the paper and turned to look out the window. As he did, he caught sight of the man’s face and knew he had been recognised.

  He could feel the man staring at him. He turned his head back, briefly caught the man’s eyes and then turned to his fellow agent to talk about innocuous topics. A moment passed in which he could feel the man’s eyes still on him and then the passenger leaned forward and tapped his knee.

  ‘Haven’t I met you before the war?’ he asked.

  Forest looked him full in the face and, with no hint of uncertainty, answered ‘Perhaps I look like somebody you know or maybe you’ve seen me somewhere else, but I’m sure I’ve never seen you before.’

  The Frenchman hesitated, then smiled and agreed that he must be mistaken, even though the resemblance was startling. He wanted to spend the rest of the journey discussing the peculiarity of ‘doubles’ and doppelgangers and it was with some relief that Forest saw them entering the final station on their journey and could escape. Yet again his Yeo-Thomas luck had enabled him to escape detection.

  The risk of the train was well worth it, however. Nevers proved to be a hotbed of resistance activity. The local resistance leader was Courvoisier, rather dramatically codenamed Napoleon. Napoleon was a thickset ex-regular NCO with the dynamic personality all resistance leaders needed to inspire men to follow them. He had built up his small group to number 2,000 with impressive branches in intelligence work, supplies and operational activities. Most significantly he had enlisted the entire gendarme force in the area, numbering 350 uniformed individuals, and their commander. This was their greatest asset as the gendarmes protected the reception committees and could transport messages about the area without attracting attention. They could even spy on the Germans and report their movements.

  Napoleon enthusiastically introduced Forest to his men as ‘le Capitaine Shelley de la Royal Air Force’ and requested that he give a lecture to raise the men’s morale. Forest hesitated; talking before the men would expose his identity to a large group of unknown individuals, was it worth the risk?

  In the back of his mind were the continuing arguments among the resistance over whom to follow: de Gaulle or Giraud? For the British, de Gaulle was the only option for a unified France, but the escape of First World War veteran General Giraud from German hands in 1942 had muddied the waters. Giraud and de Gaulle were political opponents prior to the war: Giraud had staunchly stood against de Gaulle’s views that France needed to put money into troops and weapons rather than the false hope of the Maginot Line. After his escape he returned to the Vichy government, who he supported, though he insisted they should resist the Germans. The situation then became complicated, as Himmler wanted Giraud assassinated, correctly realising that he could be a rallying point for the French people, and some of the Vichy politicians tried to persuade Giraud to return to imprisonment in Germany.

  For de Gaulle it was apparent that Giraud wanted to be in on the action and when he began secret negotiations with the British, completely cutting out the Free French movement from the discussion, it was clear that things were not going to be amicable between them. Giraud and de Gaulle did work together, but the presence of two leaders of opposing views divided the resistance in a way that could cause serious problems when a unified paramilitary team was needed on D-Day.

  Forest had firm opinions on the matter: he was a staunch Gaullist and when he realised Napoleon’s request gave him an opportunity to sway the Nevers resisters to side with de Gaulle he knew he had to take the risk and speak to them, as he later said:

  I had weighed the dangers carefully and considered that I was justified, as the moral effect would be considerable, particularly because a British officer who spoke of de Gaulle as the only leader of the French, would exert more influence, and help to combat the deplorable consequences of the ‘Giraud affair’ which very nearly wrecked French Resistance. The talk was a great success, and my right hand ached for days afterwards from the vigorous handshakes I got.6

  Forest developed a strong comradeship with the rural resisters, not least because of their overwhelming generosity. In the Pouilly area Forest and his co-agent were invited to taste local wines and without too much difficulty persuaded themselves that it would be a good act of public relations. It was only after accepting the offer that they were dumbfounded to discover that their host had twenty-one wines ready for them to sample. They rallied through the task valiantly, only to discover that two more local resisters also wanted them to visit and sample their well-stocked cellars. Fortunately Forest had a stomach for wine and felt he had conducted himself adequately as he sat in the van that was to take them back to Nevers and stuck his head out of the window to let the rushing fresh air sober him up.

  His hosts in Nevers were keen to see him back as they had arranged a surprise: the family had been busy cooking a feast in honour of the two SOE agents. Forest felt his stomach churn looking at the array of dishes. The head of the household, a spry man of 65 disappeared to the cellars, as well stocked as any in Pouilly, and returned with a basket of cobwebbed wine bottles. Excitedly he showed Forest a bottle of pre-war Pernod and poured him a generous glass.

  There was no option for the agents but to steady themselves and work their way through the rich and lavish meal, washed down with brimming glasses of white and red wine, and champagne, finished with coffee and liqueurs.

  By now feeling bloated and ill, the agents hoped to excuse themselves and stagger to their beds, but the ordeal was not over yet. It was almost as though some mischievous sprite was enjoying tormenting them, for just then an Alsatian forestry officer arrived and insisted on taking the agents to his home where his assistants were eagerly waiting to meet them. Somehow Forest managed to maintain his composure through the introductions and hand shaking, then their new host brought out a selection of Alsatian wines, which he insisted the agents must taste. It was almost another 2 hours before Forest could extract himself, and feeling so sick that he could hardly concentrate on where his footsteps were falling he stumbled to his bed. He was only able to catch a few brief hours respite before he was up
again to catch the 5 a.m. train. He returned to Paris bilious with terrible indigestion and his head pounding. ‘We were almost killed by hospitality’ he later remarked.

  Forest returned to Paris to join the two men who had become his comrades and friends. The bond between Passy, Brossolette and Forest had been strengthened by their shared danger and ambitions. The fight for France had united three men who otherwise would never have met. Forest was intensely loyal to both BCRA men and protective too in his usual bulldog manner; anyone who threatened Brossolette or Passy threatened him and he was quick to react. In many ways he was very happy, the close bond they all shared in their work was something he had never really felt before and it stuck in his memory throughout his life. After the war he wrote:

  When I look back on those days, I can picture the daily talks we had. They always took place in the evenings, in the flat occupied by Passy and Brossolette in rue Marcel Renaud, in a small back room where there was a wood-burning Mirius stove. Colonel Passy would sit in an old armchair on one side of the stove, I would sit in another armchair on the opposite side, while Brossolette would sprawl full-length on the floor between us, as close as he could to the stove, as he was very fond of warmth and suffered much from the cold. We would discuss everything for hours. When we had gone over all the problems we had to deal with, we would either fall silent and think our own thoughts, or we would talk about our loved-ones, our plans for the future if we survived, the shape of things to come. Sometimes, Brossolette, who was a historian, would hold forth and we would listen enthralled. We got on famously together, in spite of the abysmal fundamental differences in our upbringings. We had a common ideal, and each of us relied upon the two others … brothers could not have been closer than we were. There grew between us a bond that nothing short of death could break.7

  Unfortunately it would be death that broke the brotherhood into pieces.

  * * *

  Notes

  1. Hélène became an integral member of the resistance, along with her 16-year-old daughter Poucette, who acted as a courier. Her apartment soon became a regular meeting place for the resistance until it was compromised.

  2. Colonel Alfred Touny (1886–1944) eventually became the president of OCM, but was arrested on 25 February and shot at the end of April 1944.

  3. When the Germans first took France they occupied only the northern part of the country, leaving the southern part controlled by Vichy. These areas then became known as the Occupied and Unoccupied zones.

  4. Roger Coquoin (1897–1943).

  5. Marshal, Op cit.

  6. Seaman, Op cit.

  7. Ibid.

  – 8 –

  The American

  BUNDLING ONTO A TRAIN as the first signs of springtime in Paris were dotting the streets, Forest had much to contemplate. They were heading back to Lyons-la-Forêt to meet a Lysander plane sent by London to pick them up. Forest glanced at the familiar streets as the train pulled out of the station, knowing he would soon be back and fighting to get the Nazis out of his capital.

  It had been an emotionally draining visit. The resistance was alive but fractured and attempts to pull it into cohesion still seemed in their infancy. Before leaving Jean Moulin and General Delestraint had entered the discussions. The charismatic Moulin had dominated the proceedings, much to Brossolette’s annoyance, but there was no denying that he carried an audience and inspired men. But he also had plans: Moulin agreed with the SOE agents that a good secret army should be about quality not quantity. Training was essential and not just in the art of killing cleanly and efficiently, he firmly believed the men needed to be disciplined, to know how to march and to salute an officer. If they wanted a worthwhile army, Moulin extolled, they had to look to the formalities of obedience as well as to killing.

  His words had not sat well with the FTP, naturally. A heady battle of wills began. Moulin was adamant, but so was the FTP. Communist resistance was not about saluting officers (weren’t they all equals anyway?) or marching in an orderly fashion, it was about action, it was about killing Germans and sabotaging their military network. The FTP was already uncomfortable, having finally agreed to put some of their number nominally under the governance of de Gaulle and fight for his cause on D-Day. Even Moulin’s charm could not sway the FTP who were irate that any ‘training’ for their men, which they deemed unnecessary anyway, would take them away from their mission to attack the Nazis as often as they could. There was no way to easily resolve the matter and as Forest turned his thoughts to home he knew that there was still no resolution between Moulin and the communists.

  Aside from that worry, there was Delestraint. The retired general was a fearless and bold character, with much to say about the nature of warfare, despite having spent most of the First World War in a prison camp. He had befriended de Gaulle, which spoke volumes to the British authorities, and he was a well-decorated officer. His courage was not in doubt, but Forest doubted that he was a good recruit for clandestine work – he didn’t have the necessary guile or skill for deceit. Forest would be proved right, much to his disappointment, a couple of months after Operation Seahorse when Delestraint was confronted by the Gestapo and pulled out two sets of different identity papers from his pocket. The blunder made it impossible to deny his participation in the resistance.

  Forest was at once inspired and terrified by the eclectic creation the resistance had become. Was it the vital resource the British believed it to be? Or was it a liability to security? Forest hoped for the former, but worried about the latter.

  Then there was the matter of his father. Jose Dupuis had carefully revealed to Forest that his father had fallen into the hands of the Gestapo, who were trying to discover Forest’s whereabouts. What suspicions the Gestapo had at that time were unclear: perhaps they were merely trying to track down a French citizen who was known to serve the British as a precaution. Whatever the case, John Yeo-Thomas had proved as stubborn as usual and the angered Gestapo had thrown him into Fresnes prison. The old man had similar luck to his son, however. Someone in the prison authorities had been sympathetic enough to release him on grounds of his age and poor health. He returned home to find his apartment looted and in disarray.

  Just before he left Paris Forest paid a visit to his father, following the precaution that Jose Dupuis had warned him about and ringing the bell five times. The Gestapo visit had shaken the old man more than he would care to admit and when he opened the door he made no obvious sign that he recognised the man on his doorstep. Father and son stared at each other, then John calmly said:

  ‘Entrez monsieur.’

  With the pretence of welcoming a stranger, he ushered in his son and closed the door. Motioning for silence he listened to ensure there was no one nearby, then he turned on Forest.

  ‘What the bloody hell have you been doing for the last two years?’ He snapped, ‘You ought to have been here long ago.’

  Forest could only apologise, especially as he could not do more than hint at his current work with the resistance. He wanted to ask about his father’s time in Fresnes but the old man refused to comment on the matter.

  ‘I’ve been doing a little resistance work,’ he admitted, but would not elaborate.

  The whole conversation proved stilted, with neither man prepared to push the other on the details of their work. Both were as stubborn as ever and Forest could at least console himself with the fact that Fresnes did not seem to have done any lasting damage to the old man. After giving his father tea, coffee, sugar, cigarettes and a little money he left with as little commotion as he had arrived, wondering when he would see his father again.

  Sitting next to Forest on the train leaving for Lyons-la-Forêt was a well-built young man nursing an injury to his shoulder and apparently deeply engaged in a recent French newspaper. Forest paid as little attention to him as he could and certainly avoided conversation, not that it would have mattered if he had tried to start one, as the man next to him was completely ignorant of French.

&nbs
p; Captain John Ryan was a downed American pilot trying to get home. Struggling with a fractured shoulder and all too easily identifiable by his broad American accent, he had managed to make contact with the CND and they had arranged to get him out of France. A professor1 among their number set his arm and the group had organised that Ryan would be evacuated out of France with the three returning SOE agents.

  Ryan was not an easy travelling companion. Ignorant of French, he had been strictly informed to remain silent and to answer any questions presented to him with a prosaic ‘oui’ or ‘non’. The silence was obviously difficult for Ryan who was a jovial and exuberant person, but stuffing him behind the thin sheets of a newspaper at least made him slightly more clandestine. Forest was all too aware that his guest, as friendly and affable as he was, was a terrible risk to them. Should he slip and speak, or should a German policeman get too interested in him then everyone could be exposed.

  The tension this produced had an unsettling effect on the usually stoic Forest. Perhaps it was having someone speaking English near him again after so many weeks or just the constant anxiety he was under in case Ryan blundered that caused him to make a rare but serious mistake.