Churchill's White Rabbit

by Sophie Jackson

  ‘Name?’ Rudi demanded.

  ‘Shelley,’ Forest answered.

  ‘Fool! Your real name.’

  ‘Kenneth Dodkin.’

  ‘Your serial number?’

  ‘47685.’

  ‘Rank?’

  ‘Squadron leader.’

  ‘Branch of the Service?’

  ‘Royal Air Force.’

  ‘Address?’

  ‘I do not require to reply to that question.’

  ‘You will reply all the same.’

  ‘I shall not.’

  Rudi struck him hard, a heavy ring on his hand slicing open Forest’s cheek. More blows fell on his head until Forest’s ears were ringing. His vision was swimming and only the tight grasp of Rudi’s able assistants held him in the chair. But as abruptly as it had begun, it stopped and Rudi sat back in his chair. He took cigarettes from his pocket and gave one to Forest. Forest was not surprised by the switch, he had learned about German interrogation tactics from SOE and abusive treatment was always followed by a pretence of civility designed to shock the victim into speaking.

  ‘Listen,’ said Rudi, now calmly sitting in his chair. ‘You’ve had your flutter and you’ve lost. Antonin has told us everything you’ve been doing since the beginning of the year.’

  The comment was Rudi’s first error and it made Forest realise his Gestapo ‘friends’ were not as fast on their intelligence as some mistakenly believed. Forest had been in the country for less than a month and had only been working with Antonin for a week, but it was worth playing along for his self-preservation.

  ‘Then he’s talked?’ Forest said with an expression of deep shock and distress.

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘So you know about my appointments?’

  ‘Of course. You see it’s no use you making a martyr of yourself. You’ve had your flutter and lost.’ That seemed to be Rudi’s favourite phrase.

  ‘Did he tell you I had an appointment for this afternoon?’

  ‘We know everything, I tell you.’

  ‘In that case it won’t do much good my talking, will it?’

  The logical statement hardly endeared Forest to his captor.

  ‘This is no time for joking,’ Rudi barked. ‘We know that you have an appointment this afternoon. All I want to know is with whom and where.’

  Forest gave the impression that he had conceded defeat against Rudi’s demands.

  ‘What time is it now?’ he asked.

  ‘Half-past four.’

  ‘In that case it’s too late because my appointment is for a quarter to five.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘At the Porte Maillot.’

  ‘Whereabouts exactly?”

  ‘In front of the ceinture railway station.’

  ‘With whom?’

  ‘A woman.’

  ‘What does she look like?’

  ‘You’ll see her easily, she will be carrying a bouquet of flowers and a newspaper.

  The chance of catching more resistance workers had Rudi jumping out of his chair and ordering a car. Before he left the room he spared a moment to give one last parting shot.

  ‘If you’re lying you’ll pay for it.’

  Forest knew he would. But for the time being he had a reprieve and was left in the room with the young typist, Ernst. Initial appearances had suggested Ernst was just another underling in Rudi’s employ, but now he came up to the table where Forest’s belongings had been left scattered and started examining him with keen eyes. Among them was a small keepsake handed to Forest by a Russian patron of Molyneux’s when she heard of his plans to enlist in 1939. He had worn it throughout the war with little consideration for its significance. It consisted of a brown sachet on a string that she had told him would keep him safe. The irony of his current situation did not help distract Forest from the keen interest Ernst was paying to the packet. Taking out a penknife Ernst slit open the sachet and revealed the contents that had been hidden even to Forest. It proved to contain a small slip of paper written on in neat Russian characters. It was perhaps a prayer or chant to bring good luck, but Ernst, as ignorant of Russian as Forest was, considered it to be clear proof that Forest had communist connections and the ‘lucky sachet’ now put Forest in even greater danger.

  Ernst continued his close perusal of the items on the table. He was working through the banknotes Forest had had in his possession.

  ‘Whose telephone number is this?’

  Forest had not been aware of any telephone numbers, but now Ernst showed him a 10F note that someone had written a number on in pencil. He genuinely had no knowledge of the number, which must have been on the note before he was given it. Who was to say how long the defaced banknote had been in circulation? It was such a cruelty that it had happened to fall into his hands at the time that he fell into the Germans’ clutches. Try as he might to convince Ernst that the telephone number was a genuine coincidence and nothing to do with him he was not believed, and the young German sent the digits to be traced. Before long he was grinning at Forest that he had the name and address of his accomplice and the German police were on their way to collect him.

  If Ernst’s misplaced accusations weren’t bad enough, Rudi now returned in an utter fury. Of course he had found no woman at the meeting place and his anger was now peaked to the point where there would no more attempts at being friendly. Ernst compounded matters by showing him the incriminating documents. Rudi was irate and sent the Russian words off for translation (there is no record as to what they came back as, but presumably the innocuous nature of the contents would only have angered Rudi further).

  ‘Where are the arms dumps?’ Rudi demanded.

  It was known that the resistance were being supplied by the British, though of course the Germans were under the impression that these supplies were far more generous than they actually were. Arms dumps were a constant source of concern and the Germans went to great efforts to locate them. It was logical that eventually Rudi would want to know about them, but unfortunately he had picked the wrong man as Forest had absolutely no knowledge of arms dumps. But no one was going to believe that. Infuriated by the reticence of his prisoner Rudi decided to up his game. Drawing a length of chain and an ox-gut whip from a drawer he gave instructions for the baignoire to be prepared.

  The baignoire, or bath torture, was a predominantly German-used device that had gained notoriety among resistance circuits for its horrors. Forest knew its reputation. The idea of the torture was to repeatedly bring a man close to drowning in a bath of icy water. The ordeal was not only terrifying but incredibly painful, and the disorientation caused by slipping in and out of consciousness was in itself enough to make a victim talk. The Gestapo had developed the technique to a cruel perfection and rarely lost a man to drowning, taking away even that last hope from their prisoner.

  Part of the process was humiliation of the victim – Rudi enjoyed an audience. As Forest was dragged down a corridor to a tiled bathroom, word was sent around of the horror about to be enacted and a gaggle of office girls in uniform were summoned to watch. They seemed rather excited at the prospect and were far from disturbed by the obvious agony another human being was about to endure. Nazi evil could come in female as well as male form.

  Forest was once more stripped naked, the girls gawping and laughing at him. His arms were handcuffed behind his back and the thick chain tied around his ankles. Rudi slashed the stinging whip across his bare chest, instantly bringing up a welt and demanding to know about the arms dumps. Forest managed to grit his teeth and keep silent and anyway he had nothing that he could say. The whip came down a few more times, each slash followed by another question, but when nothing but gasps of pain could be drawn from the prisoner, Rudi finally lost his patience and slammed Forest backwards into the bath, which Ernst had kindly filled with cold water. The purpose of the chain now became apparent. By hoisting it up Forest was unable to pull himself out of the water or kick free and was entirely at the mercy of Rudi. Forest late
r wrote an account of his first ‘dip’:

  I was helpless, I panicked and tried to kick, but the vice-like grip was such that I could hardly move. My eyes were open, I could see shapes distorted by the water, wavering about me, my lungs were bursting, my mouth opened and I swallowed water. Now I was drowning. I put every ounce of my energy into a vain effort to kick myself out of the bath, but I was completely helpless and swallowing water, I felt that I must burst. I was dying, this was the end, I was losing consciousness, but as I was doing so, I felt the strength going out of me and my limbs going limp. This must be the end.3

  He was not to be that lucky. Rudi had had plenty of practice at this routine and as Forest lost consciousness he was quickly drawn out of the bath and laid on the floor to rouse himself. It only took a few moments for Forest’s senses to return and for him to realise that he was still alive and still in the clutches of the Gestapo. The girls were laughing in the doorway and Rudi was asking his questions again. Forest barely had a moment to gasp out his lack of knowledge before he was plunged back into the water. Forest lost track of the number of times he drifted on the cusp of drowning before waking on the tiled floor before Rudi.

  Splash, I was kicking again and swallowing gallons of water, not much strength left to kick. My chest was about to burst. Oblivion. Distorted faces. ‘Rudi’, ‘Ernst’, others, girls laughing, mocking ‘Where are the arms dumps?’ Why reply at all, let me die. Water, gulps, bursting lungs, more faces above me, more girls splitting their sides with laughter. Wish I was dead. How many times this went on, I don’t know. I lay on the tiled floor, everything swaying around me, walls, bath, faces. I felt abominably sick, my tummy felt like an over-full barrel. Water kept on gushing out of my mouth, over my chest, I was numb with cold, I closed my eyes. I could hear voices, laughs, feminine laughter. What was so funny? Me, of course. I must look a fool, wilting like a doll that has lost its stuffing.

  Forest’s moving description of torture speaks for all those souls who never survived to tell their tale, Brossolette among them, who could not face another round with the bath and used his last strength to take himself permanently out of German hands.

  But even this horror had to end. On one occasion as Forest came round, he realised the girls were gone, which suggested to him that Rudi was finally tiring of this game. He was proved right when he was dragged to his feet, sick and dizzy, and hauled back to the interrogation room. Once again he was dressed and once again the abuse began, but this time the guards used rubber truncheons to pound him violently. Perhaps their hands were tired. Eventually Forest experienced the mercy of passing out from the pain.

  The bliss of nothingness did not last long though, and Forest tried to draw out his temporary reprieve by pretending to be unconscious when he awoke. His body was just one mass of pain, but even so he could pick out the individual areas that hurt. He had never been through anything like it in his life and even for him there was the temptation to talk. Somehow Forest resisted the urge; perhaps that ability to detach himself from the external world around him was his saving grace, though he would have been forgiven for giving in.

  Rudi realised he was awake and propped him up in a chair so that he might discuss the keys they had found on him. For Forest this was the moment he had dreaded, as the keys were the one true link between himself and his friends. He had to stall the Germans long enough to give Maud and the others a chance to escape, but that was not so simple; to delay the Germans sufficiently he had to give them something. Reluctantly it dawned on him that one key belonged to an apartment only he, Brossolette and Maud knew about, therefore it might be the safest place to send the Germans to search.

  ‘What do these keys open?’ Rudi demanded.

  Forest wanted to draw out the discussion as long as he could before giving up his one piece of information.

  ‘They open nothing.’

  ‘Don’t lie!’

  ‘I’m not lying, a man looks odd if he doesn’t carry keys so I had these made up as cover.’

  Rudi was not convinced. Taking up the keys he used them as a flail to slash across Forest’s face until his blood spilled down.

  ‘Now, what do the keys open?’

  Even Forest could not endure this forever and he savoured a chance to escape the continued flagellation, if only for a short time.

  ‘The big key is the only one of importance. It belongs to 33 rue de la Tourelle, Porte de Saint Cloud.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have said that sooner?’ Rudi scowled, but he broke off from his torment to ring for another car. Repeating his earlier warning that if Forest was lying he would suffer, the Gestapo man left, leaving Ernst behind.

  Ernst was looking very pleased with himself and quickly revealed that he had tracked down Forest’s friend from the 10F note. A miserable-looking man, already beaten and bloody, was dragged into the room. His immediate reaction to the sight of Forest was naturally one of horror and revulsion, but unfortunately Ernst took this as a sign of recognition.

  The unfortunate victim was completely unknown to Forest and he never did discover who he was or what became of him. Ernst slapped the newcomer into a chair and grinned at the pair of men.

  ‘A pleasant surprise for you both to meet like this, isn’t it?’

  As pointless as he knew it was, Forest had to try and clarify that this poor man had nothing to do with him and his work.

  ‘I’ve never seen this man before, he’s totally unknown to me,’ he insisted, but it was such a common protest in the Gestapo base that the one time it was true it fell on deaf ears.

  ‘You’re a bloody liar. Don’t think I didn’t see you tremble when he was brought in.’

  Ernst addressed himself to his new victim.

  ‘Even if he’s not going to talk I hope you’ll be a little more intelligent. You’ve only got to be sensible and tell us all you know and we will let you go. But I warn you that it won’t be pleasant for you if you tell us any lies.’

  What hope did an innocent man have in a building full of liars?

  ‘Monsieur, I swear to you that I don’t know this gentleman,’ he begged. ‘I swear to you that I haven’t had anything to do with the resistance. I am a musician. I earn my living playing in a nightclub. I’ve a wife and two children. Why should I lie to you?’

  There was really no hope for the unfortunate who had had the singular misfortune to have his phone number written on a franc note. Fate can be cruel and twisted sometimes. The more he protested, the more violent his captors became and soon he was as bloodied as Forest. It was too much for Forest’s conscience to bear.

  ‘Cowards! He is innocent! He has nothing to do with me. Can’t you see he is such a weak fellow that if he knew anything he would tell you? You are hurting him for nothing!’

  The outburst only earned Forest another beating from his guards and he fell into a faint again.

  When he roused he could hear the sound of a man whimpering, but he hardly had time to consider it before he was dragged away to a small cell and left sitting on a chair, his handcuffed hands slipped over its back.

  Only now, in the isolation of his cell, without Rudi or Ernst bellowing and punching him, could Forest consider himself and the many aches and pains of his body. There was not a part of him that didn’t seem to throb, and his head felt swollen, his jaw ached and his teeth seemed to rattle loose in his skull. All he could taste was blood and the handcuffs were slicing into his wrists.

  Through the locked door of his cell he could hear the unlucky musician screaming as his interrogators resumed their abuse. Perhaps worse than watching the torture was hearing its sounds and letting the imagination run wild about what was happening. Forest heard what sounded like a body being flung against a wall, and soft thuds and cracks, interspersed with groans and cries. At one point it sounded as though Ernst was smashing furniture. Forest forgot his pain in his anger for the poor man and began yelling his own abuse at the Gestapo from his cell, but it was unlikely that they heard him over the noise of their
own violence. Certainly no one came to punish him for the outburst and slowly even Forest’s energy for rage deserted him.

  In the aftermath of torture there was only exhaustion. Forest’s body ached for sleep, but any time his head dropped forward the handcuffs bit into his wrists and brought him round violently. No doubt this was an effect that his guards were well aware of. Added to that was a desperate desire to urinate, brought on by the large quantities of water he had been forced to drink during his ‘bath’. Dreading the humiliation of wetting himself, Forest called and called for assistance, but aside from someone shouting ‘English swine!’ through his door, no one came.

  It was long after midnight when guards eventually came to him and hauled him back to the interrogation room. Rudi had returned from inspecting the flat and was not impressed at what he had found. As Forest was thrust back into a chair he noticed a cowering figure in the corner of the room – the musician, who had finally lost Ernst’s attention. Battered and shivering, occasionally moaning softly, he was a broken figure. There was no knowing how permanent his injuries were, or whether any were life threatening. He was just one more Nazi casualty who would quickly be forgotten.

  ‘You sent me on another wild goose chase,’ Rudi snapped – the flat had thankfully been abandoned by Forest’s comrades. ‘No one has slept there for months. Where did you sleep last night?’

  ‘With a whore,’ Forest answered quickly. ‘It is what I always do, they keep their mouths shut.’

  Rudi didn’t believe him, but both captors were, by now, feeling almost as exhausted as their victim. They sent for food and Forest had to watch them for what felt like hours as they slowly ate. All the time his bladder was fit to burst and he could barely contain himself, despite his determination not to humiliate himself before his captors.

  Abruptly Rudi and Ernst ordered him back to his cell, seemingly frustrated by their prisoner and tired of the interview. At the threshold of his cell Forest took his chance to beg his guards to let him relieve himself, informing them that if they didn’t there would soon be a pool of urine trickling from under the door. Annoyed but clearly not relishing having to mop floors, the guards escorted him to a toilet and with immense relief Forest was able to empty his bladder. In the topsy-turvy world of the Gestapo prison it seemed an incomparable victory over the enemy.