The Lady Is a Spy

by Don Mitchell

  Later that evening, Virginia telephoned Churchill at his hotel and suggested they have dinner. They met in the lobby of Virginia’s hotel, where, after a quick greeting, she ushered him out into the snow and to a small restaurant run by a Greek gentleman who greeted Virginia “like a loving daughter.” She explained to her fellow SOE agent the realities of food rationing and the use of food tickets in Vichy France. Since the color of food tickets changed every year, among Churchill’s tasks on this mission was to bring back to London copies of the latest food tickets in France so they could be successfully counterfeited.

  The proprietor came out and provided Virginia and Peter two large menus with a wide variety of selections. Peter was astonished at the choices while there was such a severe food shortage—with much of France’s produce being confiscated by the Nazis for consumption in Germany. Virginia explained that “Lyon is better provided than most places. But you can’t eat like this anywhere. This is a black-market restaurant.”

  “Isn’t he taking a risk?” Peter asked, regarding the proprietor.

  “No,” replied Virginia. “He bribes the right people.”

  Peter Churchill at the Hotel de la Postes in Saint-Jorioz, France.

  As the dinner progressed, Virginia told Peter that she would arrange for him to meet another agent named Charles. She then leaned over the table toward him and said, “By the way, I’m not an inquisitive person, but it’s my turn to ask questions now. Your French is so perfect that I take it you are French.”

  Peter was flattered at the compliment of his language skills, but he felt no need to share anything more of his background than necessary. Instead, he proceeded to provide Virginia with his cover story. If she was ever asked to explain her relationship with him, she should state that his name was Pierre Chauvet, and “that I was a French Liaison Officer with the 50th Division [who] escaped capture at St. Valéry and made his way to Corsica.” He noted that the War Office had even gone to the trouble of contacting one of Peter’s friends in Corsica who would back up the story if any inquiries were ever made. He emphasized to Virginia, “as far as you’re concerned, I’ve only just come over via Marseille and, because I was running short of money I’m approaching you—who are a newspaper reporter—with a view to cadging a little free-lance work.”

  Virginia was impressed. “Well, that’s one of the best cover stories I ever heard. Short, sweet, and to the point. As far as I can see, it also holds water in every respect. They must have got somebody with a real brain back home.”

  “You know how it is,” Peter replied, “they simply love playing these games in England.”

  Virginia was quick to admonish her dinner companion. “We never name that place when we wish to speak of it. Instead we say chez nous—at home. The other word is apt to attract attention.” Even suggesting a tie to England could put both of them in serious jeopardy with the authorities. Peter vowed to remember that in the future.

  The next day, Virginia met Peter in a local café. They were soon joined by another SOE agent, Charles, a tall, slim young man who had arrived in the area six months before. Virginia left the two men to talk while she attended to other business. Charles lived on the outskirts of Lyon in a modest house, carrying out his activities without attracting attention from the local authorities. To sustain the local group’s operations, Peter provided Charles with 250,000 francs.

  At an open-air café in Marseille, a woman pretends to adjust her hair while actually signaling to her friend the forbidden “V for Victory” sign.

  Peter gave Charles two tasks. First, to not only provide Peter with ration cards, but also a sample of every ration card issued in France. Second, Peter wanted him to identify half a dozen or so sites in the countryside north of Lyon that would be desirable for parachute and airplane landings. Specifically, they were looking for places close to the banks of two rivers in the area, since pilots could more easily see ground next to the rivers in the moonlight. The two men discussed the process of making contact with airplanes with equipment from the ground and how to provide signals and illuminate the landing area for drops and plane landings.

  Later, Charles slid a folded newspaper across the table to Peter. He suggested Peter excuse himself from the table and, to shield himself from prying eyes, go to the toilet to examine the newspaper’s contents. When he did so, Peter was delighted to see that it contained the sample ration books and other information he was looking for. Peter then placed a piece of paper into the newspaper that had the address of a town in England along with the message: “Leonore now flourishing.” It would inform SOE headquarters that Peter had successfully completed another part of his mission. He returned to the table, handed the newspaper back to Charles, and asked that Virginia send the telegram message as soon as possible.

  Then Peter took the train from Lyon to Marseille to make his next contact, a young man with the code name Olivier. He was grateful that Virginia had gone to Marseille in advance to facilitate the meeting. As the train raced through the winter cold toward Marseille, Peter reflected about Virginia. “She had struck me as a woman who would overcome any obstacle, and if I was inclined to shudder at her accent, I thought it was perhaps preferable that it was so obvious, otherwise it might have aroused suspicions through a state of near perfection.”

  When Peter’s train pulled up to the station in Marseille, Virginia was on the platform waiting for him. Marseille was a port city of great strategic value. Because of this, there was a significant Gestapo presence in the area, making it a particularly challenging operational environment for the Resistance.

  Virginia skillfully maneuvered Peter past a potential security obstacle and out of the train station onto the streets of Marseille. They walked past the Hôtel Splendide, which Virginia pointed out as being Gestapo headquarters. There was no snow on the ground in the city, but it was freezing. The streets were thronged with people, many of whom looked thin, hungry, and poor. As the two agents walked along, Peter was impressed with the speed and ease with which Virginia walked along the crowded pavements. He couldn’t resist asking about her leg.

  “Is it true about your foot, Germaine?” he asked, referring to Virginia by her alias.

  “Yes,” she replied with a smile. “It’s actually made of aluminum and there’s an opening where it fits round the heel.”

  “Good heavens!” Peter replied. “A walking ground-floor letter box that nobody would ever find. Hermes had nothing on you, Germaine.”

  “You’re right. You’d be surprised at what goes into my aluminum puppy.”

  Virginia introduced Peter to Olivier, the SOE’s representative in Marseille: “a fair-haired youth whose clothes and manner were sober.” Olivier set Peter up in a dingy room in a small hotel and gave him directions to where he would have to meet someone the next morning. Peter did not share with Virginia or Olivier the reason for his meeting the following day. To the extent possible, London tried to keep agents’ missions and information compartmented to protect secrecy and the security of the agents.

  The next morning, Peter met with the manager of a large ice factory in Marseille, requesting his assistance in freeing the ten men from prison and offering money to help him accomplish that goal. The man heard Peter out but ultimately declined to help. He told Peter, “I sympathize with their lot and your anxiety to get them out, but I cannot afford to associate myself with such a deal, as I am too well known in Marseille, and the news would get around at once if I touched it.” The man did say, however, that he would try to help one of the men, who was formerly a junior officer on his staff.

  Discouraged and disgusted at his inability to enlist the factory manager in his effort to free the men, Peter found the café where Virginia said she would meet him and sat down opposite her at a table. She was writing postcards and, looking at the expression on his face, she said, “What’s eating you?” She went on to inquire, “Why don’t you tell me what’s happened, or is it a state secret?”

  “I suppose they intended it t
o be in London. Personally, I’d hoped to bring it off on my own, too. But since you’re on the spot, two heads are sure to be better than one.”

  “I’m all ears,” said Virginia.

  “I was supposed to get a local man to help in springing ten men out of prison, but he won’t play.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Isn’t it enough?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?” asked Peter.

  “The size of the bribe.”

  “Anything up to a million,” Peter replied. That was almost all he had in the budget London had given him for this purpose.

  “Child’s play,” Virginia said teasingly. “What do they think we do out here? Consort with princes and high society? Why, there isn’t one of us who hasn’t got at least a couple of unscrupulous lawyers up his sleeve who would jump at a crooked assignment like that. If these prisoners are held in Marseille, Olivier will handle it for you. He’s an expert at such transactions, and I’m a little too busy on a similar proposition in Lyon to take it on just now.”

  Olivier soon joined them in the café and readily agreed to take on the assignment. He was somewhat incredulous that Peter hadn’t told him about it in the first place. All Olivier said of the matter was “If only you’d told me about this before, I could have spared you this morning’s goose chase.”

  Now the only thing left for Peter to do on this matter was to pass the money to Olivier. The two men excused themselves and went to the café’s toilet, and locked themselves in. When they rejoined Virginia at the table, Peter had one million fewer francs in his money belt, and Olivier had suddenly become a millionaire. Peter discreetly handed Virginia a note with an address to another British town and the following message: “Marius’ first tooth only visible as yet.” He asked Virginia to send it at her earliest convenience. It would inform London that Peter had now completed his mission in France.

  With his mission done, Peter needed to get back to London. He had hoped to bribe black market sources to get there by sea, but that soon proved not to be a possibility. Peter resigned himself to crossing the Pyrénées Mountains on foot into Spain. On his way to a rendezvous with Virginia to discuss those arrangements, he cut through a small side street. He soon found his way blocked by two Vichy security officials. With most of his money gone, Peter felt somewhat confident that he could bluff his way out of the situation.

  “Your identity card!” demanded one of the men. Peter produced his wallet and took out his card.

  “Nice lot of bank notes tucked away in that wallet,” said the man.

  “What about them?” Peter replied. He then noticed the other man stiffened somewhat and pushed something forward in his overcoat pocket. Peter wondered if it could be a gun.

  “We’re looking for likely people to volunteer for work in Germany, but I think we could come to terms. After all, one must live and let live, Monsieur.”

  “How much do you want?” Peter asked.

  “Let’s see,” said the man, scrutinizing Peter’s identity card. “Age: twenty-nine. Profession: Free-lance journalist. Not exactly a reserved occupation for a healthy young man, is it? If we were to take you along to headquarters you wouldn’t get very far on that. I think, on the whole, if you were to empty that bulging compartment we might call it a deal.”

  “But that’s all I’ve got in the world,” Peter implored.

  “Monsieur, you still have your freedom,” said the man as he pocketed the wallet’s contents.

  “Charming!” Peter replied as he went on his way. The two Vichy officials got all they wanted from the exchange. While Peter had lost twenty-five thousand francs, he still had sixty-five thousand francs hidden in his money belt, which he would need to get out of France. He was both angry at having been robbed and relieved that the confrontation was over. It could have gone much worse.

  Peter ultimately made his way back to England. But Virginia had been indispensable to his mission’s success.

  Another SOE agent Virginia assisted was Denis Rake, who was born in Belgium and came to Great Britain after World War I. He was an actor, appearing in musical comedies such as No, No, Nanette. At the outset of hostilities, he joined the British Army. Wanting to test his abilities and make a difference, Denis ultimately found his way into the SOE and trained to be a wireless telegraph operator. That, along with his fluency in French, made him particularly valuable to British intelligence. He was given the code name Alain.

  Denis was placed on a camouflaged fishing boat headed for Gibraltar and, ultimately, southern France. His cover story was that of a Belgian businessman who was trying to obtain business contracts in France. From Gibraltar, Denis transferred to another boat under a Portuguese flag, and two nights later, a small boat dropped him on the beach near Juan-les-Pins, a resort town in southeastern France on the Côte d’Azur.

  He landed in France carrying one suitcase with his wireless set and the other containing his personal belongings along with a great deal of money to fund his operations. The money had been intentionally “dirtied” by spattering the notes with oil and grease, marking them up, bending their edges, and crumpling them to keep them from looking like new bank notes, which usually created suspicion during a time of scarcity.

  Eventually, Denis and an SOE colleague named Clément took the train to Lyon to begin their mission. At a small café on the Quai Perrache, they met their SOE contact, Virginia—“a tall, fair-haired woman of striking handsomeness” who was known to them as Renée. Denis was put up in a small, shabby hotel close to a railway bridge. That first night in Lyon, Denis and Clément went to see a film. For Denis, it was the first opportunity to relax since he had come to France as an agent. As the lights came up in the theater at the film’s conclusion, Denis exclaimed to his colleague in English: “How marvelous this is!” Realizing the major security compromise, the two quickly left the theater.

  Virginia tapped into her local contacts and arranged for Denis to operate his wireless telegraph at a number of safe houses in Lyon. After almost a month, the surly hotel manager informed Denis that his room in the nearly vacant establishment was needed and he had to look for lodgings elsewhere immediately. Denis went to Virginia for help.

  “We should have found you somewhere else before,” she told him. “I don’t much like the idea of you living in a hotel anyway.”

  Clément suggested telling the hotel manager the truth about Denis. “He’ll probably change his tune if we tell him you’re a British officer.”

  Virginia was incredulous. “Shut up,” she replied. “That’s just about the most stupid idea I’ve ever heard.”

  The next day, Virginia met with Denis in the Place Lyautey. Denis had become increasingly anxious about his living situation as he had observed the hotel manager walking with a member of the Milice, the French militia who fought against the Resistance. Denis quickly paid his bill and checked out of the hotel. Virginia had provided an identity card and a work card, which gave Denis a cover as a worker for France’s state-owned railway.

  “I must have somewhere for tonight,” he told Virginia.

  “It’s all right,” she replied. “I’ve fixed something for you. It isn’t very grand, I’m afraid.”

  Virginia took Denis to rooms in an attic in the Rue Violette la Chatte, where they were greeted by “a hard looking woman with a cigarette stuck between red-purple lips.”

  The prostitute asked Virginia, “What’s it all about, love?”

  “I want a room for my friend,” Virginia replied. “Guillaume told you, didn’t he?”

  “Well, I see,” she said. “Means I’ve got to move.”

  “Yes, of course, we’ll compensate you whatever you think is fair. My friend wants to move in today.”

  “You’re in a hurry, love, aren’t you?”

  The prostitute was inquisitive, wondering about Denis’s true identity and the nature of Virginia’s interest in him. Was he an escaped prisoner? The prostitute explained that she “loved soldiers” and wo
uld have to constrain herself from comforting Denis herself. Ultimately, Virginia deflected her questions and negotiated satisfactory terms so Denis could move into the prostitute’s perfume-laden apartment. Once again, Virginia cleared the way for another agent to continue their work for the Resistance.

  Eventually, the Milice began asking questions about Clément, and Virginia moved quickly to find new quarters for Clément and Denis. After receiving instructions from London, Clément fled France, arriving in England through Spain. Because Denis’s wireless skills were so valuable, Virginia helped him relocate to Paris, where he worked with another Resistance group.

  At great risk to herself, Virginia helped a large number of people, including fellow agents, Resistance members, downed Allied pilots, and escaped prisoners of war. But as hard as Virginia worked to aid her fellow agents, she would sometimes feel frustrated, if not exasperated, that SOE headquarters in London wasn’t doing more to effectively support operations in France.

  For example, two of Virginia’s fellow agents had parachuted into the fields of the Sarthe Department of northwest France in late January of 1942. The pilot dropped them over eighteen miles off course from their intended destination, with one agent narrowly avoiding being impaled on stakes in a vineyard. Because they landed off target, there was no reception committee for the two men except for a dog at the farm where they landed. The agents buried their gear and walked to Tours, then traveled to Paris, before finally arriving in Marseille, where Virginia picked them up and brought them back to Lyon. Once there, she sent the two men to a colleague in the South of France who needed extra assistance.

  Virginia complained to London that the agents apparently weren’t given information about who they were to contact in France. The situation was frustrating “because a month of aimless and seemingly hopeless wandering, without reliable means of obtaining food tickets, etc., has been discouraging, especially after having been landed in the wrong place and almost been split upon a stake.” Unable to conceal her disappointment, she added, “It isn’t really good enough.” Virginia also called on London to provide a “good executive and organizer.”