All the King's Men (9 page)

In early July, Savalot and Donaldson each received signals saying the Frenchmen had been accepted. A week
later Langley sent a personal message to ‘Pat O’Leary’ in Marseilles.
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The message gave him the names of Déricourt and Doulet with the instruction that ‘they were to be sent to London by the quickest possible means’. O’Leary thought the message very strange, given that the men concerned were French, but he didn’t question it.
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Tom Cassidy, the American intelligence Station Chief, also informed London of some of the work Déricourt had been doing for them.
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In recent weeks, this had taken an important new turn. Reports had been received that some squadrons of the Italian Air Force were preparing to depart for North Africa as reinforcements for Rommel. Déricourt was due for a few weeks’ leave and was looking forward to a rest. On 24 June he took what he thought would be his last flight to Vichy and naturally paid a visit to Savalot and Cassidy. Following his meeting with the Americans, Déricourt arranged for a change in his flying schedule that would put him on a route to Turin for the next two weeks.
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Then, during the first week of August, Pat O’Leary called on Doulet to give him the details of their planned escape. Doulet in turn contacted Déricourt. It was a moment of some anxiety. Déricourt had almost given up hope of getting out, and now that the moment had come he was unnerved. His greatest anxiety was for Jeannot, who knew nothing about any of these plans. On 6 August he flew another trip to Turin, stayed overnight and returned to Marseilles the next day. He made a final delivery of notes to Donaldson in Marseilles and then, on the 15th, told Jeannot he would be going away for a while.

At first she had no idea how serious this would be. He had turned up at the Hotel Noailles, something he rarely did, to tell her he’d left some money in their room and that she wasn’t to worry, he would be safe. Jeannot was used to him being away a day, three days, even a week, but it wasn’t until she returned home that evening that she began to believe she might never see him again.
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Déricourt arrived at the Gare St Charles for his rendezvous with Doulet and together they waited for their contact. Suddenly Doulet was taken completely by surprise. Déricourt had burst into tears. Here was a man renowned within his little clique for his effortless and often callous sexual exploits, now crying over a woman none of them would have looked at twice. This scene introduced an element of drama into what had been a cold decision to leave France. There was no mistaking the depth of Déricourt’s feelings for Jeannot at that moment, on the platform at the Gare St Charles. It was a revelation for Doulet.
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By the time the train pulled out of the station, they had been joined by a Canadian airman, an RAF fighter pilot and Pat O’Leary himself. They travelled to the little fishing town of Narbonne, where they spent the night. At first light they walked down to the shore and, at a pre-arranged spot, waited for a signal from a fishing trawler. In the grey morning light they gradually picked out the dark shape of a craft about half a mile out to sea and a small pinprick of light, which flashed a series of letters in Morse code.

Clutching their bundles of belongings, they climbed into a rowing boat that had been sent ashore. There were ten of them now, a navigator from a Wellington bomber, a Yugoslavian couple, two Belgian intelligence officers and an Englishman, whom Déricourt took to be from MI6. The trawler was of course the famous
Tarana
, one of MI6’s fleet of cunningly disguised small craft. Beneath its livery of fishing nets and winches was hidden an antiaircraft gun and heavy machine guns. For the next few days they cruised back and forth, dropping bundles of weapons and radios at anonymous points along the coast. Déricourt watched all this activity with keen interest, conscious that he too was being watched and would have to mind what he said.
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Doulet marvelled at how Déricourt could remember precisely what he had told to whom. He ran his story over
and over again in his head, recalling pieces of it that even Doulet had forgotten. They both felt the man from MI6 was listening to every word they said. So far, the story about Syria had been his ticket and fare; he couldn’t afford to blow it now.

While this party of clandestine mariners cruised along the Riviera, up on the northern coast of France a small but bloody episode of the war was unfolding. The Dieppe raid has significance for this story for two reasons. First, for the way in which the decision to attempt it was made, and second, for the way in which the result haunted later planning. Although the British had convinced American defence planners that North Africa should come first, there were some Americans who doubted British wisdom. As a sop to those doubting Thomases, Churchill agreed to a large-scale raid on the northern French coast to test German defences, and to attempt to draw the Luftwaffe into battle with the RAF. Dieppe was chosen because it had been argued up to that date that the capture of a major port would have to be the first stage of a major invasion. On 19 August, 4921 Canadians, supported by 1057 British Commandos, escorted by eight destroyers and thirty-nine coastal craft, attempted to seize the old French port. The German defences were prepared; their infantry had been on the alert since the beginning of the month. By eleven in the morning the action was aborted and what remained of the Allied force was evacuated. The Canadians had lost 3363 men, the Commandos 247; the Royal Navy lost 550 men, one destroyer and thirty-three landing craft; and the RAF’s new Supermarine Spitfire had been outmatched by the Focke-Wulf 190, losing 106 aircraft and 190 men. Churchill, the eternal optimist, wrote, ‘It was a costly but not unfruitful reconnaissance-in-force. Tactically it was a mine of experience. It shed revealing light on many shortcomings in our outlook.’ The exercise had the desired effect. American doubts vanished and attention was properly focused on French North Africa.

Five days after leaving Narbonne the crew of the
Tarana
repainted the ship in battleship grey, hoisted the Union Jack and sailed her into Gibraltar harbour. The passengers were taken to the MI6 debriefing station, where they were met by SUNDAY. Donald Darling put each of them through a preliminary interrogation. He then sent a signal to Dansey in London: ‘Request priority on two Frenchmen, Déricourt and Doulet.’

At his office in Broadway Buildings, Dansey ran through the list of names that had arrived from the Gibraltar station. He was more than a little surprised to see a pair of Frenchmen on his escape line. He sent a signal to MI6 in Gibraltar: ‘Who are Déricourt and Doulet?’ Gibraltar replied: ‘Air France pilots. Recruited in Syria to fly for BOAC.’ Dansey smelt a rat: ‘Contact Forbes. Check their stories with him.’
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Wing Commander Arthur Forbes (Lord Granar) received a signal from MI6 Gibraltar, enquiring about the two pilots from Syria. He confirmed that he had recruited Doulet in Syria. ‘The name Doulet was of course familiar, but the name Déricourt was not. Have no recollection whatsoever of having met Déricourt at any time, and certainly not in Syria.’
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The message was relayed to Dansey and he replied to Gibraltar’s original question: ‘No priority Déricourt and Doulet.’

Well then, who was this man Déricourt? What did anybody know about him? What was he doing on the Pat Line? Dansey spoke to Langley about the two pilots and was told about Déricourt’s work for the Americans and the Deuxième Bureau. Whether MI6 knew at that stage about Déricourt’s contacts with Boemelburg is not known, but they very soon found out. Henri Déricourt, the man who had fancied himself as the great survivor, who was an occasional associate of the Corsican mafia, a functionary of the Vichy establishment, on nodding terms with the SD in Paris and an agreeable operative for American intelligence, was at that stage sailing towards a
confrontation with the most dangerous man in the British secret services.

The secret cargo of passengers had been put on board a tramp steamer that joined a vast convoy of ships on its way to Liverpool and points north. Déricourt had no idea what to expect in Britain; he’d heard the cities had all been razed to the ground by German bombers and that the country was starving and on the verge of revolt. Of course, the other thing preoccupying him was how he would cope with the situation if the ‘Intelligence Service’ uncovered his lies. He was philosophical about it; he was there, so what could they do about it?

They docked on 7 September, at Greenock near Glasgow. Immediately two Special Branch officers came on board, sought out the Frenchmen, separated them from the rest of the passengers and discouraged any further contact.
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Déricourt was quite shaken by the experience. Whether he knew it or not, he was at serious risk of being interned. Before there was any chance of the information being used against him, Déricourt immediately declared that he had contacts with German intelligence.
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The Special Branch showed no particular interest, but they noted his comments. The name Boemelburg would not have been unfamiliar to Dansey.

Déricourt and Doulet were put onto a train and escorted down to St Pancras. From there, they were driven to a magnificent Victorian Gothic pile in Battersea that gloried in the title of Royal Victorian Patriotic Asylum for the Orphaned Daughters of the Soldiers and Sailors Killed in the Crimean War – more commonly referred to as the Royal Patriotic School (RPS) and officially as the London Reception Centre (LRC). It was one of a number of alien reception centres that had been established at various points in the country and operated jointly by MI9 and the Security Service, MI5. It was MI5 who supplied the officers skilled in interrogating newly arrived aliens, for the purpose of winkling out German agents that were trying to enter the country. They were very successful.

The two Frenchmen were immediately checked by medical officers for any infectious diseases, parasites and other physical ailments. Then each was issued with an Alien Registration Card and a number, and a file was opened. Déricourt was RPS 9435/E.1a(USA). ‘USA’ referred to the fact that he was sponsored by the Americans. Déricourt’s interrogation would have begun immediately. From the RPS perspective all aliens were German agents unless they could prove otherwise. Déricourt managed to give a thoroughly convincing performance and the RPS gave him a favourable report. His file was sent to MI5 proper, and it was then that the first doubts arose.

MI5 was extremely suspicious about both the men, but about Déricourt in particular. In October the MI5 officer responsible for liaison with the Americans, Peter Ramsbotham, wrote to the US State Department asking them to corroborate Déricourt’s story.

We have in this country two French airmen, whose story is rather curious, and whose names are Henri Alfred DÉRICOURT and Léon Jean DOULET … They both had been working for Air France in Metropolitan France and the Near East, and when the
Allies occupied Syria they were promised by the Air Ministry that jobs would be provided for them with British Overseas Airways if they would join the Allies.

Déricourt was still sticking to his story about having worked for Air France. For some reason, MI5 neglected to try to get corroboration from Wing Commander Forbes, who would have told them precisely what he had told MI6. Anyway, MI5 made enquiries with the MI9 people who had brought him in, just to confirm that the story he had told the RPS in Battersea was the same he told MI6 in Gibraltar. Claude Dansey would not sanction MI9 saying anything more to MI5 than the old story about Syria. He told them nothing about his own private enquiries which would have revealed that Déricourt was a fraud. Dansey was a great believer in the right hand not letting the left hand know anything. Nor was it the last time Dansey withheld critical information about Déricourt from those who should have had it.

But why? What possible reason could Claude Dansey have had for withholding this information from the Security Service? The fact that Déricourt had fraudulently got himself to Britain should have alerted Dansey to the possibility that the man was a German agent. MI5 certainly suspected as much. Ramsbotham, in the same letter to the Americans, stated:

…and while their interrogations produced no suspicious evidence, we do not feel that they can be cleared from a security point of view, since, with the promises they were given to join the British Overseas Airways, they would have been likely subjects for German attention in France.

A perfectly logical conclusion – and MI5 knew only half the story. Ramsbotham goes on to ask Mr Donaldson (the contact at the US Consulate in Marseilles):

…if he could make a statement as to what he knows of these men, and whether he is satisfied that they could not have been sent to this country as German agents.

H. M. Donaldson, clearly alarmed that he might have been accused of allowing a couple of German agents to get by him, answered as any public servant would:

…I may say that, while as a result of my numerous conversations with them I was unable to detect anything of a suspicious nature,
I did not in any way recommend them
, but merely passed their names … to the British.
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(Author’s italics.)

He then goes on to say that they were also in touch with Savalot in Vichy and that it was Savalot who had sent their names to London. In any case, MI5 received no positive reassurance from the Americans. Within a few months, they were satisfied as to Doulet’s bona fides, but were never convinced about Déricourt’s reliability.

Soon after their arrival in Britain, a very strange thing occurred. Normally an alien who turned up at the RPS and who was unattached to any British service would have been detained for two or three weeks, sometimes longer. Déricourt and Doulet were in and out of the place in four days. They were taken to a hotel in Victoria, and a short time later they were separated. Doulet was given a room in a bed-and-breakfast establishment, while Déricourt – disappeared…
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