Churchill's White Rabbit (11 page)

Coquoin could also list trustworthy comrades in the police, fire brigade and Garde Mobile, a rare and valuable resource for the Allies. (The Garde Mobile was created during the Franco-Prussian war as an auxiliary to the French army and expected to guard home territory. They were briefly revived during the Second World War to counteract the 1940 armistice which had reduced the official French army to 95,000 men.) Coquoin estimated his manpower at 35,000 and was keen to work with the British, but sadly he was not destined to see the fruition of his plans, as like his former leader he was arrested and shot in June 1943.

It was now becoming obvious to Forest how dangerous working with the resistance really was. One minute he was holding a meeting with an eager comrade and the next that same comrade had vanished into the clutches of the Gestapo. It was a desperate situation. The Germans were working hard to decapitate the resistance groups as fast as they could and leaders evaporated as quickly as they were assigned, either via betrayal, carelessness or bad luck.

The dangers Forest now faced were all too prevalent in his mind as he met with Joseph to be introduced to Pierre Ginzburger, the elusive head of Front National. The communists took their security seriously and Forest, Brossolette and Passy were told to await a contact at a park bench in the Luxembourg Gardens. Sitting opposite an empty bandstand that had once been filled with French musicians serenading passers-by, Forest spotted a cautious looking bearded man. It was the clichéd spy meeting: the furtive stranger approached the three men and asked them to follow him. He led them on a deliberately circuitous course, doubling-back several times to ensure that no one was following until, eventually, he brought them to the Luxembourg station and joined them as they caught a train to Sceaux.

On arrival, their secretive guide led them on another intricate dance around the roads to detect a tail, before escorting them to a smart villa. Forest expected to meet the great Ginzburger privately and quietly, but to his astonishment when they entered the villa was alive with people, and not just communists. Catholic priests shook hands with men intrinsically opposed to their views and principles. The meeting was clearly going to be a far cry from the quiet interview Forest had expected.

The communists would later become an integral part of Forest’s work, but as he sat quietly and listened to Ginzburger testifying to the strength and might of his organisation, he knew that it would not be an easy alliance. Ginzburger was a typical Front National, believing firmly that all resistance should be coordinated under a communist banner. He sang the praises of the Franc-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP), the paramilitary arm of the Communist party, who were already producing significant results against the Germans. They had killed several officers in audacious shootings and had no intention of stopping. That in itself was not something the British or Forest objected to, it was necessary to pick away at the Germans, but it was the sinister subtleties underlying Ginzburger’s words that worried him. The communists had deliberately chosen the name ‘Front National’ (FN) for their group to avoid obvious links with their communist politics. Communism was an unpopular political view and the party was well remembered for their troublemaking and recent disloyalty. By creating the Front National they enticed people to join the group who would otherwise have turned their backs on them.

Forest was not fooled. While Ginzburger talked of the necessity of unity, of bringing the various small groups together under FN to form a significant force, which in itself was a logical and sensible approach, Forest could only think of the communist powers that stood behind him. Once he had control Ginzburger would bring all the resistance under the communist regime and there was no telling where that would lead.

Ginzburger talked in figures, proudly claiming that the FTP committed 250 attacks and killed between 500 and 600 Germans per month. The penalty for such success however was heavy reprisals from the Germans, largely aimed at any communist prisoners they had in custody. Posters across Paris extolled the terrible death toll for each single act of rebellion, but it did not stop the FTP, and for every man or woman they lost, others joined their ranks. However, Forest recognised a flaw in Ginzburger’s logic: his newest recruits, drawn in due to the German reprisals, did not necessarily ascribe to communist politics. They had merely joined to fight back at the Germans and because the FN was the only party they knew of.

The new recruits hastily drawn in had weakened FN’s security. Gossip leaked out and the Gestapo were hot on the heels of the party. To try and counteract this, the party had been divided into individual cells, each working separately and with little knowledge of the others. The result might have been more security, but it was at the cost of ease of communication. The existence of many leaders meant that distributing orders was time-consuming and labour intensive, but despite this by D-Day the FTP would be able to call on 100,000 troops.

As Ginzburger wrapped up his lecture on the FN, Passy and Brossolette asked him one simple question: would the FN cooperate with London on the same terms as the other resistance groups. In the typical words of every communist leader they had met, Ginsburger promised to give them an answer at a later date. Forest later summed up the problem of the FN in a report to SOE:

From my contacts with them I imagine that the rank and file are really patriots and only interested in a free France, whereas the heads have other ideas in mind and are planning well ahead, in fact, so far ahead as the period which will follow the ‘Gouvernement Provisoire’ [after Vichy].
⁵

Meanwhile SOE had heard of round-ups orchestrated by the combined French and German police to detain and ship men to Germany as forced labour. Hitler had overstretched himself: while his troops marched on, industry in their homeland was stuttering and something needed to be done to forestall the rot. It only seemed logical to look to newly conquered countries for slave labour. It was not called that of course, it was the Compulsory Labour Service, and every Frenchman between the age of 19 and 32 was automatically signed up for it. Some men had managed to avoid registering for the service, but that only gave the Germans another excuse for police round-ups. All over France, town and countryside were being searched for deserters from the labour force. If captured the men were sent to German factories to work on the armaments or machines that were fuelling their enemy’s war effort. Some unfortunate souls even found themselves stepping into the frozen wastes of the Russian Front.

It was still not enough. Even with POW labour and work parties from concentration camps the Germans were still short and the rumours were spreading that soon they would be upping the age limit to 42 or even 55.

For Forest, Brossolette and Passy this was disastrous for their plans. A secret army was of no use if most of its number had been shipped to Germany as forced labour. Every week it was said that 20,000 Frenchmen were taken from Paris, and there was no way a secret army could be sustained unless something was done.

Forest reported to London on 14 March making it clear that if the situation continued there was no hope for a resistance army. The forced labour details were even more detrimental than the Gestapo culls, which tended to only catch a few members at a time and often resulted in more resisters enlisting with the cause. The same could not be said when 20,000 men were simply lost into Germany. As much as Forest was appalled by the treatment he was also practical, and advised SOE that propaganda should go out encouraging men to evade the conscription in any way they could; this would be either by leaving the country or living in hiding.

The first solution was hardly ideal for most people, but the second option could not be achieved without help from London. Conscript escapees would need money and forged ration cards so that they could live without being detected. Forest also pointed out that financial aid would need to be generous, as there was no point sending pocket money if the men were expected to live in secret and be ready for D-Day. Thus Forest was paving the way for the Maquis, the resistance organisation of outlaws who often set up camps within the woodlands of France and lived in hiding for years until the Allied invasion, when they took up arms and guerrilla warfare tactics. Forest would never really get to know the men he helped in this way; though he always longed to make contacts within the Maquis, he had to just be satisfied that his efforts helped them to exist.

Meanwhile Forest had also been inspired to create his own
r
é
seau
, a network of reliable agents exclusive to himself that would help him keep in contact with the various acquaintances he was making within the resistance. His first recruit was unexpected. He paid a visit to Jose Dupuis to whom he had sent the postcard and the enigmatic BBC message. Jose was astonished by his arrival on her doorstep and overcome with emotion she sobbed and laughed as she told him how she received both missives.

Dupuis was running a private girls’ school, and her thirty pupils followed their teacher in being devoted patriots. But Dupuis was desperate to do more and as Forest sat in her apartment she begged him to let her become actively involved. For Forest his first recruit was probably his hardest. He trusted Jose Dupuis implicitly, which was the first prerequisite of picking a recruit, but he also cared about her as a friend and was keenly aware of the risk she would run.

Forest himself had come close to detection only a short time previously when he tried to help a compromised agent to leave France. Jean Aryal, a man Forest had first met in London, desperately needed to escape the city and RF had arranged to help him get out to the provinces. Forest agreed to meet Aryal outside a church and to escort him to Brossolette and Passy to receive his final orders before fleeing Paris. Armed with a .32 colt, a risk in itself if discovered, and a cyanide tablet in case of capture, Forest waited for his comrade, his mind flicking over possible problems and escape routes. Aryal arrived on time, but looked worried and flustered. He confessed to Forest he was sure he was being followed.

Tails were a constant danger to SOE agents and Forest knew a trick or two to draw out the culprit. Gestapo informers or even Abwehr agents were not the best at furtively pursuing a suspect and it only took a few sharp turns and doubling-backs before Forest was certain Aryal was right. Aryal was in dreadful danger and there was simply no way he could be taken anywhere near Brossolette with a man following him. Forest knew he only had one option, to lure the pursuer into following him instead.

‘Pretend to pass me a note’ he told Aryal.

The agent complied and Forest made a deliberate hand motion to suggest that he was trying to pocket something without being seen. Of course, he ensured that the tail could have a good view of the deed. The colleagues walked on again for a few paces then parted company, and to his relief the tail chose to pursue Forest. Now all he had to do was shake him.

Forest took his tail on a comprehensive tour of St Philippe du Roule before finally losing him in some of the back streets. After taking a few more precautionary turns, he was satisfied that he was safe and carried on.

Now sitting with Jose Dupuis, he explained the risks of such a situation, told her about tails, informers and the ultimate result of capture by the Gestapo. Dupuis was unmoved, and firmly she assured him that she wanted to be a part of the resistance. Forest made up his mind and recruited her into his private network, and before long she was his second-in-command. Forest couldn’t help wondering how the forceful teacher would be able to keep herself secret, bearing in mind that she was 5ft 10in in height and not exactly difficult to recognise, but even so, he was glad to have her aboard.

Forest was now rapidly learning the necessary subterfuges to stay alive and free as a secret agent. Just sending messages back to London was risky enough. The only safe communication was via a wireless telegraphy set. When SOE sent teams in they were usually in pairs with one designated as the W/T operator and responsible for his set. W/T operators were in constant danger of detection when they were transmitting.

Messages were encoded before being sent, though accidents did occur: Jean Moulin’s death was in part caused by a message being written in plain script, which was then obtained by the Germans.
Agents de Liaison
were used to delivering messages to W/T operators, and they were usually on thin slips of paper that could be hidden in a packet of cigarettes or a matchbox and destroyed easily if necessary. W/T operators were supposed to switch location regularly to elude the Gestapo (though some did not, usually to their detriment) and this meant lugging a heavy suitcase with the W/T set in it around Paris. There was no hope for them if they were stopped and the suitcase was inspected.

Forest quite enjoyed the challenge of outwitting the German teams who were sent to shadow suspects. He started by observing them and learned that they worked in groups with members passing on descriptions of a suspect and working in relays. To make their lives harder Forest purchased a range of hats of different type and style, as well as a number of scarves in different patterns. Throughout the day he would change his accessories numerous times to fool pursuers. At some point he had picked up the nugget of information that a sleuth was trained to recognise a suspect by his gait. This had his mind working overtime on ingenious solutions and soon he had shoes with steel tips and some without that would alter his walk, and for a dramatic alteration he would put a wedge of cardboard under the heel of one foot. In this way he was a man of many simple, yet effective, disguises.