Churchill's White Rabbit (13 page)

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.

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 professor
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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.

Their train pulled in at the Pont de l’Arche station outside Rouen without anything untoward happening and as much to celebrate their safe arrival as to help ease his worries, Forest hopped off the train to visit the station buffet and order a beer for himself and Ryan. The station was busy and crowded, Forest ordered his drinks and fumbled in his pocket for his wallet. To his alarm it wasn’t there, fumbling in the other pocket he snapped out in English: ‘Where the hell is my money?’

The second the words were out of his mouth, Forest knew he had blundered. It would have been so easy at that moment for someone to overhear and betray him, or for a German to be nearby and be startled by the burst of English. Cringing, Forest looked about him. Luckily it seemed the bustle of the station had been his saving grace, as no one appeared to have heard or have taken notice. Still, it served as a reminder of how easy it could be to slip up, and all because of something so foolish as a momentarily misplaced wallet.

He returned to Ryan a little shaken but none the worse for his mistake, and turning to the smiling American it occurred to him how torturous this must be for the young man, knowing that a single spoken word could be his downfall. Could he even say yes and no without revealing his accent? Thankfully their journey was nearing its end; a local train took them on the last leg to Fleury-sur-Andelle. There they were met by a party of bicycles, their last transport before the Lysander collected them. Forest grimaced at memories of his last trip on a bicycle and Ryan uncomfortably mounted his with his fractured shoulder. Balancing suitcases as best they could (this time, fortunately, Passy was carrying genuine luggage and not a concealed W/T set!) they rode along the country lanes to Lyons-la-Forêt.

They arrived after dark and the village was quiet except for a small reception group keeping an eye out for the returning men. The Vinets greeted Passy and Brossolette as warmly as before and took them directly to their home; a neighbouring farmer took in Forest and the young American. The next 24 hours would be a tense time. Lysanders only came at night to avoid German patrols and they were scheduled for the following evening. During the day Forest and Ryan had to keep out of sight as there was no knowing if anyone who saw them might betray them, accidentally or deliberately. For Forest it was a chance to rest. For Ryan it was yet more torture for his exuberant nature. Throughout the day he struggled not to speak and would occasionally burst out loudly with a comment in his strong accent. More than once the farmer’s wife crossly ordered him to be silent.

At 10.30 p.m. Ryan and Forest were bundled into a van and hidden behind sacks of potatoes. It was an undignified journey along bumpy country roads and Ryan was uncomfortable with his shoulder, but he managed to hold his tongue, and luckily the subterfuge was not needed as no Germans stopped the van for inspection.

They were unloaded at the edge of a field. The moon was full and the grass in the field shimmered in the light. At the far side there was a copse of trees, which was to be Forest’s hiding place for the next few hours. Scuttling across the field with Ryan like a giant startled rabbit, Forest prayed that the Lysander would be on time and would not be spotted by the enemy. It wasn’t long before Passy and Brossolette joined them.

Forest lay on the damp floor of the copse and found his mind drifting from elation to be finally going to a safe place again, to anxiety that some last-minute catastrophe might prevent his return to England. His alert mind was all too good at conjuring up scenarios that could turn the evening into a disaster. The weather might not be so good in England and the Lysander may not have been able to take off, or it might have encountered heavy anti-aircraft fire and been damaged. It might have experienced a problem or become lost. Then there were the German patrols, which were numerous in the area. They may have been tipped off or heard the plane arriving. Surrounded by leaves and earth Forest could only let these thoughts circulate in his mind, unable to control the fears that overwhelmed him. It was one of the rare times he felt uncertain and nervous, and it was also one of the few times that he was not the one in full control. He was reliant on someone else and their skills and that was not something that sat easily with Forest.

Out of the darkness the hum of a plane engine sounded over the trees. It seemed inordinately loud after the silence of the copse, but no curious Germans appeared, so perhaps the landing party had chosen their location well. The three resistance members ran out of the trees and switched on a line of torches they had set up earlier in a large ‘L’ shape. It was a rudimentary landing strip for the Lysander but it was all they had and for much of the time it worked.

The Lysander banked then lined itself up with the long vertical arm of the ‘L’. Steadily, it swooped down and landed on the grass, following the vertical stretch of torches before veering right at the foot of the ‘L’ where the torches created a horizontal strip of light. The landing had taken mere moments and now the plane stood at a standstill, the wind behind it, ready to return to the skies as soon as its passengers boarded. Forest had never seen a more welcome sight.

Forest, Ryan and Passy fled the copse and hurried to the gunner’s cockpit of the Lysander. In some accounts Brossolette went with them, in others he flew home on a second Lysander that was waiting to land once its counterpart had taken off again. In any case, very soon the three SOE agents and their American guest were on a plane and taking off for home. As they left France behind, Forest felt he could relax completely for the first time in many weeks.

On 17 April the BBC broadcast a discreet message on its French service: ‘
Le petit lapin blanc est renter au clapier’
(the little white rabbit has returned to his hutch). The white rabbit was the code word used to identify Forest to his friends in the resistance. It was only used on the BBC broadcasts where the use of any of his other codenames (particularly Shelley) would have instantly alerted German interest. How he got the odd name is a slight mystery. Barbara claimed that one of her friends gave Forest the nickname, though exactly why she didn’t explain. But it was unusual for SOE to take on a person’s normal life nickname to use in operations. Perhaps some clue could come from Colonel Hutchinson, or ‘Hutch’ as he was affectionately known. Calling one of his agents the ‘white rabbit’ would have appealed to his sense of humour, and the dry wit that tended to run through all operation coding. Hutch seems to have had some affection for Forest, perhaps he saw himself in the younger man. Whatever the case the message was wholly appropriate – the rabbit had returned to his hutch.

It was not long before Forest was compiling reports and expressing his firm opinions about the resistance situation to his superiors. There was so much that he needed to get across to the SOE heads that at times he may have seemed like a broken record to those who did not understand the realities of trying to resist in an occupied country. He insisted over and over that the invasion of France could only be a success if a strong secret army was ready and waiting in the country, and he was probably right. In hindsight it is easy to forget the part played by the resistance, particularly the Maquis, on D-Day.

Forest recognised the significance of the resistance long before D-Day and found it frustrating that his views seemed to fall on deaf ears among his superiors. He bitterly informed them time and again that the resistance was vital and a secret army was essential, but it couldn’t be built without weapons and supplies.

Forest ranted against the imposter Giraud who he saw as the enemy of organised resistance. Again and again he repeated that the French resistance must unite behind de Gaulle, and that Giraud was a nuisance who was muddying the waters. He talked about the French fear that the Allies would remove part of their colonial empire after the war (namely North Africa), so the British and Americans must announce publicly that they would not do this.

He spoke of the difficulties of operating clandestinely, and of the constant dangers and anxieties. He particularly emphasised the risks that W/T operators took. Was it not to be expected that W/T operators would struggle to send out messages that were error free? Yet time and time again the British complained about the muddled messages they were sent. Forest stated that they needed to be more sympathetic.

His strongest criticism, however, was reserved for Jean Moulin. Moulin had not made a friend in Forest, in part this was due to Forest’s strong loyalty and belief in Brossolette, but it was also due to his concerns that such a character as strong as Moulin’s could do more harm to the resistance than good.

Forest felt his concerns were not listened to by his superiors:

It was impossible for people who had not lived the clandestine life of an agent, to realise how sensitive one became. They could not always appreciate that seemingly simple things were frequently very complicated and difficult to do.
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