Churchill's White Rabbit (19 page)

Despite the risks he was constantly facing there was an element of disappointment as he set off for Arras to meet his Lysander. Brossolette was to stay behind; the decision was made that at least one of the SOE pair should remain at all times to secure the French resistance networks. Forest said an emotional farewell to his friend. Brossolette was a cautious and clever agent, but at the back of his mind Forest couldn’t help wondering about all those familiar faces and names that had recently been arrested – some of whom had been equally cautious and clever. He said goodbye and promised to be back soon to relieve him.

Carrying two suitcases, one of which contained the extremely dangerous papers rescued by Berthe on the secret Nazi V-1 weapon, he made an uneventful trip to Arras. His first port of call was to a corset shop, where he was to enquire about an oversized brassiere to indicate to the shopkeeper that he was an agent. Unfortunately there proved to be more than one corset shop in Arras and he went to the wrong one. The female owner of the shop was very keen to make a sale and it was with some difficulty that Forest managed to extract himself and find the correct shop.

Having, eventually, passed the first test he handed over half a 100F note to the corset shop owner who had the other half. Only then was she satisfied enough to send him on to a local perfumery where he had supper before spending the night at the house of a gentleman’s outfitter. It seems the resistance of Arras firmly followed fashion.

Forest was just starting to think that the worst was over when he heard that the Lysander operation had been delayed due to bad weather in England. He was used to such problems by now, but then news reached him that a contact Brossolette was due to meet had been arrested. There was no way of knowing if Brossolette had been warned about this development – he could be walking straight into a Nazi trap. Forest’s loyalty to his friend had him back on a train to Paris immediately and news that the landing site of the Lysander might be changed meant that he took his incriminating luggage with him.

A Frenchman travelling into Paris with two cases of luggage was not going to be missed by the German authorities. The Germans had instituted body and luggage searches for anyone heading into the capital. Forest could not afford to have his suitcase searched. Ever resourceful, he watched the passengers on the platform, trying to form a plan in his mind. Something subtle, something quick. Two Luftwaffe officers were walking with an orderly and a stack of twelve suitcases: there was no way all the luggage would fit in the already overloaded baggage compartment. As Forest watched, the orderly was forced to put the cases in the corridor of the train and mount a guard over them for the journey.

Forest hopped into the same carriage and set down his suitcases in the same corridor. Using one as a seat he settled down with a cigarette. For a moment he smoked without thinking, then, apparently remembering his manners, he offered a cigarette to the orderly.

‘
Danke sch
ö
n,
’ said the orderly.

Forest held a light to the cigarette and the orderly took a deep draw.

‘You are very kind,’ he said in rudimentary French.

‘It is always agreeable to share with someone pleasant,’ Forest replied.

At that point in the war Germans had been vilified to the point of utter hatred, and examples such as Klaus Barbie certainly deserved that, but any soldier with sense knew that this was not the whole story. There were many anti-Nazi Germans, and many more whose politics ran no deeper than wanting to defend their country. Conscription had forced the pacifists among the torturers and anyone with an ounce of intelligence knew that there were good Germans as well as bad. Even the communists had qualms about random killings lest they murder a good man or an anti-Nazi. Forest knew this all too well and he recognised in the orderly a man who was doing something he didn’t care for and would ideally like to be at home living a normal life. They were soon on friendly terms.

Pulling out a worn photograph from his pocket the gentle German showed Forest his simply dressed wife and fair-haired children with obvious pride and sadness at being so far away. It was yet another reminder that here was a human being, a father, a husband, a man, who missed his loved ones and was as baffled by the war, its politics and its potential outcomes, as most ordinary French and English souls. Forest stared at the picture.

‘I’ve got children too,’ he said.

‘War is bad for children,’ the orderly said sadly, returning the photograph to his pocket. ‘For soldiers too, war is bad.’

‘War is bad for everyone,’ Forest agreed, moved by the man’s misery.

‘You are right,’ sighed the orderly.

Forest found his flask. It was full, on that occasion, of Mirabelle.

‘We must drink to the health of our families.’ He feigned taking a large swig of the drink then passed it to his companion who took a good swallow.

Offering another cigarette to the German, Forest sat in companionable silence with him, smoking calmly and letting the effects of the alcohol slowly work into his new comrade. After a time he pretended to think of something and, very deliberately, opened the suitcase containing his dangerous documents and removed a chocolate bar, which he presented to the orderly.

‘For your children,’ he said in stilted German.

The orderly looked on in amazement. Chocolate was scarce in Germany, even for soldiers, and certainly difficult for a minor orderly to obtain. The man was so deeply touched that he put his arms around Forest and thanked him, tears even sparkling in his eyes. It was not just French souls on that train who were driven to despair by the war.

‘I think you are a good man,’ the orderly said.

‘On the contrary,’ returned Forest, ‘I am a bad man. Listen, I am in trouble.’

‘Good men as well as bad man can be in trouble,’ the German assured him, and the innocence in his tone made Forest feel a rare pang of guilt.

He was about to fool and potentially endanger this kind German who had caused him no harm and had, indeed, proved to him that it was not the German people who were the enemy, but a government turned foul on itself. But there was no time for regrets – danger was too close.

‘You see, it is difficult for a Frenchman to make a living these days,’ Forest continued in a world-weary tone. ‘To provide for my wife and children, I am forced to do things which I do not like: black market in other words. In this suitcase here I have cigarettes and chocolates, which I am taking to sell in Paris. I don’t like doing this sort of thing, but, as I say, I’ve got responsibilities. And if the police and the customs search my case the goods will be confiscated. And what’s even worse I’ll be arrested and my family will starve.’

Forest handed over the flask again. The German listened sympathetically, the question of why Forest had not thought of these things sooner, not apparently troubling his mind.

‘You do see that I am in difficulties, don’t you?’ Forest emphasised, passing him another cigarette and then the whole packet.

The German gave a wan smile to his new friend and motioned to the cases stacked behind him. Then he took the suitcase Forest had very carefully taken the chocolate from and slipped it under a couple of valises belonging to the Luftwaffe officers.

‘Now I do not think that the police will say much to you.’

The orderly was absolutely right. It was not long before the police and customs officials entered the carriage and began searching people’s belongings. Forest offered them his second, perfectly ordinary, suitcase, containing his clothes and nothing incriminating. He had to go through the ordeal of having his pockets searched and his papers inspected, but nothing harmful was found. As the orderly had predicted, the police made no attempt to search the overflow of Nazi luggage.

For the rest of the journey Forest enjoyed talking with the helpful German, his guilt assuaged by the knowledge that he was travelling to rescue Brossolette from arrest. At the Gare du Nord in Paris, Forest helped the orderly offload all of the luggage and was discreetly returned his own. Knowing the Gestapo would be watching, he walked with the orderly to the exit and then, with effusive farewells, they parted. The German orderly never knew he had helped a man who was undermining his country’s military force.

Forest’s dangerous and rapid race to Paris had not been in vain; Brossolette was surprised at his unexpected return, but even more so by the news of his agent’s arrest. He had not known and would have attended the meeting as planned and stepped straight into a Gestapo trap.

Of course, as usual, SOE life was never easy and when Forest listened to the BBC that evening he learned from a cryptic message that his rendezvous had been returned to Arras – he could have left his luggage after all and spared himself a nerve-wracking train journey!

At 1 p.m. he was back on the train, having left Jose Dupuis with instructions to help another circuit in his absence and having temporarily loaned Maud to Brossolette as a reliable
agent de liaison
. There was no Gestapo chief or kindly orderly to talk to this time, so instead Forest stared out his window at the carnage being inflicted on the German transport network by
his
people. Along the track the scattered remains of four derailed ammunitions trains created a morbid tableau of French patriotism. Overturned guns, damaged light tanks and ruined lorries littered the ground, while scavenging parties of German soldiers and French civilians sifted through the rubble for anything that could be salvaged. Was Forest proud? Undoubtedly. This was what he was here for, to see humble men and women rise to fight the Nazi monster. If he allowed himself a slight smile at the carnage it was only in secret; in public he would be an arch-critic of such grim and unfriendly action.

Back in Arras he spent his last few hours gathering lists of supplies from the resistance leaders. Their wish list included automatics, silenced pistols, daggers, rifles, grenades and lots more ammunition. As an adjunct to this horrific Christmas list, they also needed Benzedrine tablets, woollens, wind jackets, better torches, batteries, food and money.

The Arras resistance had arranged a landing site for the operation in an area dense with German patrols. It was not ideal, but few landing sites were truly secure now that the Nazis had upped their vigilance and expanded their net of collaboration. Fortunately the good shopkeepers of Arras had come up with a solution and, like a scene from a farce, Forest was to journey to meet the Lysander in a hearse. Pretending to be a corpse to evade the Germans had a certain irony to it and Forest could only hope that it was not an omen of things to come as he clambered into the motor hearse under the watchful gaze of local undertaker Monsieur Bisiaux. It was the first time any of his clients had helped themselves into the vehicle!

Seated with him in this novel mode of transport were two women, Marcelle Virolle and Mademoiselle Pichard, also destined for return to England. They huddled in the cramped, dark quarters of the hearse, unable to see outside or know what was happening. Forest had his Colt in his shoulder holster and a sten gun near to hand. The sten might not be the most accurate of weapons but it was fast and a burst of bullets would cause damage to any curious German inspecting the hearse. The vehicle rolled off at a leisurely speed. Bisiaux was ready with the cover story that he was driving a corpse to a church for a funeral the next day; this was a regular occurrence to spare local sensibilities the sight of mortality.

The hearse rolled unpleasantly. Suspension was not a prime concern for the occupant of a coffin, and besides they were usually secured, unlike the very alive passengers that Bisiaux was carrying that night. Forest and the two girls bumped about and flew from side to side on sharp turns. The sten cracked into Forest’s thigh and left him bruised, while the women started to shiver from the cold. He offered them his ever-present flask of alcohol.

Forest couldn’t tell how long he had been trapped in the cocoon of the hearse when the vehicle ominously slowed and the sound of heavy boots could be heard approaching. Everyone froze. Outside, the guttural tone of a German could be heard asking a series of questions to which Bisiaux answered quickly and concisely, it was not possible to know exactly what was being said through the muffling walls of the hearse and Forest quietly cocked the sten gun in case the worst happened. Silence suddenly fell. Forest aimed his sten at the dark shadows where the back door of the hearse was, quite prepared to spray bullets if the German should open the door. There was not a sound.

Then suddenly the heavy boots could be heard striding away and within a moment Bisiaux had started up the hearse and they were rumbling on again. Forest let his breath out through clenched teeth. That was yet one more narrow escape to add to his list.

Shortly after this encounter, the hearse slowed again, but this time it was to enable a contingent of resistance men to form a guard around it. From then on any interested German would have to get past twenty armed men if they wanted to inspect the vehicle.

There was a further stop at a farmhouse where Forest would wait out the last few hours before boarding his plane. A hot meal was a welcome sight as they arrived and even more reassuring was the resistance leader’s confirmation that his men were guarding the farm and would follow them to the landing site.

‘The only way the Germans will get you,’ he promised, ‘is if they have killed me and every one of my helpers.’