Churchill's White Rabbit (17 page)

Brossolette and Forest met Baudet one day at an appointed place. To their horror Baudet arrived being followed by no fewer than three men. Brossolette tried to impress on the man that he had been tailed but he refused to accept it. Exasperated with him the two SOE men walked him quickly around a building and hid in an arched doorway. Within a short time all three of his pursuers hastily rounded the corner to keep up. Indignantly Baudet had to admit they were right and that he had led three German informers straight to the two agents.

Somehow they had to lose the men. The first rule of eluding a follower is not to let the follower realise you are on to him. So the men doubled-back on their route and kept a fast pace with a number of turns to occasionally put them out of sight of the tail. At one such turn Baudet was unceremoniously sent packing and told to hurry down the rue Laborde and to vanish before the ‘sleuths’ (as Forest liked to term them) caught up. Baudet obeyed, already shamefaced by his foolishness. That left Forest and Brossolette with the problem of three tails.

Both men walked briskly to the place St Augustin, discussing their options in hushed tones. There was no choice but to separate and try to lose the tails individually. All being well, they would meet an hour later.

As they reached place St Augustin they spotted two vélo-taxis (bicycle taxis) hovering near the path.

‘Change of plan?’ Forest glanced at Brossolette, and in an instant they were racing for the taxis and each jumped into one.

Forest directed his to the Champs Élysées and Brossolette headed to Pont Cardinet. Behind them the sleuths came to a grinding halt, unable to follow any further. Forest surreptitiously watched them disappear into the background and let out a sigh of relief. An hour later he was back with Brossolette.

At this time Forest heard that incriminating papers found by the Gestapo had fallen back into resistance hands. After Gulliver’s arrest, which had sealed Claire’s fate, his network was rapidly rounded up and his headquarters searched for important papers. The Gestapo found intelligence the resistance had been gathering, in particular a document on the secret V-1 weapon the Germans were working on. In a moment of fatal overconfidence, the documents were left on a desk at the office, the Gestapo holding to the firm belief that all of Gulliver’s people were safely in their clutches and that the documents would be secure until the next day.

But as with all things, someone had slipped through the net. This was a woman named Berthe, who had the courage to sneak back into the headquarters, with the compliance of the concierge, and steal back the documents. She took them to a safe house, hid them and then contacted Forest.

By now word had spread about the arrests. One of Gulliver’s assistants had just returned from London when he heard the news. His life was in grave danger as his description was known to the Gestapo, so he went into hiding, but not before telling Forest about the significance of the papers Berthe had saved. There was no choice but to retrieve them.

Forest paid a visit to the location of the safe house to assess its security. It was obvious that the Gestapo were all over it and would watch any visitors. It was entirely possible that they had planned to leave the papers behind just so that such a trap might be laid. Berthe was perhaps followed or the helpful concierge may have been collaborating with the Germans. Anything was possible, but for the time being what mattered was getting the papers.

Forest formed a plan worthy of any secret agent. He discovered that a doctor lived in the same building as the flat where Berthe had hidden the papers. He went to the address with two companions, intending to tell anyone they met that he was ill and seeking medical advice. As it was the Gestapo had grown tired of their vigil and there was no one watching when they arrived. The papers were removed, the unimportant ones were destroyed, and the rest were sent to another safe house to be passed on to London when possible.

Aside from dodging the Gestapo and acting like James Bond, Forest was still faced with the task of maintaining the crumbling foundations of the resistance movement. Something had to be salvaged from the wreckage, and, surprisingly, it came in the form of Joseph, the eager communist from FANA Forest had met on his last mission.

Joseph was incomparable to the nightmares that were Sophie and Baudet. Despite their differing politics Forest formed a hearty respect for him and even considered him a friend in those turbulent days. He wrote:

[Joseph’s] security measures were remarkable and he was an outstanding example of how clandestine work should be done; nothing was left to chance and he introduced me to one very useful method of holding a conversation in comparative safety. We would arrange to meet at the intersection of two streets but not show any sign of recognition, he would then lead the way to a hospital, I would follow him 30 or 50 yards behind, he would walk into the hospital through the visitors’ gate and go into the grounds where I joined him a minute or so later. We could then talk quite at our ease.
⁵

Joseph also proved an unexpected supporter of the centralising of orders via London, an issue that was controversial among the resistance. Forest was hopeful that Joseph might go to England for further training and Joseph agreed to the idea, but doubted that his party would ever allow it. He was a breath of sanity and common sense among the communists, far too many of whom were driven by the idea that they were the prime victims of the Nazis and therefore should be the only heroic resistance around. Slow communications and a complicated hierarchy meant that it was difficult to coordinate parachute operations with them and they were never quite the asset they could have been.

With danger mounting there was a greater need than ever to ensure loyalty. Forest was feeling the pinch of clandestine work, when his newest
agent de liaison
, Horace, arrived late one evening.

Horace, real name André Lemonnier, had been recruited by Jose Dupuis when the pressing shortage of agents de liaison was beginning to hamper the work of Forest’s small
r
é
seau
. He had been recommended, along with his friend Edmond Vacher (Ernest), by a priest known to help men on the run from the Germans. The patriotic Abbe Leveque had been convinced by the young men’s sincerity and put them in touch with Jose Dupuis through a resistance contact.

Horace became Forest’s
agent de liaison
, while Baudet engaged Ernest as an assistant. The desperate shortage of men had rather thrust Horace upon Forest and it wasn’t long before he felt uncomfortable with his choice. Horace seemed more interested in chasing Parisian women and spending the money he earned via Forest than serving the resistance. He quickly proved himself unreliable, always late for appointments and vague when asked for information. Ernest was proving equally disreputable, when entrusted with 500,000 francs by Baudet he split it with Horace and another man, then vanished hoping to escape to North Africa before being caught.

That left Forest even more concerned about Horace. Ten years younger than Ernest and still very much a boy at heart, was he just incompetent and irresponsible or a traitor?

One evening Horace arrived at Jose Dupuis’ flat where Forest was waiting for him. He had been set a test, a test that would seal his fate. Forest had his Colt with him, loaded and sitting to hand. He was in a dark mood and if the boy failed him this time he would have no mercy, the Gestapo were getting too close for any unnecessary risks to be taken.

Horace had been told to take a message to a house Forest knew to be unoccupied. He had been given the address along with the telephone number and was expected to report back as soon as the work was done. He was late as usual, further inflaming Forest’s anger. When he did arrive Forest could barely contain his temper as he asked him how the mission had gone. Horace was nonchalant, the house had been empty when he arrived, but he had made inquiries of the neighbours and had arranged to return the next day when someone was home. Forest felt his fingers closing on his Colt.

‘Describe the house’ he demanded of the boy.

Horace hesitated, which was enough for Forest to see through his lies.

‘You didn’t go there, did you?’

Horace glanced to Jose Dupuis for help, but she was not about to intercede – this was Forest’s business. Slowly Horace admitted the truth: he had not been to the house, he had telephoned and received no answer so had decided not to bother doing anything further.

Forest was incensed. He grabbed the Colt and aimed it at Horace. The boy froze in the face of the gun.

‘You are a traitor and shall not leave here alive!’ Forest bellowed, his finger on the trigger.

Horace, trembling, begged for forgiveness. He was reckless, yes, and neglectful, but not a traitor and he didn’t deserve to die. Forest was unmoved by the boy’s denials and tearful apologies, he no longer had any patience for him. He was tired of the incompetence around him, tired of the constant fear and above all, tired of Horace and the worries he caused.

He was about to kill him when Jose could stand the tension no more and moved to Horace’s aid. Perhaps it was his youth that played on Jose’s mind, or the fact that she had recruited him and now feared her mistake, but she could not watch Forest kill the boy in cold blood. Quietly she slipped between them and with gentle words persuaded her old friend to let Horace go with a warning. Forest lowered the gun, still glaring at the boy.

‘You are dismissed from my service,’ he told the terrified Horace, ‘but never forget if you betray us the organisation will have you shot!’

Greatly relieved, Horace ran for the door and left them. Forest must have had a pang of doubt over what he had done and he was right to do so. Later events would prove that both Horace and Ernest were working for the Germans long before they had met with the patriot Abbe Leveque. Like so many traitors the Nazis employed, Horace and Ernest had no deep feelings of Germanic loyalty, but were driven rather by the thought of easy money. Both were lazy wastrels who found holding down genuine work problematic. Horace was recruited by the local Gestapo branch in his hometown and sent to infiltrate Abbe Leveque’s escape network. It was pure coincidence that he met with his old friend Ernest at the abbe’s home and that the other man had also been independently recruited by the Germans. They instantly joined forces and together set about infiltrating the network.

There seems no doubt that the entire time Horace was working for Forest he was in touch with his German controllers. At one point he mysteriously vanished and reappeared claiming he had been in the clutches of the Gestapo – this was probably true, though rather than an interrogation it had probably been a prearranged debriefing!

Ironically it was Horace’s feckless nature that made him as poor an asset for the Germans as he was to Forest. He aroused suspicion almost immediately and this prevented him from penetrating deeply into the resistance network, but it was also the case that his natural disinclination for work meant he was barely trying to infiltrate anything. He worked for the Germans for convenience, the worst type of agent, and as proved by Ernest, should an opportunity arise for easy money they would take it and flee both of their respective masters.

He may have been an incompetent traitor and he may have gotten away lightly with his betrayal, but he would be back to haunt Forest in the not too distant future.

Notes

1
.  Official diary of events: Marie-Claire Mission, SOE files, the National Archives.

2
.  Report to SOE about criticism of Brossolette by advocates of Sophie and Baudet, 2/12/1943.

3
.  Courier from Marie-Claire, 18/10/43, the National Archives.

4
.  Official diary of events: Marie-Claire Mission, SOE files, the National Archives.

5
.  
Ibid.

– 10 –

A Good Agent has no Routine

FOREST BROKE HIS OWN rules when it suited him and the Marie-Claire mission, with its endless pointless meetings and tiresome quarrels, was wearing him down to a point where he took risks. He was very conscious of these lapses and kept them hushed from SOE, but they happened nonetheless.

Madame Bosc’s restaurant, where he set up his letterbox on the Seahorse operation, proved a temptation beyond his resolve. Visiting the building eased his tension for a time, but it was a dangerous indulgence, because his frequent visits were noticed. Forest recorded in his memoirs, several years after the war, what occurred one night when he left the restaurant. It was an ordeal he only obliquely revealed to SOE.

At 10.30 p.m. one evening he left Madame Bosc’s restaurant. Across the road from the restaurant a man was standing in the shadows of a doorway. Forest felt his natural suspicions rising. Deciding to test his concerns he took a different route to that which he would normally use to get home. It wasn’t long before he was aware that the stranger in the shadows had followed him.

A burst of adrenaline temporarily shrugged the tiredness from him; there was something about the chase that despite being frightening was also exciting. Forest headed for the nearby Métro station. At that time of night trains were not frequent, so there was plenty of time to get a good look at the tail while Forest waited for a train. Sure enough Forest had not sat down on a bench for long when the shadowy stranger appeared on the platform. He was a tall man, clean-shaven, wearing a brown felt hat and the stereotypical brown overcoat. Forest observed him cautiously, aware that he would need to get back to his apartment soon to avoid being caught out by the midnight curfew. The last thing he needed was to be arrested due to such a paltry thing as being out late at night.