Chapter 6

November 1941 – December 1941

After reporting at the front desk, I found a seat where I had waited before. This time a civilian walked towards me. I jumped to my feet and turned my instinctive salute into an awkward, waist high wave. Amusement flashed across the man’s face.

“Miss Roberts?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Come with me please.”

This time we went to a set of offices on the ground floor labelled “Section F”.

“Have a seat.” He waved at a chair as he sat behind his desk, picking up a file.

Mine?

Parisian-accented French flowed from him. “We urgently need to get you through some refresher training and off to France as soon as possible.”

I felt my brain shift gears; it had been a year since I’d spoken French. A frisson ran across my skin, prickling my scalp.

“Where do I go for this retraining?”

“You’ll stay here for about a week.” He turned a few pages in the file. “Hmm ... no parachute training.”

“No, sir.”

His eyes wandered, refocussing after a moment and continuing in English. “Well, I don’t think you’ll need it for this operation.” He scribbled a note on a memo pad. “We’ll fly you across in a Lysander.”

I’d never heard of a Lysander, but it must be able to land in a field.

“Report here in the morning at oh-eight hundred. I’ll get a pass for you tomorrow.” He scribbled on a slip of paper. “For now, go up to office twelve.”

“Yes, sir.”

I picked up my suitcase and went upstairs to find Claire still in office twelve. She handed me a file and told me to take a seat until she finished work. The file reviewed SOE tradecraft – the skills and techniques of espionage. It also had a lengthy briefing section on the situation as we understood it in France in terms of ration cards, travel zones, permits and such.

I spent a week staying with Claire each night and in various parts of Section F during the long days, refreshing my trade craft and learning how to live in occupied France in 1941. Then they bundled me off to RAF Tempsford.

On my first day there I met with an unnamed, studious, man who spent an hour talking with me about my RDF days, probing my understanding of the equipment I had used and the techniques associated with using it. Helped by his gentle questions, I recalled a surprising amount. This man knew a great deal about RDF and I wondered about the purpose behind our meeting. After lunch, a Wing Commander briefed me on the utmost secrecy of everything I heard. He also told me that I was now confined to the station.

Back in the earlier room, the man returned – still no name – and showed me a pair of aerial photographs of a piece of equipment sitting in a field in front of a large house. It looked a bit like a concave dustbin lid.

A parabolic or spherical reflector?

As I picked up the photos, he asked. “Any idea what that might be?”

After inspecting the photograph for about half a minute, while recalling our earlier conversation, I raised an uncertain eyebrow. “A German RDF?”

The man’s eyes showed approval, then his face dropped. “The Germans are shooting our bombers out of the sky in shocking numbers and we ... think ... it’s due to improved German RDF – specifically a system that combines long-range and short-range systems to guide their night fighters and flak onto our bombers. We understand their long-range radar but this,” he tapped the dustbin lid apparatus in one of the photos, “this is new and we need to understand how it works. Then we can block it or trick it.”

The photograph, taken from a plane flying at low level, drew my attention for a moment. “How can I help?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head with an exasperated sigh. “We can’t keep losing bombers at this rate. We think this,” he tapped the photo again, “is the reason but we need more information...” He leant back in his seat eyeing me warily. “And I have no idea how you can help with that.”

If he hadn’t been briefed about me, he had no need to know, but I had to understand what he wanted. “What would help you counter this system?”

His eyes narrowed, his lips pursed and then he let out an explosive breath. “I want one of those sets in front of me, to take apart, test and understand.” His shoulders slumped. “But I don’t know how that’s possible.”

I kept my face blank: my mission would centre on helping to acquire this new RDF system. He stared at me for several seconds before he pushed his chair back, gathered up the photos into a file and left the room. I sat, wondering about what came next.

A minute later an RAF Flight Sergeant strode into the room. “Right ‘o, Miss. Come wiv me, please.”

He took me out of the building into the grey December afternoon. We walked for about five minutes, arriving at a firing range. He laid out on a canvas sheet a service revolver, a Sten and what looked like a German officer’s pistol. I’d seen but not handled one at Airsaig.

“Okay Miss. Strip, check and reassemble these weapons.”

I stripped and cleaned the service revolver but when I stripped the Sten, I found the firing pin was missing. “Umm, Sarge, the firing pin’s missing from this.”

His face remained blank but he reached into his pocket and tossed me the missing item. I cleaned and reassembled the weapon and then turned to the pistol. It had German writing on it. I found the safety and then the magazine ejection – it was empty, but there might be a round in the chamber. I pulled back the slide, ejecting a round.

The sergeant nodded his approval. “Ok miss – you can shoot that if you ‘ave to.” From a webbing bag he produced a magazine for the sten. “See if you can ‘it the twen’y-five-yard targit.”

At least some of the rounds in the two bursts had made holes on the target. I scored better at the ten-yard target.

The sergeant produced some pistol rounds from the bag. “Now try the service revolver at ten yards.”

I loaded the pistol and fired two rounds in the ‘double tap’ taught in my training.

The sergeant nodded in approval – both had hit the target. “Now at twenty-five yards.”

I double-tapped again – one round in the target this time and repeated the effort with the German pistol with the same result.

He pointed at the weapons. “Unload and clean them.”

I stripped and cleaned the Sten and service pistol. “How do I strip this, Sarge?” I pointed at the German pistol.

“Fair enough, miss. You’ll do.” He knelt beside me, stripping, cleaning and reassembling the pistol with quick, competent movements that I tried to file away. He put the remaining rounds and magazines in the webbing bag along with the pistols, hitching the Sten over his shoulder with the sling. “Follow me.”

He walked me back to the building I’d spent the morning in for an afternoon being grilled about ID papers, travel passes and ration cards in occupied France.

In the morning, I refreshed my explosives skills behind an earth bank on the far side of the airfield. After half a day of scrabbling about in the winter mud setting charges, I wanted a hot bath. Back in my room I grabbed a towel and my faithful dressing gown. I washed myself in the permitted five inches of water – lying back in a full, hot bath was a distant, sybaritic memory.

I heard boots walk into the building. I sat up, wondering what was going on. Then the door burst open and arms dragged me out dripping wet, a hand clamped over my mouth stifling my scream. They carried me, naked except for a towel over my head, to a nearby building.

I was kept naked without sleep – but I was usually wet and cold, so I doubt I could have slept. Every few hours they tied me to a chair and slapped a wet flannel over my face, suffocating me, shouting at me to tell them about our RDF. After a while, I drifted out of my body to watch my interrogators’ actions, detached from reality.

Finally, they took me back to my room and dumped me in a warm bath.

“Get cleaned up and sleep.”

I woke in my bed and lay there, trying to reconstruct if I’d revealed anything during the mock interrogation before falling asleep again.

“Tea, Miss?” A WAAF stood beside my bed.

“Yes, please.”

She placed the steaming mug on the locker. “Drink this and then come over to the office. They’ve got some lunch for you there.”

I blinked. “What’s the time?”

“Just gone twelve hundred hours, Miss.” The WAAF smiled. “Enjoy your tea.”

“Thank you.”

I sat up with an embarrassed shiver, wrapping the bedclothes round me to cover my nakedness.

How many people had seen me naked during the interrogation?

I sipped the hot, sweet tea – unusually sweet, I realised, glad the sugar wasn’t coming out of my ration. Sitting there, I knew I’d managed to drift away from my body during the interrogation here as I had at Airsaig. If captured, perhaps I’d weather the storm of interrogation that preceded the inevitable execution. The room shrank and darkened...

Enough of the morbid thoughts.

Fifteen minutes later I stood at attention in front of the unnamed Wing Commander – the office doors lacked the usual name plates.

“Ah ... Roberts.” His eyes shifted, unable to engage mine. “Are you ... um ... well?” His nervous fingers rolled a pencil to and fro.

“Yes, thank you, sir, now I’ve caught up on my sleep.” My bright voice startled him and he dropped the pencil. It rolled towards me and off the desk, ending up at my feet. I picked it up and placed it in front of him.

His unease at what they had put me through filled his eyes when they met mine. “Umm ... thank you ... er ... sit down, Roberts.”

I hesitated for a moment before sitting on the same model chair they had strapped me to during the interrogation. The Wing Commander had his eyes on the file in front of him – presumably my file.

“It appears that you’re...” He stumbled for a moment before continuing. “Er ... now ready.

I nodded, searching his face for any clue to my mission.

He sniffed. “There’s still some unease about sending you off to France, given your knowledge of our RDF, even if it is now mostly out of date.”

That was why I’d not gone on to the parachute training – they deemed my knowledge a security risk in France.

Part of the knot of self-doubt unclenched.

“Roberts?”

I had frozen for a moment and his worry about my recent treatment re-surfaced in his eyes. “Yes, sir.” My smile was confident, masking the underlying tension.

His eyes narrowed as he looked me over.

Was he wondering if I was fit to go?

“I’m fine sir.” I smiled again, trying to reassure him. “I’ve just realised why I didn’t complete the parachute training before.” My voice sought to soothe his concern. “They worried I might give away RDF secrets under interrogation if I were captured.”

The Wing Commander’s eyes widened for a moment. “Well ... um ... that’s as maybe.” He cleared his throat and his eyes dropped to the file before rising back to mine for reflective seconds. Then he snapped the file shut. “Go through that door, please.” He pointed across the room.

As I stood up, he beat me to the door. “Good luck, Roberts.” He nodded and then opened it for me.

A Wing Commander doing that for a lowly corporal flustered me. “Er ... thank you, sir.”

I walked through the door and he closed it behind me.

“Good afternoon, Colette.” Maurice Buckmaster, the head of section F greeted me.

I blinked. “Good afternoon, sir.”

“Come over here.” He indicated a table that held a large photomosaic stitched together from a dozen or more aerial photographs. It showed a piece of cliff-edged coastline, a small town on a sea-front and, set back from the cliffs, a house with the Boche RDF dish in front of it.

“This is Bruneval, where there’s one of the short-range RDF sets. We want to nip in and steal it, but...” He indicated some buildings at some distance from the house. “These are new and possibly the barracks of a defence force. Bunkers guard the beach with troops in another barracks above the town.” His hand swept across the mosaic. “We need to know the size and quality of these forces, how they’re organised and the size, distance, reaction time and quality of the inevitable reinforcements.”

He leant back from the table. “We want you to link up with the local resistance, get them to find all this out and radio the information back to us.”

I nodded.

Mr Buckmaster eyes held a fierce intensity. “We want not just the numbers of troops, but their unit or some indication of the quality of the forces ... and their commander, if possible.”

“Understood, sir.”

Mr Buckmaster pursed his lips, sucking in a breath. “We need that information as soon as you can get it. Once you’ve sent it, you will need to keep a close watch on things. If anything changes, anything at all, then you need to alert us – without delay.”

I nodded.

He sat for a moment and I saw a moment of doubt on his face. “You’ve had all the training, but I must remind you not to get involved in any ... activity ... with the Maquis, the resistance.” His face hardened. “You are not to risk capture. Tell them what we want, wait for them to get the information and then send it to us when they bring it to you.”

“Understood, sir.”

“Your codename is Marie and your contact’s codename is Colonel Rémy.” He waved at the photomosaic. “Learn the area. We’ll fly you and your radio across in a day or two.”

I jumped to my feet as Mr Buckmaster stood up. “Yes, sir.” And he walked out of the room. I moved across to the table and started committing the photomosaic to memory.

I spent two days doing this, along with practicing coding/decoding messages with my poem code and learning the ins and outs of my radio, a different model to the one I’d trained on. I also learned how to get in and out of a Lysander with my radio and my personal bag.

After liaison with France, my insertion would happen the night of 10^th and 11^th December, a night with enough moonlight for navigation. During the final day I assembled my kit – I took my own French clothes, but agents checked them over to make sure nothing English crept in.

The SOE forgers supplied my papers – a fifteen-year-old girl named Marie Yvette Laplage, a distant relation of Madame Bernadotte Ferrier who lived on a farm just outside Bruneval. The forgers gave me a letter from her, inviting me to live with her. My parents were dead and she was my sole surviving relative. A story all too common given the war, I suppose.

I checked my radio and its spares a final time. It came alive when turned on and I heard morse chatter when I swung across the frequencies. We were due to take off at zero-one-hundred, flying for about an hour to the landing site south of Étretat. I lay down once everything had been checked and tried to sleep, expecting to lie there reviewing details of the operation ... until a WAAF woke me with a ubiquitous mug of tea.

“I was sent to wake you up, Miss. It’s twenty-three-thirty.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Thank you.” I sat up, sipping my tea, clearing the sleep from my head. Falling asleep was a surprise: tension ran through me but excitement was holding fear at bay.

Tea finished, I left the tiny room, to find Maurice Buckmaster waiting for me.

“There’s been a change of plans, Marie.”

My heart sank – he’d cancelled the operation.

“It’s been decided that leaving you in France risks the operation, the Resistance will watch and let us know if things change. You’ll be brought home once you’ve got us the information we need. We’ll send instructions for your pick-up by radio and you’re to leave the radio with Colonel Rémy.”

Not cancelled...

I let out a soft breath, strangely relieved. “Yes, sir.”

“Good luck, Marie.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I sat in the right-hand seat in the Lysander with a Sten in my lap to “fend off any unwanted attention on landing” according to my laconic pilot. I had a great but scary view out of the cockpit: once we crossed the English coast; we descended until our wheels seemed to skate along the waves but the pilot laughed, assuring me we were at least fifty feet above them. Approaching the coast, we climbed and my pilot shared a thumbs up when he identified our landfall at La Falaise d’Amont in broken moonlight. A few minutes later we saw a light flash in Morse and the pilot flicked a downward pointing light in our reply. Three lights appeared and the engine noise fell away as we descended rapidly towards them. I saw some trees flick below us in the landing lights and then we bumped and bounced to a stop. I unlatched my window and hefted the Sten onto the ledge. The pilot spun the plane round and ran back down the field before turning again, ready to leave.

Figures ran across the field from the hedge but no helmeted soldiers. One came to the foot of the ladder. “Marie?”

“Colonel Rémy?”

“D’accord.”

I handed the Sten to the pilot. We had additional luggage beside my case and radio. I passed it all down and smiled at the pilot. “Thanks for the ride.”

He smiled and waved me down the steps, reaching across to lock the door once I was down. The engine picked up and with a couple of flicks of the rudder the Lysander roared down the field and into the air.

France.

My heart sang – with all its dangers, I’d come home, taking the fight to the Boche.

One of the men grabbed my arm, pointing at the bags we had unloaded. “Which ones are yours?”

“Those two.” I pointed at my bags.

Colonel Rémy directed his men to take the rest of the luggage then turned to me.

“Welcome to France.”

“Thank you, but it’s back to France. I am from...”

“No.” He interrupted me. “No. Never tell anyone about before the war. The Boche will use your family and friends against you.” His eyes bored into mine in the dim moonlight.

I gulped – the joy of being back in France had me forgetting the importance of security.

Colonel Rémy picked up the radio case and indicated for me to take my bag. “Follow me.”

We went through a gap in the hedge onto a farm track and walked several kilometres to a cottage on the edge of a ploughed field. The cold and musty interior offered a bleak welcome.

Colonel Rémy found a candle in a drawer and checked the shutters were closed. The candle revealed a tiny kitchen in its flickering light. “No-one lives here now. The Boche swept up the farm worker that lived here in the forced labour draft.” His eyes travelled round the cottage and the light of the candle revealed his drawn face, the lines accentuated by the shadows. “There are many empty cottages like this.”

France under the Nazis was a foreign country.

I inspected the cold kitchen range.

Colonel Rémy shook his head. “You cannot light the stove, Marie – the smoke will give you away.”

I sighed but understood the danger.

“You will stay here tonight and tomorrow morning, then we’ll move you closer to Bruneval. Stay inside until then.”

With that, he left and I watched his figure fade into the darkness down the track. I picked up the candle and explored: a bedroom containing a bed and a heap of musty-smelling blankets.

When I woke, my breath steamed in the freezing air. I lay under the weight of the heaped blankets, unwilling to leave their meagre warmth. But nature called and I visited the privy across the yard. The clatter of the hand-pump shocked the still air and I froze, straining for any answering sound.

Reassured by the silence after half a minute, I pumped the well and a stream of icy water allowed me to wash my face and hands.

In the light of day, I inspected the cottage; the kitchen contained no food, just some dirty cooking utensils. The cupboard in the bedroom contained a pair of old boots shedding their soles and flakes of dried mud. Whoever had lived here had taken what meagre belongings they possessed when shipped out. I took a battered saucepan out to the pump, washed and filled it with fresh water for the day.

Colonel Rémy told me not to leave the cottage, but Airsaig had drummed into us the importance of always having an escape route. I spent an hour or so surveying the surrounding country while keeping out of sight. The track stopped at the cottage. A ploughed field occupied two of its sides providing no cover for over a hundred metres to a hedgerow. On the other two sides lay a fallow field, with tussocky grass and thistles that promised some cover – and a hedge about thirty metres away. Crouching low, I moved across the field to the hedge. After watching and listening, I clambered through a gap to find a shallow ditch on the far side, running towards a patch of woods. I had my escape route if danger came up the track.

Back in the cottage, I pictured the radio operators at Bletchley sitting where I had sat, waiting for incoming messages, switching between frequencies according to the agents’ schedules. I did not need to transmit tonight but I could be instructed to listen for a message: after the BBC news, a dozen or so phrases were broadcast that told people like me to listen out at my designated times or for a Maquis group to blow up a particular bridge; but most phrases were complete rubbish to confuse the Boche.

As the pale sun dragged itself across the sky behind thin sheets of cloud, I rehearsed my code poem in my head and listened out for any sign of people approaching the cottage, pistol close to hand.

Late in the morning a distant rattle alerted me and I hid behind the low wood pile with the fallow field behind me, pistol at the ready. A tall man on a bicycle appeared. He dismounted, propped the bicycle against a fence post and walked towards the cottage, calling out softly in French.

“Marie, Marie. I’m Marcel. Colonel Rémy sent me.”

I stayed in my hiding place, covering him with my pistol. “How do you know Marie?”

“You arrived here early this morning,” his face split into an engaging smile. “And I expect you’d like lunch.” He hefted the bag hanging from his shoulder.

I walked round the end of the wood pile, still covering him with my pistol.

“Put the bag on the ground and step back.”

Marcel arched an eyebrow but lowered the bag and took a couple of steps back, watching my pistol.

“Reculez.” I waved him back, my pistol steady on his body.

He moved further back.

Keeping my eye and pistol on him. I flipped the cover off the leather bag to reveal a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine and what from the aroma promised to be cheese and a crock of some preserved meat.

“Thank you. I am quite hungry.” I closed the bag and picked it up, giving Marcel a smile. “Care to join me for lunch?” I waved towards the cottage.

He glanced at my pistol. “Perhaps, mademoiselle, you might stop waving the pistol in my direction?”

I blushed, clicked on the safety and put the pistol in my pocket.

Over a lunch of wine, cheese, crusty bread and rillette de lapin, Marcel relayed the plans for the rest of the day as my taste buds revelled in the meal, the best I’d had since leaving France. The RAF served mush in comparison.

Marcel waved the wine bottle airily. “After lunch, we will walk to the road where a truck will pick you up and take you to a safe house outside Bruneval. Colonel Rémy will meet you there.”

I nodded, my mouth full of bread and cheese.

We finished eating and gathered up our stuff. Marcel balanced the radio case on his bicycle handlebars, walking beside me with my other case pulling at my arm. We reached the road and hid ourselves in the hedge while we waited. After about fifteen minutes we heard a vehicle approaching.

Marcel cocked his ear. “Boche. Stay down.”

A minute later, a Wehrmacht truck rolled past, half-a-dozen soldiers sitting in the back, eyes searching out across the countryside, rifles standing between their knees. As they disappeared round the bend, I started to rise but Marcel pressed me back down. A moment later, a Wehrmacht scout car went past with an officer seated in the back. We watched it roll down the road and round the corner.

Marcel’s hand left my back and he leaned across, mouth beside my ear. “There’s frequently an officer vehicle following patrols like that.”

I nodded.

Something to remember...

Minutes later we heard a different sounding vehicle. It didn’t thrum like the well-maintained Wehrmacht vehicles and an arhythmic set of rattles supplemented its wheezing engine – a farm truck.

I smiled at Marcel, nodding in understanding as he extricated himself from the hedge. The truck, its tray loaded with some sort of root vegetable, stopped. Marcel shared a nod with the truck driver who leapt from the cab, moving the vegetables away and dropping the side of a hidden compartment to reveal a low volume concealed beneath the heaped vegetables.

Marcel shoved the radio case in and grabbed my bag, shoving it in as well. “Get in.”

I gave him an uncomprehending look and he picked me up round my knees and shoulders, pushing me into the narrow gap.

I gasped as the side of the box slammed back up, leaving me in dingy gloom. I heard vegetables being heaped back to cover my hiding place.

I heard Marcel’ voice. “Stay quiet – whatever happens, stay quiet. We need to get you past the guard post on the road into Bruneval. The coast is a restricted area.”

The truck got underway and as it lurched along the road, I tried to find a comfortable position where my head wasn’t bouncing between the deck below and the boards above. About half an hour later, the truck rolled to a stop and I heard German voices.

My stomach tightened as the truck leaned – one of the soldiers climbing onto the side of the tray. With my head resting on my arms, I heard the thumping of my heart as the truck shifted beneath the German soldier as he moved around. After a minute, the truck lurched and boots crunched on the road as he jumped off. A shout in German and the truck started moving again.

We drove on, swaying through the twisty country lanes. Then the truck slowed, turned and came to a stop. They shifted the vegetables and the compartment opened. Marcel stood there smiling at me in the gloom of a barn. “Out you come, Marie.”

I clambered to the ground, then reached back in to retrieve my cases.

“Follow me.”

Marcel grabbed my cases and led me though a side door of the barn, across a narrow yard and into a farmhouse. I found myself in a warm kitchen redolent with the heady smell of baking bread. Marcel set down the cases and left, with a nod to the two men sitting at a large table, one of them Colonel Rémy, hair greying around his temples.

“Welcome again, Marie.” Colonel Rémy stood and leaned across to shake my hand. “This is Guillaume who will be working with you.” He gestured at a chair. “Please take a seat and we will discuss our plans.”

I nodded at Guillaume as I sat, then looked across at Colonel Rémy. “London needs the size of German forces here in Bruneval and the surrounding area.”

Guillaume frowned, leaning towards me. “Why?”

I opened my mouth, but Colonel Remy placed a hand on Guillaume’s arm. “That’s not for us to know – and, anyway, I doubt Marie knows.” He glanced across at me before turning back to Guillaume. “We assemble the information London needs and Marie sends it.”

I waited for him to continue – and then spoke into his silence. “London’s interest in Bruneval must remain secret.” I gathered their nods of agreement before continuing. “Now, what about the German forces in Bruneval?”

Colonel Rémy sat back. “They have three bunkers guarding the beach with half a dozen soldiers in each one all the time – a machine gun crew – with an officer or senior NCO in the command bunker. That’s fitted with a multi-barrel flak gun as well. It’s the one closest to the road, furthest from the beach. During the day they sometimes exercise on the beach. There’s fifty of them, but they’re not frontline troops;” His voice held condescension and disbelief. “It’s taken about half an hour on occasion for them to stand-to in the bunkers from their barracks above the village.”

Half an hour?

My eyebrows rose in surprise. “We need to find out their unit – and an exact number if possible.”

Colonel Remy nodded. “Then there’s something happening on the clifftop.”

The RDF station.

I bottled up my reaction. “Hmm?”

“We’re not sure what it’s for as we can’t get close to it.” He scowled. “But that tells us it’s important to the Boche.”

Guillaume leaned forward. “It’s important enough for them to put up another barracks close by.”

I nodded. “We need to find out the troop numbers up there – and their unit.”

Colonel Rémy nodded. “We think they number between one and two hundred troops.”

London would not like that but we needed a better idea of their numbers. “What about reinforcements?”

Colonel Rémy thought for a moment. “There’s half a regiment at Goderville; that’s about 1,500 troops with some trucks and light armoured vehicles. Goderville is about four hours march away.” He shrugged. “Longer again at night, but their few motorised units might arrive here in about an hour ... perhaps a hundred and fifty troops and a couple of armoured cars.”

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Colette

Robert Hart

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Robert Hart

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