Chapter 10

Home at last

The trip to the coast from Brussels was most boring; the escort consisted of two elderly Wehrmacht soldiers who were not inclined to talk, to him or to each other as they travelled. They were just outside Bruges, on a lonely country road when the car came to a sudden stop, ostensibly for a hay wagon which had lost a wheel, and was blocking the road. The two escorts got out protesting vehemently to the farmer, with a lot of shouting, and waving of arms, when suddenly, they were overpowered by about five men. The car door was opened, and Tony was roughly dragged out, blindfolded, gagged and his hands bound. He felt himself being tossed into the back of a truck of some kind, and covered with hay.

It seemed about three hours later, that he was hauled out the truck, and allowed to fall on the ground. He was forced into some sort of building, and his blindfold was taken off. It was a farmhouse kitchen. He looked up to see himself surrounded by a number of rough looking men, and three women who were armed with an assortment of weapons.

The men there were arguing about what to do with him, in a mixture of Flemish and French. It seemed to Tony, that it was a debate whether to hang him or shoot him, after the interrogation, so he assumed that they were partisans of some kind. Tony interrupted their talk, and asked quietly in French.

"Can I speak to your leader alone please?" There was a large amount of shouting and protests, but eventually he was left with a middle aged woman.

"Are you the group leader." he asked.

She said that she was. He explained briefly that he needed to get to England as soon as possible. She laughed Tony could see that she was not convinced. He had to take a chance so he said.

"Will you take what he have to say in total confidence?"

"Of course, you are to be executed anyway, so talk while you can."

Tony then explained his mission in detail missing very little out, while she sat and listened. Fortunately, he could remember the name of the leader of the group, who picked them up in the channel, and he mentioned Janine and Anne- Marie. Halfway through, she got up, and gave Tony a glass of water, which was encouraging. After a drink she let him continue.

When Tony had finished, she left the room, and he could hear talking in the next room. After about two hours the door opened and Janine came in, she rushed over to him, and undid his bonds and they embraced. She turned to the on looking partisans. "My friend's thank you, today you have made a wonderful capture. We have to get Commander Nash back to England as soon as possible."

The relief Tony felt, was probably one of the best feelings he had felt for a long time. Janine and Tony spent the next two days almost joined at the hip. They just wanted to be with each other so much. She told him that it was her in Brussels that he had seen, and that they had set up an ambush to capture him, on the main road to Oostende, but it had failed as the Germans had taken a back road, and it was just good fortune that this group had managed to capture him. They had killed his two escorts, and taken their uniforms and side arms.

He was quizzed about his trip to Burchesgarten and Hitler by the group. He answered as honestly as he could about everything he had seen there. Janine was a bit cynical, about his explanation of his betrothal to Elizabeth. He told her that he had taken the opportunity as it arose, but he had to admit that he did have some feelings for Elizabeth at first as he thought that basically she was quite a nice woman.

The next evening, now in civilian clothes, he was taken to a field some 20 Kilometers' away, to await his pick up. It was about 10.00 o clock at night when the Lysander came into land. It turned round into the wind ready to take off without stopping. The plane had barely come to a halt when two ladies jumped out, and some packages were tossed out on to the grass, and he was halfway through the open door when there was a bust of firing. Tony was hit in both legs, but a pair of strong hands dragged him into the plane. His presence took the crew by surprise, as his photograph had been well publicized in the press, but his explanation was weak, as he told them his defection was a sham and he had been on a secret mission. It was partially accepted because of his perfect English, and the fact that they half believed his story of being a double agent, seemed to them to be partially credible. It was obvious that his name had been vilified in the popular press, and Lord Haw-Haw had made the most of his defection on his daily radio broadcasts. As he talked, the co-pilot had been attending to his wounds and had managed to stop the bleeding.

On landing at an airfield in the south of England, he was met by two military policemen and escorted to the base hospital. An intelligence officer visited him, and he asked him to contact Mr. Broughton, at the Admiralty, and or Captain S/M at Portsmouth, who would vouch for him. He was however kept under lock and key, for another 24 hours until Mr. Broughton arrived together with the Staff Officer from the Submarine Base at Portsmouth together with his uniforms and luggage.

The following day, he was transferred to a secure military hospital near Gloucester. It was in a large park and normally reserved for VIP's. He was kept in a single room and his uniforms were returned to him and he noted that all his uniforms had now been altered and now all his uniforms had the three wide rings of a full Commander. Tony went through three days of intensive de-briefing, with officers from the various branches of the intelligence service. However he did refuse to tell them the purpose of his mission, insisting that they got the details from the Admiralty. Tony was well aware that the Germans would have guessed that the British had got hold of their codes, if he had mentioned the mission, and the fact that it had been quite quickly aborted.

Tonys cousin Jean visited him at the hospital. The news that he had defected, had been a terrible shock, and no-one from the admiralty had in any way done anything to alleviate her anxiety. Jean and he had been brought up much like brother and sister by her parents. His parents had elected to leave him with his Aunt, so as not to disrupt his schooling any further, and so he had gone to school in England, after they returned from Berlin. Meanwhile immediately pre-war Tonys parents were overseas, carrying on their duties in the diplomatic service. Unfortunately they had been tragically killed in a car accident whilst holidaying in Bermuda before the outbreak of the war.