12.
25 November 1942
Sleet, driven against the windscreen of the Citroen, threatened to overwhelm the puny efforts of the car’s inadequate wiper. We had been stopped on the verge of the road for nearly an hour as a German Wehrmacht motorized column ground its serpentine way past us. With the Allies in French North Africa, the Germans were busying themselves with occupying Vichy. Word had it that the Gestapo had already set up shop in Lyon.
I shivered in the cold night air. The delay seemed endless, as did that entire dreadful night. Marie and I had left Lyon at dusk for the Swiss frontier with another fugitive secreted on board. This was our thirteenth mission, each of which ... over time ... seemed to have become more perilous.
This time out we had already encountered and bluffed our way past six police roadblocks, rather than the usual two or three, and this was the second time that night we had been obliged to surrender the road to a German convoy.
I was worried. There wasn’t much time till daybreak and we were still around 10 to 15 kilometers from where we would see our fugitive off to make his way on foot to safety. Another thing that was different, and potentially dangerous, about this mission was that our human cargo was, for the first time, a downed airman ... an American ... who had cheerfully introduced himself to us as ‘Billy Joe’ when we fetched him from the safe house where Pierre and Alain had been hiding him.
I had smiled and greeted him by extending my hand and saying in English, “Hi Billy, I’m Barbara. This is Marie. She and I will be seeing you safely to Switzerland tonight.”
“Hubba, Hubba,” he gushed in reply, looking Marie and me up and down twice and making exaggerated female figure tracings in the air with both hands. “Pinch me, ah think ah musta died and gone to Heaven. And y'ain't no Brit are ya Barb? Y'all's a Yankee! Ah can tell by yer talk! From one of them states way up north, ain’t ya? Wheweeeee! I’ll wager ya wouldn’t mind hookin’ up with a good ole Southern boy like me, would ya? Ah could sho ‘nuff keep a knockout body like yer’s warm at night. I reckon ya’d be one helluva nice roll in the hay, and yer cute French lady friend shored be welcome tah join right in too.”
“There’s no time for any of that Billy, not that there’s a chance in hell under any circumstances. This is serious business. We’re risking our lives for you! Now if you’re ready to go, we have a car outside. You’ll be concealed, and no matter what happens ... once we’re on the road you’ll stay hidden and keep that big yap shut. Understood?”
He looked at me like a puppy dog who had been kicked.
Thankfully, Alain moved quickly to break the awkwardness of the moment by shoving the American flyboy towards the exit while muttering a few choice French expletives.
And so we had made our way slowly out of the city, and as the hours passed by and the check-point stops multiplied, Billy became more and more impatient and rambunctious, calling out from time to time and bumping around. I found I was constantly shushing him and beginning to wonder how such an idiot could be trusted by the military to fly one of its planes.
The minutes ticked by. At long last the tail end of the convoy could be seen through the all-enveloping mist. It seemed like half the kraut army must have been on the move that night. I nudged Marie, who had dozed off at the wheel of the Citroen.
“When’re we gonna move again?” complained Billy loudly.
“Shhhhhhhh”
Just then a gloved hand rapped on the driver’s-side window. Marie opened it. A Wehrmacht Feldwebel leaned in, looked around and inquired in German whether we had much petrol in the Citroen.
“Nur ein bisschen,” I replied, shaking my head negatively for effect.
He looked at me in disbelief, shook his head negatively and promptly ordered us out of the vehicle.
Marie and I got out and stood together by the side of the vehicle. Two German soldiers came up to cover us with their machine pistols while another soldier began siphoning petrol from the Citroen’s fuel tank. I hoped Billy would have enough sense to keep quiet.
Having drained away nearly all of our remaining petrol into a Jerry can, the Germans lowered their weapons and waved goodbye as they hurried to board the last lorry in the convoy as it lumbered by. Moments later the Citroen’s motor, which had been idling the whole time, coughed and died ... and Billy called out “Hallo, anyone out theya?”
Marie and I exchanged glances. We both knew that we were a good distance short of our goal. Wordlessly we agreed ... that there was nothing we could do but walk it ... a dangerous proposition to be sure ... we weren’t at all dressed for being out in such weather, and it would soon be daylight. We had no contacts to turn to in this remote area. Like it or not, we were on our own and would just have to do the best we could.
So we set off in what had by then become a steady light drizzle. My shoes were soon soaked, as was my coat, and my feet had begun to hurt as my shoes were hardly designed for that kind of walking. Marie looked equally miserable. Only Billy seemed, much to my annoyance, buoyantly cheerful.
Whenever we encountered a vehicle during those early morning hours, which was only twice, we left the road and hid in the forest till it passed by.
After a while we got used to the walking. We reckoned that we were making good progress, and took heart in the fact that the rain had stopped and the sun had come out to warm us.
Then around midday our luck ran out. As we came to a bend in the road, we spotted another roadblock up ahead. Hurriedly, we scurried off the road to avoid being spotted, and cautiously peered ahead from the shelter of the ditch.
The roadblock had been set up on high ground in the midst of a cleared area, with open fields stretching out in all directions. It was manned by French police, but the Germans were there too, as evidenced by a pair of gray Kubelwagens parked nearby, and the presence of a half dozen gray-uniformed men ... undoubtedly SS. We were stymied. There was no easy way to get around the checkpoint without being seen.
Billy suggested that we try to bluff our way past. I nixed that as suicidal. I had become convinced by then that we had been betrayed ... there was simply no other reason why they would have set up a roadblock on that back country road other than they were expecting us!
It was Marie, though, who came up with a courageous and quite possibly self-sacrificing solution. She reasoned that the men manning the roadblock probably had no way of knowing that we were no longer driving the Citroen. They would be on the lookout for two women in just such a car, fitting our descriptions. So Marie proposed a “dérivation”. She would approach the checkpoint alone ... on foot ... using whatever feminine wiles she could muster to distract them while Billy and I took to the fields and attempted to work our way around unseen to the distant tree line on the far side.
Billy was enthusiastic. I was negative, knowing full well that Marie could well be arrested and interrogated once they determined who she was. And besides, I was doubtful that Billy and I could get by unseen even if Marie distracted them. There were too many of them. There was little cover in the open fields. And someone among them was likely to spot us.
But Marie was insistent.
I watched ... and Billy ogled her ... as she washed her face in the ditch, shed her coat and blouse, removed her bra and put her blouse back on with the front revealingly half-open, rearranged the kerchief on her head in the style of a French peasant girl, and hitched up her skirt. Without a word, she bussed me on the lips, pressed her identification papers into my hands, stepped out onto the road and sauntered off in the direction of the checkpoint, hands resting pertly on gently swaying hips.
A few moments later they spotted her. Having caught their attention, she waved cheerily and sashayed right up to them. I could tell by her body language that she was flirting with them as they questioned her, and saw her give them that classic Gallic shrug when they demanded her papers and she had none. I imagined her asking why a local country girl out for a simple sunny afternoon walk should bother to carry papers?
While all this was going on, Billie and I attempted to move across the fields ... bending low as we ran ... stopping every time we came upon a small depression. I knew we were terribly exposed. There simply wasn’t any cover and I suspected that it was only a matter of time before we were seen.
But then Marie did something remarkable. She suddenly took to her feet and fled across a field, headed away from us. The police and Germans gave immediate chase, shouting for her to halt and shooting warning shots over her head.
Billy and I, taking advantage of the distraction, took to our feet as well, racing openly for the tree line at the far end of the fields.
It worked. We made it to there safely ... but they had Marie!
As I looked back, I saw them run her down and knock her to the ground, and then drag her ... kicking and screaming ... back to the checkpoint, where the Germans beat her, bundled her into a Kubelwagen and drove off.
Poor, brave Marie. I knew too well from my SOE training what horrors lay in wait for her once they delivered her to the Gestapo in Lyon. I also knew she would resist telling them anything until she could be reasonably certain Billy and I were safely in Switzerland.
Behind me, Billy was happily chuckling over the fact we had gotten away.
I spun on him and scornfully slapped the idiot across his fool face.
“You do realize Marie will be tortured and quite likely suffer an unimaginably horrible death, and she’ll have done it all for you?” I scolded through gritted teeth, adding “I doubt you’re worth it.”
“But .... “
“Shut up, and get moving. The Swiss border isn’t far and now that they have Marie, I’ve no choice but to cross over with you.”
25 November 1942
Sleet, driven against the windscreen of the Citroen, threatened to overwhelm the puny efforts of the car’s inadequate wiper. We had been stopped on the verge of the road for nearly an hour as a German Wehrmacht motorized column ground its serpentine way past us. With the Allies in French North Africa, the Germans were busying themselves with occupying Vichy. Word had it that the Gestapo had already set up shop in Lyon.
I shivered in the cold night air. The delay seemed endless, as did that entire dreadful night. Marie and I had left Lyon at dusk for the Swiss frontier with another fugitive secreted on board. This was our thirteenth mission, each of which ... over time ... seemed to have become more perilous.
This time out we had already encountered and bluffed our way past six police roadblocks, rather than the usual two or three, and this was the second time that night we had been obliged to surrender the road to a German convoy.
I was worried. There wasn’t much time till daybreak and we were still around 10 to 15 kilometers from where we would see our fugitive off to make his way on foot to safety. Another thing that was different, and potentially dangerous, about this mission was that our human cargo was, for the first time, a downed airman ... an American ... who had cheerfully introduced himself to us as ‘Billy Joe’ when we fetched him from the safe house where Pierre and Alain had been hiding him.
I had smiled and greeted him by extending my hand and saying in English, “Hi Billy, I’m Barbara. This is Marie. She and I will be seeing you safely to Switzerland tonight.”
“Hubba, Hubba,” he gushed in reply, looking Marie and me up and down twice and making exaggerated female figure tracings in the air with both hands. “Pinch me, ah think ah musta died and gone to Heaven. And y'ain't no Brit are ya Barb? Y'all's a Yankee! Ah can tell by yer talk! From one of them states way up north, ain’t ya? Wheweeeee! I’ll wager ya wouldn’t mind hookin’ up with a good ole Southern boy like me, would ya? Ah could sho ‘nuff keep a knockout body like yer’s warm at night. I reckon ya’d be one helluva nice roll in the hay, and yer cute French lady friend shored be welcome tah join right in too.”
“There’s no time for any of that Billy, not that there’s a chance in hell under any circumstances. This is serious business. We’re risking our lives for you! Now if you’re ready to go, we have a car outside. You’ll be concealed, and no matter what happens ... once we’re on the road you’ll stay hidden and keep that big yap shut. Understood?”
He looked at me like a puppy dog who had been kicked.
Thankfully, Alain moved quickly to break the awkwardness of the moment by shoving the American flyboy towards the exit while muttering a few choice French expletives.
And so we had made our way slowly out of the city, and as the hours passed by and the check-point stops multiplied, Billy became more and more impatient and rambunctious, calling out from time to time and bumping around. I found I was constantly shushing him and beginning to wonder how such an idiot could be trusted by the military to fly one of its planes.
The minutes ticked by. At long last the tail end of the convoy could be seen through the all-enveloping mist. It seemed like half the kraut army must have been on the move that night. I nudged Marie, who had dozed off at the wheel of the Citroen.
“When’re we gonna move again?” complained Billy loudly.
“Shhhhhhhh”
Just then a gloved hand rapped on the driver’s-side window. Marie opened it. A Wehrmacht Feldwebel leaned in, looked around and inquired in German whether we had much petrol in the Citroen.
“Nur ein bisschen,” I replied, shaking my head negatively for effect.
He looked at me in disbelief, shook his head negatively and promptly ordered us out of the vehicle.
Marie and I got out and stood together by the side of the vehicle. Two German soldiers came up to cover us with their machine pistols while another soldier began siphoning petrol from the Citroen’s fuel tank. I hoped Billy would have enough sense to keep quiet.
Having drained away nearly all of our remaining petrol into a Jerry can, the Germans lowered their weapons and waved goodbye as they hurried to board the last lorry in the convoy as it lumbered by. Moments later the Citroen’s motor, which had been idling the whole time, coughed and died ... and Billy called out “Hallo, anyone out theya?”
Marie and I exchanged glances. We both knew that we were a good distance short of our goal. Wordlessly we agreed ... that there was nothing we could do but walk it ... a dangerous proposition to be sure ... we weren’t at all dressed for being out in such weather, and it would soon be daylight. We had no contacts to turn to in this remote area. Like it or not, we were on our own and would just have to do the best we could.
So we set off in what had by then become a steady light drizzle. My shoes were soon soaked, as was my coat, and my feet had begun to hurt as my shoes were hardly designed for that kind of walking. Marie looked equally miserable. Only Billy seemed, much to my annoyance, buoyantly cheerful.
Whenever we encountered a vehicle during those early morning hours, which was only twice, we left the road and hid in the forest till it passed by.
After a while we got used to the walking. We reckoned that we were making good progress, and took heart in the fact that the rain had stopped and the sun had come out to warm us.
Then around midday our luck ran out. As we came to a bend in the road, we spotted another roadblock up ahead. Hurriedly, we scurried off the road to avoid being spotted, and cautiously peered ahead from the shelter of the ditch.
The roadblock had been set up on high ground in the midst of a cleared area, with open fields stretching out in all directions. It was manned by French police, but the Germans were there too, as evidenced by a pair of gray Kubelwagens parked nearby, and the presence of a half dozen gray-uniformed men ... undoubtedly SS. We were stymied. There was no easy way to get around the checkpoint without being seen.
Billy suggested that we try to bluff our way past. I nixed that as suicidal. I had become convinced by then that we had been betrayed ... there was simply no other reason why they would have set up a roadblock on that back country road other than they were expecting us!
It was Marie, though, who came up with a courageous and quite possibly self-sacrificing solution. She reasoned that the men manning the roadblock probably had no way of knowing that we were no longer driving the Citroen. They would be on the lookout for two women in just such a car, fitting our descriptions. So Marie proposed a “dérivation”. She would approach the checkpoint alone ... on foot ... using whatever feminine wiles she could muster to distract them while Billy and I took to the fields and attempted to work our way around unseen to the distant tree line on the far side.
Billy was enthusiastic. I was negative, knowing full well that Marie could well be arrested and interrogated once they determined who she was. And besides, I was doubtful that Billy and I could get by unseen even if Marie distracted them. There were too many of them. There was little cover in the open fields. And someone among them was likely to spot us.
But Marie was insistent.
I watched ... and Billy ogled her ... as she washed her face in the ditch, shed her coat and blouse, removed her bra and put her blouse back on with the front revealingly half-open, rearranged the kerchief on her head in the style of a French peasant girl, and hitched up her skirt. Without a word, she bussed me on the lips, pressed her identification papers into my hands, stepped out onto the road and sauntered off in the direction of the checkpoint, hands resting pertly on gently swaying hips.
A few moments later they spotted her. Having caught their attention, she waved cheerily and sashayed right up to them. I could tell by her body language that she was flirting with them as they questioned her, and saw her give them that classic Gallic shrug when they demanded her papers and she had none. I imagined her asking why a local country girl out for a simple sunny afternoon walk should bother to carry papers?
While all this was going on, Billie and I attempted to move across the fields ... bending low as we ran ... stopping every time we came upon a small depression. I knew we were terribly exposed. There simply wasn’t any cover and I suspected that it was only a matter of time before we were seen.
But then Marie did something remarkable. She suddenly took to her feet and fled across a field, headed away from us. The police and Germans gave immediate chase, shouting for her to halt and shooting warning shots over her head.
Billy and I, taking advantage of the distraction, took to our feet as well, racing openly for the tree line at the far end of the fields.
It worked. We made it to there safely ... but they had Marie!
As I looked back, I saw them run her down and knock her to the ground, and then drag her ... kicking and screaming ... back to the checkpoint, where the Germans beat her, bundled her into a Kubelwagen and drove off.
Poor, brave Marie. I knew too well from my SOE training what horrors lay in wait for her once they delivered her to the Gestapo in Lyon. I also knew she would resist telling them anything until she could be reasonably certain Billy and I were safely in Switzerland.
Behind me, Billy was happily chuckling over the fact we had gotten away.
I spun on him and scornfully slapped the idiot across his fool face.
“You do realize Marie will be tortured and quite likely suffer an unimaginably horrible death, and she’ll have done it all for you?” I scolded through gritted teeth, adding “I doubt you’re worth it.”
“But .... “
“Shut up, and get moving. The Swiss border isn’t far and now that they have Marie, I’ve no choice but to cross over with you.”
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