All the King's Men (8 page)

After the war, he would boast of having been seen by ‘someone high up’ over lunch at the Savoy (Dansey’s haunt). It seems more likely that he was interviewed at St Ermin’s Hotel, where MI6 were seeing hundreds of prospective candidates during 1940–1.

There is no record of the details of his interview, so we have no way of knowing how he might have recommended himself. One must assume he mentioned his experience in France, and possibly the kind of contacts he enjoyed there, though MI6 sources suggest that he did not make any mention of his contacts with a particular German intelligence officer in Paris. Perhaps MI6 already knew it. We will never know. But like most good gentlemen’s clubs, MI6 had certain standards. They preferred candidates ‘who were not over-burdened with brains and had plenty of solid irony between the ears’.
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His intellectual qualifications apart, MI6 were not keen on his manners.

Bodington had an unfortunate reputation as a heavy drinker who had a somewhat irregular relationship with money. If Bodington had any money, he spent it so quickly he was never long from his natural state, which was broke. He would borrow from people, two or three times over, neglecting to clear his debts first and sometimes never at all. Even Déricourt, who was always prepared to cut a few corners, drew the line at unpaid bills. On his visits to Paris in the autumn of 1940, Déricourt discovered a trail of Bodington’s debts stretching right across town.

MI6 did not give any specific reason for turning down his application (they never do), but in due course he was informed that ‘no opening could be found for his services’.
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However, by any definition, MI6 is a very unorthodox organization. Just because an individual had been refused a position did not mean he would not be employed (or
used) at some later date. MI6’s arrangements in this area were extremely grey. There was the establishment of ‘officers’, a position somewhere between a military and civil service rank, and then there were those whom MI6 paid for services rendered. People who were employed on the latter basis were usually engaged in non-attributable work.

Following his unsuccessful interview with MI6, Bodington’s name was passed to L. A. Humphries at SOE. Leslie Humphries was one of the officers from MI6’s Section D who had been moved across to SOE. Prior to the collapse of France, he had been the Section D representative in Paris. Whether he was acquainted with Bodington in those days is not known, but he was well known to Dansey. Humphries was SOE’s first Head of French Section, and was engaged in building the department that would, at least theoretically, have the most crucial role to play in the war. Bodington moved across to SOE in December 1940.
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V
To England

By November 1941, Déricourt was flying regularly from Marseilles to Vichy and back for the government airline SCLAM. Life with Jeannot had settled into something of a routine; he picked up a little extra cash now and then on the black market and he was back in the company of pilots.
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Air France had shifted the centre of its operations down to Marseilles and was trying to keep open just a few remaining routes to the closest and most secure French colonies. One evening, at a bar the pilots shared, Déricourt listened to a fantastic story being told by one of the Air France pilots. Léon Doulet claimed that he’d been in touch with the British, who were going to get him out of France so that he could fly for the RAF. At first Déricourt couldn’t believe him, but then Doulet told his story.
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He had been caught up in one of the bitterest and most unlikely conflicts of the war, the Syrian campaign. Unlikely, because it involved French fighting French. In a gesture to the Nazis, the Vichy government had volunteered a large French force to assist the Germans in an attempt to capture the Persian oilfields. In Syria and the Lebanon, that force was met and defeated in June 1941 by a combined contingent made up of British, Australian and Free French units. They were some of the toughest and most bitterly fought engagements of the war and led one observer to remark, ‘If the French had fought like that in France, in May 1940, then perhaps…’ – but that wasn’t part of the pilot’s story.

Léon Doulet was at that time flying the route from
Marseilles to Athens and Aleppo. At Aleppo he and a group of colleagues from Air France were overrun by British forces. Representing Air Intelligence at that time was Wing Commander Arthur Forbes, Lord Granar, the man involved with transporting aircraft during the Spanish Civil War. He was summoned to Aleppo, with Robert Maxwell of BO AC, to see if they could recruit any of the AF pilots.
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Lord Granar made the formal approach, but his appeal fell on stony ground. All the Vichy French personnel in the Middle East at that time felt very much under the influence of the commander of Vichy forces, who made it clear that anyone who crossed over to the British would be guilty of treason.

One pilot out of the whole group did indicate an interest in going to Britain. That was Doulet, who recognized Forbes from the ‘planes for Spain’ deal. Forbes explained to him that BO AC were trying to staff up a new route to Stockholm, but when it came to it Doulet hedged a bit, saying he first had to return to Marseilles to settle things with his family. Forbes understood. He then gave Doulet the name of a contact in Marseilles who was in touch with London and would make the arrangements. The contact was someone at the US Consulate.
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Déricourt listened with great interest. It sounded so fantastic, but it also sounded very exciting. They talked the thing through late into the night and after a few days, when Doulet was satisfied Déricourt was sincere, he agreed to take him to the American contact. The following day Déricourt and Doulet called on Mr H. M. Donaldson of the Visa Division at the US Consulate. With immense charm and conviction Déricourt trotted out his lie. He explained that he was an Air France pilot, that he had recently returned from Syria, where he had been approached by ‘Forbes’, and he wanted to ‘go to England to fly for the Allies’.
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H. M. Donaldson was a functionary of the US State Department and, at the same time, a tiny link in MI6’s
intelligence chain. He had a secure line of communication with London, through Washington, plus local links with what he referred to as ‘the British underground’, meaning Dansey’s escape service in Marseilles.
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Donaldson believed everything Déricourt told him and sent his name on to London. He then sent Déricourt up to Vichy to call on Commander A. C. J. Savalot.
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Abel Savalot was the US Naval Attaché and Ambassador Leahy’s assistant. Savalot’s own deputy, Thomas G. Cassidy, was the COI station chief (US intelligence). Between the two of them, Savalot and Cassidy co-ordinated American intelligence operations in Vichy. Savalot’s office on the third floor of the embassy building was right next door to the cipher room, which had direct communications with Washington and MI6 in London. Admiral Leahy, the American Ambassador, had a rather old-world view of all the intrigue and secrecy that went on in Vichy. He could barely tolerate the presence of intelligence agents in his own Diplomatic Staff, but the nightly comings and goings of the French were just about the limit.

A number of Frenchmen who were escaping came to the Embassy to tell me what they needed. Of course, this was done very quietly. Some had received their escape from occupied France by purchase or influence, and were trying to get away. I did not supply them with any false credentials, they would of course get the papers elsewhere! They may have obtained forged papers. I don’t know. I did not want to know.
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Savalot was interested in Déricourt’s position with SCLAM and encouraged him to pay a regular visit to his office during his trips to Vichy. In the course of their conversations, he asked Déricourt about the routes he flew and the aircraft he saw on the ground at various airports, a description of their markings etc. – very general intelligence.
Occasionally he gave Déricourt a package to take down to Donaldson in Marseilles, and Donaldson did likewise.
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Déricourt was back in the courier business. He didn’t mind, the Americans were a new experience and his contacts with them increased his prestige. He had no choice really; the British seemed in no hurry to get him out of France.

On 7 December the Japanese attacked the US Seventh Fleet at Pearl Harbor, and three days later Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. Savalot’s office in Vichy acquired a new strategic importance. The Germans, who had been incensed by the US presence in France, decided to open their own consulate in Vichy to counter what they claimed were America’s ‘intolerable espionage activities in France’. In fact, the creation of a German Consulate seemed only to increase the number of SD men in the southern zone and for the next twelve months they did nothing overt to hinder the Americans.

Déricourt was now in the unique position of having secret contacts with both German and American intelligence officers. Whether either side was able to exploit that situation is open to speculation. There is no evidence of it in the archives. Déricourt, on the other hand, certainly made the best of his situation. He occasionally visited a brothel in Toulouse that was operated by the SD and he made regular trips up to Paris, where he was seen in restaurants in the company of Germans. Meanwhile, his black-marketeering flourished.

Déricourt’s relationship with the Americans had settled into a pattern, too. Each week he would turn up to see Savalot to hear if there was any news from the British, each week they would shake their heads. He became such a familiar face at the Embassy in Avenue Thermale that the staff began to call him Henry.
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Déricourt had an iron in every fire, for apart from the occasional piece of courier work for the Americans, he also delivered material for his old friend in the Deuxième Bureau, André Borrie. Borrie,
like a lot of Bureau officers, was secretly in touch with MI6 – until about April 1942, when he died in mysterious circumstances. From 1940 to 1943, Marseilles was infested with espionage agents of every nationality. It would have been very difficult for someone like Henri not to have worked for both sides of the fence.

Perhaps in an attempt to introduce some order into his life, Déricourt asked Jeannot to marry him. They had lived together at 50 Rue Curiol, in Marseilles, ever since the Armistice. In November Jeannot’s divorce finally came through, and they were married on 13 December. He did not tell her anything about his trips to the US Consulate, nor did he mention that he had recently asked them to try to smuggle him out of the country.

During the spring of 1942, Déricourt began flying to destinations outside Metropolitan France. He flew to Tunis, Algiers, Istanbul and, occasionally, Turin and Milan.
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From French North Africa he would report regularly to the Americans on the numbers of German aircraft he saw, the kind of shore artillery and anti-aircraft defences. North Africa had recently become important because of Allied plans for an operation in that area.

Since the Americans had entered the war, they had been involved in a long and sometimes tedious debate with the British over what their first common objective should be. In June and July of 1942, that debate warmed up dramatically, as the Americans insisted on an invasion of France as soon as possible. For them, the war in Europe was hopefully going to be a swift affair, so they could concentrate on the Pacific and the Japanese. The British, unfortunately, did not see it that way. With the memories of Dunkirk still fresh, they felt in no way ready for any kind of assault on France. However, an attack on French North Africa seemed far more realistic and feasible. The British argument eventually prevailed and Allied intelligence-gathering in North Africa intensified.

Meanwhile, Déricourt’s name had been circulated
amongst Claude Dansey’s contacts in Marseilles. Ian Garrow, who established the escape line from Marseilles, was also a link with the local agents of the Deuxième Bureau. In May 1942, Garrow paid a surprise visit to Déricourt to ask him if he knew the whereabouts of André Borrie. Déricourt told Garrow he’d heard that Borrie was dead. Garrow already knew that and asked if he knew anything about some documents Borrie had been carrying at the time of his death. Déricourt knew nothing. Garrow was aware that Déricourt did a lot of courier work for the Americans and for the Deuxième Bureau and perhaps for that reason had no qualms about revealing that he was an MI6 man. He asked Déricourt if he knew the address the documents had been sent to. Déricourt shook his head; he didn’t even know Borrie had been working for the British. He took the opportunity to ask Garrow to help him get to Britain and went through the whole Syrian story for his benefit. Garrow listened but said nothing, thanked him and then left.
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By this stage, London was very familiar with the names Déricourt and Doulet – and their story about Syria.
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However, the Americans could not get their requests any further than James Langley at MI9, because as a rule aliens were not put onto British escape lines unless they were already working for a British service. It was not an operation run for refugees, it was a top-grade service for British agents and officers. However, it says a lot for Déricourt’s and Doulet’s persistence that they kept up their visits to the Americans in Marseilles and Vichy for well over nine months. The Americans pointed out the sort of courier work Déricourt had done and Garrow reported his connections with the Deuxième Bureau. Finally Langley relented and in what he described as a ‘quid-pro-quo for help the Americans had given us’ agreed to put Déricourt and Doulet on the escape line.
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