The Secret Ministry of Ag. & Fish (17 page)

He was a lovely old man. I will never forget him. But then all the survivors were unforgettable. When the ceremony was over we were taken behind the wall where the wreaths were gathered before
the unveiling to the cell block. It was eerie to walk along that narrow passageway bordered by the high stone wall and see the row of now-empty cells. One could imagine what they had once been
like: teeming with starving, frightened human beings, most of them knowing that they faced a gruesome death.

Walking behind me was a tall man leaning on a stick. He tapped me on the shoulder. ‘That was my cell,’ he said simply. I turned to look at him, then back at the now empty cell,
devoid of furniture except for one single iron bed. No covers. No mattress. Just the rusting springs.

‘It’s very small,’ I murmured.

‘There were three of us in it,’ he went on. ‘I’m a Dane. SOE Danish Section. There was another Dane and a Canadian in the cell with me.’ I looked up in
surprise.

‘Wherever did they put three beds?’ I enquired naively. ‘There’s no room.’

‘There weren’t three beds,’ he explained. ‘That cell is just as it was in 1945. No furniture except the iron bed. We took it in turn to sleep on it. Otherwise we slept on
the floor.’

‘You must have been cold,’ I sympathized, looking at the dirty cement floor, ‘especially in winter.’

‘Freezing,’ he agreed, ‘and damned hungry.’

I glanced at the number above the door: 20. I knew that those in the first nineteen cells had been executed. He understood my glance without my having to voice any further questions.

‘When those in number 19 were taken out we began to be very worried. They were all Brits. I know because we used to tap messages through the walls of the cells and whisper into the air
vents. That’s how we knew the Allies weren’t far away. Luckily the Americans arrived and liberated the camp before the guards had time to liberate us.’ He sighed. ‘But too
late for the poor Brits.’

He turned round to where a heavy book was open on a ledge.

‘Look,’ he said flipping through the pages. ‘‘This is the list of prisoners. There’s my name.’ He pointed to the page and then to the badge on his lapel.

I meant to ask whether it wasn’t difficult to return to a place which held such painful memories, but we were being moved on to the crematorium and the large mound containing the remains
of 500 prisoners, all shot at random in one afternoon, and the moving memorial huts each dedicated to the different groups represented in the camp. I found the Jewish hut the most affecting.

I returned home from that trip a changed woman. So many things we think important and get into a fuss about now seemed so futile. When I arrived in Paris there was a woman waiting with me at the
airport for the bus to take us into town. It was late arriving. Although the officials on duty apologized, she fussed and fumed and threatened every official in sight with dire consequences because
she had been kept waiting. I thought perhaps she had a train or a plane from another airport to catch, but no, when I asked her she said she lived in Paris. But she wanted to get home! We all did.
‘It’s the principle of the thing,’ she fumed. ‘It’s unpardonable. That bus should be here, waiting for us.’ She took a deep breath and cast a venomous glance at
the poor official who had been the recipient of her anger. ‘The company will be hearing from my husband first thing in the morning,’ she threatened. ‘Then some heads will
roll.’ The bus came to a standstill beside us at that minute. I let her get in first and took a seat as far away from her as possible. Perhaps a week earlier, I thought to myself, I would
have agreed with her ‘principles’. But that evening, as we waited in the sunshine, I felt sorry for her. After what I had seen, I couldn’t understand how anyone could be so
petty.

A drop could be cancelled at the last minute, sometimes even when the agent was about to board the plane. This need not have been for any dramatic reason but simply because fog
had suddenly risen over the Channel, and since the pilot flew without lights he obviously couldn’t fly in a fog! And for the same reason drops could only take place during what was called
‘the moon period’ – nine or ten nights a month. If the warning came at the beginning of the moon period, the agent was hidden in a nearby manor house and a second attempt to leave
would be scheduled for the following night. But if it were the last night of the moon, there was nothing he could do but return to London . . . and wait three weeks.

Henri Diacono was scheduled to drop as a radio operator on 17 December 1943. He finally got away, after three abortive attempts, at the beginning of March 1944. Desperate to be in the field
doing the work he had spent almost nine months training for, like Lise de Baissac on her first mission, Henri agreed to ‘drop blind’ on a moonlit night and make his own way to his
réseau,
rather than hang around London any longer waiting, perhaps again in vain, for the next ‘moon’. On landing he therefore was obliged to bury his parachute and
flying suit, find his way to the nearest railway station and link up with his Resistance group.

One woman agent had seven abortive attempts to leave on seven successive nights before finally having to return to London.

This return to base after a failed attempt for whatever reason – unfavourable weather conditions or the infiltration of the receiving
réseau
– was very difficult for
the agents. They were hyped-up, adrenaline flowing freely, and suddenly they were back in London, obliged to hang around for three weeks until the next moon. When this happened the agents were
usually put up at 32 Wigmore Street, a house that had been taken over by SOE for use as a hostel. There was a lounge and a bar which served bar snacks, but no hot meals, so the agents often went to
Casa Pepe in Soho. Another popular restaurant was Chez Rose. But the favourite was Chez Céleste. Céleste was a Frenchwoman who served steak without requiring the client to hand over
food coupons. It was horse! Even in the lean wartime years no bona fide, dyed-in-the-wool Brit would touch it. But the French had no such scruples! Not only was Céleste very popular with F
Section agents, BCRA staff also patronized her. I’m not sure the general would have approved!

The only trouble with Céleste was that her restaurant was not licensed to sell wines and spirits. But the problem was solved by Monsieur Berlemont, who ran the York Minster, the
‘French’ pub opposite Céleste’s restaurant. So, having ordered their steak, the agents would take a jug, provided by Céleste, and nip across the road to the York
Minster for a ‘fill-up’ of red wine, which they then carried back to their table, where their steak would be waiting. Monsieur Berlemont was famous for his pub but also because of his
magnificent moustache. It was reputed to be the longest moustache in London and measured twenty inches across from end to end. I imagine he must have been obliged to go through a door sideways.

Perhaps these touches of home and the combined ministrations of Céleste and Monsieur Berlemont helped soothe the agents’ feelings of frustration after a failed drop. They were
frustrated, many of them very uptight and often angry. They knew it was nobody’s fault, but some expressed anger all the same. I like to think it was at this time that we women at HQ were
able to help them. They had no one else they could talk to, no one else on whom they could vent their frustration and their anger, no one with whom they could share their apprehensions. They were
instructed not even to tell their wives about their mission, but I’m sure many of them did. I would have been furious. Perhaps furious is not the right word. I would have been disappointed
and hurt if my husband had not confided in me. It would have shown such a lack of trust. After all, what woman who loves her husband would gossip about his clandestine activities, even to her best
friend, knowing that in doing so she put his life at risk?

So, if they had to return to London and wait for the next moon, we tried to help them cope with their disappointment and frustration at this setback, to take their minds off the future, to think
about other things – pretend, in fact, that it wasn’t happening. We went to cinemas, theatres, dined in good restaurants, danced in nightclubs. But, looking back, I cannot help
wondering whether that was what they really needed – or wanted.

Like all children born in the 1920s, when I was six weeks old I was christened with great pomp (so I’m told: I don’t remember a great deal about it!) in Valetta, the capital of
Malta, where I was born, taken to church every Sunday morning afterwards, taught to say my prayers by my bedside every night and was confirmed at fifteen. My confirmation was a low-key ceremony,
not at all like my children’s
communion solennelle
in the Catholic church in France, where the girls are decked out like brides and the boys like novice monks and there is a great
family celebration lunch afterwards, during which the communicants are showered with splendid gifts, most of which bear no relation at all to the event. I was confirmed in Wales, where I was at
school at the time, and I remember taking the instruction beforehand very seriously. I even considered becoming a nun, but quickly gave up that idea when I discovered the charms of the opposite
sex.

My confirmation ceremony was held in the evening, the bishop was there, and my mother came for the church service. I did receive a few presents. An ivory-backed prayer book and a beautiful soft
black-leather bible with gilt-edged pages. It lay on a shelf for years, gathering dust, though I did proudly carry the prayer book to church every Sunday morning. But there was no sumptuous
post-confirmation meal. No one had sumptuous meals. It was wartime! After I married, I continued the church and bedtime prayer habit with my children. But it was only a habit, like cleaning my
teeth. I never believed that my prayers went any farther than the ceiling and then bounced back off the top of my head.

I have since become a committed Christian, and it has changed my life. And I cannot help wondering whether, if during the war I had had the strong faith I now possess, I would have been able to
help those frustrated, sometimes apprehensive departing agents more. I shared many confidences with departing agents. Many of them were married with young children and they told me of their
worries, their fears for the future of their families. Their own fear of torture and of death. But all I could offer them were the bright lights . . . and platitudes.

I remember one agent in particular. He was a Jew, a radio operator, and he was leaving on a second mission. Two missions were not unusual. I think the record was seven. But for a Jew to go at
all was dangerous, yet many of them did, though a second mission, especially as a radio operator, was almost suicidal. I was with him on the evening before he left. There was no romantic
association, I was merely keeping him company. After all, he was an ‘old man’: he was thirty-five!

During the evening he drew out of his pocket a small velvet case and opened it. Inside was a slim gold chain holding a star of David above a dove of peace. He held the box out to me. ‘I
would like you to have this,’ he said simply. I was taken unawares, confused at being offered what, after all, was an expensive piece of jewellery.

‘I’m very touched,’ I stammered, ‘but I couldn’t possibly accept it.’ He looked so disappointed.

‘Please do accept it,’ he pleaded. ‘Please do. My entire family in Paris has perished in a concentration camp. I have no one left in the world, and I would like to think that
someone remembers me, and perhaps thinks of me while I am over there.’ I was young at the time, embarrassed by his tragic revelation, and at a loss as to what to reply.

‘In that case,’ I said at last, ‘I will take it and keep it safely for you until you return.’

I have often wondered since whether he was trying to tell me something. He may well have been a messianic Jew. Was he asking me, without putting it into so many words, whether I also was a
believer? Asking me perhaps to pray for him? To pray with him now before he left? I’ll never know . . . because he didn’t return.