The Spy Net (10 page)

In the Chimay company there were four platoons: Hirson, Chimay, Charleroi, and one composed of couriers. Gobeaux was too well versed in spying to contact personally any but his principal agents. But, imbued with the military spirit of the ‘White Lady’, he felt it his duty to pass on a continual round of inspection, checking up, without their knowing it, the reports of the train-watchers, the itinerant spies and other agents in his area. As head of a syndicate of sabot makers, he had an excuse to travel around in his sector, visiting the members of this quaint industry – the manufacture of wooden shoes for the peasants of the countryside. (Most of the members made the shoes in their own homes, delivering them to syndicate headquarters in Chimay, where their sale was attended to.) But this excuse only held for occupied Belgium. Somehow he had to reach the area covered by the Hirson Platoon in France.

Gobeaux knew that if he kept slipping across the frontier, he would eventually be caught; so he cleverly bought a small strip of the Neumont Woods, just across the border, and there installed some of his sabot makers. He then had an excuse to get a pass. This was duly obtained from the
Kommandantur
, or German police post, at Trélon. The pass only read for the Neumont Woods, but getting across the frontier was half the battle – he could use his ingenuity to reach the rest of the Hirson area. One day, while on a visit to Pierre in Trélon, less sly than usual, he was arrested by one of the local Secret Police.

‘Where are you going?’ asked the plain-clothes man. ‘Your pass?’

Gobeaux, who had already thought up a plan of action, showed his pass.

‘This is no good – you are in Trélon. It’s only valid for Neumont,’ said the secret agent, holding the pass in his hand. ‘You’ll have to come along with me to the
Kommandantur
.’ ‘That’s exactly where I was heading,’ Gobeaux assured him. The plainclothes man accompanied Gobeaux to the
Kommandantur
, and there explained to the lieutenant in charge, the circumstances of the arrest.

‘Well, what do you want?’ said the lieutenant, looking at Gobeaux suspiciously.

‘It’s about my pass,’ replied Gobeaux, handing it to him. ‘When I showed it to the sentry at the frontier, he said it wasn’t valid – the rubber stamp is affixed in the wrong place.’ The lieutenant examining the pass: ‘The sentry is a fool.’ ‘That’s possible, Lieutenant. You can tell him that; but I didn’t dare dispute with him.’

The lieutenant, noticing that the pass had in fact been somewhat carelessly stamped, stamped it again, and handed it back to Gobeaux.

On many other occasions, Gobeaux’s quick brain and brazen effrontery saved him from disaster.

A
BOUT THIS TIME
a serious catastrophe befell the ‘White Lady’; the best of planning could not have averted it.

Chance, which cannot be gauged in advance, put the Secret Police on their track. An anonymous letter, written by a jealous relative who had never even heard of the ‘White Lady’ started the train of events which ended so tragically.

Marcelle, the girl denounced in the letter, had left occupied France without a passport, and had entered domestic service in Liège. Thus far her planning was not at fault; but when she set her cap at a rich man, who had money to leave, decidedly
she took a false step. Landwerlen, the lieutenant in charge of the Secret Police at Liège, was daily receiving such letters, and he did not attach special importance to this particular one; but he had two men who happened to be free, Wilhelm Muller and another agent, and so he sent them off to bring the girl in for questioning.

On their arrival at Wandre, where Reyman, Marcelle’s employer, was living, Muller and his companion found no one at home. Inquiries among the neighbours brought them the information that Reyman might be at the Villa des Hirondelles, a house which he had rented to some tenants. The villa happened to be the secretariat of the ‘White Lady’ – the place where all their reports were typed out and prepared for transmission to Holland.

The ‘White Lady’ was prepared for a raid. The villa stood in its own grounds on the banks of the Meuse, and in the rear, out of sight of the front door, a boat was moored, furnished with oars all set for an escape down the river. In the villa there were twenty-eight guns, and 10,000 rounds of ammunition; the front windows were heavily shuttered, and a strong oak door barred the front entrance. One person, forewarned, could have held a dozen Secret Police at bay until all compromising documents had been destroyed, and the other inmates of the villa had escaped. But luck for once was against the ‘White Lady’.

The two plain-clothes men had just reached the thick hedge which enclosed the villa, when they met, face to face, two of the ‘White Lady’ couriers coming out – they had just deposited their reports at the villa. Muller gruffly demanded: ‘Who lives here?’

Completely taken aback, the couriers, Franchimont, and van
den Berg, made no reply. Muller, immediately sensing there was something wrong, pulled out his gun, and ordered them to follow him.

In the interior of the villa there were four persons: Madame Goessels, who was in charge of the secretariat; Rosa, a servant who worked by the day, and who cleaned up the villa twice a week; and in a back room, from whose windows they could easily have escaped to the boat, there were two ‘White Lady’ agents, Louis and Antony Collard, who had just arrived from Belgian Luxembourg and were stopping for the night. The stenographers happened to be away. Of the whole group, Madame Goessels, a buxom woman of about thirty-five years of age, endowed with extraordinary vitality, was the dominant character. Engaged in every form of patriotic activity since the beginning of the war, she was experienced in Secret Police methods, and so far had proved more than a match for them.

Muller knocked at the door. The voice of Madame Goessels was heard asking ‘Who’s there?’ Muller, experienced at his work, stuck his gun into Franchimont’s side, and in a whisper ordered him to reply.

Madame Goessels, hearing the voice of one whom she had just let out of the villa, was completely disarmed. She opened the door. In a glance, she took in the situation.

The reports which Franchimont and van den Berg had brought, had been hidden in a sofa, forced down between the seat and one of the sides; but Madame Goessels knew that the two Collards were in their room, copying out some information which they had just brought back from Luxembourg. She had just left their room and had seen the reports spread out on a
table. Her one thought was to warn them. But how? Their door was closed. To gain time, she stood in the doorway, and from there, in as loud a voice as possible, she answered Muller’s questions:

‘Does Monsieur Reyman live here?’

‘No. You are at the house of Madame Goessels.’

‘Have you ever been arrested?’

‘No. Neither by you, nor by the Belgians.’

‘You are Mademoiselle Marcelle?’

‘No, I am Madame Goessels.’

‘You are French?’

‘No, I am a Belgian.’

But Muller was suspicious. Franchimont and van den Berg were young men. Perhaps she was hiding refugees here, and so pushing her aside, he and his companion entered to search the villa.

Unfortunately, the two Collard brothers heard nothing of this dialogue, so engrossed were they in their work; it was only when they heard footsteps outside their door that they realised something was wrong. Both of them had pocketbooks on their person containing incriminating papers. Antony had the presence of mind to throw his out of the window; but Louis was caught unawares. In any case, spread on the table were the reports, and these the Germans immediately seized.

While this was going on, Madame Goessels slipped upstairs – she had a plan. Quickly grasping a gun, she stuck it in her blouse, and waited on the landing for one of the Secret Police to mount; she knew the other would remain below to guard the prisoners. It was Muller who appeared. ‘Trying to hide something?’ he said as he went into her bedroom to make a search. This was the
opportunity she was waiting for. Quickly she closed the door from the outside, and tried to turn the key. But Muller was too quick for her; he wrenched the door open covering her with his gun. The search of the villa was now continued, and with the additional discovery of the guns and the ammunition the Secret Police thought they had all the evidence they needed.

Handcuffed and tied together with some rope which they found in the villa, the prisoners were taken to the police post at Wandre; from there Muller telephoned for reinforcements. These were not long in coming, and the prisoners were taken off to the Liège police post for questioning. While Muller and his companion were away making their report, the prisoners were confined in a room under the guard of a German soldier. Madame Goessels was quick to seize her opportunity. Already, she had a defence planned, and to each in a few short sentences, she whispered their part.

To Franchimont: ‘I am your mistress. You have often visited me at the villa. You know nothing about my activities.’

To van den Berg: ‘You are Franchimont’s friend. You dropped in on a casual visit.’

To the two Collards: ‘You are two of my lodgers. I don’t know who you are, nor anything about your activities. Remember your oath as a soldier. Reveal nothing.’

Her own defence had also been decided on. She would explain the guns and ammunition by claiming that she had planned on aiding refugees to cross the frontier, and that the guns were intended for them.

After they had waited for an hour, Landwerlen was ready to put them through a preliminary interrogation. Each told the story
they had agreed on. In addition, the two Collards explained the reports in their possession by stating that having decided to cross the frontier, they had compiled the reports with the intention of selling them to an espionage service in Holland. They had a twofold reason for putting up this defence. First of all, it would divert attention away from the ‘White Lady’; secondly, according to German law at that time, a spy could not be executed unless it had definitely been proved that he had either directly or indirectly communicated with the enemy – the intention to do so was not sufficient. The first interrogation completed, the prisoners were removed to the prison of St Leonard.

The Secret Police believed Franchimont’s and van den Berg’s story, and released them shortly afterwards. But the two Collards were doomed from the start. Many of the reports were in code, which in itself was evidence of a spy organisation, and, in addition, the information contained in Louis’ pocketbook hopelessly compromised them. As regards Madame Goessels, Landwerlen was convinced she was culpable of espionage, and although he had no direct proof, he was determined to trap her in some way.

Through their counter-espionage section, the ‘White Lady’ had immediately been informed of the arrests; within two days on 10 March 1918, through agents Fauquenot and Creusen, they were already in touch with two of the prisoners. The two Collards were in solitary confinement and could not be reached. Fauquenot’s first message, written in code, warned them of the reports hidden in the sofa:

Reyman had an excuse to enter the villa, he was the owner; and it was he who not only rescued the reports from the sofa, but found Antony Collard’s pocketbook still lying where he had thrown it.

The two Collards, young men, twenty-one and twenty years of age, were born in the beautiful little village of Tintigny, in the valley of the Semois, at the southern tip of Belgian Luxembourg. Here, far from large towns, they had lived a peaceful life in a happy home of seven children. Stirred by the call of their country, they had come to Liège in September 1917, to escape across the border to join the Belgian Army, and it was here that the ‘White Lady’ contacted them.

It was not difficult to persuade these two young patriots to return to Tintigny to organise an espionage group in their area. They were completely successful, and at the time of their arrest they had not only covered the whole of the Virton section with a spy network and had mounted a train-watching post at Longuyon on the important Longuyon–Sedan line just across the border in occupied France, but they had also started a penetration into the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. In addition to this role as organisers, they had also acted as couriers linking up the Virton section with Liège.

It was for this reason that their arrest immediately severed all
connection between the ‘White Lady’ and the Virton section. Not only were there no means of collecting the reports, but it was impossible for the ‘White Lady’ to warn the members of the group what had happened. The situation was all the more tragic because several of their names were written down in the papers contained in Louis Collard’s pocketbook. The Germans were quick to act, and the arrest of Collard Senior, the young men’s father, Monsieur and Madame Bastin, and Abbé Arnould – all of the Virton area – followed in quick succession.

The Secret Police now had a group of seven prisoners in St Leonard. They were sure they could tear sufficient information out of them to put them on the track of the main organisation. But as the weeks went by, they had to admit defeat. The four newly arrested members knew nothing about the ‘White Lady’ organisation. Madame Goessels kept repeating the same refugee story, until they got tired of questioning her; and the Collard brothers remained heroic in their silence. Every third-degree method was tried; and not even ‘V’ the most successful stool-pigeon in St Leonard, who after the war was condemned by the French to Devil’s Island, was able to move the two martyred brothers to betrayal.

With the arrests of Collard Senior, a widower, and of the Bastins, two families of small children were left at home without parents. Marie-Thérèse, a girl of eighteen, the oldest of the five remaining Collard children, not knowing what had happened to their father and brothers, was left in a state of torment. Franticly, she ran to the German police post at Florenville. There they refused to give her any information. Eventually, in despair she set out to see her cousin Duchesnes in Namur, accompanied by Irene Bastin, a girl of the same age. Perhaps, he could give her
some news. Duchesnes sent the two young girls to Liège, and there, through mutual friends, they managed to get into touch with a member of the ‘White Lady’.

The ‘White Lady’ gave the two young girls what comfort it could, and immediately took steps to care for the children of the two families. At the same time, through Marie-Thérèse, they received enough indications to re-establish connexions with the unarrested members of the Virton section, and to set them working again. Marie-Thérèse and Irene Bastin were enrolled as members of the ‘White Lady’, and themselves undertook to make the necessary contact between the ‘White Lady’ courier and the agents in their area. The following is the letter which the ‘White Lady”s courier brought back on returning from his first trip:

When this letter was written Marie-Thérèse had not yet heard the tragic news of what had happened at Liège the day before.

Shortly after this the Secret Police discovered that the two young girls had been to Namur and Liège. They were imprisoned for several weeks; and it was only when the Secret Police realised that they could obtain no information from them that they were released.

In the meanwhile the investigations of the Secret Police in Liège had come to an end. There was no more information to be obtained. The prisoners were put on trial. Becker, the member of the Secret Police who had done most of the investigating, was the chief witness for the prosecution. The military prosecuting attorney demanded the following sentences: against Madame Goessels, and Louis and Antony Collard, the death penalty; against the father, Léon Collard, twelve years’ hard labour; against Abbé Arnould, fifteen years’ hard labour; against Joseph Bastin, ten years’ hard labour; against Madame Bastin, two years’ hard labour. Two German lawyers represented the prisoners. They confined themselves chiefly to pleading for a diminution of the penalties demanded.