The Vatican Pimpernel (16 page)

O'Flaherty smiled down at the Ambassador and in a cheerful voice, which he raised so others in the room could hear, replied, ‘Your Excellency is too considerate. I will certainly think about what you have said … sometimes.'
¹³

At that time also O'Flaherty was summoned to a meeting with Monsignor Montini. This presumably arose as a result of a complaint from the German authorities and maybe critics of O'Flaherty's activities within the Vatican.

As we have seen, the population of the Vatican is usually in the order of 500. It is reasonable to assume that, at this stage, everyone living in the Vatican had a fair degree of knowledge of what the Monsignor was doing. Certainly Montini knew, and obviously given the potential consequences if these activities became known, one can be certain he discussed this matter with the Pope, prior to meeting with O'Flaherty. We do not know the details of what transpired between Montini and the Monsignor but presumably the Irishman was instructed to curtail his activities. It seems fairly certain that if he were given a firm instruction to stop completely he would have followed it, out of a sense of loyalty to his Church. In any event if, having received such an instruction, he disobeyed it, there were many options open to the Vatican authorities to deal with the situation. It would have been a simple matter to transfer him either to the diocese in South Africa to which he was attached or indeed home to Ireland to take up other duties. Years later, the only clarification that O'Flaherty would offer was that ‘I had my knuckles rapped pretty hard.'
¹⁵

Derry noted that subsequently O'Flaherty greatly reduced his trips outside the Vatican, so it can be presumed that this was the directive he received from Montini.

Another development at that time related to Derry, who was still living in O'Flaherty's accommodation in the German College. The German Rector along with all the others in the College must have been aware for quite some time as to what exactly was going on. Presumably acting on complaints from the German authorities via the Vatican, he had decided he had to ask Derry to leave.

Both Derry and the Monsignor knew that the Rector, who was a German, was not a Nazi sympathiser so they concluded that he must have received some sort of warning from either the German or the Vatican authorities. Derry's immediate reaction was that he would have to seek accommodation in one of the billets used by escapees. However, at that stage it was quite clear that the Germans were well aware of Derry's activities as much as O'Flaherty's and so if he went anywhere in the city, it was only a matter of time before he would be picked up. The only alternative was to move him into D'Arcy Osborne's accommodation within the Vatican and so, donning the Monsignor's clerical garb once more, the British army Major moved, on 12 January 1944, to the accommodation in which he was to remain until the Allies took over Rome.

Once he had settled into his new accommodation, Derry's first task was to see how those who had been captured were getting on. He asked D'Arcy Osborne to arrange for the Swiss diplomatic staff to visit the prison and see what could be done for Furman and the others, but this proved to be a bad idea. Many of the prisoners were held under false names and indeed in some cases the Germans did not even know who they were. However, if the Swiss went into the prison and visited these men, the Germans would immediately want to know how the Swiss were aware of their existence, which in turn would almost definitely lead back to the British Legation and O'Flaherty. This would have the effect of totally compromising the Vatican and creating huge difficulties. Of those who had been taken, the Germans particularly targeted the Yugoslav, Bruno Buchner, and some days later the Monsignor reported to his colleagues:

Herta had been sentenced to five years' imprisonment and was sent back to Austria to serve it. At the end of the War, she was released and returned to Rome to settle there.

Aside from any commitment he may have given to Montini, clearly, from now on O'Flaherty had to be more cautious about his visits outside the Vatican. Apart from the danger of arrest to himself personally, any such event would almost certainly constitute grave embarrassment for the Vatican authorities. He had to rely more on the help of others than previously. With Furman and Pollak out of commission, a lot of the delivery work had been falling on Simpson. He reflected on what he had got himself involved in:

Eventually, after debating this with himself, he realised his primary duty was to stay and help.

One of the groups O'Flaherty had contact with was the Greek underground movement. The leader of this movement, Evangelo Averoff, afterwards a Foreign Minister of Greece, visited O'Flaherty early in December with a colleague, Meletiou. They astounded O'Flaherty and Derry by telling them they had located a band of British escapees, about 120 miles from Rome and it was quite a distinguished group including a number of senior officers. Meletiou had departed with the instruction to bring back one of the officers which he did on 13 January, returning with Major General Gambier-Parry and Mrs Mary Boyd, an Englishwoman who had helped escapees in the Arezzo area. Gambier-Parry, who had been captured by the Germans in North Africa during 1942, but had managed to escaped, was at this stage the senior Allied officer on the run in Rome. The request was to get the General into the Vatican. This was a completely new situation for Derry because now he was dealing with an officer far senior in rank to himself so he felt he needed to discuss the situation with D'Arcy Osborne. Meanwhile he asked the Monsignor if he could arrange for a billet for Gambier-Parry and obviously they were seeking one of more than average security in order to ensure that the Germans did not capture him. In military terms, he would have been a valuable prize. The Monsignor had just such a place in mind in the home of a Signora Di Rienzo in Via Reggero Bonghi. She was English by birth. On the fourth floor of her accommodation, an end room had been walled up and from inside the house there was no indication that the room existed at all. The only entrance was through the window and even that was fairly precarious because it could only be reached when a plank was extended from another window. The plank linking the two rooms was approximately 40 feet above ground level. It was a perfect hiding place and the Major General was located there, nobody knowing where he was other than Derry, O'Flaherty and Br Pace who had guided him there. Subsequently the General had a note conveyed to Derry highlighting the suitability of the hiding place and the generosity of his hostess and her family. However, he expressed a desire to meet Derry as soon as he could, to try and assist with the work ‘instead of sitting here in comfort and complete idleness'. Gambier-Parry was also anxious to discover more about the organisation and in particular, the chain of command and he asked Derry to clarify this for him.

In his response, which was delivered by Br Robert, Derry described the arrangements as follows:

Eventually the General's frustration at his lack of involvement reached a level where he asked O'Flaherty for assistance and, without telling Derry, the Monsignor sent Br Robert to collect the General one evening. They took a tram to the Vatican where they met O'Flaherty and a group of his friends. As O'Flaherty, dressed in his full robes, brought the group across the Piazza to the Vatican and the papal apartments, he introduced the General, dressed in the best Donegal tweeds that could be found, to the saluting Swiss Guards:‘This is an Irish doctor friend of mine,' he said, ‘He's been invited to His Holiness' reception also.'
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Among those in attendance were members of the diplomatic corps including both the German Ambassador and the British Minister who had all been invited to the reception for the Pope's birthday. Without blinking an eye, O'Flaherty introduced Gambier-Parry as an Irish doctor to the German Ambassador and First Secretary Prince Bismarck who at all times made an effort to be friendly with everyone. The Prince invited ‘the Doctor' to visit him sometime and Gambier-Parry replied with a promise that he would try. The Monsignor found it difficult to contain his amusement. Needless to say, Derry was appalled by this level of risk but he was not in a position to criticise the Monsignor because his senior officer, the General, had agreed to go along with it. As O'Flaherty remarked to Simpson, ‘Sam'll be mad at me for this, bringing the General out of hiding, but I thought he should hear the Pope.'
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At the first opportunity he got, Derry took the Monsignor to task about this episode.

Some time later, the General was moved to a hospital on San Stefano Rotundo run by the Little Sisters of Mary where he could exercise in the grounds and he stayed there until the Allies took over Rome.

By the middle of January, the number of escapees coming into Rome was reaching peak proportions and placing additional pressure on the organisation. Aside from prisoners of war who were the early clients of the organisation, there were now hundreds of civilians avoiding the authorities. These included former Italian soldiers or policemen and indeed others who had been called up for labour camps but had gone on the run.

In the meantime, the long-serving and heroic Mrs Chevalier had another narrow escape.

It was ten minutes before curfew one evening when Mrs Chevalier heard a knock on her door. When she answered there was a lame Italian youth outside whom she knew vaguely by sight. He warned her that the Germans were coming to raid after curfew time. He offered to bring her lodgers to a safe location. A quick decision then had to be made as to whether this was genuine or a trap. Her five lodgers at that stage, four British and one South African, were mindful of Derry's strict instruction that in the event of danger Mrs Chevalier had to be protected at all costs so they decided to go with the young Italian. Within ten minutes they were gone and the tiny apartment was set out to look as if it had just a family in occupation. Almost exactly on curfew hour, the Gestapo arrived and came in to carry out a search. They checked the papers of the Chevalier family which were all perfectly in order. Given the size of the accommodation the officer in charge was willing to accept that Mrs Chevalier was telling the truth when she claimed they were the only occupants. He made the assumption that the report of unusual movements into her apartment had been mischievous and asked had she noticed anything. The Maltese woman suspected that the information may have come from an apartment in a neighbouring block where well-known Fascist sympathisers lived. She directed the Germans to that location, advising that she had seen some strangers going in and out. For the next half hour, she and her family enjoyed the disturbance which emanated from the neighbouring apartment as a detailed and noisy search was carried out. When Simpson called the next day, he found that Mrs Chevalier wanted to have her lodgers back. As always, she was very difficult to dissuade, but Derry and O'Flaherty decided they would have to insist. Even though it was putting himself at considerable risk, O'Flaherty called the next day and insisted that her accommodation would have to remain empty of lodgers from now on. However, he agreed to transfer the five men to her friend Cecarelli, who was a butcher, and had been supplying meat to feed her lodgers since she got involved in the organisation.