The Chase Begins
“Lily, you can’t be serious. You believe Pierre Boulain, who worked with Abbé Beauvais, is the traitor? But you never saw Martine in Fresnes, did you? All you heard was someone yell his name from somewhere in those walls. We will need more than that before we go around telling everyone Pierre Boulain is a traitor.”
“I know Martine’s voice when I hear it, and she knows mine.”
“But Pierre Boulain had worked well with Franco and Jerome earlier this year in getting airmen to Paris.”
“And where are Franco and Jerome today?” Lily emphasized. “Have you ever wondered why it was so easy for him to obtain fool-proof forged identification cards and passes so quickly, and how he was never detected when he crossed borders?”
“Can you prove Boulain is a traitor?” one of the men asked.
“How do you want to do this?” she asked.
Ironically, a meeting had been set with the two men and Boulain for the following day to discuss the setup of escape camps instead of the continual strenuous task of an eight-hundred mile trek through France and Spain. This was all part of the anticipated D-Day invasion right around the corner. Apparently, the Comet Line members were impressed at Boulain’s ability to get foolproof identification for airmen, and were considering him for the advance work to set up such an escape camp in Belgium. MI9 was even prepared to advance him 500,000 francs to do the work.
“Meet us tomorrow morning at the restaurant.”
“The last time I met with a group at a restaurant, all of them, except Boulain, ended up in the hands of the Gestapo. Strange isn’t it that he is the only one not in prison.”
“Okay, then watch from across the street. We’ll meet him near the statue of King Albert. He is supposed to be bringing airmen to move down the escape line.”
The following day, May 7, Lily sat out of sight near the restaurant and read a magazine. She spotted one of the Comet members and, shortly thereafter, Jean Masson arrived with a woman. Lily remembered the face clearly from a year earlier in Brussels, the same man she confronted as Pierre Boulain at the restaurant with Martine. A short while later, Masson and the woman rose from their table outside the restaurant and bid farewell to the Comet Line member. Ten minutes later, the member crossed the street and confronted Lily.
“Pierre Boulain, he’s the one,” she said. “He also goes by Jean Masson and he is responsible for Dedee’s father’s arrest and probably for Franco and Jerome too.”
The member needed to be certain.
“Follow him and see where he goes. If he is the traitor, we’ll catch him at his own game.”
In spite of the Nazi occupation, Paris was still a huge bustling city, and was very much divided by the Seine River, each side connecting together at various points only by a series of bridges. Lily had seen Masson and his girlfriend leave on one side of the Seine heading toward the Place de la Concorde on foot. She crossed one of the bridges to get to the opposite side of the river and began walking in the same direction as Masson. A short while later, she spotted them walking casually along the river. He just happened to look across the Seine and their eyes met as she stood on the sidewalk looking right at him.
Masson knew the look on Lily’s face, like when a child gets caught by his mother doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. Masson began walking briskly toward her. Lily reversed her walk and started to walk faster, occasionally turning to see if Masson was gaining on her. He was.
She remembered passing a Metro entrance a short while earlier. She stepped up her pace, not wanting to run for fear of attracting the police looking her way. Fortunately for her, the streets were congested with people on this spring day, and her small frame made it difficult for Masson to follow her, as he was short as well.
She reached the entrance door leading down to the Concorde station of the Metro, and rushed down the staircase. The first level was mobbed with people walking in all directions downward to their respective subway platforms. She mingled in the crowd and crouched as she approached the platform. She knew Masson was not far behind.
She then heard the rumbling of an approaching train and the crowd congesting near the entrance doorways. She hid between two taller men and did not budge until the train stopped and the doors opened. As she rushed on the train, she quickly stooped behind passengers out of view of the subway windows.
Masson searched the subway from the platform, but because he was very short, he could not see her on the train. Masson then realized that Lily could have left the station from another exit. Within seconds, the car doors closed and the train was on its way.
Lily knew she was in serious danger and there now would be a concerted effort by the Gestapo to find her before she ruined Masson’s infiltration efforts going forward. The following morning, May 8, she was on a train to Bayonne.
“You can’t stay, Lily,” Tante Go told her. “The Gestapo know who you are, and you’ll definitely be killed if they find you.”
Lily reluctantly agreed and word was sent to Creswell in Madrid that she was coming there. Arriving in Bayonne just before Lily was about to flee to Madrid was her friend Monique Hanotte, code name Marie, who had helped Bob Grimes leave Brussels the year before. She too had been burned, and it was no longer safe for her to remain anywhere along the escape routes. She would leave for Madrid with Lily. Florentino, the very able Basque guide and a friend of Lily, was not in Bayonne at the time, and she could not wait for his return. Her life was at stake and this required immediate attention.
On May 11, Lily walked down to the mountains with Monique Hanotte and they crossed the Pyrenees into Spain. When they arrived in San Sebastian, the British consulate there drove them south to Madrid, where Creswell greeted them.
Following the customary praise of her work, Creswell got very serious.
“Listen to me, Lily. When I had asked Dedee and Franco to come to London and work with us from there because it was no longer safe for them, they both refused and insisted on going back. We can’t lose you too. London has informed me that you absolutely must stay out of France or you will be captured. Please listen to me,” Creswell pleaded.
“They will kill you if you are caught. Masson has alerted the Gestapo about you. We are trying to find him, but he is very elusive this Jean Masson.”
Tempted to ignore Creswell, she realized he was right. But she was not quite ready to go to London, even though MI9 gave her a commission as an officer in the British Army. She instead agreed to remain in Spain and work out of Madrid for the time being.
* * *
The two Comet Line members Lily had spoken to were now convinced Jean Masson and Pierre Boulain were the same person and that he was a German agent following the incident at the Metro station. What Lily never knew was that these two Comet members were not local Belgians who had joined Comet along the way, but British agents sent to Paris by Airy Neave of MI9.
On May 16, one of the men received word from Masson that he wanted to meet at another restaurant on the Seine to discuss further the 500,000 francs for expenses in setting up the rescue camps in Belgium. Now that they knew Masson was a Gestapo agent, the British agent realized he was in danger of being arrested if he met with Masson. But he also knew Masson wanted the money and would not have the agent arrested before he actually received it. The man was very greedy.
The game of cat and mouse began. Masson was not sure if Lily had told this Comet member about the Metro incident, while members of the French resistance were present when the British agent entered the restaurant. Masson likely had his share of Gestapo agents there to protect him as well.
“Pierre, so nice to see you. We are close to setting up rescue camps in Belgium and here in France. You would be the one to do it in Belgium. We should have the money by tomorrow.”
Unbeknownst to Masson, the Free French Forces had also planted one of their executioners in the restaurant. He was there to get a clear look at Masson and to follow him after the meeting and kill him. The resistance executioner followed Masson to his apartment on rue de Douai.
That night, there was no moonlight, and the sky was quite cloudy, causing nightfall to be darker than usual. As a man walked out of Masson’s apartment building wearing a long dark raincoat with the collar up and wearing a chapeau, the same outfit Masson usually wore, a car pulled up alongside and a figure shot a single bullet, and the man fell dead on the sidewalk. Jean Masson was dead.
However, his body was never identified by the resistance and British intelligence was not convinced it was Jean Masson. Weeks later, more and more Comet Line members were being arrested with evading airmen. Something was wrong.
Finally, months later, British intelligence was informed of a German agent working inside the escape line. He was bringing evading airmen and Comet guides to a hotel in Paris where the Gestapo arrested them…a familiar pattern that Masson had often used. When his description was circulated, he was traced to a man who had lived on rue de Douai…Jean Masson. MI9 finally received a photograph of the man. The one person who could unmistakably identify Masson was Michou, who no longer required to be called Lily. An American Intelligence Officer in London, Lt. Harold Cherniss, sent for her and showed her the photograph of the man they suspected.
“Michou, do you know this boy?” Cherniss asked as he flashed a dozen pictures before her.
“Yes. That is Jean Masson, also known as Pierre Boulain.”
“Michou, it is very important. Please look carefully.”
“No problem. Pierre Boulain, Jean Masson, the same boy.”
Cherniss laughed.
“What happened, Harold?” she asked.
“That boy is working for the Americans in Nuremberg. He just walked in to the American headquarters there and offered his services. You can bet we’ll hold him under arrest in Nuremberg until we can find out more.”
By June 1944 Michou was transferred from Madrid to London via Gibraltar. Having been relegated to a desk job with mounds of paperwork, Michou was miserable and begged Creswell and Neave to let her return to France.