Maurice Buckmaster could, perhaps, be forgiven for being a little smug about his decision to override the opinions of Lieutenant Colonel Woolrych who, two years earlier, had said of Jacqueline: “Mentally slow and not very intelligent… Little depth of character—in fact, she is a very simple person.”1 Buckmaster had been proved right in his belief that as an SOE agent Jacqueline was “one of the best we have had.” Her tireless work during the 15 months she had been in France had been invaluable. Having returned to England for a much-needed rest, she had successfully completed a revision course at Roughwood Park, earning further praise. Her instructor said:
Her experience in the field had taught her a great deal about personal security. She appreciated the value of the revisionary lectures and exercises. She appears to be a most competent and level headed person.
… Her orders as leader are always clear and sound and she has a great deal of self confidence and personality that makes people obey her orders. Always worked hard at schemes and obeyed her orders conscientiously.2
Now she was about to embark upon yet another course, which would give her the ability to organize reception committees herself, receiving agents and supplies, when she returned to the field.
It was now the middle of July 1944 and things were looking up for Jacqueline. Although she was still painfully thin, she was beginning to regain her health and she no longer felt the overwhelming exhaustion that she had been experiencing when she arrived in England in April.
She had been glad to see Francis once more. She knew that he had had problems in coming to terms with how close he had been to being caught by the Gestapo prior to his departure for England. Even though he was relatively safe in England, he still had nagging worries about what would have happened to his wife and little boy if he had been arrested; and now, after being away from them for nine months, all he wanted to do was to get back to France to look after them both. When Jacqueline had asked him to undertake ad hoc courier missions for the Stationer circuit he had readily agreed and had performed them well but it was only now, and with great guilt, that she realized what a strain it had put upon him. Alarmed about his physical and mental state, she also knew that she would never have been able to forgive herself if anything had happened to him.
Then there was the concern she felt about Didi. She was upset when she discovered that her wishes had been ignored and that Didi had gone to France as an agent. She knew that the task of a wireless operator was much more hazardous than that of a courier. Knowing that it was said that the average time a wireless operator could work before being arrested was about six weeks, she was uneasy about Didi having been put in so much danger when she had tried hard to prevent it and she worried about how she was getting on.
But there was little time to dwell on these anxieties and Jacqueline knew that she must put them to the back of her mind so that she could concentrate on her next course, which was being held at Howbury Hall in Bedfordshire. The hall was in the hamlet of Water End, which formed part of the village and parish of Renhold on the river Ouse. Situated in attractive, peaceful countryside, it was the perfect place for Jacqueline, a place where she could relax as well as learn.
Jacqueline threw herself into the course wholeheartedly. Now that she was feeling better, she was anxious to get back to France as soon as possible and she knew that with the course under her belt she would be of even more use to her circuit than she had been thus far. The technology that had been developed, about which she was now going to learn, would make it much safer and easier to receive new agents and supplies.
In the past when an aircraft approached a dropping zone, the only method of letting the pilot know where the drop should take place was by the use of three lights held by agents on the ground in a straight line, indicating the direction of the wind. The reception committee leader held a fourth light, with which he flashed an agreed letter in Morse code. If the letter was that which the pilot expected to see, he knew that he had arrived at the correct dropping zone and that it was safe for the agents, or supplies, to drop. The problem with this system was that there was always a danger that the Germans might manage to infiltrate a circuit, or capture a member and obtain the code letter. If this happened the drop would be made into the arms of the enemy, and several agents had been lost this way. Even if there was no breach of security, there was the risk of the lights being spotted by the Germans or the Milice, with the same devastating results.
In order to reduce this threat, SOE scientists from the organization’s Signals Directorate had developed a two-way wireless system that they called an S-Phone. This allowed the pilot of an aircraft and an agent on the ground to talk to each other, as Southgate had when receiving three agents arriving from England. The device itself was heavy and cumbersome, and had a short range, but it was better than the light system and, should there be a suspicion of German infiltration of a circuit, it allowed a UK-based agent who knew the person on the ground to travel in the aircraft and monitor the agent’s voice to check whether or not it was who it was purported to be.
Another device, even heavier, was a radar system that was developed to give the aircrew greater accuracy in finding the dropping zone. This consisted of two parts: a beacon transmitter called Eureka for use on the ground, and a receiver called Rebecca that was fitted inside the aircraft, allowing the navigator to find the destination without needing flashing lights or maps.
The students learned how to use and maintain both devices on the course, which was quite short but intensive. When Jacqueline had completed her training, her report, dated 19 July 1944, gave the following details:
S-PHONE: Has worked well and has a fair theoretical and good practical knowledge. Qualified to operate. Should give a little further practice to maintenance.
EUREKA: Good pass. Qualified to operate and maintain a Eureka in the field.
R.C. WORK: Has worked well. Has a good all round knowledge and should be useful in the field.
GENERAL: A pleasant, hardworking student who showed keenness and acquired a satisfactory knowledge of all branches of R.C. work. Recommended as an s-phone operator and Eureka operator on a R.C. operation. Do not recommend her as a leader but, with her knowledge she would be an asset to any Reception in which she took part.
She finished her advanced course on 19 July, four days before Didi was arrested.
Despite their suspicions that Didi was, after all, a very stupid girl who had had no idea of what she was actually doing, her captors refused to take any chances. By observing her reaction to the sight of the water-filled bath they were certain that, if she had been lying, she would now try to save herself by telling the truth. With a man on either side of her, holding her arms tightly, they asked her one more time about her wireless broadcasts. She refused to answer. So, giving her no chance to take a breath, they suddenly lifted her and plunged her into the bath, holding her head under the icy water. She began to choke and struggle for breath but succeeded only in filling her mouth and nose with water. Trying hard not to panic, she was again remembering what she had been taught—never be afraid, never let them dominate you—when suddenly she was pulled up, coughing and spluttering.
The questioning began again. Who was she working for? Where was she sending her messages? Didi just gave them a defiant look and again refused to answer. Once more she was thrust into the water and a heavy hand ensured that her head was completely submerged. Unable to move, she began to fear that she would not be pulled out in time but, at the point when her lungs felt as if they would burst, she was again dragged out of the water and asked about her spying activities. She remained silent, determined not to let them win even if it cost her her life. Back she went underwater.
By now she was sure that she was going to die. A calmness came over her and she felt as if she were beginning to lose consciousness. As her body started to become limp, her torturers knew that they would get no information from her in that state and pulled her out abruptly, thumping her on her back. Fighting for breath, she coughed, spewing water over herself and her persecutors, and then began taking painful, rasping gulps of air until finally she was able to breathe again. Slumped on a chair, bent forward and dripping water on the floor, she could hear the Germans talking. She didn’t understand what they were saying but she thought that they sounded angry and frustrated, and she knew that she had beaten them, if only for a short time. Her spirits soared. She had remembered what she had been taught and although she had been very afraid, she had not let them dominate her. Despite feeling very unsteady and weak, she was triumphant.
Seeing that she had revived, one of the men asked, “Have you had a nice bath?” Looking him directly in the eye, Didi replied angrily, “Excellent. I will be complaining at the Town Hall about what you have done to me!” This defiant remark seemed to convince the men that she was telling the truth. Their questioning began again but this time concentrated on the businessman for whom Didi had said she worked.
When one of the interrogators asked her to tell him how she had met her boss, she quickly took up the story of Jacqueline du Tertre, repeating much of what she had told him before:
I was bored at home and wanted to come to Paris to look for work but when I got here I couldn’t find anything at all to do. Every day I went to a café and bought a drink to have while I looked at the vacant jobs in the newspaper. I was desperate. Then one day—I had almost run out of money and was thinking I must go back home—there was a man in the café who kept staring at me. I didn’t know what he wanted so I didn’t look at him but he came to the table and said, “You are worried? Are you all right?” I told him I was looking for a job and said I couldn’t find one and I had no more money so he said he might be able to help. He bought me a drink and sat down with me and we spoke. He said, “I am a businessman and I need help with my business. I won’t tell you what it is now but I will later—I don’t like people to talk about my business, it’s not good, but I think I can help you.” Then he gave me some money to be able to get by and said he would see me in a few days in the café.
The German interrupted Didi’s account to ask her if she didn’t think it odd that a stranger would offer her a job and then give her money before she had done anything for him. She pretended to consider what he had asked and replied: “No, he said he would be back and I said I would be there—I was desperate, with no money until he gave me some so I went back and wanted to work for him. There was nothing else I could do. And he was nice to me—he was very polite, you see.”3
The German abruptly changed the subject and asked how Didi had learned to use a wireless set. Her preparation and mental rehearsals for this entire situation, although she had thought it would never arise, had been thorough, and she immediately replied that she had worked for the post office at home and they had trained her to transmit messages using the wireless and Morse code.4 The man was skeptical, but she told him that it was a normal procedure in a French post office and he seemed satisfied.
Then the other man asked her if she knew about the British spies in the country. She adopted a puzzled look and said that she didn’t know what he meant. Shouting at her now, he told her that she was a very stupid girl and that the man for whom she had been sending messages was a British spy. He had been using her, to save himself being caught. Feigning disbelief, she replied, “No, you are mistaken. He is a businessman…” but then she stopped. Her expression changed and the look of understanding on her face told the German that she had at last realized that what he was saying was true. It was a masterly performance. Colonel Buckmaster had told her that she was a good liar and she had proved that he had been right. She found, as she was telling the German this fiction, that she almost believed it herself and that despite the horrors they had put her through that morning, she was now actually enjoying herself.5 Although her torturers did not know it, she felt that she was in control of the situation. Nothing she was telling them was true, yet she had succeeded in fooling them. When they asked her for her boss’s address she gave them one but insisted that she had not been there herself. They then wanted to know about her next meeting with him and she said that it was at 7 p.m. that evening in a café opposite the Gare Saint-Lazare.6
There was no time to lose. Although her clothes were still damp from the bath, Didi was bundled into a car and driven to the Gare Saint-Lazare. She was told to wait for her boss in the café and warned not to tell him that they were also waiting for him at another table. Now expressing her anger at being duped by this man, she agreed readily, but said that she would at least have to buy a drink if she were to wait there and asked for some money. She then sat down to await the arrival of a man who existed only in her imagination.
Although she was delighted to be the cause of the Germans running around Paris after an imaginary man, she didn’t want to be anywhere near them when they realized that she had been making fools of them. As she sipped her drink she could almost feel their eyes boring into her back but had no idea how she would be able to get out of the situation she had made for herself. The minutes passed and no one arrived. Suddenly Didi stood up. One of the Germans also jumped to his feet and came towards her. She told him she needed to go to the lavatory. He nodded but told her that he would go with her. While in the lavatory she looked around for a way to escape but there was none except a window that was too small and too high for her to reach, so she unlocked the door. As she was doing so, an air-raid siren sounded. Although it offered no chance of escape, it at least gave her a reason for the nonappearance of her boss. Pretending to be annoyed with him once more, she told her captors, “Well, it is too late for him now. He won’t come if there is an air raid, you know.”
Back they went to the rue des Saussaies. Didi was left in an office with an armed guard, an arrogant young Frenchman whom she believed to be a member of the Milice, while her captors went to see if her boss had been found at his address. When they returned, she was informed that the address she had given them didn’t exist. She expressed no surprise, telling them that it must prove that he was an agent. Why else would he have given her a false address?
Shaking his head in exasperation, one of the men told her: “We are going to give you the benefit of the doubt.” Then, seeing the beginnings of a smile appear on Didi’s face, he added: “We are sending you to a concentration camp. You’ll have a good laugh there. Yes, it won’t be like here; it’ll be your punishment for having worked against us.”7
The euphoria that Didi had felt vanished. She might have been able to fool the two bullies, who were grinning broadly at her reaction to the news they had just given her, but what good had it done her? She was still going to be imprisoned and her work as a wireless operator was over. Worse still, she began to wonder if she would ever see her sister again. It was unbearable to think of the distress that Jacqueline would suffer when she discovered what had happened to her. If only she hadn’t sent the message from Bourg-la-Reine and had gone to the new house in Le Vésinet. Her only consolation was that she hadn’t betrayed any of her colleagues. She hadn’t said a word about Dumont-Guillemet, Maury and Diacono or any of the others, so she knew that at least she had saved the Spiritualist circuit. But it had been at a high price to herself.
Annoyed that they had wasted so much time on this stupid French girl, her interrogators called for a car to take her to Fresnes, to the infamous prison south of the city, to await deportation. As they drove through the streets of Paris, the city that had been her first home when, 21 years before, she had come to France as a small child, Didi looked at the sights that had become so familiar to her and she felt like crying, wondering if this might be the last time she would ever see them. The car sped along the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and, as it turned right into the rue Royale, she twisted around in her seat, looking in the opposite direction and hoping to catch a glimpse of the magnificent neoclassical Roman Catholic church of the Madeleine, before the car turned onto the Place de la Concorde, across the bridge over the Seine and along the boulevard Saint-Germain. Didi knew that they were now very close to Louise’s apartment and tried not to think of how she used to walk past the building knowing that the people inside cared about her, as she didn’t want to give a hint that she knew anyone there. Then the car took a right fork, away from where Louise and her family lived, and headed south along the boulevard Raspail towards Fresnes and the prison. From there she would be sent to a concentration camp, where she knew the chances of survival were, at best, slight.
A wave of misery swept over her as she finally understood the depth of her predicament. There was simply nothing left for her. In despair, she began to pray silently, asking God for the strength to withstand whatever she now had to suffer. The prayers helped and as she arrived at Fresnes she began to have a small glimmer of hope that she would survive and realized that if she were to do so she must remain optimistic. So, turning her attention to what she knew must be her next task, she began to plan her escape.