I left the house at half past ten, taking with me the torches I needed to mark out the flare-path, hoping that my two helpers would join me before the aircraft passed overhead at midnight. It was, of course, after curfew and although I did not have to pass through the centre of the city, it was not all that easy to escape being challenged by patrolling police and German soldiery. As it was a still night, with a moon, I was able to hear the heavy-footed guards in sufficient time to dodge down side streets to avoid them, but my main problem, when I finally reached the dropping zone – which seemed tiny in the moonlight with the trees appearing to be so high – was where to hide the equipment if the RAF managed to find my field. I walked round the area and decided my only hope was to store the goods in a wooded estate, which was bordered by a high wall about a kilometre from the edge of the field. But I found this too late to climb the wall and investigate, and had to run back to the field to prepare the torches for the RAF.
During my training I had been shown how to put down torches to lead the aircraft into the wind, in the shape of a half arrow. The aircraft flew down the arrow and dropped the parachutes when it passed over the last marker. As there was no wind, I laid out the torches, with red glass over the lamps, in the shape of an arrow. This would allow the containers to drop farthest away from the trees. But I could not switch them on until I saw the aircraft and signalled to it, so I sat down in some bushes to wait for the big man, the little man, and midnight. It was a peaceful night, and all I heard, as I sat, was the croaking of frogs in the marshes, the call of an occasional duck, and some far-off voices, which I preferred to think belonged to a pair of lovers and not a ranging patrol. The moon was high, and through the trees I could see it glinting on the River Loire. All very peaceful, until the silence was destroyed by the wail of the air raid sirens in Angers, which probably meant that my aircraft was on the way. As the noise died away, I heard the ducks cackling furiously and then I saw two figures, one big and one small. My helpers had made it, but I waited until they were only a few feet away from me before showing myself, just in case they were not friends. I told them where the torches were, positioned them so each could switch on half of them when they saw one quick flash of my white torch, and told them to return the torches to me when the operation was over.
By the time they were in position, I heard the drone of a distant aircraft. It was midnight. The RAF was on time. It seemed a small miracle that this one aircraft had come from England, to find a tiny field in France and be there on time. I ran into the centre of the field, flashed my torch at Boris and Monsieur Bruges, and stared into the night as the engines droned louder and louder. Then I saw it, dark in the moonlight, and very low. I flashed the code letter at the sky once, twice, and then the right code letter flashed back to me.
The aircraft flew off, circuited, and flew the length of the field, letting go its cargo as it reached the last marker, in as precise an operation as anyone could wish for. The containers floated down and seemed as though they must hit us. Monsieur Bruges dived into a ditch to get out of the way, but Boris and I stood our ground until we, too, decided that a tree was a wise place to shelter under. We saw four containers drop within a 100-yard radius, in the middle of the lamps, and a crash in the branches of the tree under which we were sheltering told us where the fifth had ended up.
The aircraft came back and flashed us a goodbye. It did me good to see that plane. I did not feel so alone. I stood in the middle of the field and waved at them, although I was pretty certain they could not see me, even though the moon was high. As the aircraft banked and headed north, I felt a wave of homesickness and wished that I was aboard and heading for England with the crew. I fancied I could smell the bacon and eggs they would have for breakfast. Then I saw the lights were still showing in the field, so I ran and picked the torches up. Action restored my equilibrium.
I ordered Monsieur Bruges and Boris into the trees for twenty minutes, just in case some nosy farmer had seen the torches, the aircraft, and the parachutes. After a while the all-clear sounded and, once again, all was quiet except for the night noises. I waved my helpers on and we walked into the middle of the field, where I showed them how to lever open the containers, which was a noisy business, and remove the cells.
After each one was opened we lay still and listened for a minute or two in case we had been heard, straining for the sounds of patrols on motorbikes or afoot. But everything remained quiet and we rolled the silk parachutes, lovely to feel in the night, and stuffed them into the containers. Then I took the containers to a small pond and sank them.
Boris did very well, for he was a big man and broad, but poor Monsieur Bruges found the work of carrying the separate cells to the hiding of a nearby hedge a tiring one, and I watched him stagger as he carted one off. We stored all the cells away in their temporary place, and I went to check on the container that had fallen into the tree. I saw it was hopeless to get it down without a ladder and an axe and, unfortunately, the only white parachute in the group was now folded completely over the tree like a white counterpane on a newly made bed. It would show up for miles around in the morning, and the Germans would be sure to start a search for the other goods as soon as it was reported. So I was forced to move the twelve cells from the hedge right away if I was to stop the Germans from seizing the lot.
I told my helpers that we would have to carry them more than a kilometre to the estate. They were not very enthusiastic and I could not blame them, for each cell weighed 40 lbs, and was shaped like a dram, with sharp edges which cut into the shoulders. I was glad when I reached the estate, as my cell seemed to weigh 400 lbs, and poor Monsieur Bruges collapsed on the ground after a few minutes’ walk with his, and said he was going home, and to hell with it. Boris and I left him and trudged the kilometre to the wall, which Boris climbed to report that, although there were many trees, all the undergrowth had been cleared and there was nowhere to hide our goods. Worse, the grounds were in full view of a large house. This was a serious setback and I wondered what was the best thing to do. In the end I decided to hide the stores under the shrubs and blackberry bushes, which grew thickly at the base of the wall. We tucked the first two cells away and walked back to see if we could help Monsieur Bruges. Luckily, I had brought a flask of brandy with me, and after a few nips he felt much better. Boris and I managed to make him laugh a couple of times, and persuaded him to complete the journey with his load. In fact, he made two more journeys, by sheer willpower rather than the strength of the brandy flask, which he emptied on his own.
I was trembling, and my knees were knocking by the time I had carried my fourth load and hidden it away. Monsieur Bruges was worse off than I was, and I thanked God for the tall, tough Russian, who not only carried his four cells but also managed to walk more than half a kilometre with Monsieur Bruges’s fourth. But at least we had stored them, and unless the search was very thorough, I felt the Germans would not stumble on our cache. By now it was five o’clock in the morning, so we set off, very tired but very pleased, back to the house, to find both Madame Keller, Alex’s wife, and Madame Bruges exhausted with worry. They had heard the sirens and the aircraft and waited for hours, boosting each other’s morale by saying that we were too careful to be caught. But a bottle of wine, an omelette, bread and cheese restored us all. Monsieur Bruges was exhausted, and after his meal he went straight to bed – where he stayed for nearly a week.
Madame Keller suggested that the cells be stored in her garage, so I decided to go immediately to bring the goods in, using Alex’s bicycle which had a small trailer attached. Boris would have come with me, but he had to go to the other side of town to reassure his wife, and to be on time for work at eight o’clock. It was just getting light when I set off, and by the time I had made my third trip, bringing in two cells each time, people were beginning to move around. The cache was in full view of a farmhouse and, apart from the anxiety that an unfriendly farmer might spot me, I was worried that I might be stopped by a policeman on my way into town. He would, of course, be searching for black market food, but I could imagine his outrage if he found British war material. I decided to stop after three trips and pick the rest up when it got dark.
I was too tired and overwrought to sleep, so Madame Keller and I decided to open up the packages. It was like Christmas, and we both laughed light-heartedly as we opened up our presents from the Royal Air Force. I had to keep a beady eye on Alex’s wife, for she was apt to handle safe things as though they might blow up in her face, and handle dangerous things as though they were pounds of butter. Madame Keller worked hard with me, but I always felt that she was not a true patriot. I sensed that she worked only because Alex was involved, and because her help would enable them to obtain advancement in later years. She was so unlike Alex, who was devoted to duty and who had no thoughts for himself.
When I got to bed that morning I felt well satisfied. At last I had achieved something and Henri, who had arrived back at the pension by now, would have a good store of arms, explosives, and detonators hidden away at our proper cache within the next few hours. We were in business.
During the next few days I set out to get a better cover for myself, and was given a job in a machine-tool factory run by one of the young men staying at the pension with me. It was a wonderful cover to be genuinely and regularly employed, to have a proper work permit from the labour exchange, and to be on the firm’s books in the correct manner. I was taken on as a learner, with a view to my becoming a salesman. This enabled me to be absent at any time, without other workmen talking about me, when I had to go to neighbouring towns on my subversive activities. It also meant that I could cover up my real reason for visiting another town by calling in on one of my clients and so providing a cast-iron alibi for my journey. As a further safeguard, I obtained from a Resistance doctor a certificate to say that I was recovering from pneumonia and was not fit enough to work a normal day. The traces of my prison stay were still visible, so this fitted in very well also.
I put on blue overalls and went to work like any other person. I even found the work of making drills from tungsten quite absorbing, and I became quite proud of my skill with different lathes. By a happy coincidence, Boris, who was a dental mechanic, used to visit the factory frequently to order drills. He was a good man and helped me a lot in the weeks ahead, as did his wife. She was a little person who worked for the gas company, and she ‘cooked’ several gas meters in homes where the weekly allowance of gas had been exceeded, saving these people from big fines. They used to ride a tandem (with her on the back) towing a small trailer, and tour the countryside, looking for black market food to help out with their rations. Boris bought me a bicycle for the outrageous price of £40, and I used to join them on their weekend hunts – except that I was looking for other landing grounds for the RAF and good places to store arms.
The couple would also bring back food for their relatives, one of whom was very anti-British and very pro-Pétain. I, of course, was introduced to him as a Frenchman, and I always laughed at the way big Boris would tease this man. He would bully him about his pro-German tendencies, and refuse to hand over the food unless the relative stood up and shouted ‘Vive Churchill’. The wretched man would eye the food, look around apprehensively, open the door of his flat to see if there was anyone listening on the landing, and then say with a sickly look: ‘Vive Churchill.’ Boris would roar with laughter, slap him on the back, and leave.
I was to take over Angers, and Alex was going to run the area around Nantes where he already had friends. Better still, we were to get our own radio operator. This was important, for we would at last be certain that our messages got through, instead of hoping that another group would pass them on. Other groups were more interested in clearing their own messages than those of outsiders. Even more important, so far as our morale was concerned, was that London would be attributing to us our fair share of success.
We were not looking for praise, simply acknowledgement of our efforts, but we knew second-hand messages might well leave out the fact that Alex or myself were responsible for a job, and London might feel that we were not worth sending supplies to. This could lead to a group dying; our own radio operator made certain we would stay in business.
We also got news that another stores operation would take place in April, and that the RAF would use the new ground I had chosen. The BBC message announcing the drop was chosen by me in honour of my friend Picolo, in Langogne – ‘Après la soupe un verre de vin’. If he heard it, I was sure he would know I was thanking him.
Before I made plans to receive these stores, I met the foreman of a French labour gang, conscripted by the German Agence Todt, who had some very interesting information about the Château de Pigneroles, just outside Angers. We had known for some time that it was being used by the Germans as a Naval Headquarters for controlling submarines and surface craft from the major bases at Lorient, Saint Nazaire and Nantes, and we signalled the RAF that it was a perfect bombing target, as it was outside the town and could be attacked without danger to civilians. But my foreman produced plans which showed that the Chateau was just a blind, and that the real HQ was hidden underground, three-quarters of a mile from the Chateau. My friend showed me the passage that led from the Chateau to the offices, mess, and sleeping quarters. I made scale drawings of the target and put them in an airtight fruit bottling jar, which I buried in the garden of the pension for safety until I had the opportunity of getting them to London. I also arranged for the RAF and SOE to be told the next time we managed to get a radio link about the underground HQ, and at one time a plan – later dropped – was drawn up to land British Commandos to clean up the place. I went out to the Chateau two or three times and strolled around the grounds, which were not difficult to get into, and I was never challenged. But I found that there were frequent patrols and booby traps, which I told London about.
It was now nearly time for our stores drop, and I travelled 30 kilometres to the chosen vineyard to make final arrangements to receive twelve containers of guns, ammunition and other stores. I found that there was nowhere suitable to hide all this equipment, so I decided, with the vineyard owner’s permission, to dig pits in which to hide the stores. I took three men with me the following Sunday, and we dug two pits, branched them over, and then turfed them so they were almost impossible to detect. We needed ten more pits, but I thought I would test out the two, for a few days, to see if they were discovered.
They were. A gamekeeper put his foot through one of them and fell into the hole. His description of the pit caused enormous excitement, and the French and German police came out in force to examine it. They searched for miles around, looking for pits, and stumbled on to the other one. Both holes were carefully measured, examined a dozen times by detectives, and finally pronounced to be graves dug to receive the bodies of two people, who had been murdered or were going to be murdered. It was a reasonable guess, as my pits were 6 feet long and 4 feet deep. Their discovery, of course, meant that I had to think of some other scheme to hide the containers. But they had played a small part in the war by keeping dozens of police experts busy wasting time.
Alex was nearly ready to take over at Nantes. He had organised his group and was already working with them, so all that was left was to take his wife, Madame Keller, to their new home. He left with her one evening for Paris, to take some messages for London and to make arrangements for ‘dead letter boxes’ and couriers, which we would use to keep in contact. He also had some radio messages for Vladimir to send through his radio operator, as our own man had not yet arrived. This was a dangerous operation for both Vladimir and Alex, as any journey to Paris was fraught with checks, and Alex’s face was well known to the Gestapo. It also meant that Vladimir’s radio operator would be transmitting for twice as long as normal, thus doubling the chances of radio detection vans fixing his position.
The morning after they left, I dressed in my overalls to go to work at the factory, and stopped for five minutes to have a cup of coffee in the kitchen of the pension. I was sitting at a table, sipping, when the door burst open and a German officer came in followed by a civilian. The officer shouted at me in German, so I just looked at him blankly. The civilian then came over and asked me in French: ‘You are Monsieur Wilkinson, aren’t you?’
‘Monsieur who?’ I asked.
‘Monsieur Wilkinson – the owner of this house.’
‘You must have made a mistake. I am not Monsieur Wilkinson, nor do I own this house. It belongs to Madame Keller,’ and I turned to Madame Bruges, who had walked into the kitchen after hearing the noise. ‘Isn’t that right, Madame Bruges – this isn’t my house, is it.’
She told the Frenchman: ‘This house did belong to Monsieur Wilkinson, but he has been in England since the start of the war, and now it is run by Madame Keller. But she’s away at the moment.’
The man looked up as Anne-Marie, the kitchen maid, came in. He barked at her: ‘Who is this man?’ and pointed at me.
I saw her take a deep breath. Then: ‘This gentleman is Monsieur Chanbaran, one of our boarders who has come to have his cup of coffee as he does every morning.’
The German officer put out his hand and shouted in French: ‘Papers!’ I gave them to him. He and the civilian studied them very carefully. Then I was asked: ‘Where do you work?’ I told them.
‘You’re late for work – it’s nearly nine o’clock. Why is that?’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘we find it very difficult to work full time. We have plenty of orders, but we cannot get the material to fulfil them, and there’s only a limited amount of electricity to work the machines. It is all very difficult with this war going on. But my patron doesn’t mind if I come in late. Anyway I have this doctor’s certificate which says I’m not to work full time yet as I’ve been ill.’ And I showed him my certificate. This seemed to satisfy them, and they told me I could go. They searched the house, as I drank my coffee with a very shaky hand, but without undue haste. When I finished I walked across the road to my room to fetch my revolver, which I had brought to clean as it was covered in grease. I cursed myself for this, as I had broken another of my rules – never take anything incriminating into the house where you are staying. I hoped to God that no one would follow me, but I put the gun in my pocket and walked off to work unchallenged. The Germans were too busy searching the building to worry about a sick lathe operator. I longed to walk in, to see what was going on, but that would have been foolish. I had to act naturally, do my morning’s work, and then go back for lunch as though nothing had happened.
Henri, the man who had not turned up for the parachute drop, came up to the factory and told me that the Gestapo was turning the pension inside out. I did not think that they would find anything, for I knew how careful Alex was. There was the fruit bottle buried in the garden with the plans of the German Naval HQ in it, but only Alex, his wife and I knew where they were buried. Henri, however, solved one riddle for me. Who, I asked him, was this Monsieur Wilkinson the Germans were asking about? Henri grinned: ‘That’s Alex’s real name, didn’t you know?’ This made me really anxious, for the Gestapo was obviously looking for Alex, and I was grateful he had left the night before.
I went back to the pension at lunchtime and found Madame Bruges, white-faced and worried, just finishing the task of putting the house in order after the Gestapo had taken it apart. The searchers had moved all the furniture, lifted all the carpets, kneaded all the cushions, mattresses and pillows, and checked the two radios to see if they were tuned to London. They were not, as we always switched them back to a French station after listening to the BBC. The men also searched Madame Keller’s writing desk, and found a typed copy of a coded message, which made them search even more diligently. They asked where Madame Keller was and when she was returning. They were not satisfied with Madame Bruges telling them: ‘She’s gone to Paris and we don’t know when she’s coming back.’ They questioned boarders and the staff, but none of them could help. They finally left, taking the typewriter, the coded letter, and a photograph of Alex – Monsieur Wilkinson – and ordered Madame Keller to report to Gestapo headquarters the instant she reached home.
Alex and his wife had to be warned, but not one of us knew how to contact them. I decided that every train from Paris must be met, not, of course, at the station, in case the Gestapo had any of us under surveillance, but somewhere between the station and the pension. I decided to keep watch in a street they had to walk down from the station, and Henri was to conceal himself in a place where he could watch Alex and Madame Keller without being seen, and so find out if they were being followed. I would meet them, and if they were being followed he would pass on his bicycle and ring his bell three times. If they were not being followed, he would pass without ringing his bell.
It was also decided I must leave the pension. Up to then I was not a suspect, but one never knew with the Gestapo. They might come round at any time to ask more questions, and it was better for everyone at the pension that I was not there, in case they discovered my real identity. I packed immediately, and told everyone that I was going to Rouen for my firm. If the Gestapo came back, my boss would confirm this for them. I did not tell them where I was moving to but arranged places in Angers for them to leave messages for me, or receive messages from me. I cycled off, taking various precautions in case I was being followed, and arrived at the house of my friend Boris, the Russian, and his wife. I told them what had happened at the pension and they readily gave me shelter, offering to put up Alex and his wife as well if I managed to contact them. Boris was leaving within a few hours for Le Mans, to stay for three days, and during his stay he promised to search all the Paris trains, to try to find Alex and his wife. This was a fine gesture, but I knew that I could not rely on the couple being spotted, for the trains were always packed.
I took another chance that night by going back to the garden at the pension, after curfew, to dig up the precious plans of the Naval Headquarters. At the time it seemed a reasonable risk, and I had a good look round the house in case the Gestapo had hidden watchers in the area to check on visitors. It was important not only to get the plans but to protect the people in the house. They would have been in big trouble if the Gestapo dug up the grounds – as happened in some places – and found the bottle. I discovered that Alex had put one more item in the hiding place – a fresh set of false identity papers for himself with his photograph on.
I took the documents through the town to a dilapidated house I had discovered on the outskirts. It was empty, the roof leaked, it needed a lot of decorating, and the rent was very high. I had approached the estate agent and put in a bid to lease it ‘on behalf of relatives who have been bombed out on the coast’. The high rent would not bother me, as I could always get money from SOE to meet that, but the important thing was that I could use it as a headquarters and permanent hideout. I took my bottle of plans there that night and hid it away alongside some incriminating papers, a small arsenal of personal weapons, sabotage equipment, and a set of torches for use on parachute drops. Then I made my way back through the curfew to the Tourganiefs’ house.
For the next three days I met the three daily trains from Paris, with Henri tucked up a back street to watch Alex’s tail, but it was not until the afternoon of the fourth day that I saw Madame Keller walking down the street carrying a suitcase. I strolled towards her, greeted her, took her suitcase as though it was a normal meeting between landlady and boarder, and said, conversationally: ‘You cannot go back to the pension, the Gestapo has been there. Is Alex on the train with you, for we must warn him too?’ She and Alex never walked together in Angers.
‘Of course I’m going back to the pension,’ she told me. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve had the Gestapo call, and I don’t suppose it’ll be the last. They know I was married to an Englishman, and they’re always trying to check up on me. It’s just a routine visit.’
Quietly I told her that it was no routine visit, that they were definitely looking for Alex. ‘They have searched your house and they’ve found a coded letter. They’ve told you to report to Gestapo headquarters the instant you return to Angers.’
She said nothing for a moment. Then her face went white, and she stumbled as though the strength had gone from her legs, obviously more shaken than her brave reply suggested. Just then Henri rode by on her bicycle, without ringing his bell. At least there was no one following her. I asked again if Alex was on the same train as I walked her away from the direction of the pension. He was not, so he was safe for the moment. Slowly the colour came back into her face, but Madame Keller at that moment was far from the strong-minded woman I had known. She seemed to have lost her independent spirit. Such was the power of the Gestapo in the war years. She said she had nowhere to go and knew no friends who could put her up, so I decided to take her to Boris – reluctantly, as I did not like the idea of having too many eggs in one basket. Boris and his wife greeted her most sympathetically and, after a few minutes, she regained her spirit and answered my questions about Alex. He was still in Paris, and I said that I would go to the capital and warn him myself.
That was one problem out of the way, but what of Madame Keller? I told her I did not think anything would happen for a week or so, but then the Gestapo would begin to wonder what had happened to her, and might turn very nasty with Madame Bruges and the rest of the staff. I suggested she wrote a letter to Madame Bruges, with an address a long way from Angers, saying that she would not be returning for some weeks, as she had slipped and broken a leg, and asking Madame Bruges to run the pension until her return. She thought this was a good idea, and I gave her the name and address of a French collaborator in Saint-Etienne to use, hoping he would have a lot of trouble at a later date when the Gestapo came to call on him. I arranged for someone in Paris to go to Saint-Etienne to post the letter for her, warned Madame Bruges about it, and saw that Alex’s daughter, Annette, went to her grandparents in Normandy. I also promised that I would try to get some of Madame Keller’s jewellery and valuables from her home.
I left her, to catch the 2 a.m. train to Paris, which meant I had to be at the station before the 11 p.m. curfew and sit in the waiting room until it came in. The normal check went without incident and, once in Paris, I found Alex at the first address I had been given. He was shaken by the news, but soon recovered, and started to make plans to get his wife to safety and warn others who might be involved. He and I spent most of the day visiting friends and contacts in bars, cafés and houses, passing on the news.
I asked him how a copy of a coded letter had been found in his wife’s writing table.
‘A simple story, but it’s the simple mistake which costs a life,’ he said, as he lit up his pipe. ‘I coded this in December to send to London and to report that we were alive and ready to go on working. The copy was to have been handed to a courier, but he did not turn up. It became mislaid, with the bills, and that was that. Bloody careless.’
We caught a train together that evening. I was going to Angers, and he was going to Nantes to take over control of his area. On the train, we decided that I should accompany Madame Keller, by bicycle, to a farmhouse 115 kilometres from Angers and 30 kilometres from Nantes, where we could lie low for a while. ‘You’ll have to do the journey in one day,’ Alex told me, and when I doubted whether his wife could survive a ride of just over 70 miles, he snapped: ‘She’ll have to.’ That was that.
I left Alex at Angers station and went back to the Tourganiefs, to find Madame Keller in a bad state of nerves. Originally she had been excited by the idea of a clandestine life with her husband and made plans to dye her long, golden hair black. But she had been alone all day and had not been outside the house on my orders. She had been thinking about the Gestapo, and was sad at being forced to leave the home she had fought to keep going for Alex since the war began.
I told her about our bicycle ride and, surprisingly, she cheered up immediately. We agreed to leave at eight the next morning, and I got in several hours sleep to make up for the night I spent standing in a packed train for Paris. She didn’t sleep at all, but she was still eager to leave for the farmhouse, so I scouted around the Tourganiefs’ first, waved to the house that everything was clear, and rode slowly down the road. In a few minutes Madame Keller passed me, as I had instructed, and I followed her for a kilometre or so to make certain she was not being followed, before catching up to ride along beside her. She was very jumpy, and saw a policeman behind every hedge and a Gestapo chief on every bicycle. Once she wanted to ride off the road when she spotted two specks approaching. I persuaded her not to, as it was a local curé and an elderly parishioner. However she kept a very good pace, and by lunchtime we had covered many kilometres. I insisted on stopping, but she refused, so I got off my bike, threw it in a hedge, and sat down on the grass verge with a bottle of wine and some bread and cheese. She had to stop, and I managed to persuade her to take a little food. We pedalled all afternoon and she did not complain once, although she must have been very saddle sore.
We walked up the steep hills, but the last hour was nearly too much for her. Even on the flat she was hardly crawling along, and I repeatedly fell off my high-geared bicycle because the pace was too slow. At seven, after eleven hours of cycling (apart from the one lunch break), we reached the farm, and were greeted by the youngest seventy-year-old grandfather I have ever met – Papa Jules, who had just married his third wife.
He brought wine and cheese, and drew off a jug of the special cider he knew Madame Keller liked. But she was in a state of near collapse, and refused to eat or drink. Fortunately, she had a good long cry, and when Alex arrived she sat down with us to an excellent meal of steaks, grilled over a wood fire of vine cuttings.
Alex asked me to stay for a few days, as he had a parachute drop planned and was short of men to handle the stores. I agreed, and with Alex and Papa Jules spent some memorable hours. Papa told me how he once bought a piglet at the local market and was so proud of his bargain that he stopped at the houses of all his friends to have a glass of wine with them and to tell them about it. At the sixth house his friend asked to see the piglet, and the pair walked out to Papa Jules’s horse and cart. But there was no piglet. So Papa Jules drove his cart round all the houses he visited asking: ‘Has anyone seen my piglet?’ No one had. But the episode started a Papa Jules tradition, and the three of us spent several days ‘looking for my piglet’, which led to some very heavy wine drinking and, on one occasion, Papa Jules falling off his bicycle twice in half a mile. It made a break for Alex and myself, and we were all the more ready for work.
On the Monday Alex heard that his stores operation had been cancelled, so I decided to return to Angers, as I was anxious to get Annette away to her grandparents and to retrieve some of Madame Keller’s clothes and valuables. I took some false identity papers for Madame Keller, which needed stamping in Angers – a job for Henri – and rode off on the Tuesday morning, a drizzly, cold day, with 70 miles of road ahead. To give me heart, Alex rode with me for a few kilometres, puffing at his pipe and cheering me with his chatter. He stopped at a milestone, we shook hands, and I thanked him for the days we spent with Papa Jules. He cycled off, smiling, towards the farm. It was the last time I saw him.