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THE MARCH WINDS CALMED, bulbs bloomed, and winter slid into spring. The Red Army steadily ate up land in the east, and to the frustration of Churchill, the western front slowed. The 101st trained for a jump into Berlin. Charlie was unable to get another pass to visit Paris before his regiment moved out of Mourmelon to assist the Twelfth Army’s encirclement of the Ruhr Valley.
I moved through the day-to-day motions at R and A. Even though I’d admitted to Charlie I feared a return behind enemy lines, I found myself confessing to Colette that Paris made me antsy. The only thing that broke up the tedium was the unexpected presentation of two awards. To my embarrassment, in the relatively small office of the director, I was presented with the Croix de Guerre from France for gallantry in the field during the Normandy invasion.
The second award was hand delivered by Lord Nigel Graydon. His cast had been removed and he walked with only a slight limp. He presented me the King’s Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom for the part I played in returning him home. After the ceremony, he took me out for lunch, and I confessed that I missed the action, and the minutia of office work had begun to bore me. I felt relatively useless doing it, much like my time on Capitol Hill. He laughed and admitted he understood, because ever since the cast came off, he’d been trying to get cleared and return to flight status.
The feeling of restlessness increased once the 101st moved out and Charlie’s letters no longer arrived with regularity. One afternoon, I returned home in a foul mood, and when Colette asked if I’d brought home the eggs, I snapped, “Colette, I don’t have time to stand in the damn lines. You’ll just have to make do with the powdered kind!”
“Tiens, Lily! Your clipped conversations give me a headache! You are a poor friend to be out of temper just because your sweetheart is doing his duty.”
Poor Colette, she wasn’t wrong, and she didn’t deserve my irritation. My happiness had become connected to Charlie, a novelty for me since I’d never been in a serious relationship before. The tables had turned, and now I worried daily for Charlie’s welfare while he could be content in the knowledge that I remained safe in Paris. I needed the intensity of a mission to keep my mind occupied. I put out feelers to move back into Secret Intelligence or the Operations Department, and after a few strategically placed comments, I found myself approached to train for a new mission.
The OSS remained concerned Hitler’s men would launch a guerilla war in the mountains of Bavaria and Austria. He had a home in Berchtesgaden, where the offensive could be headed up. In an effort to incorporate more agents inside Germany, the OSS had identified members of the Free German Committee in London. The agents had been trained and dropped into Austria in February, about the same time as my own flight to get out of the country.
The Free German operatives were sent in to make contact with other resistance groups and to provide intelligence. Unfortunately, a pair of their operatives had gone missing. They hadn’t checked in with the radio operator in seventy-two hours, and there was fear the entire team had been, or soon would be, rounded up and arrested. The situation reminded me of my own experience in Oberndorf. The state of affairs wasn’t new, and each spy took on the risk knowing the probable outcome. It didn’t stop me from wanting to help.
The OSS decided to revive Gisele Sandmeier. I found myself returning to Switzerland. My last letter to Charlie before leaving Paris ended with this cryptic line: G is antsy and declares she will return to finishing school next month. I had no idea if he understood the message or if he would receive it without redaction. It was my way of telling him that I would be returning to Switzerland. The change did me good. My mind was finally engaged upon something other than my obsession with Charlie’s welfare.
They called the mission Gumdrop. My job—to parachute into Innsbruck, establish contact with the radio operator, who had already moved twice, and identify if our agent had, indeed, been captured by the Gestapo. I would be entering with another agent known to me as Hans. The mission provided addresses for safe houses, courier names, and contacts. I knew it would be dangerous, but resources had already been established and appeared a far cry from spying from within the household of a German colonel.
I expected the fear to regenerate itself. I expected the nightmares to return. To my relief, they did not.
Two days before enacting the mission, Hans and I practiced my hand-to-hand combat and small knife skills in the dining room of the home where he was staying.
“That was much better. Remember to use your weight to draw your attacker off balance and drive upward with the heel of your hand. It’s guaranteed to start a nosebleed.”
A knock sounded at the front door and the two of us froze.
“Are you expecting anyone?” I asked.
“Nein.” With one hand on his knife and the other on the doorknob, Hans asked, “Who is it?”
“I’ve lost my umbrella,” came the reply.
Hans opened the door to a young man in dark clothes. “Umbrellas are sold on the blue stall on the Schwarztorstrasse.”
The courier passed Hans a note and disappeared back into the shadows. Hans unfolded the missive and drew his brows.
“What does it say?”
He responded by passing the letter to me. The succinct hand-scrawled message delivered a double blow: Roosevelt Dead. Gumdrop mission cancelled.
The paper floated to the floor as I sank into a nearby chair. It was difficult to say which of the two pieces of information delivered the most punch. Roosevelt, the passionate leader who led America into the biggest war known to man. A larger-than-life leader. One of the big three, along with Churchill and Stalin, determined to wrest Europe from the stronghold of the Nazi regime. Gone.
Once I processed the president’s death, it didn’t take me long to realize, with Gumdrop cancelled, the likelihood of obtaining another mission was slim to none. HQ must have discovered the fate of their man and no longer needed us to take the risk.
I picked up the paper and crushed it in my fist. “This is it. There will be no more missions, not for me.”
Hans looked pityingly at me. “Come, let me buy you a drink.”
We decided to drown our disappointment with a bier at the Schweizerhof Hotel bar in downtown Bern. As depressed as me, Hans stared moodily into his glass. My efforts to engage in conversation were met with brief monosyllables, and eventually I gave up to my own despondency and took to a spy’s natural pastime—eavesdropping. My ears zeroed in on three English-speaking journalists sitting at a table behind me.
Hans excused himself to go to the restrooms and I shifted to better view the group.
A man wearing an ugly brown tie bragged, “Believe me, fellows, I heard the frantic Morse code transmission. It said, ‘SOS. This is Buchenwald concentration camp,” and they were requesting help from Patton’s army. It said they were being evacuated.”
“Where?” a balding man drinking ale asked.
“It didn’t say. And then, very faint, I swear I heard a reply from Patton’s staff telling him to hold on, they would be there soon.”
“I heard Murrow arrived today. He’s going to get the jump on all of us if Blake doesn’t get us permission to go in,” said a third man sipping from a brandy snifter.
“Do you believe the stories? About the mass killings?” ale drinker asked.
“I heard they had crematoriums to burn the bodies,” brown shirt said, “but I think it’s an exaggeration.”
“Maybe it’s to burn the evidence. If it’s not an exaggeration, then it’s genocide for sure and a blatant violation of the Geneva Convention.”
“I don’t know. I’ll believe it when I see it.” Brandy snifter finished the last sip, rose from his seat, and threw money down on the table. “I’m turning in for the night.”
I was so intent on eavesdropping I barely noticed Hans’ return.
“Gehst Du jetzt?” Are you going now? He gathered his coat.
“I think I’ll have one more drink. You look tired. You go ahead,” I urged.
Hans tossed some francs on the bar and wished me a good evening. The remaining two journalists turned to discussing Roosevelt’s death and the job Truman had ahead. But their conversation about the prison camp intrigued me, and thoughts spun through my head.
My mission was cancelled and I had doubts that another would be forthcoming. The Red Army in the east and Allies in the west had Hitler’s Wehrmacht on the retreat. My time at R and A had already shown breakdowns in the German Army communication along with a fair amount of surrenders. Goebbels could churn out all the propaganda he wanted, it didn’t change the fact that their country would soon be overrun and bring the Wehrmacht to its knees. If I couldn’t be of use to the OSS office in Switzerland, I’d likely be returned to R and A in France. I cringed at the thought.
Lily Saint James had a photojournalist cover identification and press credentials. Even though I’d reestablished Gisele, it seemed her moniker would not see a return to action. For some unfathomable reason burning deep in my gut, I was desperate to return to Germany. When I left the apartment in Paris, Colette had handed the camera to me on my way out the door. “It helps steady you,” she’d said. She wasn’t wrong. I missed my photography, and the Minox was nothing compared to the 35mm Argus A hidden behind the dresser in my room.
I flagged a passing waiter, ordered another drink, then headed to the ladies’ room. The transformation took only a few minutes. Luckily, I’d opted for a wig this time. I tucked the gray-brown strands and glasses into my handbag and combed my own hair into a French twist. I washed the dreary makeup off my face, and with a few pinches to my cheeks and swipe of lipstick, Lily Saint James emerged.
To my relief the journalists were still at the table and had moved on to a heated discussion about Stalin and Churchill. A hotel staff member stopped by the table to deliver a missive to the journalists as I returned to my stool at the bar.
“Hot damn, we’re in!” The brown tie slapped his hand on the table.
“We’re in?”
“Buchenwald, it’s been arranged. Pack your bags, we leave at oh-six-hundred...”
I swiveled on my seat, caught the eye of the fellow with the brown tie, dropped my lids, and produced a mysterious half smile. It was an enticing move I’d learned from Colette.
The gentleman paused, mid-sentence, straightened up from his slumped posture, and smiled back. “Guten Tag.”
I gave a deep chuckle. “Speak English. I’m an American, like you.”
“Would you like to join us?”
I settled in the empty chair and pushed the brandy snifter aside.
“I’m Jack and this is Freddy.”
“Lily.” We shook hands.
“What are you doing in Switzerland?”
I smiled and whispered, “I’m going to be honest with you fellows.” The two men leaned closer to hear me. “I heard your conversation about Buchenwald. I’m a freelance photographer trying to get my foot in the door to Germany, and I thought ... maybe I could hitch a ride with you gentlemen to the camp?” I fluttered my lashes.
Brown tie didn’t hesitate. “Sure thing, dollface. Why don’t you and your camera meet us out front at oh-six-hundred? That’s six a-m to those who don’t speak military.” He’d obviously tied on a few and might not have been thinking straight.
I didn’t care. Just like my spur-of-the-moment decision to save little Klara had gotten me the job in Oberndorf, my impulsive move tonight would get me back into Germany.
“Thanks. Why don’t you let me pay for your drinks?” I pulled twenty francs out of my purse, laid it under the brandy snifter, and rose.
“Wait,” the ale drinker said. “You’re leaving?”
“I must get my beauty rest. Tomorrow’s a big day.” I blew them a kiss and made my escape before they rethought their position.