Whilst waiting to be debriefed Peulevé was moved to one of F Section's safe houses, a flat on Elvaston Place in South Kensington, where he was able to restore some of the considerable weight he had lost in Spain. During his interrogations at Orchard Court he gave detailed descriptions of his experiences and his opinions on the CARTE fiasco, but having left the Cote d'Azur six months previously his information was by then somewhat out of date. It would be some time before he could return to France; nonetheless, Buckmaster wanted to get Peulevé back to full strength as quickly as possible, and by 18 May had begun making plans for him to attend paramilitary and W/T refresher courses.
Following some leave he travelled up to the Highlands to begin the first of these at Arisaig (STS 21), about 10 miles west of Meoble, on 2 June. It lasted just two weeks, after which he returned to London to an unexpected reunion with Poirier, who had arrived in England at the end of May. Released from Jaraba shortly after Peulevé's escape, he'd flown from Gibraltar to Bristol, fortunately avoiding the previous flight which was shot down by a German fighter over Portugal, killing all of its occupants. Told to surrender his passport only to SOE personnel, he was greeted with suspicion by MI 5 and quickly taken off to the Royal Patriotic School in Wandsworth, a detention centre for those entering into the country with a questionable background. It took several days for F Section to catch up with him, but he eventually arrived at Orchard Court where Buckmaster informed him that his training would be starting immediately. As a security precaution his French background was to be kept a secret and his new identity, ‘Jack Peters’, was added to the General List as a junior officer in the British Army.
Peulevé advised him not to bother with the hotel Vera Atkins had booked him into, recommending that he take a room at the Pastoria instead, on the south side of Leicester Square. A preferred choice over the accommodation offered by SOE, it was a favourite of Peulevé's and several other F Section agents; Rake was particularly fond of it for its menus, recalling that ‘Throughout the war the food at Pastori's [the hotel owner] was miraculous. That is honestly the only word I can use to describe it, for how it was done I cannot conceive.’1 Having caught up with each other's recent news, there was an opportunity for Peulevé to spend some time acquainting Poirier with his favourite nightspots in the West End, although the younger man had some trouble in keeping up, having only got drunk for the first time after his release in Madrid.
Some days before leaving for his W/T course Peulevé spent an evening with the widow of an RAF pilot at the Studio Club in Knightsbridge, where he was introduced to a vivacious, petite and very attractive dark-haired girl from south London. Close to her twenty-second birthday, Violette Szabó (née Bushell) had been born in Paris to an English father and French mother, and like Peulevé grew up spending time in London, the Midlands and northern France, though her family finally settled in Stockwell when she was eleven. Working as a shop assistant in Brixton after the outbreak of war, Violette's tomboyish and headstrong nature had compelled her to join one of the Services, but she was instead persuaded by a friend to work in the fields with the Land Army. Still with a mind to do something more vital she returned to London in July 1940, where she met a dashing French Foreign Legion officer, Etienne Szabó; they married in August, and a year later she was at last able to enlist with the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), serving as a gunner on an AA battery. Violette was discharged in the spring of 1942 and gave birth to a daughter, Tania, in June, but just four months later she too became a widow, when Etienne was killed while serving in North Africa.
Peulevé's partner spoke very good French and he later forwarded her name to Orchard Court for consideration as a potential recruit, but she was deemed a security risk on the grounds of her Italian parentage. However, during her interview she mentioned that her friend Violette might be a more suitable candidate, and after being cleared by security on 1 July she was passed on to Selwyn Jepson, F Section's recruiting officer. Feeling a great need to fight back after the recent death of her husband, she volunteered herself immediately and was accepted by Jepson for training as a courier. By accident, Peulevé's recommendation had resulted in a completely different outcome than the one he had imagined and would have fateful consequences for both him and Violette.
F Section had begun using women agents in mid-1942. Though some in SOE had moral reservations about the question of recruiting females, there was also a problem of legality – women were not recognized as combatants by the Geneva Convention and were therefore completely unprotected if captured. Gubbins skirted around this problem by using the FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) as cover. SOE had employed FANYs since its inception as signallers, coders, drivers, telephonists, clerks and training section staff, and it was thought that agents attached to this organization could claim ‘cap-badge’ status if arrested behind enemy lines to avoid being treated as a spy. It also meant that SOE could disguise its activities from the British public, creating an innocuous front for women who were ‘specially employed’.
Most were picked to become couriers, as they were considered less likely to attract the suspicion of German patrols as they delivered messages from village to village, but a few served as wireless operators and a couple even became organizers. They were trained in the same way as their male counterparts and would be liable to the same penalties if caught, yet they often showed equal, if not greater, courage when put under pressure. In the course of the war F Section sent thirty-nine women to France, approximately 8 per cent of the total number of agents infiltrated. Thirteen did not return.
After completing his short W/T course at Thame Park, Peulevé ran into Violette again, though this time she was wearing a FANY uniform. Whether he concluded that she had been recruited by F Section immediately, or later came across other evidence to confirm his suspicions, isn't clear, though she stuck to her cover story that she was working as a driver. As the month progressed they began to see more of each other, going out to their favourite nightclubs and restaurants, talking into the early hours; yet the closer they became, the more Peulevé became frustrated by the necessary deception required of them. They now belonged to the same secret organization but could not say a word to each other about who they really were, or the extraordinary dangers they would both soon be facing.
Having completed his refresher courses, Peulevé was considered ready to begin preparation for his second mission, this time as an organizer of a new circuit in the rural Corrèze department of west-central France. Its aim, as a 1943 directive from the Chiefs of Staff stated, was to make ‘a special effort towards supplying the resistance groups… with the means enabling them to play an active part when they are required to do so in support of Allied strategy’.2 In effect this meant training and arming the Resistance to be ready to offer guerrilla support when the Second Front came, cutting lines of communications and hampering German attempts to mobilize their forces. Sabotage would be a vital aspect of this work and in order to gain specialist knowledge of the subject Peulevé began a three-week demolitions course in mid-July at STS 17, sited on the Brickendon-bury Estate near Hertford.
Specifically designed to teach agents how to carry out industrial sabotage, the course was led by George Rheam, who before the war had worked for the Central Electricity Board. A tall, serious man, he followed the rules that other training schools had sought to instil in their pupils, namely to achieve an objective in the simplest and most effective way. The key lay in teaching agents to survey a target carefully and concentrate on its weak points, rather than attempting to blow an entire installation to bits – charges placed on the frames of machinery made from cast iron rather than steel obviated the need for large amounts of explosives, whilst a hammer blow to a single component of a locomotive, or bolts secreted into the gearing of a crane could result in damage requiring weeks or months to repair. Peulevé received a favourable report from this course, the instructor remarking that ‘Although this student has not previously worked in industry he was quick at picking up the essentials and showed an intelligent appreciation of the special features,’ later adding that he had the subject ‘well under control’.3
F Section had come a long way since the summer of 1942 when Peulevé had left on his first mission, and was now operating twenty-four circuits across France; however, it had not yet dedicated any of its organizers to developing resistance in the Corrèze. In an attempt to extend the reach of his SCIENTIST circuit around Bordeaux, Peulevé's old partner Claude de Baissac had reconnoitred the region and found that its terrain was ideally suited to guerrilla activity, but local resistance groups were in desperate need of money and arms. Sending a report to London in July 1943, he advised that they would need close supervision and support if they were to become an effective force, recommending that another organizer and W/T operator be introduced to manage the situation more closely.
During talks following his recall to London the following month, Buckmaster agreed with de Baissac's assessment but wanted to take the Corrèze completely out of his hands – the growth of SCIENTIST, which now ran from the edge of Poitiers down the Atlantic seaboard towards the Spanish frontier, was beginning to pose serious dangers to its own security and could not be allowed to expand further. Peulevé's new circuit would therefore be starting from scratch, fulfilling an important role in linking the existing PIMENTO and WHEELWRIGHT circuits to its south, SCIENTIST in the west and STATIONER, covering the Haute-Vienne, Indre and Creuse departments to the north. Although de Baissac had been eager to retain personal command of the Corrèze, he approved the appointment of Peulevé as his successor and handed over the details of the contacts he'd already made.
Aside from F Section's expansion, French resistance had been affected by several important changes during 1943. The movement of German troops into the Vichy zone had largely disposed of any remaining illusion of French independence under Pétain, and the increasing German demand for labour after the introduction of the relève had led to the deeply unpopular STO (Service du Travail Obligatoire), the compulsory deportation of French workers introduced in February. Another equally loathed and feared creation was the milice, a ruthless paramilitary body formed from French volunteers and headed by Nazi sympathizer Joseph Darnand. Officially responsible for targeting elements in society deemed anti-social such as black marketeers and communists, it was equally likely to carry out raids against résistants, Jews, réfractaires (men who had gone into hiding to avoid the STO draft) and anyone else it considered potentially subversive. As these miliciens had a greater local knowledge than their German counterparts their presence inevitably made life more dangerous for SOE's agents, but news of indiscriminate attacks on civilians, compounded by the miseries of the occupation and the clear collaboration of Vichy's ministers also led to increasing support for the resistance.
At the beginning of the year Combat, Franc-Tireur and LibérationSud had agreed to merge to form a new organization, the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance (MUR), which took its direction from de Gaulle. The MUR employed regional chiefs to delegate its orders amongst local groups and its military wing, the Armée Secrète (AS) became one of the major Resistance powers in France, only rivalled by the communist FTP. Through the spring these politically opposed forces began to establish the first ‘maquis’, small guerrilla groups that lived in the relative safety of the hills and forests, taking their name from the Corsican word for the thick scrub found along the Mediterranean coast. Although willing to fight, they were very poorly equipped and mostly without training or arms. The maquis were to be the focus of Peulevé's attentions in the Corrèze – by arranging supply drops and instructing them on how best to use weapons and explosives, they would be the means to carry out sabotage and coups de main (surprise attacks) on local enemy targets in the months before D-Day, and provide an underground army capable of holding up German units when an Allied invasion finally arrived.
Towards the end of August, Poirier returned to London, having just completed his training at Arisaig. He was accompanied by one of his fellow students, Cyril Watney, a twenty-year-old Signals officer whose family had known his before the war, whilst living at Beaulieu-sur-Mer on the Riviera. With no relatives in England, Poirier soon became an adopted member of the Watney family and often stayed with them at their home in south London. After being introduced to Peulevé, Watney was so impressed that he asked to be assigned as W/T operator on his forthcoming mission, even though he had yet to complete his training. Buckmaster unsurprisingly vetoed the idea, as Peulevé was one of the few organizers capable of doubling as a wireless operator and Watney could be put to better uses. However, he acknowledged his friend by choosing a similar surname, ‘Pontlevé’, for his cover, and would cross Peulevé's path again in France.
Violette had meanwhile left London to undergo a SOE student assessment course at Winterfold in Surrey while Peulevé was attending his sabotage training, but he was able to see her when she returned at the end of the month. Despite his joy at their reunion, their secret lives continued to require more excuses from each other and Peulevé found it increasingly difficult to keep up their charade, later commenting on how their ‘pathetic pretence saddened me, especially as our relationship had become extremely intimate. I had to go back to France without being able to tell her, and she also had to go without being able to tell me.’4
There has been some debate over the years as to how far Peulevé's romantic involvement with Szabó actually went. That he had fallen in love is obvious from his own writings, though exactly what her feelings were towards him is more difficult to fathom, and it's impossible to be sure that she perceived their relationship in the same terms. Considering that she had lost her husband only a few months before their first meeting, she may not have wished to become involved with another man so soon; alternatively she might have harboured fears about the possibility of another loss in her life if she committed herself again. Nevertheless it's clear that, even when compared with other celebrated figures within SOE's ranks, these two people possessed unusually impressive personalities, being driven by the same overwhelming need to prove themselves, and that a strong bond had developed between them in the few weeks they had known each other.
As the time came for Peulevé to leave for France, he told Violette that he was to be posted to the Middle East. She ‘consolingly replied that she would be still driving the General’5 when he returned, though he knew that her training must be about to start. In order for his posting to appear genuine, Peulevé wrote a series of love letters and handed them to Vera Atkins at Orchard Court – these were to be mailed at regular intervals from Cairo and Beirut during the time he was away, though it's not known whether Szabó ever received them. He stuck to the same story when visiting his parents, now living at Saxby in Suffolk, though he secretly confided in his sister, telling her that if he were captured he would probably be put up against a wall and shot.
The decision to send Peulevé alone to the Corrèze would inevitably make his job more laborious, but it also meant that he had no one to worry about except himself. Poirier had been agreed as his assistant and would follow as soon as his training was completed, with additional agents being dropped once the foundations for the circuit were established. As on his first mission, he was to travel under the name of ‘Henri Chevalier’, and would be known by the new codename of Jean. The new circuit would be named AUTHOR.