The silence hung.
“Why don’t you want to leave this place?” Henri asked, frustration rising.
It wasn’t that simple, Odette said. She wasn’t comfortable leaving the prison under his protection and trying to keep her silence and self-respect, while others languished in their cells. She would stay.
“I impose no conditions, Lise.”
“No, but I do—on myself. Do you think I could ever go back to England and look my friends in the face and say, ‘I was captured but they let me out again and I had a fine war—under the benevolent wing of the Abwehr or the Gestapo’?” She stood. “You will forgive me if I ask that this interview now come to an end.”
He asked if she was hungry and she said, yes.
“I could order you extra food.”
Did other women receive extra?
“Some,” Henri said. “Those who work for us do, the Kahlfaktors, the women who push the food trolley round and that sort of thing.”
Odette said she would pass.
Henri asked if there was anything he could do for her and Odette said there were notices in German on her door; what did they say?
They walked back to her cell and Henri began reading: “That one means that you are ‘grand secret’—most secret. Then these say ‘no books,’ ‘no showers,’ ‘no parcels,’ ‘no exercise,’ ‘no favors’ and that sort of thing.” They also said that she was to have no contact with anyone, that her door was never to be left open, and that her food must be inserted through the trap door.
Henri left and Odette returned to her favorless secret life.
MEANWHILE, PETER LANGUISHED IN his cell. Boredom and the pangs of hunger were driving him mad. Things that he had always taken for granted—food, drink, cigarettes—were now precious luxuries. He measured his cell: fourteen by eight. He asked a guard when he could visit the exercise yard and the answer was sometimes once a week, sometimes once a month, depending on the mood of the guard on duty at the time.
That evening he conjured up thoughts of visiting Odette in her cell, projecting that he was there. For an hour he imagined conversation with her. He could see her face clearly and happily received the waves of strength she radiated. Her fortitude, he thought, was enough for two.
A FEW DAYS LATER Henri escorted Peter to the interrogation room for another visit. While they smoked, Henri warned that Peter’s interrogation with the Gestapo was coming, and that they were putting their best man on him. It was a kind gesture and Peter knew he’d have to make his answers and rebuttals—and red herrings when possible—pick-proof. Henri also said that Berlin had forwarded the exchange proposal to London.
The conversation came to an end and Peter asked if he could see Odette. To arrange it would have been a direct violation of the Gestapo’s orders and if they found out that Henri had done so, there would be significant repercussions. Nonetheless, he agreed, quietly telling a guard that he needed to interrogate Odette.
Moments later she was at the door, immaculate from head to foot, Peter thought. She was wearing her charcoal suit, a spotless blouse, silk stockings, and her square-toed shoes. Her thick brunette hair framed her slim neck and rested peacefully on her shoulders. She looked beautiful.
He jumped up to embrace her and for several moments they held each other. As they did, Henri was polite enough to move to the window to give them privacy.
Peter looked awful, Odette thought. Either he had been tortured or he was still suffering from his injuries at Annecy. Peter, in turn, was worried about Odette, telling her that she looked pale. Odette suggested that perhaps they should discuss other things.
Henri was gracious, giving them endless time to talk. After an hour or so he joined the conversation, almost as a friend, telling them again that he had been a POW in the first war and that the British had treated him very well. He was sorry, he said to Odette, that the Gestapo would allow her no books or exercise, and asked if he could do anything else for her.
From what Odette could tell, he was sincere. Henri was, for the moment, truly a Teutonic St. George. And yet she and Peter could never relax because Henri was cunning enough—as Marsac had learned—to play any part needed to extract information or gain advantage.
She said there was not, and Henri indicated that it was time for them to return to their cells. The “Churchills” parted with sweet sorrow, but the two-hour interlude was a precious milestone, Peter thought, that he could relive in the quiet solitude of the dark days to come.
IN HIS CELL PETER considered Henri’s warning about the interrogator. It would all come down to one interview—a tribunal, the Germans liked to call it. Whether he lived or died, was tortured, or would ever see Odette again, would hinge on that meeting. What the Italians had done to him after the escape attempt was nothing; those were beatings, somewhat deserved, by amateurs who would later shake his hand when he left. The Gestapo were intellectual and ruthless surgeons.
It was bad enough that he was up against their best, but they now had countless sources: reports from Henri, the Italians, Marsac, Roger Bardet, Carte’s family, and others in or around the SPINDLE network. The interrogator would ask questions to which he already had answers, and he would bluff about facts he thought might be accurate but needed Peter’s confirmation.
Torture was a distinct possibility, if not certainty. Worse, the Gestapo had the ultimate trump card: Odette. What would he do if they threatened to torture her? His rage would take over and two bullets later the unmarked van would take delivery through the back.
On the other hand, they could simply execute him as a spy. Peter had committed the crime and the punishment was established by international law. He was Dostoyevsky’s Rodion Romanovitch: guilty as charged, clinging to a cross supplied by the woman he loved, and about to pass from one world to the next.
He tried to think of historical figures who had gone through similar ordeals. The Apostle Paul, he remembered vaguely, had undergone a multitude of trials but that provided little relief; Peter couldn’t remember the details and wasn’t a religious man anyway. Yet with death at the door, he welcomed any and all spiritual enlightenment.
It was time to invoke God’s help. Up to this point he had always seen himself as a self-sufficient atheist. Cambridge man. Hockey star. Diplomat. Commando. The feeble could bolster themselves with prayers to the Almighty, but such weakness was not for him. Imprisonment and impending death, however, changed that. He had joined the ranks of frail and mortal humanity.
He gave thanks to the Lord for the lesson and tried to work through his helplessness and despondency. Though the thought of God as a person was beyond him, he considered and admired the life of Jesus. Christ’s voluntary sacrifice, his human temptations, his cry “Take away this cup from me” suddenly took on real meaning for the first time. Surely this was a man who had passed through it all and faced it well, Peter thought. Surely this was a hero one could worship with admiration, a Deity who would listen to one’s prayers with understanding, for had he not passed that way himself?
Peter had never been a man of prayer, but this was as good a time as any to start. “God give me strength,” he prayed, “courage, patience, and good judgment.”
He recited the Lord’s Prayer.
Give us this day our daily bread . . .
But deliver us from evil.
May 25, 1943
“TRIBUNAL!”
Odette jumped. It was six in the morning.
“TRIBUNAL!”
Peter stirred in his bed.
“TRIBUNAL!” THE GUARD SHOUTED again.
Odette began dressing and recalled the fate of inmates she had seen taken away for the dreaded interrogation. Most did not return.
She followed the trail of women being led to the underground passage and when they reached a holding area, she noticed that male prisoners were joining them.
Was . . . Yes, there was Peter! They held each other’s eyes as the guards waited for everyone. When the group began trudging along, she and Peter moved toward each other.
“Bon courage, mon chéri,” she said.
Peter echoed the sentiment and they shuffled together through the corridor.
Outside, they were separated and filed into two Black Marias—police vans.
They arrived at 84 Avenue Foch and Odette was taken upstairs to a small room and told to wait. Peter, meanwhile, was ushered to the fourth floor and seated before the Commissar—the chief interrogator.28 A tall German about forty, he wore a dark suit and had an intelligent face with cold, indifferent eyes.
The man spoke flawless French and they covered the basics—name, date of birth, nationality, family members, father’s profession, schools attended, degrees received, work history, and so on. Prewar history complete, the Commissar retrieved a stack of ten pages, single spaced—Peter’s dossier.
“You see, Mr. Churchill, or Monsieur Chauvet, or Monsieur Chambrun, alias Raoul or what-have-you, we know absolutely everything about you. Three visits to France—one by submarine and two by parachute. You organized fishing-boat landings of men and material in the south of France, aircraft landings for the exchange of personnel, parachute drops all over the place for the railway sabotage plan, and you were responsible for the arming of the Maquis of the Plateau des Glières by twenty-five British bombers.”
Peter feigned shock. “Who gave you all of that exaggerated information?”
He was responding straight out of the SOE playbook, which warned of the interrogation trick: “Reconstruction of offense exaggerating prisoner’s share of it.” The Commissar had everything right, of course, although the twenty-five bombers was a bit much. But what did the Germans actually know, and could prove, about him? It’s a basic rule of interrogation to imply that you already have the information to extract it the fastest, and the Commissar was likely hoping for a quick meeting.
But Peter had been prepared well, and the SOE manual set the game’s framework: “The Gestapo’s reputation has been built up on ruthlessness and terrorism, not intelligence. They will always pretend to know more than they do and may even make a good guess, but remember that it is a guess; otherwise they would not be interrogating you.”
The chess match continued and the Commissar made his next move.
“I don’t think you quite understand our respective roles today. It is I who ask the questions and you who do the answering. Is it true that you were the Chief of the southeast zone?”
Per his training, Peter had two options: to answer each question quickly—which increased risk—or quite slowly, playing the village idiot. He chose the latter.
“There was no such thing as the Chief of a Zone,” he said. “Each officer was in charge of the district to which he was sent.”
The Commissar asked for names of British officers running neighboring districts and Peter said he never knew them; everyone worked in watertight compartments.
The German spread a handful of photographs on the table. “Ever seen any of these men before?”
Peter cast his eyes from side to side. He had met four of them, including Eugene, a radio operator he had winked at that very morning in the underground passage.
“Never.”
“So you don’t know any of these men, you never knew any of your neighbors and you weren’t the Chief of the southeast zone?”
“No.”
The Commissar ground his teeth and typed something. “This affair of the Maquis of Glières, are you going to deny that you arranged for their being armed by those twenty-five bombers?”
Peter said, yes, it was a de Gaulle operation.
“What do you take me for?” the Commissar shouted as he jumped from his seat, “a complete ninnyhammer?” He stomped around several paces and then turned back. “You realize what to expect from your stupid attitude in denying what is already known against you?”
“I am your prisoner, but I cannot accept the responsibility of all the things my enthusiastic betrayer has pinned on me.”
The Commissar asked what Peter would accept.
“That I came over here to sabotage the German war effort, that I did my duty as a British officer, that I lived with forged papers in civilian clothes, was prepared to blow up anything and everything I was told to blow up, but that in fact I have never sabotaged anything, never carried arms and never killed a single German.”
The Commissar cooled, still disbelieving Peter’s answers but unable, at least for the moment, to disprove his lies. “What’s the idea of trying to make out that you and Lise are married?” he asked. “Everyone knows that she joined you for the first time on November 2nd 1942 as your courier.”
It was clear, Peter thought, why the Germans were pushing the marriage issue. If Peter was in fact related to Churchill, they’d use him as a bargaining chip, along with any supposed wife. But if they could prove that he and Odette were unmarried, they were free to execute her as any other spy.
“We are married,” he said.
“When were you married?”
“On December 24th 1941,” Peter said, using the date he had told Odette to remember.
More accusations, more denials, and the Commissar had heard enough. “I’m wasting my time with you. I’ll see you another day when you’ve had a little more time to reflect on what you’re letting yourself in for by this stupid attitude of non-cooperation.”
Peter was floored. He had denied what the Germans clearly knew and had given them nothing new. Why had he not been tortured? Odette was looking smarter every day. Don’t touch this one, Herr Commissar—nephew of Winston Churchill himself. We may exchange him, so the goods can’t be damaged. Get what you can.
SOMEONE FINALLY CAME TO Odette’s room and escorted her to a mess hall. They presented a hearty meal of meat, potatoes, and gravy, but figuring the food was designed to make her sleepy for the interrogation, she ate only half.
After lunch it was her turn to see the Commissar. He was polite and proper, she found, and smelled of eau de Cologne. Following some preliminary questions, he started in earnest by challenging Odette on her marriage to Peter, but she held fast to their story. Peter couldn’t have been the brains behind the organization, the German asserted, as he was “the dumbest nincompoop I’ve ever met.”
Odette almost stepped in it, but then saw the branches and leaves, carefully arranged.
She agreed, she said. Churchill really was a dolt. She was the brains of the operation. They carried on for another ninety minutes and Odette deflected, telling him next to nothing. The Commissar looked at the three lines of notes he had taken and ended the interview.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, ODETTE heard it again.
“Tribunal!”
“But . . . but I went to the tribunal yesterday.”
“You go again today. Tribunal. Tribunal.”
Odette put on her skirt, her red blouse, and her only pair of silk stockings. When they arrived at Avenue Foch, she was taken immediately to the interrogation room on the fourth floor and put in a chair facing the Commissar, who was seated at a table.
“Lise, you wasted a great deal of my time yesterday,” he began without pleasantries. “You will not be permitted to do this again.”
Classic interrogation technique: alternate between geniality and hostility to get the prisoner to drop her guard. No buffet today.
The Commissar looked at her and seemed to be collecting his thoughts. He pointed to the window. “Have a look at those happy people outside.”
Odette ignored the request and the Commissar asked, “Why are you doing this?”
“My father was killed for France in the first war and my family has suffered repeatedly. And I’m British now and love England even more than France.”
“Are you doing this for money?” the Commissar asked, ignoring her patriotic motivation.
“No.”
“A pity.”
The Commissar then produced Odette’s handbag, which had been confiscated during registration at the prison. Pouring the contents on the table, he asked if she’d like to keep anything.
Odette shook her head. “No. Except, perhaps, the Rosary.”
The Commissar picked it up and extended his hand, but when Odette reached for it, he snatched it away.
Odette took it in stride, showing no emotion.
He returned it to the table and in a chilly tone said that he had three questions, all of which Odette would be made to answer. The first, he said, was the location of Arnaud.
Odette’s stomach knotted. The Commissar knew she had the information and there was no avoiding the heat.
She said she had nothing to say.
“We will see. It is known to us that you sent the British officer, Roger, from St. Jorioz to an address in the South of France. I want to know the address to which you sent him.”
Odette knew this as well, and she was the only one besides Arnaud who did. Cammaerts’s life was in her hands.
“I have nothing to say,” she repeated.
“Again, we will see. It is also known to us that you obtained from a French traitor a day or two before your arrest the layout of the docks at the Vieux Port of Marseille. I want to know the whereabouts of this document or the name of the person in whose possession it is.”
“I have nothing to say.”
“Lise, there is a parrot-like quality about your conversation that I find most irritating.” He repeated the three questions and told Odette that she had one minute to answer.
He eyed the second hand of his watch.
Tick. Tick Tick.
Odette’s pulse raged. It was the most debilitating type of fear: fear of the unknown.
Thirty seconds. Tick. Tick.
Beatings were the norm, she knew. At least for stage one. No doubt they had torture devices, but those were typically reserved for men, as a woman’s body offered numerous options for sadistic Nazis.
Ten seconds.
Betrayal or pain. Very simple.
Tick.
The Commissar looked up. “Well, Lise, I would now like the answers to my questions.”
Odette sat there with her secrets.
“We have means of making you talk.”
“I am aware of your methods.”
Odette’s arms were suddenly wrenched back—someone had snuck up behind her. The Commissar came over and began unbuttoning her blouse.
“I resent your hands on me or on my clothes,” Odette snapped. “If you tell me what you want me to do and release one hand, I will do it.”
“As you wish. Unbutton your blouse.”
Whatever happens to amuse the Gestapo . . .
Odette unhooked the top two buttons and the man behind her yanked down her blouse, exposing her back. She never saw what was in his other hand.
She lurched forward in a visceral spasm as the red-hot fire iron scorched her skin.
“Where is Arnaud?”
It was for times like these that London had given her the L tablet. The cyanide was quite effective, Buckmaster had said, fast-acting and painless. But it wasn’t Odette’s style, and she didn’t have it on her anyway.
She took a breath as the stench of burned flesh filled the air.
“I have nothing to say,” she said again.
“You are more than foolish.” The Commissar opened his cigarette case and offered her one. She declined and he began smoking. “Did they tell you that in your school for amateurs in the New Forest, to beware of poisoned cigarettes?”
Odette said nothing.
“You know the three questions. Are you now prepared to answer them—after the hors d’oeuvre—or do you want the full meal?”
“I have nothing to say.”
The Commissar stepped closer, brooding over her, eau de Cologne unmistakable now.
“Perhaps you would prefer to take off your shoes and stockings yourself. If not, I can assure you that I am well experienced in the mechanics of feminine suspenders.”
Odette slipped them off.
“My colleague here, Lise, is going to pull out your toenails one by one, starting at the little toe of your left foot. In between each evulsion—to use the correct medical term—I propose to repeat my questions. You can bring the ceremony to an end at any moment by answering these questions. There are those who faint after the third or fourth toenail, but I don’t think you are of the fainting kind. If you do faint, we can always revive you with brandy and the ceremony will continue. Now, before we begin, where is Arnaud?”
The standard procedure with torture—with SOE and all organizations—is forty-eight hours. If the operative can hold out for two days, it gives others in the circuit time to hear of the arrest and go to ground. But Odette and Peter had been arrested on April 16, more than six weeks ago; Arnaud and Roger surely had long since disappeared and there was no reason for her to endure more torture. If she gave their addresses, it was likely the Gestapo would find nothing more than dirty dishes.
Still, Odette would maintain her silence. It was a matter of principle. Of never giving in. This was fortunate because—unbeknownst to her—Cammaerts was, in fact, still at the safe house in Cannes, and, perhaps foolishly, would continue living there another six weeks.
Odette wasn’t tied to the chair so fighting was an option—eye strike to the man stooping, groin kick to eau de Cologne—but what good would it do? She was in the bowels of Gehenna,29 the place crawling with guards. No, she would take the full ride.
She watched the man at her feet. He was French and young—maybe twenty-eight—and exceedingly handsome, with dark, thick hair, perfect teeth, smouldering brown eyes, and beautiful lashes.
He held Odette’s foot and with the steel jaws of the pincers clamped down on the nail of her little toe.