Nancy Wake: World War Two’s Most Rebellious Spy Read online

  Then the messages came that dispatched Nancy’s three ‘guests’ on the next step of their journey, so she cancelled that evening’s dance and she and her young friends and Mme Marques – with the fair promise of a pig fully grown by Christmas – returned innocently to Marseille.

  Receiving the news that Garrow was to be taken by train that afternoon from the fort to the prison camp at Meauzac, Nancy and Henri decided to cheer him up by seeing him off at the station.

  They had been waiting only a few minutes when Garrow – looking ill but cheerful, and still wearing his smart felt hat – appeared. Nancy and her husband at once displayed the most extravagant affection for him. Chattering gaily to him as he was hustled into the train, making themselves as difficult as possible to the guards, they watched him take his seat and, as the train drew out of the station, they waved with outrageous ostentation. Eventually the carriage vanished from sight.

  ‘That was good,’ declared Henri in great satisfaction. ‘Now he knows that he still has friends.’

  ‘And when he gets out of Meauzac,’ Nancy thought rebelliously to herself, ‘he’ll know it even better.’ Feeling very confident of this, she armed herself that night with a false identity card, stating that she was Mlle Lucienne Carrier, and took the train to Nice.

  There she took delivery of three American aviators whom she escorted across France to Perpignan. She left them knowing that within seventy-two hours they would be free in Spain. She herself returned to Marseille and became Mme Fiocca again. Though she was to revert to being Mlle Carrier on many subsequent occasions, she was for the moment concerned most with her status as Nancy Fiocca, first cousin to Captain Ian Garrow.

  5 THE RESCUE

  In early November 1942 the worst fate that the southern zone of France could imagine befell her. Savage and frightened by unprecedented Allied successes in North Africa and Egypt, and urged to do so by the traitor, Laval, the Nazis marched into Unoccupied France.

  Their aim was to seize the French fleet that lay in Toulon, to fortify the Mediterranean coast against any further attempts at Allied landings, like the August one at Dieppe, and to operate from its ports with their own supply craft and U-boats. Last but not least, they wanted to wipe out the various subversive organisations that flourished in the South.

  This was the time when Nancy chose to travel every weekend between Marseille and Meauzac – a phoney Frenchwoman blatantly sympathising with her phoney Scottish cousin, who was himself serving a ten-year sentence for illicit operations – and this was also the time that the Gestapo first began to talk among themselves of ‘The White Mouse’. The White Mouse was Mme Fiocca!

  Fortunately, Mme Fiocca was quite as unaware of these discussions as were the Gestapo of her real identity. She did know, however, that train checks and controls must soon grow tighter and the risks she ran larger. Nevertheless, she continued to visit Meauzac regularly.

  Nor were train checks and controls the only danger confronting a Resistance worker at that time. More and more people were coming to need the help of patriots like Nancy: people of three types.

  There were first of all evaders. They were Allied personnel, mainly airmen, who, having been shot down, had so far escaped capture and were trying to get out of France and back to Britain.

  Next there were escapers. These were men who, having already been imprisoned or interned, had escaped from their confinement and were now trying to reach Spain and safety.

  Finally, there were refracteurs. They were simply people who were in trouble with Vichy or German authority because they had broken an Occupation rule. They might merely be women who had been prosecuted for buying black-market food for their hungry families; or they might be Jews who (frantically avoiding the Nazis’ net that would scoop them into the ovens of Buchenwald) had illegally obtained for themselves a Christian identity card rather than that marked fatally ‘Jew’; or they might be any one of a dozen categories in between these two.

  These were the people for whom escape organisations worked. But the work could not be done without money. In fact, the amount of money required to run the organisation was now becoming enormous. And because these were the days before such activities were financed from London, it became necessary to raise contributions from sympathisers in France itself.

  Accordingly, members of the organisation would call on selected Frenchmen and ask them for donations.

  ‘Look,’ they would say, ‘I know you can’t just accept my word for it that this money will be spent the way I’ve told you, so you listen in to the BBC each night when the personal messages come over. One night you’ll hear “ Message for Eileen . . . The cow jumped over the moon ”, or any other message you choose. That will prove my bona fides and it will mean that the British government will guarantee your loan to us and pay it back at the end of the War.’

  If these terms were accepted, the circuit member would then take the message agreed upon by the potential donor to a courier, who delivered it to a wireless operator, who sent it to London. From there the BBC would transmit that agreed personal message; and the Frenchman would then – perhaps – make his contribution. Or perhaps, if the organisation had not chosen him well, he would talk about the unusual suggestion that had been made to him and how he had refused it. More than anything else, this need to raise their own money (conversely, London’s inability to provide it) was the cause of the mass arrests by the Gestapo that were to come later. Raising money bred risks. And O’Leary needed lots of money.

  Henri Fiocca himself, for example, gave more than £6,000 to the movement, as well as a personal allowance to Nancy of £25 a day, £20 at least of which was spent on subversive work and only £5 on household requirements. Garrow’s rescue was a typical case of the expenses incurred. The key move in Garrow’s rescue was to be the payment of a bribe of 500,000 francs to one of the camp guardians.

  How to contact this guardian was the difficulty. That was why Nancy, taking the bull by the horns, had decided to visit Meauzac every weekend armed with food parcels, arriving on Saturday afternoon and leaving on Sunday afternoon. Having made herself thoroughly conspicuous by taking parcels to Garrow so often, she felt sure that the corrupt guardian would eventually make an opportunity to contact her.

  For weeks nothing happened. Then, one Saturday afternoon a uniformed man flashed past her on a bicycle and a note, wrapped round a stone, thudded to the ground near her feet. At last her plan had worked. Looking quickly in all directions to see that no one was watching, she stooped down, picked up the message, unfolded and read it.

  ‘Oh no,’ she muttered to herself. ‘This gets more like E. Phillips Oppenheim every day.’

  The note read melodramatically: Meet me at midnight on the bridge at La Linde. And the more she thought about this cryptic little billet-doux, the angrier Nancy grew.

  ‘How the hell will I know who he is? All I’ve seen is his back,’ she snarled to herself. ‘“Meet me on the bridge,” he says. Of course curfew doesn’t matter! “Meet me at midnight,” he says, when curfew’s at ten thirty.’ So she grumbled her way back to her room.

  But by midnight, slipping through the shadows, evading gendarmes and all other passers-by who might arrest her or report her for breaking curfew, she was on the bridge at La Linde. And she waited there until 2.30 in the morning without the guardian ever turning up. Furiously she slunk her way back to bed and the next day took a train to Toulon.

  Travelling home from there that afternoon she found herself in a first-class compartment with two companions. One was a little French soldier, still in uniform, and the second was a German officer. Nancy, who had spent the morning in Toulon arranging all sorts of plans of which the Gestapo would certainly have disapproved, now felt full of righteous indignation at the German’s presence.

  On the lapel of her costume she wore an insignia given to her by the touring Australian Rugby team of 1938 – a kangaroo. She removed her overcoat and thrust her bosom aggressively at the German officer, flaunting the unmis
takably British insignia. He took no notice. The better to make her point, she dragged a Penguin book, printed in English, out of her large handbag, and ostentatiously read it. Still he took no notice. Nancy, conscious of the complete ‘authenticity’ of her forged French identity papers, felt gloriously secure, but disappointed that her studied rudeness had made no obvious impact on the Nazi officer.

  Then the ticket collector came to their compartment. Stolidly he examined the German’s ticket and Nancy’s ticket and passed them back. But he declared that the little French soldier must leave.

  ‘This is a first-class compartment. You have only a third-class ticket.’

  ‘But all the third-class carriages are full,’ the soldier protested. ‘Here there are plenty of seats.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ the collector told him. ‘You cannot travel in this compartment with a third-class ticket.’ Thereupon Madame Fiocca, full of outraged fury, fell upon him.

  ‘How dare you,’ she demanded, ‘as a Frenchman, tell one of your own countrymen to go when you leave this German gentleman sitting here in peace?’ Confident that the German would understand every word she said, but equally confident that her behaviour was no more than that of a normally high-spirited and patriotic Frenchwoman, she elaborated considerably about the outrageous hardships endured by decent French soldiers since France had fallen. Finally, she finished her speech. ‘And if you won’t let this man stay in here on his ticket, when there are no seats in the third class, then I personally shall pay the difference in the fares so that you cannot throw him out.’

  With the inspector dumbly shaking his head, she then passed over a handful of franc notes and the little soldier stayed where he was. They smiled at one another and then both scowled at the German. Ten minutes later he got up and moved to another compartment. In high satisfaction Nancy finished the journey to Marseille – until she remembered her long and fruitless wait for the guardian the night before. Then she grew angry again.

  Arnal called on her at her flat immediately after she got home. ‘He gave me a rendezvous,’ Nancy stormed without any explanation, ‘and then he didn’t turn up.’

  ‘The guardian?’ Arnal guessed tentatively.

  ‘The guardian,’ she snapped. ‘From midnight till two-thirty I wait on his accursed bridge. I break curfew. I walk miles. I freeze to death. And then he doesn’t even turn up.’

  With difficulty Arnal soothed her. ‘And what now?’ he asked finally.

  ‘I’ll go back next weekend, of course.’

  So the following Saturday saw Mme Fiocca sitting stolidly in the train to Meauzac, beautifully dressed as always and hatless as Frenchwomen usually were in those days. As soon as she reached Meauzac she walked to her favourite bistro and ordered a drink.

  A guardian sauntered over to her.

  ‘Haven’t I seen you here before?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Haven’t I seen you at the camp too?’

  ‘You could have. I’ve been there, often.’

  ‘You visit the English captain, Garrow, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. He is my cousin. My mother’s sister’s son, you understand? I take him food parcels.’

  ‘That is what I had heard, Madame.’ He grinned. Cautiously he peered round the bistro and then whispered to her, ‘Five hundred thousand francs and a policeman’s uniform.’

  Five hundred thousand francs, at the rate of exchange in those days, was more than £2,500. 1 Nancy had known that this would be the figure, though, and she now showed no dismay.

  ‘How much deposit?’ she demanded.

  ‘A hundred thousand.’

  ‘Give you fifty.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘I can’t now. I’ve only got ten thousand on me.’

  ‘I must have the fifty thousand now,’ he insisted.

  ‘This evening,’ Nancy stalled him calmly.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘This evening. Here.’

  Nancy then rang Henri long distance to their home and said enigmatically, ‘Henri, I’ve come to Meauzac without any money. Could you telegraph me forty thousand francs this afternoon?’ That was £200. 2 As tonelessly as she had asked for the money, Henri replied, ‘At once.’

  The postal service of France was one organisation in the country that had always functioned perfectly. Wars and occupations never made any difference to its efficiency. By late afternoon Nancy had cashed Henri’s telegraphed order for 40,000 francs. In the evening she gave the guardian his full 50,000 deposit.

  ‘You’ll get the rest, plus the gendarme’s uniform, next weekend,’ she promised.

  The next day, when she visited the camp, she was led not to Garrow’s cell but to the office of the commandant.

  ‘Madame,’ he announced brusquely. ‘I am informed that you have just received a large amount of money from Marseille. Why?’

  ‘Me?’ she exclaimed. ‘A large amount of money? I have received no large amounts of money, I assure you.’ She registered polite but bewildered astonishment at the very suggestion.

  ‘The Post Office have told me, Mme Fiocca,’ he shouted, ‘that yesterday afternoon you received forty thousand francs by telegram. That is a very large sum. Why was it sent to you? Why?’

  Giving him the benefit of her longest and coldest stare, Nancy then registered disdain.

  ‘Monsieur le Commandant,’ she explained, ‘perhaps to you forty thousand francs is a lot of money! I don’t know. But to me, I assure you, it is nothing . . . pin money in fact.’

  ‘Pin money? Nothing?’ he gulped.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ she declared. ‘I needed it for drinks at the bistro!’

  Utterly overwhelmed, as much by his own sense of snobbishness as by Nancy’s arrogance, the commandant capitulated. Quickly she pressed home her advantage. ‘Now, mon Commandant, if you have nothing further to say, I should like to see my cousin.’

  ‘Of course, Madame,’ he agreed. He called a guard. ‘Take this visitor to Garrow,’ he ordered. Looking him straight in the eye, she corrected him.

  ‘To my cousin, the Captain Garrow,’ she insisted quietly.

  No sooner was she alone with Garrow than she hissed, ‘Next weekend. The money and the uniform. It’s all settled.’

  When she left the camp that afternoon she went straight to the Post Office and then complained to its staff, with the greatest possible indignation, about the shameful breach of confidence of which they had been guilty when they had informed the commandant of her telegraphed money order. Before she had finished everyone in Meauzac knew the story and Nancy herself was almost convinced that she was telling the truth.

  On the way back from Meauzac to Marseille she stopped at Toulouse and met O’Leary. She told him about the uniform. He replied that he would get one made, but said that first he wished to discuss the details of the escape plan with the guardian. He therefore agreed to travel to Meauzac with Nancy the following weekend and arranged to meet her in Marseille mid-week.

  The following week was a busy one. First of all, the Vichy authorities organised a well-attended anti-British demonstration at which some arrived to participate, others, like Nancy and Henri, to jeer. Very quickly Henri was locked in sarcastic argument with one of the Vichyites.

  ‘ Eh bien ,’ the Vichy man concluded his diatribe, ‘look what these accursed English did to our Joan of Arc – burnt her! Always they are the same.’

  ‘True, true,’ Henri agreed placidly. ‘It’s a great pity. If they hadn’t burnt her, doubtless she would be able to save France today!’ The Vichy protagonist gave him a furious glance and then abruptly moved elsewhere to continue his demonstration.

  Then, on 27 November, during the same week, the Germans attempted to seize the French fleet in Toulon. In spite of Laval, and Laval sympathisers among the commanders of the fleet, patriotic French sailors suddenly rallied against the proposed coup and successfully scuttled one battleship, two battle-cruisers, seven cruisers, twenty-nine destroyers and torpedo boats and sixteen
submarines. The reaction of the Germans to this act of superb defiance was naturally a bitter one. Angrily they began to scour the countryside and towns for saboteurs and Resistance workers and this meant that Garrow’s rescue, planned for Saturday week, was going to be a tricky business.

  When O’Leary met Nancy in Marseille, they agreed that, since no one at Meauzac knew Henri, O’Leary should travel to Meauzac as Nancy’s husband. O’Leary provided himself with false papers to this effect and so, whilst Nancy later talked with Garrow inside the camp, O’Leary talked with the guardian at the bistro.

  The guardian told him that unfortunately all the uniforms of the camp police had been changed because of an escape recently executed by the same method. O’Leary took details of the new uniform and promised that it would be delivered the following Saturday. Then he and Nancy left.

  Next weekend Nancy did not visit Garrow – but the uniform was delivered to the guardian in the village as agreed and then he smuggled it into the camp and hid it in a lavatory. He also gratefully accepted the balance of his bribe from O’Leary’s organisation.

  Thus, whilst Nancy was deliberately conspicuous in Marseille, Garrow, many miles away at Meauzac, slipped into a lavatory, changed into a beautifully fitting gendarme’s uniform and attached himself boldly to the old guard as it was relieved by the new, and was marched out of the camp.

  The only danger point was the main gate. There he had to pass a sentry who should know both the faces and the correct number of the old guard quite well. Garrow covered his face with his handkerchief and compelled himself to saunter out of the gate. There was no challenge.

  With his nerves screaming at him to run, he had to continue walking slowly down the road away from the camp. He turned a bend in the road and there saw the car that O’Leary, through Nancy, had promised would be waiting for him. He was driven to Toulouse, given a few weeks to fatten up and strengthen his legs for the long walk that lay ahead and then he was passed from hand to hand into Spain along the escape route he had once himself largely controlled. In quite a short time he was back in England. Thus Nancy’s bargain with O’Leary had been honoured, on both sides, to the full. She celebrated this successful outcome of her plans by making five more trips in two weeks as Lucienne Cartier and so adding twenty more triumphant escapes to her already impressive total.