Edward Wilson: Portrait of the Spy as a Young Man

The driver seemed to know his way around Limoges and headed off to where, Catesby assumed, the Abwehr HQ was located. He wondered what they were going to do next and knew that his companion was thinking the same thing. She leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.

‘Can you turn left at the next street?’

‘But, gnädige Frau , that isn’t the way to the Abwehr.’

‘The cryptologist we are meeting works directly for the Sicherheitsdienst . He is not a member of the Abwehr – I am sure you realise there are issues…’

‘I have heard rumours.’

‘Then keep those rumours to yourself – as well as the location to which you are taking us.’

The driver nodded and Catesby smiled. The rivalry and bad blood between the Abwehr intelligence service and the German security services were well known – and played upon by SOE and the Resistance.

Even though the woman hardly knew Limoges, she gave the impression of being a born native as she guided the driver through a bewildering haze of backstreets. They finally arrived at a cul de sac which stank of drains and rotting rubbish.

‘We’re here,’ she said. ‘Will you need any help backing out?’

‘No.’

The woman leaned forward and put her left hand on the driver’s shoulder. ‘You’ve been magnificent. Thank you for your help – and remember this is our secret.’

The driver blushed. ‘At your service, gnädige Frau .’

‘You should call me madame. I am French.’ The woman leaned further forward as if she were going to give the German soldier a collaborator’s kiss. The soldier’s blushing smile turned into an agonised grimace as the downward thrust of the knife cut deep through his chest into the aorta. As soon as Catesby saw what was happening, he put his hand over the driver’s mouth to muffle his ear-splitting scream. They waited half a minute until the driver had stopped twitching.

‘That might have been a mistake,’ said the woman. ‘And he looked like such an innocent boy.’ She paused. ‘Oh god! Our hands are covered in blood.’

The women pulled up her skirt. ‘Here, wipe your hands on my slip.’

As Catesby wiped his hands on the thin white fabric and sensed her tense thighs beneath, he experienced a totally inappropriate frisson – and immediately felt ashamed. When the woman finished wiping her own hands, she pulled her skirt down again.

‘I didn’t want to ditch the radio,’ she said. ‘They are gold dust.’

‘Then we need to get to a safe house quickly.’

The woman shook her head. ‘I think our best chance of getting away with the transmitter is to use the car. Can you drive?’

‘Yeah, but I think it’s a bad idea.’

‘We haven’t time to argue,’ said the woman. ‘You worked with Guingouin’s Maquis , so you know the countryside around here. Find us a hiding place.’

‘Okay, I’ll find a place to ditch the car and hide the radio. You go to a safe house and, if I succeed, we’ll rendezvous later.’

‘No, I’m staying with you.’

‘Another bad idea.’ Catesby got out of the car and began to push the body of the dead soldier into the footwell of the passenger seat.

‘Let me help.’

‘Help me get his tunic off. In fact, I’d better wear it.’

‘Undressing dead bodies,’ she said, ‘is never easy.’

They finally got the tunic off and, although the sleeves were too long, it wasn’t a bad fit. Catesby buttoned it up to the neck.’

‘The bloodstain is awful.’

Catesby nodded at the dead man. ‘If anyone asks, I’ll say he vomited over me as we got him in the car. He’s not dead, he’s passed out drunk. You sit in the back and pretend you’re an important guest of the Sicherheitsdienst. Shit, this is dangerous. Maybe we should run for it on foot.’

‘It’s too late.’ The woman nodded at an urchin of ten who was staring at them from behind a dustbin.

Catesby got out of the car, went over to the boy and leaned down. ‘Are you a brave lad?’

The boy nodded.

‘Have you heard of the Resistance?’

‘Yes.’

‘We love France. Do you love France?’

‘Yes – very much!’

‘You are now a member of the Resistance too. You must swear that you will never tell anyone what you have just seen.’

‘I swear.’

The boy saluted and Catesby saluted back, ‘ Adieu, mon brave partisan. ’

The boy held his salute as they drove away.

‘I suppose,’ said Catesby, ‘you thought that was pretty corny.’

‘I’m only thinking about what to do next. It won’t be long before they discover they were tricked.’

‘We need to get out of Limoges as quickly as possible and then keep off the main roads. The most dangerous bit will be crossing the Vienne.’ Catesby leaned over the dead soldier’s body.

‘What are you doing?’

Catesby found a Wehrmacht half cap on the car floor and put it on his head. ‘I need to look the part.’

Motor vehicles were rare on the roads of Limoges. Traffic consisted of bicycles, pedestrians, handcarts, horse drawn carriages and a few gazogènes , petrol vehicles converted to run on gas. Catesby was impressed by how many rude gestures he attracted in his Wehrmacht uniform – as well as a few shouts of Ta soeur! – the short version of ‘your sister is a whore’. And once a teenage girl threw a stone at the rear window next to where Catesby’s companion was seated. The girl shouted putain , whore, assuming the wireless operator was someone sleeping with a German officer, before disappearing behind a crowd queuing for rations. Opinion was turning against the occupiers, but, as the public mood changed, the crackdowns became more severe.

Catesby’s original plan was to drive along the river looking for a bridge crossing that didn’t have a checkpoint. He soon realised that was a stupid idea – and began to panic when he saw the barbed wire barricades which forced traffic back into the town centre. A pair of gendarmes gave him a hard stare as he drove past. Perhaps, he thought, it was the custom of the Germans to stop and have a chat.

‘What’s happening?’

‘The bridges are too guarded. I think we need to follow the N141 towards Oradour-sur-Glane.’

Soon there were fewer and fewer buildings and they were in an open countryside of low hills. Catesby felt tenser than ever. He was going in the opposite direction from where the Maquis had a network of sympathetic villages and contacts.

‘Fuck,’ he said.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘There’s a checkpoint up ahead.’

Catesby put one hand on the wheel so that he could reach over to the dead soldier. He nearly lost control and went off the road.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m trying to get his gun.’

‘Leave it – don’t stop and keep driving.’

‘Okay.’

As Catesby drove past, the gendarmes didn’t even look up. They were checking a pair of bicycles with heavily packed trailers.

‘It’s a black-market road check,’ said the woman.

‘Bastards.’ The gendarmes didn’t arrest the black marketers, they fleeced them instead. If anything, the occupiers and the collabos encouraged rather than restrained black market. The occupation stank of corruption.

A few minutes of calm followed before Catesby looked in the car’s rear-view mirror. They were being followed by a blue gendarmerie van.

‘What’s wrong now?’

‘Look behind us.’

‘Maybe it’s just a coincidence.’

‘We’ll see.’ Catesby abruptly turned the Citroën Avant off the main road. A moment later, the gendarmerie van followed.

‘I wish,’ said Catesby, ‘that we had a couple of Sten guns.’