The Spy Net (9 page)

The Germans point out that the Allied spies had enmeshed the German Army in the rear. Stringent action had, therefore, to be taken; and in war, any means are justifiable where spies are concerned. They further add that they had a problem to face, which none of the Allies had: they were in a hostile country, where each of the inhabitants was a potential spy; it would have been impossible for them to have exercised any form of spy control if their methods had not been harsh. The Belgians reply that the Germans had no right to invade a country which had committed no act of war, and whose only offence was that it happened to lie between Germany and France. Furthermore, they claim that on their own soil they had a perfect right to serve their country.

The German tribunals on the whole were fair, if one takes into consideration that they were military courts operating in lime of war. During the last two years of the war, I know of no case where an innocent person was shot as a spy. Theoretically, anyone caught communicating with the enemy could have been shot; actually, many of the spies who were caught were given prison sentences. It is true that many were shot who did far less harm than some of those who received prison terms. But the Germans did not always know the whole truth; they could only judge the evidence in their possession, and this as we have already seen was often only a fraction of what they might have gathered if they could have looked behind the scenes. Those who suffered the unfairest treatment were the many thousands of inhabitants who were arrested on the
flimsiest suspicion, and then were often kept weeks, even months, in prison until they or their friends could prove their innocence.

A
MID THE CONFLICTS
with the Secret Police, the work of spying went on night and day. And in case the reader should lose sight of this, I must occasionally give him a glimpse of the spy at work. I shall, therefore, tell a few anecdotes about the Chimay company, which was the last of the nine ‘White Lady’ companies to be formed.

It was just before the time of the Hirson Platoon. The Allies were still without a train-watching post on the Hirson–Mézières line, and the French GHQ were desperately anxious to have reports on the German troop movements along this strategic artery. The Allied secret services in Holland had failed after many
attempts. There was only one other possibility, and that was to drop a spy by parachute. Perhaps, by starting from the other end, working towards Holland, and linking up with the French secret service there, this difficult objective could be achieved.

Two men volunteered for the dangerous mission: a young non-commissioned officer, Maréchal des logis Pierre Aubijoux, who was to be the pilot, and the soldier Valtier, the man to be dropped.

It was in the early hours of the morning, when it was still dark, that Aubijoux and Valtier took off from a flying field near Jonchery. Valtier was to be dropped at Signy-l’Abbaye, near Rethel, his home village, where he would be immediately among friends whom he proposed to enrol as train-watchers and couriers in the projected spy organisation.

But night-flying in those days, without beacons and directional beams as guides, was at the best a risky undertaking. After flying for several hours, Aubijoux had to admit that he was completely lost; with a gasoline tank nearly empty, it was impossible to regain the French lines. There was no alternative but to make a forced landing. To add to their difficulties, dawn was just breaking and a heavy ground fog had come up. But luck was with them. They landed in a field, and though their plane crashed into a barbed-wire fence, they were unharmed. Dazed with their sudden landing, they were still recovering themselves when through the mist they saw two German soldiers rushing at them. In a flash Aubijoux had turned his machine gun against them. To set fire to the plane, and to make a dash for a wood that bordered the field, was the work of a few minutes. They did not look to see the effect of their fire, or if any more soldiers were coming.

The two men had no idea where they were. The wood, overgrown with bushes and underbrush, covered several acres. They realised that even if the two soldiers had been killed, there would probably be others who had heard the noise of their motors, and in any event the remains of the plane would shortly be discovered. The hunt would soon be on. A decision had to be taken. Wisely, they decided to remain where they were, within 100 yards of their plane. The audacity saved them; for after a hurried search of the wood, during which some of the men came within a few yards of where they lay hid among the bushes, they saw the soldiers hurry away. For two days and a night, without food and water, Aubijoux and Valtier remained in the wood. Just after dark on the second day, worn out and desperate, they decided to investigate a farmhouse they saw in the distance.

Peering through one of the windows into a dimly lit room, they saw the farmer and his family at their evening meal. Their sympathetic faces gave them courage to knock.

The farmer came to the door.

‘We are the French aviators the Boches are looking for. Can you hide us?’ Aubijoux anxiously asked.

One look convinced the farmer that they were genuine – their hunted hungry appearance could not be simulated. And then, as Aubijoux had rightly surmised, the Germans had already searched the house for them, the day before.

The farmer stood aside, and allowed the two men to enter.

Their immediate inquiry brought the information that they were at Bourlers, close to Chimay, at the farm of Gaston Lafontaine.

Lafontaine and his wife, courageous Belgians, had already
helped many French soldiers. They had hidden several during the retreat in 1914. For more than two years of the occupation they had received visits from the German Secret Police. They knew the risk they were running in hiding the two men.

Plans were immediately discussed, and Valtier, realising that they were among patriots, disclosed his secret mission. Lafontaine, anxious to help, promised to hide them in his loft, while he went off to consult with the nuns of the Congrégation Nancéenne de la Doctrine Chrétienne, at Chimay. Even though the Germans had installed a hospital in the convent, these nuns were taking an active part in every form of patriotic activity, and it was to them that everyone in the region turned for guidance and assistance.

Rose Lebrun, known in her order as Soeur Marie-Mélanie, understood the importance of Valtier’s mission. The ‘White Lady’ was busy at this very moment mounting the Chimay company, and Soeur Marie-Mélanie had just been enrolled as a member of the service. She, therefore, sent Lafontaine off to consult with Grislain Hanotier, the sergeant in charge of her section.

Hanotier took quick action. He returned with Lafontaine to the farm. To him the solution was obvious. Valtier should leave the mounting of the train-watching posts at Hirson to him, and he and his companion should get across the border into Holland as soon as possible.

Valtier and Aubijoux demurred.

Hanotier countered with: ‘What’s the use? The Germans are still searching for you; and as long as you are in hiding, you cannot do any useful work.’

The two Frenchmen were eventually persuaded; and, having
furnished them with a guide, Hanotier duly started them on their way to the Dutch frontier.

But on the way Valtier suddenly saw matters in a different light. He had been given orders to mount a post on the Hirson–Mézières line; and it was his duty to remain until this had been done, even if it should cost him his life. The two of them, therefore, retraced their steps, and five days later to Lafontaine’s astonishment they were again at his house. With resignation he accepted their argument, and bravely undertook to guide them through to Hirson.

Aubijoux and Valtier mounted their posts, and arranged a courier service for the reports to be brought through to Soeur Marie-Mélanie. This having been done, they were now willing to regain the French Army. So once again they set out for the Dutch border. But fortune does not always follow the brave – they were arrested at the Dutch border. Knowing nothing of their spy activities, and believing their story that they were French aviators who had been forced down behind the German lines by fog, the Germans treated them as prisoners-of-war, and sent them off to a prison camp in Germany.

The reports from Hirson came through for two weeks, and then the courier system broke down. In the meantime, however, the ‘White Lady’ had mounted their own train-watching posts on the Hirson–Mézières line; and from then until the Armistice, the Hirson Platoon, and the Chimay company – of which Hirson Platoon formed a part – carried on the work Valtier and Aubijoux had so valiantly begun.

It was a fine old type of Frenchman that Valtier had enrolled as his train-watcher in Hirson. When the ‘White Lady’ got through
to him, he had an accumulation of a month’s reports which he insisted should be sent through to Marshal Joffre personally, and to no one else. Valtier had certainly impressed on him the importance of the Hirson reports.

In other sectors close behind the Front both the British and the French continued to use aeroplanes for spy work. They generally confined themselves, however, to dropping parachutes, attached to which were baskets of carrier pigeons, and directions for their use. Many of these baskets fell into the hands of the patriotic inhabitants, who did not fail to release the pigeons with the information asked for.

The Congrégation Nancéenne de la Doctrine Chrétienne was a French Order, one of the many that had been expelled from France. The patriotism of these French nuns was the more intense because they were exiles. Established in Belgium, at Chimay just across the French border, they gladly and lovingly gave succour to their refugee compatriots fleeing from the fighting zone, or deported by the Germans. The German military hospital, which I have already mentioned, had been installed by force in their convent, with German doctors, nurses, and orderlies to care for the wounded. The nuns were, therefore, at liberty to serve their country, and to make full use of the fertile field which the German hospital placed in their midst presented for spying. Gobeaux, the captain of the Chimay company, and Hanotier, the sergeant of the section in whose area the convent fell, were quick to realise the value of the information that could be gathered by these patriotic sisters, and so with the consent of Marie-Hippolyte, the Mother Superior, they enrolled in the ‘White Lady’ two of the nuns – Soeur Marie-Mélanie, and Soeur Marie-Caroline.

There were no keener agents in the ‘White Lady’ than these two sisters of charity. Intelligent and resourceful, they knew how to make full use of their opportunities. It is true they were not called on to nurse the wounded, but the convalescing officers and soldiers, wandering around in the convent grounds, frequently tried to get into communication with them. They also had a small shop where they were permitted to sell postcards and other articles, and here the Germans were wont to gather.

These men all came from divisions in the front line, and the identification of these divisions in some definite sector of the Front was of enormous importance to British GHQ. One has only to examine the daily intelligence Bulletins issued both by the French and British GHQ to realise this. It was solely to gather information of this kind that lives were sacrificed almost daily in raids on the enemy’s front-line trenches; and yet, these two sisters, quietly and unsuspected, achieved the same objective. Rarely did a report reach me from Chimay without one or two of these important identifications.

This was not the only utility of these two daring nuns. Their reports, picked up by the section courier, contained information covering every phase of German military activity. For example, there was the case of the officer of Prince Eitel Friedrich’s staff, who was in the hospital with a broken leg, received from the fall of his horse. It was while lamenting that he was laid up for ‘the big push’ that he gave away that the great German offensive of March 1918 was to be launched in the Albert sector. He did not give the information in a sentence, nor even in a single day; but it was by carefully piecing together scraps of conversation spread over several days that the two astute nuns were able to
arrive at a definite conclusion. This information was valuable corroborative evidence of what we had already deduced from our train-watching posts, and from the reports of the Hirson Platoon.

It was not only from the Germans that Soeur Marie-Mélanie, and Soeur Marie-Caroline garnered information; sometimes it was also from the refugees; and then, on many occasions, as will be seen from the following account, they often arrived at important deductions by combining information from both sources.

It was at the time that the German big gun had just started shelling Paris, and the Germans had been careful to fill their
communiqués
with the news. A gunner, wounded in the hand, was in the hospital, and was boasting about what the Germans would soon be doing when they had several hundred of these guns. Soeur Marie-Mélanie was immediately all attention. ‘It hardly seems possible that they can shoot so far,’ was her quiet reply. The gunner seeing no possible harm in this peaceful nun, quickly retorted that he himself had seen the gun in the Laon sector. This was a vague enough indication for the emplacement of a gun, but it was sufficient for the nimble-minded sister. It happened that three weeks previously, a French refugee from the village of Crépy-en-Laonnois had been given food and shelter at the convent. Eagerly questioned about the wholesale deportation of his village, he had attributed it to the fact the Germans were about to move artillery into the area.

‘How do you know this?’ Soeur Marie-Mélanie had asked him, knowing the importance of distinguishing fact from rumour.

‘Well, they have laid down concrete gun-platforms and ammunition pits at Dandry’s farm – at least that’s what everyone thinks they are,’ the refugee had replied.

Cleverly putting the two pieces of information together, Soeur Marie-Mélanie communicated her views to Hanotier; he passed it on to the captain of his company. Gobeaux, as we have already seen, was a man of quick decision. He decided to send a man to Dandry’s farm. It was a dangerous undertaking – all the inhabitants had been deported. But it was precisely one of these deportees whom he persuaded to return. Travelling at night and hiding by day, the man was back on the third day. He had seen the monster gun. Three days later, I had the information in Holland.

From a spy in Germany, several weeks previously, we had already received full details of the trials on the coast of Heligoland which had been carried out with this high-angle-fire gun; and it was with exultation that I passed the report on to Colonel Oppenheim, the British military attaché at The Hague, whose duty it was to telegraph to British GHQ a daily résumé of all our reports.

There are many stories I might relate about Gobeaux. As captain of the Chimay company, he should really have protected himself as much as possible; but this was impossible for a man of his temperament. I might tell how he himself penetrated the cordon of sentries at the Bourlers aviation field, and was satisfied with nothing less than cutting off and sending me a sliver from one of the wooden tanks assembled there – because I had disbelieved his report that the Germans were using these tanks for camouflage purposes; or again I might relate how, at the Hôtel Godeau in Chimay, he stole the map-case of a German aviator – the case yielded several priceless maps on which were marked all the aviation fields behind a large section of the German
Western Front. (To mark them in this fashion was contrary to German Army regulations, but the aviator had transgressed for his own safety and convenience.) The story, however, that I am going to tell about Gobeaux is just a short one, but one which epitomises the coolness and resourcefulness of the man.