All the King's Men (30 page)

Boemelburg had assumed that after the summer’s suc
cess, he would be fêted as a hero. Instead, he saw his stocks fall. There had always existed a degree of tension between himself and Kieffer, whose far more straightforward approach to his work, obsession with making arrests and filling the prisons had finally won him greater recognition than had Boemelburg’s insistence on restraint and pursuing ‘the date of the invasion’. One evening in October, Boemelburg entertained Déricourt at Neuilly to explain to him that he was being sent to Vichy, where he was to be given command of the local SD detachment. It was a post that had been enchanced by the added responsibility of liaison with Maréchal Pétain. Boemelburg would return to Paris only infrequently, but no longer in charge of counter-sabotage for France. He said candidly, ‘I have not been tough enough.’
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The atmosphere under Kieffer’s reign was very different. There would be no more drives through the Bois de Boulogne, no more quiet little tête-à-têtes, no more confidences. Kieffer wanted the details of the flights and the mail, for which he was prepared to maintain the protection over Déricourt’s group. The latter’s meetings continued with Dr Götz, to whom he gave the details of the next operation: a Hudson down near Angers for the night of 15/16 November. Déricourt had been instructed to expect five incoming passengers. In and around various addresses, Déricourt had secreted nearly a dozen personnel on the run. Amongst them were Francis Cammaearts and Chartrand from the JOCKEY group, four colleagues of Ben Cowburn – Mulsant, Johnny Barrett, Rechenmann, Madame Fontaine; and the current President of France, François Mitterrand.

In one other aspect the relationship was different. Kieffer now insisted that in future he and his men must be allowed actually on to the field to watch the operation. He didn’t trust Déricourt an inch. On the night in question, a group of SD men huddled under their camouflage bushes peering into the dark with their night-binoculars. They
watched Wing Commander Hodges bring his Hudson down to the row of lights, and taxi to a halt. Out of the aircraft stepped Gerson to start another mission, Captain Jean Menesson, André Maugenet, Paul Pardi, Lieutenant Eugène Levene and Captain Fille-Lambie. As Fille-Lambie stepped out he recognized his colleague Mitterrand stepping in and there was a brief embrace. The outgoing group boarded the aircraft and it was off the ground within eight minutes.

Déricourt took three of the newcomers who bicycled with him to the little station of Tierce. There they caught the train from Angers to Le Mans, calling at Ettriche on the way. Clément with the other three boarded the train at this point. At Le Mans they all changed trains and Fille-Lambie left the party to make his way down to Rennes.

As they waited for the Paris express, Déricourt recognized a group of men who had been on the train since Angers. The heavy raincoats, hands thrust deep into their pockets – they were Kieffer’s men. Déricourt had warned his group to avoid displaying any signs of mutual recognition and to spread themselves out along the carriages. The SD did precisely the same. It was all very heavy handed and had all the hallmarks of a disaster. Déricourt warned Clément and together they warned each of their passengers that the SD’s agents were on the train. That was all they could do.

At the Gare Montparnasse Déricourt and Clément took their time getting off, watching the carriages slowly empty. Then down on the platform they noticed a scuffle taking place in the crowd ahead. They watched as Menesson, Maugenet and Pardi were arrested. Levene and Gerson got away.
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Déricourt could not survive any more operations like that. His mission was coming to an end. Meanwhile, Jeannot had heard from her relatives of a plot of land that was up for sale down in the Midi – its price was two million francs.
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XVI
Arrangements

From Broadway Buildings, Claude Dansey could look out across a view of Green Park strewn with copper-coloured leaves. He had just been in conference with Menzies about two recently received decrypts, one from ULTRA and the other from American sources. Both decrypts were of Adolf Hitler’s most recent military command for the defence of the West. Dated 2 November, Directive 51 outlined plans to strengthen the Atlantic Wall, re-fortify aircraft and submarine resources and build up well-equipped and seasoned units that could be mobilized to ‘throw the enemy back into the sea’. The September invasion threat long gone, the Germans were now preparing themselves for the most obvious, ‘…an offensive against the Western Front of Europe no later than spring, and perhaps earlier’.
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It could hardly have escaped Dansey’s notice how dramatically his war had altered since 1939 when he stood at the helm of the Z Organization. Now, Stewart Menzies had in his hand two copies of Hitler’s most recent directive, 18 days after it had been promulgated. The major headache with this new form of intelligence was not one of acquisition, but of digestion for quantity had arrived with quality. The success of ULTRA – of signals intelligence in general, of photo-reconnaissance and all the other scientific developments, had slowly eroded the value of the ‘network’ of agents.

As 1944 and the invasion crept closer, Dansey was beginning to appreciate what others had realized long
before – that the ‘man in the field’ was not a war winner anymore. He might in future play a much more specialist role, like advanced tactical intelligence, but his heyday was over. Dansey’s immense influence within the ‘community’ had begun to wane and the young intellectuals seemed a lot less deferential. While Menzies had got his ‘K’ in the New Year’s honours and was riding high on ULTRA, Dansey had begun to be seen for what he was, an anachronism – a man out of his time whose methods no longer had a place in the modern service. Frankly, he was becoming something of a liability.

During September and October there had been a series of particularly vitriolic rows with SOE that had still not been resolved. All year long Major-General Gubbins had kept up a campaign of attacks against Dansey, having somehow got it into his head that Dansey was interfering with SOE’s networks. Gubbins’ meetings with Menzies were invariably fruitless – especially as Menzies could always swear with his hand on his heart that he knew nothing about any of Dansey’s alleged improprieties. Menzies had neither the will nor the inclination to ease Dansey from his job and remained loyal to his deputy throughout the war. In the meantime, with the help of Déricourt’s intelligence, Menzies and Dansey were waging a successful campaign to have SOE in Europe shut down.

Following the meetings with the Combined Chiefs in August and September concerning Menzies’ Memo CX 108, the Joint Intelligence Committee recommended that SOE’s activities should cease immediately and that the organization be liquidated, or absorbed into MI6. (The JIC came to that conclusion in December, encouraged by strong representations from the RAF that aircraft and resources currently supplying SOE networks in France would be more usefully deployed in support of the bombing of Germany. But the JIC were unable to proceed any further with their recommendation because Winston Churchill was abroad and it was felt only he could make
the final decision. In the event, Churchill reprieved SOE.)
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While all this was still in the balance, Gubbins made a concerted effort to have the Dansey thorn finally removed from their side. He was aware of the stakes and appreciated the limit of his influence on the Chiefs of Staff, but nevertheless if he could stick a crow-bar under Dansey and force him out, then he would. SOE shared with MI6 a liaison officer in the United States, in the person of Sir William Stephenson. ‘Little Bill’ Stephenson flew to London each month for consultations with both organizations and was regularly obliged to listen to Gubbins’ long harangues about Dansey. Unlike Menzies, Stephenson was a sympathetic audience. He had known Dansey since 1930, had long been sickened by his machiavellian methods and was now one of a growing number of people within the service who wanted to see the old man go. Gubbins wrote to Stephenson a cry for help:

Since I told you about the Dansey menace in May and you talked with Stewart about it, Dansey has somehow accelerated his jabbing interference to the point that I am losing good men. I would be grateful if you would help me put a stop to his actions.
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Stephenson flew to London on 1 October to meet Gubbins. Afterwards he organized a series of meetings with other prominent people within the intelligence community: Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, Director General of the Political Warfare Executive (PWE); Guy Liddell, MI5; and Desmond Morton, Churchill’s special adviser on intelligence matters. Finally he called on Stewart Menzies to lay what facts he had before him. Menzies was an honest man, but he found it hard to stomach one of his own officers running an errand for the SOE. The meeting became heated and when Stephenson sensed he might not succeed, he threatened to pay a call on SOE’s own Godfather – Winston Churchill.

Menzies angrily agreed that Dansey’s interference would cease from that moment, adding that he would take ‘whatever action was required to assure compliance’. According to Stephenson, it was as a result of his meeting that Menzies finally asserted his proper authority over Dansey.
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That may be so, but then it may also have been ill health that caused the 67-year-old Uncle Claude to loosen his grip – but he loosened it only very slightly. He was fully occupied in organizing a new series of networks in preparation for D-Day, while in the meantime he and Menzies still had SOE on the ropes.

With all that in hand, there was the tiresome little problem of Henri Déricourt, who had lost his target Boemelburg and was now fruitlessly giving away information to Kieffer – someone who showed no sign of falling under Déricourt’s influence. The Frenchman had to be brought out, but how without revealing Dansey’s hand? After Stephenson’s confrontation with Menzies, Dansey could hardly afford to further inflame SOE’s sensitivities. Despite what they all said, he was a loyal controller and would not abandon his people. Déricourt would not suffer any recrimination for the consequences of his work. But removing him from the field did pose a problem. The only practical solution would be to force SOE’s hand – and make them recall him.

Although in theory very simple, in practice getting F Section to pull Déricourt out would be almost like drawing teeth. SOE’s security section had been racked with doubts about the man for months – and they hadn’t succeeded in shifting Buckmaster at all. The only way Dansey could force Buckmaster’s hand was to pass to the SOE incontrovertible evidence that Déricourt was working with the Germans – and then cope with the consequences afterwards. On 6 December, SOE received a report, passed on from one of Claude Dansey’s agents returning from the field. It was similar to a report they had already received in June: ‘The Gestapo are trying to get in touch with
GILBERT.’
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Unfortunately, all it did was to confuse SOE’s security section. First it wasn’t newsworthy and second it employed the old name GILBERT. SOE weren’t at all sure it didn’t refer to Gilbert Norman. However, the fact that it had come from MI6 gave it a significance the other reports had lacked.

The security section invited MI5 to take a look at Déricourt’s case, to which they reluctantly agreed, providing they were not required to take an active role. It would seem that SOE’s security people were completely at a loss over the case, but they received no comfort from the inscrutable MI5, whose officers pored over Déricourt’s file but declined to comment. If they formed suspicions, they did not share them with SOE.

A month passed and SOE received a communication from Section V, the counter-espionage section of MI6. At the outbreak of war, Section V had been given the task of penetrating the enemy’s intelligence groups, the Abwehr and the SD, and revealing their order of battle. Later it formed an effective bridge with MI5 and was responsible (with MI5) for running all the great ‘double’ agents abroad. Having discussed Déricourt with MI5, Section V requested a meeting with John Sentor at SOE’s security section.

At that meeting, on 4 January, the Déricourt file was examined in detail again, but this time the visitors did express an opinion. They made it very clear.

Déricourt does not have a case to answer. If Déricourt comes back he will not return as a suspect character but as a victim of denunciation and must be allowed to answer. The original allegation [Frager’s] is really a subject of denunciation.
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Still no decision to bring him out. Then on 13 January, SOE received a message that one of Dansey’s agents had recently returned from France and had made an accusation
about Déricourt. SOE asked for details and received a report that sounded oddly similar to the one Yeo-Thomas had delivered in November, ‘A French Captain in the RAF has been working for the Germans. Through his treachery two men and one woman picked up in August.’
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It contained a little more circumstantial evidence than the November report and it mentioned a number of BBC messages that had been used in connection with Déricourt. But the security section were not convinced. They requested a copy of the agent’s actual report and for permission to meet with the agent himself. (Perhaps they sensed there was something slightly bogus about these reports.)

It took a week for a copy of the report to arrive and nearly two weeks for permission to debrief one of Dansey’s agents. Finally on 26 January, Flight Lieutenant Miller from SOE’s security section was granted an audience with the MI6 agent, and returned satisfied with his bona-fides. Miller wrote up his report the following day, in which he stated that although Déricourt still had no case to answer, the MI6 agent’s report did recommend Déricourt be brought back.
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John Sentor concurred and passed the recommendation on to Buckmaster who minuted, ‘Déricourt is coming back and security are relieved.’ Dansey’s plan had worked, so far.