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previous: Chapter 10 This webpage reproduces a chapter of Captured by Bessy Myers published by D. Appleton Century Company, New York and London, 1942 the text of which is in the public domain. This text has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 12

 p270  11
Marseille

We arrived at Marseille at a quarter to five in the morning. There were few porters and no taxis. We were told that taxis were very rare, as petrol was severely rationed, and the porters could give us no idea where we could get a room, for Marseille, like Vichy, was chock-a‑block.

Except for a few stray cats the streets were deserted. We wandered down the main road leading from the station and woke up the sleepy concierges of several hotels. The story was always the same; there was not a room to be had. What with my greatcoat, Darby's mackintosh, Huffer's shopping bag, and our knapsacks, we did not feel like wandering about much longer, but as we turned back to the station to leave our things there a woman grasping her shawl tightly around her came toward us. She says she knew for certain of a hotel only a few streets away which had a room to let.

Although I have never read any advice to lonely women arriving early or late in strange towns, to follow an unknown woman along the deserted streets of Marseille I felt certain would not be in the book of rules. Darby and I thought it a foregone conclusion that we should be led to a brothel.

"Well, Darby," I said, "I really don't see that we need to be so fussy. Provided the beds look comfortable and the room clean I don't know that I mind very much; we can always  p271 lock the door, and, as the nasty Kommandant at Soissons said, one can scream. In any case, as we can't call on the Général until ten, it will be somewhere to wash and change."

We were led down a narrow, winding street; the woman rang the bell of one of the tall houses which, with its closed shutters, looked as lifeless as the rest. The door was promptly opened by a respectable-looking woman who apparently owned the house. We followed her up to a room which was barely furnished, but had running hot and cold water and was scrupulously clean.

We told Madame that as we had been traveling all night we were going to have a few hours' rest. She turned down the bed and opened the windows while her husband brought up our baggage. When my khaki cap fell out of the bag Madame could not contain her curiosity. Enthralled, she lessened to my brief description of our days at the front. "Quelle misère, quelle catastrophe." Much as she disliked the Italians, in her opinion they were better than "les sales Boches."

Se he was standing by the open window when she says this in her raucous voice, and I felt compelled to warn her.

"Do be careful what you say. Although this is unoccupied France, there are informers everywhere . . . even among the French."

Her husband said he had already warned her to guard her tongue, but she never could control herself for long. Darby and I begged her to be careful. I suggested les sales mouches vertes as a less dangerous epithet for the expression of her feelings.

There were no eating arrangements in the house, but the baker and the café near‑by were opening. We took Huffer's  p272 pot of jam, bought some croissants, sat in a café opposite, and soon became the center of interest to the workmen coming in for their early dress. The coffee even at that hour and in that back street was good.

We returned to our room and slept. We woke up at nine, and set out to find "le Commandant de la place." Although we could make ourselves understood to the gendarmes it was difficult for us to catch their replies, as we were unaccustomed to the accent of the South, but in the end we managed to find out that the Commandant would be found at the bas fort Saint-Nicolas.

It was a hot day, despite the fury of the mistral, and it took half an hour's trudge to get there. Neither of us liked the look of the fort, which was as old and as grim as the Cherche-Midi. Heavily barred windows looked on to the long drive which led up to the main entrance. Darby said, "This is the last place I should have chosen to come to."

"Well, this time it is only a question of minutes."

The Commandant was helpful. Besides the address of Général Morrison, he told us where we should find the American, Spanish, and Portuguese Consuls, and, as taxis were practically unobtainable, he made out the route for us by tram. We asked him what the fort was used for; he told us it was still a military tribunal and prison. We had had more than enough of prisons, and were glad to leave.

We walked along the old port to the Cannebière, one of the noisiest and most cosmopolitan streets in the world, to catch our tram to the Hôpital Michel Levy, where Général Morrison was stationed. It was a huge hospital, even bigger than that at Soissons.

We learned that the Général was at a military conference,  p273 but when our letter of introduction from Huffer was sent in he came out to meet us, accompanied by a colonel. We told him that we wanted to get to the Préfecture and visit several consuls, and as we doubted if we should be able to get around to them all by tram in a day we should be very grateful if he could let us have a car.

The Général said the colonel would attend to that for us, and asked if we had managed to get a room in Marseille; when we told him that we did not think our room satisfactory he immediately offered to put us up in the hospital, and, as he had to return to the conference, he left the colonel to attend to the details of writing out a military pass for us to use the car.

Much to his annoyance, one of the majors had his car commandeered. The main gates were thrown open, the soldiers in the courtyard looked at us in astonishment, and the guards leaped to attention as we swept away.

"Well, Myers," said Darby, "I've no objection to being treated as royalty for a day."

The major's chauffeur took us under his personal charge. At the Préfecture, which he seemed to know inside out, he led us unerringly through the complicated passages to the room we required to get our exit permit. There was a queue of over two hundred people waiting to get in, and I foresaw a long, dreary wait. That day we were lucky, the chauffeur had a friend inside. . . . Shamefacedly we skipped the queue — it was the only time Darby and I ever skipped a queue in Marseille.

We accomplished little that day, but by having a car to dash hither and thither we found out most of the ropes. We were first of all told at the Préfecture that our exit permits  p274 would take three weeks. The personal letter we had from the Chef du Bureau de la Circulation succeeded in reducing the time to two days. We were told to fill up numerous forms, buy ten‑franc stamps from the post-office, and return and leave our passports with two photographs. So during the two days nothing further could be done.

Cook's told us that before it was possible to obtain a Portuguese visa five hundred francs had to be deposited with them as a guarantee that one would not arrive in Portugal penniless. The cost of a Portuguese visa was a hundred and twenty francs, and would take three weeks to obtain. If, however, one paid a supplementary two hundred and eighty francs it could be got through in two or three days. The Spanish visa was unobtainable until the Portuguese had been procured. The fare for the train up to the French frontier at Cerbère was paid in francs. Cook's could tell us the price of the fare from the Spanish frontier at Port Bou to Lisbon, but all else was wrapped in mystery.

The post-office was full, but our Admirable Crichton queued up for us; when we had filled up our forms we returned to the Préfecture and handed in our passports.

It was still quite early in the afternoon, and, hoping the major had no urgent need for this car, we readily accepted the chauffeur's offer to take us for another drive. As we had two days on our hands, he suggested we spend them bathing at Catalan, the sandy beach on the outskirts of Marseille.

Over drinks in the beach restaurant we asked him if he would collect our luggage. At the Hôpital Michel Levy we were given a large double room in the doctors' wing. As no mention had been made concerning meals we went to the nearest restaurant for dinner and hoped for an early night.  p275 We would have had one but for a large cockroach which I suddenly saw lying on its back waving its legs in the air. I can cope with the smaller creepy-crawlies, but anything larger than an earwig leaves me paralytic with horror.

"Darby, do chuck that thing out of the window."

"I can't touch it; you throw it away."

We both stared at it helplessly; neither of us would get into bed for fear it would turn over and fly about the room. We said what a blessing it was that there were only bugs at the Cherche-Midi. The rats had not really worried us, but had there been cockroaches, beetles, or spiders we did not think we could have borne it. We sat on the bed and discussed the best methods of ejecting it. Neither of us would take the initiative.

With our tails between our legs we went to the nurses' sitting-room and asked if one of them would be kind enough to remove the cockroach. A nurse came in, and with no concern whatever flicked it out of the window saying, "But you must get used to these little annoyances."

From the sun‑bathing at Catalan we were both getting as brown as berries; we were putting on much of the weight we had lost. Darby was now sleeping better and had lost her haggard look, but we felt rather fed up. We looked far too fit to spin any hard-luck story when we got home with any hope of success. In attempt at consolation I said, "We can always say, 'Of course sun‑bathing on the Riviera did us a power of good, but you should have seen us before.' "

We dined at our favorite restaurant, the Florida. The head waiter told us that the blockade would have terrible effects on France during the winter. Food was already short and the Germans seized a considerable proportion of the products  p276 from North Africa which came in by boat to Marseille. However, the waiter seemed to bear no malice toward Britain; he seemed to see the necessity of the blockade. So did the fishermen whose boat we had hired during the afternoon.

I was hankering to see the Château d'If, and although we could not land the fisherman rowed us around the island, and on our return to the Old Port he pointed out the damage caused by the recent bombardments. He told us that one afternoon some Italian 'planes had suddenly swooped from the sky and dropped their bombs in the narrow streets; there had been no raid warning, and five hundred people were killed.

Our two days' rest was over. We had been told that our passports would be ready at the Préfecture, and we spent most of the day in the queue waiting for our turn. Our patience was rewarded when we saw the exit permit stamped on the passports. Now for the Portuguese and Spanish visas.

Much has been written of the packed roads of France, but little has been said of the queues outside the consulates in Marseille. To join them one required infinite patience, perseverance, and fairly good health to stand the long hours of waiting. Although we had letters of introduction to the Portuguese and Spanish Consuls, it was not possible to get anywhere near the doors to hand them in. They were open from eight till twelve in the morning; in the afternoon the Spanish Consulate opened from two till four, and the Portuguese from four until six.

The queues started forming at seven in the morning, and were dispersed at noon to re‑form again for the afternoon. Darby and I were crazy not to have bought a couple of stools; but standing for hours in the street with the sun beating down, the mistral blowing our skirts around our heads  p277 and dust into our eyes, so frayed our tempers that by twelve we were incapable of doing anything other than flop into the nearest café. We both realized that the most sensible thing would be to do a round of the shops in search of stores; it was only the absolute urgency of getting our visas which forced us on our feet again to join the queue.

After a day and a half's wait outside the Portuguese Consulate we got within its portals. We gave up the receipt for five hundred francs from Cook's, paid the supplementary two hundred and eighty francs, and were told to fetch our passports at nine-thirty in the morning.

They were ready at nine-thirty the next day and we dashed along to the Spanish Consulate; but the guard shook his head. The queue was far too long; we had not a hope of getting in by twelve, and as it was Saturday the Consulate would not be open in the afternoon. He advised us to come back Monday morning early. Monday morning saw us at seven-thirty outside the Spanish Consulate; we joined an already long queue. A little after eight a taxi arrived with a large American family. Their idea was a good one; they kept the taxi and took it in turn to stand in the queue while the others remained comfortably seated. We should not have envied them their ingenuity and affluence, but Darby and I had an attack of pure sour grapes which made us feel quite bolshy.

About eleven an official came out and handed numbers to people a little in front of us down to the Americans in the taxi. We were told to come back in the afternoon; the rest of the queue was told to re‑form the next morning. With our numbers clutched in our hands Darby and I thankfully dragged ourselves along to the Florida solemnly swearing that  p278 never again in our lives would we ever stand in a queue for pleasure, however good the show. When we returned in the afternoon we were told to leave our passports, which would be returned to us in the morning complete with visas. There was only one train a day for the frontier, which left at seven-forty in the evening, so we should be off the next day.

Like lambs in spring we skipped around to the Bank of France. Cook's had told us that we paid for our tickets in francs to Cerbère and that not more than five hundred francs per person could be exchanged at the Spanish frontier. As Huffer feared the dollar would be blocked, he wanted all the francs we did not need returned to him when we left France; we decided that we could not possibly want for our journey to Lisbon more than eighteen pounds each — we preferred to take the money in pounds, as the stability of the franc outside France seemed so uncertain.

When we saw the endless queue at the bank our spirits sank. We were attended to just before the bank closed. To begin with we were told that we could not take money out of France, as we had declared none coming in. We explained that the question of declaring our money when we came into France had never arisen, as we had come over in a troopship with our ambulances, and had driven straight to Paris without any formalities whatsoever. They listened to our story with sympathy.

"How many pounds do you want to take out of France?"

"How much can we take?"

"How much do you want to take?"

Eighteen pounds each."

We were asked to fill in the usual endless forms and to leave  p279 our passports. We explained that they were at the Spanish Consulate. Although they would have done anything for us, they could do nothing without our passports, as the authority to take money out of France had to be stamped upon of them. We still saw no reason why we should not leave the next evening. We had been told our passports would be ready in the morning, and the Bank had promised that once they had them the authorization for the money would be seen to straight away. We went back to the Hôpital Michel Levy, packed our things, and wrote letters of thanks to the general, colonel, and major.

We said good‑by to the soldiers, doctors, and nurses, who for some reason or another, despite the fact that we had our exit permits, could not believe it possible we should get to England during the war. Their parting words were, "Tell England to bomb les sales Boches to hell."

Our passports were not ready in the morning, neither were they by the early afternoon. The Bank of France closed at four; at half-past three we became quite frantic. At five minutes to four our passports were handed to us, and we arrived at the bank just as it closed down. Another twenty-four hours to fill in — unless we left that night with the five hundred francs each which would just cover the third-class railway fare through Spain, with nothing to spare for rooms or food. Cook's had told us that, as there was no through train from Port Bou to Lisbon, we should have to spend a night in Barcelona and Madrid. Seething as we were with impatience to be gone, it seemed only common sense to wait for the bank to open in the morning.

After our final farewells we did not relish the idea of asking for our room for another night. Our return to the hospital  p280 merely confirmed the general opinion that we were just crazy to think we should ever reach England.

The next morning the bank handed us each eighteen pounds. It was grand to see English notes again — good solid sterling. A final lunch at the Florida, a final walk around Marseille, and at last it was time to make our way to the station. We arrived an hour before the train was due to start and bought second-class tickets to Cerbère; we should have to change at Narbonne at 1 A.M., and wait there until 6 A.M. for the connecting train. We had been told that seats were unbookable, but we discovered that first- and second-class seats were bookable from a main terminus. The third-class carriages of the train were already packed, the rest of the seats reserved. We sat on our new suitcases in the corridor of a second-class carriage. The train was a slow one and stopped at practically every station until it reached its terminus, Bordeaux. We soon became thankful that we were to leave at Narbonne. Our next train, we imagined, could not be worse than this; the corridor became so tightly packed with humanity that one could not move an inch. Fortunately Darby and I were near the exit door to corridor, and were able to jump out at each stop and watch the struggling mass from the platform. The crowds in the corridor did not, or could not, move, so the people in the carriages who wanted to get out had no means of exit except through the windows. It was not a question of the people in the corridor squeezing themselves even tighter to allow a passage; the only possible means of making way was for half of them to get on to the platform. This rarely happened, with the result that many could not get out at the station they wanted.

Exhausted, we arrived at Narbonne. Even had there been  p281 a room, which we doubted, we did not feel it was worth while taking one for six hours, so we made our way to the buffet, which was open, but served only coffee. It was there that I met the Spaniard who told me the train for Cerbère was already in a siding, and all we had to do was to cross the lines and sleep in it till it started. Somehow one always doubts information given by strangers; however, the porter on the platform confirmed what he said, and the Spaniard offered to carry our luggage to the train. I returned to the buffet for Darby to tell her the good news. She also had met a stranger, and his news was far from good — the Spanish frontier had been closed to the British. Darby looked worried and depressed. I never take much notice of people who loom up in the night; I suspected that for two hundred francs he would have "opened" the frontier for us. Were it closed, the Spanish Consul, I thought, would never have given us our visas.

We arranged ourselves in two corner seats, the Spaniard took the third. We luxuriously stretched ourselves out and dropped off to sleep, but not for long; we had to make room for four French officers. Even sitting upright we had snatches of sleep, but I woke up feeling cramped and went out to the corridor to stretch my legs, and at that early hour of the morning the train was already packed. A woman with three children and seven bundles anxiously asked if there was a seat in our carriage. I felt bound to tell the truth. I had seen her and the children standing all night in the corridor of the train from Marseille, and they looked, if they stood for another moment, as if they would drop from fatigue. The Spaniard helped haul in the children, the bundles, and the woman; he put one child on his knee, the woman held another,  p282 and we made room for the third. As the children were whimpering through utter exhaustion, sleep became impossible.

The train puffed slowly on amidst the sand-dunes and the gnarled trees blown sidewise by the constant winds. The Spaniard and the four officers left us at Perpignan, and among the five men who took their places was a rubicund, white-headed American whose name I soon learned was J. E. Bernard. In a matter of minutes he became commandant of the carriage; he told the men he did not care to see women standing in the corridor; we reshuffled the space we had, and made room for two extra. He picked up on to his knee one of the children sitting at our great, and handed around sweets, chocolate, and cigarettes, even producing his flask of brandy. The cost of Martell Three Star brandy in Marseille was only eighty-five francs a bottle; I had bought two there, but in the corridor crush one had been smashed to smithereens. Perhaps Darby remembers my language when we managed to get out on to the platform. I think the aroma from my knapsack made us both doze for quite a time, despite our cramped positions, when we got back into the corridor.

Mr. Bernard asked if we knew the formalities at the frontier, and on hearing that we did not, offered to take us under his wing. We would arrive at Cerbère at 10 A.M.; the journey from there to Port Bou was only a question of five minutes in the little train which ran through the tunnel under the mountains, and which generally left about half-past twelve.

The Spaniards would only allow between twenty-five to fifty people a day to cross the frontier from Cerbère. On arrival one had to give up one's passport for examination,  p283 which was returned a few minutes before the train was due to start, and Mr. Bernard said the thing to do was to be one of the first to fetch them.

At each stop along the coast people left the train, and at Port-Vendres, the last stop before Cerbère, more people got out. We wandered along the corridors to see how many people were left; the long train which had been so pack was now practically empty, and as far as we could make out there were not more than thirty of us going on.

We handed in our passports at Cerbère and wandered around the picturesque fishing village. Mr. Bernard wanted to send a wire, and Darby and I returned by telegraphic money order all the francs we had to Huffer's bank in Vichy.

We whiled away the time drinking coffees with Mr. Bernard in one of the little cafés over­looking the beach; we were desperately impatient to be off, and sat gazing at the mountains which separate France from Spain. As it was doubtful whether one could get food from Port Bou to Barcelona, Mr. Bernard had ordered an early lunch at the station buffet for the three of us. While we were tackling an omelette Mr. Bernard pointed out a young and extremely attractive-looking girl sitting at the bar; her job, he told us, was to get any information she could and pass it on to the Spanish officials. I always find it difficult to believe these tags attached to people, but Mr. Bernard assured me that in a few minutes I should see her busy at her job of getting into apparently harmless conversations with as many people waiting to cross the frontier as she could. Sure enough, before we had finished our lunch she had left the bar, and had found some reason or another to get into conversation with several of our fellow-passengers.

 p284  Our passports were ready; we waited outside a door in the entrance to the station, which was soon opened and led into a smaller room with a barrier leading on to the platform for the train crossing the frontier. Behind the barrier were three officials, and the passports were piled, according to nationality, on the counter in front of them.

Although we were the first to arrive, we were soon surrounded by a crowd. The officials said that they would hand out the passports in the order in which they had listed them. Mr. Bernard's name was soon called. "I'll keep you two seats in the train," he said, as he disappeared through the barrier.

Darby and I could not see among the passports any British pile. "Myers, do you see where our passports are?"

"They don't seem to be with the others."

"No, they are not; they're on that table over there."

They were lying in forlorn isolation on a bare table behind the officials. We did not dare think, hope, or despair, but the fact that our passports which we knew were in perfect order, had been laid on one side was far from encouraging. Although we waited in silence while name after name was being called out and the lucky ones passed through, the unspoken thought that some unforeseen force was at work was not far from our minds.

Eventually the officials handed us back our passports. "The frontier is closed to all British," they said.

"Since when?"

"Yesterday."

"When will it be reopened?"

"It is impossible to say."

We knew that the Spanish frontier had been closed to all our allies of military age, but that it should now be closed  p285 to women was a brand‑new idea. The blow was so swift, shattering, and final that we were almost bereft of feeling. We might have flopped in despair in the station had we not pulled ourselves together to try to find Mr. Bernard — the least we could do was to thank him for being such a good companion.

Since we could not pass through the barrier, we dashed around the station and tried to get on to the platform by another entrance; we were stopped by the guards. In desperation I bellowed at the top of my voice, "Mr. Bernard! Mr. Bernard!"

He heard me above the general din and came running toward us.

"We can't pass. The frontier is closed to the British."

Mr. Bernard was a man of initiative and instant action; he knew we were ambulance drivers captured in the German lines. He vehemently insisted that the guards let him pass, and came back with us to the room where we had been handed our passports, which was empty now except for the officials. His oration was masterly. "Do you realize that these are English ambulance drivers who have risked their lives for your wounded? The hardships they have been through . . . Is this how you thank them? . . . Where is your gratitude? . . ."

The officials listened attentively. It was not they who had closed the frontier . . . they were powerless to intervene . . . there was nothing they could do. . . .

"But you can let them leave France," yelled Mr. Bernard.

"Bien sûr, monsieur, but if we let them pass they will only be stopped at Port Bou."

 p286  "I'll speak to them there. I'll do my utmost to get them through, and I beg of you, messieurs, to let them pass."

The officials shrugged their shoulders. "If they go they will come back, but if you wish to try you may."

Had we any feelings left they would have been swept away by the rush of the few minutes. The rest of the passengers were already in the train, which we were now holding up. Our luggage was cursorily examined, the eternal forms roughly filled in, but the declaration of our money was carefully gone into, and helter-skelter we were rushed to the tain. With the shrill squeak of the toy whistle we left the Spanish frontier.

Mr. Bernard asked us to show him our passports. We wondered why he seemed so delighted with them. "Because they have not been stamped "exit," so if the worst comes to the worst and I can't get you through you can return to France."

I've never understood what really happens to people who get stuck on frontiers," I remarked. "One is always hearing that they can not go on and they can not go back; the earth doesn't swallow them up, the skies aren't rent asunder. Are they imprisoned, interned, or left?

Mr. Bernard did not know. As far as we were concerned, if we could not go on we could at least go back.

We steamed out of the tunnel and slowly drew into the little village of Port Bou. Posters of General Franco were plastered all over the station; we were directed by officials and soldiers to the passport office, and headed the queue waiting to have them examined.

The passport officials glanced at Mr. Bernard's and waved him on. When they came to ours they did not even bother to open them; it was sufficient that they were British.

 p287  "You must return to France," they said.

Mr. Bernard's oration was as masterly as his last, but this time it was ineffectual. The officials had many people to attend to . . . would we please go back to the train, which would be returning in a few minutes.

Mr. Bernard was extremely worried about us, and made sure we had enough money. "The frontier will probably be opened in a few days," he said. "Go straight back to Perpignan, where there is a Spanish Consul. Whatever you do, don't hang around Cerbère; it's full of crooks and dregs of every kind. I hate having to leave you here."

As his kind, cheery face disappeared in a crowd Darby said, "Well, what nice people one does meet in trains."

Mr. J. E. Bernard was indeed a friend. I picked up later in London the trail of our woes, which he had blazoned half across Europe.

We returned to the empty train. Darby makes a good companion; she would always listen for hours to my chatter, but she never made any attempt to disturb me on the rare occasions when I became enveloped in a Great Silence. Now the merest glimmer of a glow-worm would have been brilliant illumination compared with my feelings.

The train started. . . . We were back in Cerbère once more. I forgave the officials for smiling when they saw us, as they never said, "I told you so." We asked where we could change our pounds back into francs — it was the first thing to be done. The officials looked at us. "But you can not change pounds into francs."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because yesterday England blocked the pound."

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