Captured (Bessy Myers) • Chapter 12

My first reaction was sheer rage — what had Whitehall done now? If there were a good reason to block the pound the least they could do was to warn people; posters should have been stuck up in banks stating what was about to happen.

We went to the station buffet and ordered some coffee. Ranting made me feel better. We came down to brass tacks; what could we do now? Darby found a fifty-franc note tucked away in a corner of her bag, and I had two ten‑franc coins left; seventy francs between us — better than nothing at all. We heard that the barman might exchange a few pounds at a very low rate of exchange, the equivalent of six shillings for the pound. We had no option but to take his terms, and he would change us only two pounds each.

Feeling utterly fed up, we got into an empty train leaving for Perpignan. I curled myself in a corner. I tried to console myself. We might be in a jam — we were in a jam, but at least we were not imprisoned. . . . There were such things as consuls, Bob Murphy, and Dick Warner — we knew they would do what they could. We could always have the ten pounds a month which the American Consuls were allowing British subjects. We were miles better off than any one in Fresnes.

Darby was still turning the situation over in her mind. I buried my head farther into my greatcoat and muttered p289 through it that I considered our luck was on the downward grade. It would not surprise me if before things got any better they would get a great deal worse. Perhaps we would not be able to get any money from Huffer's bank. Perhaps America would enter the war, in which case the American Embassy would no longer be taking over British interests. Perhaps it would be a good thing if America entered the war, but if our luck was out she would of course do so on the date most inconvenient to ourselves, and it might be weeks before some other embassy took over British interests. So far we had had fairly good health, but that might not last. Germany or Italy might occupy the whole of France, in which case we might be interned.

I asked Darby if she could think of anything I had left out. There was silence for some time until she says, "Yes, there is something else. If the Spanish frontier doesn't open within a few days our exit permit will expire."

"Besides that, we shall possibly never get a room in Perpignan and will have to sleep in the station — what fun we shall have!"

Our financial crisis had reduced us to a third-class carriage; the mere thought of sleeping on benches in a railway station made the seats seem like a feather bed.

Though hungry, we thought our resources would only run to coffee; amiably we discussed our different temperaments. p290 Darby was all for husbanding our resources. I could not see what good our little bit of money was to us and was all for having a good dinner regardless of expense. I agreed that we must put aside enough to telephone and wire Bob Murphy and the bank in Vichy. Telegrams were fairly costly, and by the time we had deducted what we considered sufficient we had only a few francs left.

"Well, Darby, let's be reckless and spend them on telephoning to try to get a room."

The waiter gave us the names of three hotels; we tried the Hôtel du Petit Paris, the first on our list. Miracle of miracles! A double room had just become vacant; they would keep it for us for half an hour.

We leapt on to a tram. The Hôtel du Petit Paris looked expensive, but we could stay there en pension for four and a half guineas a week; we booked the room. It was getting on for seven, too late to try and get in touch with Vichy, so we did not get down and went to bed early, drowsily talking of what we should do in the future. Darby said that a man who had got into the carriage at Port-Vendres had told her that the boats sailing from there and Marseille to Tunis and Algiers took passengers. If the Spanish frontier was not opened it seemed an idea. With that in our minds we fell asleep.

Our life for the next few days was centered round the post-office; wires took anything from an hour to a few days to be delivered in France, and it took from one to four hours for a trunk call to be put through.

We felt several years younger after we had spoken to Huffer's bank manager; he would send us ten thousand francs each immediately.

I got through to the American Embassy in Vichy; Bob p291 Murphy was away, but Dick Warner's advice to us was to stay where we were — he hoped the frontier question would be settled in a few days.

Dick Warner seemed to think I was crazy. "It might take you months, and in any case you won't be able to get an exit permit for the French colonies."

It seemed that the Spanish frontier was now closed to most nationalities, and quite a crowd of us spent most of our time in the post-office wiring and phoning. We met a Swiss and a Greek who had been turned back. The Swiss feared he would miss his boat from Lisbon to South America, and suggested that if we could not cross through Spain we should spend the duration of the war in Switzerland. He told us that despite the German occupation of Denmark she was still exporting food to Switzerland, and he talked of the thousands of French and Polish soldiers interned there. The Poles, he said, had almost to a man arrived with their full equipment.

The days passed; we gave up going around to the Spanish Consulate, as we could get no information from them at all. We received our money from Vichy, and felt selfishly sorry when the Greek and the Swiss were allowed through. As there was no sign of the frontier being opened to the British, we went to the Préfecture, as our exit permit was about to expire. We were getting desperate, and asked the Préfet if he would renew our exit permit via Port-Vendres. He was sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do; only Vichy could alter the town of our departure, and Marseille or Cerbère p292 would renew our exit permits when the frontier was opened to the British. Letters to the Préfets of Vichy, Marseille, or Cerbère might eventually be attended to, but the Préfet of Perpignan advised us that it would be far better to go ourselves.

We returned to our hotel and thrashed out what we intended to do. We had been told that there were several thousand British still on the Riviera, many were staying at a hotel taken over for them at specially reduced rates. With the allowance of ten pounds per month from the American Consul we could stay in France indefinitely. The idea appealed to neither of us, and I was dead against it.

We gathered that there was some one in Cannes, Nice, and Monte Carlo looking after British interests, but I imagined that if we went and joined them with our exit permits expired we should be living at the bottom of a long list of people hoping to leave, and one could not get away from the fact that France might at any time be entirely occupied and all British subjects interned. To wait to be interned seemed a very tame ending. Darby agreed.

We had three alternatives: to continue hanging around Perpignan or Cerbère in the vague hope that the Spanish frontier would ultimately be opened to the British; go to Vichy and try to get our exit permits renewed by the Chef du Bureau de la Circulation, for Cerbère and Port-Vendres, or Cerbère and Marseille; or throw officialdom to the winds and take the law into our own hands.

I reviewed the picture I had conjured up of swimming rivers, climbing mountains, and sailing the seas in unchartered boats. It seemed to me chiefly a question of guides; but I p293 realized that if one could bribe a man for x pounds, should the Gestapo be anxious to trace us, the guide would probably think nothing of handing us over for x pounds plus x pounds.

Darby remarked wearily, "I wonder what the prisons and internment camps are like in this part of the world?"

"I think a guide book for travelers would be much more helpful if it graded the prisons in the towns as well as hotels."

Darby asked me to be serious and said, "I don't think there's much hope if we try by ourselves to take the law into our own hands. . . . If only we had a man with us. . . ."

Huffer was back in Paris, Dan Brigham and the rest in Vichy, and Henri and Lucien presumably still prisoners of war.

Darby and I were all for action. We discarded the idea of remaining in Perpignan or going to Cerbère; that left Vichy. Should that fail we would find a way out ourselves. We drew up a rough idea of our plan should we become desperate. Neither of us cared for it much, but my argument in favor of it was that, if everything failed, rather than wait chancing internment any risk was worth taking, and if we ended up in prison again at least this time there would be a reason. We decided to catch the evening train to Marseille and try our luck in Vichy.

During the afternoon we had tea with two French officers whom we had met in the post-office, and I heard for the first time that there existed some anti-British feeling in France; they told us it was not strong, and existed chiefly in the Army among officers and men who had been entirely incompetent themselves.

p294 I told Darby I would meet her at our hotel an hour before our train was due to leave, and went off to buy some toothpaste. Toothpaste, like soap, face cream, hairpins, cigarettes, and matches, was becoming a rarity. Perpignan, one of the oldest and most quaint towns in France, under normal conditions would be a delight to tourists, but the streets were now so packed with refugees and foreigners that the charm of the place was lost; even the narrowest side street was as crowded as any busy town's main thoroughfare.

I tried chemist after chemist, and had just left the fifth in despair when I was jostled against some one in the crowd. I was about to apologize when my brain refused to function — the man in front of me was Henri. I gaped at him open-mouthed and speechless, and all Henri seemed capable of uttering was a long string of oaths ending in, "Mon dieu, c'est Bessy !"

Out of the twenty-five thousand things we wanted to say to each other we both found it difficult to string one sentence together.

Henri had often mentioned his brother, but the man standing before me made me momentarily lose interest in what had happened to Henri since those seemingly far‑off Soissons days. Human beings are occasionally compared with scarecrows, but had I not met Jacques I would not have been that any one could, without exaggeration, really look like one. All that he lacked was the straw sticking out of his ears.

His clothes were a collection of oddments which hung grotesquely from his skeleton frame. His eyes were somewhere p295 at the back of his head, his cheeks were deep cavities in his hollow face, and his bones seemed to shoot out through his grey-green skin. When he opened his twisted mouth to say "Enchanté de faire votre connaissance," I noticed that there were only a few stumps of teeth left in his gums. Henri seemed unaltered, but looked far from prosperous; I guessed that he had not been able to touch his hundred thousand francs in Paris.

I had been thrown out of gear by the shock of our utterly unexpected meeting, and Jacques's appearance made me feel sick at heart. I already knew so many sad stories; I should have liked to hear one where every one lived happily ever afterwards and the green grass grew all round. Instead, we found a café, and Henri told me one of the grimmest tales I have ever heard.

Jacques had been living in Brussels; just before Belgium entered the war all the residing foreigners were asked to fill in a form stating what services they would render in the event of war. As Jacques was not physically fit, he signed up for civil defense work. When Belgium entered the war she arrested pell-mell the majority of the men and women of all nationalities — English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, Poles, etc. — who had filled in these forms.

Without notice or warning they were taken from their houses, in the streets, or wherever they were, and in groups of sixty they were herded together in trucks built to hold forty men or ten horses. They had no idea why they were arrested or where they were being taken — Jacques's particular trainload was sent from Brussels to Perpignan. It took them five nights and four days to arrive. For hours on end the train was left in sidings; they were given no water or food, p296 and never once allowed out of the closed‑in cattle trucks. Sixty men crowded into the space of forty — there was hardly room to breathe, and no room to lie down.

After two days Jacques managed to pull apart the bars in the truck and get his head through the grille. He screamed for water; with the butt of his rifle a French soldier hit him in the mouth — hence the condition of his teeth. About 15 per cent of the men died from exhaustion before they reached Perpignan.

The first thing Jacques did when he got on to the platform was to take from his pockets his fountain pen and the little money he had on him when arrested, and throw away his clothes. He stood on the platform naked except for his shoes; most of the men followed his example. Chalked up in large letters outside the trucks they had journeyed in was, "Beware of these men: they are parachutists."

Jacques did not know, neither did any one else. He said, "There are Fifth Columnists these days in every country, but the proportion among our promiscuously arrested thousands must have been negligible."

The French officials, rather than march a lot of naked men through the streets, gave them pants. They were taken to the camp of Saint Cyprien where there were already several thousand interned; their money was taken from them, and even the teeth set into a gold plate were taken out of one poor devil's mouth.

The food, I gathered, was almost nil — soup on a par with Fresnes and severely rationed bread. The men would have given their souls for a cigarette.

Jacques laid a beautiful leather brief-case on the table; it p297 seemed so out of keeping with the rest of him that I was curious to know how he came by it.

The Saint Cyprien camp is built on sand-dunes; the internees live in a sea of blowing sand. The soup is served from a large bucket, but no one had been given anything to drink it from. Jacques had found an old wooden soap box which served fairly well as a soup plate, but, like everything else, it was always covered in sand, which in no way improved the flavor of the soup. There was a man in the camp who coveted his fountain pen, and Jacques willingly exchanged it for the brief-case, so that at least his soap-cum‑soup box could be kept free from sand.

Henri had discovered Jacques by pure coincidence. When Henri left Soissons he had tried to get into Belgium, as he thought his father and brother were still in Brussels. As he had been unable to cross the frontier, he had made his way to Marseille, where he ran into a Belgian friend of Jacques, who had also been arrested in Brussels and sent to Saint Cyprien, where he met Jacques. The friend had managed to escape, and was now trying to trace his family.

On this chance information Henri went to Saint Cyprien and managed to help his brother fout' le camp only a few hours before I met them.

Jacques had a precarious existence before him. He had not been carrying his identification papers on him when arrested in the streets of Brussels, and in France it is extremely difficult p298 to live without them. None of the men at Saint Cyprien had had any trial or sentence; the French had no idea what to do with them, and were keeping them under sufferance; but should it ever be found out that Jacques had been there he would immediately be sent back.

Henri's plan was to tuck his brother away in a quiet corner until the end of the war, but to do this he wanted to get him to Marseille first. There were no such things as private cars or buses, so there was no option but to take the train, and this involved great risk. I learnt for the first time that no one was allowed to travel without a sauf-conduit. As far as Darby and I were concerned, ignorance had been bliss. As yet on trains our sauf-conduit had not been asked for, and we have always imagined our passports sufficient. Not only did Jacques need a sauf-conduit, but Henri said the railway station at Marseille now had a barrier outside the platforms, and no one was allowed through without showing his papers; but Henri had ideas up his sleeve, and the only thing to do was to hope they would work. Although Jacques had lost everything, there was some hope for him if he could regain his health and trace his wife. Neither of them knew what had happened to their father, who was last seen in Brussels. For all they knew he and Jacques's wife might also have been arrested and sent to one of the innumerable camps along this coast.

I was getting used to endless coincidences, so it did not surprise me in the least that Henri and Jacques had already arranged to leave for Marseille by the same train as ours. Glad as I was to meet Henri again, sorry as I was for Jacques, I was dreading the journey back with them to Marseille. After the war the condition of the French internment camps p299 will, I suppose, be investigated, but whatever is said, or is not said, I can not entirely blame the French.

At the time of which I am writing (August, 1940), France had not sufficient essential foods to feed adequately her own population, so what could she do with the hundreds of thousands who had left Belgium, Holland, and Poland, and were now penniless refugees on her own already overcrowded and depleted soil? What could she do with her own Jews, whom the Germans (in occupied France) had deprived of their homes and their wherewithal to live, and were now sending the destitute into unoccupied France? And what could unoccupied France do with the "parachutists" what France had accepted without any specific charge against any one of them in the early days of the war?

Germany and Italy showed no desire to have their alleged "parachutists" back in the Lebensraum. The Englishman, in agreement with France's capitulation, could not leave, and no sign of any arrangements being made by the Germans for the "parachutists" of either sex to be repatriated to their various countries was in sight.

I do not believe that any one with any knowledge of France would ever accuse her of being a wantonly cruel nation. But, naturally, her own countrymen had to be fed first; and there was extremely little food leftover for the homeless foreign millions.

As far as Jacques and company were concerned, the French had no power to free or repatriate them, so they would have to remain suspects until either the French came to some arrangement about them with the Germans, or until the end of the war.

It is one thing to theorize in one's own home; it is another p300 to travel with a starving scarecrow whose powers of resistance were so diminished that his rearrest meant quite plainly a fairly quick death by starvation. His appearance confirmed what I had already heard; a goodly proportion of the internees along the coast were dying off like flies — typhus helped a lot.

Some of the internees of Saint Cyprien had had a more fortunate journey than Jacques's truckload, and had been able to keep their clothes on them. Some even had managed to bring a few oddments with them. When Jacques, who had only his shoes and pants, told his comrades that he had a chance of escape, there had been an instant whip around, a coat, trousers, shirt, collar and tie, even a beret, had willingly been given by those who were left behind.

There were still two hours before the train left for Marseille, and Henri began to tell me what had happened at Soissons. A few hours after Darby and I had left the hospital Henri had made inquiries about us at the Kommandantur, and was told we had been taken to Laon. The following day he sent the baker there on a pretext of fetching some things for the hospital, but the baker failed to trace us. Then Henri himself made an excuse to go to the Kommandantur at Laon, but they assured him that we were not there, nor had we ever been, so he came to the conclusion that we had managed to fout' le camp before we got to Laon. He knew we had little money on us, and had expected me either to come back, or in some way communicate with him at Soissons. He waited three weeks, but the discipline of the hospital had been tightened up considerably, sentries had been posted at all the gateways, and he was no longer allowed to leave the hospital, even to go to the Kommandantur of Soissons. He realized p301 that if he did not make a getaway soon things would be so difficult that he would never be able to do so. He had got the tire and the spare parts he wanted for the car, and with three of his copains he escaped in it to Paris. Lucien had already successfully fout'd le camp. The baker, it appeared, was a heavily married man. In the small village where he lived all the bakers had been taken prisoners of war; his wife, a woman nearly double his age, found out that he was at Soissons, and had got permission from the German Kommandantur of her village to fetch the baker back. If it could be proved that a man's work was essential to his village, prisoners were sometimes released. So Madame la Baker had gone to Soissons with the necessary papers to free her husband.

"Don't you think it might have been his mother passing as his wife?" I asked, remembering his insistence that he would not marry until he had found le grand amour.

"What with being the sole baker of B–––––, his two girl friends, his petite amie, and his wife, I expect our baker will be kept pretty busy!"

Henri listened amazed to our adventures since we had left Soissons. He had no idea who the snake in the grass could be. Mademoiselle had not been freed; she was still at Soissons when Henri left. He told me he never received the letter I wrote to him from Laon; he had just been told to hand over the purse I had purposely left with him, and, as he had never been questioned about me, I saw no point in mentioning my diary. I considered that, for the moment anyway, there were some things best left unsaid.

We left Jacques in the café and returned to my hotel. Darby was sitting reading in the courtyard; I stood some p302 distance off and thoroughly enjoyed watching her face when Henri greeted her.

The crowds at the station were worse than we expected, for it was a fight even to get on to the platform; when the train came in people were standing six rows deep. Henri made a cat‑like jump and managed to get seats. Each stop was grim anxiety in case the gendarmes searched the train; fortunately, when they did Henri saw them coming, and Jacques was hastily pushed on to the platform and managed to slip back into one of the carriages which had already been searched. When he returned he told us he had recognized two men whom we had seen arrested in the corridor as prisoners from his camp.

There was no train to sleep in when we arrived at Narbonne, as, returning to Marseille, one had to wait for the Bordeaux express, which was not due for another six hours. We were thankful for Jacques's sake that the heavy mist on the ground was turning into fog. We found a restaurant, and I was lost in admiration for Jacques; he was starving, but managed to eat as though good food had been his daily fare. We urged him to take a second helping of each course; he would perhaps suffer from violent indigestion, but it seemed more important that he should have something solid inside him. The food did him good, and he began to lose his dazed and vacant expression. I felt that even if he were arrested before he reached Marseille at least he would have had a decent meal.

Darby and Jacques returned to the station and tried to snatch a few hours's sleep in a luggage trolley; Henri and I wandered around Narbonne. Everything was now closed; we turned down two seats outside a café and continued to talk p303 and talk and talk. Henri had still not been officially demobilized, but thought that could be fairly easily arranged. He had not been able to touch his money in Paris and was practically penniless. He was a fully trained technician and used to manage factories, but as there were none working he was stuck.

I had heard Churchill's broadcast: Britain would give full support to all Frenchmen joining deº Gaulle's army. If only Henri could manage to do it seemed a way out. Germany, of course, has seen to it that Frenchmen can not leave France easily, but Henri said he would try.

The fog was thickening; at about three in the morning a man and woman carrying some bundles and trailing two small children behind loomed up and wearily asked if we knew of a room to be had in Narbonne. I advised them to find a café and sleep on the chairs outside; they walked on, and their drooping figures disappearing into the fog seemed to epitomize the millions of homeless refugees.

Darby and Jacques were still in the luggage trolley. Jacques had slept a little out of sheer exhaustion. The platform was as crowded as Perpignan, and this time we were not so lucky, as we managed to get only two seats. We took it in turn to stand in the crowded corridor; cramped and disheveled we arrived at Marseille — now for the barrier.

Henri told Darby and me to go ahead and said he would look after Jacques; we were to wait for them outside the station. At the barrier we were asked for our sauf-conduit, and showed our passports.

"In that case you will not require your passports. Will you p304 please leave them here until you get your tickets this evening?"

We reluctantly handed them over and passed through the barrier. We heaved a sigh of relief when we saw Henri and Jacques waiting for us outside. It was about seven in the morning, and coffee and croissants was our next thought. The main road leading from the station was nearly as deserted as when we had arrived from Vichy and so expectantly looked for rooms. . . . Here we were back again with nothing accomplished.

Henri had to look after Jacques's affairs, and we arranged to meet them later on. In Perpignan Darby and I had been given an introduction to a well-known French family living in Marseille. We spent most of the day with them, and I found of our host's political opinions novel and interesting. He was quite indifferent to the outcome of the war — if the Germans won France would have no liberty of thought or action; if England won he felt convinced France would become communistic, so automatically liberty of three or action would disappear.

We met Henri and Jacques in a sordid café surrounded by a collection of rather evil-looking thugs. Used as we were to extremes, the atmosphere of the café after our host's beautiful villa was truly an enormous change. During the day Henri had managed to fix up Jacques's immediate future and had decided to accompany us to Vichy. We said good‑by to Jacques. I have never heard of him since, but I like to think of him tucked safely away in some corner.

We returned to the station and found we had to change at Nîmes at one in the morning; through some misunderstanding we thought we had to wait there two hours for our connecting p305 train, and so we all calmly sat on the platform at Nîmes and without knowing it watched the train to Vichy puff out.

Many people have missed trains in their lives, but few can have been as furious as we were when we realized we had twenty-four hours to wait for our next connexion, with no prospect of a bed. We heard of a hotel which might possibly let us sit for the rest of the night in the lounge. The cloak-room of the station was closed; we piled as much of our luggage as we could on to Henri and lugged the rest along the ill‑lit streets. Refugees were sleeping in their cars, under the trees, and on the benches.

Although I was impatient to get to the hotel, after so many coincidences I could not tell Henri that the odds of finding his father amongst the refugees along the roadside were fantastic. He kept darting hither and thither hopefully. By chance he had found his brother, by chance he had met me, by chance he might see his father among those huddled figures.

We dozed uneasily in the hotel and had to leave the lounge at five for it to be swept. Somehow we filled in the time until evening; we spent the day wandering around the ruins of the coliseum and Roman baths and temples, then back to the inevitable fight for a seat on the train . . . Aching in every limb, we arrived in Vichy at six the next morning.

Darby and I sat in a café opposite the station, and left Henri to search for rooms. After two hours he returned having found a room which would not be vacant until the evening, and hoping to find one for himself during the day.

We all had much to see to; Henri went about his affairs, and we went our way, and Darby and I arranged with Henri that he should call at our hotel early the next morning.

Wondering what kind of reception we should receive, we p306 went first to the American Embassy; Dick Warner was very surprised to see us. We told him that not only had we returned to get more money from Huffer's bank, but now our exit permits had expired, and this time we wanted them via Cerbère and Port-Vendres, or Cerbère and Marseille. Dick Warner thought the Chef du Bureau de la Circulation would never make them out that way, but advised us to go around immediately and see what he would do.

On our way there we saw several German officers strolling along the streets — so they were filtering even into Vichy! Our permits became more urgent than ever.

The Chef du Bureau's secretary recognized us at once; she was sitting in a large room with desks along the whole length. She had thought we were well on our way home, and listened with deep concern to our tale of woe. We explained to her exactly how we wanted our exit permit made out and asked to have it valid for at least five weeks. She walked over to the Chef du Bureau's desk. I watched her pleading our cause with the Chef and saw him shake his head. It was another of those moments when our future seemed in the balance. I wondered whether to leave everything to the secretary, who, I knew, was doing her best us, or if I should step in myself.

I found myself walking toward the Chef's desk. He looked up and recognized me. "What is it you want now?"

I took the bull by the horns. "Monsieur le Ministre, to begin with I want our exit permit valid for five weeks."

I continued hurriedly, "That is not all. We want our exit permits made out via Cerbère and Marseille or Cerbère and Port-Vendres."

p307 Momentarily he looked blank with surprise; again he banged upon his desk and said, "C'est formidable !"

I thought it best to try to say all I could before he refused to listen further. "We've already been to Cerbère, and you know the Spanish frontier is closed to the British, and it's imperative we leave France. Unless we have the option to leave via North Africa we may never get away, and we have very little money left."

"Neither have I," said the Chef du Bureau. "Much of my property is in England, and now England blocks the pound, and also bombs our cities."

"Well, Monsieur le Ministre, if your money is blocked in England you can realize how difficult it is for Mademoiselle Darby and me, and as for England bombing German occupied towns in France, unfortunately it is one of those things in war which are necessary."

The Chef du Bureau glared and shrugged his shoulders. I appeared to have made little headway. I remembered Mr. Bernard's masterly oration at Cerbère. Another oration seemed our only hope. I took a deep breath.

"Monsieur le Ministre, Mademoiselle Darby and I came to France to help with your refugees. We drove your wounded . . . we have helped nurse them. We have been captured and imprisoned by the Germans. . . . Maréchal Pétain thanked us for our work. . . . Surely, Monsieur le Ministre, before we become penniless you will help us to get home. . . ."

The Chef fiddled with his pen and after a pause which seemed hours said, "Mais alors, what is it exactly that you want?"

I quickly went over it again. "With the present political p308 situation an exit permit for eight days may be of little use, therefore to begin with we want ours for five weeks."

I saw I was making progress and did not want to lose ground, but I found that the Chef du Bureau was adamant on that point, and, since four weeks was such an advantage, I did not press it further.

I again explained the difficulties of an exit permit made out for one town only.

After glancing through them he turned over a fresh page and wrote away. He passed them on to a soldier sitting at a desk behind him who stamped them with a seal. The Chef handed them back to us and said, "Au revoir, mesdemoiselles. I hope this time you have a more successful journey."

Although we were longing to see what he had written, politeness prevented us from looking.

We thanked him, and it was all we could do to walk and not run out of the room. Once outside, to our amazement we found our exit permit valid for one month to leave France "by all ways," sea, land, or air, Algiers and Morocco included. This was stupendous — much more than we had ever dreamed of. Every port, every frontier town, every way, was now open to us in unoccupied France.

Darby agreed and said, "To think that we did it without even standing in a queue."

p309 We returned to the American Embassy, and Bob Murphy was anxious to know how we had got on; as he looked at our passports he grinned all over his face. "Well, this should see you through."

We were so proud of our passports that we showed them to Huffer's bank manager, who was so impressed that he passed them around to his colleagues. Every one wished us the best of luck and said the sooner we got home the better.

When we left the bank Darby said, "You know, we are fools. Now we've done everything, we could catch this afternoon's train back to Marseille, if only we'd arranged some meeting place with Henri."

We felt too dirty and tired to look up any of our friends; we curled ourselves into a large sofa tucked away in the lounge of the Parc Majestic and stayed there until our room became vacant. Henri knocked on the door.

I was dragged downstairs and across to the station. He explained the hurry; he had to catch this particular train to get his final demobilization papers. In five minutes on a crowded platform it was hopeless to make future plans. Henri said he would try his best to get to England, and, the last I saw of him, he was making another catlike jump for the hopelessly packed train.

Darby was in bed when I returned to the hotel; I told her Henri had dashed off, and I expected that was the last we should see of him for some time to come.

Three days later we left France. As we set out, my thoughts flashed back over past experiences. I was torn by conflicting p310 emotions — intense gladness for my own immediate safety; pain for the chaotic misery of the French people. I heard again the voice of their leader: "I regret that relations between our two countries are at present a little strained, but there is no real animosity between us, and I hope it will not be long before we both know happier times."

Au revoir, belle France. En avant ! Marchons vers ces heures plus heureuses. Au revoir et bonne chance.

A short stay in Lisbon — Imperial Airways soon gave us seats in one of their 'planes — London again. Everything at home looked exactly the same as when I had left.

I was delighted to hear that Angus and Heard had been safely evacuated from France with the B. E. C. Kruger was in charge of a new M. T. C. unit, and Angus, Heard, and Otto among others had gone with her to Kenya.⁠a

It had been impossible to communicate with Huffer while he was in Paris: I was glad when he wrote me a letter from New York dated January 13, 1941.

Since I left Paris I cannot get news from my sister or my niece. . . . I suppose I should not complain, considering all the suffering which is going on in Great Britain, but I am sure you can appreciate how I feel. . . . I believe our Government is at last trying to do something for Great Britain, but for those who are interested it seems that we are really doing nothing. New York has been very gay, but wherever you go you are always held up for charity — Bundles for Britain is, I think, the biggest thing; they have over five hundred places where they give out wool for making socks and sweaters.

Seven months ago to‑day you were taken prisoner, and five months to‑morrow we left [Paris] for Vichy; it seems only yesterday.

p311 Vichy, Marseille, Cerbère, Port Bou, Perpignan, Marseille, Vichy, Lisbon, London. Together Darby and I celebrated the successful end of our journey.

It had been a terrifying journey, exciting in parts, but at times we had been so cut off, and felt so completely adrift that it had been hard to believe we should get back.

Darby and I had been lucky — we were home. Now in England it is easy to think of it all as a great experience, a good yarn to tell, but it is impossible to forget the distress of those I knew in France and the misery and sadness of my fellow political prisoners, who are still suffering the hell which Darby and I escaped.

My friends of Cherche-Midi and Fresnes, I don't think of you often, for at the moment it all seems hopeless, but I have not forgotten you — far from it.

A bomb dropped and caused a large crater in the middle of our road; when I realized that no one was hurt I heard myself exclaiming with horror, "I suppose that means no gas to cook with, no hot water, and no baths."

When I heap my plate with food my thoughts return to you, and I have learned at least one thing — I cannot bear waste.

Louise, my dear, we have heard that you are free! I shall always remember your advice, your kindliness, and your courage, and the pot of marmalade you gave Darby and me to share. God bless you.

No, Collette, I have not been near any prisons since I have been home, but I do not believe that such places as Cherche-Midi and Fresnes exist over here. I have not forgotten the French coffee and the grapes you gave me, nor the mark p312 which you slipped into my hand. I expect you will be kept as a hostage for the duration of the war, for I cannot imagine you writing to your husband to ask him to return.

I suppose your sentence, Jeanne, will depend on what kind of a Kommandant tries your case.

You, Schiaparelli, and ma petite Parisienne, must have finished your sentences by now; what is Paris like these days? Think "sales Boches" as often as you like, ma petite, but don't let it get back to them. And, Schiaparelli, don't tear down any more posters! I have not had any rum since I drained your bottle at Fresnes; écoute, mon amie, I couldn't be sorrier, but I have lost the flapjack you gave me.

To you, Marie, O Polish woman, I promise this much. I will try my best when we have won this war to trace you. Should you and thousands like you be no longer, at least your memory is dear to many, and we know that you must live on. . . .

Thayer's Note:

a "Kruger" (real name Marjorie Juta, see Myers' foreword) left for South and East Africa with a squad of ambulance drivers shortly before Bessy Myers' book was published: on January 7, 1941 if the caption of a Getty Images photograph of them about to embark is to be trusted.

p288 12 En Route for Home

Thayer's Note:

p288 12
En Route for Home