‘I beg your pardon, I’m afraid I don’t understand. My name is Thérèse Dufour and I—’
He held up his hand as if stopping traffic. For a few moments he looked carefully at her before standing up, stretching himself and then strolling towards her. He bent down and she noticed he smelt of cologne and toothpaste; he must have nicked himself while shaving, as there were flecks of dried blood on his collar.
‘One last time, please: your name, those of everyone you work with and the location of your radio operator.’
She shook her head, which she immediately realised was a mistake because she wasn’t meant to understand English. The next thing she was aware of was her chair being kicked, and sprawling across the floor. Her shoulder seemed to take most of the impact. Other people were in the room now, and she was hauled to her feet, dragged over to the wall and pinned roughly against it. The Ferret moved in front of her, a wide grin on his face.
‘So they’ve insulted the great city of Dijon by sending us an amateur, eh?’ He thumped her in the stomach and she concentrated hard on not being sick. He stepped back as two of the guards manacled her hands and feet to rings on the wall. Her arms were fully stretched and her toes only just touched the floor.
The longer you hold out, the more time your comrades have to escape. Sometimes you may need to give them real information to buy time.
The fact that he’d asked about her radio operator was a good sign; at least Hervé hadn’t been captured yet. He’d get a message to London, and who knows, maybe the resistance would rescue her. She doubted he would be making jokes now about cutting the mustard. She reckoned it was early afternoon, and thought if she could hold out for a couple of hours and then begin to answer in English and give them titbits of information, she could drag things on until night came. By the following morning, the others in the circuit would have escaped and she wouldn’t be betraying anyone.
There is no easy way of saying this, but sometimes the physical pain is not the worst part of being tortured. Often the psychological approach is far worse – especially the humiliation.
She was ashamed of herself.
She’d been sure she could hold out for longer, but as soon as the humiliation began, she felt she caved in almost without resistance. It wasn’t that she wanted to be physically tortured, but she’d been told during her training that the purpose of torture was to get information out of you rather than kill you, and if the pain was too bad the body would shut down, by which they meant become unconscious.
Once she’d been manacled to the wall, the Ferret ordered the guards to undress her, which they began to do. She immediately spoke in English, falling back on her emergency cover story far sooner than planned.
‘My name is Audrey Manson, from Bristol. I was arrested a year ago for committing fraud and was facing a long prison sentence. Then they discovered I spoke fluent French – my mother was French – and made me an offer. If I came to France on a secret mission then the charges against me would be dropped. Otherwise I would go to prison for ten years. I very reluctantly agreed. I must tell you I’m not in favour of this war. I think there should be peace between our countries so we can fight the real enemy, the Soviet Union. I was flown to France and landed by parachute north of Dijon and made my own way into the city. I rented a room near the station and was told to go to Parc Darcy, where someone would give me a package and instructions on what to do next.’
The Ferret looked as if he was unsure what to make of her. He hesitated, and then went to his desk, where he made notes on a sheet of paper. The only parts of her story that were true were that she was from Bristol and that her mother was French. She thought that was what they would concentrate on. She would tell them her mother was from Nice; it would take them a few days to check that out. The city was still in chaos apparently after the Italians had left it.
‘I don’t believe a word.’ He was lounging back in his chair, his feet on the desk. He continued to stare at her as he lit a cigarette. ‘Do you know how much we pay for information about the resistance?’
She shook her head.
‘It depends on the quality of the information, of course, but for a British agent we pay up to one hundred thousand francs. We paid a bit less for you. We know you landed by Lysander near Chaumont around three weeks ago and made your way to Auxerre before arriving here a week ago. You’re helping to run the British circuit operating in the area. The British, I can assure you, don’t send over thieves, however good their French is.’
She was sure the Captain was the only person who knew all that information, so she decided to tell them about him, embellishing considerably to imply he couldn’t be trusted by anyone. She even went off at a tangent about how he had been a bank robber in Lyons – she had no idea where that came from, but she hoped it sounded plausible: Lyons was after all a centre of resistance activity. She described the stuffy attic near Dijon-Ville station and told them she’d been trained at a country house near a town called Harpenden in Hertfordshire, going to great lengths to describe it, right down to a damp basement and an extensive herb garden. The house had been used by the SOE and closed the previous month after a security breach, and she’d been
