We Fought for Ardnish by Angus MacDonald

Author:Angus MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn

Chapter 9

Fra nçoise

I lay on my left side, my face against the wall, in excruciating pain. I hadn’t been dragged out by the guards for several days now. Maybe they had finally accepted my story? I had come so close to admitting everything. I had wanted to die. All that kept me from blurting out the truth was letting down the others, and knowing that Angus, Claude and his people would be hunted down. I thought of all the doubts expressed about women being agents; how they lacked the courage. I was the first woman in Camp X and I just could not let the side down.

My right arm had borne the brunt of the blast. I had put the grenade between Kaufmann and myself in the bed as he was dozing, then counted. I knew I had seven seconds, and I planned to throw myself to the side, but the grenade went off prematurely. The blast was horrendous. When I came to, I forced myself to look down at my arm. The skin was hanging off, and I could see bits of metal embedded in the flesh. I knew immediately that the humerus was shattered – a horrific sight – yet I felt no pain. I was numb. In shock.

Kaufmann’s men were there in seconds. They dragged me downstairs, bundled me into the back of a truck and drove me to Sallanches. The men were brutal; they dragged me into the camp, ignored my wounds and immediately started to interrogate me. In our training we had been told at length about what to expect, but nothing could have prepared me. Nothing. It became clear immediately that they assumed I was a French member of the Maquis.

There was a woman in the interrogation room who sat silently taking notes, betraying no reaction to my screaming. But when she and I were alone she came over to me and wiped my forehead, complimenting me on my bravery. Her sympathy seemed genuine, and I felt she may have been on the side of the allies. I briefly contemplated asking her to get a message out that I was not talking and was alive, but I realised that could be a costly mistake. Why should I trust her?

Even in my agony I came to acknowledge that the SOE in Britain had been scrupulous in my preparation. Just before deployment I had spent a week at Tempsford, where I was measured and fitted with genuine French clothing and boots made in the Alps, made using worn fabrics and tatty leather. My purse contained French francs and the identity card of a real woman called Françoise Villeneuve, along with a pack of Gauloises cigarettes and a local bus ticket. Even the expensive Canadian fillings in my teeth, put in by a friend of my father’s, had been replaced with terrible French ones. I had had a cyanide pill in the pocket of my coat, but I had been so preoccupied I had stupidly left it behind when I left Marc’s house.

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