close range.
Druce was beginning to suspect that both men might have been executed under Hitler’s top secret and shadowy ‘Commando Order’, something that had come to the SAS’s attention only in recent months.
In the spring of 1944 Lieutenant Quentin Hughes of 2 SAS had parachuted into Italy as part of a team targeting enemy aircraft at San Egido airbase, in the centre of the country. While setting Lewes bombs on the warplanes, one went off prematurely, deafening and blinding him. Hughes was taken captive and treated for his wounds, but once he had recovered his senses he was told that he would be handed over to the Gestapo, for execution as a ‘saboteur’.
One of the doctors at the hospital, assisted by a recovering German staff officer – both of whom had befriended Hughes – managed to sneak him aboard a train bound for the main German clearing camp for prisoners of war. They hoped that the long arm of the Gestapo would fail to reach him there. But Hughes, still only partially recovered, had other ideas. Together with an American POW, he jumped the train and they made their way back to the Allied lines.
Hughes had written a report about his experiences, warning in particular about Allied parachutists being branded as ‘saboteurs’ and handed over to the Gestapo to be shot. That report had landed on the desk of Bill Barkworth, 2 SAS’s intelligence officer – the same individual who had given Druce his eleventh-hour briefing. Barkworth had alerted Colonel Franks, and Franks in turn had warned his officers about what fate might await their men if they were ever captured.
But Hughes’ report gave only an inkling of what might befall those who ended up in enemy hands. In the late summer of 1944, the Allies knew precious little about the machinery of death implemented by the Nazis across so much of occupied Europe. Few had any concept of what a ‘concentration camp’ might be, other than that these were places where Hitler gathered together and incarcerated those opposed to his regime.
All the same, it made the wearing of a clearly identifiable uniform absolutely vital for those dropped behind enemy lines. Hughes had deployed in old-style battle dress, plus plimsolls and a balaclava. His ‘non-standard’ appearance had allowed the Gestapo to argue that he had gone into action out of uniform, and thus could not be afforded the treatment extended to bona fide prisoners of war.
If Druce was caught dressed as a villager wandering the streets of Moussey, or dining at the priest’s house, he knew he faced almost certain death.
‘I realized that if I was caught in civilian clothes, I would have my head chopped,’ Druce remarked. ‘And frankly, we were all brought up knowing that if you were caught spying you were going to get shot. Of course, the crime of being caught is . . . to get caught.’
It struck Druce that the bodies of Lodge and Davis had been dumped in Moussey almost as a warning to any would-be Maquis: pour encourager les autres . But, under Abbé Gassman’s guiding hand, the villagers were not about to be turned aside from their path. The Moussey priest proved to be fervently pro-British, and over dinner it became ever more clear why.
‘You know I would do anything for the English,’ Gassman announced. ‘You see, I have only once been to England and it was there that I was made your debtor . . . The English are a very formidable people. I recognised in a flash that we must be formidable too, and that it was possible; above all, that is was possible.’
Serving as a priest in the French Army, Gassman had been at Dunkirk. It was on those war-blasted beaches that he had first witnessed and come to admire the dogged British spirit of resistance; the ‘ flegme britannique ’: the British phlegm, or stiff upper lip, as he called it.
He’d seen British troops under withering fire, but waiting calmly in line on the beach, and he’d begun to wonder whether perhaps all was not lost.
Druce was beginning to suspect that both men might have been executed under Hitler’s top secret and shadowy ‘Commando Order’, something that had come to the SAS’s attention only in recent months.
In the spring of 1944 Lieutenant Quentin Hughes of 2 SAS had parachuted into Italy as part of a team targeting enemy aircraft at San Egido airbase, in the centre of the country. While setting Lewes bombs on the warplanes, one went off prematurely, deafening and blinding him. Hughes was taken captive and treated for his wounds, but once he had recovered his senses he was told that he would be handed over to the Gestapo, for execution as a ‘saboteur’.
One of the doctors at the hospital, assisted by a recovering German staff officer – both of whom had befriended Hughes – managed to sneak him aboard a train bound for the main German clearing camp for prisoners of war. They hoped that the long arm of the Gestapo would fail to reach him there. But Hughes, still only partially recovered, had other ideas. Together with an American POW, he jumped the train and they made their way back to the Allied lines.
Hughes had written a report about his experiences, warning in particular about Allied parachutists being branded as ‘saboteurs’ and handed over to the Gestapo to be shot. That report had landed on the desk of Bill Barkworth, 2 SAS’s intelligence officer – the same individual who had given Druce his eleventh-hour briefing. Barkworth had alerted Colonel Franks, and Franks in turn had warned his officers about what fate might await their men if they were ever captured.
But Hughes’ report gave only an inkling of what might befall those who ended up in enemy hands. In the late summer of 1944, the Allies knew precious little about the machinery of death implemented by the Nazis across so much of occupied Europe. Few had any concept of what a ‘concentration camp’ might be, other than that these were places where Hitler gathered together and incarcerated those opposed to his regime.
All the same, it made the wearing of a clearly identifiable uniform absolutely vital for those dropped behind enemy lines. Hughes had deployed in old-style battle dress, plus plimsolls and a balaclava. His ‘non-standard’ appearance had allowed the Gestapo to argue that he had gone into action out of uniform, and thus could not be afforded the treatment extended to bona fide prisoners of war.
If Druce was caught dressed as a villager wandering the streets of Moussey, or dining at the priest’s house, he knew he faced almost certain death.
‘I realized that if I was caught in civilian clothes, I would have my head chopped,’ Druce remarked. ‘And frankly, we were all brought up knowing that if you were caught spying you were going to get shot. Of course, the crime of being caught is . . . to get caught.’
It struck Druce that the bodies of Lodge and Davis had been dumped in Moussey almost as a warning to any would-be Maquis: pour encourager les autres . But, under Abbé Gassman’s guiding hand, the villagers were not about to be turned aside from their path. The Moussey priest proved to be fervently pro-British, and over dinner it became ever more clear why.
‘You know I would do anything for the English,’ Gassman announced. ‘You see, I have only once been to England and it was there that I was made your debtor . . . The English are a very formidable people. I recognised in a flash that we must be formidable too, and that it was possible; above all, that is was possible.’
Serving as a priest in the French Army, Gassman had been at Dunkirk. It was on those war-blasted beaches that he had first witnessed and come to admire the dogged British spirit of resistance; the ‘ flegme britannique ’: the British phlegm, or stiff upper lip, as he called it.
He’d seen British troops under withering fire, but waiting calmly in line on the beach, and he’d begun to wonder whether perhaps all was not lost.
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