At first, I was pleased with my decision. The clouds above me grew heavier even as the bicycle taxi swifted me through the streets. I watched the buildings pass, and found myself almost fixated on the Germans, visible in every conceivable public space—Wehrmacht and SS and SD officers in their uniforms, countless ordinary German citizens, unmistakable in their starkly utilitarian clothing, especially alongside our more ornate French fashions. I knew those German civilians were probably in France to conduct business, and once upon a time they would not have seemed at all a threatening presence, but the war had changed everything. I was getting a glimpse of the future the Nazis wanted, one where France was more theirs than ours.
I was so distracted thinking about this that it took me some time to begin to suspect that the bicycle driver was not going directly to the station. I left Paris for London as an impoverished fifteen-year-old and even then, I’d never spent much time in the 7th Arrondissement. But I had familiarized myself with maps of the city when I was planning my mission back at the SOE’s Baker Street offices in London, and something about our direction seemed off. When I caught a glimpse of Les Invalides I finally understood that the driver had veered west at some point instead of traveling north.
“Sir,” I said, alarmed. “You are supposed to be taking me to Gare St. Lazare!”
“This is the way,” he called back to me, his tone calm but firm. I grasped the sides of the sidecar and shook the thing until he cried out in protest. “Easy, mademoiselle! I mean you no harm. This is just the fastest way to the station!”
“You take me for a fool, sir. You’re going to tell me the ride took longer than you anticipated, and you’ll demand more money.”
“How dare you insult my integrity!” he said, but he sounded defensive and guilty, and I was sure now that I’d caught him out in the scam. “You are a visitor to this city so you’ll have to trust me. I have lived in Paris my whole life and I know all of the shortcuts.”
“What do you mean… I’m a visitor to the city?” I frowned, momentarily distracted from my outrage at the scam. “I’m every bit as Parisian as you are.”
The driver rattled off a short string of German words, and panic raced through my body even though I had no clue what he was saying. Was this man a collaborator? Were the Germans already onto me? But when I had no response, the driver glanced back at me and chuckled.
“Just as I suspected,” he said smugly. “You’re British.”
“I assure you; I am not!”
“With that accent, you are either from Alsace Lorraine—in which case you’d speak German—or you’re British.” At my stunned silence, he chuckled again. “Your accent is very subtle, mademoiselle, but it is obvious to a native Frenchman.”
This wasn’t the first time I’d misjudged my linguistic abilities. I was convinced my English was flawless when I boarded that ferry to the UK at fifteen. I had just run away from home, intending to reconnect with the British father I hadn’t seen in more than ten years. It was quite a shock to me to arrive in London only to find that he had married a woman who had no idea I existed and my father, determined to keep it that way, wanted nothing to do with me. I was also stunned to discover that while I understood English, I did not speak the language nearly as well as I’d assumed. I worked so hard in those first few years to refine my English until I could live and work in the UK easily.
It had not occurred to me once that eight years in Britain might have left a mark on my accent. No one had mentioned it when I was speaking French twenty-four hours a day during my training with the SOE—but then again, I trained in a cohort that was almost entirely Brits speaking French as a second language. It was likely that, in a group like that, no one would even notice.
My heart sank. Baker Street had gone to great lengths to ensure there was no way I could be identified as anything other than a Frenchwoman. The clothes I was wearing had been specifically designed by French seamstresses to ensure that the seams and buttons and techniques and fittings were all authentic. My makeup brands were French, smuggled across the Channel, and my bags were exact replicas of French brands. Every square inch of my pockets had been searched for ticket stubs or cigarettes or scraps of paper that might give me away if I were detained.
After all of that, it was heartbreaking to think that within two days of my arrival, a stranger on the streets had identified me as a visitor simply from a handful of words. I told myself to be grateful—that this wasn’t a failure but a blessing. Now that I knew about my accent, I could be careful how I spoke, and even when I spoke.
“You are wrong,” I fiercely told the bicycle driver, this time being careful to enunciate each word precisely. “Stop the bike this instant. I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“I believe they call that cutting off your nose to spite your face, mademoiselle,” the driver said, still pedaling furiously, continuing stubbornly on his trajectory away from the train station. “It will rain any minute and you have a train to make. No?”
“Stop immediately!” I cried, shaking the basket again, and at this, he shrugged and slowed. I hauled my bags and briefcase from the covered sidecar and set off on foot, ignoring the sound of his laughter as he cycled past me.
I walked halfway to Gare St. Lazare before I managed to flag down another bicycle taxi—this time, a helpful, honest driver got me to the station just as the heavens opened and a steady rain began to fall. Thanks to my long detour, I was running so late that my planned breakfast before departure was no longer possible and I had to sprint to buy my ticket then sprint onward to the platform where I discovered that the train had already arrived. A swarm of passengers pushed forward, impatient to board as the rain fell heavier.
I passed several public compartments but found every seat taken in each. Even the designated military compartments were all bursting with German soldiers. Some men had resorted to standing in the aisles.
A German officer suddenly swung out from a door and waved his arm at me. Gold braiding on his uniform, two pips. I clocked him instantly as a Wehrmacht colonel and my rapid footsteps came to an immediate halt.
“Mademoiselle,” he said politely, as I struggled to keep my expression neutral. “Please, follow me.” Sheer frustration shot through my body as I once again wondered if my cover had already been blown. Before I could even formulate a plan, he added quietly, “The train is oversold. You won’t find a seat on any of the public carriages, but I’ll make room for you in ours.”
The all-stops train would take three hours to reach Rouen in the zone interdite, the highly restricted “forbidden zone” that ran along the Nazi Atlantic wall. My SOE trainers would pitch a fit if they found out I had already stumbled into a situation where I would have to spend hours in a compartment full of enemy soldiers, but the minute the colonel made the offer, I had no way to refuse it without arousing suspicion.
Dozens of men stared at me as I followed the colonel into the compartment. As I stepped into the aisle, almost all rose to offer me their seat, in a move so sudden and coordinated it might almost have been rehearsed. I stared back at them, completely lost for words.