Code Name Hélène

On March 1, 1940, Nancy says goodbye to Henri at the train station. He is deploying to the Maginot Line, a line of concrete fortifications in northwest France along the German border. Nancy is crying, and she makes Henri promise that he will come home alive. They kiss, and he gets on the train to leave.

Almost two months later, Nancy stops by the hotel bar before she leaves on a trip to Cannes. Antoine asks her if she can help him by delivering a package to the front desk of her hotel, the Hôtel Martinez. When Nancy asks him who it is for, he tells her it is for a friend who “helps Jews escape Nazi-occupied Europe” (201). Nancy then drops her dogs off at Ficetole’s and goes back to the apartment to pack. While she is entering her apartment, her neighbor, Monsieur Paquet, the police commissioner, stops her and asks her where she is going and why. She lies and says she is going to Paris to meet a friend.

When Nancy arrives at the Hôtel Martinez, she drops the envelope containing fake identification cards at the front desk for “Simón Bolívar.” The refugees will use the identification cards to travel to Toulouse, where they will meet a woman named Françoise who will take them to Perpignan. From there, guides will take them through the Pyrenees Mountains to Spain. After dropping off the papers at the front desk, Nancy sits at the hotel bar and observes a tall, redheaded man collect the envelope.

In May, after the German army has broken through the Maginot Line, Nancy decides to take her truck/ambulance to the front to help the wounded. She drives to the northern town of Marville, near Belgium. After asking a soldier and a nurse where to go, she finds Petar Konev, a Bulgarian who runs the volunteer ambulance corps out of a church. He tells her there are no women ambulance drivers. Nancy tells him, “Tell me where to go and who to collect or I’ll just head off on my own and cause everyone more trouble” (206). He tells her to drive north and start picking people up. Nancy spends weeks working day and night picking up refugees and the injured, treating them with the few first aid tricks she knows from her time as a nurse’s assistant. On June 10, the French government orders Marville to be evacuated because of the German advance, and on June 13, her truck/ambulance breaks down. She walks to Nîmes and checks into a hotel. On the radio, she hears that the Germans have occupied Paris. When she returns home, she finds that Marseille has been bombed, although her flat is still intact.

On June 25, Henri hears that French Prime Minister Marshal Pétain has signed the Armistice Convention, giving Germany the northern half of France. While he is sitting in the Maginot Lines’ concrete bunkers, he looks at the list he made about Nancy’s likes and dislikes after the first night they went out. As he looks at the list, he hears bombs fall and shake his bunker.

Gaspard’s men initially do not have the same respect for Nancy that Fournier’s men do. Three of them sexually harass her. She threatens them with her knife and warns them she will castrate them if they refer to her as a sex worker. She decides to visit each of Gaspard’s divisions to make sure they are aware that she is “not to be trifled with” (213). Nancy and Hubert go to the village of Saint-Martial, about five kilometers from their encampment, to meet with Gaspard and Judex. They are staying in abandoned homes in the village rather than camping in the forest. Nancy and Gaspard negotiate their terms over drinks. Nancy agrees to give Gaspard money (though less than he initially asks for) and supplies, and then Hubert talks to Gaspard about retreat paths. To keep her head during the negotiations without getting too drunk, she uses the drinking tricks that Henri had taught her. Gaspard calls her a “brass-plated bitch,” a compliment coming from him, and Nancy asks him to pass the word on to his troops (218). They leave, and Hubert expresses his admiration for her ability to hold her alcohol.

Two weeks later, on June 5, 1944, Nancy receives notice that “Anselm,” the man who is coming to train their troops, has arrived in Montluçon. She must go and collect him. However, because their contact Maurice Southgate did not meet her when she parachuted into France, she does not have the code for their contact in Montluçon. All she knows is that her name is Madame Renard, she was a housekeeper for an ambassador in Paris, and she makes cakes. Even with this limited knowledge, Nancy decides to look for her anyway.

As Nancy is pulling away to leave with a soldier named Jacques, Louis Autry, the soldier whose hand she bandaged, asks her to give money to his pregnant wife who lives in Montluçon. That evening, they arrive in town and Nancy goes to Louis’s wife’s house and gives her the money. She asks Madame Autry if she knows where Madame Renard lives. She says she does not, but her friend does. Nancy goes to the friend’s house and the friend directs her to where she can find Madame Renard. When she arrives, Madame Renard is at first suspicious of her, but after Nancy tells her she has heard about her wonderful cakes, she lets her in. As she enters the home, a man steps out of an armoire.

By July 18, 1940, the Gestapo have set up camp in Marseille at the Hôtel du Louvre et Paix. Nancy goes to the bar there and chats with Antoine. At the bar, she recognizes the man who collected her envelope at Cannes. To catch his attention, she says in English, “What I wouldn’t give for a plate of bangers and mash” (229). The redheaded man comes over with his associate and asks if she is British. She tells him she is Australian. The man introduces himself as Ian Garrow and Nancy lets him know that he is “Simón Bolívar,” the man who collected her envelope in Cannes. Despite his surprise, he introduces her to his colleague, Patrick O’Leary.

Later, at Nancy’s apartment, O’Leary and Garrow tell her that they are part of a network “establishing an escape route for captured soldiers and persecuted Jews” (231). Nancy has the radio turned up very loudly so that her neighbor, the police commissioner, cannot overhear their conversation. Nancy asks them what she can do to help. They tell her they need a radio and 1,000 cigarettes. While they are talking, Monsieur Paquet knocks on the front door. He asks her who is in the apartment, insinuating that she is cheating on her husband. She tells him they are her cousins. He does not believe her and tells her to turn the radio down. When he has gone, Nancy tells the men that Paquet wants her apartment and is trying to get her evicted. The men ask her if she can help smuggle supplies and people. She agrees and gives them 1,000 cigarettes before they leave.

One day in August, after returning from Toulouse, where she had helped a young Jewish woman and her baby escape, Nancy sees that her apartment door is open. She hears someone in the flat, and when she cautiously opens the door, Henri is standing there with his arm in a sling. Nancy tells Henri about her espionage activities. She expects him to be angry, but instead, he decides to buy her a bicycle and teach her to ride it, something he had promised himself he would do the first night they spent together.

In October, Nancy is in Grenoble on a mission when she runs into her old friend Stephanie. She is with her husband, Count Paul Gonzalez. They go to a café and Stephanie tells her that they are fleeing to Switzerland because her husband is wanted by the Spanish and the Germans for dealing arms to both sides of the war. He had a shipment of guns he was supposed to sell to the Germans and instead sold it to the Maquis in Mont Mouchet. Stephanie leaves to catch her train, and Nancy thinks she will never see her friend again.

On June 5, 1944, Nancy is at Madame Renard’s home. She recognizes the man “Anselm” as her SOE colleague René Dusacq. They drive back to the encampment. When they arrive that evening, they learn that the Allied troops have landed in Normandy for D-Day. She also finds that Tardivat has left her a mattress and her old parachute to use as a sheet. While Nancy is relieved to hear about the reinforcements, she also knows that the Maquis are the only thing standing between them and the Hermann Göring Division of the German military, about 20,000 troops with air support.

About a week later, Hubert tells her he is worried about a German attack on their position. Nancy wants to stay to receive additional supplies before moving out. She is exhausted, so she decides to go to the hot springs at Chaudes-Aigues to clean up and get some rest. She washes herself in the baths there and then goes to sleep in a hotel. The next morning, she wakes up to the sounds of gunfire and rushes back to the encampment.

In July 1942, Nancy and Henri are in their apartment in Marseille. Nancy tells Henri that she is going to Toulouse today on a mission under the name “Lucienne Carlier.” Henri gets up to let the dogs out. Patrick O’Leary is at the door. He comes in and tells Nancy that Ian Garrow has been arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Fort Saint-Nicholas. O’Leary tells her that he was stopped at a checkpoint near the train station and has received word that the Gestapo are looking for la Souris Blanche, the White Mouse, a British subject who laughs a lot. He also tells her about the Maquis in Auvergne who are fighting the Germans. They resolve to find a way to support them.

Nancy goes to the train station. When she is stopped at the checkpoint and questioned, she insinuates that she is a mistress posing as a “secretary,” and they let her through. When she arrives in Nice, she calls Henri to tell him she is safe, and he tells her that Grenadine never returned that morning.

A few months later, in September, a man named Arnal arrives at the flat. He tells Henri and Nancy that he was being held in Fort Saint-Nicholas with Garrow and that Garrow is being transferred to the military prison/concentration camp in Mauzac. Arnal also tells Nancy that there is a prison guard there who might be bribed to release him. On November 11, Nancy goes to Mauzac as Madame Carlier and meets with Garrow. She dresses as a wealthy woman in the hopes of catching the guard’s attention. The guard sends her a message to meet him at a bridge outside of town at midnight, but he doesn’t show up. The next day, Nancy tells Garrow she has failed and goes to a café to catch her train to Marseille. A man with a harelip sits across from her. He tells her that he can help her if she pays him 500,000 francs, including a 50,000 franc deposit. Nancy calls Henri and asks him to wire her the money for the deposit. After they hang up, he sees Marceline in his office. She is wearing the H necklace he gave her and tries to seduce him, but he spurns her advances and leaves.

Nancy goes to the post office to collect the money Henri has wired. They are suspicious because of the large sum, but she acts outraged at their questioning and they give it to her. Then she returns to the café and gives it to the guard, who tells her to return in four weeks. She gets on the train back to Marseille, which is full of German officers, and an old man tells her that “the Germans are tightening security throughout the Free Zone” (281).

On June 10, 1944, Nancy arrives back at the base from the hot springs. She learns that they are under attack by 22,000 German troops. A few hours later, Nancy goes to help unload the last shipment with Jacques. While they are working, the drop zone is shelled and, at Anselm’s insistence, Nancy goes back to camp. She learns from Denis that they need to retreat, but Gaspard refuses to do so. She tells him they need to get an order from de Gaulle’s Free French forces in London to order him to retreat. They get the order, but Nancy alters it so that it seems to come from Marie-Pierre Koenig, de Gaulle’s second-in-command. She gives the order to Gaspard, who agrees to retreat, and they plan to rendezvous at Fridefont.

On the way to Fridefont, Louis and Nancy are attacked from the air by the Germans. They abandon the truck, which blows up, and continue on foot. When they reach Fridefont, everyone has already left except Anselm. They continue on foot through the countryside to Saint-Santin. It takes four days, dodging bombs and sleeping rough. When they arrive at Saint-Santin, Denis tells them that they had to leave the radio behind and that they have no way of contacting London for provisions.

In December 1942, Henri goes with Nancy to see her off on her mission to rescue Garrow. O’Leary gets on the train at Toulouse. They transfer trains. O’Leary tells her they have arranged a car to get Garrow out of the country and leaves her with a leather satchel with a guard’s uniform in it. Then he gets off the train. Nancy arrives in Mauzac and Harelip meets her. She gives him the money and the uniform. He tells her he will give Garrow the uniform.

The next day, Nancy waits in her hotel for news of Garrow. She is about to give up hope when the innkeeper’s daughter tells her there is a call for her at the front desk. It is Garrow, who thanks her. When she reaches the train station, a Nazi officer tells her that the Germans have taken control of all of France.

Back in Marseille, Nancy spends her days shopping so that no one will suspect what she has done. One day, Monsieur Paquet arrives at her front door and tells her that her “cousin,” Ian Garrow, has escaped from prison. She goes to call Henri to tell him of his visit, but she hears a clicking noise meaning that her phone line is tapped. Later, Henri notices that there are people going through their mail and following Nancy when she goes shopping. He decides that she is no longer safe. He packs her things. When she returns from shopping, he tells her that she must leave for Barcelona. She is upset but does as he asks.