Reluctant Hero

Chapter 2
Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie lay back in the bath and thought about the afternoon’s events. She was pleasantly surprised at meeting Tony. She had seen his record, and she had been informed that if anything he had a bit of a record as a bit of a womaniser, so she had no doubts that the sexual side of their marriage would not create a great problem. She bitterly regretted her hasty remarks earlier that afternoon, and now she was feeling increasingly optimistic about the whole operation. She was fairly sure now that he was a man she could work with. However the big hurdle was yet to come. She had avoided nearly all sexual contact since her disastrous marriage, and now to have to climb into bed with a strange man was a wee bit nerve wracking. She knew it had to be done, the Gestapo were no fools, and any inconsistency in their cover story could be fatal.

Anne-Marie was 24, and was born of a Belgian mother and a French father, and brought up in a small town on the Belgian coast not far from Zeebrugge. They were a relatively wealthy family, and well known and respected in the area. In 1938 she had met a young German man named Wolfram who was on holiday. They had fallen in love, and despite her parents dislike, and distrust of Germans they had married. The wedding in Zeebrugge had been a typical German drunken affair. On her wedding night she retired to bed awaiting her husband, who she was sure would join her shortly for their honeymoon. She had taken great care of her toilet, and was wearing a lovely silk nightgown which was a present from her mother. It was past 1.oclock in the morning when he had arrived at the bridal suite.

He had that night taken her virginity in brutal and drunken fashion. Leaving her dazed, and bruised. After he had finished, and before staggering away to get more beer he had invited his best man to avail himself of his “French whore” as he called her. In all she was raped four times that night by Wolframs friends. The next morning, Wolfram had been very apologetic, and eventually, because she was so deeply in love with him when he was sober, and she was frightened to tell her father what had happened fearing a violet reaction from him, so she decided to stay with him. But the desire for revenge, burned somewhere deep inside her. She could never completely forgive him, and she stayed with him out of pride, and to give him a chance to redeem himself. However she ensured that in the few months before war was declared she never conceived. It was in August, when Wolfram was recalled to Germany to join his SS unit. She was obliged to go with him, and they stayed in the family home at the village of Rickelrath near Wegburg.

His family were nice respectable people, and when eventually his sister Ursula, sensing Anne-Maries marital unhappiness, and eventually after persistent questioning discovered how her brother had treated his new wife on their wedding night, she was angry, and told the whole family. Naturally the family were shocked, at first they found it hard to believe her, but apparently unknown to her, he had previously twice been accused of similar rape offences against local single girls. His father blamed the SS doctrine, and training for his behaviour. He personally hated the Nazi regime, and like many others of his generation was convinced that they would bring disaster to Germany.

In 1939 the war started and after the fall of France she was informed that her husband had been killed by the resistance in a partisan ambush. She was shocked and saddened, in a way, but she also felt a big sense of relief. After a short period of mourning she was considering returning to her parent’s home in Belgium. However, the Germans firmly believing that she must be seeking revenge for the death of her newly wed husband, and knowing that she spoke both French, Flemish and German reasonably well, invited her to join them as a secret agent working with the Gestapo. They wanted her to return to Belgium and join the resistance, to betray the underground fighters. Anne Marie had no illusions about the ruthlessness of the Nazi regime felt that it would be better to go along with them. She suspected that to refuse outright could bring her greater danger. She agreed that she was seeking revenge and was the right person for the job. Feigning enthusiasm, she threw herself into the mandatory training programme.

She was seeking revenge alright, but nor for her husbands death, but for the invasion of her country, and what they were doing to her beloved France. Thinking quickly, she decided this could be a good way to help throw a spanner in the works of the German regime, and if she was cunning enough, to get a measure of revenge on Germany and the Nazi party. From there, it was easy to convince her controllers that she could quite easily become a double agent. When the opportunity arose and with Gestapo permission she defected to England, and offered her services, and during the next fifteen months soon proved her worth. She kept the Gestapo fooled and provided quite a bit of good intelligence to the British.

British intelligence provided her with snippets of intelligence which had kept the Nazi’s interested until her Nazi controller Herr Schaeffer, suggested one day in passing that perhaps she could somehow get a high ranking British Officer to defect to the Nazi’s. The propaganda value would be enormous to the Third Reich.

Anne-Marie promised she would explore the idea, but when she suggested it to her boss in London he just laughed, but a quite junior clerk overhearing the conversation interrupted, and suggested that perhaps Lt Cdr Tony Nash might be the ideal candidate. He spoke German fluently and still had a grandmother and other relatives living in Berlin.

It was pointed out that his specialty had been in signals, and he would certainly have sufficient expertise to recognise any German codes, which would be of value. From this conversation, the idea was born, and the operational details developed. The idea was that Anne-Marie would have met the Commander at some time previously whilst in England, and had sensed that he was inclined to be sympathetic to the German cause. Having met again they had fallen in love and then had become engaged to be married. Now the first step had been taken and now between them they had to develop a fool proof cover story that they hoped would satisfy the Gestapo.

For Tony that first night with Anne-Marie was a night to treasure, and to remember. When they eventually slept they did not hear the bombs that fell in the distance, which made an important yet vital change to their wedding plans. It was almost ten o clock next morning when he awoke, to the sound of the shower in the adjoining bathroom. Today was his wedding day, but just as he was coming to grips with the idea, he became aware of the banging on the bedroom door.

The landlord called out “Commander there is a telephone call for you in the lobby.”

He grabbed his dressing gown, and went down stairs where Mr. Broughton told him that they could not marry today, as the Registrars office had been bombed the previous night. “You will just have to live in sin for the present Commander, until and unless we can find an alternative. It is possible that the ceremony could take place tomorrow at the Guildhall.”

One of the problems they faced was that they were fairly sure that they were being watched. Portsmouth as a Naval Base was almost certain to have enemy agents or sympathisers in the area such as the IRA, and the Germans would also be checking on Anne-Marie closely. They trusted no-one, and had spies spying on spies.

Briefing would have to be done in a variety of ways, using a wide range of subterfuge methods. The easiest way was to use the ships handover procedure, as the excuse for several clandestine meetings.

Tony quickly learned that Anne-Marie was a very professional person, stubborn, and even at times she could be a hard person; yet beneath this entire hard exterior, their was a very loveable personality, waiting to get out. Tony had no doubt that she would be prepared to die for any person she cared for deeply enough. She spent many hours that week turning him into an agent, and a believable husband and lover. Tony was told that he would be allowed to pass certain classified secret information on to the Germans, to make his cover more believable. Anne-Marie in turn, left no stone unturned as she pumped him for information on his background, and his story, and sought every bit of information a wife should have about a husband. In return she told him in detail about her past

Tony was shocked at her experiences .It seemed to Tony that she had done well to get over her past marital bad experiences, and now she carried out her marital obligations with Tony with zest and enthusiasm. One night she told him that he had been responsible for this; she found Tony a completely satisfying, and considerate lover. The image they portrayed as a married couple, was not false, but was certainly on his part very genuine.

Later that day they were told that a temporary register office had been opened at Portsmouth Guildhall. Shortly before the ceremony, a knock on the bedroom door revealed a messenger from Gieves the naval outfitters, with a brand new reefer jacket and hat with gold braid as a wedding present from the ships company of HMS Tenacious.

As Bill his First Lieutenant told him later. ”We couldn’t let our skipper get married in the wrong uniform now sir could we?” A reception had been laid on at the Keppels Head where some influence had been brought to bear, to provide a wartime wedding cake, and the booze flowed freely for a few hours until normal opening time.

Over the next few days Tony gradually developed a deep affection for Anne-Marie, but inevitably the time for their departure arrived, and the honeymoon was over. The time had come to depart into enemy territory. Their first hurdle was to develop a plan to account for Tonys departure from the UK which took quite a bit of soul searching.

This was not easy and took some time to formulate. Once they were in France Anne-Marie could contact her controller, and his defection could go ahead as planned. But first they had to provide a plausible escape plan. They knew they were going into terrible danger, and they were also warned that the mission must remain a secret, especially from the resistance. The Germans had successfully infiltrated the resistance movement in the past. Tony had been warned, and was fully aware that if he was captured he would be executed as a spy.