his relationship to the Prime Minister) in order to glean more information on D-Day. Odette never revealed anything no matter how haggard she became, and in time she became so weak she could no longer take in food—she had been beaten, burnt with a poker from a fire, her fingernails and toenails had been ripped off, her neck had been swelling painfully, and tuberculosis was spreading throughout her lungs. She vowed to herself to never say anything that would jeopardize her colleagues since her defiance of orders gotten Peter caught. Even when she was told by Bleicher that Peter was to be traded for Rudolph Hess (Hitler’s close friend who was in British custody) and that she would be left behind, Odette still kept her silence. Her lie about Peter’s identity had saved him, and she would continue to protect as many as she could.
Odette’s heartbreaking state after each session of torture had affected the other prisoners who saw her. As weeks passed, she was barely able to eat at all. Bleicher gave up on interrogating her himself with no clear results in sight.
Around the same time, Francis had been called to England for a debriefing and used the opportunity to demand better assistance for the agents on the field in person. Bömelburg had incentivized betrayal by offering one million francs in exchange for the capture of British officers, there had been many mistakes within rebel groups which had led to safehouses being blown or agents being put in danger, the Nazis were now using injectable drugs during interrogations to get victims to talk (truth serums), and the SOE had not been rewarding agents for their years of hard work and danger they had put themselves in for service to their country (especially women, who had been almost completely ignored). Francis was furious with how they were being treated—there was only so much he could do to keep morale up as well as salvage compromised networks—but through his conversations he was able to convince Buckmaster (the man who co-led the Beaulieu school) to send in more radio operators to help with organizing the networks. Francis dropped back into France to tell the networks to be ready for the invasion; once the attack came, the rebels would be tasked with stopping Hitler’s elite panzer tanks from reaching the invasion zone. Still, things continued to go poorly. In June, at the same time that weapons and troops were being stockpiled on the British Isles, 300 drops had been scheduled containing weapons and supplies to arm the resistance. However, in a botched drop set to be received by Yvonne, one of the bombs within the cargo exploded in the air and alerted the Gestapo. Her team scattered so as not to be caught, but days later the Gestapo moved in and set up barricade checkpoints at crossroads and flew planes low around the area to look for landing strips and drop zones. Five of her team were caught, and in an attempt to move some agents to safety Yvonne was shot in the head driving to escape the Gestapo. She lived as the bullet did not pierce her skull, and she worked with the hospital staff to make sure she was not interrogated as she healed. Francis had been waiting for Yvonne and the agents she was helping, but when they did not arrive, he knew they had been caught. As soon as he returned home, he was arrested as well.
Yvonne’s team panicked in the wake of the blast, but her confidence and clear instructions were able to calm and prepare them for their next steps to go into hiding.
Andrée and Gilbert were also captured at their safehouse while they were forging new documents for their network to devastating effect. The docuFrance’s Secret Army
28
