Great Escapes (19 page)

He was to meet the priest at a railway station some 20 miles away, and so Jane suggested that they cycle to the station giving the impression of a young couple on an outing. It was then that McLean confessed that he had never learned to ride a bicycle. There was no time for McLean to learn, so the poor girl had to ride the 20 miles to the station with McLean perched on the handlebars. Taking the back roads so as to avoid German patrols, the pair received a mixture of curious looks and grins from passers-by.

At the station, where Albert Pagie had arrived earlier, as the three of them waited for the train a middle-aged man approached speaking good English. He gave McLean a ticket and asked him for his parent’s name and address in Canada, saying that he would try and get a message to them. Then as the train arrived the priest, a slim mournful-looking man, appeared. He was told that this was the man he was to follow and quickly saying his goodbyes to the Pagies, he boarded the train.

The train was crowded and McLean settled himself in one of the carriages away from the priest. Then a couple of stops down the lines, the priest appeared at his shoulder, opened his hand and gave Angus McLean his dog tag back without saying a word. The train rumbled on and later that evening pulled into Weert, just 5 miles from the Belgium border.

As the train pulled into the station, Father Kluge spoke to him for the first time, telling him that a young man with two bicycles would be waiting for him outside the station. Before he could explain that he couldn’t ride a bicycle, the priest was gone. Walking outside he saw a young man with two bicycles and approached him. After McLean explained that he could not ride a bicycle, the exasperated young boy put one of the bicycles into a ditch and gestured to him to sit astride his crossbar. After about an hour of travelling they dismounted and the boy pointed across to a house, indicating that they were now on the border.

Crouching down in a field, the two waited and as dusk came they saw a woman emerge from the house and hang a washtub on the wall. This was the signal that all was clear and that they could cross. The two sprinted across the field, past the house and onto a road. The boy explained that their underground contact was in a tavern on the edge of the town of Molenbeersel.

When they reached the tavern, the two sat at a table and ordered a couple of beers. Looking around the busy tavern, McLean saw two men seated by the door. One of them got up, and with a barely perceptible move of his head, indicated that he wanted McLean to follow him. McLean’s companion nudged him to go and with that Angus McLean got up and walked out of the door. Once outside he followed the man down a dark alleyway where the man told him that they were going to his father’s farmhouse some miles away, so that arrangements could be made to contact one of the escape lines. Once again a bicycle appeared, and once again McLean had to explain that he could not ride a bicycle! It has to be remembered that this was the only transport available to ordinary people during the war years and even today it is still the most popular form of transport in Holland and Belgium.

McLean heaved himself up on the crossbar and once again subjected himself to the painful bumping up and down as they pedalled along the rough side roads. They had been joined by the second man, who took turns with his companion in giving McLean a lift on the crossbar. After two hours they reached the farmhouse, where the Peeter family welcomed him.

For over a week McLean rested at the farmhouse. His guide, Albert Peeter, was a very active member of the Resistance, but his group was a sabotage unit and had no connection with any underground escape organisation. Through their chain of connections they made contact with a group in Brussels, so arrangements were made to get Angus McLean to the city. One of these, a man called Mondo, collected him and together with Albert Peeter the trio set off for Brussels. The journey by train was uneventful, except when a crowd of German soldiers going on leave entered their carriage, but fortunately chose to ignore them.

On arriving in Brussels, Albert Peeter left them and Mondo took McLean to an apartment occupied by a Mr and Mrs Neve, who welcomed him. Immediately McLean felt relaxed and that he was now in experienced hands. Unknown to him at the time, he was in the hands of the Comète Line.

Even though he had convinced the priest that he was a Canadian pilot trying to get back to England, the Comète Line needed to be even more certain. The next morning the Neves told him that they would be out for the day but he was to expect a visitor. Duly, a tall, very well-dressed, executive-looking businessman arrived. He started to ask McLean some questions regarding the RCAF and the base he was operating from. When McLean began to get wary, the man answered the questions for him, showing that he had the information and that he knew all about the RAF base at Pocklington. Now more relaxed, the two men chatted for over an hour before the other man got up appearing to be satisfied that McLean was who he said he was. It was only then that McLean learned that the man had had a gun in his open briefcase, which had been on his lap throughout the interview. The man was one of the Comète Line’s executioners, and had he been suspicious of Angus McLean would have shot him dead there and then. Such was the fear that the Gestapo might have penetrated their organisation with an English-speaking agent.

As the man was leaving he told McLean that he would be taken to another refuge the following day. The following afternoon a very attractive girl by the name of Peggy arrived and took him to a flat on the other side of Brussels. Two French girls, Mlles Liégeois and Warnow, lived in the flat and McLean was placed in a room in the basement where he stayed for a week. The two girls worked during the day, so McLean stayed by himself during this period. The only contact he had with the two girls was when they fed him in the morning and evening.

When they returned late one night, they had company with them and McLean felt apprehensive when they stopped outside of the door of his room. There was a soft tap on the door and the key turned in the lock. The door opened and three men stepped in. Seeing McLean in the corner of the room, the men hesitated. McLean greeted them in French, to which one of them replied in English saying that he had hoped to meet someone who spoke English. McLean grinned and introduced himself. The two shorter men were pilots like him; the tallest man however was Prince Albert de Ligne, one of the senior members of the Comète Line.

The next morning the two French girls took the three men to the railway station where they were introduced to their guides from the Comète Line – Count Georges D’Oultremont and Eric de Menton de Horn. The two other airmen would follow de Horn, whilst McLean would follow the Count. Identity papers had been arranged for all of them and they took their places aboard the train. At the border the train was stopped and searched. German soldiers and French officials examined everyone’s papers and the train proceeded on to Lille where they all changed trains for Paris. McLean heaved a sigh of relief when the train pulled into Gare du Nord railway station, but this quickly turned to panic when suddenly two
gendarmes
stepped out and stopped the Count. They took him into the police office, whilst McLean kept walking. Once outside the station he crossed over the road and sat down on a bench to see what was going to happen.

Now alone in a strange city occupied by the German army, Angus McLean pondered his position. Then suddenly he saw the Count walking down the steps of the station. The man walked past him, indicating as he did so for him to follow. Later when they were alone, the Count explained that because of his frequent trips to Paris, the police suspected him of carrying black market goods, but having found nothing released him. McLean had been briefed earlier that a new guide would pick him up. As the Count walked down the street, with Mclean following at a discreet distance, a grey-haired man, who had been looking in a window, suddenly fell in behind the Count and indicated to McLean to follow him. The man led him to an apartment where the other two airmen were waiting.

The following day McLean was taken to the home of M and Mme René Coache at 71 rue de Nanterre, Asnières. Here he would stay until preparations had been made for the Comète Line to move him. Two days passed before the next guide appeared, a young Belgian girl by the name of Dédée. Her real name, he was to find out years later, was Andrée de Jongh, who together with her father Frédéric, had set up the Comète Line a year earlier. Dédée was to become legendary, as she led and controlled possibly the most successful escape system in wartime Europe. In over two years of operation, her escape line helped over 800 allied airmen and soldiers to escape from occupied territory.

Using the tram and bus service, Dédée took him to a large chateau on the outskirts of Paris at St Maur. This was the headquarters of the Comète Line and was a huge building with large gardens that were surrounded by very high walls. Within these walls operated one of the most sophisticated underground systems in Europe.

The two other airmen joined him at the chateau and new identities and travel passes were provided, as well as clothing. The identities and passes were those of French labourers who worked for the Germans, and had been stolen from a German control post close to the border with Spain. A man called Fernand de Greef, a small, quiet, shy man who acted as an interpreter for the Germans had achieved this. What the Germans didn’t know, was that de Greef’s wife was a senior officer in the Comète Line’s south of France operation. The signatures on the passes had to be those of the Kommandant in the area and it was Dédée who became very adept at forging their signatures.

After ten days of preparation, McLean and some of the others were told that they were on the move, and late in the afternoon, with Dédée, Frédéric and the Count as guides, the party split up and set off. It was decided to use the Metro. The journey was nearly over before it had started when McLean handed his train ticket to the inspector at the turnstile. The man glared at McLean and broke into a torrent of angry abuse in French. The man became more and more agitated, waving the ticket in the air. Then suddenly a very calm Dédée appeared at his side and produced another ticket. Speaking to the inspector, she placated him by saying that she had given her friend the wrong ticket and that it was her fault not his. The inspector calmed down, smiled at the pretty young girl and waved them both through.

Once on board the train, McLean relaxed and fell into fitful sleep. The other escapees were on the same train but in different carriages. The trip was uneventful and the following morning the train pulled into St Jean-de-Luz, a little town close to the Pyrenees. They were taken to a small farmhouse belonging to a Basque family. There they were fed and given a change of clothing, which included Basque berets and rope-soled sandals. They had to look like the locals, as the following day they had to walk 5 miles to another farmhouse, where another guide would be waiting.

The following evening the party set off and by nightfall had reached a farmhouse at the foot of the Pyrenees. There they were welcomed by the woman who owned the house and given food. Hardly had they started eating when the door opened and a very tall, large man entered, this was to be their guide Florentino Goikoetxea. Without saying a word the man looked at each of the escapees carefully and then nodded to Dédée, who looked visibly relieved. As McLean was to discover later, there was a very good reason for this. The journey over the Pyrenees was going to be both torturous and arduous, and only those physically capable of doing it could be considered. In the event of one of the party being unable to do it, they would have to stay behind until they were fit enough, or be taken out another way.

Outside the house the wind lashed the rain against the windows and Florentino looked out at the ever-darkening skies. This he said, would be the time to go as the Germans would not venture out in this weather, and if they did, their dogs would not be able to pick up any scent. Shouldering an enormous pack onto his back, he led the party out onto the road and towards the mountains. The men struggled to keep up with him as he strode along, then after covering just a few hundred yards, he left the road and started up a narrow winding path. At first the climbing was relatively easy, but then the path became steeper and the rocks slippery. The rope sandals they had been given gave them that extra grip, but soon the thongs that held them began to cut into the flesh.

After two hours McLean and the rest of the escapees were breathless and exhausted, and felt like giving up, but the young Dédée, although soaking wet, looked as fresh as she did when they started out. Florentino, out in front, did not seem to be out of breath. The climb up was relentless and sheer agony for the party of escapees, but still they carried on. Hour after hour they climbed upwards, every muscle in their tired bodies screaming for a rest, and then suddenly the ground started sloping downwards. By this time the rain had ceased, but cascading water could be heard.

Dédée explained that they were close to the Spanish border, but first they had to cross a river. The river had been swollen by the rain and the current was very strong. One of the escapees had been wounded when he was shot down, and his wound had only partially healed. Dédée explained this to Florentino, who took off his pack, handed it to McLean, then picked the wounded man up and put him on his back and plunged into the river. Dédée quickly followed him and then came the remainder of the party.

McLean was last, and as he plunged up to his armpits into the icy water, the cold took his breath away. Struggling across with Florentino’s pack on his back, he went under twice, before strong hands hauled him out on the other side. The party flopped to the ground on the other side trying to regain their breath and rest their tired limbs. The last stage of the journey was now upon them; they had to cross a railway line and a road before they reached the border itself, which was heavily patrolled by both German and Spanish guards. The latter had a tendency to shoot first and ask questions afterwards.