The Comet Line
Oil streaked the windscreen as his engine slowly died, a victim of German anti-aircraft fire. As the crippled fighter limped into French airspace, Rex knew he could not make the channel. He scanned the sky for Luftwaffe as his altitude inexorably dropped. The mottled light and dark green of late spring foliage drifted by beneath him. He looked for a clear space to set the plane down. Streaks and globules of oil made mesmerizing abstract patterns difficult to see through.
He banked toward an open field dotted with the viridescent promise of early planting. Barely clearing the hedgerow surrounding the field, he lifted the nose and pulled off the power. The plane sank. The rich black soil looked soft and inviting, certainly compared to the icy waters of the channel. But he knew the ground was anything but soft.
Rex pulled back on the stick and allowed the stall to settle the aircraft onto the ground. The right landing gear hit first, stuck, and whipped the plane into a ground loop. The sudden angular movement slammed the side of his head into the canopy. When the fighter came to rest, he sat stunned but otherwise unhurt.
The sound of a fist banging on the canopy slowly insinuated itself into his consciousness. Rex swiveled his head toward the racket half expecting to see the telltale shape of a Wehrmacht infantry helmet. He wondered if any others had escaped through the ack-ack and swarm of enemy fighters. He hoped the bombers they had been escorting made it through safely.
Peering through the dirty, oily canopy Rex could barely discern the visage of a young man. The planes of the man’s angular face had not seen a razor in some while, and dark stubble clung to his cheeks and chin. White teeth flashed through the bristles. The young man grabbed the outside handle and began to slide the plexiglass canopy open. Still dazed, Rex felt the helping hands begin to extract him from the aircraft. Standing on the wing, he smelled aviation fuel and looked about for flames, but saw none.
They both jumped to the ground. The young man shouted, “Courir!” Rex knew minimal French but the meaning was clear as the young man raced toward the treeline, the American close on his heels. They crouched, quiet and still, in the heavy underbrush, looking and listening, for a good quarter hour. A handful of villagers advanced toward the downed airplane.
“Venir,” the young man said, walking deeper into the woods. Rex followed, hoping he was not being duped and led into Nazi clutches. A short walk led them to a field on the outskirts of a village. The young man crept to the nearest haystack and excavated a hidey-hole, then signaled Rex to join him.
Rex crawled into the scooped-out space. “Reste,” the young man whispered, motioning toward the ground with open palms. He then covered the entrance with armfuls of hay.
As the sun’s light bled from the sky, the young man returned and extricated the flier. Hunched over, they slipped through the gloaming toward the village. They crouched behind a lichen-incrusted stone wall. They could barely make out the figure of a woman pushing a cart full of laundry, head down, almost at a trot.
With the laundress out of sight, Rex and the young man leapt over the wall and ran toward the slanted doors behind the nearest house. The young man lugged a door open, and he and Rex went down the steps leading to a coal cellar. Decades of coal dust had stained the white stone walls a dirty gray. A large pile of coal lay in one corner.
When the young man pulled the door shut, the darkness rendered them both functionally blind. As their eyes adjusted, the young man again whispered, “Reste, reste” and put his finger to his lips. He then walked toward the stairway leading up and into the house, looking back to ensure Rex understood he should stay where he was.
The young man returned later with bread, cheese, and a bottle of wine. The famished pilot set into the food, leaving only scraps. He then sat on the floor and leaned back against the wall. Safe and satiated, he soon fell asleep.
Hours later, he heard the door at the head of the stairs open and a shaft of light danced across the cellar. The door closed and flickering candlelight illuminated two figures coming down the stairs, one his savior, the young man, the other a woman. The pair crossed the cellar toward Rex, who stood to meet them.
“Henri,” the young man said, sticking out his hand.
“Rex.”
Henri gestured toward the woman. “Andrée.”
“People call me Dédée,” said Andrée Eugénie Adrienne de Jongh in quite decent English. “It’s my code name. It means little mother. They also call me The Postman. You are now a parcel. We’re members of the Resistance and we will take care of you.”
Rex felt overwhelming relief to learn he had landed in the hands of the Resistance. “Thank God,” he muttered.
“We’re part of The Comet Line, or Le Réseau Comète,” Dédée said. “My job is to get my children to Spain. Our collaborators there will take you to Gibraltar. You can travel from there back to England. We will hide and feed you. We can concoct convincing false identity papers and outfit you with civilian clothes. We have exfiltrated dozens of Allied soldiers and downed airmen. Trust us and we will get you out.”
Leaving several candles, Dédée and Henri climbed the stairs and went back into the house. Rex fired a match and lit a candle, then resumed his seat on the floor, leaned against the wall, and took a long pull from the bottle of wine. So close, he thought. Only of handful of missions to reach two hundred combat flight hours and a ticket home. What rotten luck.
Feeling the wine, Rex blew out the candle, rested his head against the wall, closed his eyes, and soon felt the warm arms of sleep enveloping him. He awoke to light streaming through a small window high on the cellar wall. Coal motes danced in the sunbeams. Henri appeared with coffee, a croissant, butter, and jam. Rex wondered if he had ever tasted anything so good.
An hour later, Dédée appeared. “I have someone working on your passport and other identity papers. Are you carrying any military identification?”
“ID card and dog tags.”
Dédée scrutinized Rex’s ID card and glanced at his dog tags. “German spies have succeeded in infiltrating the Comet Line on a few occasions. We must vet those we help to be certain they are who they say they are. Tell me the capital of Kentucky.”
Rex’s eyebrows knit and a vertical line flashed above the bridge of his nose. “Louisville. No, wait, might be Lexington.”
“At least I know you’re not a spy.”
“How do you know that?”
“German spies all know the capital of Kentucky is Frankfort. Americans never know that. There are other useful questions. We might ask someone from New York who plays center field for the Yankees. And there’s the typo on your ID card.”
“What typo?”
Dédée held out the ID card and pointed. “See here at the very top. It says NOT A PASS—INDENTIFICATION ONLY. When Nazi spymasters make fake American ID they always correct the spelling error. Gives their agents away immediately.”
“Damn. I never noticed that.”
“So, your ID card and your ignorance say you’re not a spy. We need to get rid of your ID card. Too dangerous to have on you. The Germans found your plane and they’re sniffing around. We’ll sew your dog tags into the cuffs of your trousers when your civilian clothes arrive. The Germans regard Allied service members in civilian clothes or without military identification as spies subject to execution. But you can’t very well escape in uniform. Still having your dog tags might help make the case you are not a spy.”
Rex had not been without his ID card and dog tags since starting basic training. He would feel naked without them but saw the wisdom in Dédée’s advice.
“Another thing,” Dédée said. “Once we start the trip, be careful not to act too American. No chewing gum. No jingling the change in your pockets. If you smoke, grip the cigarette in the customary European way, between your thumb and index finger.”
After Dédée left, Rex spent the next several hours alternating between pacing laps around the cellar and sitting down leaning against the wall. Too anxious to nap, mind racing, he could not sit for long. Luckily, he didn’t smoke. No risk of giving himself away with such a simple thing as holding a cigarette wrong.
Henri returned mid-afternoon with bread and cheese, accompanied by a man carrying an armful of clothes: cotton shirt with a wide collar, gabardine trousers, light moleskin jacket, brodequins, and a tweed newsboy cap.
“I’m Jacques Donney,” the man said. “One of the founders of the Comet Line. They also call me Father Christmas.”
Donney handed the clothes to Rex and Rex handed over his flight suit and combat boots. In his new outfit, he stood for inspection and drew a grin and a thumbs-up from Henri. “You could pass for a native, I should think,” Father Christmas said.
Henri tapped on his own wrist and pointed at Rex. Finally understanding, Rex pulled up his sleeve, revealing a Bulova wristwatch. Henri stared at the timepiece with a frown, then held out his open hand. With a sigh, Rex removed the watch and dropped it into Henri’s palm. After Henri left, Rex resumed his pacing and sitting, feeling both bored and worried. He wished he had some idea of the time.
The light faded from the small window throwing the cellar again into darkness. Rex thought about the many hours devoted to flight training and wished his instructors had devoted more time to training in escape and evasion.
Dédée returned by candlelight escorted by Jules, a bearded, older man wearing a beret. Dédée explained that Jules would take Rex on the first leg of his journey to Spain as soon as the forger finished his identity papers. She would meet him in Paris.
An hour later, Henri appeared and said, “Venir. Photographier pour passeport.” Although challenged by Henri’s accent, Rex understood the gist of the message. Wearing his new clothes, Rex accompanied Henri on a fast, furtive midnight run to the home of a photographer.
After three more days in the cellar going crazy with boredom, Rex tucked his new passport into the pocket of his moleskin jacket. He was now Emile Barbier. The pilot walked out of the house to begin his bolt to freedom.
Jules and Rex mounted bicycles and pedaled toward the nearby village of Machault. A Comet Line helper there provided food and the two men shoved off on the next leg of their trip, the one hundred forty kilometer ride to Reims, which would take the rest of the day. Rex wondered if the French of any Nazis they might encounter was any better than his.
His speculations were tested at a checkpoint outside Reims. A German guard speaking pidgin French and Jules speaking pidgin German jabbered past each other while Rex remained quiet and unobtrusive. The guard approached Rex. His unlined face and hesitant manner suggested he belonged in school, not the military. “Reisepass, bitte,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Emile” swallowed his panic, smiled at the guard, and handed over his passport. The young guard walked back to his partner, who stood by a large sign reading HALT! Together they peered at Rex’s passport. The guard returned, stared intently at Rex, then Jules, then Rex, handed the passport back to Rex and said, “Thanks.” Rex caught himself before blurting out “you’re welcome.” The guards stood back and waved them through.
Jules and Rex spent the night in a safe house in Reims. The next morning, they pointed their bikes southwest and began the day-long ride to Paris. Virginia d’Albert-Lake, an American expatriate, her French husband, and their helpers filled the bellies of the exhausted travelers and bedded them down on pallets in the basement. Not long after breakfast the next morning, Dédée appeared. She and Jules chattered in French, then she turned to Rex.
“No trouble on your trip, I hear,” she said.
“Only the calluses on my arse,” Rex said.
“So, you speak any French?” Dédée asked.
“Minimal. I can ask where the bathroom is and tell someone I need a doctor. That kind of thing.”
“Well, don’t even try it. Your accent would be a dead giveaway. We’re taking the train from here. Once aboard stick your head in a newspaper and try not to interact with anyone.”
The following day, Rex and Dédée walked toward the imposing facade of the Gare du Nord train station. Rex hauled open one of the heavy doors and followed Dédée inside, into a scene of pandemonium. They stopped and took in the chaos. German soldiers filled the train station, every platform packed, long lines at every ticket window. A tall man wearing a red beret walked past, shaking his head, muttering, “Catastrophe, catastrophe.”
Dédée left Rex standing by a column and walked toward the ticket windows. She was gone so long, Rex began to wonder if he’d been abandoned. Worry mounting, he had started to consider contingency plans when Dédée reappeared and handed him a ticket. On their platform, they inched along in a crowd of gray uniforms toward the train car. They took their assigned seats in a car half full of Wehrmacht soldiers. An officer wearing the uniform and dual lightning bolt insignia of the Waffen-SS occupied a facing seat.
Rex pretended to read his newspaper as the train raced through the countryside toward Tours. Dédée stole glances at the SS officer, who leafed through a sheaf of papers. His gaze eventually flicked up and their eyes locked. He smiled at the attractive young lady, reached for his cigarette case, and offered her a smoke and a light. He tried to start a conversation in German, then English, but she pretended to understand nothing. The smoke tendrils of their cigarettes interlaced and floated upward as Dédée stared out the window. The car reverberated with the boisterous laughter and conversation of the soldiers.
The SS officer leaned forward, tapped Rex’s knee, motioned for him to follow, then walked toward the restrooms at the back of the car. Rex glanced at Dédée, who continued to look out the window, then rose and followed the officer. After a moment, Dédée stood and ambled behind the two men.
In the restroom, the German officer tried to engage Rex in conversation, but his French was no better than Rex’s and the American shrugged and stared back blankly. Rex could gather the man was trying to ask about Dédée. Frustrated, the German raised a hand as if to strike, then muttered dummkopf and stormed out the door, nearly knocking Dédée over.
Rex relaxed a bit when the train pulled into Tours and the SS officer gathered his things and moved toward the exit. About half the soldiers left with him. Rex and Dédée rode on. Most of the remaining soldiers disembarked at the next stop. With no one within earshot, Rex, speaking just above a whisper, asked Dédée to tell him more about the Comet Line.
Dédée, a nurse and a commercial artist, explained the line stretched almost 2,000 kilometers from Brussels to Gibraltar, through occupied France and Franco’s ostensibly neutral but fascist Spain, both awash with secret police as well as Germans and German sympathizers. She had made over twenty Comet Line runs. She started the escape route with her father, Frederic, financed by selling her small jewelry collection. The line accepted financial support from the British but insisted on operational independence. Most of those in the cadre of helpers were women.
“And where exactly are we headed?” Rex asked.
“To a farm house near the Spanish border. There we’ll meet the Basque guide who’ll escort us over the Pyrenees to the British Consulate in Bilbao. There a diplomat will pick you up and drive you to Gibraltar.
“At first, we said goodbye to our escapees in northern Spain and depended on them to find their way to Gibraltar. But we were infiltrated and betrayed. Men were captured and turned over to the Germans. A man who helped start the Comet Line, Arnold Deppé, was betrayed by an informer and captured. A Belgian collaborator who infiltrated our operation betrayed another of our founders. We worry particularly about the Geheime Feldpolizei, the Wehrmacht’s secret police. Now, we put escapees directly into the hands of the British.”
The train rocked on through the night to the soporific, clickety-clack melody of the rails. The travelers’ heads began to nod.
They awakened to deceleration and squealing brakes as the train pulled into Bayonne. Rex and Dédée stepped down onto the station platform, glancing surreptitiously for their helpers. A boy of perhaps twelve strolled past, eyes darting about, and jerked his head. Rex and Dédée followed.
The boy suddenly stopped. Two German guards at a security checkpoint blocked the exit from the train station. The boy turned into a short hallway and stopped outside the door to the men’s room. He motioned for his charges to follow and ducked into the restroom.
The boy strode to a window and tried to open it. The window would not budge. Rex stepped forward, inserted his strong fingers into a handle at the window’s bottom, braced himself and pulled upward. The window didn’t move. He placed his hands beneath the top rail and pushed. The window creaked and slid open a few inches. He repositioned his feet, crouched a bit, braced his elbows against his torso and shoved. The window slid open. Rex helped the boy and Dédée through, then followed.
The trio walked down the cobblestone streets of Bayonne, then turned down an alley where they found bicycles leaning against a building. Outside town they slowed and rode gingerly through the inkiness toward the village of Anglet and the home of Elvire de Greef and her family, all pillars of the Comet Line.
Dédée introduced Rex to Elvire and her teenage daughter Janine. “Elvire’s nickname is Auntie Go. She’s helped many men escape. Tomorrow night our guide will come. His name is Florentino Goikoetxea. He’s a smuggler wanted by both the French and Spanish police. Florentino knows the Pyrenees like his mother’s face, even at night.”
Florentino brought canvas shoes, espadrilles, for Rex and Dédée, a quieter way to travel. He asked Rex to rid himself of any French or British money. If caught in Spain, they could at least avoid charges of currency smuggling.
“The border is treacherous,” Florentino said. “It’s guarded by both French police and Franco’s Guardia Civil, as well as German soldiers. But I know their tricks and routines. I know where they patrol and when. They’ve never come close to catching me. Follow my instructions and I’ll get you through.”
Florentino, Dédée, and her parcel left just before midnight in a light drizzle, walking toward the first hurdle, the mountain Xoldokogaina. They walked along a dirt road beside a raucous, rock-strewn mountain brook and began the climb toward the summit, following winding footpaths known only to smugglers. The rain soon soaked their espadrilles. They fought their way up the mountain, in the dark, in the drizzle, helping each other through difficult passages.
At the summit, Florentino said, “Stay close,” and the travelers began their descent along a deep ravine beside a stream, navigating over slippery rocks in the blackness. Wet shoes on slick stone made for challenging footing as they dropped toward the Rio Bidasoa. The Bidasoa marked the border. On the other side lay Spain, and freedom.
The river surged with snow melt, straining at its banks. Florentino and Dédée respected the stream’s danger. An escapee and a Comet Line guide had drowned trying to cross it.
Eyeing the raging river, the trio walked toward a suspension footbridge upstream. The rope-sided bridge swayed and juddered in the wind, creaking and groaning. A searchlight played along the span at regular intervals. Unable to see but wary of missing slats, with Florentino leading and Rex trailing, they stepped carefully across the span, towards the far bank, towards Spain, towards liberation.
They tried to cross quickly, timing their sprint to avoid sweeps of the searchlight. One of Dédée’s feet slipped through the gap made by a missing slat, causing her to fall heavily on her rump, one leg dangling toward the river. Rex and Florentino heard more than saw her fall. Taking care to avoid the same fate, the two men made their way to the terrified woman and lifted her out of the predicament.
“Are you all right?” Rex asked.
“Yes, but that scared the crap out of me,” Dédée said. “Wish we could cross during the day, but that would be too dangerous.”
Finally off the bridge, the trio began to climb toward the next peak, Pagogana. The ascent proved steep and difficult. They hauled themselves up by grabbing roots, small trees, and bushes, leaving cuts and abrasions on their hands. As fingerlets of pink and ochre laced the eastern sky, they walked along a ridge, then steeply down toward a safe house in the Spanish village of Ergolen.
At the safe house, they enjoyed a breakfast of sausage and eggs. They removed their wet espadrilles, dried their feet, tended to blisters, and rested. After nightfall, they walked along the road toward Oiartzun.
A black car, engine off, barely visible, sat on the shoulder of the road. Florentino walked carefully toward the car, until he saw the diplomatic plates. He tapped on the driver side window and the startled man inside peered out at the guide he had met so often along this stretch of road. The exhausted travelers piled into the car and began the one-hundred-kilometer drive through the lovely Basque town of San Sebastian and toward Bilbao and the British consulate.
At the consulate, Dédée introduced Rex to Nigel Robinson, the diplomat who would drive Rex to Gibraltar. They walked to Nigel’s car at the curb in front of the embassy. Dédée said goodbye to Rex and wished him luck, then watched the taillights of Nigel’s car fade into pinpoints and disappear in the traffic.
The next morning, Dédée began her return trek. She stopped in San Sebastian to meet with another British diplomat, alias Monday, who treated her to dinner in a restaurant overlooking the beach and the bay. After the meal, Monday slipped Dédée a pouch containing several hundred pounds sterling to fund Comet Line operations.
The following day, Dédée and Florentino began the thirty kilometer walk to the French hamlet of Urrugne, back across the mountains, back across the Rio Bidasoa, their destination the safe house operated by Frantxia Usandizanga, a widow with three young children. Dédée knew but paid little attention to a villager named Donato, a villager on the Nazi payroll.
After a good meal and catching up with Frantxia, the exhausted Dédée retired. The following morning as Frantxia and Dédée sipped coffee, strident knocking erupted at the door and ten German soldiers barged into the house. Barking unintelligible orders, the soldiers handcuffed and arrested the two women.
Frantxia’s children never saw her again.
Two weeks later, a handcuffed and shackled Dédée, a guard at each elbow, trudged toward the entrance of Fresnes Prison, south of Paris. Next stop: Ravensbrück concentration camp for women. The Vichy press had crowed over the high-profile capture of the leader of the Comet Line.
Fresnes featured a large mens’ and small womens’ prison. As the guards led Dédée to her cell, the women in all three tiers of the cellblock began to chant: “Dédée, Dédée, Dédée.”
The recognition rained down on Andrée de Jongh, later Countess De Jongh, hero of the Resistance.
