I WAS MONTY’S DOUBLE Page 14

  When war broke out, the skipper told us, Franco sent twelve Spanish soldiers to this island with an ancient anti-aircraft gun. They had orders to fire at any plane flying over the Spanish neutral zone.

  Soon after setting up their gun a Spanish plane came over. Failing to recognize it for one of their own, the A. A. crew let fly at it and by a pure fluke scored a direct hit and brought it down in flames. They were so elated by their success that they continued firing; but unhappily this was too much for the ancient gun, which burst killing the entire crew.

  Once again the weather was perfect, and the Mediterranean lay below us like transparent blue glass. As we drew near the African coast the skipper remarked that it was safer to fly inland when nearing Algiers and then alter our course and approach the airport from the landward side.

  “Otherwise,” he explained, “everyone will start popping off at us—Americans, French, British, the whole damn lot of them.”

  “Any particular reason?” Heywood asked.

  “No. Just fun, I suppose.”

  We crossed the coastline and flew inland. “I think I should get ready now,” said the Brigadier. “Another ten minutes and we shall be landing.”

  All through my adventures I was constantly reminded of MI 5’s meticulous care and attention to detail. Heywood now handed me two genuine autographed photos of Monty. You could never tell. Although the British were in Algiers, it was a French possession, and at the same time it was practically being run by the American Army and Air Force. Wherever the American Army is stationed you find American women drivers who will stick at nothing to get the autograph of a V.I.P. I might get into difficulties if I were blackmailed into signing in my own handwriting, which was so different from Monty’s.

  On landing at our first African station we didn’t quite know what to expect. All we knew for certain was about the French Major and the two Italian collaborators, but we felt pretty sure that any number of Arabs were on the look-out for information useful to the enemy for which they would be paid handsomely.

  There had been one or two assassinations in Algiers and I was warned that during my twelve-mile drive from the airport there might easily be one or two sportsmen not above taking a risk in having a pot-shot at me and qualifying for an award. We did not know what the policy of the enemy towards Monty might be—whether he was to be spared in the hope of discovering important information or whether he was to be bumped off. Altogether the prospect was more sinister and uncertain than when we had landed at the Rock.

  We made our usual perfect landing, taxied across the aerodrome and came to a stop. The doors rolled open. Prepared for anything, I stepped out on to the gangway.

  Chapter XIV

  I MEET MORE “LOYAL COLLABORATORS”

  The scene was much more colourful than at Gibraltar. I saw both a British and an American Guard of Honour and on my left a double row of French, British and American officers. Beyond them, a line of smart American cars escorted by hefty U.S. military police with motorcycles, and finally the crew of my plane.

  Only a few moments before this the crew had been at their posts, but now with the speed which comes of long practice they were drawn up in perfect order as if they had been there half an hour.

  Walking down the gangway, I was greeted by members of General Wilson’s Staff, after which followed the usual inspections.

  A stone’s throw from where I stood I saw the road to Algiers with a big polyglot crowd of civilians all waiting to catch a glimpse of General Montgomery. Standing among them, as I heard later, were the two loyal Italian collaborators who had a fine view of my arrival. They were under close observation all the time from our own people.

  It was reported that one of the Italians asked an insignificant-looking Frenchman (who put in the report) what all the excitement was about, and he was told that Monty was coming to North Africa to form a great new army which would strike the soft under-belly of the Germans in the south. When the two Italians made off for Algiers the Frenchman didn’t bother to follow them because he knew they were going to keep a date at the Casbar Restaurant with the French Major who was their immediate boss.

  This same Major was introduced to me before I left the airfield by a Colonel on General Wilson’s Staff. I have seldom met a more sinister-looking man. With his glittering dark eyes, his pale face across which ran a livid scar, and his cruel mouth, he looked, as the French say, capable de tout. I thought he was not above concealing a gun in his pocket and I couldn’t help watching his right hand. To make things a little more difficult for him I moved so that he had the sun in his eyes.

  “How d’you do, Major,” I greeted him; and with a glance at his double row of ribbons: “You have seen a great deal of service. Where are you stationed?”

  “At present, sare, I am in Algiers. It is a great honour to meet you.”

  We shook hands and he stepped back into the ranks of the officers with whom he was parading.

  I had just started to walk to my car when I noticed on the far side of the airfield beyond the Control Buildings a parade of soldiers whom I seemed to have overlooked. With hands clasped behind my back I made my way towards them. But as I got nearer to them I had misgivings, for I saw that they were a detachment of the French Foreign Legion.

  A French Staff Officer stepped forward and barked a word of command, whereupon they presented arms. I stood perfectly still and gave the Monty salute. There was another word of command and the detachment ordered arms and stood to attention.

  The officer saluted me and looking somewhat nervous said a few words to me in French. I had no idea what he was saying, but mustering what little French I had I congratulated him on the smart turn-out of his men, saluted him and walked away.

  Heywood was waiting for me with a curious expression on his face. Drawing me aside he said: “You’ve done it this time. That parade wasn’t for you at all.” As I heard later, the Legion was awaiting the arrival of some French General.

  In a moment I forgot the incident, for Heywood remarked casually: “I’ve just had news that there may be some funny business on our way to the town. The Americans are driving us there. We could postpone our visit if you like. It’s up to you.”

  By this time I was so much in the part of Monty that I replied curtly: “Postpone my visit? Certainly not.”

  We made our way to an enormous American model de luxe with a beautiful blonde American chauffeuse in a marvellously cut uniform standing by the open door. She saluted, and with all the bounce of a hard-boiled autograph hunter she began on me at once.

  “Excuse me, —”

  “Yes?”

  “May I have your autograph?”

  Without a smile I handed her one of my photos of Monty, remarking coldly, “I hope this one will do.”

  I had to behave like this because of Monty’s well-known aversion to women in the theatre of war. After his wife’s death he refused to have any women within miles of his head-quarters in England. War, he said, was a man’s job, and when on active service bachelorhood was a necessary hardship.

  The fourteen powerful twin-cylindered motorcycles which were escorting us started up with a roar, and off we went As long as I live I shall never forget that drive from the airport to Algiers. My American escort had been warned that an attempt might be made on Monty’s life and that if he were killed it would be a court-martial offence for all concerned with his safety. No troops could be spared to guard the twelve-mile route and so it was decided that the only thing to do was to drive hell for leather and hope for the best.

  We shot out of the airport like a stick of rockets. Just outside, an American military policeman stood on a rostrum in the middle of the road directing traffic. The last I saw of him was a dishevelled figure in a ditch with his box on top of him.

  Down the road we tore. As we approached Algiers we came upon Arabs on donkeys, Arabs leading over-loaded camels, Arabs staggering under enormous burdens. With our sirens screaming we sent them scuttling for safety off the road.


  All through this drive I kept up a Monty conversation with the Colonel—who of course was in the know—for the benefit of our lovely driver. At any moment I half expected to hear pistol shots and the crash of broken glass; and sure enough there came suddenly a loud rat-a-tat-tat on the windscreen as if someone were firing or throwing stones at us. I managed to resist an impulse to throw myself flat on the floor, and it was just as well that I did because we were only speeding through a dense swarm of locusts which happened to cross our path.

  As we entered the suburbs of the town we were obliged to slow down. Crowds of natives and Servicemen lined the route, and amid cheers I saluted, waved and smiled until my muscles ached.

  We climbed a steep, winding road, turned through some large gates, and pulled up at the entrance to a big mansion of white stone, General Wilson’s G.H.Q. As I went in and the doors closed behind me, the curtain came down on another completed scene.

  The next few days passed in a sort of recurring dream—landings, official receptions, guards of honour, bogus talks on high strategy; crowds of civilian spectators, no doubt with enemy agents among them; the streets lined with cheering troops.

  “Good old Monty!”

  I saluted and waved. Then back to the airport for the next lap of this curious journey.

  At one airport I remember seeing Heywood coming along with an elderly civilian with a goatee beard. Dressed in a shabby black suit and carrying a big sombrero hat, he looked like a tragedian who had seen better days.

  Heywood said: “Excuse me, sir. Professor Salvadore Cerrini would take it as a great favour if you would allow him to pay his respects to you. As an archaeologist he is, of course, famous. And he’s a loyal Italian,” he added, seeing my dubious expression.

  For a moment I wondered why I should be expected to waste my time talking to an archaeologist, but by now I knew that Heywood was not the man to do anything without very good reason. So I exchanged a few words with the Professor and when he had bowed himself out of my presence and withdrawn a few yards I turned to Heywood and said rather loudly: “The G.O.C. has been informed of my decision and the Cabinet have agreed. Operation Turtle is to be put into effect at once.”

  As we walked over to the plane I dropped one of the marked handkerchiefs. Heywood explained after we had taken off that Cerrini was an enemy agent with genuine fame as an archaeologist which had served him well as a ‘blind’. Years later this incident was to have a curious sequel.

  In another town in North Africa I was briefed by Heywood for a very short visit, the most important part of which was to be a talk with a certain Frenchwoman.

  Her husband, he told me, had done very good work for us with the Resistance Movement in Paris, but was now in the hands of the Gestapo. On capturing him they had arrested his wife and given her the choice of working for them or of knowing that her husband would die slowly in prison. The unhappy woman had with extreme reluctance accepted the first alternative and was now operating from Algiers.

  When she was introduced to me I saw a tall, dark, well-dressed woman of about fifty with a face the colour of wood-ash. Remembering that Monty had no particular liking for women in the theatre of war I greeted hear politely but curtly.

  We exchanged a few formal words and I could not help noticing that hear nerves seemed to be strained to breaking-point. Suddenly her self-control snapped. Hysterical sobs shook her whole body and then in French she began to denounce the war as the work of the Devil and me as one of war’s high priests.

  It was a most embarrassing situation. Not knowing how to answer her I turned abruptly away while Heywood gently led her to her car. I believe that she was intensely patriotic and at the same time very much in love with her husband. The terrible tug-of-war between these two emotions had unhinged her mind.

  This was the only time that I saw Heywood disconcerted. Neither of us ever spoke of the subject again.

  As the days went by I slipped into my role so completely that to all intents and purposes I was General Montgomery. I talked as he talked and faithfully imitated his every gesture and vocal mannerism. Even when I was alone I found myself playing the part.

  Once, I remember, as I was sitting in the plane, just as we were about to land at an airport, Heywood came and stood beside me.

  “All ready, Jimmy,” he remarked with a smile. “How are the nerves?”

  In the precise Monty tone I snapped: “Nerves, Heywood? Don’t talk rot!”

  “Sorry, sir,” he replied with a perfectly straight face.

  In a moment I realized how rude I had been and I began to apologize.

  “It’s extraordinary,” I said. “Usually when an actor goes off the stage he at once drops the part he’s playing, but with me it’s the other way round. I can’t get out of it. The only time I’m not Monty is when I’m asleep, and even then I dream about him.”

  “I quite understand,” Heywood replied. “In the job you’re doing it’s safer always to be in your part. You never know who’s watching you and you can’t be too careful.”

  This was all very well while my job lasted, but it was now almost at an end, and as I was soon to find out you can’t become a great personality as I had done and then suddenly reverse the process at a moment’s notice.

  When, at the end of a week, I returned to General Wilson’s headquarters in Algiers I certainly had the satisfaction of knowing that I had carried out my task without any serious mishap. I had been cheered by thousands of troops and honoured by some of the highest-ranking officers in the three Services, and, so far as we knew, nobody had doubted that I was General Montgomery. If this were so, there was no reason to believe that the enemy suspected anything phoney either.

  But until the invasion was actually launched there was always the danger that my secret might leak out. I was now an awful skeleton in the military cupboard, a body with an embarrassing likeness to Monty’s which must be stowed away like a guilty secret and conveyed under cover of darkness as if it were a corpse which might bring murderers to justice. Nor was my physical resemblance the only danger: I still felt like Monty and unless I were very careful I might easily arouse suspicions by continuing to act like him.

  Chapter XV

  WHAT TO DO WITH THE BODY?

  I drove up to General Wilson’s headquarters as Monty, in a blaze of glory, but the moment I passed through the door the glory was gone for ever.

  Upstairs I changed into the uniform of a lieutenant of the Pay Corps. My General’s uniform was locked up in a case and the key of it was held by Brigadier Heywood. And while crowds of troops and civilians hung about in the road hoping for a glimpse of the great man, ‘Monty’ was hurried by General Wilson’s aide, a Colonel, out of the back door leading from the kitchen, up a narrow lane and into a small villa standing apart. The front door of the villa was closed and bolted, and the Colonel and I were alone.

  When you are khaleef for an hour you have at least the borrowed splendour of your position to bear you up, but when you shed the trappings of exalted rank and return to your humble station with all the backwash of the strain through which you have just passed, you certainly need all the courage and stamina you have.

  When first this Colonel had seen me on my arrival from Gibraltar he had taken me to his room in G.H.Q. and behaved like a schoolboy, throwing up his hat and congratulating me with the greatest enthusiasm, telling me that ‘Jumbo’ Wilson would be tickled to death when he heard what a success I had been. But now when all the excitement was over he was very much a Colonel again while I was still struggling to put the Monty role behind me.

  He told me that a certain Brigadier at headquarters who had planned the programme at Algiers would be coming along to see me, and that I would be sleeping at the villa until they were able to smuggle ‘the corpse’ out of the town—which would be pretty soon because it was dangerous for me to be seen about in this part of the world.

  “A batman will bring you your meals, and whatever you do, don’t show your face outside the front
door. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I began to realize what it must be like to be a hunted criminal. Your face suddenly becomes your worst enemy. It is published in the newspaper photographs and even advertised outside police stations. You try to cover it up with smoked glasses, a beard, or even by bandages over supposed injuries. But every time any stranger looks at you it seems certain that he has recognized you, and your sleep is disturbed by nightmares of police pursuits and arrest.

  I expect my imagination was in a sensitive state. Too tired and overwrought to rest, I could only see again and again the scenes which had just taken place as if I were chained to my seat in a cinema.

  Presently there was a knock on the door and a plump Sergeant came in. It was now about five o’clock in the afternoon and he brought me a high tea of eggs, sausages and chips.

  I liked this Sergeant from the first sight of him. If it is possible to call a man ‘motherly’, that is the term I should use. Quick in his perceptions, he saw at once that I was all in and he did his best to help me. This villa which had been taken over by the British Army was a sort of guest house for V.I.P.s visiting General Wilson’s headquarters. He must have known that I was no V.I.P. and I am sure he was intensely curious about me, but he was too well trained for his special job to ask any questions.

  When I had finished my tea I heard voices outside. The door opened and I saw Heywood with another Brigadier, the famous Brigadier Dudley Clarke who founded the Commandos.

  He was the man who early in the war thought of the idea of training a gang of tough young men to strike at the enemy behind his lines; men who would stop at nothing, and who would use every appropriate ‘un-English’ means to gain their ends. This bold plan did not appeal to the pundits at the War Office who told him it was ‘not cricket’. But he refused to take no for an answer and was so persistent that at length he was given a hearing. When Mr. Churchill heard about it he at once gave orders for Dudley Clarke to go ahead.