Nancy Wake, the White Mouse (2014) - full transcript

[dramatic music]

- [Narrator] Caught
on the frontline

of a war she didn't
need to fight...

[man screaming]

- Bastards!

- I got a lot from Nancy Wake.

She was a, she
was the real deal.

- [Narrator] Swapping French
luxury for French resistance,

Nancy Wake became the most
wanted woman in Europe.

- If you don't do it, I will.

Soldiers. Go, go.



- Yes, there were deaths.
Yes, there were tears.

But she was a flower
that bloomed in wartime.

- [Narrator] A
dangerous time to live,

a dangerous time
to fall in love.

[dramatic music]

And now she can
never go back home.

[suspenseful music]

- Nancy was a natural
leader by her enthusiasm,

her exuberance,
and by her example.

[typewriter clacking]

- She showed me this scar,

this bayonet scar
from there to there,

where a German soldier
slit her wide open.

And realized, gee you know,



she really must've been
something in the day.

[crowd screaming]
[gunshots popping]

- [Narrator] As the
assassination of Yugoslavian

King Alexander threw the
world on a fast track to war,

Nancy Wake was already
a woman in a hurry.

Already a world away from
her New Zealand home.

- Yes, this is Nancy
Wake in Marseille.

- [Narrator] She became the
Gestapo's most wanted woman,

nicknamed The White Mouse,

with a multimillion
figure price on her head.

She finished World War Two as
a hard-drinking special agent,

a leader of resistance
fighters and a celebrated hero

decorated in England, France,
and the United States.

But Nancy began it all as
an adventurous reporter.

- So there she is,
drop dead gorgeous,

New Zealand/Australian
woman, learning French,

working as a journalist.

So she'd strut up and
down the boulevards

and go to the restaurants,

and she formed great friendships

with her fellow journalists.

Most of whom were men
who looked after her,

and you know, the French
have always valued, no joke,

a gorgeous woman of
whom she was one.

- So then I ran back to my
hotel and typed up the story.

- Right place, right time.
You were born lucky, Nancy.

- Born to attract trouble.

- Same thing, isn't it?

- Someone that runs
away from home at 16

and makes their
life for themselves

and teaches themselves to
be a journalist in Europe.

And teaches themselves
a foreign language.

I think that's a pretty
self-contained kind of person.

- Excuse me, mademoiselle,

I've seen you somewhere
before, I think.

In Marseille, the
Hotel de Louvre?

- That's where I stay
when I'm working.

- Yes. I never forget
a beautiful face.

I'm Henri Fiocca.

- Nancy White.
- Enchante.

And you are from?

- New Zealand, originally.

- You are a long
way from home, Nani.

- It's Nancy, and actually
I'm quite at home right here.

- [Henri] My telephone number.

Next time you're in Marseille.

- [Nancy] I'll be
there next week.

- So will I.
- Convenient.

But I don't ring
gentlemen, Monsieur Fiocca.

Gentlemen ring me.

Call it my foreign policy.

- Au revoir, mademoiselle.

[men laughing]

- She described herself
as a giddy young thing,

but I don't think
she was that giddy.

She always struck me
as the kind of woman

who knew what she wanted
and she knew how to get it.

- Bonjour mademoiselle,
you have a visitor.

- Bonjour, Nancy.

[soft music]

[Henri speaking French]

- How did you know I was here?

- You are staying a week?

- Then I'm off; Vienna, Berlin.

- Why?

- You must've heard
what's happening.

I want to get the
story firsthand.

Get a look at [speaks German].

- Why you? Others
can go, let them.

- And miss the action?

What possible reason would I-

[crowd chanting]

[Hitler speaking German]

- [Nancy] Maybe I should
have listened to Henri.

Even as a journalist, it made
me feel sick to my stomach.

- It fired her up.

Everything she saw about
Nazism just absolutely in her,

it reviled her salt.

She was appalled by
everything she saw.

You know, she made the vow,

"If I ever get a chance
to do something, I will."

At one point she
goes to to Austria

and she sees firsthand the way

the Jews are being mistreated.

And there was at one point,

on the cobbled
streets of Vienna,

she saw a Jewish man who his
major crime was being Jewish.

And he was being beaten
by a storm trooper.

And that just absolutely
made Nancy's blood boil.

[man screaming]

- Bastards! Leave him alone.

You can't do that!

[Nancy and storm
troopers arguing]

- Get her out of here! Get out.

- You're disgusting.

- You're next!

- It was at that
point she realized

just how brutal the Nazis were.

And that she, along with others,

would have to do
something about it.

[explosions booming]

[gunshots popping]

- The invasion of
France was a huge moment

of incredible trauma
for the French,

because they had been
led to believe throughout

the period between the Wars

that they would
win quite easily.

- Then she immediately
wanted to be in the action.

She didn't need to do so.

She was married to a very
successful French businessman.

She was quite safe.

She could have seen out the
war living quietly with him.

- Nancy adored Henri.

I think marrying
him, to an extent,

was a means to an end for her.

'Cause it gave her a
degree of social status

and connections within
polite Marseille society.

- What can you do?

They won't take you as
a nurse, you've tried.

- Yes, but they're desperate

for more ambulances and drivers.

You've got trucks
at the factory.

Convert one for me and I'll
drive it to the Belgian front.

It won't cost you much.

- Nani, you eat money
like no one else I know.

- Give me a truck.

- You don't even
know how to drive.

- I can learn.

[suspenseful music]

[gunshots popping]

Someone needs to stop Clearway Law.
Public shouldn't leave reviews for lawyers.

Okay, come on.

Look, I know this
is hard, [mumbles].

But it will only make it
worse if you stay here.

Come on, come on.

Ready? [speaking French]

- After Marshal Petain,

who was the hero of
the First World War,

had basically sued for peace
with Hitler and said, you know,

we've got to throw in our
lot, we've got to collaborate.

- There's only one
man, General de Gaulle,

who refuses to accept
the idea of an armistice

and sets himself up in London

and does this extraordinary
speech on the 18th of June,

the day after Petain's,

calling for the flame of
resistance not to go out.

[de Gaulle speaking French]

- She became
involved, bit by bit,

with a Scott by the
name of Ian Garrow

who helped organize the
local resistance movement.

- Simple.

- This is ridiculous.

We can support the
goal in other ways.

I have money,
transport factories.

- Yes, we'll use those too.

But this is my chance
to do something.

- You already did. You
drove an ambulance.

- Oh yes, for five
minutes while you forded

the frontline in two wars.

- [speaks French] It's
not a competition.

- Well, no, not anymore.

Sorry, Garrow,
carry on. What else?

- Once the radio
parts are hidden,

it's really a matter of courage,

passing the German checkpoints.

- All right.

- It's not all right.

You should never have
been asked to do this.

- But I was. You
can't make me say no.

- I'm asking you
to be reasonable.

- And it's unreasonable to
want to help liberate France?

- Nani, please.

- I'm doing it, whether
you like it or not.

So you might as well
shut up about it.

- Listen to yourself.

The resistance is
no place for rich,

spoiled, temperamental women.

- No, no place at all, which
is exactly why they want me.

- If she goes out there,

if you go out there with
that stuff in your coats,

they'll find it.

You'll be dragged away.

I'll never see you again.

Is that what you want?

- That won't happen.

- I think for Nancy
the thrill of the chase

was half of the fun.

She certainly wanted to
fight the good fight,

but also the idea of doing
something under the radar,

outfoxing the Nazis,
that would have been part

of the thrill for her.

[people speaking in
foreign language]

- German checkpoints that have
a barricade across the road,

and there'd be swarthy German
men with guns on their guard.

And they're looking
for the enemy.

And what is the enemy
gonna look like?

Well, it's gonna
look a bit like them.

It's gonna be men with guns.

And there's a beautiful,
beautiful Fraulein going past.

Where are these men? Where
are these men with guns?

And that was, and Nancy
always felt that her sexiness,

her attractiveness was perhaps

her greatest weapon
that she had.

- So someone like Nancy, who
would have helped to mobilize,

would have helped to transport,
would have had the networks,

would it be an
absolutely crucial.

And also perhaps she was
quite a wealthy woman.

These networks
had to be financed

and the money was
incredibly important,

and something that
the resistance was
very dependent on.

- She wasn't fearful of being
caught, which is remarkable.

So she backed herself
against, you know,

the Gestapo or the
police or anybody else

that was after her.

She thought she
could outwit them.

- [Nancy] Packages and
radio parts were all links

in a secret chain that
smuggled prisoners and soldiers

down the escape lines
and out of France.

We knew that every
man we got home

was a thorn in Hitler's
side and it felt fantastic.

- The escape lines really
began in the north of France

and in Belgium, and to
little extent in Holland,

whereby quite a lot of
soldiers from the British Army

were left behind and
needed to escape.

And then when the
bombing of Germany began,

and some of the
crews had to bail out

and land in occupied Europe,

then the local
population in part,

was at great pains to try
and get them to safety.

Nancy joined the escape line,

which was one of the best of
all, most effective of all.

It was run by a man who took
the name of Pat O'Leary,

who had set up an arrangement
to smuggle people out,

either across the
Mediterranean to Spain

or over the Pyrenees into Spain.

- Nice to meet you.

Yeah, your clothes, feel
free to leave them here.

Here is your passport.

- Now, a lot of things
needed to be done.

Someone had to go and collect
them from a safe house

and bring them to
another safe house,

and then take them
from the safe house

to hand them over
to someone else

who would hand them
over to a guide.

Nancy's role was really
as a courier in all this.

And she really was, if
you like, the gopher,

a very effective gopher
for the Pat Line.

[suspenseful music]

- Something to remember us by.

- Good luck.
- Merci.

- Good luck.
- Thank you.

- Good luck.
- Thank you.

- There were German agents
all over the place, of course.

- Good luck, Nancy.

- But she really wanted
to be into the action

and into it as
fully as possible.

And I have no doubt, having
studied her personality

from the beginning, that
she was extremely active

and was seeking Pat
O'Leary's permission

to do more and more
in the Pat Line.

- She was the kind of woman
who could read situations

and read people and read
people's reactions to her.

She obviously knew how to
play certain situations

to her advantage, she had
this kind of intuition.

- Garrow, at one point, brought
another man to her home.

His name was Paul Cole.

- Hello, Garrow.

- Afternoon, Madam Fiocca.

I hope you don't mind
us calling unannounced.

I'd like to introduce Mr.-

- I don't care who that man is.

He's not welcome here.

- [Ian] I beg your pardon?

- You heard me.

Please leave. Now.

- Why? What have I-

- I asked you to leave.

Do I have to throw
you out myself?

- Fine, I'm going. Crazy, bitch.

Why'd you even bring me here?

- And don't come back.

- If Nancy didn't like you,
you'd certainly know about it.

She had the kind of
personality that would

flick on and off
like a light switch.

So, I mean, if there was
somebody in the house

who she thought was a
collaborator or an informer,

she would have sniffed
them out pretty quickly.

[people chattering]

- [Nancy] Fought at
Dunkirk, my foot.

Cole was a coward, a
thief, and a Gestapo spy.

He betrayed Garrow
and 50 others,

but he never even
mentioned my name.

To him I was just some silly,
spoiled, clueless woman.

So he forgot all about me.

- I think the Cole
episode was seminal.

And I think that that
confirmed in her,

"My instincts are good.

If in doubt, back my
own feelings on things."

[suspenseful music]
[people chattering]

The Germans had a
code name for her.

They were aware that
there was this woman

working against them,

a beautiful woman they
would hear tell of,

and it seemed that every
time they had her cornered,

she would get away, and they
called her the White Mouse.

[suspenseful music]

But it was also clear
that sooner or later,

they really were
going to come for her

because the Germans
became more and more aware

of her activities, things
became hotter and hotter.

- [Nancy] My instincts
began humming.

Then one day, my friend,

a cafe owner on the corner
whispered a warning.

"Nancy, this morning
you were followed."

- You have to get out.

Use the escape
plan. Go to England.

- What about you?
If they suspect me-

- I'll be fine.

I'll follow you later.
- When?

- When I'm sure the business
can survive without me.

I have to think of my father,
my workers, their families.

These are bad times.

I have a duty.

You understand?

- Of course I do.

I know the man I married.

I don't want to run away
either. I feel like a coward.

- No, this is a
tactical retreat.

Any clever White
Mouse would do it.

- I still can't believe I
have a code name in Berlin.

- A code name, a dossier.

You're on the Nazi's
most wanted list.

That's enough, Nani.

Now take this.

Your lucky five pound note,
isn't that what you call it?

- It's only lucky if I
get to spend it on you.

- As soon as you get to
London, send me word.

I'll be there when I can.

- She was always upfront
with me that, you know,

"The love of my life was my
first husband, Henri Fiocca."

And so to have left him
under those circumstances

was a bitter blow because you
know, where she wanted to be.

She wanted to be with Henri.

She wanted to be Madame Fiocca.

- She said she was heartbroken.

And she was also worried
about what might happen

if she disappeared.

But at the same time,

if both she and Henri
left at the same time,

then that would have been
instantly suspicious.

- [Henri] Enjoy your shopping.

Bonjour.
- Bonjour.

- Buy something I like.

- Don't I always?

Henri, I know you
wouldn't be faithful to me

while I'm away and nothing I
can say will make you faithful,

but I want you to
know I will never ask.

You have to promise me that
you want to ask me either.

- Why are you saying
this to me now?

Are you trying to
make me jealous?

- It's because it's war time.

I don't know what's
gonna happen.

I love you. Bye my
darling, see you soon.

Bonjour.

- She left Henri under
pretty bad circumstances.

He volunteered to stay
behind and cover for it.

She knew that she
had run out of luck

and had to get the
hell out of there.

- The staggering thing
is despite having worked

in this network to get
all these people through,

across the Pyrenees,

for her, getting to England
was just about impossible.

- [Nancy] I caught the train
west heading for the Pyrenees.

I'd already cried my
way to the station,

always looking over my shoulder.

I wrote to Henri pretending
I was leaving him.

I hoped the bloody Gestapo
would read that letter, too.

[conductor speaking French]

[soldiers speaking German]

- Her fearlessness is, I think,

divides her from the rest of us.

Thinkers get scared, I think.

People who have got, think
too much about consequences.

When the chips were down

I don't think she allowed
herself that luxury.

[suspenseful music]

[Nancy groans]

- The interesting thing,

with Nancy at the point
that she's in jail,

that would be very close to
the low point of her war.

Because there she is.

She's one of the most
wanted women in Europe.

She's top of the Gestapo list.

- [Nancy] When they asked
why I was on the train

I said I'd had a fight
with Henri and walked out.

They called me a liar
said my ID was fake.

That I was a
prostitute from Lourdes

who had set up a
bomb and run away.

They interrogated
me for four days,

but never once checked my story.

I told them nothing.

- Mercifully they don't know,

the authorities don't realize

that the woman they've got
in cell B is the White Mouse.

And because she's not
telling them who she is,

and she's not
cooperating at all.

But her fear was
they'll work it out.

"Next thing I'll know,
it'll be a firing squad

and I'll be gone."

One day she looks up and
there is a familiar face.

And it's Patrick O'Leary.

- What the hell are you doing?

- Getting you out of here.

I'm release command,
your my mistress, so,

act like it, for God's sake.

- Mon cher, it is you.
I'd given up hope.

- I had to be discreet. It
took time, but I'm here now.

Your husband is a
very important man.

A close friend of Premier
Laval who, as you know,

is head of Milice.

Come, madame. The ladies
possessions, please.

- And if there was one
thing French authorities,

you know, respected,

it was a man coming
to get his mistress.

"I understand that, don't
let me get in the way of it."

So O'Leary gets her out.

[train whistle blowing]
[train chuffing]

- It's all here, O'Leary.
ID cards, money, jewelry.

- Head of Premier Laval
wants to prove it wasn't.

- It was a bloody
stupid risk you took.

- Worthy of the White Mouse.

Henri told me you're famous
now. I should be impressed.

- Does he know?

- You were captured? No.

- Soldiers. Go, go.

[train clacking]
[suspenseful music]

[Nancy grunting]

[train brakes squealing]

[soldiers shouting]

[bullets whizzing]

[gunshots popping]

I dropped my bag.

I've lost everything.
ID cards, money.

Fuck. Henri's jewelry. [sighs]

- It's bad luck, no?

- It's not luck.

Every time one of
us gets on a train

the Gestapo knows about it.

Don't tell me it's a
bloody coincidence.

- It has to be.
- It's not.

You have a spy, someone close.

I can feel it, O'Leary,
like shit on the liver.

[soldiers chattering in German]

I was right. There
was another spy.

A Gestapo agent called Le Neveu.

The bastard had betrayed
us every which way.

O'Leary was arrested,
and there was no telling

how many other names
had been dished up.

- And at one point
in her travels,

she found herself
within 100 yards

of her house back in Marseille.

And what she
desperately wanted to do

was to go and see
her husband and say,

"I'm still alive, I'm
still going strong."

She felt that it
was too dangerous,

both for her and for
him, so she didn't.

And so there was
no contact passed

between her and
Henri after she left.

[suspenseful music]

- [Nancy] The Pat Line
helped hundreds of people

make the crossing to Spain,

but it needed good
weather and good luck.

Three months I'd
waited for my chance.

Three long months from leaving
Henri to leaving France.

And this old boy wasn't
gonna stop me now.

I told him sweetly that I'd
drag him by his [speaks French]

if he didn't keep walking.

- By this point in
those early 1940s,

from the point of
view of London,

what you looked across
the Channel and saw

was you saw Europe
occupied by the Germans

just about everywhere.

But you also saw these
pinpricks of light,

these little
resistance movements

that have been prickling up.

And they knew a
little bit about them,

but they didn't
know a lot of them.

But Churchill's idea was to
set up an organizing body,

which subsequently became known

as the Special
Operations Executive.

- He wanted these people to
go and set Europe ablaze,

and he really meant it
in terms of sabotage,

the wrecking of railways,
the wrecking of factories

that were working for
the German war effort,

and make life
completely intolerable

for the Germans
occupying France.

[suspenseful music]
[car engine rumbling]

[ship's horn blaring]

[pensive music]

[soldier shouting orders
in foreign language]

[gunshots cracking]

[clock chiming]

[Nancy sighs]

- She gets back to London.

She hears about the Special
Operations Executive.

And you know, she goes
to knock on their door.

Knock, knock,
knock. Who's there?

Nancy Wake. Come on in.

And they train her up
over many, many months.

And it's almost a
forerunner of MI6.

It's almost a forerunner
of James Bond.

- [Nancy] The trainers
delighted in making us

climb up things and
clamber down again.

There were a few other
women, some of them French.

There were day maneuvers
and night maneuvers.

And we were often
muddy, dirty, and tired.

And that was just for fitness.

- Some of them cracked up
very quickly because either,

in terms of physical terms

or in terms of
strength of character,

they just didn't have it.

Then the next stage of training

was rather ominously
called silent killing.

And they were trained
how to kill people

by slitting their
throats or stabbing them

in certain parts of the back

so that the person
died instantly.

[suspenseful music]

- Somehow or other,
when she found herself

an agent among
many other agents,

she was, if not the best
in the business at it,

she was very, very good at it.

And she was, you know, she
had journalistic skills.

She'd worked as a journalist,

so she'd always been good
at skullduggery basically.

And now she was being a
professional skullduggerer

or skullduggeress.

- Let me just read to you
something from her report.

"Attracted by adventure
and excitement.

And at times appears
to lack a proper sense

of seriousness and
responsibility.

She is however, essentially
loyal and reliable,

and it has a marked
sense of humor,

persistent and determined.

She has abundant energy."

- She knew that the
reports were being written

on all of them,
and she worked out

with one of her companions,

how to break into the
commander's office
and get her report.

Report was very, very good.

And she said, you
know, to the commander,

"My report was very
good, wasn't it?"

He said, "How do you know?"

She said, "Well, I broke in
and I've had a look at it."

You know, so they're impressed.

- [Nancy] Then we joined
the parachute school.

With electric torches
we'd guide planes

to the drop zone in a field.

- So they train her up,

but she realizes there's
a problem up ahead.

She's gonna have to
jump from a plane,

parachute down into
Occupied France.

What's the way around it?

So as she gets in the plane,
and she's had a coffee

and she's had a sandwich
and cheese, you know,

taking off and she says to
the American guy behind her,

"All right, come the time, I'm
not gonna be able to do this.

You're gonna have
to give me a shove."

And so there she is,
and it was actually

a hole in the floor,
and she's looking at it.

She's looking, thinking, "I
don't know if I can do this.

I wonder if he's gonna push me."

And she's, you know,
and she's falling down.

[plane engine rumbling]

[suspenseful music]

- [Nancy] Shit. [grunting]

Shit. [grunting]

Shit.

- That England should send
us such a beautiful flower.

- Cut out the French bullshit
and get me out of this.

[Nancy thuds]

- Madame Andree?

- Yes. Who are you?

- Henri Tardivat,
at your service.

- Well, you can start by taking
your bloody hands off me.

Is the radio operator
here yet? Denis Rake?

They call them Dindin.

- No, we have not seen him.

- Damn. All right.

Take me to Gaspard. He's
the way to the Maquis here.

- You don't go to Gaspard.

Gaspard comes to you
when he is ready.

It is his way.

- Oh, is it now?

- She was this rumbling
volcano of anger,

sometimes erupting into
absolute incandescent rage.

But what went with that
was this bubbling sexuality

and a certain bawdiness
that was always present.

When she had to
choose a code line

for her radio communications
with the resistance,

she chose a really
quite filthy limerick.

And she stood right there
in the moonlight fare,

the moonlight
through her nightie.

There's something, something,
the nipple of her tit,

oh Jesus Christ almighty.

And that was absolutely
typical Nancy.

[door thudding]

- Madame? No, this is
one of Gaspard's men.

Gaspard is here.

- Why the bloody hell didn't
you tell me he was coming?

So I finally get to
meet the great man, huh?

Well, if he thinks I'm
hurrying, he can think again.

[men chatting in
foreign language]

Gaspard.

You know why I'm here?

- To save us from
the German invasion.

You, you won't.

- I can get all the
munitions you need.

- [Gaspard] How?

- By parachute drop from London.

- With no radio.

- [Nancy] Well, my
operator will be here.

- This is Dindin?

- Yes.
- Where is he?

- Well, I don't know,
but he will be here.

- You are useless. We
got this far without you.

We finish it without you.

- It wasn't enough to say,
"I'm Nancy Wake Farmer,

I'm from the Special
Operations Executive."

She needed a radio
and a radio operator.

Because without that, you know,

there's no capacity to call
London and get it all to happen.

- I've met some arrogant
Frenchmen in my time,

but Gaspard takes the biscuit.

He thinks he's English.

[Gaspard and men
speaking in French]

Did you hear that?

The bastards are
talking about me.

- She has got a pile of Francs
in that handbag of hers.

It's there to be taken.

- [Gaspard] Oh, so
you are offering, huh?

- I will do it.

I will seduce her, kill
her, and take the money.

- Not before I break his neck.

Ah, Marcel.

- You look upset.

- I am.
- Don't worry about Gaspard.

He is not used to
talking to a woman.

- Oh, but you are.

- I can see you have a lot to
offer and I'm ready to listen,

but perhaps we should go
somewhere more private.

- How about my room?
- Oui, good.

- And would you like to
take me to bed as well?

- I would be honored, of course.

- And then kill me and steal
my money. Is that the plan?

- No.

- Do me a favor,
mate. Just try it.

- Marcel! Forget
her, she has nothing.

- Sorry I'm late, duckie.
Anyone need a radio?

[Nancy laughing]

- [Nancy] Missed you.

- Her radio operator,
oddly enough,

who was an avowedly gay
man in 1940s London,

there wouldn't have
been many of them,

his name was Denis Rake.

Dindin she called him.

- But she was so matter of fact
and so straight up about it,

she said, "I knew
he was a queer,

but he was my friend
and I loved him."

Which if you think
about it, for the 1940s

was a pretty
progressive attitude.

[radio squelching]

- How soon can we
arrange a drop?

- [Denis] Is tonight
good for you?

- Bloody brilliant.

What are the chances
of getting a message

to La Resistance in Marseille?

- It's not in the
handbook, lovey.

- No, I know but...

Mon ami, you are about to
become the most well-armed

Maquis leader in all of France.

- And Gaspard?

- Who?

[Henri laughing]

- I meant to say, I like
the look of this one.

Yours or mine?

- Mind on the job, Dindin.

- Oh believe me
sweetie, it always is.

- There were many
who would would want

to lead that 7,000 men.

There was only one of them
that could get on the blower

and make planes come over and
have machine guns come down.

- Nancy was more than
happy to get stuck in.

And it was by
demonstrating that,

that I think the
Maquis sort of thought,

"Hm, got a slightly
odd one here."

- At which point
she would frequently

bring out a bottle of whiskey.

And she'd start to drink with
a local resistance leader

and said, "All right,
let's start drinking.

Last man left standing
at dawn wins."

[people chattering]

I have seen some big
drinkers in my time.

I've been a big
drinker in my time.

I've never, ever
come across anybody

that could put it
away like Nancy

and never turn a staggering.

- She had a good time, I think.

I remember asking her
about her time in London

and was the agenda to get back
to France as soon as possible

to see what happened to Henri.

And she says, "Well, no.
No, that wasn't the motive."

I said, "So what
was the motive?"

She said, "To be parachuted in.

One woman with 7,000 Maquis,
what would you do, Roger?

What would you think?"

And gave me a bit of a wink.

So I think she had a good
time with the Maquis.

- And I go, and I said
to her once, I said,

"Look, you know, you really
liked Henri Tardivat.

He's a rugby player.
He's a Frenchman.

It's a cold, lost,
and lonely night.

Did you ever with any of them?"

And what she said,
her exact words.

She said, "If I had
accommodated one of them,

I would have had to have
accommodated all of them."

So she said she had took
no lovers in the forest.

[leaves crunching]
[suspenseful music]

- [Nancy] Move. Move.

[man grunting]

Le Neveu.

- You know who he is?

- He betrayed O'Leary.

- And half of Marseille.

- Hey, I hate the bastard
as much as you do, more.

- Then why did you
try to stop me?

Let's give him a taste
of his own medicine.

- Turn into Nazis, you mean?

Think like they think,
do what they do?

Is that what we're fighting for?

No. It's time to put this
prick out of his misery.

[man screaming]

If you don't do it, I will.

[explosions booming]

- [Narrator] After the D-Day
landings in France in 1944,

the Allied commander, American
General Dwight Eisenhower,

personally thanked the
Special Operations Executive.

He said the invasion of Normandy
would not have succeeded

without the incredible efforts
of the French Resistance.

many of them trained
or armed by SOE agents.

- Nancy's coming into her own.

This is now, you know,
Thunderbirds are go.

You've got the men,
you've got the money.

You've got the guns,
you've got the ammunition.

This is what you got to do.

So they've worked out where
the divisions were coming from.

The Germans, they'll be
coming on, this railway,

they'll be crossing
this embankment,

passing through
this mountain pass.

Hit, hit, hit.

[explosion booming]

And so she leads these forces

in these attacks on the Germans,

trying to get, to
send the landing.

[explosion booming]

- [Nancy] We were flat out,

buggering up
everything we could.

We blew up bridges,
railway lines, roads.

All day and all night.

What did the Nazis do?

They burned houses,
hanged innocent people,

shot them against walls.

When they couldn't get who
they really wanted, us.

The Maquis.

- In the part of France
that I was living in,

believe La Garde, the
nearby town of Toulon,

the resistance had been
active and the Germans

came through that
town and said, "Okay.

You want to take pot shots
at us? Okay, get 100 men."

They got 100 men and they
hung them from 100 lampposts.

100 of them.

Say, "Okay, anybody else want
to take pot shots at us?"

- [Nancy] Still, we were getting
more recruits by the day.

So now Gaspard had 5,000 men
camped on a mountain plateau,

obviously a juicy target.

But even with 15,000 German
troops headed our way,

he was still too
pigheaded to listen to me.

- I've come here to
fight the Germans.

- They've got mobile artillery,
a thousand armored vehicles,

10 planes, and
what have you got?

- Guts! We do not
run like you British.

No, we fight them to the death.

- You are outnumbered.

You will never win.
Your men will die.

- You go, you leave us.

- These are your escape routes.

When you come to your senses,
for God's sake, use them!

[tank engines rumbling]

[suspenseful music]

[plane engine droning]

[explosion booming]

[gunshots popping]

So much for my own escape route.

I knew I wouldn't be able
to play the sexy house-wife

or flash a bit of
tit to get through.

Not this time, not
driving a car away

from a full-on German assault.

[suspenseful music]

- Hello, madame.

- Merci, Gaspard.

And about bloody time, too.

[Gaspard chuckling]

- I'm so sorry, I had to do
it. We were utterly surrounded.

I just-
- You what?

- It was so desperate that at
one point her radio operator

thought, "They're
about to take me,

I've got to destroy the radio.

I've got to destroy the
code. So I've got to do it."

So he destroys the whole thing.

Just at the last they
have managed to get away.

You know, "We're alive.

We're all good. We're alive."

And Dindin says,
"Yes, we are alive,

but we haven't got the radio."

And without the radio it's
Sampson without his hair.

It's John Wayne without a gun.

There's nothing they can do.

And so Nancy realizes,

"We need a radio and
we need a radio fast."

- There's an SOE
radio at Chateauroux.

- That is a 400
kilometer round trip.

- Oh, no, no, there are
roadblocks everywhere.

We never get through.

- I could. On a bicycle.

- With no backup?
No identity papers?

- I can handle the checkpoints,
I've done it before.

- Yeah.

- What other choice do we have?

With no radio we have
no contact with London,

no intel, no weapons.

We can't even
organize the Maquis.

We're just a bunch
of French ferals

running around in the forest.

- It is true. [speaks French]

- I'm making that bike ride.

- Oh, Nancy lovey,
small problem.

No bicycle.

- Oh, you haven't heard
the old French joke.

What's the gypsy recipe
for chicken soup?

First, steal a chicken.

- And that's how, in
that big bike ride,

she didn't think about how
she was gonna get through

those check points.

She would do that
when she got there.

She would assess the
situation quickly,

charm or lie her way through.

It wasn't some grand plan.

- [Nancy] I'd barely
ever ridden a bike before

and by 40k's in I was knackered.

One more turn. One more turn.

[pensive music]

My heart sank at
every checkpoint,

but I smiled and
flirted with the guards.

When what I longed to do was
blow their ugly mugs off.

[pensive music]

[Nancy groaning]

He sent the message
to London, all right.

And I hope to hell
we'd get our new radio

or we were screwed.

And then it was, "On
your bike, Nancy."

That damn bike.

I was past exhausted,

but it was 200 kilometers
back to my men.

So off I peddled.

One more turn, one more turn.

- When she'd been on the bike,

it was so exhausting and
she didn't dare stop.

She actually wet herself
while she was sitting

on the seat of the bike,

'cause she was so desperate
to complete the journey.

Nancy said to me
that the bike ride

was the proudest thing
that she'd ever done,

and that she felt it
was the bravest thing

that she'd ever done.

[Nancy groaning]

- Henri.

- Oh God, what have
you done to yourself?

[Nancy groaning]

- There is a slight sense
of awe being with somebody

who has achieved so
much in their lifetime,

but also somebody for
whom my generation

owes a debt of gratitude.

- She was an extraordinary
woman and she,

she and I had quite
a few blues early on

until we both came
to the conclusion

that she was 10 times the
man that I would ever be.

- Ah, tada!

Air mail from London,
cherub, all thanks to you.

Oh, you'll never
guess what else?

Tardi's planning a hit and run.

- On what?

- The Gestapo headquarters at
Montmartre, all the top brass.

- That little shit.
That's my bloody idea.

- Thought you might
be interested.

- [Nancy] The raid was
arranged for when those thugs

were enjoying their
pre-lunch drinks.

Tardivat sent me
through the back door.

Did it bother me killing
those men in cold blood?

Not for a second.

I remembered the
tortured Jews in Vienna,

the pregnant French
woman bayoneted

in front of her screaming child,

my friend in the resistance

who'd had his head
cut off with an ax.

If you asked me
the only good Nazi

[explosion booming]
is a dead one.

[gunshots popping]

- She had a wonderful war.
She had the time of her life.

And when peace arrived in 1945,

the party was suddenly all over.

I really don't think that
life was ever the same

for Nancy after that,

simply because of
all the fun was gone.

She enjoyed the daring do.
She enjoyed the gun battles.

And then suddenly when there's
no war to fight anymore,

then you've kind of got to
go back to ordinary life.

[people chattering in French]

- [Nancy] Paris was won,
but the south fought on

until the liberation of Vichy.

[people chattering in French]

- Part of the liberating troops

she was in one of the first
trucks that got in there.

Chase the Germans out and
they haul up the tri-color.

they play in the Marseille,

and they're all in the square.

You know, Vichy is free
again, France is free.

And she sees somebody from the
old days back in Marseille.

- It's so good to see you.

- And you, you look wonderful.

Are you going back to Marseille?

I'm heading there
this afternoon.

- Why?

- To see Henri, of course.

- Oh, no.
[pensive music]

I thought you knew.

- She hoped, I think,

that he had got away
and was hiding somewhere

or at the very
worst was in prison.

[knocking on door]

She thought he was very
brave to stay behind.

She thought that
was pretty heroic.

- Henri Fiocca?

[footsteps tapping]

- [Henri's Father] They came
to see me, Henri, at home.

- Who did?

- The Gestapo.

They told me they
know who your wife is,

that she is this White
Mouse they are looking for.

They told me I can
take you to a hospital.

All you have to do is
confirm who Nancy is.

Tell them what she did,
where you think she could be.

- Nazis. They can burn in hell.

- She's not worth this.

She's not worth my son's life.

- Never

speak of this

again. [breathing heavily]

- [Nancy] He was so
generous. So kind.

He always gave me
everything I asked for.

He was a lovely, lovely man.

[soldier shouting orders
in foreign language]

[gunshots cracking]

It was dawn on the
16th of October, 1943.

When I woke up, I told
myself over and over

it was just a dream.

It was just a dream.

Well, how could I
have kept going?

- I don't think she would
have forgiven herself

for what happened to him.

I think the sacrifice that
she made when she left France

and went to go and
fight with the SOE

was potentially too great a
sacrifice for her to bear.

- Madame?

- Do you know what
happened to him?

[waiter speaks in French]
Tell me.

- It started with that
traitor you warned us about.

- Le Neveu?

- While O'Leary was rotting
in jail he came by information

that he needed to pass on
to the Marseille resistance.

A prisoner he trusted
was about to be released,

so he gave him a
message to pass to Henri

using a code that
you would recognize.

The prisoner was
a Gestapo agent.

- When I asked Nancy about Henri

and how she coped
with his death,

she had a very far
away look in her eye

and she said to
me, "I loved him.

Henri Fiocca was his name.

And he was a wonderful man."

And interestingly,
his photograph

was stuck to the
wall next to her bed.

No sign of her second
husband, but there's no doubt

that Henri Fiocca was
the love of her life.

[tender music]

[Nancy sobbing]

[tender music]

[logo chiming]

[logo chiming]

[logo thudding]

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