The Spy Net by Henry Landau Page B

subsidiary duties as the distribution of letters from Belgian soldiers at the Front; the circulation of La Libre Belgique , and other clandestine publications; and the assisting of Belgians of military age to escape across the frontier.These extraneous activities not only often led to the arrest of agents, but invariably compromised the whole espionage organisation to which they belonged.
    The militarisation also eased the minds of the many Belgians of military age enrolled in the ‘White Lady’. These men, recruited from the most patriotic elements of the population, wanted to be sure that neither the Belgian authorities nor the public would criticise them after the war for not having crossed the frontier to join the Belgian Army. Finally, the fear of a postwar military court martial acted as an additional deterrent to those who were arrested. Betrayal was the principal source of information of the German Secret Police – German third-degree methods, and the use of stool-pigeons in the prisons taxed the loyalty of the prisoners to the limit of their endurance.
    Not satisfied with the increased security which the militarisation had brought them, Dewé and Chauvin employed all their ingenuity and organising ability to consolidate the service, and to protect it still further against the German Secret Police.
    All members of the ‘White Lady’ were instructed to use false names both in their reports, and in contacting other members of the service. Dewé became in turn van den Bosch, Gauthier, and Muraille; Chauvin assumed successively the names of Beaumont, Valdor, Granito, Bouchon, and Dumont; while Neujean was known as Petit.
    To prevent discovery and arrest, the greatest ingenuity was employed in choosing and fitting out each of the two headquarters. The main one was a perfect rabbit warren. It had five exits – one into the front street; one into a back garden, from which access could be gained to a side street, by way of an alley; one tothe roof through a skylight; and finally two, one on each floor, leading through very ordinary looking wall closets into the adjoining house, where an apparently harmless old couple lived, who, as far as their neighbours were concerned, never held any communication with the inmates of the house next door. At the reserve headquarters, in addition to several exits, there was a blind room without windows, which was specially useful on occasions when the council met late at night – the curfew laws, in operation in the occupied territories, required all lights to be extinguished by a certain hour. The ‘White Lady’ also had three houses in Liège which were used as hiding places for compromised agents.
    The arrest of their colleague Father Des Onays, and the danger to which both of them had been exposed in their contact with frontier couriers, had taught Dewé and Chauvin a lesson. They now systematically removed all connecting links between themselves and their frontier posts. Frontier ‘letter boxes’ and couriers who knew their identity were retired, and new ones were recruited through suitable intermediaries. In doing this, they knew that they would still be exposed to many dangers, some unforeseen, others which they would have to face in the everyday execution of their duties; but, as chiefs of the ‘White Lady’, they realised that it was their duty not to incur unnecessary risks. On the other hand, they never shrank from undertaking a mission, however dangerous it might be, if they considered that they themselves were the best fitted to carry it out.
    As a final precaution, the names and addresses of the three battalion ‘letter boxes’ were sent through to me in Holland in code permitting me to make direct contact with the battalions in the event of the ‘White Lady’ headquarters being seized.
    Notwithstanding all these precautionary measures, and in spite of the guiding genius of Dewé and Chauvin, the