On October 2, her briefing completed, she was escorted to a platoon outpost. From there she managed to slip through the enemy lines. Making her way from safe house to safe house by forest path and mountain road, she reached Gerardmer safely in three days.

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Spies must constantly gamble with fate, and fate caught up with Jeannette shortly thereafter. The Gestapo had planted an agent in the local Resistance group some time earlier. Jeannette unfortunately attempted to contact the Resistance just as the Gestapo was poised to strike. She was picked up and taken to the Gestapo headquarters at the Hotel de l’Esperance for questioning.

Her identity papers stated that Moyenmotier (a town occupied by the Germans some distance away) was her residence and birthplace. The Gestapo could not detect that her papers were false, but the fact that she had tried to get in touch with known Resistance members aroused suspicion in spite of her innocent appearance. She was cajoled, threatened, slapped, kicked and beaten, but she only repeated with stubborn simplicity: ‘I am from Moyenmotier. I came here innocently to seek my brother who I understood was in Gerardmer.’

For three days the Germans held her in a room on the third floor of the hotel headquarters. Each morning the guard forcefully kicked open the door and deposited a bowl of watery soup and a piece of leathery bread on a small table. Each day was a nightmare of brutal interrogation, but she courageously stuck to her story. Finally, a Gestapo major exclaimed in exasperation: ‘Very, well, madame. Tomorrow we take you to Moyenmotier and see if your story is true!’

That night, locked securely in the third floor room, Jeannette lay on her bed, sleeplessly gazing at the stars through the concussion-shattered panes of the one window. If they took her to Moyenmotier, her identity was certain to be proved false. The brutal questioning of the past few days had been the result of mere suspicion. She knew that once that suspicion was confirmed, the Gestapo would torture her and force her to talk–to reveal names of Resistance members, owners of safe houses, American positions and units. Her tortured mind sought some means of escape. There was none.

The night wore on toward morning, and the desperate woman thought of suicide. She rose and went slowly to the window. With a calmness born of desperation, she began to work loose a piece of shattered pane. ‘Bon Dieu,’ she prayed, ‘How can I face You if I have been forced to betray my comrades, if I have aided the Germans by speaking? Is this not better?’

It was the hour of supreme darkness. The stars flickered out, one by one, like the last embers of hope. Then in her mind, drained of all emotion, an idea began to form. It was a slim chance, but it just might work.

She raised the piece of glass, but instead of slashing her wrists, she began to cut her forehead, well up into the dark mass of her hair. Blood began to ooze down in a thin stream. Resolutely, she raised the glass again, painfully, patiently deepening the cut. The blood flowed more freely, matting her hair, trickling slowly down her cheek, into her eye. She carefully hid the glass under the mattress and lay down on the floor directly behind the door. Her hands worked the cut constantly to draw more blood. A small puddle began to form about her head. It seemed like ages before she at last heard the guard’s heavy footsteps approaching. A few moments later the door was kicked open and struck her head. Jeannette mercifully lost consciousness.

She came to in a hospital some time later. Her captors had seen no alternative but to send her there. She had no recollection of what had happened, or so she said. ‘I must have fainted,’ she explained weakly. When the Gestapo major questioned her again, her replies were anything but coherent. The doctor told him that head injuries were very tricky.

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