Code Name: Lise

by Larry Loftis

“Be regular and orderly in your life,” Flaubert had said, “that you may be violent and original in your work.”

Odette was not only the most highly decorated woman of World War II, she was the most highly decorated spy—male or female.

Odette heeded the instruction and, as Hemingway put it, became strong in the broken places.

Jepson, it turned out, was the recruiting officer for F (France) Section of SOE—Special Operations Executive—a new sabotage outfit that Prime Minister Winston Churchill had tasked to “set Europe ablaze.”

Churchill gave the organization two directives: (1) to create and foster a spirit of resistance in Nazi-occupied countries, and (2) to establish an underground body of operatives who would perform acts of sabotage and assist in liberation when British forces landed.

Operating in the shadows of ill intent, its agents were referred to by many names: spies, saboteurs, commandos, Baker Street Irregulars, and Churchill’s Secret Army. Indeed, they were spies, but the role of Baker Street was not one of spymaster—that was MI6’s field—but to be masters of mayhem. The Germans called them terrorists.

“Direct-minded and courageous. God help the Nazis if we can get her near them.”

Without instruction, Peter realized, Father Paul was teaching and the first lesson was that the battle of faith required many scars before it was won.

He who has not eaten his bread in tears, He who has not sat up weeping upon his bed throughout the night of despair, He knows you not, Oh Heavenly Father.

In our darkest moments, Aristotle had said, we must focus to see the light.