204 • GARBY-CZERNIAWSKI, ROMAN
for secret consultations in October 1941. General Wladislaw Sikorski
awarded him Poland’s highest decoration for gallantry and for nine
days he was feted by SIS.
Unfortunately, during his brief absence in England, Garby-Czerni-
awski’s cipher clerk, who also happened to be his mistress, betrayed
him to theAbwehr, and soon after his return he was arrested together
with most of the members of his group. This impressive German
coup allowed them to continue to run the network with the intention
of duping SIS, and for a period the deception succeeded. Meanwhile
Garby-Czerniawski was offered a tempting proposal by his captors:
If he would travel to England and spy for the Abwehr, the lives of his
colleagues in prison in Paris would be spared and they would be
treated as regular prisoners of war. Garby-Czerniawski accepted the
deal and arrangements were made for the pilot to make an authentic-
looking escape from his incarceration in Fresnes.
In October 1942 Garby-Czerniawski reached Madrid, where he
was interviewed byKenneth Benton, but he gave no clue to the SIS
officer that his dramatic escape from the enemy had been anything
other than genuine. However, by the time he reached London,MI5
had heard from three other Polish officers that there was something
fishy about the pilot’s miraculous appearance in the Spanish capital.
Challenged by his interrogators, Garby-Czerniawski revealed his se-
cret compact with the Abwehr and was enrolled as adouble agent
with the code namebrutus. He continued to maintain contact with
his German controllers until January 1945 through his wireless oper-
atorchopin, without arousing their suspicion, and thereby saved the
lives of his fellow workers in thetudornetwork.
At the end of the war, Garby-Czerniawski remained in London and
worked as a printer in Fulham. He was also appointed minister of
information in the Polish government-in-exile, a post that he retained
until his death. In his memoirs, published in 1961, Garby-Czerniaw-
ski gave his version of the events that led to the betrayal of thetudor
network in 1941. His cipher clerk,Mathilde-Lily Carre ́, had ac-
quired considerable notoriety as a result of the publicity given to her
trial in Paris on collaboration charges in 1945, but his name had not
been revealed in open court. There had been much speculation about
the identity of her lover, the mysterious Polish spy who had been the
principal victim of Carre ́’s treachery, but Garby-Czerniawski was