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Well, the truth is: "Not directly." I killed a lot indirectly with the information I messaged back to England, which then triggered air attacks. I am not sure if those people are disappointed when I answer, "None." It seems a funny thing to ask someone you don't really know. Death is traumatic—I don't have to have personally killed anyone myself to be traumatized by it. I have witnessed more than my fair share of death and destruction at very close quarters sometimes because of me, sometimes despite me, and sometimes just because it is Wednesday and the Gestapo have come through a village, rounded up some people randomly, and shot them dead. Remember: I was not a James Bond style spy. I was a secret agent whose job it was to blend into the background and cause quiet chaos.

My story starts in South Africa and has traversed many countries and many names before ending up in New Zealand, 102 years later. Here, I now find myself talking about the life of one Pippa Latour, who started life as Phyllis in 1921 and embarked on an unusual childhood in Africa that set me up for an equally unusual wartime job. I think I like being a little unusual, even now. It suits me.

Pippa Latour, September 2023

CHAPTER ONE 

MY EARLY YEARS

I was born  on a jetty  at the  Port  Of Durban, South Africa. On the morning of April 8, 1921, while still at sea off the South African coast, my mother had felt the familiar pain of the contractions of early labor. It was too early for her to be feeling them, so I am quite sure her heart fell when the odd twinge turned into something more regular, because she was only seven months pregnant. This was a risky situation for both mother and baby.

It must surely have crossed my mother's mind that I might enter the world earlier than was ideal, given that I was her third child and both of her previous babies had arrived before their due dates. Still, these things are not always predictable and perhaps she thought "third time lucky"—this baby might make it to nine months before wanting to be born. Alas, that was not to be the case. Although the ship traveled with a doctor, there was not much he could do with a woman in labor on board—and one that was preterm as well—apart from urge the captain to get into port as soon as possible. Thankfully the ship was not far from the port of Durban, where it was due to dock later that day.

With the ship having hastened into port, the ship's captain and doctor now had more decisions to make. Should they leave my mother on board to have the baby there, or get her promptly off the ship as soon as possible to a local hospital and thus move the responsibility for my birth somewhere else? There would no doubt have been some fairly tense discussions taking place, possibly including my father, who was himself a doctor. Regardless of their deliberations, babies of course arrive on their own timetable, and I was no different. After allowing some time to pass to see if the labor was going to move along at pace, they elected to move my mother off the ship to a local hospital. Given that they were not only dealing with a mother's health but also that of a potentially medically compromised baby born too soon, it was probably a logical decision. Except that the dilly-dallying around of "move her, don't move her" meant that my arrival time had moved closer than anyone had anticipated.

My mother had been transferred onto a medical stretcher of sorts and was being wheeled to the gangway to get off the ship when things sped up. On that short trip from ship to shore, my head crowned, and I was born on the connecting jetty. A very public and, in the end, quick birth.

*  *  *

My life has been one of dealing with risk, challenge, unsurety, and insecurity. It was never straightforward. However, when I think back, my parents' lives were not considered usual either; and what happened in their lives very much influenced mine.

For my father, Frenchman Philippe Latour, being a doctor was a proud generational step up for his family. His father, essentially my early years a peasant with a basic sort of existence, knew that the way for his children to have a better life was through education. He became a grocer who would even travel to the United Kingdom in times of hardship in France to get potatoes to sell. His hard work paid off, and he was able to fund both my father, Philippe, and his brother Robert through medical school.

On the other side of the family, my mother, Louise Bennett, was British by nationality, but with parents of French descent. She lived in Mauritius as a child and later in South Africa, and I am sure would have spent time holidaying in France with the wider family. She had one sibling in her older sister, Ada, who went on to live her life on the African continent.