The astonishing story of Krystyna Skarbek who made her way home to Poland by way of still-neutral Hungary, crossing the mountainous frontier in December 1939 with the help of a Polish Olympic skier. Captured by the Gestapo, she gained her release and that of a comrade by biting her tongue until it bled, then feigning a tubercular cough. Later she worked in France for the Special Operations Executive, and in one spectacular episode arranged for the mutiny of conscripted Poles in German uniform manning a fortress on the Franco-Italian frontier.
