Owing to her mixed British-French parentage and upbringing in France, Knight was a nearly perfect speaker of the French language – so much so that one day early in the spring of 1944 leaders of the British intelligence organisation Special Operations Executive (SOE) overheard her speaking French in a café and immediately moved to recruit her into the organisation.[2]
On 11 April 1944, Knight began attendance at the Students' Assessment Board of the SOE at Wanborough. She was rushed through a cursory two-week training course at Thame Park, Saltmarsh, during which she did only one practice parachute jump from a static balloon, rather than the customary three, before being sent behind enemy lines in Vichy France to establish herself as a secret British courier.[2]
Under the code name "Nicole," Knight worked as a courier for the SOE's Donkeyman network.[citation needed] Following the Allied invasion of France at Normandy of June and July 1944, Knight crossed back and forth between battle lines several times, carrying intelligence messages and information.[2] Knight also participated directly in an attack by the French resistance upon a German military convoy, firing her Sten submachine gun during the course of the operation.[2]
Knight narrowly escaped capture and execution later in 1944 when she and a group of resistance fighters were betrayed by one of their number to the Nazis.[2] Knight was one of about 30 fighters who managed to fight through a German encirclement.[2] The man responsible for the betrayal, Roger Bardet, was later arrested, tried, and sentenced to death as a collaborator after the war.[3] This sentence was commuted, however, and Bardet was ultimately released from prison in 1955.[4]
Knight left the employment of the SOE in November 1944.[citation needed]