Jackdaws (32 page)

The timing was lucky, Dieter thought
as he took the phone. He had called Walter Goedel at La Roche-Guyon earlier and
had left a message asking Goedel to call back. Now he said, "Walter, my
friend, how is the Field Marshal?"

"Fine, what do you want?"
said Goedel, abrupt as ever.

"I thought the Field Marshal
might like to know that we expect to carry off a small coup tonight—the arrest
of a group of saboteurs as they arrive." Dieter hesitated to give details
over the phone, but this was a German military line, and the risk that the
Resistance might be listening was very small. And it was crucial to get
Goedel's support for the operation. "My information is that one of them
could tell us a great deal about several Resistance circuits."

"Excellent," said Goedel.
"As it happens, I am calling you from Paris. How long would it take me to
drive to Reims—two hours?"

"Three."

"Then I will join you on the
raid."

Dieter was delighted. "By all
means," he said, "if that is what the Field Marshal would like. Meet
us at the château of Sainte-Cécile not later than nineteen hundred." He
looked at Weber, who had gone slightly pale.

"Very good." Goedel hung
up.

Dieter handed the phone back to
Hesse. "Field Marshal Rommel's personal aide, Major Goedel, will be
joining us tonight," he said triumphantly. "Yet another reason for us
to make sure that everything is done with impeccable efficiency." He
smiled around the room, bringing his gaze to rest finally on Weber.
"Aren't we fortunate?"

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

ALL MORNING THE Jackdaws drove
north in a small bus. It was a slow journey through leafy woods and fields of
green wheat, zigzagging from one sleepy market town to the next, circling
London to the west. The countryside seemed oblivious of the war or indeed of
the twentieth century, and Flick hoped it would long remain so. As they wound
their way through medieval Winchester, she thought of Reims, another cathedral
city, with uniformed Nazis strutting on the streets and the Gestapo everywhere
in their black cars, and she gave a short prayer of thanks that they had
stopped at the English Channel. She sat next to Paul and watched—the
countryside for a while; then—having been awake all night making love—she fell
into a blissful sleep with her head on his shoulder.

At two in the afternoon they reached
the village of Sandy in Bedfordshire. The bus went down a winding country road,
turned onto an unpaved lane through a wood, and arrived at a large mansion
called Tempsford House. Flick had been here before: it was the assembly point
for the nearby Tempsford Airfield. The mood of tranquility left her. Despite
the eighteenth-century elegance of the place, to her it symbolized the
unbearable tension of the hours immediately before a flight into enemy
territory.

They were too late for lunch, but
they got tea and sandwiches in the dining room. Flick drank her tea but felt
too anxious to eat. However, the others tucked in heartily. Afterwards they
were shown to their rooms.

A little later the women met in the
library. The room looked more like the wardrobe of a film studio. There were
racks of coats and dresses, boxes of hats and shoes, cardboard cartons labeled
Culottes, Chaussettes, and Mouchoirs
and a trestle table in the middle of the room
with several sewing machines.

In charge of the operation was
Madame Guillemin, a slim woman of about fifty in a shirtwaist dress with a chic
little matching jacket. She had spectacles on the end of her nose and a
measuring tape around her neck, and she spoke to them in perfect French with a
Parisian accent. "As you know, French clothes are distinctively different
from British clothes. I won't say they are more stylish, but, you know, they
are… more stylish." She gave a French shrug, and the girls laughed.

It was not just a question of style,
Flick thought somberly: French jackets were normally about ten inches longer
than British, and there were numerous differences of detail, any of which could
be the fatal clue that betrayed an agent. So all the clothes here had been
bought in France, exchanged with refugees for new British clothes, or
faithfully copied from French originals, then worn for a while so that they
would not look new.

"Now it is summer so we have
cotton dresses, light wool suits, and shower proof coats." She waved a
hand at two young women sitting at sewing machines. "My assistants will
make alterations if the clothes don't fit quite perfectly."

Flick said, "We need clothes
that are fairly expensive, but well worn. I want us to look like respectable
women in case we're questioned by the Gestapo." When they needed to pose
as cleaners, they could quickly downgrade their appearance by taking off their
hats, gloves, and belts.

Madame Guillemin began with Ruby.
She looked hard at her for a minute, then picked from the rack a navy dress and
a tan raincoat. "Try those. It's a man's coat, but in France today no one
can afford to be particular." She pointed across the room. "You can
change behind that screen if you wish, and for the very shy there is a little
anteroom behind the desk. We think the owner of the house used to lock himself
in there to read dirty books." They laughed again, all but Flick, who had
heard Madame Guillemin's jokes before.

The seamstress looked hard at Greta,
then moved on, saying, "I'll come back to you." She picked outfits
for Jelly, Diana, and Maude, and they all went behind the screen. Then she
turned to Flick and said in a low voice, "Is this a joke?"

"Why do you say that?"

She turned to Greta. "You're a
man."

Flick gave a grunt of frustration
and turned away. The seamstress had seen through Greta's disguise in seconds.
It was a bad omen.

Madame added, "You might fool a
lot of people, but not me. I can tell."

Greta said, "How?"

Madame Guillemin shrugged. "The
proportions are all wrong—your shoulders are too broad, your hips too narrow,
your legs too muscular, your hands too big—it's obvious to an expert."

Flick said irritably, "She has
to be a woman, for this mission, so please dress her as best you can."

"Of course—but for God's sake,
try not to let her be seen by a dressmaker."

"No problem. The Gestapo don't
employ many of those." Flick's confidence was faked. She did not want
Madame Guillemin to know how worried she was.

The seamstress looked again at
Greta. "I'll give you a contrasting skirt and blouse, to reduce your
height, and a three-quarter-length coat." She selected clothes and handed
them to Greta.

Greta looked at them with
disapproval. Her taste ran to more glamorous outfits. However, she did not
complain. "I'm going to be shy and lock myself in the anteroom," she
said.

Finally Madame gave Flick an
apple-green dress with a matching coat. "The color shows off your
eyes," she said. "As long as you're not ostentatious, why shouldn't
you look pretty? It may help you charm your way out of trouble."

The dress was loose and looked like
a tent on Flick, but she put on a leather belt to give it a waist. "You
are so chic, just like a French girl," said Madame Guillemin. Flick did
not tell her that the main purpose of the belt was to hold a gun.

They all put on their new clothes
and paraded around the room, preening and giggling. Madame Guillemin had chosen
well, and they liked what they had been given, but some of the garments needed
adjusting. "While we are making alterations you can choose some
accessories," Madame said.

They rapidly lost their inhibitions,
and downed around in their underwear, trying on hats and shoes, scarves and
bags. They had momentarily forgotten the dangers ahead, Flick thought, and were
taking simple pleasure in their new outfits.

Greta came out of the anteroom
looking surprisingly glamorous. Flick studied her with interest. She had turned
up the collar of the plain white blouse so that it looked stylish and wore the
shapeless coat draped over her shoulders cloak-style. Madame Guillemin raised
an eyebrow but made no comment.

Flick's dress had to be shortened.
While that was being done she studied the coat. Working undercover had given
her a sharp eye for detail, and she anxiously checked the stitching, the
lining, the buttons, and the pockets to make sure they were in the normal
French style. She found no fault. The label in the collar said "Galeries
Lafayette."

Flick showed Madame Guillemin her
lapel knife. It was only three inches long, with a thin blade, but it was
wickedly sharp. It had a small handle and no hilt. It came in a slim leather
sheath pierced with holes for thread. "I want you to sew this to the coat
under the lapel," Flick said.

Madame Guiflemin nodded. "I can
do this."

She gave them each a little pile of
underwear, two of everything, all with the labels of French shops. With
unerring accuracy she had picked not just the right size but the preferred
style of each woman: corsets for Jelly, pretty lacy slips for Maude, navy
knickers and boned brassieres for Diana, simple chemises and panties for Ruby
and Flick. "The handkerchiefs bear the laundry marks of different
blanchisseries in Reims," said Madame Guillemin with a touch of pride.

Finally she produced an assortment
of bags: a canvas duffel, a gladstone bag, a rucksack, and a selection of cheap
fiber suitcases in different colors and sizes. Each woman got one. Inside she
found a toothbrush, toothpaste, face powder, shoe polish, cigarettes and
matches—all French brands. Even though they were going in only for a short
time, Flick had insisted on the full kit for each of them.

"Remember," Flick said,
"you may not take with you anything that you have not been given this
afternoon. Your life depends on that."

The giggling stopped as they
remembered the danger they would face in a few hours.

Flick said, "All right,
everybody, please go back to your rooms and change into your French outfits,
including underwear. Then we'll meet downstairs for dinner."

In the main drawing room of the
house a bar had been set up. When Flick walked in, it was occupied by a dozen
or so men, some in RAF uniform, all of them—Flick knew from previous
visits—clestined to make clandestine flights over France. A blackboard bore the
names or code names of those who would leave tonight, together with the times
they needed to depart from the house. Flick read:

Aristotle—19:50

Capt. Jenkins Lieut. Ramsey—20:05

All Jackdaws—20:30

Colgate Bunter—21:00

Mr. Blister, Paradox,
Saxophone—22:05

She looked at her watch. It was
six-thirty. Two hours to go.

She sat at the bar and looked
around, wondering which of them would come back and which would die in the
field. Some were terribly young, smoking and telling jokes, looking as if they
had no cares. The older ones looked hardened, and savored their whisky and gin
in the grim knowledge it might be their last. She thought about their parents,
their wives or girlfriends, their babies and children. Tonight's work would
leave some of them with a grief that would never entirely go away.

Her somber reflections were
interrupted by a sight that astonished her. Simon Fortescue, the slippery
bureaucrat from MI6, walked into the bar in a pinstriped suit—accompanied by
Denise Bowyer.

Flick's jaw dropped.

"Felicity, I'm so glad I caught
you," said Simon. Without waiting for an invitation he pulled up a stool
for Denise. "Gin and tonic, please, barman. What would you like, Lady
Denise?"

"A martini, very dry."

"And for you, Felicity?"

Flick did not answer the question.
"She's supposed to be in Scotland!" she said.

"Look, there seems to have been
some misunderstanding. Denise has told me all about this policeman
fellow—"

"No misunderstanding,"
Flick said abruptly. "Denise failed the course. That's all there is to
it."

Denise made a disgusted sound.

Fortescue said, "I really don't
see how a perfectly intelligent girl from a good family could fail—"

"She's a blabbermouth."

"What?"

"She can't keep her damn mouth
shut. She's not trustworthy. She shouldn't be walking around free!"

Denise said, "You insolent
cat."

Fortescue controlled his temper with
an effort and lowered his voice. "Look, her brother is the Marquess of
Inverlocky, who's very close to the Prime Minister. Inverlocky himself asked me
to make sure Denise got a chance to do her bit. So, you see, it would be
dreadfully tactless to turn her down."

Flick raised her voice. "Let me
get this straight." One or two of the men nearby looked up. "As a
favor to your upper-class friend, you're asking me to take someone
untrustworthy on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Is that it?"

As she was speaking, Percy and Paul
walked in. Percy glared at Fortescue with undisguised malevolence. Paul said,
"Did I hear right?"

Fortescue said, "I've brought
Denise with me because it would be, frankly, an embarrassment to the government
if she were left behind—"

"And a danger to me if she were
to come!" Flick interrupted. "You're wasting your breath. She's off
the team."

"Look, I don't want to have to
pull rank—"

"What rank?" said Flick.

"I resigned from the Guards as
a colonel—"

"Retired!"

"—and I'm the civil service
equivalent of a brigadier."

"Don't be ridiculous,"
Flick said. "You're not even in the army."

"I'm ordering you to take
Denise with you."

"Then I'll have to consider my
response," said Flick.

"That's better. I'm sure you
won't regret it."

"All right, here is my
response. Fuck off."

Fortescue went red. He had probably
never been told to flick off by a girl. He was uncharacteristically speechless.