Jackdaws (6 page)

"He's become scared since he
got married," Michel replied. "But he'll come for me."

Flick nodded. Lots of people would
make exceptions for Michel. "Gilberte, go and fetch Dr. Bouler."

"I'd rather stay with
Michel."

Flick groaned inwardly. Someone like
Gilberte was no good for anything but carrying messages, yet she could make
difficulties about that. "Please do as I ask," Flick said firmly.
"I need time alone with Michel before I return to London."

"What about the curfew?"

"If you're stopped, say you're
fetching a doctor. It's an accepted excuse. They may accompany you to Claude's
house to make sure you're telling the truth. But they won't come here."

Gilberte looked troubled, but she
pulled on a cardigan and went out.

Flick sat on the arm of Michel's
chair and kissed him. "That was a catastrophe," she said.

"I know." He grunted with
disgust. "So much for MI6. There must have been double the number of men
they told us."

"I'll never trust those clowns
again."

"We lost Albert. I'll have to
tell his wife."

"I'm going back tonight. I'll
get London to send you another radio operator."

"Thanks."

"You'll have to find out who
else is dead, and who's alive."

"If I can." He sighed.

She held his hand. "How are you
feeling?"

"Foolish. It's an undignified
place for a bullet wound."

"But physically?"

"A little giddy."

"You need something to drink. I
wonder what she has."

"Scotch would be nice."
Flick's friends in London had taught Michel to like whisky, before the war.

"That's a little strong."
The kitchen was in a corner of the living room. Flick opened a cupboard. To her
surprise, she saw a bottle of Dewar's White Label. Agents from Britain often
brought whisky with them, for their own use or for their comrades-in-arms, but
it seemed an unlikely drink for a French girl. There was also an opened bottle
of red wine, much more suitable for a wounded man. She poured half a glass and
topped it up with water from the tap. Michel drank greedily: loss of blood had
made him thirsty. He emptied the glass, then leaned back and closed his eyes.

Flick would have liked some of the
scotch, but it seemed unkind to deny it to Michel, then drink it herself.
Besides, she still needed her wits about her. She would have a drink when she
was back on British soil.

She looked around the room. There
were a couple of sentimental pictures on the wall, a stack of old fashion
magazines, no books. She poked her nose into the bedroom. Michel said sharply,
"Where are you going?"

"Just looking around."

"Don't you think it's a little
rude, when she's not here?"

Flick shrugged. "Not really.
Anyway, I need the bathroom."

"It's outside. Down the stairs
and along the corridor to the end. If I remember rightly."

She followed his instructions. While
she was in the bathroom she realized that something was bothering her,
something about Gilberte's apartment. She thought hard. She never ignored her
instincts: they had saved her life more than once. When she returned, she said
to Michel, "Something's wrong here. What is it?"

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable.
"I don't know."

"You seem edgy."

"Perhaps it's because I've just
been wounded in a gunfight."

"No, it's not that. It's the
apartment." It had something to do with Gilberte's unease, something to do
with Michel's knowing where the bathroom was, something to do with the whisky.
She went into the bedroom, exploring. This time Michel did not reprove her. She
looked around. On the bedside table stood a photograph of a man with Gilberte's
big eyes and black eyebrows, perhaps her father. There was a doll on the
counterpane. In the corner was a washbasin with a mirrored cabinet over. Flick
opened the cabinet door. Inside was a man's razor, bowl, and shaving brush.
Gilberte was not so innocent: some man stayed overnight often enough to leave
his shaving tackle here.

Flick looked more closely. The razor
and brush were a set, with polished bone handles. She recognized them. She had
given the set to Michel for his thirty-second birthday.

So that was it.

She was so shocked that for a moment
she could not move.

She had suspected him of being interested
in someone else, but she had not imagined it had gone this far. Yet here was
the proof, in front of her eyes.

Shock turned to hurt. How could he
cuddle up to another woman when Flick was lying in bed alone in London? She
turned and looked at the bed. They had done it right here, in this room. It was
unbearable.

Then she became angry. She had been
loyal and faithful, she had borne the loneliness—but he had not. He had
cheated. She was so furious she felt she would explode.

She strode into the other room and
stood in front of him. "You bastard," she said in English. "You
lousy rotten bastard."

Michel replied in the same language.
"Don't angry yourself at me."

He knew that she found his fractured
English endearing, but it was not going to work this time. She switched to
French. "How could you betray me for a nineteen-year-old nitwit?"

"It doesn't mean anything,
she's just a pretty girl."

"Do you think that makes it
better?" Flick knew she had originally attracted Michel's attention, back
in the days when she was a student and he a lecturer, by challenging him in
class—French students were deferential by comparison with their English
counterparts, and on top of that Flick was by nature disrespectful of
authority. If someone similar had seduced Michel—perhaps Geneviève, a woman who
would have been his equal—she could have borne it better. It was more hurtful
that he had chosen Gilberte, a girl with nothing on her mind more interesting
than nail polish.

"I was lonely," Michel
said pathetically.

"Spare me the sob story. You
weren't lonely—you were weak, dishonest, and faithless."

"Flick, my darling, let's not
quarrel. Half our friends have just been killed. You're going back to England.
We could both die soon. Don't go away angry."

"How can I not be angry? I'm
leaving you in the arms of your floozie!"

"She's not a floozie—"

"Skip the technicalities. I'm
your wife, but you're sharing her bed."

Michel moved in his chair and winced
with pain; then he fixed Flick with his intense blue eyes."I plead
guilty," he said "I'm a louse. But I'm a louse who loves you, and I'm
just asking you to forgive me, this once, in case I never see you again."

It was hard to resist. Flick weighed
five years of marriage against a fling with a popsie and gave in. She moved a
step toward him. He put his arms around her legs and pressed his face into the
worn cotton of her dress. She stroked his hair. "All right," she
said. "All right."

"I'm so sorry," he said.
"I feel awful. You're the most wonderful woman I ever met, or even heard
of. I won't do it any more, I promise."

The door opened, and Gilberte came
in with Claude. Flick gave a guilty start and released Michel's head from her
embrace. Then she felt stupid. He was her husband, not Gilberte's. Why should
she feel guilty about hugging him, even in Gilberte's apartment? She was angry
with herself.

Gilberte looked shocked to see her
lover embracing his wife here, but she swiftly recovered her composure, and her
face assumed a frozen expression of indifference.

Claude, a handsome young doctor,
followed her in, looking anxious.

Flick went to Claude and kissed him
on both cheeks. "Thank you for coming," she said. "We're truly
grateful."

Claude looked at Michel. "How
do you feel, old buddy?"

"I've got a bullet in my
arse."

"Then I'd better take it
out." He lost his worried air and became briskly professional. Turning to
Flick, he said, "Put some towels on the bed to soak up the blood, then get
his trousers off and lay him facedown. I'll wash my hands."

Gilberte put old magazines on her
bed and towels over the paper while Flick got Michel up and helped him hobble
to the bed. As he lay down, she could not help wondering how many other times
he had lain here.

Claude inserted a metal instrument
into the wound and felt around for the slug. Michel cried out with pain.

"I'm sorry, old friend,"
Claude said solicitously.

Flick almost took pleasure in the
sight of Michel in agony on the bed where he had formerly cried out with guilty
pleasure. She hoped he would always remember Gilberte's bedroom this way.

Michel said, "Just get it over
with."

Flick's vengeful feeling passed
quickly, and she felt sorry for Michel. She moved the pillow closer to his
face, saying, "Bite on this, it will help."

Michel stuffed the pillow into his
mouth.

Claude probed again, and this time
got the bullet out. Blood flowed freely for a few seconds, then slowed, and
Claude put a dressing on.

"Keep as still as you can for a
few days," he advised Michel. That meant Michel would have to stay at
Gilberte's place. However, he would be too sore for sex, Flick thought with
grim satisfaction.

"Thank you, Claude," she
said.

"Glad to be able to help."

"I have another request."

Claude looked scared.
"What?"

"I'm meeting a plane at a
quarter to midnight. I need you to drive me to Chatelle."

"Why can't Gilberte take you,
in the car she used to come to my place?"

"Because of the curfew. But
we'll be safe with you, you're a doctor."

"Why would I have two people
with me?"

"Three. We need Michel to hold
a torch." There was an unvarying procedure for pickups: four Resistance
people held flashlights in the shape of a giant letter "L," indicating
the direction of the wind and where the plane should come down. The small
battery-operated torches needed to be directed at the aircraft to make sure the
pilot saw them. They could simply be placed in position on the ground, but that
was less sure, and if the pilot did not see what he expected he might suspect a
trap and decide not to land. It was better to have four people if at all
possible.

Claude said, "How would I
explain you all to the police? A doctor on emergency call doesn't travel with
three people in his car."

"We'll think of some
story."

"It's too dangerous!"

"It will take only a few
minutes, at this time of night."

"Marie-Jeanne will kill me. She
says I have to think of the children."

"You don't have any."

"She's pregnant."

Flick nodded. That would explain why
he had become so jumpy.

Michel rolled over and sat upright.
He reached out and grasped Claude's arm. "Claude, I'm begging you, this is
really important. Do it for me, will you?"

It was hard to say no to Michel.
Claude sighed. "When?"

Flick looked at her watch. It was
almost eleven. "Now."

Claude looked at Michel. "His
wound may reopen."

"I know," Flick said.
"Let it bleed."

THE VILLAGE OF Chatelle consisted of
a few buildings clustered around a crossroads: three farmhouses, a strip of
laborers' cottages, and a bakery that served the surrounding farms and hamlets.
Flick stood in a cow pasture a mile from the crossroads, holding in her hand a
flashlight about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

She had been on a weeklong course,
run by the pilots of 161 Squadron, to train her for the task of guiding an
aircraft in. This location fitted the specifications they had given her. The
field was almost a kilometer long—a Lysander needed six hundred meters to land
and take off. The ground beneath her feet was firm, and there was no slope. A
nearby pond was clearly visible from the air in the moonlight, providing a
useful landmark for pilots.

Michel and Gilberte stood upwind of
Flick in a straight line, also holding flashlights, and Claude stood a few
yards to one side of Gilberte, making a flare path in the shape of an
upside-down "L" to guide the pilot. In remote areas, bonfires could
be used instead of electric lights, but here, close to a village, it was too
dangerous to leave the telltale burn mark on the ground.

The four people formed what the
agents called a reception committee. Flick's were always silent and
disciplined, but less-well-organized groups sometimes turned the landing into a
party, with groups of men shouting jokes and smoking cigarettes, and spectators
from nearby villages turning up to watch. This was dangerous. If the pilot
suspected that the landing had been betrayed to the Germans, and thought the
Gestapo might be lying in wait, he had to react quickly. The instructions to
reception committees warned that anyone approaching the plane from the wrong
angle was liable to be shot by the pilot. This had never actually happened, but
on one occasion a spectator had been run over by a Hudson bomber and killed.

Waiting for the plane was always
hell. If it did not arrive, Flick would face another twenty-four hours of
unremitting tension and danger before the next opportunity. But an agent never
knew whether a plane would show up. This was not because the RAF was
unreliable. Rather, as the pilots of 161 Squadron had explained to Flick, the
task of navigating a plane by moonlight across hundreds of miles of country was
monumentally difficult. The pilot used dead reckoning—calculating his position
by direction, speed, and elapsed time—and tried to verify the result by
landmarks such as rivers, towns, railway lines, and forests. The problem with
dead reckoning was that it was impossible to make an exact adjustment for the
drift caused by wind. And the trouble with landmarks was that one river looked
very much like another by moon-light. Getting to roughly the right area was
difficult enough, but these pilots had to find an individual field.