Swim Until You Can't See Land (29 page)

But she had to.

Madame Poirier.

Sabine began to run.

Drop report from P/O Douglas Carter –
Sand Dune 9
43.675818 2.252197
11 containers successfully dropped.
Encountered flak leaving France.
Returned at 04.32

Sabine felt the panic rise. She slipped and stumbled as she ran, falling onto her knees at one point. She shouldn’t return to Madame’s, should stay away, but she couldn’t leave Madame in danger.

She hunkered down behind the garden wall. The shutters were closed, the house in darkness.

She jumped the wall, revolver ready, crept round the edge of the courtyard, keeping low, in the shadows.

Round to her bedroom window. She always left it unlatched behind the shutters, able to get in or out quickly if required.

Think ahead. Have an escape route planned, just in case you need to make a quick getaway.

She pushed the window open, hoisted herself up and into her bedroom.

She could hear music, the clack, clack, clack of Madame’s sewing machine.

What was she still doing up?

Was it a warning? Letting Sabine know something was wrong, to stay away?

She knelt, peered through the keyhole, she could see Madame sitting at the big kitchen table, but couldn’t tell if she was alone.

She turned the door handle, slowly, slowly, slowly, gripped the revolver in her other hand.

RACHEL TREMBLAY, THE BICYCLE IS CHAINED TO THE GATE.

‘That’s it, that’s our signal,’ Sebastian patted Sabine on the shoulder. ‘Well done,
Merle
.’

‘They’ve agreed to the drop,’ said Alex, ‘we must get ready.’

‘You can’t go anywhere, Alex,’ said Madame Poirier. ‘You are a wanted man.’

‘I am leader of this circuit and therefore in charge,’ he replied and turned off the radio.

Sabine gulped down the cold dregs of coffee as Alex began to give out instructions.

‘Sainte Mère de Dieu
,’ Madame screamed and ducked under the table, as Sabine flung the door open, pointed the revolver.

The room was empty.

Nobody else was there, nobody keeping Madame hostage.

Sabine collapsed onto her knees, dropped the revolver. She crawled forward and lifted the table cloth. Madame was curled up on the floor, holding onto a squirming Pacha.

‘Madame, I’m, I’m so sorry.’ Sabine was out of breath, she laid a hand on Madame’s shoulder.

‘What happened? What’s wrong?’ Madame replied. She let go of Pacha, who hissed, ran towards the front door, scraped at the wood to get out.

Sabine stood, followed him. She opened the front door, glanced around the courtyard as she let him out. It was empty. A dog barked somewhere in the distance. She shut the door, locked it.

‘What is it Sabine? You’re so white,
assieds-toi
, sit down,’ Madame crawled out from under the table.

‘Natalie didn’t show, she and Sebastian had a fight, Alex was worried, he went to see her after the drop.’

‘Alex is too suspicious. She’s just a girl.’

‘I know, but something about it didn’t feel right to me either.’

‘But the drop went okay?’

‘
Oui, oui
, Sebastian took all the containers away.’

‘You gave me such a fright,’ Madame’s hands trembled and Sabine squeezed them between her own.

‘I’m sorry, I was worried someone was in here, I came in the window.’

‘
Mon Dieu
, your hands are freezing.’

‘I feel a bit sick.’

‘You’re some girl. What would you have done if there were a dozen soldiers in here?’

Sabine laid her head on the table, the room was spinning.

‘Why aren’t you in bed?’ asked Sabine.

‘I couldn’t sleep, maybe I could sense there was something wrong too. I wanted to make sure you got home safe. I made coffee.’

Madame stood, lifted the pot from the stove.

‘Something medicinal,’ she said, and added brandy.

Sabine grimaced at the taste, but was revived as the warm liquid spread through her.

‘Now that there’s some colour in your cheeks, where are my parachutes?’

‘
Je suis désolée
, sorry, Madame.’

‘Sshhh, I’m only teasing you.’

Sabine took another drink of coffee, tuned into the music playing. She recognised it, George used to play that piece on the piano. It annoyed her that she couldn’t remember the name, her brain was so mixed up at the moment she couldn’t concentrate on anything.

‘I will go to bed now though,’ Madame finished her coffee and stood up.

‘Goodnight, Madame. I’m sorry for scaring you.’

‘Stop apologising. You came here to save me, I’m proud of you. You should get some sleep too, it’s been a long night.’

‘I know, I’ll stay up just a bit longer, in case Alex shows.’

‘I hope he remembers she’s just a girl.’

Sabine nodded. Madame lifted the pistol from the floor, handed it to Sabine before disappearing into her own room.

Sabine dragged her chair over to the window, opened the shutters slightly. She sat with the gun in her lap as she finished her coffee.

November
2008

Hannah Hopes Things Will Turn Out All Wright

British swimmer Hannah Wright has withdrawn from all future competitive action in a bid to recover from an on-going shoulder injury. Hannah, British record holder for the 50m and 100m Butterfly, has been suffering from the injury for the last eight months and has temporarily lost funding while she recuperates.

‘It’s been a really tough year for me, especially having to miss the Olympics and then being told that my funding is being cut,’ said Hannah. ‘I’m seeing the physio though and doing some light training to keep me ticking over. I just need to be patient.’

19

Chapter Fifteen: Marièle Downie, aka Sabine Valois, aka Blackbird.

I sit on the edge of the bed.

Chapter Fifteen: Marièle Downie, aka Sabine Valois, aka Blackbird.

She’s here, in a book. My old woman is in a book. I flick through the pages, inhale the crisp ink, the newness of it. No creased pages, no thumbprints, no crumbs.

I hope you enjoy it.

I don’t think she’s even opened this book, let alone read it.

I suppose it makes sense; why read about yourself? You lived it. It’s all in your head.

Even the bad things, the things you don’t want to remember.

All those scrapbooks Dad kept about me, newspaper cuttings, photos. Shoved in a box somewhere. Sellotape cracked and brown, articles once stuck in place now falling out. A record of all my achievements. It’s not as if I want to read any of them.

I turn to the middle of the book, shiny black and white photographs. Try to find Marièle without reading the captions. Can I recognise her among all these other women?

I flick through them, don’t see her, go back to the start again. Look more carefully.

I think that might be her.

Yeah, I’m sure it is.

She’s looking straight at the camera, unsmiling, like a bad passport photograph or a mug shot.

I read the caption to make sure.

Marièle Downie, shortly before leaving for France, January 1944.

So different from the girl up on the shelf, the woman in the hospital bed. Another Marièle to add to the list. How many are there?

I rub my finger across her face. The then and now of her tugs at my stomach.

Chapter Fifteen

Marièle Downie, aka Sabine Valois, aka Blackbird

I was lucky enough to interview Marièle in person while writing this book, one of the few not taken from us by the war or by the passing of time. I had trouble tracing her at first, believing her to be resident in France, however I eventually tracked her down to an address in Scotland.

One of the youngest to be sent to France, Marièle had not lost any of her reported ‘dry sense of humour’ when I met her, now aged 84. Although reluctant to talk about her experiences in detail, Marièle answered my questions candidly and spoke of her fellow agents with loyalty and affection.

She was born in 1922 to a French mother and a Scottish father. Like most of the women who went on to become agents for the
SOE
, Marièle was fluent in French and spent a great deal of her childhood holidaying in France while visiting relatives. She was asked to a preliminary interview in London, after answering an advert for photographs of the French coastline.

‘I had no idea what I was being interviewed for – it was all very vague. They asked me questions about myself, my family, my politics. I was more confused when I came out than I was before I went in.’

Marièle was deemed to have the qualities suitable for a potential
SOE
agent, and, following the requisite psychiatrist’s interview, she enlisted with the
FANY
.

She was sent to Scotland for training, sharing a room with fellow recruit Eliza Buchanan (see chapter eleven).

Eliza?

I turn back to the photographs in the middle of the book. 

Marièle and Eliza are on adjoining pages.

Wavy hair piled up above her forehead, a brooch at her neck, round cheeks.

It’s not her. Not the girl with the dimples.

Marièle was a good student. Existing records state: ‘She possesses a dry sense of humour and gets on well with the other recruits.’ She did well in training and discovered a natural aptitude for parachuting, outshining the other recruits – both men and women!

‘I just turned out to be good at it, it came very naturally. I have no idea why, I’d never done anything like that in my whole life. Maybe I just didn’t care about what could go wrong, I relaxed, the feeling of falling was soothing to me. I jumped from the plane without dwelling on the what-ifs.’

‘Wow, pretty impressive,’ I look up at the photograph on the shelf.

Marièle earned herself the nickname Merle, French for blackbird. This nickname was later used as an alias for her when she was sent to France and as the keyword in her Playfair cipher.

‘It wasn’t long after I finished training that I was sent to France. It was towards the end of the war, an important time, what with the run up to
D
-Day.’

The Sand Dune circuit, led by Alex Sylvan, was in need of a wireless operator and Marièle was chosen to fill this position.

‘Sand Dune was in need of a lot of things. I was officially sent as a
W/T
operator, which meant that I would send messages back to London. But I did anything else required really: courier, messenger, saboteur. I was a jack of all trades.’

Going by the name Sabine Valois, Marièle was sent to France under the guise of a sickly girl from Paris, who had been sent to stay with her aunt in the country to recuperate.

Despite Marièle’s obvious skill at parachuting, she travelled to France aboard the Polish manned felucca, ‘Seafox.’

‘It was a bitter blow to me that I was not parachuted into France. It sounds so silly, but it had been the one part of the training that I’d excelled at. It felt like a bad omen being sent in by boat. I couldn’t swim, for one thing.’

‘One up on you there then, Marièle.’

I can’t imagine not being able to swim, don’t even remember learning. It’s always just felt like I was born swimming.

‘I still don’t know why they sent me that way. Nobody ever explained it or gave me a valid reason. You didn’t ask questions of course, just followed orders. Everything was classified, you were told what you needed to know. There was a lot I was never told about Sand Dune. It was in a bit of a mess when I got there, but I suppose it was important enough to keep going rather than shut down.’

Marièle soon became an integral part of the circuit, spending long days on her bicycle, sending messages back to the
UK
, helping to organise drops, liaising with other members of the network and running errands as and when required.

‘I was so fit back in those days – could have given that Chris Hoy a run for his money, I can tell you. Those first few days were awful though, I was so saddle sore. Everything ached, when I…’

Brrrr Brrrr

Brrrr Brrrr

The phone goes, gives me a fright. I jump and the book slips out of my lap.

I pick it up, head out into the hallway. Stand and watch the phone as it rings. Should I answer? Maybe it’s the hospital? I gave them this number the last time I visited Marièle.

Brrrr Brrrr

Brrrr Brrrr

I trace my finger around a logo on one of Marièle’s letters. A candle with barbed wire wound round it. My finger sweeps the curves of the wire, up and down, up and down, up and down, a backwards S.