World War II Thriller Collection (73 page)

“It never occurred to me that I should.”

“Never mind.”

“What next?”

“Do you remember what you were doing to me just before I reached for your wallet?”

“Yes.”

“Did you wonder why I didn't let you go on longer?”

“I thought you were impatient for . . . intercourse.”

“No, your bristles were scratching my thighs, right where the skin is most tender.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

“Well, you can make it up to me.”

He frowned. “How?”

She groaned with mock frustration. “Come on, Einstein. Now that your bristles have gone . . .”

“Oh—I see! Is that why you shaved me? Yes, of course it is. You want me to . . .”

She lay on her back, smiling, and parted her legs. “Is this enough of a hint?”

He laughed. “I guess it is,” he said, and he bent over her.

She closed her eyes.

THE OLD BALLROOM
was in the bombed west wing of the château at Sainte-Cécile. The room was only partly damaged: one end was a pile of debris, square stones and carved pediments and chunks of painted wall in a dusty heap, but the other remained intact. The effect was picturesque, Dieter thought, with the morning sun shining through a great hole in the ceiling onto a row of broken pillars, like a Victorian painting of classical ruins.

Dieter had decided to hold his briefing in the ballroom. The alternative was to meet in Weber's office, and Dieter did not want to give the men the impression that Willi was in charge. There was a small dais, presumably intended for the orchestra, on which he had placed a blackboard. The men had brought chairs from other parts of the building and had placed them in front of the dais in four neat rows of five—very German, Dieter thought with a secret smile; French men would have scattered the chairs any which way. Weber, who had assembled the team, sat on the dais facing the men, to emphasize that he was one of the commanders, not subordinate to Dieter.

The presence of two commanders, equal in rank and hostile to one another, was the greatest threat to the operation, Dieter thought.

On the blackboard he had chalked a neat map of the village of Chatelle. It consisted of three large houses—presumably farms or wineries—plus six cottages and a bakery. The buildings were clustered around a
crossroads, with vineyards to the north, west, and south, and to the east a large cow pasture, a kilometer long, bordered by a broad pond. Dieter guessed that the field was used for grazing because the ground was too wet for grapes.

“The parachutists will aim to land in the pasture,” Dieter said. “It must be a regular landing-and-takeoff field: it's level, plenty big enough for a Lysander, and long enough even for a Hudson. The pond next to it would be a useful landmark, visible from the air. There is a cowshed at the southern end of the field where the reception committee probably take shelter while they are waiting for the plane.”

He paused. “The most important thing for everyone here to remember is that
we want these parachutists to land.
We must avoid any action that might betray our presence to the reception committee or the pilot. We have to be silent and invisible. If the plane turns around and returns home with the agents on board, we will have lost a golden opportunity. One of the parachutists is a woman who can give us information on most of the Resistance circuits in northern France—if only we can get our hands on her.”

Weber spoke, mainly to remind them that he was here. “Allow me to underline what Major Franck has said. Take no risks! Do nothing ostentatious! Stick to the plan!”

“Thank you, Major,” Dieter said. “Lieutenant Hesse has divided you into two-man teams, designated A through L. Each building on the map is marked with a team letter. We will arrive at the village at twenty hundred hours. Very swiftly, we will enter every building. All the residents will be brought to the largest of the three big houses, known as La Maison Grandin, and held there until it is all over.”

One of the men raised a hand. Weber barked, “Schuller! You may speak.”

“Sir, what if the Resistance people call at a house? They will find it empty and they may become suspicious.”

Dieter nodded. “Good question. But I don't think they will. My guess is the reception committee are strangers here. They don't usually have agents parachute in near where sympathizers live—it's an unnecessary security risk. I'm betting they arrive after dark and go straight to the cowshed without bothering the villagers.”

Weber spoke again. “This would be normal Resistance procedure,” he said with the air of a doctor giving a diagnosis.

“La Maison Grandin will be our headquarters,” Dieter continued. “Major Weber will be in command there.” This was his scheme for keeping Weber away from the real action. “The prisoners will be locked away in some convenient place, ideally a cellar. They must be kept quiet, so that we can hear the vehicle in which the reception committee arrive, and later the plane.”

Weber said, “Any prisoner who persistently makes noise may be shot.”

Dieter continued, “As soon as the villagers have been incarcerated, teams A, B, C, and D will take up concealed positions on the roads leading into the village. If any vehicles or personnel enter the village, you will report by shortwave radio, but you will do nothing more. At this point, you will not prevent people entering the village, and you will not do anything that might betray your presence.” Looking around the room, Dieter wondered pessimistically whether the Gestapo men had brains enough to follow these orders.

“The enemy needs transport for six parachutists plus the reception committee, so they will arrive in a truck or bus, or possibly several cars. I believe they will enter the pasture by this gate—the ground is quite dry at this time of year, so there is no danger of cars becoming bogged down—and park between the gate and the cowshed, just here.” He pointed to the spot on the map.

“Teams E, F, G, and H will be in this cluster of trees beside the pond, each equipped with a large battery searchlight. Teams I and J will remain at La Maison
Grandin to guard the prisoners and maintain the command post with Major Weber.” Dieter did not want Weber at the scene of the arrest. “Teams K and L will be with me, behind this hedge near the cowshed.” Hans had found out which of the men were the best shots and assigned them to work with Dieter.

“I will be in radio contact with all teams and will be in command in the pasture. When we hear the plane—we do nothing! When we see the parachutists—we do nothing! We will watch the parachutists land and wait for the reception committee to round them up and assemble them near where the vehicles are parked.” Dieter raised his voice, mainly for the benefit of Weber.
“Not until this process has been completed will we arrest anyone!”
The men would not jump the gun unless a skittish officer told them to.

“When we are ready, I will give the signal. From this moment on, until the order to stand down is given, teams A, B, C, and D will arrest anyone attempting to enter or leave the village. Teams E, F, G, and H will switch on their searchlights and turn them on the enemy. Teams K and L will approach them with me and arrest them. No one is to fire on the enemy—is that clear?”

Schuller, obviously the thinker among the group, raised his hand again. “What if they fire on us?”

“Do not return their fire. These people are useless to us dead! Lie flat and keep the lights trained on them. Only teams E and F are permitted to use their weapons, and they have orders to shoot to wound. We want to interrogate these parachutists, not kill them.”

The phone in the room rang, and Hans Hesse picked it up. “It's for you,” he said to Dieter. “Rommel's headquarters.”

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?”

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 tranquillity 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 showerproof 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 clowned 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 Guillemin 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—destined 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 fuck off by a girl. He was uncharacteristically speechless.

“Well!” said Denise. “We've certainly found out what type of person we're dealing with.”

Paul said, “You're dealing with me.” He turned to
Fortescue. “I'm in command of this operation, and I won't have Denise on the team at any price. If you want to argue, call Monty.”

“Well said, my boy,” Percy added.

Fortescue found his voice at last. He wagged a finger at Flick. “The time will come, Mrs. Clairet, when you will regret saying that to me.” He got off his stool. “I'm sorry about this, Lady Denise, but I think we've done all we can here.”

They left.

“Stupid prat,” Percy muttered.