Jackdaws

She heard pounding footsteps. Paul rushed up. "Flick! Are you all right?"

She nodded.

She was still pointing the Walther at Dieter Franck. "I don't think that will be necessary," Paul said softly. After a moment, he moved her hands, then gently took the gun from her and engaged the safety catch.

Ruby appeared. "Listen!" she cried. "Listen!"

Flick heard the drone of a Hudson.

"Let's get moving," Paul said.

They ran out into the field to signal the plane that would take them home.

They crossed the English Channel in strong winds and intermittent rain. During a quiet spell, the navigator came back into the passenger compartment and said, "You might want to take a look outside."

Flick, Ruby, and Paul were dozing. The floor was hard, but they were exhausted. Flick was wrapped in Paul's arms, and she did not want to move.

The navigator pressed them. "You'd better be quick, before it clouds over again. You'll never see anything like this again if you live to be a hundred."

Curiosity overcame Flick's tiredness. She got up and staggered to the small rectangular window. Ruby did the same. Obligingly, the pilot dipped a wing.

The English Channel was choppy, and a stiff wind blew, but the moon was full and she could see clearly. At first she could hardly believe her eyes. Immediately below the plane was a gray-painted warship bristling with guns. Alongside it was a small ocean liner, its paint-work gleaming white in the moonlight. Behind them, a rusty old steamer pitched into the swell. Beyond them and behind were cargo boats, troop transports, battered old tankers, and great shallow-draft landing ships. There were ships as far as Flick could see, hundreds of them.

The pilot dipped the other wing, and she looked out the other side. It was the same.

"Paul, look at this!" she cried.

He came and stood beside her. "Jeepers!" he said. "I've never seen so many ships in all my life!"

"It's the invasion!" she said.

"Take a look out the front," said the navigator.

Flick went forward and looked over the pilot's shoulder. The ships were spread out over the sea like a carpet, stretching for miles and miles, as far as she could see. She heard Paul's incredulous voice say, "I didn't know there were this many ships in the damn world!"

"How many do you think it is?" Ruby said.

The navigator said, "I heard five thousand."

"Amazing," Flick said.

The navigator said, "I'd give a lot to be part of that, wouldn't you?"

Flick looked at Paul and Ruby, and they all smiled. "Oh, we are," she said. "We're part of it, all right."

One year later Wednesday, June 6,1945

CHAPTER 53

The london street called Whitehall was lined on both sides with grandiose buildings that embodied the magnificence of the British empire as it had once been, a hundred years earlier. Inside those fine buildings, many of the high rooms with their long windows had been subdivided by cheap partitions to form offices for lesser officials and meeting rooms for unimportant groups. As a subcommittee of a subcommittee, the Medals (Clandestine Actions) Working Party met in a windowless room fifteen feet square with a vast, cold fireplace that occupied half of one wall.

Simon Fortescue from MI6 was in the chair, wearing a striped suit, striped shirt, and striped tie. The Special Operations Executive was represented by John Graves from the Ministry of Economic Warfare, which had theoretically supervised SOE throughout the war. Like the other civil servants on the committee, Graves wore the Whitehall uniform of black jacket and gray striped trousers. The Bishop of Marlborough was there in a purple clerical shirt, no doubt to give the moral dimension to the business of honoring men for killing other men. Colonel Algernon "Nobby" Clarke, an intelligence officer, was the only member of the committee who had seen action in the war.

Tea was served by the committee's secretary, and a plate of biscuits was passed around while the men deliberated.

It was midmorning when they came to the case of the Jackdaws of Reims.

John Graves said, "There were six women on this team, and only two came back. But they destroyed the telephone exchange at Sainte-C‚cile, which was also the local Gestapo headquarters."

"Women?" said the bishop. "Did you say six women?"

"Yes."

"My goodness me." His tone was disapproving. "Why women?"

"The telephone exchange was heavily guarded, but they got in by posing as cleaners."

"I see."

Nobby Clarke, who had spent most of the morning chain-smoking in silence, now said, "After the liberation of Paris, I interrogated a Major Goedel, who had been aide to Rommel. He told me they had been virtually paralyzed by the breakdown in communications on D day. It was a significant factor in the success of the invasion, he thought. I had no idea a handful of girls were responsible. I should think we're talking about the Mi!itary Cross, aren't we?"