Jackdaws

She took the kettle off the hob and poured boiling water over the cocoa mixture in a big stoneware jug. "Put some mugs on a tray," she told Paul. "A little housework might cure you of dreams of domesticity."

He complied. "You can't put me off by being bossy," he said. "I kind of like it."

She added milk and sugar to the cocoa and poured it into the mugs he had laid out. "In that case, carry that tray into the living room."

"Right away, boss."

When they entered the living room they found Jelly and Greta having a row, standing face to face in the middle of the room while the others looked on, half amused and half horrified.

Jelly was saying, "You weren't using it!"

"I was resting my feet on it," Greta replied.

"There aren't enough chairs." Jelly was holding a small stuffed pouffe, and Flick guessed she had snatched it away from Greta rudely.

Flick said, "Ladies, please!"

They ignored her. Greta said, "You only had to ask, sweetheart."

"I don't have to ask permission from foreigners in my own country."

"I'm not a foreigner, you fat bitch."

"Oh!" Jelly was so stung by the insult that she reached out and pulled Greta's hair. Greta's brunette wig came off in her hand.

With her head of close-cropped dark hair exposed, Greta suddenly looked unmistakably like a man. Percy and Paul were in on the secret, and Ruby had guessed, but Maude and Diana were shocked rigid. Diana said, "Good God!" and Maude gave a little scream of fright.

Jelly was the first to recover her wits. "A pervert!" she said triumphantly. "Oh, my gordon, it's a foreign pervert!"

Greta was in tears. "You bloody fucking Nazi," she sobbed.

"I bet she's a spy!" Jelly said.

Flick said, "Shut up, Jelly. She's not a spy. I knew she was a man."

"You knew!"

"So did Paul. So did Percy."

Jelly looked at Percy, who nodded solemnly.

Greta turned to leave, but Flick caught her arm. "Don't go," she said. "Please. Sit down."

Greta sat down.

"Jelly, give me the damn wig."

Jelly handed it to Flick.

Flick stood in front of Greta and put the wig back on. Ruby, quickly understanding what Flick was trying to do, lifted the mirror from over the mantelpiece and held it in front of Greta, who studied her reflection while she adjusted the wig and blotted her tears with a handkerchief.

"Now listen to me, all of you," said Flick. "Greta is an engineer, and we can't accomplish our mission without an engineer. We have a much better chance of survival in occupied territory as an all-woman team. The upshot is, we need Greta and we need her to be a woman. So get used to it."

Jelly gave a contemptuous grunt.

"There's something else I ought to explain," Flick said. She looked hard at Jelly. "You may have noticed that Denise is no longer with us. A little test was set for her tonight, and she failed it. She's off the team. Unfortunately, she's learned some secrets in the last two days, and she can't be allowed to return to her old posting. So she's gone to a remote base in Scotland, where she'll stay, probably for the rest of the war, with no leave."

Jelly said, "You can't do that!"

"Of course I can, you idiot," Flick said impatiently. "There's a war on, remember? And what I've done to Denise, I'll do to anyone who has to be fired from this team."

"I never even joined the army!" Jelly protested.

"Yes, you did. You were commissioned as an officer, yesterday, after tea. You all were. And you're getting officer's pay, although you haven't seen any yet. That means you're under military discipline. And you all know too much."

"So we're prisoners?" Diana said.

"You're in the army," Flick said. "It's much the same thing. So drink your cocoa and go to bed."

They drifted off one by one until only Diana was left. Flick had been expecting this. Seeing the two women in a sexual clinch had been a real shock. She recalled that at school some of the girls had developed crushes on one another, sending loving notes, holding hands, and sometimes even kissing; but as far as she knew it had not gone any further. At some point she and Diana had practiced French kissing on one another, so that they would know what to do when they got boyfriends, and now Flick guessed those kisses had meant more to Diana than they had to her. But she had never known a grown woman who desired other women. Theoretically, she was aware that they existed, the female equivalents of her brother Mark and of Greta, but she had never really imagined them... well, feeling each other up in a garden shed.

Did it matter? Not in everyday life. Mark and his kind were happy, or at least they were when people left them alone. But would Diana's relationship with Maude affect the mission? Not necessarily. Flick herself worked with her husband in the Resistance, after all. This was not quite the same, admittedly. A passionate new romance might prove a distraction.