Jackdaws

They circled around and flew over the cow pasture at three hundred feet. Flick could see the flare path, four weak, flickering lights in an L shape, with the light at the toe of the L flashing the prearranged code. The pilot climbed toward six hundred feet, the ideal altitude for a parachute drop: any higher, and the wind could blow the parachutists away from the dropping zone; much lower, and the chute might not have time to open fully before the agent hit the ground.

"Ready when you are," said the pilot.

"I'm not ready," Flick said.

"What's the matter?"

"Something's wrong." Flick's instincts were sounding alarm bells. It was not just her worries about Brian Standish and Charenton. There was something else. She pointed west, to the village. "Look, no lights."

"That surprises you? There's a blackout. And it's after three o'clock in the morning."

Flick shook her head. "This is the countryside, they're careless about the blackout. And there's always someone up: a mother with a new baby, an insomniac, a student cramming for finals. I've never seen it completely dark."

"If you really feel there's something wrong, we should get out of here fast," the pilot said nervously.

Something else was bothering her. She tried to scratch her head and found her helmet in the way. The thought evaded her.

What should she do? She could hardly abort the mission just because the villagers of Chatelle were obeying the blackout rules for once.

The plane overflew the field and banked to turn. The pilot said anxiously, "Remember, each time we over fly in-creases the risk. Everyone in that village can hear our engines, and one of them might call the police."

"Exactly!" she said. "We must have awakened the entire place. Yet no one has switched on a light!"

"I don't know, country folk can be very incurious. They like to keep themselves to themselves, as they always say."

"Nonsense. They're as nosy as anyone. This is peculiar."

The pilot looked more and more worried, but he continued circling

Suddenly it came to her. "The baker should have lit his oven. You can normally see the glow from the air."

"Could he be closed today?"

"What day is it? Saturday. A baker might close on a Monday or a Tuesday but never on a Saturday. What's happened? This is like a ghost town!"

"Then let's get out of here."

It was as if someone had rounded up the villagers, including the baker, and locked them in a barn-which was probably what the Gestapo would have done if they were lying in wait for her.

She could not abort the mission. It was too important. But every instinct told her not to parachute into Chatelle. "A risk is a risk," she said.

The pilot was losing patience. "So what do you want to do?"

Suddenly she remembered the containers of supplies in the passenger cabin. "What's your next destination?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you."

"Not usually, no. But now I really need to know."

"It's a field north of Chartres."

That meant the Vestryman circuit. "I know them," Flick said with mounting excitement. This could be the solution. "You could drop us with the containers. There will be a reception committee waiting, they can take care of us. We could be in Paris this afternoon, Reims by tomorrow morning."

He reached for the joystick. "Is that what you want to do?"

"Is it possible?"

"I can drop you there, no problem. The tactical decision is yours. You're in command of the mission-that was made very clear to me."

Flick considered, worrying. Her suspicions might be unfounded, in which case she would need to get a message to Michel via Brian's radio, saying that although her landing had been aborted, she was still on her way. But in case Brian's radio was in Gestapo hands, she would have to give the minimum of information. However, that was feasible. She could write a brief radio signal for the pilot to take back to Percy: Brian would have it in a couple of hours.

She would also have to change the arrangements for picking up the Jackdaws after the mission. At present, a Hudson was scheduled to land at Chatelle at two a.m. on Sunday, and if the Jackdaws were not there, to return the following night at the same time. If Chatelle had been betrayed to the Gestapo and could no longer be used, she would have to divert the Hudson to another landing field at Laroque, to the west of Reims, code-named Champ d'Or. The mission would take an extra day, because they would have to travel from Chartres to Reims, so the pickup flight would have to come down at two a.m. on Monday, with a fall-back on Tuesday at the same hour.

She weighed consequences. Diverting to Chartres meant the loss of a day. But landing at Chatelle could mean the entire mission failed and all the Jackdaws ended up in Gestapo torture chambers. It was no contest. "Go to Chartres," she said to the pilot.

"Roger, wilco."

As the aircraft banked and turned, Flick went back to the cabin. The Jackdaws all looked expectantly at her. "There's been a change of plan," she said.

CHAPTER 31