Jackdaws

Having flown five hundred miles on the metal floor of a bomber, the Jackdaws now drove twenty miles in the back of a builder's van. Surprisingly it was Jelly-the oldest, the fattest, and the least fit of the six-who was most stoical, joking about the discomfort and laughing at herself when the van took a sharp bend and she rolled over helplessly.

But when the sun came up, and the van entered the small city of Chartres, their mood became somber again. Maude said, "I can't believe I'm doing this," and Diana squeezed her hand.

Flick was planning ahead. "From now on, we split up into pairs," she said. The teams had been decided back at the Finishing School. Flick had put Diana with Maude, for otherwise Diana would make a fuss Flick paired herself with Ruby, because she wanted to be able to discuss problems with someone, and Ruby was the cleverest Jackdaw. Unfortunately, that left Greta with Jelly. "I still don't see why I have to go with the foreigner," Jelly said.

"This isn't a tea party," Flick said, irritated. "You don't get to sit by your best friend. It's a military operation and you do what you're told."

Jelly shut up.

"We'll have to modify our cover stories, to explain the train trip," Flick went on. "Any ideas?"

Greta said, "I'm the wife of Major Remmer, a German officer working in Paris, traveling with my French maid. I was to be visiting the cathedral at Reims. Now, I suppose, I could be returning from a visit to the cathedral at Chartres."

"Good enough. Diana?"

"Maude and I are secretaries working for the electric company in Reims. We've been to Chartres because... Maude has lost contact with her fianc‚ and we thought he might be here. But he isn't."

Flick nodded, satisfied. There were thousands of French women searching for missing relatives, especially young men, who might have been injured by bombing, arrested by the Gestapo, sent to labor camps in Germany, or recruited by the Resistance.

She said, "And I'm the widow of a stockbroker who was killed in 1940. 1 went to Chartres to fetch my orphaned cousin and bring her to live with me in Reims."

One of the great advantages women had as secret agents was that they could move around the country without attracting suspicion. By contrast, a man found outside the area where he worked would automatically be assumed to be in the Resistance, especially if he was young.

Flick spoke to the driver, Chevalier. "Look for a quiet spot to let us out." The sight of six respectably dressed women getting out of the back of a builder's van would be somewhat remarkable, even in occupied France, where people used any means of transport they could get. "We can find the station on our own."

A couple of minutes later he stopped the van and reversed into a turn, then jumped out and opened the back door. The Jackdaws got out and found themselves in a narrow cobbled alley with high houses on either side. Through a gap between roofs she glimpsed part of the cathedral. flick reminded them of the plan. "Go to the station, buy one-way tickets to Paris, and get the first train. Each pair will pretend not to know the others, but we'll try to sit close together on the train. We regroup in Paris: you have the address." They were going to a flophouse called Hotel de la Chapdlle, where the proprietress, though not actually in the Resistance, could be relied upon not to ask questions. If they arrived in time, they would go on to Reims immediately; if not, they could stay overnight at the flophouse. Flick was not pleased to be going to

Paris-it was crawling with Gestapo men and their collaborators, the "Kollabos"-but there was no way around it by train.

Only Flick and Greta knew the real mission of the Jackdaws. The others still thought they were going to blow up a railway tunnel.

"Diana and Maude first, off you go, quick! Jelly and Greta next, more slowly." They went off, looking scared. Chevalier shook their hands, wished them luck, and drove away, heading back to the field to fetch the rest of the containers. Flick and Ruby walked out of the alley.

The first few steps in a French town were always the worst, Flick felt that everyone she saw must know who she was, as if she had a sign on her back saying British Agent! Shoot Her Down! But people walked by as if she were nobody special, and after she had safely passed a gendarme and a couple of German officers her pulse began to return to normal.

She still felt very strange. All her life she had been respectable, and she had been taught to regard policemen as her friends. "I hate being on the wrong side of the law," she murmured to Ruby in French. "As if I've done something wicked."

Ruby gave a low laugh. "I'm used to it," she said. "The police have always been my enemies."

Flick remembered with a start that Ruby had been in jail for murder last Tuesday. It seemed a long four days.