Jackdaws

“Do you mean flick? Only a few days. She’s awfully bossy.” A thought crossed her mind. “She was right, though-we shouldn’t have gone to the Ritz.” She began to cry. “I never meant to do anything wrong. I just wanted to have a good time and see places, that’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“What’s your team’s code name?”

“The Blackbirds,” she said in English.

He frowned. The radio message to Helicopter had referred to them as Jackdaws. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. It’s because of some poem, ‘The Blackbird of Reims,’ I think. No, ‘The Jackdaw of Reims,’ that’s it.”

If she was not completely stupid, she was doing a very good imitation. “Where do you think Flick is now?”

Maude thought for a long moment, then said, “I really don’t know.”

Dieter sighed in frustration. One prisoner was too tough to talk, the other too stupid to know anything useful. This was going to take longer than he had hoped.

There might be a way of shortening the process. He was curious about the relationship between these two. Why had the dominant, mannish older woman risked her life to take the pretty, empty-headed girl to dinner at the Ritz? Perhaps I’ve got a dirty mind, he said to himself But still…

“Take her away,” he said in German. “Put her in with the other one. Make sure the room has a judas.”

When they had been locked away, Lieutenant Hesse showed Dieter to a small room in the attic. He looked through a peephole into the room next door. The two women were sitting side by side on the edge of the narrow bed. Maude was crying and Diana was comforting her. Dieter watched carefully. Diana’s broken right wrist rested in her lap. With her left hand she stroked Maude’s hair. She was talking in a low voice, but Dieter could not hear the words.

How close a relationship was this? Were they comrades in arms, bosom friends… or more? Diana leaned forward and kissed Maude’s forehead. That did not mean much. Then Diana put a forefinger on Maude’s chin, turned the girl’s face to her own, and kissed her lips. It was a gesture of comfort, but surely too intimate for a mere friend?

Finally Diana poked out the tip of her tongue and licked Maude’s tears. That made up Dieter’s mind. It was not foreplay-no one could have sex in such circumstances-but it was the kind of comfort that would be offered only by a lover, not by a mere friend. Diana and Maude were lesbians. And that solved the problem.

“Bring the older one again,” he said, and he returned to the interview room.

When Diana was brought in the second time, he had her tied to the chair. Then he said, “Prepare the electrical machinery.” He waited impatiently while the electric shock machine was rolled in on its trolley and plugged to a socket in the wall. Every minute that passed was taking Flick Clairet farther away from him.

When everything was ready, he seized Diana by the hair with his left hand. Holding her head still, he attached two crocodile clips to her lower lip.

He turned the power on. Diana screamed. He left it on for ten seconds, then switched off.

When her sobbing began to ease he said, “That was less than half power.” It was true. He had rarely used full power. Only when the torture had gone on a long time, and the prisoner kept passing out, was full power used in an effort to penetrate the subject’s fading consciousness. And by then it was generally too late, for madness was setting in.

But Diana did not know that.

“Not again,” she begged. “Please, please, not again.”

“Are you willing to answer my questions?”

She groaned, but she did not say yes.

Dieter said, “Bring the other one.”

Diana gasped.

Lieutenant Hesse brought Maude in and tied her to a chair.

“What do you want?” Maude cried.

Diana said, “Don’t say anything-it’s better.” Maude was wearing a light summer blouse. She had a neat, trim figure with full breasts. Dieter tore her blouse open, sending the buttons flying.

“Please!” Maude said. “I’ll tell you anything!” Under her blouse she wore a cotton chemise with a lacy trim. He took hold of the neckline and ripped it off. Maude screamed.

He stood back and looked. Maude’s breasts were round and firm. A part of his mind noticed how pretty they were. Diana must love them, he thought.

He took the crocodile clips from Diana’s mouth and carefully fastened one to each of Maude’s small pink nipples. Then he returned to the machine and put his hand on the control.

“Au right,” Diana said quietly. “I’ll tell you everything.”

DIETER ARRANGED FOR the railway tunnel at Manes to be heavily guarded. If the Jackdaws got that far, they would find it almost impossible to enter the tunnel. He felt confident that Flick would not now achieve her objective. But that was secondary. His burning ambition was to capture her and interrogate her.