Jackdaws

But their train was delayed repeatedly, stopping for an hour at a time in the middle of nowhere. Flick sat in the hot carriage fuming with impatience as the precious minutes leaked away uselessly. She could see the reason for the holdups: half the track had been destroyed by the bombers of the U.S. Army Air Corps and the RAE When the train chugged into life and moved forward, they looked out of the windows and saw emergency repair crews cutting through twisted rails, picking up smashed sleepers, and laying new track. Her only consolation was that the delays would be even more maddening for Rommel as he attempted to deploy his troops to repel the invasion.

There was a feeling in her chest like a cold, inert lump, and every few minutes her thoughts returned to Diana and Maude. They had certainly been interrogated by now, probably tortured, possibly killed. Flick had known Diana all her life. She was going to have to tell Diana’s brother, William, what had happened. Flick’s own mother would be almost as upset as William. Ma had helped raise Diana.

They began to see vineyards, then champagne warehouses alongside the track, and at last they arrived in

Reims a few minutes after four on Sunday afternoon. As Flick had feared, it was too late to carry out their mission the same evening. That meant another nerve-racking twenty-four hours in occupied territory. It also gave Flick a more specific problem: Where would the Jackdaws spend the night?

This was not Paris. There was no red-light district with disreputable flophouses whose proprietors asked few questions, and flick did not know of a convent where the nuns would hide anyone who begged for sanctuary. There were no dark alleys in which down-and-outs slept behind rubbish bins ignored by the police.

Flick knew of three possible hideouts: Michel’s town house, Gilberte’s apartment, and Mademoiselle Lemas’s house in the rue du Bois. Unfortunately, any of them might be under surveillance, depending on how deeply the Gestapo had penetrated the Bollinger circuit. If Dieter Franck was in charge of the investigation, she had to fear the worst.

There was nothing to do but go and look. “We must split up into pairs again,” she told the others. “Four women together is too conspicuous. Ruby and I will go first. Greta and Jelly, follow a hundred meters behind us.”

They walked to Michel’s place, not far from the station. It was Flick’s marital home, but she always thought of it as his house. There was plenty of room for four women. But the Gestapo almost certainly knew of the place: it would be astonishing if none of the men taken captive last Sunday had revealed the address under torture.

The house was in a busy street with several shops. Walking along the pavement, Flick surreptitiously looked into each parked car while Ruby checked the houses and shops. Michel’s property was a high, narrow building in an elegant eighteenth-century row. It had a small front yard with a magnolia tree. The place was still and quiet, with no movement at the windows. The doorstep was dusty.

On their first pass along the street, they saw nothing suspicious: no workmen digging up the road, no watchful loiterers at the pavement tables outside the bar, Chez Regis, no one leaning on a telegraph pole reading a newspaper.

They returned on the opposite side. Outside the baker’s shop was a black Citroën Traction Avant with two men in suits sitting in the front, smoking cigarettes and looking bored.

Flick tensed. She was wearing her dark wig, so she felt sure they would not recognize her as the girl on the Wanted poster, but all the same her pulse beat faster and she hurried past them. All along the pavement she listened for a shout behind her, but it did not come, and at last she turned the corner and breathed easier.

She slowed her pace. Her fears had been justified.

Michel’s house was no use to her. It did not have a rear entrance, being part of a row with no back alley. The Jackdaws could not enter without being seen by the Gestapo.

She considered the other two possibilities. Michel was presumably still living at Gilberte’s apartment, unless he had been captured. The building had a useful back entrance. But it was a tiny place, and four overnight guests at a one-room apartment would not only be uncomfortable but also might be noticed by other people in the building.

The obvious place for them to spend the night was the house in the rue du Bois. Flick had been there twice. It was a big house with lots of bedrooms. Mademoiselle Lemas was completely trustworthy and was more than willing to feed unexpected guests. She had been sheltering British agents, downed airmen, and escaping prisoners of war for years. And she might know what had happened to Brian Standish.

It was a mile or two from the center of town. The four women set out to walk there, still in pairs a hundred meters apart.