Jackdaws

“So you say.”

“You damned fool,” Dieter said savagely. “God preserve the fatherland from patriots such as you.” He turned on his heel and stalked out.

CHAPTER 5

CILBERTE AND FLICK left the town of Sainte-Cécile behind, heading for the city of Reims on a country back road. Gilberte drove as fast as she could along the narrow lane. Flick’s eyes apprehensively raked the road ahead. It rose and fell over low hills and wound through vineyards as it made its leisurely way from village to village. Their progress was slowed by many crossroads, but the number of junctions made it impossible for the Gestapo to block every route away from Sainte-Cécile. All the same, Flick gnawed her lip, worrying about the chance of being stopped at random by a patrol. She could not explain away a man in the backseat bleeding from a bullet wound.

Thinking ahead, she realized she could not take Michel to his home. After France surrendered in 1940, and Michel was demobilized, he had not returned to his lectureship at the Sorbonne but had come back to his hometown, to be deputy head of a high school, and-his real motive-to organize a Resistance circuit. He had moved into the home of his late parents, a charming town house near the cathedral. But, Flick decided, he could not go there now. It was known to too many people. Although Resistance members often did not know one another’s addresses-for the sake of security, they revealed them only if necessary for a delivery or rendezvous-Michel was leader, and most people knew where he lived.

Back in Sainte-Cécile, some of the team must have been taken alive. Before long they would be under interrogation. Unlike British agents, the French Resistance did not carry suicide pills. The only reliable rule of interrogation was that everybody would talk in the long run. Sometimes the Gestapo ran out of patience, and sometimes they killed their subjects by overenthusiasm but, if they were careful and determined, they could make the strongest personality betray his or her dearest comrades. No one could bear agony forever.

So Flick had to treat Michel’s house as known to the enemy. Where could she take him instead?

“How is he?” said Gilberte anxiously.

Flick glanced into the backseat. His eyes were closed, but he was breathing normally. He had fallen into a sleep, the best thing for him. She looked at him fondly. He needed someone to take care of him, at least for a day or two. She turned to Gilberte. Young and single, she was probably still with her parents. “Where do you live?” Flick asked her.

“On the outskirts of town, on the Route de Cernay.”

“On your own?”

For some reason, Gilberte looked scared. “Yes, of course on my own.”

“A house, an apartment, a bedsitting room?”

“An apartment, two rooms.”

“We’ll go there.”

“No!”

“Why not? Are you scared?”

She looked injured. “No, not scared.”

“What, then?”

“I don’t trust the neighbors.”

“Is there a back entrance?”

Reluctantly, Gilberte said, “Yes, an alley that runs along the side of a little factory.”

“It sounds ideal.”

“Okay, you’re right, we should go to my place. I just… You surprised me, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry.”

Flick was scheduled to return to London tonight. She was to rendezvous with a plane in a meadow outside the village of Chatelle, five miles north of Reims. She wondered if the plane would make it. Navigating by the stars, it was extraordinarily difficult to find a specific field near a small village. Pilots often went astray-in fact, it was a miracle they ever arrived where they were supposed to. She looked at the weather. A clear sky was darkening to the deep blue of evening. There would be moonlight, provided the weather held.

If not tonight, then tomorrow, she thought, as always.

Her mind went to the comrades she had left behind. Was young Bertrand dead or alive? What about Genevieve? They might be better off dead. Alive, they faced the agony of torture. Flick’s heart seemed to convulse with grief as she thought again that she had led them to defeat. Bertrand had a crush on her, she guessed. He was young enough to feel guilty about secretly loving the wife of his commander. She wished she had ordered him to stay at home. It would have made no difference to the outcome, and he would have remained a bright, likable youth for a little longer, instead of a corpse, or worse.

No one could succeed every time, and war meant that when leaders failed, people died. It was a hard fact, but still she cast about for consolation. She longed for a way to make sure their suffering was not in vain. Perhaps she could build on their sacrifice and get some kind of victory out of it after all.

She thought about the pass she had stolen from Antoinette and the possibility of getting into the château clandestinely. A team could enter disguised as civilian employees. She swiftly dismissed the idea of having them pose as telephone operators: it was a skilled job that took time to learn. But anyone could use a broom.