Jackdaws

Dr. Claude Bouler had also survived, but Diana and Maude had both died in Ravensbrueck. Before she died, Diana had become a leader in the camp, according to Mademoiselle Lemas. Trading on the German weakness of showing deference to aristocracy, she had fearlessly confronted the camp commandant to complain about conditions and demand better treatment for all. She had not achieved much, but her nerve and optimism had raised the spirits of the starving inmates, and several survivors credited her with giving them the will to live.

The wedding service was short. When it was over, and Flick and Paul were husband and wife, they simply turned around and stood at the front of the church to receive congratulations.

Paul’s mother was there, too. Somehow the general had managed to get his wife on a transatlantic flying boat. She had arrived late last night, and now Flick met her for the first time. She looked Flick up and down, obviously wondering whether this girl was good enough to be the wife of her wonderful son. Flick felt mildly put out. But she told herself this was natural in a proud mother and kissed Mrs. Chancellor’s cheek with warmth.

They were going to live in Boston. Paul would take up the reins of his educational-records business. Flick planned to finish her doctorate, then teach American youngsters about French culture. The five-day voyage across the Atlantic would be their honeymoon.

Flick’s ma was there in a hat she had bought in 1938. She cried, even though it was the second time she had seen her daughter married.

The last person in the small congregation to kiss Flick was her brother, Mark.

There was one more thing Flick needed to make her happiness perfect. With her arm still around Mark, she turned to her mother, who had not spoken to him for five years. “Look, Ma,” she said. “Here’s Mark.”

Mark looked terrified.

Ma hesitated for a long moment. Then she opened her arms and said, “Hello, Mark.”

“Oh, Ma,” he said, and he hugged her.

After that, they all walked out into the sunshine.

FROM THE OFFICIAL HISTORY

“Women did not normally organize sabotage; but Pearl Witherington, a trained British courier, took over and ran an active Maquis of some two thousand men in Berry with gallantry and distinction after the Gestapo arrested her organizer. She was strongly recommended for an MC [Military Cross], for which women were held ineligible; and received instead a civil MBE, which she returned, observing she had done nothing civil.”

-M. R. D. Foot, SOE in France (HMSO, London, 1966)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For information and guidance about the Special Operations Executive, I’m grateful to M. R. D. Foot; on the Third Reich, Richard Overy; on the history of telephone systems, Bernard Green; on weapons, Candice DeLong and David Raymond. For help with research in general, I am grateful, as always, to Dan Starer of Research for Writers in New York City, Dstarer@bellatlantic.net; and to Rachel Flagg. I received much invaluable help from my editors: Phyllis Grann and Neil Nyren in New York, Imogen Tate in London, Jean Rosenthal in Paris, and Helmut Pesch in Cologne; and my agents Al Zuckerman and Amy Berkower. Several family members read the drafts and made helpful criticisms, especially John Evans, Barbara Follett, Emanuele Follett, Jann Turner, and Kim Turner.