Jackdaws

They reached the château and went to the wireless listening room in the basement. A middle-aged operator called Joachim plugged the set in and tuned it to Helicopter’s emergency frequency while Dieter scribbled the agreed message:

WHAT THE DEVIL HAPPENED? SEND INSTRUCTIONS. REPLY IMMEDIATELY.

Dieter forced himself to control his impatience and carefully show Joachim how to encode the message, including the security tags.

Goedel said, “Won’t they know it’s not Helicopter at the machine? Can’t they recognize the individual ‘fist’ of the sender, like handwriting?”

“Yes,” Joachim said. “But I’ve listened to this chap sending a couple of times, and I can imitate him. It’s a bit like mimicking someone’s accent, talking like a Frankfurt man, say.”

Goedel was skeptical. “You can do a perfect impersonation after hearing him twice?”

“Not perfect, no. But agents are often under pressure when they broadcast, in some hiding place and worried about us catching up with them, so small variations will be put down to strain.” He began to tap out the letters.

Dieter reckoned they had a wait of at least an hour. At the British listening station, the message had to be decrypted, then passed to Helicopter’s controller, who was surely in bed. The controller might get the message by phone and compose a reply on the spot, but even then the reply had to be encrypted and transmitted, then decrypted by Joachim.

Dieter and Goedel went to the kitchen on the ground floor, where they found a mess corporal starting work on breakfast, and got him to give them sausages and coffee. Goedel was impatient to get back to Rommel’s headquarters, but he wanted to stay and see how this turned out.

It was daylight when a young woman in SS uniform came to tell them that the reply had come in and Joachim had almost finished typing it.

They hurried downstairs. Weber was already there, with his usual knack of showing up where the action was. Joachim handed the typed message to him and carbon copies to Dieter and Goedel.

Dieter read:

JACKDAWS ABORTED DROP BUT HAVE

LANDED ELSEWHERE AWAIT CONTACT

FROM LEOPARDESS

Weber said grumpily, “This does not tell us much.”

Goedel agreed. “What a disappointment.”

“You’re both wrong!” Dieter said jubilantly. “Leopardess is in France-and I have a picture of her!” He pulled the photos of Flick Clairet from his pocket with a flourish and handed one to Weber. “Get a printer out of bed and have a thousand copies made. I want to see that picture all over Reims within the next twelve hours. Hans, get my car filled up with petrol.”

“Where are you going?” said Goedel.

“To Paris, with the other photograph, to do the same thing there. I’ve got her now!”

CHAPTER 32

THE PARACHUTE DROP went smoothly. The containers were pushed out first so that there was no possibility of one landing on the head of a parachutist; then the Jackdaws took turns sitting on the top of the slide and, when tapped on the shoulder by the dispatcher, slithering down the chute and out into space.

Flick went last. As she fell, the Hudson turned north and disappeared into the night. She wished the crew luck. It was almost dawn: because of the night’s delays, they would have to fly the last part of their journey in dangerous daylight.

Flick landed perfectly, with her knees bent and her arms tucked into her sides as she fell to the ground. She lay still for a moment. French soil, she thought with a shiver of fear; enemy territory. Now she was a criminal, a terrorist, a spy. If she was caught, she would be executed.

She put the thought out of her mind and stood up. A few yards away, a donkey stared at her in the moonlight, then bent its head to graze. She could see three containers nearby. Farther away, scattered across the field, were half a dozen Resistance people, working in pairs, picking up the bulky containers and carrying them away.

She struggled out of her parachute harness, helmet, and flying suit. While she was doing so, a young man ran up to her and said in breathless French, “We weren’t expecting any personnel, just supplies!”

“A change of plan,” she said. “Don’t worry about it. Is Anton with you?” Anton was the code name of the leader of the Vestryman circuit.

“Yes.”

“Tell him Leopardess is here.”

“Ah— you are Leopardess?” He was impressed.

“Yes.”

“I’m Chevalier. I’m so pleased to meet you.”

She glanced up at the sky. It was turning from black to gray. “Find Anton as quickly as you can, please, Chevalier. Tell him we have six people who need transport. There’s no time to spare.”

“Very good.” He hurried away.