by Amy McAuley
I scramble up, righting the bike and glancing around to make sure no one witnessed my clumsy fall. Of course, there’s Pierre, strolling out the barn door.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m fine.” I sweep my throbbing skinned knee clean with my hand. Wheeling the bike toward him, I say, “Can you do me a favor and tell Denise I’m running a little late? I’ll be around back in a few minutes.”
“Denise isn’t here.”
I lean my bike against the barn. “I have a crucial and time-sensitive message for her to transmit to London. She’s waiting at her radio.”
“No, I have been in and out of this barn all day, and Denise isn’t here.”
“She must be with the cats then.”
“Once again, she is not here.”
“In the house?”
Pierre’s huffy exhale borders on a growl.
“All right, all right. Wait right there.” I cast my finger at his feet like a wand, as if that might freeze them in place.
I run around the barn. A crescent-shaped row of bushes buffers the fallen log from view. I round the first shrub. Our meeting place is empty. I drop to my scraped hands and knees to check the fallen log.
Both Denise and her transmitter are missing.
I race back to Pierre. Incredibly, he obeyed my command to stay.
“She wasn’t there.”
“Sorry, I should have told you that.”
“Pierre, something isn’t right. Her transmitter is gone. Where could she be?”
“The last time I saw her, she was going somewhere with that downed pilot, Frank.”
“Frank?” I cringe at the mention of him. “Where were they going?”
“I have no idea. What Denise does is none of my concern.”
“What did you see?”
“I have things to do, Adele.”
“Please, Pierre. Denise wouldn’t miss a transmission. Tell me what you saw. Any detail that sticks out in your mind.”
“They were going into the woods by the stream, looking rather friendly. Frank had his hand on Denise’s back.” Pierre’s ordinarily beautiful lips take on a leering smile. “It can be easy to lose track of time.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter. There is nothing romantic going on between them. She can hardly stand him.”
“I don’t blame her. He has only two things on his mind, automobiles and baseball. We could talk for hours about cars, if he weren’t so strange, but what do I know about baseball and his beloved Boston Yankees? I’ve taken to avoiding him.”
“I do know baseball,” I say. “And believe me, he did not combine the words ‘Boston’ and ‘Yankees’ in the same sentence. The Sox sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees. He must have said either the Boston Red Sox or the New York Yankees.”
Pierre shrugs his shoulders, as if I spoke gibberish. “He said the Boston Yankees. The mistake isn’t mine. How could I jumble proper team names if I don’t know any?”
“But that makes no sense at all. There isn’t a self-respecting American boy or man alive who would make that mistake.”
Our heads snap up in unison.
“It makes sense if Frank is pretending to be an American pilot.”
“We have to find her!”
Pierre clutches my hand. I sprint alongside him.
“Did Shepherd bring him to the farm?” I cry.
“Yes, but Bishop questioned him about his squadron, air base, and personnel. He passed.”
“Bishop’s a Brit. He wouldn’t know the sorts of questions that might trip him up. Frank wouldn’t pass my test.”
At the stream, Pierre’s grip on my hand clamps down, crushing my fingers, knuckle against knuckle. He pulls me to a stop. Pain shoots across my shoulder blade. Wrenching downward on my arm, he sends me earthbound like a sack of potatoes.
I had nearly burst straight into the clearing where Frank sits bent over Denise’s radio.
Pierre taps my chin to the left. A few paces in front of us, Denise is gagged and bound with rope to the opposite side of a tree.
“You take care of Denise, I’ll get Frank,” Pierre whispers.
That’s the extent of his plan. He leaps to his feet. All of a sudden, Frank and Pierre are entangled in a wrestling match on the ground.
I run to untie Denise.
Grunting through the torn fabric gag, she lifts her shoe. Eyes widening, foot swaying, she grunts louder, as if that might help me understand. Somehow it does.
“The dagger!”
Denise’s eyes bulge. She screams incoherently through the gag.
I remove the blade from the shoe and hack at the rope. Denise strains against the bonds until the weakened cord frays to its breaking point. She rips the gag free.
Frank slugs his fist into Pierre’s stomach hard enough to stagger him. His punches connect again, pummeling Pierre’s ribcage. Pierre seems only seconds from collapse. Frank must think so too because he confidently drops his hands. Pierre pounces on the opening. His swinging fist plows into Frank’s jaw with an audible crack.
Frank’s entire body stiffens, hands clenched at his sides. Like a tree, he crashes to the ground, out for the count.
Denise doesn’t give up the opportunity to kick him while he’s down.
“That’s for thinking you could steal my radio.” Her foot deals his thigh another blow. “That’s for boring me to tears!”
Denise still holds the rope that bound her to the tree. With it, Pierre lashes Frank’s wrists behind his back.
“Adele, take Denise to the house.”
“I will.”
Denise seems perfectly fine until halfway to the farmhouse. Then between one glance and the next, her composure melts like hot candle wax.
“Want to take my arm?” I offer.
“No, no, I’ll be all right.”
I hold her arm to keep her on track.
“Denise, you’re really pale now.” Her hair, sopped with sweat, lays plastered to her cheeks. “We can rest. Do you want to sit a while?”
“No, no.” Her feet shuffle to a stop. “Well, all right.”
We take a break on the fallen log within our meeting place.
“I thought I was a goner. If it hadn’t been for you and Pierre—” She slaps her knee. “What a bloody fool I am. He nearly got my radio. He intended to impersonate me to communicate with SOE headquarters in London.”
Every radio operator has a personal style of hammering out the Morse code dots and dashes, called his or her “fist.”
“You showed him how to use your radio?”
“He had a gun on me. I did everything I could think of to make the transmission suspect. I even dropped my security check at the beginning. I thought that would tip them off. Do you know what they transmitted back to me?”
“I’m not sure I really want to know.”
“Their reply to my transmission under duress was, ‘You forgot to include your security check, dear. Next time be more careful.’ Can you believe that?”
“You’re joking.”
“If only,” she says. “Of course, then Frank realized I wasn’t being straight with him, which made him angry.” She shakes her head in pained disbelief. “The spelling error I deliberately insert into messages is supposed to prove to headquarters that I’m operating the radio. Any change to that error signals that I’m in danger and the radio has fallen into enemy hands. That’s their rule. And they not only completely ignored the rule, they told the enemy that our transmissions have a secret security check.”
If Frank had done his job slightly better he would have tapped into the flow of classified communication between Denise’s radio and SOE headquarters. And a mistake by headquarters would have helped him do just that.
To Frank, Denise was nothing more than a nuisance. Another meddling agent standing between him and a radio. Her life holds less value than an object. That she’s a good and caring person—that she’s my best friend—none of that matters.
Denise and I came into
this mission as a duo. I can’t fathom us not leaving together. Or not leaving at all.
THIRTY-THREE
Denise lowers a spoonful of her breakfast porridge, listening to the creaks and groans of the staircase as someone descends to the kitchen.
When Bishop enters the room, suitcase in hand, she says, “Bishop, I want to blow something up!”
“Denise, you are one of the few transmitters in all of France who hasn’t been killed or imprisoned. We can’t lose you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch. With my rotten luck, they will blow the line to Caen before I even board. What will I do then?”
I munch on my bread, thinking, Ride a bicycle, perhaps? Just a thought.
Undeterred, Denise blocks his path. “It’s been four days since we were put on standby for D-day. The second line of the poem will be read in tonight’s messages. I feel it!”
Sidestepping her, he says, “You don’t know when the Allied invasion is coming any better than the rest of us. I have it on good authority the weather along the Channel has been abysmal; heavy rain and pea-soup fog. If anything, there will be a delay. Consider for a moment how vital you are. Be logical about it now. You are the link between SOE operations in France and headquarters in London. Without you, without your transmissions, headquarters would be running blind. Take a moment to think about that.”
I don’t see a great deal of thought going on behind Denise’s stare.
“Now I ask you, have you given that some serious consideration? Do you understand how vital it is that you remain hidden and safe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent!” He gives her a swift pat on the back. “I’m off. Cheerio, ladies.”
With that, Bishop is out the door. Through the dusty windowpane, I watch him march to the vegetable garden where Madame LaRoche tends to her plants as if they’re the small children she no longer has. She hastily calms her frazzled hair for his benefit before brushing her hands free of dirt.
Denise drops into the chair across the table from me. “I have been here a month without firing a single bullet. It’s not fair.”
“Bishop’s right, though, Denise,” I say. “After the close call you had, don’t you think you should lie low?”
“I’m fine. And I’m not here to hide. I’m here to make hell for the Germans.”
I try not to laugh at her exaggerated pout, but it’s hopeless. A chunk of dry bread nearly lodges in my throat. “Bishop’s gone. See what you can do.”
I smack my chest to send the leftover crumbs down.
“Denise, I almost forgot to give this to you.” From my breast pocket, I remove the rigid square of paper I feel beneath my hand.
She dutifully unfolds it, probably expecting boring notes or instructions.
“Oh, Adele,” she cries. “I don’t know what to say. It’s beautiful.”
The sketch of Moxie and the rest of her lazy barn cats snuggling together for a nap in the hay drifts to the table. Squealing, she gives me a bone-squashing hug.
And I hug her back.
Bishop should have taken Denise’s gut feeling seriously. Tonight as we hovered around the radio listening to a waveband not jammed by the Germans, we heard the second code phrase.
“Blessent mon coeur d’une langueur monotone.”
Denise leaped out of her chair. “I knew it! Tonight is the night!” She mussed Marcus’s hair with a brisk kiss. “That’ll teach you to take a wager from an intuitive woman. Pay up, my boy.”
With Bishop out of the picture, Denise ignored his order to stay put. She hopped right in the back of the truck with Gus, Marcus, and three men from the group I trained earlier.
Up front where Pierre and I sit, I keep a sharp lookout.
A full night of sabotage awaits not only us, but all Resistance members, no matter how separated and cut off we are from each other. A common goal will unite us for one long night.
“The fifth of June,” Pierre says. “This is it, Adele. This is the beginning.”
The world is about to change drastically, within hours, for better or worse. This is the beginning. But how will it end?
Once Pierre has parked the truck within some trees near the rail line, we unload our supplies and set off toward our targets.
Moments later, when the metal bridge becomes visible in the skyline, Pierre stops our group. With a beckoning wave, he chooses me as his demolition partner, and I follow him.
Under a muted aubergine sky, Pierre and I creep through grassy reeds as tall as my shoulders, our Sten guns slung across our backs. Denise and the Maquis men crouch in the forest out of sight, awaiting the all clear to plant charges along the bridge.
Rail sabotage creates short-term headaches for the Germans. Demolishing bridges throws a bigger monkey wrench into the works, since more men, equipment, and time are needed for the repair. Our plan is to blow the bridge we’re approaching and derail a trainload of Nazi soldiers at the same time—as long as the explosives, timers, and detonators don’t malfunction, and the train runs on time, and the line hasn’t already been blown elsewhere, and luck remains on our side. That’s not too much to ask, right?
The low bridge is an easily accessible target, but as Pierre and I discover on our patrol, it’s guarded by two sentries.
We sneak back to Denise and the men.
“Two guards,” Pierre whispers. “You see the helmet of one”—he points to the top of the slope where the bridge began—“the other is outside the gatehouse. Denise, take the bike and ride in from the opposite direction. Draw their attention to you, far down the rail. Gus and Marcus will be in position at that time to take care of them.”
A short time later, Denise rides back. When the going gets rough she jumps down and pushes the bike the rest of the way.
“Gus and Marcus took care of the sentries,” she says. “The others have begun work on the bridge. I can do a recce patrol of the area if you’d like.”
“Reconnaissance. Good idea,” Pierre says. “Don’t be away long. Adele and I will be finished soon.”
The sentry guards I saw only moments ago patrolling the tracks are no longer alive. Here one instant, gone the next; their deaths ticked off a checklist of tasks. But it’s us or them. I can’t afford to think too deeply about what we’re doing.
Destruction brings Pierre and me together like a couple of cogs in a well-oiled machine. With the rail line explosives rigged, Pierre hides in the gulch with the detonator while I race back to our meeting place in the woods.
I crouch low between the trees, lay my gun across my lap, and wait. Before long the only light comes from the stars, the moon, and lamps hanging above the gatehouses.
Within one of the rotting logs that litter the forest floor, a deathwatch beetle bangs its head against the wood in search of a mate. Superstitious people like my aunt believe the noise, which sounds remarkably like the ticking of a watch, foretells an impending death.
I think bad omens are a load of hooey.
The rumbling of a train grows louder, drowning out the beetle. I fight the urge to stir up some action too soon.
Then, as if from a magical door in the forest, a uniformed German soldier appears on the field not ten feet from me. I hold my breath, watching him with curiosity and fear.
He considers a point in the distance. Noiselessly, I lean forward.
Spying between two trees, I catch sight of a dark form, a woman on a bicycle, gliding alongside the tracks.
The soldier kneels to one knee. He nestles the buttstock of his weapon into the crook of his shoulder.
My hands don’t need light to see. They go to their places, as if the gun is an extension of my body. The silenced barrel of my Sten rises in front of me.
And I hit my target.
THIRTY-FOUR
I see the explosions take place through a gauzy veil of dreamlike shock. I stagger around the body of the dead soldier, aware enough to remember that if the gun’s silencer touches my skin it will burn.
The first
train car shoots off the tracks and lands overturned in the gully. In a chain reaction, the cars slam into the one next in line. The bridge collapses with great grinding and screaming of metal. Bursts of flame gobble up the darkness. In the new light, shadows materialize out of nowhere, dancing across the field and trees like evil spirits.
Denise has left the tracks to join Pierre. They emerge from the reeds and run to me.
“We have done it,” Pierre says.
Terrified soldiers flee the burning train, leaping from windows and doors of the tilting, mangled cars.
Pierre grabs my hand. “Adele, are you well?”
“I—” I run my tongue along my lips. “I need a drink of water.”
“I have a canteen in the truck. We must go.” Pierre begins to pull me along, but then he finds the soldier in the grass. He shines a light in my face. “What happened here? Did he hurt you?”
I lower the blinding beam from my eyes. “No, I’m fine. He didn’t even see me.”
“Good.” The tender pats to my back steadily grow more professional. “Good work.”
Further explosions rock the train.
Pierre slings the German’s machine gun over his shoulder. “Let’s go. We’re wasting time.”
He holds my hand all the way back to the truck, not once letting go.
Pierre parks the truck around the side of the barn. The back doors slam shut.
There’s a chipper rapping at my window.
“Tell Denise to go in the house without you.”
My stomach flips, as if we’re on the downward coast of a Ferris wheel.
I partially open the door. “Go on without me, I’ll just be a minute.”
“But why—” Denise peers back at me with saucer eyes. “Oh, I see.”
As I shut the door, I hear her call to the men heading toward the barn, “All right, let’s give these two some privacy.”