Böhm brought a pair of fold-up metal chairs in from the corridor and set them by Henri’s cot.
“My apologies, Monsieur Fiocca, I should say two visitors.” He looked over his shoulder. “Monsieur, Madame…”
A shuffling of feet and Henri’s father and sister edged into the room. Gabrielle gave a little shriek and put her handkerchief over her mouth and nose, then edged toward him with her hand outstretched. His father hung back next to the door, his jaw slack and his shoulders trembling.
“I shall leave you to catch up,” Böhm said with a warm smile, and closed the door behind them.
Henri could not move, did not feel like speaking.
His sister tottered to his bedside then collapsed to her knees with a wail. “What has she done to you? Oh God, have mercy on us!”
His father collapsed heavily onto one of the chairs. Henri studied Gabrielle with his remaining good eye. She lifted her hand again and managed, briefly, to touch his shoulder. Henri was not sure if he was clothed or not. They always stripped him before they beat him, sometimes they redressed him afterward, at other times they did not. He’d long since ceased to care.
“Tell them what you know, Henri.” That was his father’s voice, a cracked version of it anyway. “Böhm says he has already captured most of the Resistance network in Marseille. He just wants you to talk about Nancy, where she might be, what you know of her plans.”
“Then he will let you go!” Gabrielle squeaked. “He will let us take you back to the house and nurse you. God, Henri, haven’t you suffered enough for her?”
Henri licked his lips, finally understanding. They blamed Nancy. They thought it was her fault that he was lying here, barely conscious, torn by the whips, his fingers broken, his fingernails gone and his face hardly recognizable. They thought it was her fault. How could he have sprung from such people? The Gestapo had done this to him. The power lust of a group of deluded zealots who had somehow managed to poison their own nation, then spread that poison abroad. The Nazis who had used fear and flattery to hold France, his beloved glorious France, under their jackboot.
He did not have the strength to explain this to them. He’d leave that task to other men and women, or to God.
“Leave me alone.”
Gabrielle twisted round to look at their father. She looked half crazed.
“Papa! Make him see! What does it matter anyway now that whore has run away?”
“Henri, you must think of your family,” his father said.
She had escaped, then. Henri had not been sure when Böhm had told him she’d slipped through his net. He thought it might have been a trick to make him talk, tell him Nancy’s secrets. And God knew, he did want to talk about her. But Gabrielle could not have played a trick like that, she was not an actress. Nancy was free.
The pain was still there, but Henri felt something else. Peace perhaps. Yes, that was it. He had never been much of a one for religion, and Nancy loathed any mention of God, but Henri sensed something beyond his pain now, a place cool and quiet which would welcome him when the time came. And perhaps that was close enough.
“You are not fit to touch the hem of my wife’s skirts,” he said. He hoped that was what he said—it was getting harder and harder to form any intelligible words. “Now leave me, both of you, leave me in peace.”
Gabrielle cried, his father raged and pleaded, but it meant nothing to him. He observed them from a great height, their words muffled and meaningless.
He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were gone. Böhm was sitting on one of the metal chairs, staring at him.
“Disappointing!” he began. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Your family, I mean. I had hoped they’d manage to break you down at least a little. I told them to talk about the soft bed waiting for you at home, how Nancy would want you to talk to me, what harm can it do now? She’s escaped after all.”
Henri’s eyelids flickered, hungry for any crumb of news.
Böhm wrinkled his nose. “Yes, she made it to London. I hear she’s been recruited by a bunch of amateur saboteurs and criminals. Her official job is with the nursing auxiliary core, but she sounds like just the sort of woman the British army is sending over here to do their work for them. Dirty terrorists.” He sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Are you smiling, Monsieur Fiocca? It’s difficult to tell. I wouldn’t be pleased if I were you. Do you know what we do to the female spies we capture? They are begging to be shot in the end. I have seen it myself, many times.”
He stared at the blank wall above Henri’s cot as he spoke. “They last a few weeks behind enemy lines at the most, cause us at most a slight inconvenience, then we pick them up and squeeze them until they vomit up their secrets. That is what will happen to your Nancy.”
The last words came out too fiercely, too much venom. For a moment the mask cracked and with distant interest Henri observed the man behind it. Böhm hated Nancy, hated her for what she did, who she was, what she represented. A woman who did what she wanted and what she thought was right.
Nancy.
Böhm leaned forward eagerly, too hungry, too eager.
“What was that, Henri?”
“I said,” Henri managed to articulate each word with great care, “that you’ll have to catch her first.”
Böhm stood up so fast the metal chair was knocked over and collapsed behind him. This struck Henri as very funny.
Böhm strode to the door and called into the corridor. “Heller! Monsieur Fiocca is ready for you!”
That struck Henri as funny too, so he was still laughing through his broken teeth when Böhm had left and two of Heller’s men had picked him up off the cot and dragged him along the corridor to the cellar. Some of the other prisoners must have heard him, because behind him faint and croaky he heard a voice starting to sing the Marseillaise, then another, then another.
Heller grew red in the face. “Silence! Silence all of you!”
The voices continued, raw and ugly as drunks when the bars closed and just as unstoppable, and Henri laughed again. He could still hear it as they slung him into the yellow room. He lay on the blood-washed tiles, still laughing, and listened to them, the voices of his ragged angels.
21
Nancy was back in Baker Street. God, was it only six months since she’d been in this bare room trading barbs with Buckmaster? She had not been offered a chair this time. Denden was in uniform standing “at ease” with his hands clasped behind his back. Nancy was wearing the FANY uniform, hands at her side, eyes front.
“‘Wake is popular with her peers. A born leader.’” Buckmaster was reading from a fresh manila file on the fold-up table in front of him. Honestly, Nancy thought, they could get the man a proper desk.
“That’s what her file says,” Buckmaster continued, looking over to Garrow who was in his usual place, leaning against the wall. “Funny thing, though: we employ Dr. Timmons to find flaws, not praise. Then, of course, there was that unfortunate incident in Scotland before Wake and Rake—God, you sound like a poor Vaudeville act—left to complete their training at Beaulieu.”
“Yes,” Garrow replied with a sigh, “a very promising recruit named Marshall discovered at reveille, naked and tied to the flag post outside the main offices. Quite overset him for a while.”
“The names of these two were mentioned in the report, weren’t they?” Buckmaster inquired politely.
Garrow raised his eyebrows. “Yes, quite wild assertions as I recall, of attempted seduction and being clubbed over the head.”
“Poor man.”
Nancy managed not to smile. The memory of Marshall tied to the flag post was a bright, shining light in her memory. It was only a bit of a bump too—he’d been so pissed he practically fell over at the slightest touch. And it had been a mild night.
Garrow lit a cigarette. “Perhaps we’ve been duped, sir.”
He exhaled, watching as Buckmaster got to his feet and walked round the edge of the desk.
Oh shit. They were busted. Perhaps altering the files had only seemed like a good idea after a bottle of brandy. And what the hell was this? Buckmaster was drawing his side arm. He couldn’t really think…
“I’m only going to ask nicely once: whose idea was it to break in?” Buckmaster was so close to Denden that his breath made him blink. “Was it you, Rake?”
For a long second both men stayed absolutely still, then Buckmaster lifted and swung his revolver at Denden’s head, tearing the skin from the edge of his eye along the cheekbone. Denden staggered sideways into a crouch, then stood up again.
“Answer me! Did the Germans send a queer spy into our midst?”
Denden didn’t even look at him, just clasped his hands behind his back again and stared at the wall. Nancy swallowed. Was it a test? They’d all been dragged out of their beds at Beaulieu from time to time and made to answer questions on their backstory, still befuddled by sleep. Even when they recognized the instructors, the confusion of those moments was enough to panic some. But they’d never been violent—rough maybe, but not this. Did he really think they were spies?
Buckmaster moved behind her, making her skin creep, then stood directly in front of her and placed the barrel of his revolver against her forehead.
“Or did they send a woman?” He had gone mad. Why wasn’t Garrow intervening? This was insane.
“Who was it? Who?” She watched as he cocked the pistol and began to squeeze the trigger. “LAST CHANCE! WHO?”
Nancy stared straight at him. Click.
And the world didn’t end. They were still in the room. The gun was empty. Buckmaster nodded and holstered his side arm again.
“Good show,” he said lightly as he returned to his seat. “Do sit down, both of you.”
Jesus mother-fucking son of a bitch. Nancy wasn’t sure if she sat down or fell down. Garrow stepped forward and gave Denden a handkerchief. Nancy couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if Denden wasn’t just wiping the blood off his face but making sure the handkerchief was thoroughly ruined in the process.
“Silence can work for men. The Gestapo will assume a male foreign agent has plentiful strategic information, so may keep you alive long enough for you to manage an escape. But, Miss Wake, the Nazis aren’t as forward thinking about the use and capacities of females as we are. Neither are the French, come to think of it. They will kill you or send you straight to the camps. A woman must ingratiate herself. Play the part, grovel, cry, sleep with them if you have to. Swallow your pride because the bullets will be real and you are no use to me dead.”
Nancy nodded, because he was waiting for her to nod. She wasn’t above flirting her way through checkpoints and fluttering her eyelashes at men she’d cheerfully murder, but there were limits, for God’s sake, and playing the fuckable princess was beyond that limit. Her limit.
“You have a mission for us then, sir?” Denden said, handing the handkerchief back to Garrow who looked at it with distress.
“Yes. And as you seem to have decided you are a team during training, we’re sending you together. You’ll share the rank of captain, but as your radio man, Rake will report to you, Nancy. Garrow, the map, please.”
Garrow laid it out across the table. It was the sort of map tourist guides printed for motorists before the war, but this was scattered with “X”s, each followed by a short numerical code.
“Each ‘X’ represents an active SOE operation,” Buckmaster said, a certain pride creeping into his voice. “Smuggling in Paris, foundering U-boats in Cannes. Even got a team who blew up a munitions factory in Toulouse last week.”
“Where are we going, sir?” Nancy asked.
“You’re assigned to the Auvergne,” Buckmaster said, studying her face and seemingly pleased at what he saw. “Not far from Vichy, teeming with Germans. Harsh weather, rains all the time, impossible terrain, befitting the Resistance who operate there: the Maquis name themselves after scrub brush because they’re so hard to kill, or control. Your first mission is to establish command over the largest band of Maquis in the region. They’re led by Major Gaspard.”
“Who is a puffed-up, one-eyed prick,” Garrow added.
“And he despises the SOE,” Buckmaster continued smoothly. “Fears that once we clear out the Boche we’re planning to keep France for ourselves. Last thing he wants is to work with you, but he’s also low on supplies, so that’s your carrot.”
“What if he doesn’t take it?” she asked.
“Make him. You’ll bring him to heel or die trying. He’s tactically sloppy. Brave, but he’ll waste his men and our money without a firm guiding hand. That’s you. The Auvergne is crucial for moving resources throughout France. We must make it impossible for the Germans to get their men and machines through the area quickly.”
“We’ll be sabotaging the transport routes?” Denden asked, perky as a spaniel again.
“Exactly,” Buckmaster replied. “The key to the success of this invasion is preventing the Nazis from resupplying their men on the new front. We’re working damn hard to make sure they won’t know which direction we are coming from, but once we land they’ll scramble everything to counterattack. That means we have to slow them down everywhere and the Auvergne is crucial to that. Take out the railway bridges, knock out communications, make them scared of their own shadows and you’ll be doing the work of the angels.”
The excitement shivered through Nancy. She was going to be there. Finally.
“When do we ship out?” she asked.
“In a week,” Buckmaster said. “Until then you’ll be in one of our London safe houses studying the maps of the area and plans of the major targets until you can draw them in your sleep. And you’re not shipping out, Wake. Why do you think we bothered training you to jump out of airplanes? Rake, you’re flying into the outskirts of Montluçon on a Lysander. There’s a burned-out operator we need to pick up, and you’ll be using their radio. Nancy, you’re parachuting in nearer Gaspard’s group. One of our men in the area, Southgate, will be in the reception committee and he’ll get you to Gaspard. Charm him until Denden gets there with the radio.” He looked at Nancy again. “Something wrong, Captain Wake?”
Nancy swallowed. “No, sir. Only, I haven’t really enjoyed jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.”
Buckmaster opened his eyes wide and blinked. “Really? But you scored so well on your jump training.”
22
That last drink at the Astor had been a mistake. Or maybe it was the one before that. Perhaps the error was switching to whisky. The Liberator lurched as the ack-ack burst in the air and the pressure pushed the plane sideways. What happens if you throw up in an oxygen mask at fifteen thousand feet? Nothing good. Nancy swallowed hard and groaned, knowing that at least no one would hear her in the thundering noise of the plane and the exploding air. The Spam sandwiches and coffee before take-off—that was her mistake right there. She could feel them churning in her stomach. What the hell did they put in Spam anyway and why were the British so bloody proud of being able to eat it? She grabbed at the ribs of the fuselage as it dropped and bounced. Yup. Definitely the Spam sandwiches’ fault. Another burst, closer this time, and the plane seemed to fall hard and fast, uncontrolled. Her eardrums sang and her chest tightened. The engines whined and then roared, and suddenly they were climbing again. She slid forward and scrabbled for purchase with her feet against the riveted panels. Sharp roll right and another deafening bang as if God himself had thrown his fist against the side of the plane. Not now. Not before she even got to France. Please. Her hip slammed against metal and she gasped as the pain shot through her. Then the plane began to level out and the engine noise lowered in pitch. The explosions were more distant. She took long, slow breaths, slowly released her grip on the rib. Her hand was cramping. It looked strange to her without her wedding ring. They�
�d insisted she take it off for the jump, and it was the first time she’d done so since Henri put it on her finger. The pale skin looked like a scar.
The dispatcher came through to check on her and tapped at his watch to show they were half an hour out from the drop zone. She checked the straps of her parachute and the bandages wrapped round her ankles. In the pocket of her camel-hair coat her fingers brushed the smooth metal of the compact Buckmaster had given her. A nice little parting gift that, the sweetie. Catching herself thinking fondly of a man who had held a pistol to her head only a week before made her shake her head, and the plane began to drop at the same time. She tasted Spam in the back of her throat and swallowed again. If ever there was a time she’d be willing to jump out of a fucking plane it was right now.
She’d told the dispatcher to give her a shove, and he took her at her word. One minute she was in the rattling whirring belly of the plane, staring out of the Joe hole at the flicker of the signal bonfires and the discreet flashes of a torch, and the next she was out in the cold and falling.
The parachute snapped open and she felt the fierce tug of the straps on her shoulders and waist and across her thighs. Relief first, then a moment of calm. The moonlit landscape lay below her, the rise and fall of the mountains, the steep silhouettes against the sky, the peace of it, the fires and… oh Christ, all the trees.
The earth was approaching pretty bloody fast.
She yanked on the cord, trying to aim for open ground. Nearly there, and then a casual whip of a breeze pushed her south and back over the tree line. Time up.
She pulled her knees to her chest and tucked in her chin as she felt the top-most branches grabbing at her in the darkness. Gravity took the chance to make it perfectly clear who was boss in the end. Nothing she could do about it now. The brittle hands of the trees grabbed and jabbed at her till the chute caught, the harness jerked her again and she was stopped dead.
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