Liberation

by Imogen Kealey

  No time for that.

  “I’d be happy to explain,” she said.

  The Maquisards watched as Denden put the radio receiver together and Nancy sat on the grass next to the set, watching them. Undernourished the lot of them, and it didn’t look as if they were taking proper care of their weapons—not that they had many. Mostly they were very, very young. Early twenties. They should have been chasing girls in the villages and annoying the graybeards, not rotting up here in the forest, dodging the Germans trying to draft them into factory work in the Reich, or preparing to sacrifice themselves to drive them out of France. Nancy once more felt that wave of anger she had felt in Vienna and Berlin rising in her throat. The world was already a broken, violent place; why did the Nazis have to make it worse with their poison? That rally she had witnessed in Berlin—the wild abandon on the faces of the people in the crowd as they screamed their enthusiasm for the unreasoning hate spilling from the stage.

  “It’s time, Nancy,” Denden said.

  She pulled herself out of the clamor of that sweating auditorium and into the heavy peace of the Auvergne forests. “Switch it on,” she said.

  A hiss of static, then a voice broke through. “This is London,” the voice said in French, and the men lifted their heads, Fournier turning toward them. “The French talking to the French. But first some personal messages. Jean has a long mustache. There is a fire at the insurance agency.” The Maquis exchanged bemused glances. “The frog croaks thrice.” A couple of them laughed.

  Nancy grinned. “This isn’t gibberish. It’s code. London confirming with agents like me across France that parachute drops are coming tonight. It can bring you canned meat and juice. Chocolate and cigarettes.”

  “French cigarettes?” one of the Maquis asked.

  “Son, you look too young to smoke, but yes, French cigarettes.” The boy blushed. “And French tents to protect you from the French rain and boots to tramp through the French mud.” They were all grinning at her now. Well, all except Fournier. “Best of all we can supply you with arms, plans and intelligence. Sten machine guns, plastic explosive, timed detonators, grenades, revolvers, a target list so we know exactly where to hit the Germans where it will hurt most, and plans on how to take them out.”

  Fournier lit a cigarette and blew a thin stream of smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “And you just give us this, yes? Out of the kindness of your English hearts?”

  Any more of a sneer and he’d pull something. Bloody Frenchmen, Nancy thought. Sure, she’d married one of them, but en masse they were the most pig-headed, touchy…

  “There’s no charge, Fournier,” she said, meeting his eye, “if that’s what you mean. You won’t have to sell your best pig to get hold of a case of machine guns.”

  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”

  She nodded. “All requests to London go through me. And I’ve seen how the English are sweating and bankrupting themselves to get you this stuff, so no bloody way I’m going to see it wasted. I’m going to train you in how to use these weapons, I’m going to insist on proper security measures and I’m going to rain merry hell on anyone who can’t keep up. You’ll launch no attacks without the nod from me, and remember this is all about getting ready for when the Allies invade and liberate France, so no settling scores or pursuing vendettas. We coordinate.”

  “We’re not your bitches,” Fournier growled.

  “And I’m not yours. We work together. That’s the deal. Now tell me what you need and let us deliver you… salvation.”

  The men all looked to Fournier. He didn’t smile, but he did nod. The men relaxed. Fournier pulled a neat black notebook out of his top pocket.

  “I have a list of things we need, Captain.”

  He still managed to say her rank as if it hurt him to make the sounds, but it was a start and hey—still not knocked out or tied to a chair.

  “Let’s go through it then,” Nancy said, then twisted round to Denden. “Think you can put your box of tricks away for now. Go make friends.”

  “Ooh good, you can be strict Mummy and I can be Daddy who spoils his pretty French children.” She flinched. “What did I say, darling?”

  “Nothing. Get going.”

  27

  Buckmaster raised his eyebrows when he saw the message from Nancy. Garrow recognized the gesture as the equivalent of some men going into full cardiac arrest.

  “At least she’s alive, sir.”

  “Yes. There is that. Though of course I sent her to establish links with Gaspard, and she’s holed up with the dregs on the plateau. Southgate taken too. That is a blow.”

  He continued to stare at the paper.

  “I’m sure, sir, with this list she is aiming high. She can’t possibly expect us to drop all of this for a ragtag group such as Fournier’s. Let me revise it to something more in keeping.”

  Garrow reached out to take the decoded message back, but Buckmaster gave a tiny shake of his head.

  “We don’t second-guess our men or women in the field, Garrow. Not unless we have good reason. Perhaps Captain Wake is overreaching, but it is just as possible that she intends to put on a show for her new friends, and possibly for Gaspard too. She certainly knows how to make an impression.”

  “For Gaspard, sir?”

  Buckmaster laid down the sheet and started carefully stuffing his pipe. “You read the reports Southgate managed to send before he was taken. They all know which of their rivals have taken a shit before the privy door has banged. If we make this drop…” He paused stuffing his pipe to point the stem at the paper in front of him. “Gaspard and all his crew will know about our munificence by breakfast. Give her all of it. And add her care package.”

  Garrow retrieved the message from his table with a nod. Then cleared his throat.

  “Yes, Garrow?”

  “May I impress on her the time factor, sir?”

  Buckmaster held a match to his pipe and inhaled in short little huffs until he had the tobacco burning as he wanted. “Yes. Tell her to knock them into shape quickly. By whatever means necessary. She has six weeks to make those men into a useful fighting force.”

  Garrow left the office with a spring in his step, or something like it. For the first time since he had escaped France he felt a surge of excitement. The invasion of France was coming. Soon. Six weeks wasn’t a number Buckmaster had just pulled out of the air. He glanced out of the window. Below him Baker Street was stirring into life. He looked at the sandbags, the tape on the windows, and wondered what the street would look like when the war was done—the lights on, men in suits rather than uniform, women like Nancy back to shopping for dinner parties rather than queuing for necessities, and Hitler and all the hate and misery he stood for nothing but a memory. He wished he was out there again, but though his French was good, he still spoke it with a Scottish accent. He’d spent those months in the south running escape routes, having languished for a year in a prisoner of war camp. It had been an accident, and he’d got away with it only through the winking negligence of a few officials and sheer luck. When the Germans had arrived in the south the friendly officials had begun to disappear and his luck had dried up. Still, at least his knowledge of the country and the language was of use in “D” section, and he understood what Nancy and agents like her were up against. And soon, very soon, all the plans they had been making, all the people they had smuggled in behind enemy lines, would be put into action.

  “The game’s afoot,” he said to himself with a wry smile. “Now what the hell do I put in Nancy’s care package?”

  “Talking to yourself, Captain?” said Vera Atkins as she climbed the stairs, her handbag over one arm. “First sign of madness, you know.”

  “I would have thought the first sign of madness was working here, Miss Atkins. Now, I need your advice.”

  28

  Nancy was having a shitty night. A brilliant, victorious, glorious, but still epically shitty night. The landing site on the flank of the plateau was perfe
ct for a drop, and she’d managed to shriek and bully Fournier and his men until they got the signal fires built and lit. The exchange of torch code with the aircraft had gone fine, and the moonlit sky had filled with a gratifyingly large number of parachutes. Tardivat would be able to sew his wife a ball gown or seven out of this lot. Fournier was impressed. Surprised, impressed, if not a bit shaken up by the success, which was exactly what Nancy wanted. So of course he had to prove he was top dog, even while his men were still staring up at the sky like shepherds watching the angels announce the holy birth.

  Nancy was coordinating the men, removing the parachutes and carrying the heavy containers to the two waiting carts. Fournier strolled into the middle of the landing site as the last parachute was deflating and opened the container right out in the open. He fished out a carton of cigarettes, waving them over his head, then tore out a pack, fished out a fag and lit it, all in the time it took Nancy to cross the pasture behind him. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the other men—no way to hold them back now, splitting open containers and handing round the contents. Damn it. Some of them had found bottles of brandy and were already working out the corks.

  “You’re dead, Fournier,” Nancy said. He turned and found himself looking into the barrel of her revolver.

  Another Maquis, one of the former members of the Spanish freedom brigade now fighting alongside Fournier, wandered over to see the fun, and handed Fournier the bottle of brandy. He took it and swallowed a good pull then took another drag on his cigarette. A long inhale and exhale.

  “Then at least I die happy.”

  Nancy’s trigger finger itched. “You think the Germans don’t notice our planes coming over? They aren’t as thick as you. We’ve got an hour, maybe two, to get all of this stuff out of here and cover the fire sites or we’re blown. And you’re having a cigarette out in the middle of a sodding field.”

  He inhaled again and blew the smoke right in her face, then yawned. “Just enjoying our new friendship, Captain.” Then he turned away again. “Right then, lads. Let’s get this shit home.”

  And that was that—they were taking orders from him again now. Nancy remembered what one of her instructors in Beaulieu had told her. Never pull your gun unless you are going to use your gun. Shit. She holstered the weapon and got her hands under the container, great metal tubes six foot long and heavy as all hell. The Spaniard looked confused: a well-brought-up lad wouldn’t want to see a woman struggle with something heavy on her own, but he couldn’t work out the power play. Fournier gave him a nod and he took the other end. Nancy raged in herself. These men. At least she looked better carrying the gear rather than just watching while Fournier ordered the men around, but he’d won this round. And so easily, while she had to be perfect every moment not to slither back down in their opinion.

  Denden brought her the care package while she was sulking over a fire on the edge of the encampment just before dawn. He approached with exaggerated care, which would have made her laugh normally, but not today. Fournier’s men were gathered under the edge of the tree line, working their way through the brandy and fags. At least the guns, explosives and ammo were safely stowed and Tardivat had commandeered the parachute silk. As the men drank, a few of them glanced toward her. She could tell by the muddled, schoolboy laughter that they were talking about her. Denden caught her eye as she looked up, her face warm with the firelight, and dropped the pantomime creep.

  “Present from Baker Street for you,” he said.

  She took it, a square package wrapped in thick hessian and string, with her code name, Hélène, on a rectangular postcard. He sat down on the ground next to her and pulled a bottle of brandy from under his coat, took a long pull then offered it to her. It was good brandy, but it burned her throat and seemed to chill rather than warm her.

  “Open your present, then let’s get smashed,” he said.

  She didn’t bother smiling, but cut away the string and undid the wrapping. The note she shoved into her pocket; it was too dark to read it anyway, but the gift made her smile. Cold cream, a Parisian make, very expensive, just what she would use to remove her makeup after a night out with Henri in the clubs of Marseille. She unscrewed the lid and held it to her nose. Just a subtle suggestion of rose and lavender. She was there for a moment, in their bedroom, her silk dressing gown whispering around her as she left her dressing table and walked toward Henri in bed, in their warm soft bed, looking at her with love, with hunger. Her throat closed and for a moment she was afraid she was going to cry.

  “I’m beginning to think,” Denden said, his words slurring just a tiny amount, “that Buckmaster might have been a bit off sending a woman and a queer to beat these horrible boys into shape.” He hiccupped. “Not that I’m unwilling to give it a go.”

  “How come they get to laugh with each other, get pissed and fight together, they can even cry together, damn them,” she said, “but me, no. If I slip for one second…”

  She took the bottle again and drowned the curl of self-pity in her belly.

  “Give that back, you witch,” Denden said and grabbed it out of her hand.

  “They can’t decide if they want to murder me, sleep with me, protect me or worship me, Denden.”

  “Isn’t that always the way between boys and girls? They want your body, but they are scared of it too.” He passed back the bottle. “You’re going to have to be their sister, somehow. None of the other roles available to you will work.”

  “Roles?”

  “Darling, I’ve been in theater all my life. Everything’s a role, a mask. Just remember we are so busy hiding behind our own masks that we are generally crap at noticing everyone else is just a bad actor in their own story too.”

  Nancy stood up, hating everyone. “I’m going for a swim.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Denden said, his voice growing sleepy. “I think I’m drunk enough to pass out now.” He pulled his jacket around himself and settled onto the ground. “Thank you, Buckmaster, for one night’s rest at least.”

  Fournier’s camp was cold, wet and, until tonight at least, poorly equipped, but camping up here did have one big advantage. At the base of a slope ten minutes downhill was a pool, fed by one of the hot springs that gave Chaudes-Aigues its name. Dawn was just creeping up the valley as Nancy pulled off her loose combat trousers and unbuttoned her shirt. Then she stepped out of her knickers and unhooked her brassiere. Every stitch made in France, and any English laundry marks cut out by the staff at Baker Street. She stepped cautiously into the water. The surface was cold, but just below it she found a warm current.

  It worked its way around her muscles, those new sinewy muscles she’d developed in the weeks of physical training. For a moment she laughed. When war was declared in September 1939, Nancy had been staying at the Savoy in London, on her way to a health resort in Hampshire to lose those extra pounds she’d accrued eating lobster in butter sauce and drinking champagne with Henri.

  Would he recognize her now? He might like this new figure, she thought. Still a good pair of tits, but her hips were narrower, the soft pillow of her belly had gone, leaving it flat and hard to the touch, and her arms were sharply defined. Dressed as a French housewife, she looked like a young woman who’d been living on short rations for four years; naked, she looked like an Amazon.

  She dived down into the water, let it take her weight and felt the tension ease slowly out of her bones. She considered her conversation with Denden. What did she need to be in these men’s eyes to lead them? A sister to tease and protect, a lover to defend or a goddess to worship? Goddess wouldn’t work. Too remote. She needed to trust and be trusted. A lover? What if she did take one of the lads off into the woods? Perhaps she could find a potential lion among Fournier’s men and seduce him into becoming her champion. She dived again, testing herself to see how long she could hold her breath. No. She might gain one ally that way, but she’d lose the rest. And the idea of any man other than Henri touching her… No.

  She br
oke the surface and filled her lungs with the morning air. The dawn was upon her now and she looked around at the steep wooded slopes of the mountains, the clearing sky and the shivering leaves with wonder. She swam lazily over to the rock where she had left her clothes, then she saw a shiver in the undergrowth where no breezes reached. An animal? There were wild boar in the forests, but she hadn’t seen any of their trails near here and nothing else living in the forest was big enough to shake the bushes that much. Except men. Could a German patrol have come this far into the woods? A villager? But there wasn’t a farm or hamlet for a mile.

  Still in the water, she snatched her revolver out from under the towel and pointed it toward the movement, her free hand gripping on to the high rocks around the pool.

  “Show yourselves!” The bushes stayed still. Had she imagined it? A couple of nights of bad sleep and she had started seeing things. Then she remembered that schoolboy laughter around the camp fire and suddenly she understood. “Now, you little shits, unless you want to risk a bullet!”

  She let off one round, aiming high. It thwacked into the bark of a young oak with a satisfying punch.

  From the bushes, three men emerged. The Spaniards—three of the men who had actually had fighting experience. She had thought better of them. They held their hands above their heads.

  “Rodrigo, Mateo and Juan,” she said, enunciating their names very clearly. “You stupid bastards. Let me get this straight. You boys survived a civil war in Spain, came all the way here to fight the fascists, and I could’ve shot you dead—for what?”

  She stepped out of the water, still keeping her gun on them and moving slowly. No way was she going to slip. They flushed, stared, their eyes fluttering all over her flesh, those muscled arms, the swell of her breasts, the dark brown fur between her legs. She let them look, felt them suck in the sight of her. Then, as she remained there, still silent and with a revolver pointing right at them, she felt them growing confused. Their eyes finally returned to hers and their shame flared in their faces.