Initiation

by S C Brown

  On time, the Chief Instructor’s door opened and out walked Lieutenant Colonel Smithens. Without acknowledging Eve’s presence, Smithens walked straight to Patricia to pass notes for typing, messages for dispatch and minutes for filing. Patricia’s ice melted momentarily but, seeing the smile appear on Eve’s face, returned to being the ice queen in a heartbeat.

  With the administration taken care of, Smithens rotated on his heels towards Eve. ‘Right, madam; shall we?’

  Nodding towards the door, he ushered Eve into his office and to one of the comfortable seats. Eve’s nerves eased: all the students knew an offer to sit in one of the comfortable seat was a prelude to good news. The wooden chairs were bad news and no chair was terminal.

  Eve stopped suddenly when she saw Sergeant Major Hook step from the shadows in the far corner. Hook had an assuring look about him, like a proud parent. He nodded a greeting to Eve.

  Perched in her chair, Eve watched Smithens’ limp around his desk, his fingers lightly using the edge of the desk as a guide. No one knew why he hobbled and yet remained on active service: if only those medal ribbons of his could talk.

  ‘Well, young lady, I understand you are thinking of joining the navy and defeating Germany from the shore, is that it?’ Smithens smiled from behind his greying moustache, his eyes twinkling warmly.

  ‘Sergeant Major Hook here is not, as you well know, a man who is easily pleased, but you seem to have impressed him greatly last night, despite getting caught. Escaping through that lake was the hardest way to get out and, if it was anyone else but the Sergeant Major you were running from, you probably would have escaped. Praise indeed. That was some feat of endurance - and a vital lesson learned?’

  ‘You mean about using the same rendezvous twice? Yes, lesson learned.’

  Smithens then went on to debrief Eve, taking her through every moment of the exercise she had just completed. Eve barely noticed that Smithens had switched to converse in fluent French; his French was almost as good as hers. Eve went on to describe evading the local police and MI5 in Aldershot town, secretively photographing South East Command headquarters and escaping back to the school. She was matter of fact but keen to win the approval of the officer. After all, it was he who would decide if she would go on operations to France or not. Hook and Smithens scrutinised her every word and movement, how she reacted to questions. Until then, she’d had no idea that Hook was bilingual.

  ‘You’ve done well, Eve. Very well. Anyone who gives our local police a hard time on these kind of exercises gets my applause. In fact anyone who gives the local police a hard time at any time deserves a commendation in my book.’

  Smithens was an old soldier first and spy instructor second.

  ‘You are nearly ready for operations but you’re not there yet. Tomorrow, a team from London will come down to meet you to begin “getting you into character”. It’s time to start building your cover story in preparation for going on operations. This is quite a challenging bit of the training so don’t underestimate it. Essentially, Eve, I want you to start becoming someone else. Someone whose life blends fact and fiction instinctively.’

  The words rolled out in a way that told Eve she was not the first to hear this.

  He continued: ‘Your cover will need to become first not second nature. If ever the enemy quizzes you, you will have to be utterly convincing - and you won’t leave here until you are. If you can’t master this, you’re out. I need your new identity as woven into you as the French laundry labels in the clothes we’ve ordered for you. You will wear only those clothes from now on, young lady. Understand?’

  Eve nodded eagerly. At last she knew something of her immediate future – she was being lined up to return to France. The prospect created a blaze of excitement, and she felt her cheeks blush a little.

  ‘I will be monitoring you, as will the Sergeant Major here. Your training will take on a different pace now – things are going to get faster and more demanding. Let’s hope you’re up to it. Get used to a tougher life from now on, Eve, although it’ll do you good. We’ll make you into something quite special, but mark my words, I need to you remain a refined young lady all the way through this. It’s going to be a key part of your arsenal out there, understand? Please don’t go getting all soldier-like like Hook here; Jerry will see through it in no time. Elegance, poise and mystique.’

  ‘Elegance, poise and mystique,’ repeated Eve with a smile. ‘Just like finishing school.’

  ‘Exactly. I like my ladies to be ladies. So do the Germans. Your upbringing and the training we give you will work a treat. Don’t you forget it.’ Smithens gestured to Hook. ‘Right, Sergeant Major, please carry on.’

  With a Guardsman’s ‘Sir’, Hook took a small pace forwards and inclined his head towards the door. Eve took that as her cue to leave.

  The tingle of excitement Eve felt lingered luxuriously. She wrapped her arms across her front and smiled, barely able to contain her excitement.

  ‘Good day, Patricia,’ she called out, feeling brave.

  Not even raising her eyes from her work, Patricia mumbled a reply. Eve threw her head back in silent laughter as she heard Hook guffaw beside her. The stairs creaked as they both set off down the creaking spiral staircase in unison.

  After a brief chat, Eve parted company with Hook and walked confidently towards her accommodation, striding with a new sense of purpose, her shoes scrunching loudly across the gravel. With the tall French spires of the manor house rising behind her, the prospect of a mission in France was at last before her.

  * * *

  They heard his feet hit the ground from a few hundred metres away. After sharing knowing glances, the men slung their rifles over their shoulders and walked out from the shadows and out into the field, towards the newly arrived parachutist.

  It didn’t take long to find him. On this bitterly cold and clear night, it was easy to spot Agent Saxon sitting on his parachute, peering out to the glowing red horizon. Saxon’s head spun round as he heard stubble snap underfoot.

  ‘Clement?’ whispered Saxon.

  Nothing. Still the footsteps approached. ‘Clement?’

  ‘All right, all right! I am over here, learn a little patience will you? You should have landed in the other field.’

  Saxon smiled and stood up. Lurching over the uneven ground, the barrel-chested frame of Clement, the leader of the rural Resistance group, approached. Through his white, bushy beard, Clement beamed. The men embraced as the old friends that they were.

  ‘Welcome back! You took your time, my boy, didn’t you? I said to Paul – who sends his apologies by the way – that we’d be lucky to see you again. But here you are, flesh and blood.’

  Clement leaned back to study Saxon’s face. Still the smooth, short hair with the military parting and bright, black eyes. Clement grabbed the tops of Saxon’s arms a little tighter. ‘They’ve trained you up, have they not? Very muscular.’

  Clement grinned. ‘I’ve been standing in this field for too long. It’s freezing! Coldest we’ve had it for years.’ Clement seemed to drift away before returning to the moment. ‘It’s so good to see you again. You recognise all the boys …’ Clement gestured to the shadowy men carrying rifles on their shoulders, some smiling.

  Saxon nodded to those he knew. The men looked thin and cold.

  Clement must have made the same observation. ‘Look at them. Not enough good food in their bellies, that’s the problem. Let’s get out of here and we can soon sort that out. If we walk to the road, Michel has a truck ready. The boys will see to your parachute.’

  ‘Michel’s still here?’ asked Saxon quietly as they turned and started walking.

  Reaching into one of the pockets of his favourite smock, a remnant of his days as a Chasseurs Alpins, Clement pulled out a hip flask, unscrewed it and passed it to Saxon. Clement spoke quietly. ‘Oh yes, he’s still here, difficult as ever. Honestly, we should send him somewhere where he can be the Field Marshal he thinks he is.’

  Cl
ement laughed silently as Saxon coughed on the Calvados. ‘I forgot to say, watch that stuff, it’s got a bit of a kick.’

  ‘Fine,’ replied Saxon, wincing at the unexpectedly strong brandy. Saxon realized that he should know better: Clement loved his booze strong. ‘The air raid went as planned, I assume?’

  ‘Too early to tell,’ he said, waving over to the red glow on the horizon. ‘We should know for certain later this morning. It looks to be in the right place, which is always a good start.’ Clement looked up into the sky, where the moon was about to reappear from behind a cloud.

  Saxon took another sip from the flask.

  ‘Good isn’t it?’

  ‘Strong, certainly. I had forgotten what your Calvados was like. You don’t get it in London like this, that’s for certain.’ Saxon wiped his lips with the back of his jumpsuit sleeve. ‘How have things been?’ he asked, changing the subject so that he didn’t have to tell Clement that this Calvados was one of his roughest.

  ‘How have things been? In a word: tough’. Clement shook his head slowly as his whole demeanor changed. Gone was the cheerful comrade; in his place was an older man, world-weary and tired. ‘The Germans have not rested since they rolled up what was left of the group in town. They were much quicker about it this time, the Germans that is. They made one arrest and within a week, I reckon some fifty men and women were rounded up and disappeared. Fifty! You know, a lot of them must have talked to the Gestapo, talked a lot and talked quickly. No one knows what happened to any of them. Dead in all certainty but we still don’t know for sure.

  ‘But, thanks for small mercies, my men and I were left out of it. You see, Saxon, living out in the countryside like us has its perks! Keeping no real links between my men and the boys and girls in Rouen paid off: whoever talked must have known so little about us they had nothing to tell the Gestapo. So we live to fight another day.’

  ‘I am glad of that, Clement.’

  ‘Me too! Now, it is February, and these young boys…’ Clement gestured to the men standing around them, ‘will be feeling the cold and whilst I can fight the Germans, I can’t fight these boys’ mothers’. I think--’

  Clement’s sentence was cut short as a man hurried across from the trees.

  ‘Clement,’ hissed the arrival. ‘Patrols – two of them! One in trucks, one on foot. They are moving in this direction but we’re not sure what they’re up to. We should leave.’

  ‘That sounds like good advice to me,’ said Clement. Without another word, Clement led them to where they heard Michel’s truck pull up.

  Saxon smiled. It was just like old times: he had been in France less than 10 minutes and already had two German patrols to evade.

  * * *

  In a farmhouse to the east of Rouen, a kitchen door rattled in its frame under two loud knocks from outside. Clement checked the time and walked to the door, opening it slowly, ensuring that the light from the kitchen would glare into the eyes of this very early morning visitor. Recognising him, Clement opened the door sufficiently to allow his tall, skinny son to enter, blinking against the sudden brightness of the light.

  Paul was not only Clement’s long-suffering son but also his security officer, responsible for protecting the Resistance group from the Germans. Saxon, seated in a chair by the fire, could see the gravity of the job was weighing more heavily since he had seen Paul last. Paul had aged remarkably for a man still in his twenties. Saxon remembered how the family resemblance between father and son had never been that obvious. Clement was rugged, physical, proud and sturdy, whereas his son was gangly and hesitant but very bright. Paul was more a clerk than a farmer but his caution, pedantry and ruthless adherence to security procedures kept him and those around him alive. Paul didn’t look much like a hero but to those who owed their lives to him, that is precisely what he was.

  ‘Welcome back! It’s great to see you. Good trip?’ said Paul, stooping beneath the low beams of the kitchen. Saxon nodded.

  ‘Well?’ asked Clement, wiping his hands on a cloth.

  ‘All is well, Father. I have sentries posted so that we are as secure as we can be for the meeting later. We’ll know well in advance if any enemy patrols want to interfere with us.

  ‘What we can be grateful for - you will want to know this, Saxon - is that the bulk of the Germans are still preoccupied with the results of the air raid last night. It destroyed a lot of track in the rail yards. Also, we have no reports of anyone noticing your arrival, which is good. Those two patrols we spotted look like a coincidence. I wish your friends in the RAF would bomb more often on clear nights – they are so much more accurate when they do, it means they don’t miss their target and bomb our homes.’

  Clement sat down on the other side of the fire and stared into the flames. ‘They will also hopefully be focusing on how useless their anti-aircraft fire was. The Germans didn’t seem to hit a thing. Pretty shameful shooting by the Rumanians if you ask me’.

  ‘Rumanians? You have Rumanians here?’ asked Saxon.

  ‘Yes, they arrived not long ago when the German gunners went north to the coast. There’s no doubt that they are sending their better troops north in preparation for an invasion, when the day comes.’

  ‘Do you know where they went?’

  ‘Who, the Germans? No. Just “north” is all we ever got but there are plenty of them up by the sea. It’s better for us with the Germans gone. The Rumanians lack the ruthlessness of the Germans, especially the SS. It takes the pressure off us a little bit, so I’m happy.’ Clement paused to stoke the fire a little. ‘I haven’t tested them in battle yet, these Rumanians, and I look forward to that; I think that we could give these new boys a real run for their money. I wouldn’t want to go head to head against Germans, but this lot? We could be in with a good chance.’

  Clement rose to his feet to pour Paul and Saxon a bowl of coffee. Proper coffee. Coffee of the like that Saxon hadn’t had back in Britain.

  ‘You can’t even get coffee like that in the towns, Saxon, you know. The rubbish they’re drinking there, it’s shameful. They might was well be drinking mud. Anyway, come, Saxon, tell us your news.’ Clement smiled, retaking his seat as if to watch a show.

  ‘I have been trained on the most up to date demolition and signalling techniques. Things really have come on in the last few months. My job is to pass that know-how on to you and your men. Specifically, I’m here to show you how to wreak havoc on the railways, so that you can start to target the tracks going north and east from here. That will be your mission when the invasion starts, as well as just being a general nuisance to the Germans - you know, slow them down getting to the invasion scene.’

  ‘The invasion is coming here?’ asked Paul incredulously.

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. There’s no way London would tell someone coming to France information as important as that. The message I do have is that when and wherever the invasion comes, the Germans will want to move their reserve Divisions to wherever there’s trouble. Resistance networks like yours all over the north of France are being trained to bring the French transport system to a halt. I will pass on to you and your men the new techniques, give you some practice and then return to Britain. Before I go, though, I am also to recce some more landing zones and hides so we can fly in more weapons, ammunition and supplies to you.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘The invasion? You heard me: when the time comes. You know that they wouldn’t have told me that much’.

  ‘I know,’ sighed Clement, ‘but there’s no harm in asking!’

  ‘Never ask a question you shouldn’t know the answer to,’ declared Paul dogmatically.

  ‘There he goes again, Saxon, my conscience telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. He’s annoying, isn’t he?’ Clement smiled again and while Saxon knew he was joking, Paul was clearly not in a jocular mood. To lighten the atmosphere, Clement raised his cup and proposed a toast, which they all joined. ‘When the day comes!’

  Refreshed, Clement faced
the fire, clearly considering what Saxon had just told him. The war was coming their way at last and though they looked forward to the possibility of action once again, the anticipation and the waiting would be tortuous. It always was.

  ‘OK. My officers will all be here within an hour or two and then our meeting will commence. I will start the proceedings and then I want you to repeat to them what you just told me. I have an idea where we could hit the railway next. I’ll talk you through it and if we are in agreement, we could brief the boys tonight that we’ve got something up our sleeve. There’s no point in telling them where, they’ll only tell their wives and so on. We will also need to bring all the boys in so you can run some training. How much time would you need?’

  ‘A week, no more.’

  ‘Good,’ said Clement, ‘Paul, I think we will bring the boys in for training in a couple of days and then strike out a week from then. There will still be enough moon to light any night attacks.’

  Paul nodded in agreement.

  ‘In that case, where do you have in mind?’ asked Saxon.

  Rising from his chair, Clement walked towards the next room. ‘Come to my battle map, my friend, and see.’

  * * *

  The train was at full speed on its way to Paris. Schneider sat opposite Berner in the dining car this time, with Berner enjoying one of the best meals he’d had in a long time. Peppi, the Admiral’s pet Dachshund, sniffed optimistically around their ankles, his tail banging out a rhythm against a chair leg.

  ‘A little celebration for your promotion, no?’ beamed the Admiral.

  Berner, charmed, raised a glass. ‘Thank you. Thank you for the new mission and the extra pay. Brunswick asked me to pass on his thanks too.’