A Fire Sparkling

by MacLean, Julianne

  “In less than a week. I wish I could tell you more than that, but I can’t, because I don’t know. All I can say is that after you finish your training here, you would go immediately to SOE headquarters in London for a full briefing.”

  My heart pounded like a drum as I contemplated what he was asking of me. I was a mother. How could I possibly leave my son to fight a war in another country?

  But wasn’t that what every young man was expected to do, even if they were fathers? Isn’t that what they were fighting for? A free world—for their children?

  In addition, this was a chance to cross the English Channel and enter occupied France, where I had been separated from Ludwig at the start of the war. Would it be possible to learn something of his whereabouts? Perhaps even see him again? Could I tell Ludwig about Edward? Convince him to choose us over Germany and become a family somehow? Somewhere safe?

  If Major Gardiner knew what I was thinking, he’d lock me up.

  “I’m sensing there’s no time for me to mull this over,” I said.

  “No, ma’am. Training needs to begin today.”

  I took a deep breath and thought of the atrocities that would become part of our world if we let Hitler win this war and invade our country. It was not a world I wanted for Edward. I needed to protect him from that, and more importantly, I wanted him to know his father, before it was too late.

  “Well then,” I said. “I know nothing about how to jump out of an airplane, so if I’m going to parachute into France, we’d best get to work.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  June 3, 1944

  Five days later, I climbed into an army Jeep bound for London but insisted upon a brief stop at Grantchester Hall along the way to see Edward, because I couldn’t possibly leave for France without saying goodbye to him.

  “Mummy!” he cried gleefully when I walked into the nursery. He flung himself into my arms, and we laughed and kissed as I picked him up and swung him around. For a moment, I felt overjoyed, but the happiness was fleeting. As soon as I remembered the purpose of my visit, my laughter was marked with anguish.

  For the next half hour, we sat on the carpet in the nursery, just the two of us, and played with his wooden building blocks. All the while, I watched him with a mixture of overpowering love and unbearable foreboding. How in the world would I say goodbye to him? Was I mad to have accepted this mission? I wanted to change my mind.

  With intense concentration, Edward laid out a large circle of blocks around us. “It’s a fort,” he said, “to keep us safe from the Germs.”

  I knew what he meant to say, and I applauded his efforts while silent tears of sorrow streamed down my cheeks. Then I helped him stack the blocks even higher in a perfect circle, and I told him what a brave, smart boy he was.

  When he grew sleepy, I carried him to the rocking chair and cradled him in my arms, where I kissed the top of his head and told him that I loved him but that I had to go away for a while.

  “No, Mummy,” he replied feebly, his words muffled as he sucked his thumb.

  “I won’t be gone long,” I assured him while I fought to keep my voice from breaking. “And when I come back, we’ll have ice cream.”

  His eyes grew heavy, and I pushed his fine blond hair away from his forehead and sang his favorite lullaby.

  “While I’m away,” I whispered softly in his ear, “think of me in the fortress you built and know that I’ll be safe.”

  But would I be safe? Truly? Was I lying to him, as I’d lied to so many others I cared about?

  I didn’t know the answer to that question, and it killed me to imagine that he might one day know the truth and resent me for keeping it from him. I had to fight through the pain of that possibility, because deep in my heart, I knew I had to go.

  Too tired to protest my departure, sweet Edward surrendered to sleep. I continued to rock him in the chair while my heart broke into a thousand pieces and tears drenched my face. I wept silently as I rocked him. Finally, I forced myself to get up and carry him to his bed, where I laid him down gently, kissed him on the cheek, and prayed that God would not forsake me in enemy territory—that I would return to England and hold him in my arms again.

  He was peaceful when I tore myself away.

  A short while later, as the driver took me down the long treelined drive, I turned in my seat and looked back at Grantchester Hall, where my son lay sleeping. Somehow, astonishingly, I managed to stay in the car and continue on. I don’t know how or why I was able to do such a thing. All I know was that my heart was telling me to go back to France, where I had left Ludwig before Edward was born. I felt entirely compelled to follow that path.

  Open roads stretched before us, and empty military bases peppered the English countryside like abandoned ghost towns. All our men and war machinery were now poised and waiting for action on the southern coast. Any day now, we would learn that our Allied Expeditionary Forces had crossed the Channel and invaded Europe.

  When I arrived at SOE headquarters on Baker Street, I was whisked into a private briefing room to meet the commander, Maurice Buckmaster, whom everyone called Buck. He gave me a false identity and a code name for the field—Simone Brochier. I was expected to memorize every detail of my cover story as quickly as possible. (I was the daughter of a bookseller in Bordeaux. The location was chosen for me because I already knew the area like the back of my hand. I had fallen in love with a French soldier who had died at Dunkirk in 1940. The soldier’s family had taken me in, and I looked after their children and kept house for them.) My conducting officer drilled and questioned me relentlessly until I knew every detail by heart. Then I was shown photographs of German uniforms, so that I could differentiate between members of the Gestapo, the SS, the Abwehr, the Luftwaffe, and the Wehrmacht.

  Lastly, Buck said to me, “You will be living a lie, Vivian. You must lose yourself completely in another identity. Do you think you will be able to do that?”

  “Yes,” I replied with absolute confidence. “I know I can.”

  On June 6, which was my third day at SOE headquarters in London, we learned that the Allied invasion had taken place that morning. Paratroopers had landed, and the beaches of Normandy were secured. Everyone cheered and celebrated. There was music in the streets. But we were a long way from victory. Next would come the long march across France to push the Germans out, which they expected could take weeks, perhaps even months.

  My mission was to support this effort as a courier in the Miller Circuit near Orléans, where we would coordinate the sabotage of bridges and rail lines to prevent the German Army in the south from sending reinforcements toward Normandy.

  I felt ready. Eager and zealous. Full of fire. I wanted to be a part of the liberation of France and give Hitler a strong, hard kick in the backside, because we all deserved to live in a free world. And I still wanted, in a way, to avenge my sister’s death.

  At the same time, Ludwig was never far from my thoughts, which left me feeling deeply conflicted about the promise I had made to Vivian—that I would not betray England. The truth was, I didn’t know what would happen if I saw Ludwig again, and the situation was complicated. If there were choices to be made, I wasn’t sure what I would do.

  That night, following the successful Allied landing in Normandy, Buck drove me to Tempsford Airfield, along with another agent, code name Benoit, who was a radio operator. This was Benoit’s third SOE mission in France.

  As soon as we arrived, Benoit and I were given dinner with wine. We were then handed our identity papers, ration cards, and French money to use for bribes and bargaining. We climbed into our bulky flying suits, which contained in the pockets everything we would need for the drop—maps and a compass, food rations, and a small shovel to bury our flight suit and parachute upon landing.

  At the last minute, Buck took me aside, reached into his pocket, and withdrew a cyanide capsule. “If you’re captured,” he said, “and things look bleak, you can bite down on this. It will end things in minutes
.”

  I understood what he was offering, and I accepted the capsule, even though I had no intention of ever using it. I had a child at home, and I was determined to survive, no matter what.

  Under a full moon, we crossed the tarmac, where I spotted the pilot waiting for us outside the plane. To my surprise, it was Jack Cooper. My heart gave a leap, for it was a tremendous comfort to see a familiar face in that moment.

  His eyes remained fixed on mine as Benoit and I were introduced to him by our code names. But Jack already knew me as Vivian, which knocked me off kilter a little.

  That’s when I began to feel a twinge of fear creeping in, now that the moment of departure had arrived. I suppose, before that, I’d been too busy with preparations and training to focus on how this would actually feel. In typical fashion, I had leaped into this undertaking fearlessly and rashly, following my passions and desires and ignoring common sense, pushing away any thoughts of obstacles—like the fact that I would be risking my life, not only in France, where I would be operating under the very noses of the German Gestapo, but also on this night, when we were about to fly into enemy territory. The dangers were plentiful. We could get shot down, or we could have engine troubles.

  Benoit climbed into the plane, and Jack approached me. “You were just supposed to be a translator at Wanborough,” he said with a hint of regret.

  “I wanted to do my part,” I explained. “I couldn’t just sit back and watch. You understand that, right?”

  “Of course.” He reached out to adjust my helmet for me. “It’s okay to be afraid, by the way.”

  I looked into his eyes and was unable to speak because I had the distinct feeling that he could see straight through me, and I wasn’t accustomed to that. No one saw through me. I didn’t even know who the real me was.

  “Especially your first time out,” he added.

  All I could do was nod, and I was glad that he was there that night, that he would be the one flying the plane.

  “Let me help you into the cabin. These suits can be cumbersome.”

  “Thank you.”

  He assisted me into the metal belly of the plane, where I crawled to the sleeping bags that were laid out for Benoit and me. We were supposed to try to get some rest along the way, because it would be a long flight, but I knew that wouldn’t be possible. At least not for me. I was far too nervous.

  “You seem pretty calm,” Benoit said when I joined him. He lay on his back, his legs crossed at the ankles.

  “Really, Benoit? I guess my acting skills are good, because I’m positively, uncategorically terrified that everything’s going to go wrong tonight.”

  He chuckled. “Don’t worry. These pilots in the Special Duties Squadrons are the best of the best. They have to be, because they fly at night without lights, navigating by the moon and following the course of rivers and such. Cooper’s great. He’ll get us exactly where we need to be.” Benoit rolled to his side. “Now get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”

  The engine started, and we began to move.

  A few hours later, a red light came on in the noisy cabin. The dispatcher woke us with sandwiches and coffee, but I couldn’t eat more than a bite or two because my stomach was churning with fear.

  “You’ll be fine after you jump!” the dispatcher shouted in my ear. “The worst fear is in the anticipation of it!”

  I nodded, but his helpful advice didn’t make the heart palpitations go away.

  He spoke to the navigator about our position, then hooked our parachutes to a static line and opened the circular trapdoor. A sudden rush of cold wind filled the airplane. Benoit and I slid on our behinds to sit over the hole in the floor, our legs dangling in the open air that was rushing by as we waited for the dispatcher’s signal to jump.

  It was noisy and bumpy, and time seemed to slow to an unnatural pace as I prepared myself mentally. The dispatcher dropped his arm. Benoit jumped first. Then I let myself drop.

  It was a fast free fall in the moonlight, and adrenaline spiked in my veins. I counted to twenty, not too fast, and released my parachute. It opened in a tremendous flap. Then everything grew calm as I swooped down and around, admiring the French countryside in the full moon’s silvery gleam.

  Slowly, I descended toward the field where bonfires had been lit by our reception committee—other SOE agents and members of the French Resistance who were waiting for us and the supplies drop that the dispatcher had pushed out of the plane behind us. At least a dozen canisters with white parachutes fell all around us, but I was focused on the ground, which was growing closer with every second.

  When I touched down, it was the best landing I’d ever done, smooth enough that I came in at a run and remained on my feet. The silk parachute wafted lightly in a billowing heap behind me, and I quickly detached it and gathered it up in a ball.

  I was in the process of getting out of my suit when I looked up at the plane, which had done a U-turn in the sky. Jack dipped his wings in salute as he headed back to England, and I paused a moment to catch my breath and watch him fly away.

  Suddenly, I was overcome by an intense feeling of loss. I hadn’t felt so alone, so separated from the life I knew, since the morning I woke up in the hospital after the bombing on Craven Street, when I fully absorbed the death of my sister. Now it was Edward I missed. The sensation opened a gaping hole inside of me, and all the courage and focus I’d felt in the seconds prior disappeared. My body turned to jelly, and I might have collapsed to my knees if I hadn’t heard the sound of someone calling out to me, using my field name.

  It was a woman. “Simone?”

  Wrenched back to the present and feeling the necessity to push away thoughts of what I’d left behind, I turned around.

  A young woman about my age, with curly red hair and freckles, was jogging toward me with a torch. She was dressed like a French peasant with sandals on her feet and a scarf tied loosely around her neck.

  I stepped out of my flight suit and let it drop onto the grass.

  “I’m Deidre,” she said in a British accent. “It’s nice to meet you. Let’s take care of this. Where’s your trowel?”

  Feeling a bit shaky, I dug into one of the flight suit pockets and handed it to her. She began to dig a hole, while I looked around the field where members of our reception committee were loading the heavy supply canisters onto horse-drawn carts and wagons. The bonfires had been put out, and Benoit was already out of his flight suit and helping the others.

  Some of the canisters were taken to a farm not far from the landing zone and hidden in the barn, while others were delivered to nearby hideouts in the woods. Deidre escorted me to a safe house in Saint-Jean-de-Braye, a town on the outskirts of Orléans. There was a nighttime curfew, so we had to make our way quietly and stealthily, like moon shadows, into the village. When we finally entered the flat she had secured for our use, I was happy to see a bed with clean linen waiting for me.

  “You can sleep here,” Deidre said, patting the mattress. “I’ve already claimed the bed by the window.”

  “So, we’ll be flatmates,” I replied.

  “For now.”

  I filled her in on my cover story—about the French lover I’d lost at Dunkirk in the early years of the war.

  “You’re my cousin, here for a visit,” she concluded, “so everything else still stands. Get some sleep if you can, though you’re probably a bit wound up. I don’t think I slept a wink for at least two days after my first drop.”

  “How many missions have you been on?” I asked, setting my rucksack on the floor and sitting down on my own bed, testing out the mattress to see if it squeaked.

  “Three so far.” She moved to her bed and lay down on top of the covers. “I was in Paris first, then I went back to London for some firearms training and spent some time in Budapest, and now I’m here.”

  “Do you speak French?” I asked.

  “Oui, I went to a French school in London, and I can bury the British accent on command. See?”


  Indeed, I did see. She spoke with a perfect southern French accent.

  I lay down and turned on my side to face her. “This is my first time. They plucked me out of nowhere when I was singing at a dance for some American airmen. They found out I spoke French, and before I knew it, I was signing the Official Secrets Act and jumping out of airplanes.”

  She shook her head derisively. “They probably rushed you through training, didn’t they? Armand, our circuit organizer, was desperate for another female courier. He was sending messages to Buck every other day, hounding him.”

  “That explains a lot,” I replied. “I hope I’m ready for this.”

  Deidre rested her cheek on her hands. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. I could tell right away that you were a natural by the way you landed in your parachute and seemed so calm when I called out your name. A cool head is everything in this racket, and you have a nice smile. That will get you through the checkpoints more easily.”

  “Checkpoints. Sounds ominous.” I didn’t tell her I’d already had some experience with German checkpoints in France.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll show you the ropes. Tomorrow you’ll meet Armand, and he’ll have a few things for you to do. I’ll stay with you at first, just to ease you into it, but then we’ll work separately. There’s just so much to do, which is why you and I need to get some rest. Good night, Simone.”

  “Good night. And thank you, Deidre. It’s nice to have a friend.”

  Yet another friend who didn’t know my real name.

  I was in the middle of a dream in which I was floating down the River Thames in a rowboat on a hot summer afternoon, when Deidre shook me awake.

  “Simone. It’s time to get up. We have to be at the café in twenty minutes.”

  “What café?” I asked, sitting up groggily and rubbing my eyes with my knuckles.

  “It has no name. Just café painted on the window. The owner is a resister, and he lets us use the back room. Here, drink this.”