Jackdaws

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The fisherman's rest was a big pub that stood on the estuary shore like a fort, with chimneys for gun turrets and smoked-glass windows instead of observation slits. A fading sign in its front garden warned customers to stay off the beach, which had been mined back in 1940 in anticipation of a German invasion.

Since SOE had moved into the neighborhood, the pub had been busy every night; its lights blazing behind the blackout curtains, its piano loud, its bars crowded and spilling over into the garden on warm summer evenings. The singing was raucous, the drinking was heavy, and the canoodling was kept only just within the bounds of decency. An atmosphere of abandon prevailed, for everyone knew that some of the youngsters who were laughing uproariously at the bar tonight would embark tomorrow on missions from which they might never return.

Flick and Paul took their team to the pub at the end of their two-day training course. The girls dressed up for the outing. Maude was prettier than ever in a pink summer frock. Ruby would never be pretty, but she looked sultry in a black cocktail dress she had borrowed from somewhere. Lady Denise had on an oyster-colored silk dress that looked as if it had cost a fortune, though it did nothing for her bony figure. Greta wore one of her stage outfits, a cocktail dress and red shoes. Even Diana was wearing a smart skirt instead of her usual country corduroys and, to Flick's astonishment, had put on a smear of lipstick.

The team had been given the code name Jackdaws. They were going to parachute in near Reims, and Flick remembered the legend of the Jackdaw of Reims, the bird that stole the bishop's ring. "The monks couldn't figure out who had taken it, so the bishop cursed the unknown thief." she explained to Paul as they both sipped scotch, hers with water and his on the rocks. "Next thing they knew, the jackdaw appeared all bedraggled, and they realized he was suffering from the effects of the curse, and must be the culprit. I learned the whole thing at school:

The day was gone

The night came on

The monks and the friars they searched till dawn When the sacristan saw

On crumpled claw

Come limping a poor little lame jackdaw No longer gay

As on yesterday

His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way

His pinions drooped, he could hardly stand

His head was as bald as the palm of your hand His eye so dim

So wasted each limb

That, heedless of grammar, they all cried: "That's him!"

"Sure enough, they found the ring in his nest."

Paul nodded, smiling. Flick knew he would have nodded and smiled in exactly the same way if she had been speaking Icelandic. He did not care what she said, he just wanted to watch her. She did not have vast experience, but she could tell when a man was in love, and Paul was in love with her.

She had got through the day on autopilot. Last night's kisses had shocked and thrilled her. She told herself that she did not want to have an illicit affair, she wanted to win back the love of her faithless husband. But Paul's passion had upended her priorities. She asked herself angrily why she should stand in line for Michel's affections when a man such as Paul was ready to throw himself at her feet. She had very nearly let him into her bed-in fact, she wished he had been less of a gentleman, for if he had ignored her refusal, and climbed between the sheets, she might have given in.

At other moments she was ashamed that she had even kissed him. It was frightfully common: all over England, girls were forgetting about husbands and boyfriends on the front line and falling in love with visiting American servicemen. Was she as bad as those empty-headed shop assistants who went to bed with their Yanks just because they talked like movie stars?

Worst of all, her feelings for Paul threatened to distract her from the job. She held in her hands the lives of six people, plus a crucial element in the invasion plan, and she really did not need to be thinking about whether his eyes were hazel or green. He was no matinee idol anyway, with his big chin and his shot-off ear, although there was a certain charm to his face-"What are you thinking?" he said.

She realized she must have been staring at him.

"Wondering whether we can pull this off." she lied.

"We can, with a little luck."

"I've been lucky so far."

Maude sat herself next to Paul. "Speaking of luck," she said, batting her eyelashes, "can I have one of your cigarettes?"

"Help yourself." He pushed the Lucky Strike pack along the table.

She put a cigarette between her lips and he lit it. Flick glanced across to the bar and caught an irritated look from Diana. Maude and Diana had become great friends, and Diana had never been good at sharing. So why was Maude flirting with Paul? To annoy Diana, perhaps. It was a good thing Paul was not coming to France,

Flick thought: he could not help being a disruptive influence in a group of young women.

She looked around the room. Jelly and Percy were playing a gambling game called Spoof, which involved guessing how many coins the other player held in a closed fist. Percy was buying round after round of drinks. This was deliberate. Flick needed to know what the Jackdaws were like under the influence of booze. If any of them became rowdy, indiscreet, or aggressive, she would have to take precautions once they were in the field. She was most worried about Denise, who even now was sitting in a corner talking animatedly to a man in captain's uniform.

Ruby was drinking steadily, too, but Flick trusted her. She was a curious mixture: she could barely read or write, and had been hopeless in classes on map reading and encryption, but nevertheless she was the brightest and most intuitive of the group. Ruby gave Greta a hard look now and again, and she may have guessed that Greta was a man, but to her credit she had said nothing.

Ruby was sitting at the bar with Jim Cardwell, the firearms instructor, talking to the barmaid but at the same time discreetly stroking the inside of Jim's thigh with a small brown hand. They were having a whirlwind romance. They kept disappearing. During the morning coffee break, the half-hour rest period after lunch, the afternoon tea time, or at any opportunity, they would sneak off for a few minutes. Jim looked as if he had jumped out of a plane and had not yet opened his parachute.

His face wore a permanent expression of bemused delight. Ruby was no beauty, with her hooked nose and turned-up chin, but she was obviously a sex bomb, and Jim was reeling from the explosion. Flick almost felt jealous. Not that Jim was her type-all the men she had ever fallen for were intellectuals, or at least very bright-but she envied Ruby's lustful happiness.

Greta was leaning on the piano with some pink cocktail in her hand, talking to three men who looked to be local residents rather than Finishing School types. It seemed they had got over the shock of her German accent-no doubt she had told the story of her Liverpudlian father-and now she held them enthralled with tales about Hamburg nightclubs. Flick could see they had no suspicions about Greta's gender: they were treating her like an exotic but attractive woman, buying her drinks and lighting her cigarettes and laughing in a pleased way when she touched them.

As Flick watched, one of the men sat at the piano, played some chords, and looked up at Greta expectantly. The bar went quiet, and Greta launched into "Kitchen Man":

How that boy can open clams

No one else can touch my hams

The audience quickly realized that every line was a sexual innuendo, and the laughter was uproarious. When Greta finished, she kissed the pianist on the lips, and he looked thrilled.

Maude left Paul and returned to Diana at the bar. The captain who had been talking to Denise now came over and said to Paul, "She told me everything, sir."

Flick nodded, disappointed but not surprised.

Paul asked him, "What did she say?"

"That she's going in tomorrow night to blow up a railway tunnel at Marles, near Reims."

It was the cover story, but Denise thought it was the truth, and she had revealed it to a stranger. Flick was furious.

"Thank you," Paul said.

"I'm sorry." The captain shrugged.

Flick said, "Better to find out now than later."

"Do you want to tell her, sir, or shall I deal with it?"

"I'll talk to her first," Paul replied. "Just wait outside for her, if you wouldn't mind."

"Yes, sir."

The captain left the pub, and Paul beckoned Denise.

"He left suddenly," Denise said. "Rather bad behavior, I thought." She obviously felt slighted. "He's an explosives instructor."

"No, he's not," Paul said. "He's a policeman."

"What do you mean?" Denise was mystified. "He's wearing a captain's uniform and he told me-"

"He told you lies," Paul said. "His job is to catch people who blab to strangers. And he caught you."

Denise's jaw dropped; then she recovered her composure and became indignant. "So it was a trick? You tried to trap me?"

"I succeeded, unfortunately," Paul said. "You told him everything."

Realizing she was found out, Denise tried to make light of it. "What's my punishment? A hundred lines and no playtime?"

Flick wanted to slap her face. Denise's boasting could have endangered the lives of the whole team.

Paul said coldly, "There's no punishment, as such."

"Oh. Thank you so much."

"But you're off the team. You won't be coming with us. You'll be leaving tonight, with the captain."

"I shall feel rather foolish going back to my old job at Hendon."

Paul shook his head. "He's not taking you to Hendon."

"Why not?"

"You know too much. You can't be allowed to walk around free."

Denise began to look worried. "What are you going to do to me?"

"You'll be posted to some place where you can't do any damage. I believe it's usually an isolated base in Scotland, where their main function is to file regimental accounts."

"That's as bad as prison!"

Paul reflected for a moment, then nodded. "Almost."

"For how long?" Denise said in dismay.

"Who knows? Until the war is over, probably."

"You absolute rotter," Denise said furiously. "I wish I'd never met you."

"You may leave now," said Paul. "And be grateful I caught you. Otherwise it might have been the Gestapo."

Denise stalked out.

Paul said, "I hope that wasn't unnecessarily cruel."

Flick did not think so. The silly cow deserved a lot worse. However, she wanted to make a good impression on Paul, so she said, "No point in crushing her. Some people just aren't suited to this work. It's not her fault."

Paul smiled. "You're a rotten liar," he said. "You think I was too easy on her, don't you?"

"I think crucifixion would be too easy on her," Flick said angrily, but Paul laughed, and his humor softened her wrath until she had to smile. "I can't pull the wool over your eyes, can I?"

"I hope not." He became serious again. "It's fortunate that we had one team member more than we really needed. We could afford to lose Denise."

"But now we're down to the bare minimum." Flick stood up wearily. "We'd better get the rest to bed. This will be their last decent night's sleep for a while."

Paul looked around the room. "I don't see Diana and Maude."

"They must have stepped out for a breath of air. I'll find them if you'll round up the rest." Paul nodded agreement, and Flick went outside.

There was no sign of the two girls. She paused for a moment to look at the evening light glowing on the calm water of the estuary. Then she walked around the side of the pub to the parking lot. A tan-colored army Austin was pulling away, and Flick glimpsed Denise in the back, crying.

There was no sign of Diana or Maude. Frowning, puzzled, Flick crossed the tarmac and went to the back of the pub. She came to a yard with old barrels and stacked crates. Across the yard was a small outbuilding with a wooden door that stood open. She went in.

At first she could see nothing in the gloom, but she knew she was not alone, for she could hear breathing. Instinct told her to remain silent and still. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light. She was in a tool shed, with neat rows of wrenches and shovels on hooks, and a big lawn mower in the middle of the floor. Diana and Maude were in a far corner.

Maude was leaning against the wall and Diana was kissing her. Flick's jaw dropped. Diana's blouse was undone, revealing a large, severely practical brassiere. Maude's pink gingham skirt was rucked up around her waist. As the picture became clearer, she saw that Diana's hand was thrust down the front of Maude's panties.

Flick stood there for a moment, frozen with shock. Maude saw her and met her eye. "Have you had a good look?" she said saucily. "Or do you want to take a photo?"

Diana jumped, snatching her hand away and stepping back from Maude. She turned around, and a look of horror came over her face. "Oh, my God," she said. She pulled the front of her blouse together with one hand and covered her mouth with the other in a gesture of shame.

Flick stammered: "I-I-I just came to say we're leaving." Then she turned around and stumbled out.