Jackdaws

CHAPTER THIRTY

SOE HAD NO planes of its own. It had to borrow them from the RAF, which was like pulling teeth. In 1941, the air force had reluctantly handed over two Lysanders, too slow and heavy for their intended role in battlefield support but ideal for clandestine landings in enemy territory. Later, under pressure from Churchill, two squadrons of obsolete bombers were assigned to SOE, although the head of Bomber Command, Arthur Hams, never stopped scheming to get them back. By the spring of 1944, when dozens of agents were flown into France in preparation for the invasion, SOE had the use of thirty-six aircraft.

The plane the Jackdaws boarded was an American-made twin-engined Hudson light bomber, manufactured in 1939 and since made obsolete by the four-engined Lancaster heavy bomber. A Hudson came with two machine guns in the nose, and the RAF added a rear turret with two more. At the back of the passenger cabin was a slide like a water chute, down which the parachutists would glide into space. There were no seats inside, and the six women and their dispatcher lay down on the metal floor. They were cold and uncomfortable and scared, but Jelly got a fit of the giggles, which cheered them all up.

They shared the cabin with a dozen metal containers, each as tall as a man and equipped with a parachute harness, all containing-Flick presumed-guns and ammunition to enable some other Resistance circuit to run interference behind German lines during the invasion.

After dropping the Jackdaws at Chatelle, the Hudson would fly on to another destination before turning around and heading back to Tempsford.

Takeoff had been delayed by a faulty altimeter, which had to be replaced, so it was one o'clock in the morning when they left the English coastline behind. Over the Channel, the pilot dropped the plane to a few hundred feet above the sea, trying to hide below the level of enemy radar, and Flick silently hoped they would not be shot at by ships of the Royal Navy, but he soon climbed again to eight thousand feet to cross the fortified French coastline. He stayed high to traverse the "Atlantic Wall," the heavily defended coastal strip, then descended again to three hundred feet, to make navigation less difficult.

The navigator was constantly busy with his maps, calculating the plane's position by dead reckoning and trying to confirm it by landmarks. The moon was waxing, and only three days from full, so large towns were easily visible, despite the blackout. However, they generally had antiaircraft batteries, so had to be avoided, as did army camps and military sites, for the same reason. Rivers and lakes were the most useful terrain features, especially when the moon was reflected off the water. Forests showed as dark patches, and the unexpected absence of one was a sure sign that the flight had gone astray. The gleam of railway lines, the glow of a steam engine's fire, and the headlights of the occasional blackout-breaking car were all helpful.

All the way, Flick brooded over the news about Brian Standish and the newcomer Charenton. The story was probably true. The Gestapo had learned about the cathedral crypt rendezvous from one of the prisoners they had taken last Sunday at the chateau, and they had set a trap, which Brian had walked into, but he had escaped, with help from Mademoiselle Lemas's new recruit. It was all perfectly possible. However, Flick hated plausible explanations. She felt safe only when events followed standard procedure and no explanations were required.

As they approached the Champagne region, another navigation aid came into play. It was a recent invention known as Eurekal Rebecca. A radio beacon broadcast a call sign from a secret location somewhere in Reims. The crew of the Hudson did not know exactly where it was, but Flick did, for Michel had placed it in the tower of the cathedral. This was the Eureka half. On the plane was Rebecca, a radio receiver, shoehorned into the cabin next to the navigator. They were about fifty miles north of Reims when the navigator picked up the signal from the Eureka in the cathedral.

The intention of the inventors was that the Eureka should be in the landing field with the reception committee, but this was impracticable. The equipment weighed more than a hundred pounds, it was too bulky to be transported discreetly, and it could not be explained away to even the most gullible Gestapo officer at a checkpoint. Michel and other Resistance leaders were willing to place a Eureka in a permanent position, but refused to carry them around.

So the navigator had to revert to traditional methods to find Chatelle. However, he was lucky in having Flick beside him, someone who had landed there on several occasions and could recognize the place from the air. In the event, they passed about a mile to the east of the village, but Flick spotted the pond and redirected the pilot.

They circled around and flew over the cow pasture at three hundred feet. Flick could see the flare path, four weak, flickering lights in an L shape, with the light at the toe of the L flashing the prearranged code. The pilot climbed toward six hundred feet, the ideal altitude for a parachute drop: any higher, and the wind could blow the parachutists away from the dropping zone; much lower, and the chute might not have time to open fully before the agent hit the ground.

"Ready when you are," said the pilot.

"I'm not ready," Flick said.

"What's the matter?"

"Something's wrong." Flick's instincts were sounding alarm bells. It was not just her worries about Brian Standish and Charenton. There was something else. She pointed west, to the village. "Look, no lights."

"That surprises you? There's a blackout. And it's after three o'clock in the morning."

Flick shook her head. "This is the countryside, they're careless about the blackout. And there's always someone up: a mother with a new baby, an insomniac, a student cramming for finals. I've never seen it completely dark."

"If you really feel there's something wrong, we should get out of here fast," the pilot said nervously.

Something else was bothering her. She tried to scratch her head and found her helmet in the way. The thought evaded her.

What should she do? She could hardly abort the mission just because the villagers of Chatelle were obeying the blackout rules for once.

The plane overflew the field and banked to turn. The pilot said anxiously, "Remember, each time we over fly increases the risk. Everyone in that village can hear our engines, and one of them might call the police."

"Exactly!" she said. "We must have awakened the entire place. Yet no one has switched on a light!"

"I don't know, country folk can be very incurious. They like to keep themselves to themselves, as they always say."

"Nonsense. They're as nosy as anyone. This is peculiar."

The pilot looked more and more worried, but he continued circling.

Suddenly it came to her. "The baker should have lit his oven. You can normally see the glow from the air."

"Could he be closed today?"

"What day is it? Saturday. A baker might close on a Monday or a Tuesday but never on a Saturday. What's happened? This is like a ghost town!"

"Then let's get out of here."

It was as if someone had rounded up the villagers, including the baker, and locked them in a barn-which was probably what the Gestapo would have done if they were lying in wait for her.

She could not abort the mission. It was too important. But every instinct told her not to parachute into Chatelle. "A risk is a risk," she said.

The pilot was losing patience. "So what do you want to do?"

Suddenly she remembered the containers of supplies in the passenger cabin. "What's your next destination?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you."

"Not usually, no. But now I really need to know."

"It's a field north of Chartres."

That meant the Vestryman circuit. "I know them," Flick said with mounting excitement. This could be the solution. "You could drop us with the containers. There will be a reception committee waiting, they can take care of us. We could be in Paris this afternoon, Reims by tomorrow morning."

He reached for the joystick. "Is that what you want to do?"

"Is it possible?"

"I can drop you there, no problem. The tactical decision is yours. You're in command of the mission-that was made very clear to me."

Flick considered, worrying. Her suspicions might be unfounded, in which case she would need to get a message to Michel via Brian's radio, saying that although her landing had been aborted, she was still on her way. But in case Brian's radio was in Gestapo hands, she would have to give the minimum of information. However, that was feasible. She could write a brief radio signal for the pilot to take back to Percy: Brian would have it in a couple of hours.

She would also have to change the arrangements for picking up the Jackdaws after the mission. At present, a Hudson was scheduled to land at Chatelle at two a.m. on Sunday, and if the Jackdaws were not there, to return the following night at the same time. If Chatelle had been betrayed to the Gestapo and could no longer be used, she would have to divert the Hudson to another landing field at Laroque, to the west of Reims, code-named Champ d'Or. The mission would take an extra day, because they would have to travel from Chartres to Reims, so the pickup flight would have to come down at two a.m. on Monday, with a fall-back on Tuesday at the same hour.

She weighed consequences. Diverting to Chartres meant the loss of a day. But landing at Chatelle could mean the entire mission failed and all the Jackdaws ended up in Gestapo torture chambers. It was no contest. "Go to Chartres," she said to the pilot.

"Roger, wilco."

As the aircraft banked and turned, Flick went back to the cabin. The Jackdaws all looked expectantly at her. "There's been a change of plan," she said.