Jackdaws (13 page)

"Oh," said Percy
thoughtfully. "Are you the son of General Chancellor?"

"Yes."

"Go on."

"MI6 would never have gotten
away with it if your boss had been at the meeting this morning to tell SOE's
side of the story. It seemed too much of a coincidence that he had been called
away at the last minute."

Percy looked dubious. "He was
summoned by the Prime Minister. I don't see how MI6 could have arranged
that."

"The meeting was not attended
by Churchill. A Downing Street aide took the chair. And it had been arranged at
the instigation of MI6."

"Well, I'm damned," Flick
said angrily. "They're such snakes!"

Percy said, "I wish they were
as clever about gathering intelligence as they are about deceiving their
colleagues."

Chancellor said, "I also looked
in detail at your plan, Major Clairet, for taking the château by stealth, with
a team disguised as cleaners. It's risky, of course, but it could work."

Did that mean it would be
reconsidered? Flick hardly dared to ask.

Percy gave Chancellor a level look.
"So what are you going to do about all this?"

"By chance, I had dinner with
my father tonight. I told him the whole story and asked him what a general's
aide should do in these circumstances. We were at the Savoy."

"What did he say?" Flick
asked impatiently. She did not care which restaurant they had gone to.

"That I should go to Monty and
tell him we had made a mistake." He grimaced. "Not easy with any
general. They never like to revisit decisions. But sometimes it has to be
done."

"And will you?" Flick said
hopefully.

"I already have."

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

FLICK LEFT LONDON at dawn, driving a
Vincent Comet motorcycle with a powerful 500cc engine. The roads were deserted.
Gas was severely rationed, and drivers could be jailed for making
"unnecessary" journeys. She drove very fast. It was dangerous but
exciting. The thrill was worth the risk.

She felt the same about the mission,
scared but eager. She had stayed up late last night with Percy and Paul,
drinking tea and planning. There must be six women in the team, they had
decided, as it was the unvarying number of cleaners on a shift. One had to be
an explosives expert; another, a telephone engineer, to decide exactly where
the charges should be placed to ensure the exchange was crippled. She wanted
one good marksman and two tough soldiers. With herself, that would make six.

She had one day to find them. The
team would need a minimum of two days' training—they had to learn to parachute,
if nothing else. That would take up Wednesday and Thursday. They would be
dropped near Reims on Friday night, and enter the château on Saturday evening
or Sunday. That left one spare day as a margin for error.

She crossed the river at London
Bridge. Her motorbike roared through the bomb-ravaged wharves and tenements of
Bermondsey and Rotherhithe; then she took the Old Kent Road, traditional route
of pilgrims, toward Canterbury. As she left the suburbs behind, she opened the
throttle and gave the bike its head. For a while she let the wind blow the
worries out of her hair.

It was not yet six o'clock when she
reached Somersholme, the country house of the barons of Colefield. The baron
himself, William, was in Italy, fighting his way toward Rome with the Eighth
Army, Flick knew. His sister, the Honorable Diana Colefield, was the only
member of the family living here now. The vast house, with its dozens of
bedrooms for houseguests and their servants, was being used as a convalescent
home for wounded soldiers.

Flick slowed the bike to walking
speed and drove up the avenue of hundred-year-old lime trees, gazing at the
great pile of pink granite ahead, with its bays, balconies, gables, and roofs,
acres of windows and scores of chimneys. She parked on the gravel forecourt
next to an ambulance and a scatter of jeeps.

In the hall, nurses bustled about
with cups of tea. The soldiers might be here to convalesce, but they still had
to be wakened at daybreak. Flick asked for Mrs. Riley, the housekeeper, and was
directed to the basement. She found her staring worriedly at the furnace in the
company of two men in overalls.

"Hello, Ma," said Flick.

Her mother hugged her hard. She was
even shorter than her daughter and just as thin, but like Flick she was
stronger than she looked. The hug squeezed the breath out of Flick. Gasping and
laughing, she extricated herself "Ma, you'll crush me!"

"I never know if you're alive
until I see you," her mother said. In her voice there was still a trace of
the Irish accent: she had left Cork with her parents forty-five years ago.

"What's the matter with the
furnace?"

"It was never designed to
produce so much hot water. These nurses are mad for cleanliness, they force the
poor soldiers to bathe every day. Come to my kitchen and I'll make you some
breakfast."

Flick was in a hurry, but she told
herself she had time for her mother. Anyway, she had to eat. She followed Ma up
the stairs and into the servants' quarters.

Flick had grown up in this house.
She had played in the servants' hall, run wild in the woods, attended the
village school a mile away, and returned here from boarding school and
university for the vacations. She had been extraordinarily privileged. Most
women in her mother's position were forced to give up their jobs when they had
a child. Ma had been allowed to stay, partly because the old baron had been
somewhat unconventional, but mainly because she was such a good housekeeper
that he had dreaded losing her. Flick's father had been butler, but he had died
when she was six years old. Every February, Flick and her ma had accompanied
the family to their villa in Nice, which was where Flick had learned French.

The old baron, father of William and
Diana, had been fond of Flick and had encouraged her to study, even paying her
school fees. He had been very proud when she had won a scholarship to Oxford
University. When he died, soon after the start of the war, Flick had been as
heartbroken as if he had been her real father.

The family now occupied only a small
corner of the house. The old butler's pantry had become the kitchen. Flick's
mother put the kettle on. "Just a piece of toast will be fine, Ma,"
said Flick.

Her mother ignored her and started
frying bacon. "Well, I can see you're all right," she said. "How
is that handsome husband?"

"Michel's alive," Flick
said. She sat at the kitchen table. The smell of bacon made her mouth water.

"Alive, is he? But not well,
evidently. Wounded?"

"He got a bullet in his bum. It
won't kill him."

"You've seen him, then."

Flick laughed. "Ma, stop it!
I'm not supposed to say."

"Of course not. Is he keeping
his hands off other women? If that's not a military secret."

Flick never ceased to be startled by
the accuracy of her mother's intuition. It was quite eerie. "I hope he
is."

"Hmm. Anyone in particular that
you hope he's keeping his hands off?"

Flick did not answer the question
directly. "Have you noticed, Ma, that men sometimes don't seem to realize
when a girl is really stupid?"

Ma made a disgusted noise. "So
that's the way of it. She's pretty, I suppose."

"Young'?"

"Nineteen."

"Have you had it out with
him?"

"Yes. He promised to
stop."

"He might keep his promise—if
you're not away too long."

"I'm hopeful."

Ma looked crestfallen. "So
you're going back."

"I can't say."

"Have you not done
enough?"

"We haven't won the war yet, so
no, I suppose I haven't."

Ma put a plate of bacon and eggs in
front of Flick. It probably represented a week's rations. But Flick suppressed
the protest that came to her lips. Better to accept the gift gracefully.
Besides, she was suddenly ravenous. "Thanks, Ma," she said. "You
spoil me."

Her mother smiled, satisfied, and
Flick tucked in hungrily. As she ate, she reflected wryly that Ma had
effortlessly got out of her everything she wanted to know, despite Flick's
attempts to avoid answering questions. "You should work for military
intelligence," she said through a mouthful of fried egg. "They could
use you as an interrogator. You've made me tell you everything."

"I'm your mother, I've a right
to know."

It didn't much matter. Ma would not
repeat any of it.

She sipped a cup of tea as she
watched Flick eat. "You've got to win the war all on your own, of
course," she said with fond sarcasm. "You were that way from a
child—independent to a fault."

"I don't know why. I was always
looked after. When you were busy there were half a dozen housemaids doting on
me."

"I think I encouraged you to be
self-sufficient because you didn't have a father. Whenever you wanted me to do
something for you, like fix a bicycle chain, or sew on a button, I used to say,
'Try it yourself, and if you can't manage I'll help you.' Nine times out of ten
I heard no more about it."

Flick finished the bacon and wiped
her plate with a slice of bread. "A lot of the time, Mark used to help
me." Mark was Flick's brother, a year older.

Her mother's face froze. "Is
that right," she said.

Flick suppressed a sigh. Ma had
quarreled with Mark two years ago. He worked in the theater as a stage manager,
and lived with an actor called Steve. Ma had long known that Mark was "not
the marrying kind," as she put it. But in a burst of excessive honesty Mark
had been foolish enough to tell Ma that he loved Steve, and they were like
husband and wife. She had been mortally offended and had not spoken to her son
since.

Flick said, "Mark loves you,
Ma."

"Does he, now."

"I wish you'd see him."

"No doubt." Ma picked up
Flick's empty plate and washed it in the sink.

Flick shook her head in
exasperation. "You're a bit stubborn, Ma."

"I daresay that's where you get
it from, then."

Flick had to smile. She had often
been accused of stubbornness. "Mulish" was Percy's word. She made an
effort to be conciliatory. "Well, I suppose you can't help the way you
feel. Anyway, I'm not going to argue with you, especially after such a
wonderful breakfast." All the same, it was her ambition to get the two of
them to make up.

But not today. She stood up.

Ma smiled. "It's lovely to see
you. I worry about you."

"I've got another reason for
coming. I need to talk to Diana."

"Whatever for?"

"Can't say."

"I hope you're not thinking of
taking her to France with you."

"Ma, hush! Who said anything
about going to France?"

"I suppose it's because she's
so handy with a gun."

"I can't say."

"She'll get you killed! She
doesn't know what discipline is, why should she? She wasn't brought up that
way. Not her fault, of course. But you'd be a fool to rely on her."

"Yes, I know," Flick said
impatiently. She had made a decision and she was not going to review it with
Ma.

"She's had several war jobs,
and been sacked from every one."

"I know." But Diana was a
crack shot, and Flick did not have time to be fussy. She had to take what she
could get. Her main worry was that Diana might refuse. No one could be forced
to do undercover work. It was strictly for volunteers. "Where is Diana
now, do you know?"

"I believe she's in the
woods," Ma said. "She went out early, after rabbits."

"Of course." Diana loved
all the blood sports: foxhunting, deerstalking, hare coursing, grouse shooting,
even fishing. If there was nothing else to do, she would shoot rabbits.

"Just follow the sound of
gunfire."

Flick kissed her mother's cheek.
"Thanks for breakfast." She went to the door.

"And don't get on the wrong
side of her gun," Ma called after her.

Flick left by the staff door,
crossed the kitchen garden, and entered the woods at the rear of the house. The
trees were bright with new leaves, and the nettles grew waist-high. Flick
tramped through the undergrowth in her heavy motorcycle boots and leather
trousers. The best way to attract Diana, she thought, would be by issuing a
challenge.

When she had gone a quarter of a
mile into the woods, she heard the report of a shotgun. She stopped, listened,
and shouted, "Diana!" There was no reply.

She walked toward the sound, calling
out every minute or so. Eventually she heard, "Over here, you noisy idiot,
whoever you are!"

"Coming, just put down the
gun."

She came upon Diana in a clearing,
sitting on the ground with her back against an oak tree, smoking a cigarette. A
shotgun lay across her knees, broken open for reloading, and there were half a
dozen dead rabbits beside her. "Oh, it's you!" she said. "You
scared all the game away."

"They'll come back
tomorrow." Flick studied her childhood companion. Diana was pretty in a
boyish way, with dark hair cut short and freckles across her nose. She wore a
shooting jacket and corduroy trousers. "How are you, Diana?"

"Bored. Frustrated. Depressed.
Otherwise fine."

Flick sat on the grass beside her.
This might be easier than she had thought. "What's the matter?"

"I'm rotting away in the
English countryside while my brother's conquering Italy."

"How is William?"

"He's all right, he's part of
the war effort, but no one will give me a proper job."

"I might be able to help you
there."

"You're in the FANYs."
Diana drew on her cigarette and blew out smoke. "Darling, I can't be a
chauffeuse."

Flick nodded. Diana was too grand to
do the menial war work that most women were offered. "Well, I'm here to
propose something more interesting."