Jackdaws (31 page)

He sensed her yielding to pleasure.
Her nervousness vanished. Her arms and legs spread out in a star shape, slack,
abandoned, but her hips strained toward him eagerly. He explored the folds of
her sex with slow delight. Her movements became more urgent.

She pushed his head away. Her face
was flushed and she was breathing hard. She reached across to the bedside
table, opened his billfold, and found the rubbers, three of them in a small
paper packet. She ripped the pack with fumbling fingers, took one out, and put
it on him. Then she straddled him as he lay on his back. She bent to kiss him,
and said into his ear, "Oh, boy, you feel so good inside me." Then
she sat upright and began to move.

"Take off your chemise,"
he said.

She pulled it over her head.

He watched her above him, her lovely
face drawn into an expression of fierce concentration, her pretty breasts
moving delightfully. He felt like the luckiest man in the world. He wanted this
to go on forever: no dawn, no tomorrow, no plane, no parachute, no war.

In all of life, he thought, there
was nothing better than love.

WHEN IT WAS over, Flick's first
thought was: What will I say to Michel?

She did not feel unhappy. She was
full of love and desire for Paul. In a short time she had come to feel more
intimate with him than she ever had with Michel. She wanted to make love to him
every day for the rest of her life. That was the trouble. Her marriage was
over. And she would have to tell Michel as soon as she saw him. She could not
pretend, even for a few minutes, to feel the same about him.

Michel was the only man she had been
intimate with before Paul. She would have told Paul that, but she felt disloyal
talking about Michel. It seemed more of a betrayal than simple adultery. One
day she would tell Paul he was only her second lover, and she might say he was
her best, but she would never talk to him about how sex was with Michel.

However, it was not just sex that
was different with Paul, it was herself. She had never asked Michel, the way
she had questioned Paul, about his early sexual experiences. She had never said
to him
You can touch anything you like.
She had never put a rubber on him, or
climbed on top of him to make love, or told him he felt good inside her.

When she had lain down on the bed
beside Paul, another personality had seemed to come out of her, just as a
transformation had come over Mark when he walked into the Criss-Cross Club. She
suddenly felt she could say anything she liked, do anything that took her
fancy, be herself without worrying what would be thought of her.

It had never been like that with
Michel. Beginning as his student, wanting to impress him, she had never really
got on an even footing with him. She had continued to seek his approval,
something he had never done with her. In bed, she tried to please him, not
herself.

After a while, Paul said, "What
are you thinking?"

"About my marriage," she
said.

"What about it?"

She wondered how much to confess. He
had said, earlier in the evening, that he wanted to marry her, but that was
before she came to his bedroom. Men never married girls who slept with them
first, according to female folklore. It was not always true, Flick knew from
her own experience with Michel. But all the same she decided to tell Paul half
the truth. "That it's over."

"A drastic decision."

She raised herself on her elbow and
looked at him. "Does that bother you?"

"On the contrary. I hope it
means we might see each other again."

"Do you mean that?"

He put his arms around her.
"I'm scared to tell you how much I mean it."

"Scared?"

"Of frightening you off. I said
a foolish thing earlier."

"About marrying me and having
children?"

"I meant it, but I said it in
an arrogant way."

"That's okay," she said.
"When people are perfectly polite, it usually means they don't really
care. A little awkwardness is more sincere."

"I guess you're right. I never
thought of that."

She stroked his face. She could see
the bristles of his beard, and she realized the dawn light was strengthening.
She forced herself not to look at her watch: she did not want to keep checking
how much time they had left.

She ran her hand over his face,
mapping his features with her fingertips: the bushy eyebrows, the deep eye sockets,
the big nose, the shot-off ear, the sensual lips, the lantern jaw. "Do you
have hot water?" she said suddenly.

"Yes, it's a swanky room.
There's a basin in the corner."

She got up.

He said, "What are you
doing?"

"Stay there." She padded
across the floor in her bare feet, feeling his eyes on her naked body, wishing
she were not quite so broad across the hips. On a shelf over the sink was a mug
containing toothpaste and a wooden toothbrush that she recognized as French.
Next to the glass were a safety razor, a brush, and a bowl of shaving soap. She
ran the hot tap, dipped the shaving brush in it, and worked up a lather in his
soap bowl.

"Come on," he said.
"What is this?"

"I'm going to shave you."

"Why?"

"You'll see."

She covered his face with lather,
then got his safety razor and filled the tooth mug with hot water. She
straddled him the way she had when they made love and shaved his face with
careful, tender strokes.

"How did you learn to do
this?" he asked.

"Don't speak," she said.
"I watched my mother do it for my father, many times. Dad was a drunk, and
toward the end he couldn't hold the razor steady, so Ma had to shave him every
day. Lift your chin."

He did so obediently, and she shaved
the sensitive skin of his throat. When she had finished she soaked a flannel in
hot water and wiped his face with it, then patted him dry with a clean towel.
"I should put on some face cream, but I bet you're too masculine to use
it."

"It never occurred to me that I
should."

"Never mind."

"What next?"

"Do you remember what you were
doing to me just before I reached for your wallet?"

"Yes."

"Did you wonder why I didn't
let you go on longer?"

"I thought you were impatient
for… intercourse."

"No, your bristles were
scratching my thighs, right where the skin is most tender."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Well, you can make it up to
me."

He frowned. "How?"

She groaned with mock frustration.
"Come on, Einstein. Now that your bristles have gone.."

"Oh—I see! Is that why you
shaved me? Yes, of course it is. You want me to.."

She lay on her back, smiling, and
parted her legs. "Is this enough of a hint?"

He laughed. "I guess it
is," he said, and he bent over her.

She closed her eyes.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

THE OLD BALLROOM was in the bombed
west wing of the château at Sainte-Cécile. The room was only partly damaged:
one end was a pile of debris, square stones and carved pediments and chunks of
painted wall in a dusty heap, but the other remained intact. The effect was
picturesque, Dieter thought, with the morning sun shining through a great hole
in the ceiling onto a row of broken pillars, like a Victorian painting of
classical ruins.

Dieter had decided to hold his
briefing in the ballroom. The alternative was to meet in Weber's office, and
Dieter did not want to give the men the impression that Will was in charge.
There was a small dais, presumably intended for the orchestra, on which he had
placed a blackboard. The men had brought chairs from other parts of the
building and had placed them in front of the dais in four neat rows of
five—very German, Dieter thought with a secret smile; French men would have
scattered the chairs any which way. Weber, who had assembled the team, sat on
the dais facing the men, to emphasize that he was one of the commanders, not
subordinate to Dieter.

The presence of two commanders,
equal in rank and hostile to one another, was the greatest threat to the
operation, Dieter thought.

On the blackboard he had chalked a
neat map of the village of Chatelle. It consisted of three large houses—
presumably farms or wineries—plus six cottages and a bakery. The buildings were
clustered around a cross-roads, with vineyards to the north, west, and south,
and to the east a large cow pasture, a kilometer long, bordered by a broad
pond. Dieter guessed that the field was used for grazing because the ground was
too wet for grapes.

"The parachutists will aim to
land in the pasture," Dieter said. "It must be a regular landing-and-takeoff
field: it's level, plenty big enough for a Lysander, and long enough even for a
Hudson. The pond next to it would be a useful landmark, visible from the air.
There is a cowshed at the southern end of the field where the reception committee
probably take shelter while they are waiting for the plane."

He paused. "The most important
thing for everyone here to remember is that we want these parachutists to land.
We must avoid any action that might betray our presence to the reception committee
or the pilot. We have to be silent and invisible. If the plane turns around and
returns home with the agents on board, we will have lost a golden opportunity.
One of the parachutists is a woman who can give us information on most of the
Resistance circuits in northern France—if only we can get our hands on
her."

Weber spoke, mainly to remind them
that he was here. "Allow me to underline what Major Franck has said. Take
no risks! Do nothing ostentatious! Stick to the plan!"

"Thank you, Major," Dieter
said. "Lieutenant Hesse has divided you into two-man teams, designated A
through L. Each building on the map is marked with a team letter. We will
arrive at the village at twenty hundred hours. Very swiftly, we will enter
every building. All the residents will be brought to the largest of the three
big houses, known as La Maison Grandin, and held there until it is all
over."

One of the men raised a hand. Weber
barked, "Schuller! You may speak."

"Sir, what if the Resistance
people call at a house? They will find it empty and they may become
suspicious."

Dieter nodded. "Good question.
But I don't think they will. My guess is the reception committee are strangers
here. They don't usually have agents parachute in near where sympathizers live—it's
an unnecessary security risk. I'm betting they arrive after dark and go
straight to the cowshed without bothering the villagers."

Weber spoke again. "This would
be normal Resistance procedure," he said with the air of a doctor giving a
diagnosis.

"La Maison Grandin will be our
headquarters," Dieter continued. "Major Weber will be in command
there." This was his scheme for keeping Weber away from the real action.
"The prisoners will be locked away in some convenient place, ideally a
cellar. They must be kept quiet, so that we can hear the vehicle in which the
reception committee arrive, and later the plane."

Weber said, "Any prisoner who
persistently makes noise may be shot."

Dieter continued, "As soon as
the villagers have been incarcerated, teams A, B, C, and D will take up
concealed positions on the roads leading into the village. If any vehicles or
personnel enter the village, you will report by shortwave radio, but you will
do nothing more. At this point, you will not prevent people entering the
village, and you will not do anything that might betray your presence."
Looking around the room, Dieter wondered pessimistically whether the Gestapo
men had brains enough to follow these orders.

"The enemy needs transport for
six parachutists plus the reception committee, so they will arrive in a truck
or bus, or possibly several cars. I believe they will enter the pasture by this
gate—the ground is quite dry at this time of year, so there is no danger of
cars becoming bogged down—and park between the gate and the cowshed, just
here." He pointed to the spot on the map.

"Teams E, F, G, and H will be
in this cluster of trees beside the pond, each equipped with a large battery
searchlight. Teams I and J will remain at La Maison Grandin to guard the
prisoners and maintain the command post with Major Weber." Dieter did not
want Weber at the scene of the arrest. "Teams K and L will be with me,
behind this hedge near the cowshed." Hans had found out which of the men
were the best shots and assigned them to work with Dieter.

"I will be in radio contact
with all teams and will be in command in the pasture. When we hear the plane—
we do nothing! When we see the parachutists—we do nothing! We will watch the
parachutists land and wait for the reception committee to round them up and
assemble them near where the vehicles are parked." Dieter raised his
voice, mainly for the benefit of Weber.
"Not until this process has been
completed will we arrest anyone!"
The men would not jump the gun unless a
skittish officer told them to.

"When we are ready, I will give
the signal. From this moment on, until the order to stand down is given, teams
A, B, C, and D will arrest anyone attempting to enter or leave the village.
Teams E, F, G, and H will switch on their searchlights and turn them on the
enemy. Teams K and L will approach them with me and arrest them. No one is to
fire on the enemy—is that clear?"

Schuller, obviously the thinker
among the group, raised his hand again. "What if they fire on us?"

"Do not return their fire.
These people are useless to us dead! Lie flat and keep the lights trained on
them. Only teams E and F are permitted to use their weapons, and they have
orders to shoot to wound. We want to interrogate these parachutists, not kill
them."

The phone in the room rang, and Hans
Hesse picked it up. "It's for you," he said to Dieter. "Rommel's
headquarters."