Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
T he car rumbled along the deserted, dark roads. The entire country was under blackout, and it showed. Lizzie couldn’t quite believe the rehearsals were over and tonight was the night she would be dropped into occupied France.
They turned abruptly and came to a stop after several hours of driving. Jack explained he wouldn’t tell her where they would fly from because the airfield was at a secret location and this way, it was safer for everybody.
The Luftwaffe was targeting and dropping bombs on military facilities in England every day and they couldn’t risk them finding out about this one.
‘We have plans for this airfield as soon as SOE gets into full swing. It’s very early days yet,’ he said. ‘You’ll look back on this moment and realise just how early you were involved.’
‘The less I know, the better…’ Lizzie said, repeating the mantra they had drummed into her over the past few days.
Shortly after, Lizzie was wedged close to Jack in the Westland Lysander plane, her heart banging so rapidly she could barely catch her breath. She saw his pensive expression in the moonlight and was curious what was going through his mind. They fell against each other as the aircraft picked up speed and made its bumpy take off.
‘The funny thing is, this plane is nicknamed Lizzie, like you,’ Jack told her, and she welcomed his attempt to distract her.
In the short time since they met, she already knew him well enough to know he would reassure her if she told him just how terrified she was at this moment. But she didn’t tell him. Instead, she gazed at him surreptitiously and drank his calming presence in without saying a word.
Jack caught her look, raised his head, and smiled. His eyes were full of compassion as he ran his hand through his thick, black hair.
‘It’s nearly time,’ he said, a while later, his voice gravelly with exhaustion.
He can’t have slept much in the past few days, she realised.
Lizzie nodded but remained silent, trying to calm her breathing and do what Val had taught her to prepare herself mentally and physically for jumping from the aircraft.
‘We’re almost in Reims. A few minutes and we’ll be at our low altitude jump point,’ called the pilot.
‘Come back to us, Seagrove,’ Jack whispered in her ear, using the codename he had assigned to her. ‘You can do this.’ His breath tickled her face, and she wished she didn’t have to leave him and throw herself on the mercy of the dark sky below.
Jack slid the helmet onto her head and closed the metal buckle on the leather strap with a click. His hands rested on her head for a brief pause, and she sensed he was reluctant to let her go .
Lizzie’s throat was like sandpaper as she prepared to jump.
Jack reached to clip her strap to the cable overhead in the cabin. ‘Ready?’
She nodded. Her whole body was on high alert, and she could not force a word from her dry throat.
‘Remember, the chute will open as soon as you’re clear and you’ll land in a pasture before you have time to think. You know what to do after that.’ He bowed his head and searched her eyes, as if seeking confirmation that he had made the right choice to send her.
Lizzie was clad from head-to-toe in the thick jumpsuit. Jack opened the aircraft flap. The chill wind rushed in to blast her face and she was grateful for the suit.
He counted down and then shouted, ‘Go!’
Lizzie heard Jack’s voice over the sound of the wind and felt his hand firmly on her back as he gave her a gentle shove. Then she was moving through the air as if in a dream, and his prediction was correct—her chute opened as if by magic. Cold, damp grass lay beneath her fingers as she landed in an ungraceful heap.
Squinting at the moonlit horizon, she saw the aircraft retreat and heard the engine’s distant whirr until it was a mere whisper on the wind.
She was on her own. Lizzie looked around. Adrenaline spiked her veins and coursed through her, and she knew she must harness it and get into action immediately. Her training kicked in and she stood, gathering the parachute, and folding it as neatly as she could with slightly shaking hands.
Breathe, Lizzie. Breathe.
An image of a circle of Nazis in jackboots, shouting Heil Hitler , and closing in on her, reared up in her imagination and she shook her head briskly. She remembered what Val had said: Don’t let fear rule you. You must think on your feet .
And with that, Lizzie bent down to pat one of her pockets and withdrew the small torch so she could find a suitable spot to bury her gear in the trees.
Her first task completed behind enemy lines, she ran out of the pasture and set off in search of the cottage where she was to seek shelter.
Stumbling through the dark lanes near the vineyards, she was guided only by the light of the moon, and she jumped when an owl hooted from the branch of a tree high above. All was quiet but for the nocturnal wildlife.
Lizzie had memorised the directions to reach the cottage, which was a fair distance, and she made good progress. Jack had explained it wouldn’t do to have a safe house too near the landing point.
When she finally entered a clearing, and the light from her torch revealed an old stone well, she was almost certain she had reached her destination. She swept the beam cautiously onto the base of the cottage door and saw it was blue. The traditional stone cottage with brown shutters was all in darkness for the blackout.
Yes. This was the right place. The jagged beat of her heart slowed to a steady thud as she took cover in an old hut to one side of the property. Her eyes adjusted to the inky blackness as she breathed in the cool night air and tried to calm herself. Val had told her to wait a while before she approached the cottage and to make sure no one else was around before she knocked.
She checked her watch and saw fifteen minutes had passed. Lizzie walked tentatively around to the side of the building, holding her torch low so she could see where she was stepping, but not alert anyone to her presence. She tripped over a clump of twigs and sent a stone hurtling down the uneven path and froze as she waited for it to stop bouncing .
‘Merde,’ she gasped.
The side door opened a crack just as she approached it. ‘Who goes there?’ said a woman’s husky voice.
‘I’m Marie. A friend of your sister’s.’ Lizzie had rehearsed the safe house code many times, and it rolled off her tongue without hesitation.
The door opened wider, and the woman ushered her in. Lizzie could just about make out she wore a nightgown.
‘Come in,’ the woman said, her voice slightly louder but still not much more than a hoarse whisper. ‘I wasn’t told to expect anyone,’ she said, after Lizzie followed her inside.
‘How did you know I was outside, then?’ Lizzie asked.
The woman chuckled quietly. ‘Let’s just say, your silent approach needs some work, and it’s a good job there isn’t another cottage nearby.’
Lizzie apologised for kicking the stone and alarming her. ‘It’s kind of you to allow me to come here like this.’
‘Not at all. It’s brave of you to come. No one has visited for quite some time,’ said the woman. ‘I thought perhaps it was the end of the Resistance. Here, sit.’
The first glimpses of dawn cast a hazy light into the room and Lizzie saw they were in the kitchen. She heard running water, and then the woman lit the hob. ‘Coffee, yes?’
Lizzie nodded. ‘Oh, yes, please.’
The woman placed a small bowl of steaming coffee in front of her, and she lifted it gratefully to her lips with both hands.
Lizzie drank the coffee and her stomach rumbled loudly.
‘You are hungry, you poor girl. Gone are the days of fresh croissants, I’m afraid. I barely got anything from the shops yesterday after queuing well into the afternoon,’ the woman grumbled. ‘But I’ll get you something.’
Lizzie thanked her and looked around the kitchen. It reminded her of her cousins’ cottage in St. Malo, and a familiar ache tugged at her chest. There had been no word from them since France surrendered, and she wondered how they were fairing.
The Beaumont siblings had spent many a happy holiday with their French cousins. The nostalgia of times gone by was sometimes too much for her to bear, so she shoved the memories firmly aside. She would use her sorrow to fuel her for what she must do next.
‘What do I call you?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Better you don’t call me anything,’ she replied. ‘The less you know about me and me about you, the safer we’ll all be.’
Lizzie nodded again. She knew nothing about the woman other than she was an ally who offered a safe house for the Resistance and for British agents. This brought her back to the purpose of her visit.
‘What do you know of our mutual friend, Alice?’ Lizzie asked, using Hannah’s cover name, hoping the woman would be familiar with the missing Resistance agent.
The woman sat down heavily opposite Lizzie and sighed. ‘Not much. I fear for her safety, to be honest.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘She hasn’t been here since spring. One of our friends told me to expect her in July, but she didn’t show up. Night after night I listened out for her, but nothing.’
Now her host’s readiness for her arrival made more sense to Lizzie. ‘You thought I might be her?’
She nodded. ‘I hoped.’ Then she shrugged. ‘No offence.’
‘None taken,’ said Lizzie. ‘I hoped she might be here, too. Then we could leave together and get her to safety.’
‘Jews are in grave danger in France. I don’t know how much you’ve heard, but there are vile anti-Jewish tracts posted all over the city. No one is safe. My grandfather was Jewish, you know. I thank God he isn’t alive to witness this.’
‘It’s awful,’ Lizzie said. ‘I don’t have Jewish relatives, but my grandparents are in Jersey, which is under German occupation.’
‘Devil Nazis,’ the woman hissed. ‘I pray all the French, not just us pitiful few, will rise against them. I could cry when I think about our people collaborating in the so-called Free France. Mon Dieu! Whatever will become of us?’
Lizzie reached for the woman’s hand to comfort her. ‘These are difficult times. Take strength in the fact that the Allies and the Resistance are fighting to free Europe.’
The woman rose. ‘I don’t know where my manners are.’ She disappeared into the pantry and emerged with a slice of bread and a piece of cheese on a small flower-patterned china plate. ‘It’s not much, but it will keep you going for now. I hope to have more luck at the shops today.’
Lizzie thanked her and chewed the bread and cheese slowly to savour every bite. Jack had warned her she might not eat for days if things didn’t go smoothly.
But she was in the safe house and had achieved her first objective.
‘You’d better call me Jeanne, just in case. You are my sister’s friend, after all.’ She winked and smiled.
Jeanne showed her to a neat bedroom upstairs. Lizzie sank down on the bed fully clothed and fell into a deep dreamless sleep without even pulling up the cover.