Chapter 5
A risaig House, the Highlands, Scotland
Jack lit a cigarette and blew a lazy coil of smoke over his head as he leaned back against his chair in the training camp canteen.
The food was average at best, but he shouldn’t complain when so many were on tight rations.
At least he knew where his next meal was coming from, which was more than some could say as the war trundled on.
He was conscious that whilst he was fighting intelligence battles in a classroom, using his considerable experience and skills to train SOE’s new recruits into formidable agents, his brother Henry risked his life every day on the battlefields in the sky.
Jack ran one hand through his black hair and allowed his thoughts to flicker to Lizzie as they so often did.
Her presence always hovered somewhere in his mind, and he extracted the postcard he’d picked up from the administration office that morning.
He held it between his fingers and turned over the black-and-white picture of the Cenotaph in Whitehall to read the text once more.
Dearest Jack,
Everyone is well at home, although you are sorely missed, and we can’t wait to see you again. It’s too quiet without you, but I hope you are enjoying your trip and it’s not too cold for you in Scotland.
We’re counting the days until you return, and until then we hold you fondly in our thoughts.
Take care,
Your loving mother
Jack laughed at Lizzie’s sign-off. That girl had a sense of humour, which was just as well because they certainly needed one in the circumstances.
The war was dragging on, and they seemed no closer to an invasion, despite the Americans joining the fight and endless Allied talks about how to liberate Europe.
Jack knocked back the dregs of his now lukewarm, seedy coffee and gazed out of the window.
The rain fell gently on the glass in a hypnotic patter, obscuring the view of the sheltered sea loch.
After several months in the Highlands, he had grown accustomed to the rapid weather changes, where it wasn’t unusual to experience several seasons in a matter of hours.
It was like London, only more dramatic, with colder temperatures and more rain.
He tucked the postcard into his pocket and rose from his hard wooden chair and called out to a small group of recruits who were playing silly buggers in the corner.
‘You lot had better make a move. If you arrive after me, you’ll be marked down.
If your timekeeping is as poor as this when you’re undercover, you’ll be signing your own death warrant.
’ There was a trace of a sardonic smile on Jack’s lips, but it faded quickly.
He wasn’t joking, and he hadn’t been assigned to Arisaig for his charm.
These agents didn’t need more friends. They needed to be ready to face the worst when they were dropped into Nazi-occupied territory.
The three young men and women sprung up in almost comical unison, and saluted Jack, and before he reached the door with his long strides, they had already fled out of the canteen.
The morning session covering advanced espionage techniques was due to begin in exactly three minutes, and he was in no mood for going easy on his recruits.
‘Is it true they call you Raven, sir?’ asked a sassy brunette with shiny red lips, who had been trying to get Jack’s attention since the course started.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please apply yourself to the task at hand or you’ll be going home instead of undercover.’
The pretty girl with the cheeky smile eyed him once more before sighing and returning her attention to her coding task.
Training the recruits to be field ready was both challenging and rewarding. Some days he despaired of their ill-preparedness and worried they were sending innocent lambs to the slaughter.
On others, they would surprise him, and he would feel a surge of pride at their remarkable courage and progress. It made languishing in the Scottish Highlands instead of seeing Lizzie’s beautiful face and holding her hand every day, just about bearable.
It was sod’s law that now she had been pulled from active agent duty in France and was tucked safely away at Baker Street, deciphering codes and working on Val’s unending flow of espionage projects, he was posted up here and hadn’t seen her for months.
He missed her so much; it was like carrying around a physical ache in his chest all day and every day.
Jack rolled his sleeves up over his muscled forearms and caught the sassy, red-lipped girl staring like she wanted to eat him for breakfast.
At least out here in the sticks, he got to wear civvies, so they could maintain secrecy about their operations.
No doubt the locals suspected something mysterious was afoot, but the less they knew the better, so the occupants of Arisaig House were under strict orders to keep themselves to themselves.
Two weeks and they would all be going on their merry way, God keep them. He tried not to think too much about where his trainees were headed on their first missions. Sleeping at night was tricky enough as it was.
Lizzie was safe, so she was one less thing for him to worry about, but thoughts of his active agents plagued him throughout the darkest hours of the night, and he was often awake at 4 a.m. running over operations in his mind and imagining what they were up to.
He was out of the loop up here, but it didn’t stop him worrying about the precious Resistance networks he and Lizzie had built.
He trusted Val and Lizzie to be on top of things, but it was frustrating not knowing what was going on with Hannah and Lev in the Lavender Network in Vichy France.
Then there were his dear friends, Pierre and Camille from the Reims Network, and countless other agents he had recruited.
He hated not being in touch with them, but Val had been adamant in her orders.
He was to focus on training the next batch, and Baker Street would monitor his active agents.
The session flew by with the class doing well in advanced coding. He leaned against the window. The rain had stopped, and a watery sun illuminated the loch, so it looked like a mirage from an ancient fairytale.
In two weeks, he would get back to normal, if there was such a thing in wartime.
His version of normal meant seeing Lizzie at work and her staying over at least twice a week, popping to his mother’s house and exchanging news on his brother’s comings and goings, and running his brave agents.
Jack preferred being active in the field—it was in his blood since he was recruited as a young man—but he was more than happy to trade the thrill for being based in London with Lizzie.
There was a meeting over coffee with the other key trainers, so he cleared his coding materials from his desk, and crossed the ground floor of the rambling Victorian stately home.
The SOE had taken over so many grand houses, there was an inside joke that "SOE" actually stood for "Stately 'Omes of England. "
Jack entered the left wing of the mansion, where the others were gathered in an elegant but shabby drawing room, shrouded in a haze of smoke.
‘Afternoon, Captain,’ called Charlie. ‘Good to see you’re honouring us with your presence.’
Charlie liked to rib Jack, so Jack gave him a playful punch on the arm. ‘Mr action-man himself,’ he quipped. ‘Shouldn’t you be out shooting stag or something? This seems altogether too civilised for you.’
They laughed, and each lit a cigarette, falling into comfortable chatter.
Lizzie had been one of the early recruits Charlie had trained in physical combat, so Jack couldn’t knock his skills.
The six-foot-tall mountain of a man was built like a brick shithouse and was one of the SOE’s most effective trainers.
That night when he retired to his room, he consoled himself that two weeks would pass in a flash, whilst secretly fearing each day would continue to drip by as slowly as treacle, now he knew the end of his banishment was in sight.
Jack reached to open the drawer of the bedside cabinet, and his hand searched the contents.
He withdrew the soft velvet pouch and placed it on the blanket that covered his legs as he sat propped against a pillow.
The rain pummelled the exterior of the house in the dark night, and trees blew wildly, branches tapping against his windowpane like something out of a horror film.
Jack loosened the tie on the pouch and unfurled the tissue paper inside.
His eyes lit on the diamond engagement ring he had bought for Lizzie on a recent trip to Inverness.
Warmth permeated his chest as he looked at the beautiful ring and imagined Lizzie’s face when he asked her to be his fiancée.
They were all but married, albeit in secret, and the separation had only intensified his desire to make it official.
In other circumstances, he might have asked his mother for his grandmother’s engagement ring.
She told him and Henry some time ago that as Uncle Luc, her brother, was childless, whoever married first could claim it for their bride.
As his and Lizzie’s engagement would have to be strictly top secret until after the war, he had decided on impulse to buy a ring so he could slip it on her finger as soon as he arrived back in London.
Besides, Henry and Hannah had been engaged for years already but separated by war.
He would happily see their grandmother’s ring belong to his brother’s fiancée and his longest-serving Resistance agent.
God willing, they would both make it through the war and be reunited.
His mind skipped to a vision of a future dinner with Lizzie at their favourite bistro near the old HQ in St. Ermin’s Hotel.
They loved to dine there and had shared many special moments in the cavern-like French restaurant.
Lizzie’s green eyes would glow as brightly as the diamond when he showed her the ring.
The moment he spotted it in the Inverness jewellery store, he knew it was the one for his girl.
Slipping it into the pouch, he tucked it back in the drawer, turned out his nightlight and tried to fall asleep to the sounds of the raging winds and branches bashing against the window.
Eventually he drifted off to sleep and dreamt he and Lizzie were back in Toulouse, sipping brandy with dear Uncle Luc on the terrace overlooking the Garonne Valley in Toulouse.