By the time Nancy was halfway through her trip handing out money to the dependents of the men in Fournier’s band, she was glowing. For one thing, riding a bike along the forested tracks had given her time to think, and for another—and my God what a blessing it was—she had had the chance to spend some time with women.
She had been greeted like an old friend in hamlets and villages all the way to Chaudes-Aigues and back. She told all of them their son or husband was a credit to them, a brave fighting man, vital to the fight for liberty, and was rewarded with smiles and hugs; they touched her arm or held her hand as she walked to the door. It was the war—no French countrywoman would be so affectionate with a stranger in peacetime—and Nancy knew she was a proxy for the missing men, a connection with the boys in the woods. Still, she took comfort in it.
She learned something useful about almost all the men up on the plateau. This one had a weak chest, that one was in love with a girl in the next town who didn’t want to be the wife of a farmer. Another loved birds, the feathered sort, and another was a superb fisherman. Jean-Clair loved to climb, and before the war would spend all his pay from the garage where he worked traveling in the Alps. She counted out little piles of notes into the hands of these hungry families, played games with the children and flirted with the old men and young boys still trying to do the work on the farm.
By the time she reached Chaudes-Aigues she was sure she had something on most of them. She had two families to meet in the town, and the second was the elderly mother of the lad who had sworn at Nancy only the day before. The old lady introduced herself with a dry, light handshake as Madame Hubert, and led Nancy into the kitchen with a faltering step, but Nancy noticed as they chatted the woman seemed to drop a dozen years.
“You will be careful in town, Madame Wake,” she said, examining Nancy over the rim of her teacup with a sharp eye. “I think the Germans are beginning to pay more attention to us here.”
“Why do you say that?” Nancy said carefully.
“The mayor is not brushing his coat, and the local gendarme is drinking too much. They are growing nervous. More cars are going through town, running on petrol, and with men in them I do not know, uniforms I do not recognize. Nervous men, petrol and strangers—I think that means Gestapo, don’t you?”
“No one else has said anything, Madame,” Nancy said.
Madame Hubert waved her hand. “Pfft, they do not sit at their window all day looking out into the square with their knitting on their lap as I do.”
Fair point. “Thank you for telling me.” Nancy studied Madame Hubert’s calm, lined face. “Most people are afraid to speak of the Gestapo, Madame.”
Madame Hubert shrugged. “I am too old to be scared; my son is too young. It is the men of the town here—a little too old to fight, a little too rich to lose everything—they are afraid. They bluster about the Boche in the café in the square, then take a little trip to Montluçon, perhaps to whisper in a friendly Nazi’s ear, do them a little service. Like Pierre Frangrod. His mother, God rest her soul, would be ashamed of him. He gifted the Germans a field she left him to build one of their radio transmitters so it can broadcast that… shit into our homes. And it is a good piece of land too. They got his soul into the bargain.”
Nancy had spotted the transmitter on the way in. Felt her mouth water when she saw it too.
“Madame Hubert, the saints have brought us together. I would like to do something about that transmitter. How well do you know the land?”
When Madame Hubert got up to fetch paper and pencil there was nothing faltering about her walk at all. She was grinning as she sketched the terrain and the tracks and roads leading to and from the station.
“I walk past it every day. It is just on the edge of town. Always at least six men on guard. Wire fencing, searchlights here and here. It is a strong signal; they have their generator there.”
Nancy studied the map on the carefully polished table. “Madame Hubert, you are a gift from God.”
The old lady looked pleased and straightened the crochet doily between them. “Would you like to meet my cousin Georges? He helped build the transmitter building and he hates the Germans. You can trust him.”
If the Gestapo were circling the area it was not a time to make new friends, but Nancy liked this woman, liked her very much.
“Yes, please.”
“Come tomorrow afternoon then, Madame Wake. He will be here. He is sad he is too old to join my Georges on the plateau with you. It will cheer him to help you.”
Nancy looked around the neat, modest home again. “Are you sure you aren’t afraid for your boy?”
Madame Hubert stopped smiling. “I would rather be afraid for him and proud, than know he was safe and despise him. That is why I am glad my friend”—she tapped the map—“died in thirty-seven before she was forced to realize her boy was a coward.”
Nancy scouted the land, and Georges turned out to be an absolute treasure. On the ride home the following day Nancy made her plan. They would go tonight. When she got back to the camp, she stowed her bicycle in the broken-down hay barn in the corner of the field and then went to find Fournier’s men, hunched over their dinner. They looked bored.
“I need five men.”
“What for?” one of the men asked.
“It’s not a menu, Jean-Clair. I’ll tell you what for when you’ve volunteered.”
The silence stretched until Nancy could feel it in the air.
“I’ll come.” Tardivat, bless his parachute-stealing soul.
“So will we.” It was one of the Spaniards, Mateo. “We owe amends.” He led his brothers with him. Nancy was surprised—they had kept away from her since that moment by the springs and she hadn’t been to Spain and given money to any of their families. She put out her hand and Mateo shook it; Rodrigo and Juan did the same.
She raised her eyebrow. “Any other Frenchmen want to fight the Boche?”
That got them. There was a shuffling among the men, but Fournier moved before the others.
“I’ll come. Let’s see what you can do, Captain.” Nancy looked him up and down. “I assume you meant to miss me in the forest?”
“Of course.” She put out her hand and he shook it, but as if he feared some sort of contagion. She put her hand on his shoulder. “Your little sister told me yesterday you can shoot a swallow out of the sky. You are our sniper.”
She pulled them aside and took them through the plan, then showed them Madame Hubert’s map and Cousin Georges’s plans. “Each one of you will be able to draw the map of the compound from memory before we leave. Fail, and I won’t take you. You’ll just have to stay at home with the other little boys. One hour.”
She dropped the plan in the grass at their feet. Mateo bent down and picked it up as she stalked off to put her own kit together.
Denden strolled over to join her. “You don’t want me to come, Nancy?”
She shook her head. “You’re too valuable.”
“Good, because I hate all that running about and shooting.” He gave a theatrical shudder.
“If it all goes tits up,” Nancy went on, “get a message through to London and go back to Gaspard. You might get on with him better than I did.”
“Hardly think that’s likely. But I’ll try.” He rocked against her, his hands in his pockets. “I’d rather you didn’t die though.”
“I’m touched.”
She stood up and checked her watch. Time to get something to eat and maybe sleep for twenty minutes before drilling the men.
“Nancy, how did you know the Spaniards would volunteer?” Denden asked, looking at her with his head on one side. “Tardivat was always going to. He seems to have adopted us, the funny old stick. Fournier would never stay here, he’d lose too much face. But the Spaniards?”
She shrugged. “They owe me. But what are you getting at, Denden?”
“I’m getting at the fact that you are, dear girl, something of a trick cyclist yourself. You are taking with you the only five men in this group who have some military experience, but you made it seem as if it all just happened by accident.”