TEMPERANCE — Prohibition, moderation, or self-restraint, (especially in eating and drinking). Constant mindfulness of others and one's surroundings; practicing constant self-control, abstention, and moderation. Sobriety.
"TELL me what scares you the most," the cocoa skinned woman with the code name Hope insisted. Hope sat sideways on one of the hard pews in the training ground's chapel so that she could face Marie directly. She kept her legs crossed at the ankles and her spine perfectly straight up to her long curved neck.
"Seeing my brother and somehow placing him in danger," Marie immediately replied. This group only knew her as Temperance.
Marie looked into the striking jade eyes of the famous musician and entertainer, Virginia Benoit. Like everyone else, she pretended she didn't recognize the beautiful black singer.
The seven women assembled in this room twice weekly with a chaplain for organized worship. However, they utilized the space more often for times like this, when they gathered together to read scripture, pray for each other, sing a few hymns, and steal a few hours just talking in fellowship.
The room sported small plain glass windows, a pine wood floor, and simple whitewashed walls. To the women sitting on the rough hewn and very functional benches, the tiny building may as well have been Chartres Cathedral.
The American female pilot code named Faith, who looked no older than sixteen but could outfly any pilot Marie had ever seen, laughed. "Seriously? You're about to go to France and transmit radio signals with coded messages, receive radio signals with coded messages, all the while getting tracked down by an army of Nazi soldiers determined to capture you, torture you while they interrogate you, take no care whatsoever for your virtue, and eventually kill you, and your biggest concern is your big brother?"
Marie chuckled. "When you say it like that," she said, rubbing her arms, "I can't help but think of a number of things I am more afraid of now."
"Listen," The physician code-named Mercy interjected, gesturing with her delicate surgeon's hands and speaking with a very slight Scottish accent, "eventually, almost all of us will be there. Even if we can't openly look out for each other, we can hope to be able to."
"We can't know they'll send us to France," the rail thin aristocrat assigned the code name Prudence observed.
"Of course they will. All of us speak French as if we were natives. That's one of the main reasons we were chosen," Faith said. "They aren't teaching us Dutch, that's for sure."
The chapel door opened and all heads turned to watch Major Charlene Radden enter the sanctuary. She looked sharp and authoritative in her forest green skirt and jacket, with medals and rank pinned to her chest and lapels. Her blonde hair had gray streaks running through it and fell in a straight line to her chin, giving her a regal look.
"Thought I might find you ladies and lasses malingering about in here," she announced. She had recruited all of them, working with each woman on specific skill sets, communicating with families on their behalf as needed, and establishing cover stories, teaching and molding them under the rules of military intelligence. "I suppose my constant warning concerning you girls knowing too much information about each other continues to fall on deaf ears. One wonders if that deliberate deafness will logically lead to dead ears in the field."
"We need sisters on the ground, Charlene. I think you know that." Prudence had somehow discovered Charlene's espionage background and knew something about her actions as a teenage girl in the Great War.
"Stuff and nonsense. You pose a risk for yourself and your 'sisters'," Charlene announced, purposefully stressing the word, "by ignoring the suggestion to keep your distance from one another other during training."
"All due respect, but until it becomes an order and not a suggestion, I for one will not refrain from this kind of fellowship." Hope spread her arms out. "It's what keeps me going, personally, knowing these girls have my back and I have theirs, that they pray for me, and I for them."
A murmur of agreement spread through the small room. Charlene nodded. "That I understand, Hope, and I heartily approve of your relationships. I just wanted to make sure you Virtues understand why we say not to get too involved."
"So that under torture we couldn't reveal too many personal details about each other." The brilliant military strategist who had been code-named Grace shrugged. She had olive skin, dark green eyes, and curly black hair. Her English wasn't perfect though her accent wasn't French, either. Something else. So far, no one dared ask. "I don't think you can scare us any more than we're already scared."
Charlene tapped her chin with a manicured finger. "Yet you're all still here just chatting away like it's high tea. Very well. Remember that. Admire that about each other. Take pride in yourselves. And know that we will be doing everything we can for you here on our end. There is a briefing in twenty minutes in the situation room. Do try your very best to arrive promptly."
"That doesn't sound promising," the woman code-named Charity offered with a smile. She was a British housewife who had sent her three small children to the countryside to stay with in-laws until the bombings subsided. Charity could decode encrypted messages in her head nearly as fast as they could be written down.
Temperance felt her stomach tie into knots. She held her arms out. "Come. Let us pray together before the briefing."
They formed a circle, a bond of women, different ethnicities, different backgrounds, different nationalities, but sisters in Christ who came together under a common cause — to do the best they could do to help end this war.
MARIE pressed the earphones tighter against her head and wrote the code currently transmitting at a rapid pace as quickly as her pencil would scratch the paper. Her instructor stood over her shoulder, making her nervous, but she continued working and tried to ignore her. Outside the thin walls of the temporary structure, she could hear a formation of trainees run by, but did not let the sounds distract her from translating the codes beeping in her ears.
"Stop!" The instructor said, hitting a button on her stopwatch. She looked at the numbers. "Absolutely brilliant," she said with an approving smile. "I think you nearly broke a record, Temperance."
Marie held up her pencil. "I think I nearly broke my lead, too."
"I'm certain," the instructor replied. She put a hand on Marie's shoulder. "You're the best I've ever trained."
"Thank you." She pulled the earphones off the top of her head.
"Charlene wanted to see you when you were done," she said. "I'll ring her up and tell her what your time was this round. She'll be impressed."
They trained on the estate of an earl. Temporary barracks housed the intelligence trainees, and the manor home proper held the administration offices. Her radio training always took place in an unpainted Quonset hut that backed up to an improvised loading dock. Their communications gear, even the training rigs, resided in a steel safe on the back of what her instructor called a "lorry" whenever class was not in session. Stern faced soldiers solemnly guarded the safe day and night and the instructor had to sign for every part of a rig whenever it entered or exited the safe. Marie knew with a cold certainty that anyone trying to get at the gear without authorization could be shot dead without too many questions.
After returning her rig, she made her way across the training grounds' campus, around a beautiful fountain in the front of the home, and into the main hall that led to the administrative offices. She wore a dark olive-green wool jacket and skirt with a heavy brown leather belt cinched at the waist of the jacket. Her khaki brown tie was the exact same color as her stiffly starched shirt. Her otherwise utterly unadorned uniform wasn't too much different from what the men wore , aside from the skirt of course.
Up two flights of stairs and down a hall to the third door on the right. With a quick rap-rap of her knuckles, Charlene bade her enter.
"You asked to see me, Major?"
"Yes, Temperance. Please, come in and have a seat."
She'd been in Charlene's office before, but the very masculine decor compared to the ultra-feminine Charlene continued to surprise her. Heavy furniture, dark colors, absolutely no decoration — if Marie had just met her on the street, she would have assumed the older woman surrounded herself with fine china and delicate flowers. It made her wonder if the earl had prohibited certain decor changes to his home.
Marie sat in the heavy wood chair in front of Charlene's desk. Charlene rested her forearms on the wood surface and laced her fingers together. "I'll get right to it. It's time, Temperance."
Her heart immediately started beating a little bit faster. She licked her lips and tried to breathe steady. "Oh? So soon?"
"We've lost contact with the last wireless operator in area three. It's been a few weeks. It's time to send someone new. I know it's early but let's be frank. You're the best we've got and you're ready."
Cold sweat beaded her brow, but she nodded. "Okay. Okay. I can do this."
"Well, of course you can. I have every confidence in you." She slid an envelope toward her. "Here are your cover documents. You are a seamstress named Marie Perrin. Memorize everything. You won't be taking it with you. In fact, it will be burned before you leave this office so take as long as you like." She gestured at the clock on the wall. "Faith will fly you into France tonight. Report to the north hangar at twenty-one hundred hours."
After thirty minutes, they burned the documents and then Charlene stood and held out her hand. "I cannot tell you the level of joy it has been watching you train, Temperance. With all my heart, I wish you godspeed."
"Thank you," Marie said, heart pounding furiously. "I hope to see you again."