That last drink at the Astor had been a mistake. Or maybe it was the one before that. Perhaps the error was switching to whisky. The Liberator lurched as the ack-ack burst in the air and the pressure pushed the plane sideways. What happens if you throw up in an oxygen mask at fifteen thousand feet? Nothing good. Nancy swallowed hard and groaned, knowing that at least no one would hear her in the thundering noise of the plane and the exploding air. The Spam sandwiches and coffee before take-off—that was her mistake right there. She could feel them churning in her stomach. What the hell did they put in Spam anyway and why were the British so bloody proud of being able to eat it? She grabbed at the ribs of the fuselage as it dropped and bounced. Yup. Definitely the Spam sandwiches’ fault. Another burst, closer this time, and the plane seemed to fall hard and fast, uncontrolled. Her eardrums sang and her chest tightened. The engines whined and then roared, and suddenly they were climbing again. She slid forward and scrabbled for purchase with her feet against the riveted panels. Sharp roll right and another deafening bang as if God himself had thrown his fist against the side of the plane. Not now. Not before she even got to France. Please. Her hip slammed against metal and she gasped as the pain shot through her. Then the plane began to level out and the engine noise lowered in pitch. The explosions were more distant. She took long, slow breaths, slowly released her grip on the rib. Her hand was cramping. It looked strange to her without her wedding ring. They’d insisted she take it off for the jump, and it was the first time she’d done so since Henri put it on her finger. The pale skin looked like a scar.
The dispatcher came through to check on her and tapped at his watch to show they were half an hour out from the drop zone. She checked the straps of her parachute and the bandages wrapped round her ankles. In the pocket of her camel-hair coat her fingers brushed the smooth metal of the compact Buckmaster had given her. A nice little parting gift that, the sweetie. Catching herself thinking fondly of a man who had held a pistol to her head only a week before made her shake her head, and the plane began to drop at the same time. She tasted Spam in the back of her throat and swallowed again. If ever there was a time she’d be willing to jump out of a fucking plane it was right now.
She’d told the dispatcher to give her a shove, and he took her at her word. One minute she was in the rattling whirring belly of the plane, staring out of the Joe hole at the flicker of the signal bonfires and the discreet flashes of a torch, and the next she was out in the cold and falling.
The parachute snapped open and she felt the fierce tug of the straps on her shoulders and waist and across her thighs. Relief first, then a moment of calm. The moonlit landscape lay below her, the rise and fall of the mountains, the steep silhouettes against the sky, the peace of it, the fires and… oh Christ, all the trees.
The earth was approaching pretty bloody fast.
She yanked on the cord, trying to aim for open ground. Nearly there, and then a casual whip of a breeze pushed her south and back over the tree line. Time up.
She pulled her knees to her chest and tucked in her chin as she felt the top-most branches grabbing at her in the darkness. Gravity took the chance to make it perfectly clear who was boss in the end. Nothing she could do about it now. The brittle hands of the trees grabbed and jabbed at her till the chute caught, the harness jerked her again and she was stopped dead.
She opened her eyes, one at a time, to find herself dangling in the air, like a fish on the end of a lucky angler’s line. She could smell the smoke of the signal bonfires, but even twisting on the end of her cords, she could see nothing but pinched and branching darkness.
“A parachute, over there!” a French voice said.
“Merde,” she hissed. Strange how even her mind switched back to French as soon as she took a lungful of the air of her adopted home. A light was approaching up the track. Friend or foe? She reached into the side pocket of her coat and closed her fingers around the grip of her Webley revolver. If it was a German patrol she was dead, but she’d take at least one of the bastards with her. Still, the voice sounded pretty relaxed. Maybe a German patrol happening on a landing site would sound a bit less… casual. Whoever was coming up the track seemed to be coming at an easy stroll too.
The torch paused under her tree and she heard a low laugh. A French laugh.
“The trees in France bear beautiful fruit this spring,” the voice said. Very funny.
“Oh, just cut out that French shit and get me down,” Nancy said, releasing her grip on the gun. The torchlight panned down from her feet to the forest floor. Less than ten feet. She sighed and pulled the chute’s release mechanism, managing a landing which didn’t snap her ankles or roll her into a thorn bush, at least.
The man with the torch shone it toward his own face briefly and Nancy saw a youngish man, good looking in that classically French long-nosed, high-cheekbones sort of a way. He put out his hand and helped her to her feet.
“My name is Tardivat.”
“Nancy Wake.” Tardivat’s grip was firm and cool. “Is Southgate here? I was told he’d be picking me up.”
“One moment.”
As soon as Nancy was on her feet, Tardivat passed her the torch and clambered into the lower branches of the tree. He moved easily, pulling himself up from branch to branch until he could get to work on the cords of her parachute.
“Shine the torch here,” he said, and began to gather the silk into his arms, taking care not to tear it or leave any telltale scraps of cord in the branches. The night seemed very still, and Nancy could smell the soil in the thin high air, the fresh growth of the spring pushing through the rotting leaves of last year.
“Southgate was picked up by the Gestapo a week ago,” Tardivat said.
“Betrayed?”
“Only by bad luck,” he continued. “He was caught with forged papers. Once we have doused the signal fires, I am to take you to Gaspard, he’s the head of the Maquis here.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of him.”
He gathered the parachute under one arm, then jumped lightly to the ground, his fingertips brushing the soil as he landed. “What have they told you about him?”
Nancy examined his face in the glow of the edge of the torchlight. Maybe she’d not tell him exactly what Buckmaster had said.
“A good fighter, but arrogant.”
Tardivat nodded slowly. “True. Did they tell you he hates the English too?”
“Well, I’m Australian.”
He snorted. “I don’t think he’ll see the distinction, Madame.”
He opened his pack and began to stuff the parachute inside. She took a step toward him.
“Hey, we have to bury that! And it’s Captain.”
Tardivat carried on. “Forgive me if this is just more ‘French shit,’ but I was a tailor before the war, Captain. I will not bury silk like this. I shall make something pretty for my wife so I can remember the days before the Germans started taking everything fine and handsome for themselves.”
Hell. She’d only landed on French soil five minutes ago and here was trouble already. It was driven into them every day through training—bury the parachute, bury the parachute. But on the other hand, if Southgate was in the Gestapo cells and Gaspard was as much of a bastard as Buckmaster had said he was, Nancy was going to need as many friends as she could get.
“Fair enough. How do we get to Gaspard?”
“We’ll have to walk. The trail is about eight kilometers and rough.”
Nancy sighed and began to unwrap the bandages from around her ankles; under them she wore silk stockings and high heels.
Tardivat began to laugh. “My God, you jumped into France in those?”
Nancy fished a pair of walking shoes out of her backpack and carefully wiped the forest mulch off the polished leather of her good pair before slipping them into the pack and doing it up.
“And under this stupid tin hat, my hair is very nicely styled. Now shall we get going?”
They went in darkness. Tardivat extinguished his torch as soon as they were sure they’d left no sign of Nancy at the drop site. At first Nancy was just getting used to being off that damn plane, then she began to feel the thrill of having French soil under her feet. Not that this steep path through the woods was much like Paris or Marseille, of course. But it still felt like home, somehow. An image of Henri turning from the windows in their bedroom in his white dinner jacket flashed into her mind so strongly it was as if she had seen a ghost.
“What’s the news here?” She spoke in a whisper.
It was too dark to see it, but she could hear the shrug in Tardivat’s voice.
“People are beginning to feel their blood and courage rise. We French have always known what happens to armies who try to invade Russia. The Germans are starting to learn that lesson at last.”
That had been the moment, Nancy thought. She remembered when she heard the news, crouched over the radio, Henri’s hand squeezing her own in excitement. Every kid in France knew what happened to Napoleon when he tried to take Moscow, but apparently no one had told Hitler. The day he launched his surprise attack on the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 was the first day anyone in France dared to hope. It also meant all the French communists were finally free to pick up their weapons and start fighting back.
Then the Führer lost an army at Stalingrad.
“We have gained many men this year,” Tardivat said. “The young men who refuse to work in Germany come to us. It is good, but it has made problems too.”
“What problems?”
“We are many. At first there were enough abandoned barns and farms for everyone. Now it is harder to find a place, and to keep moving so the police cannot find us.”
“What else?”
“We fight, but we fight among ourselves too.” Tardivat sighed. “There are feuds between villages and families here that go back to the Revolution. Some use the Gestapo to attack their enemies, some use the Maquis. Not all the scores being settled are against the invader.”
Great. Politics. Not Nancy’s strong point.
“And Gaspard lets this happen?”
“He lets his men raid the farms of his enemies.” Tardivat paused in the darkness, then, as if guided by some invisible hand, headed off again. The path got steeper and narrower.
“That’s not going to happen while I’m here,” Nancy said firmly. Perhaps all that bloody physical training had been a good idea after all. It sounded better, saying stuff like that if you weren’t panting.
They reached the edge of the tree line and the first light of dawn showed shadows in gray and silver as the night retreated.
“We’ll pay for what we take,” Nancy said. “And this is a military operation now. That means rules. We’re not the Germans. We’re the good guys and we’re going to act like it.”
Tardivat sighed. “Whatever you say, Captain.”
Nancy turned away from the view. He could have his parachute, but she was damned if she would let him take that tone with her. She breathed in, ready to explain that to him in short, sharp sentences. Too late she saw his eyes flick up as he caught a movement over her shoulder. She began to turn, then something struck her across the head and everything went dark.