Buckmaster raised his eyebrows when he saw the message from Nancy. Garrow recognized the gesture as the equivalent of some men going into full cardiac arrest.
“At least she’s alive, sir.”
“Yes. There is that. Though of course I sent her to establish links with Gaspard, and she’s holed up with the dregs on the plateau. Southgate taken too. That is a blow.”
He continued to stare at the paper.
“I’m sure, sir, with this list she is aiming high. She can’t possibly expect us to drop all of this for a ragtag group such as Fournier’s. Let me revise it to something more in keeping.”
Garrow reached out to take the decoded message back, but Buckmaster gave a tiny shake of his head.
“We don’t second-guess our men or women in the field, Garrow. Not unless we have good reason. Perhaps Captain Wake is overreaching, but it is just as possible that she intends to put on a show for her new friends, and possibly for Gaspard too. She certainly knows how to make an impression.”
“For Gaspard, sir?”
Buckmaster laid down the sheet and started carefully stuffing his pipe. “You read the reports Southgate managed to send before he was taken. They all know which of their rivals have taken a shit before the privy door has banged. If we make this drop…” He paused stuffing his pipe to point the stem at the paper in front of him. “Gaspard and all his crew will know about our munificence by breakfast. Give her all of it. And add her care package.”
Garrow retrieved the message from his table with a nod. Then cleared his throat.
“Yes, Garrow?”
“May I impress on her the time factor, sir?”
Buckmaster held a match to his pipe and inhaled in short little huffs until he had the tobacco burning as he wanted. “Yes. Tell her to knock them into shape quickly. By whatever means necessary. She has six weeks to make those men into a useful fighting force.”
Garrow left the office with a spring in his step, or something like it. For the first time since he had escaped France he felt a surge of excitement. The invasion of France was coming. Soon. Six weeks wasn’t a number Buckmaster had just pulled out of the air. He glanced out of the window. Below him Baker Street was stirring into life. He looked at the sandbags, the tape on the windows, and wondered what the street would look like when the war was done—the lights on, men in suits rather than uniform, women like Nancy back to shopping for dinner parties rather than queuing for necessities, and Hitler and all the hate and misery he stood for nothing but a memory. He wished he was out there again, but though his French was good, he still spoke it with a Scottish accent. He’d spent those months in the south running escape routes, having languished for a year in a prisoner of war camp. It had been an accident, and he’d got away with it only through the winking negligence of a few officials and sheer luck. When the Germans had arrived in the south the friendly officials had begun to disappear and his luck had dried up. Still, at least his knowledge of the country and the language was of use in “D” section, and he understood what Nancy and agents like her were up against. And soon, very soon, all the plans they had been making, all the people they had smuggled in behind enemy lines, would be put into action.
“The game’s afoot,” he said to himself with a wry smile. “Now what the hell do I put in Nancy’s care package?”
“Talking to yourself, Captain?” said Vera Atkins as she climbed the stairs, her handbag over one arm. “First sign of madness, you know.”
“I would have thought the first sign of madness was working here, Miss Atkins. Now, I need your advice.”