Ken Follett - Jackdaws

"It doesn't mean anything, she's just a pretty girl."

"Do you think that makes it better?" Flick knew she had originally attracted Michel's attention, back in the days when she was a student and he a lecturer, by challenging him in class-French students were deferential by comparison with their English counterparts, and on top of that Flick was by nature disrespectful of authority. If someone similar had seduced Michel-perhaps Genevieve, a woman who would have been his equal-she could have borne it better. It was more hurtful that he had chosen Gilberte, a girl with nothing on her mind more interesting than nail polish.

"I was lonely," Michel said pathetically.

"Spare me the sob story. You weren't lonely-you were weak, dishonest, and faithless."

"Flick, my darling, let's not quarrel. Half our friends have just been killed. You're going back to England. We could both die soon. Don't go away angry."

"How can I not be angry? I'm leaving you in the arms of your floozie!"

"She's not a floozie-"

"Skip the technicalities. I'm your wife, but you're sharing her bed."

Michel moved in his chair and winced with pain; then he fixed Flick with his intense blue eyes."I plead guilty," he said "I'm a louse. But I'm a louse who loves you, and I'm just asking you to forgive me, this once, in case I never see you again."

It was hard to resist. Flick weighed five years of marriage against a fling with a popsie and gave in. She moved a step toward him. He put his arms around her legs and pressed his face into the worn cotton of her dress. She stroked his hair. "All right," she said. "All right."

"I'm so sorry," he said. "I feel awful. You're the most wonderful woman I ever met, or even heard of. I won't do it any more, I promise."

The door opened, and Gilberte came in with Claude. Flick gave a guilty start and released Michel's head from her embrace. Then she felt stupid. He was her husband, not Gilberte's. Why should she feel guilty about hugging him, even in Gilberte's apartment? She was angry with herself.

Gilberte looked shocked to see her lover embracing his wife here, but she swiftly recovered her composure, and her face assumed a frozen expression of indifference.

Claude, a handsome young doctor, followed her in, looking anxious.

Flick went to Claude and kissed him on both cheeks. "Thank you for coming," she said. "We're truly grateful."

Claude looked at Michel. "How do you feel, old buddy?"

"I've got a bullet in my arse."

"Then I'd better take it out." He lost his worried air and became briskly professional. Turning to Flick, he said, "Put some towels on the bed to soak up the blood, then get his trousers off and lay him facedown. I'll wash my hands."

Gilberte put old magazines on her bed and towels over the paper while Flick got Michel up and helped him hobble to the bed. As he lay down, she could not help wondering how many other times he had lain here.

Claude inserted a metal instrument into the wound and felt around for the slug. Michel cried out with pain.

"I'm sorry, old friend," Claude said solicitously.

Flick almost took pleasure in the sight of Michel in agony on the bed where he had formerly cried out with guilty pleasure. She hoped he would always remember Gilberte's bedroom this way.

Michel said, "Just get it over with."

Flick's vengeful feeling passed quickly, and she felt sorry for Michel. She moved the pillow closer to his face, saying, "Bite on this, it will help."

Michel stuffed the pillow into his mouth.

Claude probed again, and this time got the bullet out. Blood flowed freely for a few seconds, then slowed, and Claude put a dressing on.

"Keep as still as you can for a few days," he advised Michel. That meant Michel would have to stay at Gilberte's place. However, he would be too sore for sex, Flick thought with grim satisfaction.

"Thank you, Claude," she said.

"Glad to be able to help."

"I have another request."

Claude looked scared. "What?"

"I'm meeting a plane at a quarter to midnight. I need you to drive me to Chatelle."

"Why can't Gilberte take you, in the car she used to come to my place?"

"Because of the curfew. But we'll be safe with you, you're a doctor."

"Why would I have two people with me?"

"Three. We need Michel to hold a torch." There was an unvarying procedure for pickups: four Resistance people held flashlights in the shape of a giant letter "L," indicating the direction of the wind and where the plane should come down. The small battery-operated torches needed to be directed at the aircraft to make sure the pilot saw them. They could simply be placed in position on the ground, but that was less sure, and if the pilot did not see what he expected he might suspect a trap and decide not to land. It was better to have four people if at all possible.

Claude said, "How would I explain you all to the police? A doctor on emergency call doesn't travel with three people in his car."

"We'll think of some story."

"It's too dangerous!"

"It will take only a few minutes, at this time of night."

"Marie-Jeanne will kill me. She says I have to think of the children."

"You don't have any."

"She's pregnant."

Flick nodded. That would explain why he had become so jumpy.

Michel rolled over and sat upright. He reached out and grasped Claude's arm. "Claude, I'm begging you, this is really important. Do it for me, will you?"

It was hard to say no to Michel. Claude sighed. "When?"

Flick looked at her watch. It was almost eleven. "Now."

Claude looked at Michel. "His wound may reopen."

"I know," Flick said. "Let it bleed."

The village of Chatelle consisted of a few buildings clustered around a crossroads: three farmhouses, a strip of laborers' cottages, and a bakery that served the surrounding farms and hamlets. Flick stood in a cow pasture a mile from the crossroads, holding in her hand a flashlight about the size of a pack of cigarettes.

She had been on a weeklong course, run by the pilots of 161 Squadron, to train her for the task of guiding an aircraft in. This location fitted the specifications they had given her. The field was almost a kilometer long-a Lysander needed six hundred meters to land and take off. The ground beneath her feet was firm, and there was no slope. A nearby pond was clearly visible from the air in the moonlight, providing a useful landmark for pilots.

Michel and Gilberte stood upwind of Flick in a straight line, also holding flashlights, and Claude stood a few yards to one side of Gilberte, making a flare path in the shape of an upside-down "L" to guide the pilot. In remote areas, bonfires could be used instead of electric lights, but here, close to a village, it was too dangerous to leave the telltale burn mark on the ground.

The four people formed what the agents called a reception committee. Flick's were always silent and disciplined, but less-well-organized groups sometimes turned the landing into a party, with groups of men shouting jokes and smoking cigarettes, and spectators from nearby villages turning up to watch. This was dangerous. If the pilot suspected that the landing had been betrayed to the Germans, and thought the Gestapo might be lying in wait, he had to react quickly. The instructions to reception committees warned that anyone approaching the plane from the wrong angle was liable to be shot by the pilot. This had never actually happened, but on one occasion a spectator had been run over by a Hudson bomber and killed.

Waiting for the plane was always hell. If it did not arrive, Flick would face another twenty-four hours of unremitting tension and danger before the next opportunity. But an agent never knew whether a plane would show up. This was not because the RAF was unreliable. Rather, as the pilots of 161 Squadron had explained to Flick, the task of navigating a plane by moonlight across hundreds of miles of country was monumentally difficult. The pilot used dead reckoning-calculating his position by direction, speed, and elapsed time-and tried to verify the result by landmarks such as rivers, towns, railway lines, and forests. The problem with dead reckoning was that it was impossible to make an exact adjustment for the drift caused by wind. And the trouble with landmarks was that one river looked very much like another by moon-light. Getting to roughly the right area was difficult enough, but these pilots had to find an individual field.