Michael Grant - Purple Hearts

Marie does introductions. The younger man is her big brother, Étienne. The older man is called Monsieur Faisan, literally Mr. Pheasant, yet another cover name presumably.

Faisan jerks his head at Étienne and Marie and they scuttle off to haul the boxes of weapons and explosives inside. Rainy keeps the box of currency with her. She eyes the Walther on the table, noting the way the butt is turned, rehearsing a desperate grab, should it be necessary. Passwords are all well and good, but many an agent has been picked up in this region. She can assume nothing.

No one has yet spoken directly to Rainy and she’s content to leave it that way as Marie and Étienne unwind oilcloth and take out weapons and explosives and the precious radio.

Faisan when he speaks, speaks only French.

“ Des beaux cadeaux ,” Faisan says. Nice presents.

Rainy’s French is not as good as her German. Good enough to fool the average Wehrmacht soldier manning a checkpoint, but not a true Frenchman.

“You’re welcome,” she says in French.

“You’re a woman,” Faisan says, looking as though he’d like to spit.

“And you’re a smuggler,” Rainy says.

Faisan’s brow rises. Étienne moves slightly forward as if he’s going to do something, then subsides.

“Why do you say that?” Faisan asks.

Rainy shrugs. “Isolated shack by a river, a second shack with a padlocked door, tracks made by a heavy truck. And you seem cautious but not paranoid, meaning you feel fairly safe here. So you are a smuggler, and I’m guessing the Germans know it.”

“Why would you guess that?”

Rainy shrugs. “You’re not nervous enough. The Germans know you’re a smuggler, and they don’t mind because I’m guessing they get a cut.”

Suddenly Faisan’s face transforms. He smiles, revealing various nicotine-stained teeth interrupted by gaps. “A woman, but not a stupid woman. Welcome to France, madame . . .”

“Mademoiselle,” Rainy corrects. “But more to the point, Lieutenant Alice Jones, US Army.”

“Where is the rest of the invasion force, did you forget to bring them?” Étienne says.

“Never fear, monsieur, they are coming.”

Faisan shrugs as if to say he hopes so, but will believe it when he sees it.

Marie fetches a bottle of cognac and four small glasses. She pours and hands them around.

“ La France libre ,” Rainy says, and they drink a toast. To a free France.

“ Aux alliés ,” Faisan counters. To the Allies.

Faisan sits in a rickety chair, suddenly looking tired. Rainy wonders if Faisan has been sick recently. He does not look well.

Étienne takes over the conversation. “And now, with all pleasantries aside, Lieutenant—”

“Alice will do,” Rainy interrupts.

“As you wish. Mademoiselle Alice. We welcome you, and we welcome your gifts, but why are you come?”

“The Das Reich division.”

None of the three French people are surprised. Waffen SS tank divisions often carry names as well as numbers, and the Das Reich, also known as the Second SS Panzer Division, is a name all-too familiar to the resistance as well as to Allied war planners.

“They aren’t here,” Étienne says.

“No, they’re spread between Limoges and Valence D’Agen, three hundred kilometers from here,” Rainy says.

“Then you know all that we know.”

“The brass would like to know more: morale, the condition of their equipment, fuel supplies, ammunition on hand . . .”

“They wish to see how quickly the Das Reich can head north,” Étienne says smugly.

Rainy shrugs a non-committal confirmation. It is no secret that the Allies are planning an invasion, the whole world knows it. And it’s no secret that it will come somewhere in Brittany. When the invasion comes, the Das Reich division will be moved north to counterattack. Panzer divisions, tank divisions, are an obsession of Allied war planners, especially the well-equipped, well-indoctrinated Waffen SS panzer divisions. The Das Reich may have as many as 20,000 men and 200 tanks as well as artillery. The Das Reich is a big, strong, brutal weapon, a massive iron fist, and if it reaches the invasion beaches it could literally grind vulnerable Allied troops under its tank treads.

Étienne arrives at a decision after a quick glance at Faisan. “We cannot deliver you to Valence, we have no . . . connections . . . there. But we can get you to Limoges. The woods southwest of there are full of panzers under cover.”

Rainy nods. One step at a time. “All right.”

“We travel by boat up the river to Cognac. There we will meet a lorry that makes regular runs to Paris and can make a stop in Limoges. Do you have identity papers?”

Rainy produces a forged identity document naming her Madame Nicole Amadou, French war widow. Étienne looks at the document carefully. “This is good work.”

“I’ll pass that along to the SOE—they made it for us.” The SOE, British Special Operations Executive, are far more experienced at forging French documents than US Army Intelligence.

“We will travel as fiancés, engaged to be married. Marie will accompany us as chaperone, so have no concern on that score.” He waves her away, as if she had been hoping for a romantic interlude with him. “We will say that we are en route to Limoges where our mother lives and where the ceremony will be held.”

“You’re a little old to play my fiancé,” Rainy says bluntly.

Étienne makes a rude noise. “We lost almost two million men in the first war, mademoiselle, and two hundred thousand plus more than a million prisoners in this war; most of the able-bodied men have been sent off to work in German factories as little better than slaves. There are not so many French men left that you can be choosy.”

Rainy nods acceptance.

“It will be very dangerous,” Étienne says. “If we are caught . . . well, you cannot imagine what the Gestapo do to prisoners.”

Rainy doesn’t like his superior tone at all. And she does not wish to spend the next week or more being condescended to—she’s had quite enough of being treated like a second-class citizen because of her sex. She raises the little gas lantern from the table and holds it close to her face. The light picks out the small scar that bisects her lower lip, and the scar where surgeons went in to mend her broken jaw. She pulls back her hair to reveal a scar on the side of her neck. Then she unfastens the top buttons of her dress and pulls the collar aside to show the crooked collarbone beneath a mass of scar tissue. There’s more, much more, but this much will do.

“I know exactly what the Gestapo does to prisoners,” Rainy says.

Étienne falls silent and withdraws from the circle of light. Marie edges closer, fascinated and horrified. But it is Faison who rises, comes near, and with surprising tenderness touches the bump of her badly-healed collarbone.

He then raises his hand from her shoulder and turns it so she can see that there are no nails on his fingers. Tearing out fingernails is a favorite of Nazi torturers.

“Pour us two glasses,” Faisan says and Marie complies. Faisan hands one to Rainy, takes the other himself. He makes no toast, says nothing at all, but their eyes meet, his old and sick, hers young and still vital. The old French smuggler and the young female US Army lieutenant have nothing to say to each other that can be turned into words.

They drink. He lifts the Walther from the table and hands it back to Rainy.

“ Et bien ,” Faisan says with a sigh. “ Dépêchez vous .”

Get going.

4

FRANGIE MARR—LST 86, PORTSMOUTH HARBOR, UK

“You’re killing me, Doc. You’re killing me dead.”

Sergeant Frangie Marr, frequently known as “Doc,” stands before a tier of bunks six high. The lowest one is occupied by a black man with the extravagant name of Vanderbilt DeRay, who looks like someone who has crawled to hell, spent a week, and just got back.