or at least she had been before the war. That took grit. She would test the girl tomorrow, Eleanor decided, and make the call whether to keep her or send her packing once and for all.
It was nearly eleven o’clock, well after the lights-out bell had sounded in the barracks below, when her vision blurred from too much reading and she was forced to stop. She set down the files and crept from the records room to the barracks below.
She listened to the girls’ breathing in the darkness, almost in unison. She could just make out Marie and Josie in adjacent beds, their heads tilted toward one another conspiratorially in sleep, as though they were still talking. Each girl had come from a different place, united here into kind of a team. But they would be scattered again just as quickly. They could not find their strength from one another because out in the field they would have to rely on themselves. She wondered how they would take the news tomorrow, how one would fare without the other.
The aide who had brought her food earlier came up behind her. “Ma’am, a phone call from London.”
Eleanor walked to the office he indicated and lifted the receiver to her ear. “Trigg here.”
The Director’s voice crackled across the line. “How are the girls?” he asked without preamble. “Are they ready?” It was not like him to be at headquarters so late and there was an unmistakable urgency to his voice.
Eleanor struggled with how to answer the question. This was her program and if anything was out of sorts, she would be held to blame. She could hear the men back at headquarters, saying that they had known it all along. But more important than her reputation or her pride was the girls. Their actual preparedness was all that would save them and the aims they were trying to achieve.
She pushed aside her doubts. “They will be.”
“Good. They must. The bridge mission is a go.” Eleanor’s stomach did a queer flip. SOE had taken on dozens of risky missions, but blowing up the bridge outside Paris would be by far the most dangerous—and most critical. And one of these girls would be at the center of it. “It’s good that you are there to deliver the news in person. You’ll let her know tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Of course, she would not be telling the girl everything, just that she was going. The rest would come later, when she needed to know.
Then remembering the sleeping girls, she was flooded with doubts anew. “I don’t know if she’s ready,” she confessed.
“She has to be.” They couldn’t wait any longer.
There was a click on the other end of the line and then Eleanor set the receiver back into the cradle. She tiptoed back to the girls’ dorm.
Josie was curled into a ball like a child, her thumb close to her mouth in a habit she had surely broken years ago. A wave of protectiveness broke and crested over Eleanor as she remembered the sister she had lost so many years ago. She could protect these girls in a way she hadn’t been able to her own sister. She needed them to do a job that was dangerous, potentially lethal, though, and then she needed them to come home safely. These were the only two things that mattered. Would she be able to manage both?
A faint smile played about Josie’s lips and Eleanor wondered what she was dreaming. Just a young girl with a young girl’s dreams. Eleanor would let her remain that—at least for a few more hours.
She tiptoed from the room, closing the door softly behind her.
Marie
Scotland, 1944
Marie still hated running.
She had been at Arisaig House for almost six weeks and every morning it was the same: five miles up and back, partway around the loch and up a dreaded incline only known among the girls as “The Point.” Her heels were cracked and bleeding and the blisters on her feet from all of the damp hikes seemed on the constant verge of infection. Just thinking about doing it again made her bones ache.
But, she reflected as she made her way to breakfast after splashing some water on her face to freshen up, she no longer ran at the rear of the pack. Over the weeks she had been here, she had built up speed and stamina she hadn’t imagined herself to possess. She liked to keep up with Josie so that they could talk as they ran. Nothing detailed really, just a few words here or there. Josie, who had spent much of her early childhood summers in the mountains of Cumbria, would point out bits of the Scottish landscape or tell stories she’d heard from the war.
Marie had gotten to know Josie well during her weeks at training. Not just through the classes and meals; they spent long sleepless nights talking, Josie sharing stories of her childhood on the streets of Leeds with her brother, fending off scoundrels who wanted to take advantage of defenseless children. Marie shared her own past, too, of how Richard had left her penniless. She felt silly, though, complaining after all Josie had been through at such a young age. Her own childhood, while cruel, had been one of unmistakable privilege, not at all like Josie’s street urchin–like experience. The two would not have known each other in different circumstances. Yet here they had become fast friends.
In the dining hall, they took their usual spots at the women’s table, Josie at the head, Marie and Brya on either side. Marie unfolded her napkin carefully and placed it in her lap and started eating right away, mindful that Madame Poirot was, as ever, watching. Meals were constantly part of the lesson. The French wipe up their gravy with bread, she’d learned soon after arrival. And never ask for butter—they no longer have any. Even at mealtime, it seemed the girls were being scrutinized. The slightest mistake could trip you up.
Marie recalled a night shortly after she had arrived at Arisaig House when they had been served a really good wine at dinner. “Don’t drink it,” Josie had whispered. Marie’s hand froze above her glass. “It’s a trick.” For a second she thought Josie meant the drink had been poisoned. Marie lifted the wineglass and held it beneath her nose, sniffing for the hint of sulfur as she had been trained but finding none. She looked around and noticed them plying girls with a second glass, then a third. The girls’ cheeks were becoming flushed and they were chatting as if they didn’t have a care. Marie understood then that the test was to see if they would become reckless after drinking too much.
“You’re in an awful hurry,” Josie observed as they ate breakfast. “Hot date?”
“Very funny. I have to retake codes.”
Josie nodded, understanding. Marie had already failed the test for the previous unit in radio operator class once. There would not be a third chance. If she couldn’t do it today and prove that she could transmit, she would be sent packing.
What would be so bad about that? Marie mused as she ate. She had not asked for this strange, difficult life, and a not-so-small part of her wanted to fail and go home so she could see Tess.
She’d trained intensively from morning until night since coming to Arisaig House. Most of her time was spent in front of a radio set, studying to be a wireless telegraph operator (W/Ts, they were called). But she’d learned other things, too, things she could not have possibly imagined: how to set up dead and live letter drops and the difference between the two (the former being a pre-agreed location where one agent could leave a message for another; the latter an in-person, clandestine meeting), how to identify a suitable rendezvous spot, one where a woman could plausibly be found for other reasons.
But if running had gotten easier, the rest of the training had not. Despite all she learned, it was never enough. She couldn’t set an explosives charge without her fingers shaking, was hopeless at grappling and shooting. Perhaps most worryingly, she could not lie and maintain a cover story. If she could not do that under mock interrogation, when the means of coercion were limited, how could she ever hope to do it in the field? Her one strength was French, which had been better than everyone else’s before she arrived. On all other fronts, she was failing.
Marie was suddenly homesick. Signing