do nothing! When we see the parachutists-we do nothing! We will watch the parachutists land and wait for the reception committee to round them up and assemble them near where the vehicles are parked.” Dieter raised his voice, mainly for the benefit of Weber. “Not until this process has been completed will we arrest anyone!” The men would not jump the gun unless a skittish officer told them to.
“When we are ready, I will give the signal. From this moment on, until the order to stand down is given, teams A, B, C, and D will arrest anyone attempting to enter or leave the village. Teams E, F, G, and H will switch on their searchlights and turn them on the enemy. Teams K and L will approach them with me and arrest them. No one is to fire on the enemy—is that clear?”
Schuller, obviously the thinker among the group, raised his hand again. “What if they fire on us?”
“Do not return their fire. These people are useless to us dead! Lie flat and keep the lights trained on them. Only teams E and F are permitted to use their weapons, and they have orders to shoot to wound. We want to interrogate these parachutists, not kill them.”
The phone in the room rang, and Hans Hesse picked it up. “It’s for you,” he said to Dieter. “Rommel’s headquarters.”
The timing was lucky, Dieter thought as he took the phone. He had called Walter Goedel at La RocheGuyon earlier and had left a message asking Goedel to call back. Now he said, “Walter, my friend, how is the Field Marshal?”
“Fine, what do you want?” said Goedel, abrupt as ever.
“I thought the Field Marshal might like to know that we expect to carry off a small coup tonight-the arrest of a group of saboteurs as they arrive.” Dieter hesitated to give details over the phone, but this was a German military line, and the risk that the Resistance might be listening was very small. And it was crucial to get Goedel’s support for the operation. “My information is that one of them could tell us a great deal about several Resistance circuits.”
“Excellent,” said Goedel. “As it happens, I am calling you from Paris. How long would it take me to drive to Reims-two hours?”
“Three.”
“Then I will join you on the raid.”
Dieter was delighted. “By all means,” he said, “if that is what the Field Marshal would like. Meet us at the chateau of Sainte-Cecile not later than nineteen hundred.” He looked at Weber, who had gone slightly pale.
“Very good.” Goedel hung up.
Dieter handed the phone back to Hesse. “Field Marshal Rommel’s personal aide, Major Goedel, will be joining us tonight,” he said triumphantly. “Yet another reason for us to make sure that everything is done with impeccable efficiency.” He smiled around the room, bringing his gaze to rest finally on Weber. “Aren’t we fortunate?”
CHAPTER 29
ALL MORN INC THE Jackdaws drove north in a small bus. It was a slow journey through leafy woods and fields of green wheat, zigzagging from one sleepy market town to the next, circling London to the west. The countryside seemed oblivious of the war or indeed of the twentieth century, and Flick hoped it would long remain so. As they wound their way through medieval Winchester, she thought of Reims, another cathedral city, with uniformed Nazis strutting on the streets and the Gestapo everywhere in their black cars, and she gave a short prayer of thanks that they had stopped at the English Channel. She sat next to Paul and watched - the countryside for a while; then-having been awake all night making love-she fell into a blissful sleep with her head on his shoulder.
At two in the afternoon they reached the village of Sandy in Bedfordshire. The bus went down a winding country road, turned onto an unpaved lane through a wood, and arrived at a large mansion called Tempsford House. Flick had been here before: it was the assembly point for the nearby Tempsford Airfield. The mood of tranquility left her. Despite the eighteenth-century elegance of the place, to her it symbolized the unbearable tension of the hours immediately before a flight into enemy territory.
They were too late for lunch, but they got tea and sandwiches in the dining room. Flick drank her tea but felt too anxious to eat. However, the others tucked in heartily. Afterwards they were shown to their rooms.
A little later the women met in the library. The room looked more like the wardrobe of a film studio. There were racks of coats and dresses, boxes of hats and shoes, cardboard cartons labeled Culotres Chausseue and Mouchoirs and a trestle table in the middle of the room with several sewing machines.
In charge of the operation was Madame Guillemin, a slim woman of about fifty in a shirtwaist dress with a chic little matching jacket. She had spectacles on the end of her nose and a measuring tape around her neck, and she spoke to them in perfect French with a Parisian accent. “As you know, French clothes are distinctively different from British clothes. I won’t say they are more stylish, but, you know, they are… more stylish.” She gave a French shrug, and the girls laughed.
It was not just a question of style, Flick thought somberly: French jackets were normally about ten inches longer than British, and there were numerous differences of detail, any of which could be the fatal clue that betrayed an agent. So all the clothes here had been bought in France, exchanged with refugees for new British clothes, or faithfully copied from French originals, then worn for a while so that they would not look new.
“Now it is summer so we have cotton dresses, light wool suits, and shower proof coats.” She waved a hand at two young women sitting at sewing machines. “My assistants will make alterations if the clothes don’t fit quite perfectly.”
Flick said, “We need clothes that are fairly expensive, but well worn. I want us to look like respectable women in case we’re questioned by the Gestapo.” When they needed to pose as cleaners, they could quickly downgrade their appearance by taking off their hats, gloves, and belts.
Madame Guillemin began with Ruby. She looked hard at her for a minute, then picked from the rack a navy dress and a tan raincoat. “Try those. It’s a man’s coat, but in France today no one can afford to be particular.” She pointed across the room. “You can change behind that screen if you wish, and for the very shy there is a little anteroom behind the desk. We think the owner of the house used to lock himself in there to read dirty books.” They laughed again, all but Flick, who had heard Madame Guillemin’s jokes before.
The seamstress looked hard at Greta, then moved on, saying, “I’ll come back to you.” She picked outfits for Jelly, Diana, and Maude, and they all went behind the screen. Then she turned to Flick and said in a low voice, “Is this a joke?”
“Why do you say that?”
She turned to Greta. “You’re a man.”
Flick gave a grunt of frustration and turned away. The seamstress had seen through Greta’s disguise in seconds. It was a bad omen.
Madame added, “You might fool a lot of people, but not me. I can tell.”
Greta said, “How?”
Madame Guillemin shrugged. “The proportions are all wrong-your shoulders are too broad, your hips too narrow, your legs too muscular, your hands too big-it’s obvious to an expert.”
Flick said irritably, “She has to be a woman, for this mission, so please dress her as best you can.”
“Of course-but for God’s sake, try not to let her be seen by a dressmaker.”
“No problem. The Gestapo don’t employ many of those.” Flick’s confidence was faked. She did not want Madame Guillemin to know how worried she was.
The seamstress looked again at Greta. “I’ll give you a contrasting skirt and blouse, to reduce your height, and a three-quarter-length coat.” She selected clothes and handed them to Greta.
Greta looked at them with disapproval. Her taste ran to more glamorous outfits. However, she did not complain. “I’m going to be shy and lock myself in the anteroom,” she said.
Finally Madame gave Flick an apple-green dress with a matching coat. “The color shows off your eyes,” she said. “As long as you’re not ostentatious, why shouldn’t you look pretty? It may help you charm your way out of trouble.”
