Malloy was aware that his uniform was what got him a taxi at Euston Station. Not because he was a soldier. Not even because he was a captain. But because he was an American and he’d got dollars.
At the house in Grosvenor Square he’d been introduced to a Lieutenant-Colonel Kelly who in turn had taken him the short walk to Baker Street where he had been introduced to Major Wallace. Major Wallace was a Scot, and he was SOE. He would be Wallace’s protégé while he was undergoing his SOE training.
The major had taken him to dinner at the Dorchester and as they walked through the darkened London streets he heard his first air-raid warning.
The major said, “We’ll be OK in the hotel. Safer in there than out here anyway.”
A dance-band played as they ate dinner and several people came to their table to chat for a few moments with Wallace. Most of them pretty girls in khaki uniforms.
“You married, Malloy?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It’s Mike, and you’re Bill, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“When you write to your wife there’s a nice little item from today’s news to tell her. Today the British government announced that for the duration of the war there is to be no embroidery on women’s underwear.” He roared with laughter. “That’ll shake the Germans.”
“What’s the purpose of that regulation?”
“God knows.” He smiled. “In wartime it gives all the old aunties in the Ministries a wonderful chance to make people’s lives more miserable than they already are.”
“Most people over here seem pretty cheerful to me.”
“In a way they are. Everybody’s got a job. Everybody’s earning money and that includes women too. People who’ve been on the dole for years have suddenly become valuable. No wonder they like it.”
“What did you do before the war, Mike?”
“I was a lawyer, criminal law-courts.”
“I was a lawyer too.”
“I know. Is that what you’re going to do when you get back?”
“I’m not sure. Depends what things are like. The war’s going to change a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
“Everything. This war is going to change countries as well as people. It’s going to be a mess. And I guess it’ll take at least as many years to clear up the mess as it takes to win the war.”
“You don’t have any doubts that we’ll win it?”
Malloy looked shocked. “Of course not. Do you?”
Wallace shrugged. “We were fighting the Germans and the Italians on our own for over a year. We’d have been fools not to wonder if we’d survive. Now that your people are in it with us it changed overnight.” He paused. “But it’s still got to be won.”
At the next day’s briefing Wallace got straight down to business. “I want to make clear that you’re completely independent. You’re only with me for special training that will make your job in France easier. You’re still one of Kelly’s men. Not under us for discipline. We aren’t trying to take over any of OSS’s operation. All we want to do is to make sure that our experience of operating in German-occupied France is passed on to you. When you’ve finished the course you can operate how you choose, you can ignore what we’ve told you—or use it—it’s up to you. D’you understand?”
“Yes. But I don’t understand why you’re telling me this.”
Wallace shrugged. “Your people here in London have their own ways of doing things. That’s the way you go. And there are people in Washington who think we are trying to impose our methods on OSS so that we can take them over or at least control their activities if they don’t mesh with ours. Your people here wouldn’t let us do that even if we wanted to. They know the score—the politicians in Washington don’t. OK?”
Malloy smiled. “Sounds like home.”
Wallace shrugged. “You’ll be going to a place in Hampshire called Beaulieu. A large estate with a mansion. That’s where SOE people are trained. You’ll be trained on how to use a radio, how to encode and decode, how to carry out surveillance, how to drop a tail, map reading, recognition of German troop insignia and weapons and lastly—how to behave if you’re caught by the Germans.”
“Sounds like I’ll be busy. How long does it take?”
“You’ll be there about six months.” He stood up. “By the way, there’s mail for you at Grosvenor Square. I’ve arranged for a car to collect you from OSS and take you down to Beaulieu.”
At Beaulieu Malloy was billeted in a house on the big estate that was allocated to house SOE people who were going to operate in France. None of them used their real names. Malloy’s field name was to be Maurois with the same first name—Guillaume. He had been shown his documentation but it would not be handed over until he was in transit.
Spending most of his time with people who insisted on speaking only French improved Malloy’s French and gave him a more realistic idea of what things would be like when he was in Occupied France. The instruction was intensive and the training hours long. But what he learned by being with French people was almost as valuable. The surrender to the Germans was a bitter memory and the politics of Vichy were constantly debated. He learned too that for most of them the only thing that mattered was not winning the war but the liberation of France. Malloy was uneasy that he would be working so closely with people whose views were so narrow and isolated, but the British he met on the course had objectives more like his own. The defeat of the Nazis and the liberation of Europe as a whole.
Finally he was fitted out with clothes that had been bought from refugees from France, two American fillings in his teeth were removed and substituted with appropriate fillings by a French dentist. An instructor went carefully over his documents. An identity card, a travel permit, a medical certificate that
