Then a week earlier, she’d been called to the office at Arisaig House before the morning run and told to pack her things. Her departure was so abrupt she had not even had time to say goodbye to any of the others. There was no explanation, just a black sedan with a driver who hadn’t spoken. As the rugged coast faded behind her, she wondered if she were being sent home. But instead, they had brought her down to the military airfield in rural West Sussex to take care of the last-minute items. There was endless paperwork to be completed, which seemed odd for a job and a mission that wasn’t meant to exist at all.
The morning after she arrived at the air base there was a knock on her door. “Eleanor.” Marie had not seen her since her visit to Arisaig House. Eleanor, she had come to realize, was much more than just the recruitment officer she professed to be at their first meeting. In fact, she ran everything at SOE having to do with the women.
Eleanor had summoned her to follow and led Marie to a private office in a building not far from the barracks at the airfield where Marie had been staying. She produced a bottle of wine. It seemed strange that they would serve alcohol in the middle of the day.
But Eleanor didn’t mean for them to drink the wine this time; instead, she unwrapped the newspaper that covered the bottle and pored over the first page. “Ah, the ration cards are changing in Lyon!” It was the news, not the drink inside it, which interested Eleanor.
Eleanor continued, “You must stay current on affairs. Outdated intelligence is worse than no intelligence at all and will give you away twice as quickly.
“And you must never neglect the importance of open-source intelligence,” Eleanor continued. Marie cocked her head. “Information you can learn that is publicly available, from the newspapers, the locals. The flotsam method of intelligence gathering, it’s called. Little pieces of information gathered from the most mundane sources. Things that you can observe with your own eyes, like movements of trains and soldiers. Like when you see a bunch of Jerrys cashing in their francs, you know they are about to deploy.”
Eleanor looked up from the newspaper. “You are Renee Demare, a shopgirl from Épernay, a town south of Reims,” she began without introduction.
Marie understood then that she was being given her cover. Her heart surged with excitement and fear. “So you’re sending me after all?”
“It was always the plan. I just had to be sure,” Eleanor said simply.
“About me?” Eleanor nodded. Marie wanted to ask if she was sure, but even now feared the answer.
“So your cover...” Eleanor said. Marie’s excitement at going was quickly replaced by nervousness. Cover was the last step before deployment. When she had learned this during training, Marie had been surprised. It seemed to her that it would have made more sense to have the story well in advance and begin to wear it like a second skin. They didn’t want the agents talking about their cover during training at SOE school, though, knowing details about one another that they should not. “You are to say that your family was killed during an early air raid,” Eleanor explained. “And that you’ve come to live in an apartment owned by your late aunt.”
“But if they check the records in Épernay...”
“Impossible. The mairie has been destroyed by fire.” The location had been chosen deliberately for the lack of records available from the town hall. So much detail and thought. “If you are captured, you must maintain this identity. If impossible, you may reveal only your name and rank, nothing more. You hold out for forty-eight hours. That will give the others time to recover from the damage.”
“And then?”
“And then they will break you. The region you are going to is controlled in part by a high-ranking German officer called Hans Kriegler, who heads up the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD, German intelligence. They are ruthless and absolutely committed to hunting down every last one of our agents. Do not expect to be treated any differently because you are a woman. If you are caught, they will torture you, and once they have learned all that they think you know, you will likely be killed. You should kill yourself first if it comes to that.” Eleanor stared at her levelly, not blinking. Marie struggled not to show emotion on her face. Though she had been warned of the danger before, it never got easier to hear. Eleanor continued, “You’ll be landed by Lysander.”
“What about parachute training?” Marie asked. She had heard that this was how some of the girls had been sent.
Eleanor shook her head. “There’s no time. You are needed on the ground sooner.” Josie had gone in a rush, too, Marie recalled. What had given rise to the sudden need? “You will be deploying as a radio operator with the Vesper network. Vesper is one of our most important circuits because it covers Paris, as well as so much of the ground the Allies will need to cross after the invasion. The network is engaged in a very aggressive campaign of sabotage and their need for radio communication is frequent. At the same time, it is one of the most heavily occupied regions in France. You will have to avoid detection by both the SD and the police.” Eleanor’s voice was sharp with intensity and her pupils narrowed as she focused. “Do you understand?”
Marie nodded, taking it all in. But her stomach had a queer feeling. This was the most she had learned about her mission. In some ways, it had been easier not knowing. “You’ll be working for Vesper himself,” Eleanor said. “He fought in Marseille, survived many battles. He’s an excellent commander. He’ll expect the best from you.”
“Like someone else,” Marie said, realizing her mistake too late. She had never joked with Eleanor before and she waited for her to bristle at the familiarity.
But the older woman smiled. “I suppose I should take that as a compliment.” Marie saw then that Eleanor was neither rude nor mean. She had been hard on the girls because they could not afford an accident that might cause themselves or others their lives.
There came a knocking at the door, drawing Marie from her memories of her conversation with Eleanor days earlier. “Yes?” She rose, but before she could reach the door, it opened a crack.
“Hearse is here,” a man’s voice called. Marie cringed at the reference to the car that would take her to the plane. He reached in the room and picked up the case containing her wireless radio, which had been brought from Scotland along with her.
Eleanor waited in front of the barracks in the darkness. Marie was surprised to see the tip of a cigarette gleaming just above her hand. Eleanor did not speak, but started toward the black Vauxhall. Marie followed, handing her bags to the driver. She and Eleanor climbed into the back of the car. “The curfew in Paris has been changed to nine thirty,” Eleanor said as they drove through the military base in the darkness.
The night air tickled Marie’s nose and she sneezed. She reached into a pocket. Her hand closed around something unfamiliar. She pulled out a tailor ticket and a cinema stub, both printed in French. Little things designed to create authenticity.