Пэм Дженофф – The Lost Girls Of Paris (страница 11)
Outside, the predawn February air of the western Scottish Highlands was biting, and despite her dry clothes, Marie shivered from the earlier dampness. She dearly wished for the muffler that had been confiscated upon arrival, deemed by the clerk as “too English.” The fog had lifted and she could see now that the manor was situated on a sloping bluff, nestled among bare, ancient woodlands that had not yet awakened from winter. The back of the estate rolled gently down to dark, still waters, set against a cluster of hills on the far banks. On a pleasant day, it might have felt more like a country resort than a covert training center.
Marie looked about uncertainly, then spied a small group of women who had assembled on the front lawn. None of them spoke as she approached.
The ground rumbled suddenly under Marie’s feet. She flinched and braced for impact, immediately transported back to the bombing raids in London just a few years earlier that sent them all into the subways and shelters at night. But the earth stilled.
“Just a practice drill,” one of the other girls whispered. “Some of the blokes at explosives training.” The explanation, meant to be reassuring, was not. They were training with actual explosives, which made the mission ahead seem all the more real.
The cluster of women started on their run without speaking, following a path along the water’s edge. At the front of the pack, a slight girl who could not be more than twenty seemed to lead the group, setting the pace with her short, spindly legs. If Marie had ever given thought to what an agent might look like, she would not have fit the bill. But she was surprisingly fast, and as the others followed behind her in a formation that seemed silently agreed upon, Marie struggled to keep up.
The run proceeded along a narrow trail up a tall hill, perhaps a mountain; Marie could not see the top and she was already struggling to control her breath as the incline grew steeper. Taking in the path ahead, the doubts she’d had at signing on for this grew; no one had ever considered her particularly strong or worthy of doing meaningful things, not even Marie herself. What made her think she could do this now?
To distract herself from the effort, she studied the assembly of bobbing heads in front of her. There were five women, all dressed in khaki pants and boots like herself. They ran with an ease that suggested they had been doing it for some time and were considerably more fit.
They reached a rocky plateau. “Rest,” the lead girl instructed and they paused, some taking drinks from canteens they’d carried. Marie had seen a metal water bottle alongside the clothing she’d been issued, but in her haste had not thought to bring it along.
“Onward!” the girl at the front cried after less than a minute. The others tucked away their canteens and the pack surged forward, only their footsteps breaking the silence. What seemed like hours later, they reached the summit. The fog had begun to lift and sparrows called morning greetings to one another. Marie took in the pinkening sky above Arisaig House, and the sparkling waters of the loch below. She had never been to the Scottish Highlands before coming here to train. Under other circumstances, it would have been idyllic.
The girls started down the hill without pausing. The run was less physically strenuous, but navigating the twisted, rocky path seemed almost harder in descent. Suddenly, Marie’s foot came down unevenly on a stone and her ankle folded inward. She yelped as pain shot through her lower leg. She stumbled, trying not to fall. Her first training activity and already a failure.
The girl at the front of the pack seemed to sense this. She slowed her pace and dropped to the rear. Marie waited for the younger woman to berate her for being slow and weak. Instead, she put her arm around Marie’s shoulder. Though she was not quite as tall as Marie, she somehow lifted her until the toes of her injured foot seemed to scarcely touch the ground.
“Come,” she said. “Pretend we’re dancing at one of those fancy clubs in London.” The notion was so far-fetched and removed from what they were doing that Marie found herself smiling through the pain. With a strength that seemed superhuman, the girls pushed forward, the slight girl nearly carrying Marie as they ran to the front of the pack once more. The uneven terrain jarred her sore ankle harder with each step. Another woman came to Marie’s other side and helped to support her. Marie tried to at least make herself light, so as not to be a burden. They sailed as one down the hill.
When they reached the front lawn of Arisaig House, the lead girl let go of Marie so abruptly that she almost fell. The other woman who had been helping her stepped away, too. “Thank you,” Marie said, reaching for a low stone wall that ran the perimeter of the property to support herself. “I don’t think it’s broken,” she said, testing out if it would bear her weight and grimacing. She sat on the short fence. “But perhaps some ice... Is there an infirmary?”
The girl shook her head. “No time. The run took longer because we had to help you and we’re late for breakfast.” She did not bother to hide the annoyance in her voice. “You don’t want to miss meals because there’s nothing to eat in between. No food allowed in the barracks, so it’s either eat now or go hungry.” Her accent was northern, Marie decided. Manchester, maybe, or Leeds. “I’m Josephine, by the way. They call me Josie.” She had a cap of dark curls that had been cut into a short, crude bob and skin a shade darker than the others, like warm caramel.
“Marie.”
Josie lowered her arm to help her to her feet, then gestured toward Marie’s still-damp hair. “I see you’ve had the Poirot shower.” Marie cocked her head, not understanding. “She doused you for not getting up.” Josie’s dark eyes sparkled with amusement. Marie wondered if the other girls had left her sleeping purposefully so she would get soaked, a kind of hazing. “Madame Poirot, she’s our instructor in all things French. Somewhere between a headmistress and a drill sergeant.”
Marie followed the others into the manor. The dining hall was a massive ballroom that had been converted, with long wooden tables running the length of the room. It had an air of civility that stood in sharp contrast to the dark, cold hike. The tables were set with linen napkins and decent porcelain. Servers poured coffee from silver urns. A smattering of agents, male and female, were already seated. The men sat separately, and Marie wondered if that was by rule or preference.
Marie found an open place at the women’s table next to Josie. She took a too-large sip from her water glass, nearly spilling it in her thirst from the run. Then she reached for a piece of baguette. The food was French, but austere—no extras, as if to acclimate them to what they would find in the field.
“How many of us are there?” Marie asked. It almost felt audacious to include herself in their number when she had just arrived. “The women, I mean.”
“We don’t ask questions,” Josie said, her words a rebuke of Eleanor’s when she recruited Marie. But then she answered. “About forty, including those who already deployed—and those who’ve gone missing.”
Marie’s head snapped around. “Missing?”
“Missing in action, presumed dead.”
“What happened to them?”
“No one knows.”
“But we’re radio operators, for goodness sake. Is it really that dangerous?”
Josie threw back her head and laughed so loudly the men at the next table looked up. “Where do you think you’ll be broadcasting from, BBC Studios? You’re transmitting in Occupied France and the Germans will do anything to stop you.” Then her expression grew serious. “Six weeks.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s the average life expectancy of a radio operator in France. Six weeks.”
A cold chill ran up Marie’s spine. Though she had known on some level that the work she’d accepted was dangerous, she had not grasped how deadly it was. If she’d realized the likelihood that she wouldn’t be returning to Tess, she never would have accepted. She needed to leave, now.
A blonde woman about her age seated across from Marie reached over and patted her arm. “I’m Brya. Don’t let her worry you, dear.”
“In French,” Madame Poirot scolded from the doorway. Even among themselves they were to maintain the fiction they would have to portray once deployed. “Good habits start now.” Josie mimicked this last phrase, mouthing the words silently.
A whistle, shrill and abrupt, caused Marie to jump. She turned to see a burly colonel in the doorway to the dining hall. “Breakfast canceled—all of you back to barracks for inspection!” There was a nervous murmur among the girls as they started from the table.
Marie swallowed a last mouthful of baguette, then followed the others hurriedly down the corridor and up a flight of stairs to their dormitory-style room. She flung the nightdress she’d hung to dry on the radiator beneath her pillow. The colonel burst in without knocking, followed by his aide-de-camp.