The House at Mermaid's Cove(68)
I heard footsteps behind me. I twisted my head around, hoping it was him, come early for the service to change into his chorister’s robes. But it was one of the mothers from the village. I recognized her and her two little girls from the party Merle’s children had attended. She gave me a nod of acknowledgment, then shepherded her children into a pew near the back of the church. Other people began to file in after that, but there was no sign of Jack.
Merle was among the last to arrive. The children crowded into my pew, Ned scrambling onto my lap, but Merle made him and the others move along so that we could have a whispered conversation before the service began. She glanced over her shoulder before telling me that Jack had left a message that he’d been called away. The look she gave me made it clear that his sudden absence had to do with the SOE. I wondered if the mission had been called off for some reason.
“Aunt Marie and Uncle Pierre send their regards.” She’d anticipated the question I couldn’t ask. I nodded. We would be going, then.
“How was the dance?” she whispered.
“Good—while it lasted,” I hissed back.
Her mouth turned down when I told her about the power cut. She was about to say something else when the organ struck up. We all stood as the choir came up the aisle, followed by the vicar.
When the service was over, she led me to a quiet spot in the corner of the churchyard. While the children chased each other around the gravestones, she told me that the radio parts I was supposed to be taking to France hadn’t arrived, and that Jack had needed to drive to somewhere near London to collect them.
“Will he be back in time?” I knew from what he’d already told me that it took the better part of a day to get to London by car.
“Only just,” she replied. “He won’t be coming back here. He’ll go straight to the mooring place upriver to pick up the motorboat. He left the map for me to give you, though—he wants you to study it before you leave.” She opened her handbag and pulled out what looked like a folded silk handkerchief. “Don’t look at it now,” she whispered. “Just put it in your pocket. There are two things inside that you might need.” Her face clouded as she handed it to me. “There’s an Irish passport. If the Germans find that on you, then in theory, they can’t kill you or imprison you.” I knew, before she said it, what else the silk concealed: it was the pill she had told me about—the one an agent could swallow in extremis.
Chapter 20
Less than twenty-four hours later I was lying in a hammock on La Coquille, drifting in and out of sleep as the boat bobbed gently at its mooring in New Grimsby harbor. We’d left Cornwall in heavy rain—the conditions far too miserable for anyone who didn’t need to be on deck to linger there. I had squeezed into the cabin with the five agents while Jack piloted the motor launch to the Scillies. It had been impossible to lie down in the cabin. One of the men had fallen asleep beside me, his head lolling onto my shoulder as he slipped into unconsciousness. It felt awkward, too intimate—but I didn’t want to risk waking him by shifting the other way.
Jack had been pale with exhaustion when we reached the island of Tresco. Despite the bad weather, we’d made it into port before it was fully light. He’d disappeared soon after we transferred to the fishing boat. Now I saw that he was fast asleep in a hammock a few yards from mine. In the dim light I could see his chest rise and fall. His hair, matted by the salt air, clung to his forehead. I thought how young he looked. Sleep had wiped all the tension and fatigue from his face.
I wasn’t sure what time it was when I decided to go up on deck. Jack was still comatose, but the men we were taking to France had gone up before me and were drinking coffee from tin mugs. The rainstorm of the previous night had blown itself out. The sun was just visible above the crenellated tower of Cromwell’s Castle. If I hadn’t known which way the harbor faced, I wouldn’t have been able to guess whether it was morning or afternoon.
The men were talking about the progress of the war. They were speculating—or rather arguing—about what the Allied strategy would be following the surrender of the German and Italian armies in Tunisia. I sat with them, drinking coffee, listening to what they believed would happen when the men who had been fighting in North Africa began to push into Italy. Fred Bechélet would almost certainly be part of that invading force, if he was alive. I wondered if Merle had heard anything. I’d been so preoccupied in the past few days that I hadn’t asked her.
None of the men spoke about anything personal. Like last time, we used code names when addressing each other. I had no idea where any of them would be heading when we reached France. And I was certain that no one on the boat except Jack knew that my first destination on landing was to be the Ursuline convent in Lannion. As I glanced from one face to another, I couldn’t help thinking of Miranda, who had sat with me, like this, just a month ago. I wondered if these men ever thought about death, whether the energetic debate they were engaged in was a way of shutting it out of their minds.
La Coquille got underway a couple of hours before sunset. The agents went below to play poker as we pulled out of the harbor. They invited me to join them—even offered to teach me how to play when I confessed my total ignorance of card games—but I told them how rough the sea had been on the way out of the Scillies last time and said I’d better stay up on deck in case I got seasick. It was an excuse, of course: I hadn’t exchanged more than a handful of words with Jack since we’d left Cornwall. I was desperate to talk to him. He’d left me dangling by a thread after the dance. I had to know what was going on in his head.