Page 9 of Tides of Resistance
She wouldn’t have it any other way, but again she wondered what Jack would say when he found out she was going back into occupied France. She hoped she would still be in London to find out.
CHAPTER 5
Arisaig House, the Highlands, Scotland
Jack lit a cigarette and blew a lazy coil of smoke over his head as he leaned back against his chair in the training camp canteen. The food was average at best, but he shouldn’t complain when so many were on tight rations. At least he knew where his next meal was coming from, which was more than some could say as the war trundled on.
He was conscious that whilst he was fighting intelligence battles in a classroom, using his considerable experience and skills to train SOE’s new recruits into formidable agents, his brother Henry risked his life every day on the battlefields in the sky.
Jack ran one hand through his black hair and allowed his thoughts to flicker to Lizzie as they so often did. Her presence always hovered somewhere in his mind, and he extracted the postcard he’d picked up from the administration officethat morning. He held it between his fingers and turned over the black-and-white picture of the Cenotaph in Whitehall to read the text once more.
Dearest Jack,
Everyone is well at home, although you are sorely missed, and we can’t wait to see you again. It’s too quiet without you, but I hope you are enjoying your trip and it’s not too cold for you in Scotland.
We’re counting the days until you return, and until then we hold you fondly in our thoughts.
Take care,
Your loving mother
Jack laughed at Lizzie’s sign-off. That girl had a sense of humour, which was just as well because they certainly needed one in the circumstances. The war was dragging on, and they seemed no closer to an invasion, despite the Americans joining the fight and endless Allied talks about how to liberate Europe.
Jack knocked back the dregs of his now lukewarm, seedy coffee and gazed out of the window. The rain fell gently on the glass in a hypnotic patter, obscuring the view of the sheltered sea loch. After several months in the Highlands, he had grown accustomed to the rapid weather changes, where it wasn’t unusual to experience several seasons in a matter of hours. It was like London, only more dramatic, with colder temperatures and more rain.
He tucked the postcard into his pocket and rose from his hard wooden chair and called out to a small group of recruits who were playing silly buggers in the corner.
‘You lot had better make a move. If you arrive after me, you’ll be marked down. If your timekeeping is as poor as this when you’re undercover, you’ll be signing your own death warrant.’ There was a trace of a sardonic smile on Jack’s lips, but it faded quickly. He wasn’t joking, and he hadn’t been assigned to Arisaig for his charm. These agents didn’t need more friends. Theyneeded to be ready to face the worst when they were dropped into Nazi-occupied territory.
The three young men and women sprung up in almost comical unison, and saluted Jack, and before he reached the door with his long strides, they had already fled out of the canteen. The morning session covering advanced espionage techniques was due to begin in exactly three minutes, and he was in no mood for going easy on his recruits.
‘Is it true they call you Raven, sir?’ asked a sassy brunette with shiny red lips, who had been trying to get Jack’s attention since the course started.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please apply yourself to the task at hand or you’ll be going home instead of undercover.’
The pretty girl with the cheeky smile eyed him once more before sighing and returning her attention to her coding task.
Training the recruits to be field ready was both challenging and rewarding. Some days he despaired of their ill-preparedness and worried they were sending innocent lambs to the slaughter.
On others, they would surprise him, and he would feel a surge of pride at their remarkable courage and progress. It made languishing in the Scottish Highlands instead of seeing Lizzie’s beautiful face and holding her hand every day, just about bearable.
It was sod’s law that now she had been pulled from active agent duty in France and was tucked safely away at Baker Street, deciphering codes and working on Val’s unending flow of espionage projects, he was posted up here and hadn’t seen her for months. He missed her so much; it was like carrying around a physical ache in his chest all day and every day.
Jack rolled his sleeves up over his muscled forearms and caught the sassy, red-lipped girl staring like she wanted to eat him for breakfast.
At least out here in the sticks, he got to wear civvies, so they could maintain secrecy about their operations. No doubt the locals suspected something mysterious was afoot, but the less they knew the better, so the occupants of Arisaig House were under strict orders to keep themselves to themselves.
Two weeks and they would all be going on their merry way, God keep them. He tried not to think too much about where his trainees were headed on their first missions. Sleeping at night was tricky enough as it was.
Lizzie was safe, so she was one less thing for him to worry about, but thoughts of his active agents plagued him throughout the darkest hours of the night, and he was often awake at 4 a.m. running over operations in his mind and imagining what they were up to. He was out of the loop up here, but it didn’t stop him worrying about the precious Resistance networks he and Lizzie had built. He trusted Val and Lizzie to be on top of things, but it was frustrating not knowing what was going on with Hannah and Lev in the Lavender Network in Vichy France. Then there were his dear friends, Pierre and Camille from the Reims Network, and countless other agents he had recruited. He hated not being in touch with them, but Val had been adamant in her orders. He was to focus on training the next batch, and Baker Street would monitor his active agents.
The session flew by with the class doing well in advanced coding. He leaned against the window. The rain had stopped, and a watery sun illuminated the loch, so it looked like a mirage from an ancient fairytale.
In two weeks, he would get back to normal, if there was such a thing in wartime. His version ofnormalmeant seeing Lizzie at work and her staying over at least twice a week, popping to hismother’s house and exchanging news on his brother’s comings and goings, and running his brave agents. Jack preferred being active in the field—it was in his blood since he was recruited as a young man—but he was more than happy to trade the thrill for being based in London with Lizzie.
There was a meeting over coffee with the other key trainers, so he cleared his coding materials from his desk, and crossed the ground floor of the rambling Victorian stately home. The SOE had taken over so many grand houses, there was an inside joke that "SOE" actually stood for "Stately 'Omes of England."
Jack entered the left wing of the mansion, where the others were gathered in an elegant but shabby drawing room, shrouded in a haze of smoke.
