The Last Letter from Juliet - Melanie Hudson Page 0,106

jacket and boots,’ he said. ‘And your helmet, too. They need to burn with the aircraft.’

My boots were my ATA flying boots. They had been with me through so many adventures, Anna had even worn them. And my jacket … it was Anna’s and Pa’s compass was in the pocket. I handed everything over except the jacket.

‘Not this,’ I said.

He threw up his hands but I was adamant. I would bury it away from the aircraft, but I wouldn’t tell this man that.

‘I’ll go with you,’ he said.

I shook my head.

‘No,’ I whispered. ‘I’m better alone. I’ll head to Spain.’

‘To Spain?! But …’

I trusted no one and all I could think was, what if this man was the mole, the double agent? What if he was working with the Germans and knew about the ditches all along? No agent worth his salt would have picked this field for a landing. No, I did not want him to know the location of my safe house. I’d planned my initial escape heading away from the field that afternoon with minute accuracy (due west for two and a half miles, reach a farmhouse, then north west). It would not be a problem to find my way there alone, even in the dark.

We shook hands.

‘Bon nuit,’ I said, shaking hands one final time.

‘Bon nuit, Madam. And may God be with you.’

‘And with you.’

I did not head straight for the farm, but headed in the opposite direction before circling behind a beech hedge, only to begin again in the right direction once I was sure that the agent had gone. There was a copse at the end of the hedge with the diggings of an abandoned fox den or a badger lair beneath it. I kissed my father’s compass, stuffed it into the inside pocket of Anna’s jacket, forced the whole thing firmly into the den, turned tail and making sure I kept low, close to the hedgerows and trees, ran.

It was dawn when I knocked on the door of Ferme de Bray, which lay just a few miles from the crash site. A woman in her sixties answered almost immediately, her expression blank.

‘Madam Bisset?’ I asked.

‘Oui.’

‘Bonjour, Madam. Je suis, Juliette.’

She nodded, opened the door wider and stepped aside.

‘Entrez, ma nièce.’

I was led into the kitchen and immediately introduced to Monsieur Bisset – a calm and carefully spoken man with a spectacular bushy beard and hands like dinner plates. There was no time for refreshment or pleasantries. After being shown to my room – set up with photos of my fake family, a reading book with a page turned at the corner and a few clothes – Madame Bisset, now Aunt Cecille, took my muddy, soiled trousers and handed me stockings and a skirt to wear. Monsieur Bisset, Uncle Paul, cleaned my shoes.

I was shown to a room in the farmhouse – my milliner’s workshop – and after gratefully feeding on a simple breakfast, was briefed on the workings of the farm, on my new family’s history and invited, finally, to sleep. The Germans may come, they said. But they were optimistic. My Breton accent was second to none, my papers were perfect and my fake family history watertight. I had taken the identity of a woman – their niece – who really had been forced to leave her parent’s chicken farm and had come to Ferme de Bray to work as a milliner. The real Juliette – who had just lost her parents and was niece to the Bissets, had, in fact, recently escaped to England on a boat via Falmouth to work for the Free French under De Gaulle in London, not that the Germans knew any of that.

And so, for all the world to see, I was simply a young French woman, living on her uncle’s farm in a remote part of Brittany. But the Germans did not come. If my suspicions were correct and the agent on the ground had tipped them off, they were looking in a different location entirely. I did not mention Edward to my hosts and they asked me no questions. I stayed a month, working on the farm, only ever speaking French and playing the part of the loving niece. Monsieur Bisset would walk into the village from time to time, but no one came to visit and I stayed at home.

Then, one evening, Monsieur Bisset pulled a dresser away from the back wall and unscrewed two floorboards. He delved into the recess and retrieved a