But the spectre of Edith Cavell wasn’t finished with them yet. When Eve returned to her own room that night, Lili sat awake at the rickety table, great purple shadows under her eyes. “Interesting news from Uncle Edward, little daisy.”
“Have we been recalled?” Eve’s head was still lightly buzzing from absinthe, though she’d managed to duck the prospect of opium. She wasn’t taking any substance that might cause her to babble in front of René. “Are they pulling us from Lille?” Her head buzzed even more with hope, now that the moment had come.
“No.” Lili hesitated, and Eve’s heart fell. “And at the same time . . . maybe.”
Exasperated, Eve unbuttoned her coat. “Talk sense.”
“Antoine brought the message direct from Uncle Edward. The decision to recall us was bruited about, but his mustachioed superior”—that would be the bluff, gossip-leaking Major Allenton Eve remembered from her Folkestone days—“came down on the side of letting us continue.”
“Even though the Boches will be looking to unravel the network now they have one of us?”
“Even so.” Lili unwrapped a stub of cigarette from a handkerchief, fumbling for matches. “It is Mustache’s opinion that our excellent placement here makes it worth the risk. So we are ordered to keep our heads low and continue our work, at least for a few weeks longer.”
“Risky,” Eve admitted. Even foolhardy. But wars were won by taking risks, and soldiers were the ones who shouldered the dangers. As soon as Eve agreed to take this job, she’d given the Crown her life to spend—what was the use complaining now, much as she yearned to leave Lille and René behind? She dropped down on the edge of the bed, rubbing the grit from her eyes. “So we continue,” she said a trifle bitterly.
Lili lit her cigarette stub. “Perhaps not.”
“Talk sense, Lili.”
“Uncle Edward would never contradict a superior openly, but he has . . . ways of making his disagreement known. Clearly he fought the decision to keep us in place. Fought it hard. Without quite putting it into words, he makes it clear that he thinks it far too dangerous for us to continue in operation here. He fears that Violette will be executed like Cavell, and that we’ll be caught and suffer the same fate.”
“We might.” Eve had lived with that fear so long, it seemed normal. “The Fritzes are cracking down. It’s not as if they’ve failed to notice that they have dozens of kilometers of front here where they can’t keep artillery functioning longer than a fortnight.”
Lili let out a long sigh of smoke. “Uncle Edward thinks Mustache is an idiot, but can’t countermand his direct orders. However, the hint has come very obliquely that if we were to request a transfer from Lille, pleading exhaustion or nerves, he could make it happen.”
Eve stared. “As if soldiers can simply beg off their orders—”
“Ordinary soldiers, no. Those in our line of work are different. An asset on the verge of emotional breakdown cannot be relied upon. We’d just cause damage in place; it’s far safer to yank us. So . . .”
“So.” For a moment Eve let the heady vision swamp her. No more semistarvation and German clocks and cool-skinned hands on her body. No more dreams of bullets in the back. No more danger—but that too carried a flip-side consequence. “If we p-plead out, would they re-establish us elsewhere to work? Belgium, or—”
“Probably not.” Lili flicked ash from her cigarette. “We’d be the girls who fell apart under pressure. No one puts a cracked cup back on the table and trusts it to stay in one piece.”
Go home now, and the fight would be done. However long this war went on, Eve’s chance to contribute would be over.
“We should probably do it.” Lili’s tone was objective. “Beg out. I trust Uncle Edward’s instincts over Mustache’s any day. If he thinks the danger is too great, he’s probably right.”
“Yes,” Eve acknowledged. “But we have a direct order to stay, regardless. An order. And it’s just for a few more weeks. If we keep our heads down, then once we’re recalled we’ll be sent somewhere new to work.”
“And we have been lucky so far.” Lili shrugged thin shoulders. “Better than lucky, we have been good.”
Eve let out a long breath, releasing the heady vision of home. “Then I say we stick it out. At least a little l-longer.”
“I’d decided that for myself already, but I didn’t want to unfairly influence you. You’re