girls, so I turned up and persuaded them to take me. I keep hoping that if I get over there, I can find out what happened to him.” Josie’s eyes had a determined look and Marie could tell that the young girl who seemed so tough still hoped against the odds to find her brother alive. “And you? What tiara are you wearing when you aren’t fighting the Germans?”
“None,” Marie replied. “I’ve got a daughter.”
“Married then?”
“Yes...” she began, the lie that she had created after Richard left almost a reflex. Then she stopped. “That is, no. He left me when my daughter was born.”
“Bastard.” They both chuckled.
“Please don’t tell anyone,” Marie said.
“I won’t.” Josie’s expression grew somber. “Also, since we are sharing secrets, my mother was Jewish. Not that it is anyone’s business.”
“The Germans will make it their business if they find out,” Brya chimed in, sticking her head in the doorway and overhearing. “Hurry now, we’re late for radio training.”
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Marie confessed when it was just the two of them once more. She had signed up largely for the money. But what good was that if it cost her life?
“None of us do,” Josie replied, though Marie found that hard to believe. Josie seemed so strong and purposeful. “Every one of us is scared and alone. You’ve said it aloud once. Now bury it and never mention it again.
“Anyway, your daughter is your reason for being here,” Josie added as they started for the doorway. “You’re fighting for her and the world she will live in.” Marie understood then. It was not just about the money. To create a fairer world for Tess to grow up in; now, that was something. “In your moments of doubt, imagine your daughter as a grown woman. Think then of what you will tell her about the part you played in the war. Or as my mother said, ‘Create a story of which you will be proud.’”
Josie was right, Marie realized. She had been made all her life, first by her father and then Richard, to feel as though she, as a girl, had no worth. Her mother, though loving, had done little through her own powerlessness to correct that impression. Now Marie had a chance to create a new story for her daughter. If she could do it. Suddenly Tess, the one thing that had held her back, seemed to propel her forward.
Chapter Six
Eleanor
Scotland, 1944
Eleanor stood at the entrance to the girls’ dormitory, listening to them breathe.
She hadn’t been planning to come north to Arisaig House. The trip from London wasn’t an easy one: two train transfers before the long overnight that reached the Scottish Highlands that morning at dawn. She hoped the sun might break through and clear the clouds. But the mountains remained shrouded in darkness.
Upon arrival, she slipped into Arisaig House unannounced, but for showing her identification to the clerk at the desk. There was a time to be seen and a time to keep hidden from sight. The latter, she’d decided. She needed to see herself how the training was going with this lot, whether or not the girls would be ready.
It was a cool midmorning in March. The girls had finished radio class and were making their way to weapons and combat. Eleanor watched from behind a tree as a young military officer demonstrated a series of grappling moves designed to escape a choke hold. Hand-to-hand combat training had been one of the harder-fought struggles for Eleanor—the others at Norgeby House had not thought it necessary for the women, arguing that they would not possibly find themselves in a situation where it was needed. But Eleanor had been firm, bypassing the others and going straight to the Director to make her case: the women would be in exactly the same position as the men; they should be able to defend themselves.
She watched now as the instructor pointed out the vulnerable spots (throat, groin, solar plexus). The instructor gave an order, which Eleanor could not hear, and the girls faced each other with empty hands. Josie, the scrappy young Sikh girl they’d recruited from the north, reached up and grabbed Marie in a choke hold. Marie struggled, seeming to feel the limits of her own strength. She delivered a weak jab to the solar plexus. It was not just Marie who struggled; almost all of the girls were ill at ease with the physicality of the drill.
The doubts that had brought Eleanor