rat during explosives training.” Marie hadn’t realized Eleanor had been watching. “The others were startled. You weren’t.”
Marie shrugged. “We’ve had plenty in our house in London.”
Eleanor looked at her evenly. “I would have thought your husband dealt with them.”
“He did, that is he does...” Marie faltered. “My husband’s gone. He left when our daughter was born.”
Eleanor didn’t look surprised and Marie wondered if she had learned the truth during the recruitment process and already knew. She didn’t think Josie would have told. “I would say I’m sorry, but if that’s the kind of scoundrel he is, it sounds like you are better off without him.”
The thought had crossed Marie’s mind more than once. There were lonely times, nights racked with self-doubt as to what she had done to make him leave, how she would ever survive. But in the quiet moments of the night as she nursed Tess at her breast, there came a quiet confidence, a certainty in knowing she could only rely on herself. “I suppose I am. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything sooner.”
“Apparently,” Eleanor said drily, “you are capable of maintaining a cover story after all. We all have our secrets,” she added, “but you should never lie to me. Knowing everything is the only way for me to keep you safe. I suppose, it doesn’t matter, though. You’re leaving, remember?” She held out the bag containing Marie’s clothes. “Go change and turn in your supplies before the car arrives.” She turned back to the file she had been reviewing and Marie knew that the conversation was over.
When Marie returned to the barracks, W/T class had ended and the others were on break. Josie was waiting for her, folding clothes on her neatly made bed. “How are you?” she asked with just a hint of sympathy in her voice.
Marie shrugged, not quite sure how to answer. “Eleanor said I can leave if I want.”
“What are you going to do?”
Marie dropped to the edge of the bed, her shoulders slumped. “Go, I suppose. I never had any business being here in the first place.”
“You never had a good reason to be here,” Josie corrected unsentimentally, still folding clothes. Her words, echoes of what Eleanor had said, stung Marie. “There has to be a why. I mean, take me, for instance. I’ve never really had a place to call home. Being here is just fine for me. It’s what they want, you know,” Josie added. “For us to quit. Not Eleanor, of course, but the blokes. They want us to prove that they were right—the women don’t have what it takes after all.”
“Maybe they are right,” Marie answered. Josie did not speak, but pulled a small valise out from under her bed. “What are you doing?” she asked, suddenly alarmed. Surely Josie, the very best of them, had not been asked to leave SOE school. But Josie was placing her neatly folded clothes in the suitcase.
“They need me to go sooner,” Josie said. “No finishing school. I’m headed straight to the field.”
Marie was stunned. “No,” she said.
“I’m afraid it’s true. I’m leaving first thing tomorrow morning. It isn’t a bad thing. This is what we came for after all.”
Marie nodded. Others had left to deploy to the field. But Josie had been their bedrock. How would they go on without her?
“It isn’t as if I’m dying, you know,” Josie added with a wry smile.
“It’s just so soon.” Too soon. Though Josie couldn’t say anything about her mission, Marie saw the grave urgency that had brought Eleanor all the way from London to claim her.
Remembering, Marie reached into her footlocker. “Here,” she said to Josie. She pulled out the scone she’d bribed one of the cooks to make. “I had it made for your birthday.” Josie was turning eighteen in just two days’ time. Only now she wouldn’t be here for it. “It’s cinnamon, just like you said your brother used to get you for your birthday.”
Josie didn’t speak for several seconds. Her eyes grew moist and a single tear trickled down her cheek. Marie wondered if the gesture had been a mistake. “I didn’t think after he was gone that anyone would remember my birthday again.” Josie smiled slightly then. “Thank you.” She broke the scone into two pieces and handed one back to Marie.
“So you see, you can’t leave,” Josie said, brushing the crumbs from her mouth. “You’ll need to stay to take care of these youngsters.” She gestured toward the empty beds. Marie did not answer,