“Can we wait until it clears?” Marie asked, relieved and disappointed at the same time.
He shook his head. “We’ve got to make sure we’re back in Allied space before daylight. If we’re spotted over France, there’s no way to fly high or fast enough to escape enemy fire.” Marie’s skin prickled with fear. She might actually die before landing. The pilot wrinkled his brow as he studied the earth below. “I think we’re in the right spot, though, or close enough. I’m going to make a go at it.”
“That hardly inspires confidence,” she replied, before thinking better of it.
He turned to give her a wry look. “You’ll want to hold on tight.”
The plane dropped, then shot downward nose first at a sharp angle, so unexpected and steep Marie thought they might be crashing. The earth raced at them with alarming speed. She clung to the seat, closing her eyes and preparing for the worst.
Marie braced herself for a hard jolt as she had been trained as they neared the ground. But the pilot leveled the plane at the last minute and set it down gently, gliding over the uneven field with deft hands so that if she hadn’t looked out and seen the earth she might not have believed they had landed at all.
The brakes screeched loudly as the plane ground to a halt. Surely someone would hear the landing, which was meant to be covert. But the air outside was still. The pilot opened the door and peered out into the darkness. “No one for the return.” Remembering Eleanor’s explanation of the names chalked on the side of the plane, Marie wondered if that was a bad sign. He continued, “You’ll want to head east for the train station. Keep low, move quickly and stay in the cover of the trees. There should be a blue bicycle chained behind the station, a shopper. You’ll find further instructions inside the handlebars.”
“Should?” Marie repeated, wondering how he could know this. “And if it isn’t there, then what?”
“This is Vesper’s circuit,” he replied firmly. “Everything will be in order.”
If that were true, Marie wanted to say, then someone would have been here to meet her. But she didn’t, sensing it would go too far.
Marie hesitated, fearful of the prospect of making her way across the strange countryside alone. The pilot was watching her expectantly, though, and she had no choice but to get out of the plane.
“I’d come with you if I could,” he said apologetically as she stood. “But the Lysander...”
“I understand.” Every minute the plane sat on the exposed field risked greater detection.
“Good luck...” He trailed off. They did not know one another’s names. It was the first rule she had learned, never to reveal her identity lest they compromise one another. Was this some sort of test?
“Renee,” she said finally, trying on the new name Eleanor had given her.
The pilot blinked twice, as if not convinced. Her first attempt at subterfuge had been a failure. “I’m William. They call me Will,” he said, and she sensed from the sincerity in his voice that it was his real name. Perhaps there were different rules for pilots—or he simply had less to lose. He gestured toward the trees with his head. “You had best go now.”
“Yes, of course.” She climbed from the plane and as she started away, she could feel him watching her. When she turned back again, the door to the plane was already closed. The Lysander engine revved and it rolled forward, picking up speed. It had been on the ground all of three minutes.
Marie started across the field in pitch darkness, feeling for the cover of the trees. The sweet smell of daffodils rose from the damp earth to meet her, and for a moment it was as if she had stepped into her childhood, playing in the French countryside as a girl. But she had to move quickly, the pilot had said. She looked in all directions, trying to remember the exact direction he had pointed when he’d told her to head east. She reached for her torch. Then recalling their training, thought better of it. Instead, she pulled out the makeup compact equipped with a compass at the bottom and lifted it out, trying to see by the light of the moon. But it was impossible. She reached into her purse and found the lighter and flicked it on, holding it above the compass just long enough to see