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THE FIRST DAY

Sunday, May 28,1944

CHAPTER 1

ONE MINUTE BEFORE the explosion, the square at Sainte-Cecile was at peace

The evening arm, and a layer of still air covered the town like a blanket

The church bell tolled a lazy beat, calling worshipers to the service with little enthusiasm

To Felicity Clairet it sounded like a countdown

The square was dominated by the seventeenth-century chateau

A s front entrance, and wings on both sides that turned right angles and tailed off rearwards

There was a basement and two main floors topped by a tall roof with arched dormer s

Felicity, as always called Flick, loved France

She enjoyed its graceful buildings, its mild weather, its leisurely lunches, its cultured people

She liked French paintings, French literature, and stylish French clothes

Visitors often found the French people unfriendly, but Flick had been speaking the language since she was six years old, and no one could tell she was a foreigner

It angered her that the France she loved no longer existed

There was not enough food for leisurely lunches, the paintings had all been stolen by the Nazis, and only the whores had pretty clothes

Likea shapeless dress whose colors had long ago been washed to dullness

Her heart's desire was that the real France would come back

It ht return soon, if she and people like her did what they were supposed to

She ht not survive the next few minutes

She was no fatalist; she wanted to live

There were a hundred things she planned to do after the war: finish her doctorate, have a baby, see New York, own a sports car, drink chane on the beach at Cannes

But if she was about to die, she was glad to be spending her last fewat a beautiful old house, with the lilting sounds of the French language soft in her ears

The chateau had been built as a home for the local aristocracy, but the last Couillotine in 1793

The ornao been turned into vineyards, for this ine country, the heart of the Chane district

The building now housed an iovernment minister responsible had been born in Sainte-Cecile

When the Gere to provide connections between the French system and the new cable route to Germany

They also sited a Gestapo regional headquarters in the building, with offices on the upper floors and cells in the basement

Four weeks ago the chateau had been bombed by the Allies

Such precision bo was new

The heavy four-engined Lancasters and Flying Fortresses that roared high over Europe every night were inaccurate- they sohter-bos and Thunderbolts, could sneak in by day and hit a se or a railway station

Much of the ing of the chateau was now a heap of irregular seventeenth- century red bricks and square white stones

But the air raid had failed

Repairs were made quickly, and the phone service had been disrupted only as long as it took the Germans to install replacement switchboards

All the automatic telephone equip-distance lines were in the basee

That hy Flick was here

The chateau was on the north side of the square, surrounded by a high wall of stone pillars and iron railings, guarded by uniformed sentries

To the east was a small medieval church, its ancient wooden doors wide open to the suation

Opposite the church, on the west side of the square, was the town hall, run by an ultraconservativeNazi rulers

The south side was a row of shops and a bar called Cafe des Sports

Flick sat outside the bar, waiting for the church bell to stop

On the table in front of her was a glass of the local white wine, thin and light

She had not drunk any

She was a British officer with the rank of major

Officially, she belonged to the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, the all-female service that was inevitably called the FANYs

But that was a cover story

In fact, she worked for a secret organization, the Special Operations Executive, responsible for sabotage behind enemy lines

At twenty-eight, she was one of the ents

'This was not the first time she had felt herself close to death

She had learned to live with the threat, and e her fear, but all the same she felt the touch of a cold hand on her heart when she looked at the steel heluards

Three years ago, her greatest ambition had been to become a professor of French literature in a British university, teaching students to enjoy the vigor of Hugo, the wit of Flaubert, the passion of Zola

She had been working in the War Office, translating French documents, when she had been summoned to a mysterious interview in a hotel rooerous

She had said yes without thinking much

There was a war on, and all the boys she had been at Oxford ere risking their lives every day, so why shouldn't she do the same? Two days after Christ

Six es from SOE headquarters, at 64 Baker Street in London, to Resistance groups in occupied France, in the days ireless sets were scarce and trained operators even fewer

She would parachute in, move around with her false identity papers, contact the Resistance, give them their orders, and note their replies, couns and ammunition

For the return journey she would rendezvous with a pickup plane, usually a three-seater Westland Lysander, srass

Froe

Most SOE agents were officers, the theory being that their "men" were the local Resistance

In practice, the Resistance were not under ent had to win their cooperation by being tough, knowledgeable, and authoritative

The as dangerous

Sixcourse with Flick, and she was the only one still operating two years later

Tere known to be dead: one shot by the Milice, the hated French security police, and the second killed when his parachute failed to open

The other six had been captured, interrogated, and tortured, and had then disappeared into prison camps in Germany

Flick had survived because she was ruthless, she had quick reactions, and she was careful about security to the point of paranoia

Beside her sat her husband, Michel, leader of the Resistance circuit codenaer, which was based in the cathedral city of Reims, ten miles from here

Although about to risk his life, Michel was sitting back in his chair, his right ankle resting on his left knee, holding a tall glass of pale, watery wartime beer

His careless grin had won her heart when she was a student at the Sorbonne, writing a thesis on Moliere's ethics that she had abandoned at the outbreak of war