“On the way there, we have to cross through fields patrolled regularly by the enemy,” he added. “Be prepared to fight them off if it comes to that. We can’t compromise the mission.”
Just before midnight, they made their way across the road and into a field filled with thorny bushes. The men had been told to remain completely quiet and to hold hands, forming a silent human chain. They broke apart as they reached the cliff, and for a moment, standing on the edge of France, Thomas felt nauseated as he looked down into the blackness. The surf crashed below, loud and hungry, frothy white waves glowing in the moonlight. It was a long way down, and once he’d made the plunge, there would be no going back.
The man in front of Thomas stepped to the edge of the cliff and disappeared in a rumble of falling rocks. Then it was Thomas’s turn. The man behind him nudged him forward and Thomas took a deep breath. This was it. He closed his eyes, and as Captain Hamilton had instructed, he lay on his back, extended his legs with his feet flexed, and pushed off. His body slammed down the cliff, and as rocks ripped through his clothes and tore his skin, he held a fist in his mouth to keep from crying out. He hit the beach with a thud, and with an aching back, he stood and moved into the shadows. Reid, one of the Americans who’d been sheltered with him at Marie’s house, put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed once, a reassurance.
Once they were all huddled in the hollow by the sea, there was nothing to do but wait. Captain Hamilton had been vague about the events that were meant to unfold, but Thomas had assumed there would be boats along to retrieve them shortly. Instead, the moon ascended higher and the tide continued to rise. One of the guides flashed a Morse code signal into the blackness at one-minute intervals, indicating that they were ready for pickup, but no one came, and Thomas began to worry that something had gone wrong. In the distance to the west, the pillboxes of the Pointe de la Tour, a coastal guard post manned by the Germans, were just visible against the night sky. Thomas began to wonder about the logic of this plan.
But then, after they’d waited for more than two hours, three pale dots appeared on the horizon, moving toward them at a rapid clip. As they drew closer, Thomas realized they were wooden surfboats, each manned by three fellows with oars. As they slid silently into the cove, the men aboard the boats exchanged greetings with Captain Hamilton and the guides, and they put away the submachine guns they were carrying. Quickly, they unloaded a large gasoline tank and six suitcases. “Now,” Hamilton whispered to the airmen, gesturing for the one closest to the water to come forward. Quickly, the escapees boarded the boats, and by the time Thomas turned back around to watch the beach slip away, Hamilton and the others were gone, as if they’d simply melted into the night.
Soon, they were approaching a wooden-hulled motor gunboat, an MGB, that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. Quickly, the men were pulled aboard and escorted belowdecks, and the surfboats were secured. A single engine purred to life, and they headed north, toward England, the cliffs of France vanishing into the blackness behind them.
The small cabin exploded in a cacophony of voices as soon as the last man descended. There were cheers, expressions of disbelief, jolly complaints about the gashes many of them had sustained on their backs and legs from sliding down the cliff to the beach. But Thomas stayed silent; he knew he should have felt overjoyed to be heading home, but all he could think was that with each passing moment, he was farther and farther away from France, farther away from Ruby, farther away from the future he so badly wanted. He knew he didn’t have a choice, that the only way back to Ruby was to return to England and rejoin the war, but right now, it felt like he was making the biggest mistake of his life.
Six hours later, as they pulled into Dartmouth Harbor, the rest of the pilots filed toward the front of the boat to watch as they approached land. Only Thomas turned the other way, looking southeast toward the country that was no longer visible across the Channel. “I’ll come back for you,” he whispered into the morning mist. “I promise.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
February 1944
The days without Thomas felt empty at first, but within a week, after several interviews with stern-faced MI9 men, Ruby began to host pilots once again. The new work kept her occupied and prevented her from dwelling on all the terrible things that could have befallen the man she loved. She cried herself to sleep, but during the day, she put on a cheerful face for Charlotte and Lucien. In the mornings, she pretended not to see the concerned glances of pilots who, hidden in the wall overnight, must have heard her sobs.
The changes in Paris as the winter dragged on were unmistakable. The impeccably dressed Nazi soldiers and ingratiatingly polite officers were beginning to disappear, replaced by scruffy, ill-mannered German troops. “They’re sending the decent ones to the front now,” Lucien commented one day. “It’s a good sign. It means the Allies are winning the war, you see. They need all the best men to fight.”
And while Ruby believed Lucien, the presence of the less civilized soldiers also made things more difficult. The Germans grew crueler and more violent in their reprisals. More and more frequently, French people were picked up on suspicion of being part of the Resistance and were shot to death within hours, without any sort of due process. The Germans were nervous, Lucien said, because they were slowly losing their hold on France. But all Ruby could see was that they were tightening their grip.
On the first Tuesday in February, she stepped out into the frigid cold to queue, as she always did, for her rations. She was armed with her own tickets plus some of Lucien’s forgeries, the only way she could provide enough food for Charlotte and the pilots. It was risky to use the fake ones, of course, but it was a necessity she had grown accustomed to.
There was something different about this day, though, something ominous, and Ruby sensed it moments after she’d taken her place in the line. As the women around her rubbed their hands together, trying to get warm, and breathed out puffs of air, two German soldiers approached from the rear and two from the front. The mundane chatter—about the icy weather, about naughty children, about the punishing shortages of coal—died out as the Germans began walking the length of the line, looking at each woman’s face. Ruby held her breath and studied the ground with great interest. What if they were here for her? What if her work on the line had finally caught up to her?
One of the Germans stopped in front of her and reached out to tilt her chin up. His leather glove felt oddly warm against her chilled skin as he turned her head from side to side, as if he was inspecting cattle. He had beady blue eyes, bushy black eyebrows, a mouth that looked too small for his face. “You,” he said in deeply accented French. “Your identity card.”
Ruby could feel the eyes of the other women on her, and for a moment, she was frozen.
“Schneller!” the German shouted after only a few seconds.
Ruby fumbled in her handbag and withdrew her card, the real one that identified her as Ruby Benoit. The German stared at it for a moment and then looked up at her with narrowed eyes. “Do not move.”
He took a few steps to where the other Germans were standing, and as they conferred in hushed tones, examining her papers, she could feel her knees quaking. The others in line had scooted away from her, as if whatever was happening to her was contagious. A few left the line altogether, disappearing down alleys when the Germans’ backs were turned.
Finally, the beady-eyed German returned and thrust her papers at her. “What is your business here?”
“Queuing for barley flour,” she managed.
“Do you know Adèle Beauvais?”
The name didn’t ring a bell at all. Was it someone attached to the escape line, or was this purely a case of mistaken identity? “N-no.”
“She is not your sister?”