CHAPTER EIGHT
HAZEL
SCOTLAND
1943
They were stationed at Arisaig House now, in Scotland, and Hazel’s exhaustion was like a persistent chill to her bones. The weather was cooler than she’d expected, and given the conditions the instructors kept putting them out in, she was surprised she hadn’t frozen. Today they’d been stripped of their coats and anything warm to wear, and she’d been outside training all day with nothing to eat. She’d never been so tired or hungry, so close to collapsing. But she’d seen what happened to others who hadn’t dug deep into themselves and kept going, and there was no way she was going to face the same fate after getting so far. She was determined to succeed and get to France.
She hauled herself into bed, reaching for a blanket and quickly wrapping it around herself. A bath would have been heavenly, even a few handfuls of warm water to splash against her face, but her legs wouldn’t carry her any further. It was time for bed. It had been six weeks since she’d left home, and her initial four weeks at Wanborough Manor had been a walk in the park compared to what she’d faced in her time here. But it was almost over. It had to be.
Hazel shut her eyes, the burn beneath her lids starting to ease as she shut everything else out. She needed sleep. Deep down, she knew her superiors needed to be this hard on her, because if she couldn’t withstand it here, then she’d never succeed in the field. But that knowledge didn’t make coping with such long, tiresome days any easier.
She drifted into slumber, her body melting into the mattress. It was the best thing she’d ever felt, dropping into a deep, peaceful sleep.
‘Get up!’
Hazel woke abruptly, stifling a scream as a man’s rough hands shook her by the shoulders. She had no idea if she’d been asleep two minutes or two hours, and the hands didn’t stop, fingers digging into her skin, pulling her so violently that she thought she was going to break.
A torch was pointed at her face, blinding her as she was thrown back down on to the bed.
‘Get up!’
It was only then that she realised the man was speaking in German. She pulled herself up, blinking as the lights came on. She was shaking from exhaustion and fear, but she tried to assess the situation. A woman had started to scream, the men were still yelling, and . . . she blinked again, wondering if her eyes were playing tricks on her, if this could be a dream.
They’re in German uniforms. They were German soldiers. Or if they weren’t, well, they were doing a damn fine job of acting.
‘What is your name?’ the German demanded, his face so close to hers that she felt the spittle from his mouth land on her skin.
‘Hazel. What is this about?’ she asked in perfect French.
‘Get up!’ he yelled. ‘Get up now!’
He was speaking in French now and she did as he said, reaching for her shoes and getting a kick in the side for her efforts. The room spun as she clutched her side, doubled over and trying her best to straighten even though the breath had been stolen from her body.
‘Move!’
She stumbled, barefoot, leaving her shoes behind and fumbling her way forward. The soldier grabbed her shoulder violently and pushed her against the wall in the hallway.
‘Why are you here?’
Hazel knew that this had to be a drill. Surely this was only a drill? Even if it wasn’t, she knew she had to stick to her story anyway, for the safety of everyone involved. And if it was a drill and she didn’t? Then she’d be sent to the cooler.
‘My family sent me here to stay with friends. They wanted me to be safe.’
‘You are a spy. We know that you aren’t French.’
‘A spy? I’m a Parisian as surely as you’re a German.’ She wiped at her eyes, moist from being woken so abruptly, full of sleep still. She was so tired, her legs ready to buckle beneath her.
‘We’ve searched your apartment and found evidence. Tell us everything or you’ll be shot through the head with the other traitors.’
‘I don’t know what you want from me, or who you’re truly looking for, but I am not a spy. I don’t even know what a spy would do.’ She smiled. ‘Please, sir, I think you have the wrong person.’
He laughed, a cruel sneer that made her fearful of what a real Nazi would be like. ‘Maybe we could use you then, no? You have beautiful blonde hair and blue eyes, just what we’re looking for.’
Hazel looked down, trying to appear embarrassed, thinking maybe she should be flirting with him to get him to be more gentle with her.
‘I am a believer in this Aryan race you Germans talk about. It would be nice to live in a more pure world.’ Just saying the words made her feel sick, but she forced herself to get them out.
‘You expect me to believe that?’ He laughed. ‘Teach that to your fellow French and we might all get along.’
‘May I go now? Or is there anything else I can do to help you with whomever you’re supposed to be looking for?’
There went the cruel laugh again, and she watched as he reached into his pocket. He drew a lighter out and flicked it open and shut, his thumb brushing back and forth against the metal as he smiled at her.
She sucked back a breath, too terrified to take her eyes off him now.
‘This might make you drop the story and tell me the truth.’
Hazel froze as he flicked the top back again, this time igniting it, the orange flame needing more coaxing as he rolled his thumb across the mechanism. His other hand shot up, grabbing her by the throat and shoving her backwards as he held the flame to her face. It was so close to her cheek, so close to burning her skin, to searing into her and leaving a mark that would for ever remind her of this night.
The lick of fire so close made her push her head back into the wall, a futile action as she couldn’t get any further away and he knew it.
‘Tell me. Why are you here? What is your name?’
‘Hazel,’ she whispered as tears clung to her lashes then slowly dropped down her cheeks, streaking across her skin. ‘Please, let me go.’
He held the lighter steady, his breath too close, his body too close, everything about the awful man in front of her too damn close.
‘Please stop,’ she begged.
‘What do you know about the Resistance?’ he asked in a low, menacing tone.
‘I don’t know anything. Please, tell me what you want from me, but I can’t answer your question because I don’t know the answer.’
He lowered the lighter and flicked the cover back over. The smell was indescribable, the black smoke that had pungently been emitting from it seeming to curl around her face. She breathed a sigh of relief until she heard the metal flick again.
‘Argh!’ she yelped.
The flame had touched her hand, burnt into her skin, leaving behind a burst of heat that was getting hotter and hotter. He held it there, his grip tight on her wrist. She grabbed her hand back, stared at the tiny patch of scorched skin and then directly into the eyes of her torturer.
‘You can hurt me all you like, but I can’t answer your questions because I don’t know the answers. I don’t know anything because I’m nobody! Can’t you see that?’
He grunted and put the lighter back in his pocket. She cradled her hand, able to ignore the burn but deciding that if she was indeed a French nobody then she would be horrified that her skin had been burnt and utterly surprised that any man could do this to her.
‘Why would you burn a woman like this? Why would you pull me out of bed in the middle of the night when I’ve done nothing wrong?’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe I’ll come back again tomorrow night, too.’
He marched off and she was left standing alone in the hallway. She stared at her hand, surprised that she could no longer feel any pain there. Or maybe she was just in shock, too rattled by the entire experience to care about her singed flesh.
Hazel raised her other hand to her neck, her fingers carefully tracing her skin, soothing the place his fingers had been wrapped around as he’d held her back. Her legs were shaking but she forced herself to pull together and walked slowly back to bed. It had only been a test run, otherwise she wouldn’t still be here, and it had been a fairly easy one at that. They might have targeted her when she’d been beyond exhausted, mentally and physically, but if she was out in the field? She’d probably be that exhausted on a daily basis. And no German who suspected her of being a British spy would have stopped at a little burn to her hand. A real Nazi would have held the flame to her face without hesitation, marking her for life, waiting until her skin melted beneath his hold.
A real Nazi would have kept pushing, would have tried harder to break her and not stopped until he did. And if he hadn’t broken her and they truly believed her to be a spy, then she’d probably have a bullet through her head by now.
Hazel dragged herself out of bed the next morning. She sat on the edge, her back sore from the rough sleep she’d had, but when she glanced at the clock she was surprised to see how late it was. Then she looked up and noticed that the other two beds in the room were empty. She rubbed her eyes and stood, turning from one bed to the other. Had she missed wake-up? Was she out because she’d slept through?
She dressed quickly and went downstairs, surprised to hear chatter coming from the kitchen and dining room. Hazel prepared to be told she was done, that her time in training was over, but instead the men stopped talking when she walked in and two of them gave her a little clap.
‘What is it?’ she asked, looking over her shoulder, wondering who it was they were clapping for.
‘You. You’ve made it through.’
She froze. She’d made it? ‘Where are my roommates?’
One of the men, Paul, laughed. ‘In the cooler. They’ve got a lot to forget.’
She knew then that they hadn’t passed the test conducted during the night. She couldn’t believe it. After all these weeks of training, to fold under their first proper interrogation? Perhaps they hadn’t known it was a drill, had been too scared that it was real, and coupled with the exhaustion and . . . she stopped making excuses for them. The test had been worth it, because if her roommates had been in her circuit in France, they would have given her up, and no matter how capable she’d proven herself to be, she’d be dead anyway.
‘Well, I hope you’ve saved me some eggs,’ she said, raising an eyebrow and taking her place at the table when Paul pointed to the seat beside him.
‘Sure have, sleepyhead. Laid fresh this morning.’
After so long enduring powdered eggs, there had been nothing nicer than having farm-fresh eggs for breakfast in Scotland, even though she knew the little luxury wasn’t going to last for long.
‘So what’s next?’ she asked, as she helped herself to the food in the middle of the table.
‘You need to brush up on your gunfighter technique like the rest of us,’ one of the men who’d been training her replied, sitting back and nursing his cup of tea. ‘And William and Eric are going to make sure you’ve mastered the silent killing technique.’
Hazel didn’t allow her shock to register. She could deal with a lot of things, but the idea of killing a man with a knife made her stomach curdle. The thought of holding a blade and slicing through the skin of another human, of being responsible for taking a life, was almost too hideous to even think about. Her appetite had disappeared but she knew she needed to eat, both for her stamina and to make sure the others seated around the table didn’t think she was too weak for the position.
‘Morning.’
One of the other women training with her, Odette, stood cautiously in the doorway, the same uncertain look on her face that Hazel knew she’d been sporting. When the men clapped for Odette, as they had only moments earlier for her, Hazel beamed over at her. They’d done something incredible by surviving their training and getting this far, and she only hoped they both made it back from wherever they were sent – alive.
‘We’re just talking about silent killing,’ Hazel said, wanting to warn her. ‘Such delightful breakfast conversation, but then I suppose we can’t expect much else here, can we?’
Laughter rang out and Hazel hoped her attempt at changing the subject had worked. When she’d said yes to volunteering, she’d thought of danger in the same breath as she’d thought about making a difference and hiding away to translate documents. Her language skills had been the thing to get her foot in the door, but it was her ability to learn and survive that determined whether she kept progressing or not.
Hazel ate silently, glancing around the table. There were only six men who’d made it through, and as far as she could tell two women, including her. By her estimates, at least a third of the recruits from those that had arrived at Wanborough Manor hadn’t made it to Scotland, and with the dropouts last night, there were less than half of them now seated around the table. She cringed thinking about how many of them wouldn’t make it back from where they were going, halving their numbers again.
‘Once you’ve all proven yourselves with silent killing and mastered the full assortment of British and German weapons, you’ll be sent to Hampshire and then given one final test.’
Their recruiter grinned at them all. ‘I think it’s time we dropped all and any pretences. You know why you’re here and I know why you’re here, and that means you need to be in as many mock situations as possible before you’re put out in the field.’
They all sat silently, listening to him. It was the first time anything like that had been said, anything that wasn’t skirting around why they were here and what they’d be doing, even though they’d all had a fair idea of the work they’d signed up for.
‘Once you’ve been through your final paces,’ he told them, putting his cup back on the table and leaning forward, ‘you will be asked one more time if you’re certain this is the work you want to be doing, and then we’ll establish your best skills and place you accordingly.’
This was it. She’d done it. She only wished she could tell her parents what she was doing, how capable she’d proven to be, instead of sending them her nondescript letters that said how much she was enjoying her new translation job, as she’d been told to. She knew they’d never believe it anyway, the idea of her toting a gun or wielding a knife, let alone managing two cover stories and preparing to set out on her first true test in the field.
‘Don’t forget to keep up your letters home, maintaining your legends for your family at all times. You need to be your new identity from this moment on. Your life, and that of your fellow recruits, will depend upon it.’
‘Will we all be sent to France?’ Hazel asked.
‘Those with the best French immersion skills will most likely be parachuted in, yes,’ their recruiter said.
Hazel saw him look up and she turned to see why he was looking past her. There was Smith, her original recruiter, standing in the doorway, propped against the frame as he smiled at them all.
‘So this is the best of the bunch, huh?’ he asked with a smile.
His face was so different stretched into a smile, since she’d only seen him in recruitment and interrogation mode until now. She wondered where he’d been and what his ongoing role was.
‘Certainly is. I’m just letting them in on a few trade secrets.’
Both men laughed.
‘Going back to your question,’ Smith said, coming into the room. ‘You will receive specialised parachute training, those of you who will be deployed into the field in France, and some of you will stay in London, depending on what you’re assigned to do.’
Hazel reached for the pot of tea, not caring if it had cooled. She needed something to sip while she listened.
‘I’m here today to assist and observe, so ignore me unless you have questions to ask,’ Smith said. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing what you’re all capable of.’
Hazel sipped her tea, trying to stay calm. It was like she’d been transported to a different place and time. How on earth was she in a room with special operatives in charge of putting together recruits to be parachuted – parachuted – into France? If she somehow managed to survive, she doubted her fiancé would believe even a word of it. Or her mother, for that matter. Or maybe she’d still be maintaining her story after the war, pretending she’d done nothing more than a typical woman’s job while he was away.
Or maybe everyone would know her name, and those of the other Resistance members. Because the Germans had advanced too far already – she knew that and so did everybody else. Yet it was the Resistance making waves and tackling them head-on, and that was exactly why she was prepared to risk everything. She wanted to go to France. No matter what her posting or what her task, she was going to say yes.
Hazel stood, cleared her plate and cup and walked into the kitchen. She could decipher messages, drop passwords into conversations, recruit if she needed to and code. And she could kill. Never before had she even thought about whether or not she could take another person’s life, and now she knew, that if it was a matter of life and death, she’d do it without hesitation. She’d have to.
She glanced down at her hand, the tiny red mark on her skin a reminder of what had taken place the night before. The Germans would have to do a lot worse to get so much as a reaction from her.