Page 1 of Tides of Resistance
CHAPTER 1
London, April 1942
The days crawled by since Lizzie had seen Jack, until they turned into dull months, stretching out interminably like a barren desert with no oasis in sight.
Lizzie hurried down the quiet back street towards Jack’s door and let herself in with her key, wishing he would be waiting for her like in the old days. She thought fondly of how they would eat dinner at their favourite bistro or grab supplies for a hastily prepared meal at the flat, where they would clear the table, which was inevitably strewn with papers and files.
But Jack was still in Scotland, training new recruits, and his home looked as lonely as she felt that evening after another arduous day in the cipher room at the Special Operations Executive HQ in Baker Street. Lizzie loved her job, but it wasn’t the same without him there, when they snatched a few magical stolen hours together whenever they could. As she glanced around the sparsely furnished flat, she found herself wishing she too would be dispatched on an important mission. Not undercover in France, or she wouldn’t be here when Jack arrivedback in London, but something to distract her from the long days without him.
Anything to take her mind off missing her commanding officer, who was also the very air she breathed. The secret nature of their relationship made matters even more difficult. Jack would frequently call from Scotland to try to catch her on the telephone, but more often than not, Val, their boss, who was keen to hear his updates, intercepted his efforts. When Lizzie wasn’t working in the cipher room, she perched at a corner desk in Val’s office. The sound of the phone trilling always made Lizzie’s chest pound, and when Val greeted Jack, her longing to hear his deep voice overwhelmed her, and she had to pretend she was unaffected by his call. It was becoming increasingly difficult the longer they were apart.
Lizzie sighed as she hung her coat up and crossed the room to the kitchen to put the kettle on the stove. She opened the pantry and arranged a few crackers and a dollop of her mother’s homemade chutney on a plate. The kettle whistled, and she poured the boiling water into the bright blue teapot with the slightly cracked lid and waited for the tea leaves to steep before pouring herself a steaming brew.
She stood holding her cup and thought about the events of the past few months since Jack had been posted to Scotland. It was Val’s idea for Lizzie to use his flat as a base whilst he was away. If only it had a telephone, they could talk privately, but aside from the occasional work conversation in the office, the only words they exchanged were via coded radio transmissions. That was another incentive to spend so much time working in the cipher room, although Val had told her she had a special gift for untangling the secret messages from the agents in the field.
For various reasons, Lizzie hadn’t gone undercover since the previous year when she and Jack carried out an audacious mission to build a new Resistance network in Vichy France.
One evening shortly after Jack left for Scotland, Val said, ‘Sleeping at Jack’s flat will save you from having to walk home alone at night, and that way you can stay here later and come in earlier whilst we’re so busy.’
When were they not busy? Lizzie thought. The work at SOE was like a ravenous monster that needed feeding constantly. There was rarely a quiet moment, other than when she fell into bed exhausted. During agent emergencies, she often worked through the night, deciphering coded messages and sometimes only tumbled into the flat to snatch a few hours’ sleep as the soft light of dawn broke in the London sky and birds chirped noisily on the hedgerows.
Lizzie had accepted Val’s offer, silently wondering what her mentor would say if she knew how many times Lizzie had stayed the night at Jack’s flat since they had fallen in love in the summer of 1940.
How could Lizzie object, anyway? The flat belonged to the SOE, so it was all part of her job. Sometimes, sleeping in Jack’s bed made her feel closer to him, but most nights the empty side of his bed only made her miss him more.
Now she wished she’d gone home to Regent’s Park this evening instead of coming to the flat. It was late, and her family would likely have already retired for the night, but there was something comforting about knowing they were upstairs asleep whilst she nibbled on a midnight snack her mother left out for her in the kitchen. Lizzie would sit in her father’s chair and process the events of the day until she was drowsy enough to fall asleep instead of tossing and turning, replaying the horrors she had experienced in this seemingly never-ending war and wondering when they would release Jack from his long Scottish stint.
The French section of the SOE—F Section as they called it—was now firing on all cylinders. What had started with a fewinexperienced agents dropping into France for courier missions and reconnaissance work—Lizzie was the first female agent to parachute into occupied France as a courier—was now an organisation with many courageous operatives slipping in and out of France to spy on the enemy and work with Resistance networks all over the country.
Lizzie sank onto the large sofa and tucked her feet beneath her, still clutching her cup in her chilly hands. She had taken to having her tea black, like Jack. In a world of rationing and food shortages, the more you got used to living on the basics, the better. Her days of rich Jersey cream and delicious yellow butter from her childhood were long gone and seemed like another lifetime.
Tiredness inched over her, and her tense muscles gradually unwound. After resting her empty cup on the coffee table, she stretched her legs on the sofa, covered herself with a thin blanket and drifted into a light sleep, her head supported by the sofa arm. Images of Jack and their many agents in France whirled through her mind like a wartime cinema reel and soon morphed into the usual troubled visions that plagued her nights.
Lizzie stirred to the chorus of hearty birdsong in the garden and stretched, her throat dry and her body aching from the uncomfortable slumber. The sound of a bus rumbled by, and she glanced at her watch. When she saw the time, she leapt up and rushed into the bathroom.
A crumpled-looking face stared back at her in the pale light that seeped in through the blackout curtain. She knew she would rest better in bed but didn’t enjoy sleeping in it without Jack, so she fell asleep on the sofa instead. It helped to pretend he might come in at any moment and wake her with his gentle touch.
‘Morning, Seagrove,’ she imagined him saying. ‘Wakey wakey, sleepyhead.’ And he would bring her a coffee, and theywould leave for the office together, and engineer to arrive at different times so as not to create suspicion.
Sometimes, like the previous day, Lizzie was tempted to confide in Val. They had a solid working relationship, and Jack had told her it was common knowledge that Lizzie was by far Val’s favourite female agent. She shrugged off the compliment as if it meant nothing, but inwardly she glowed. If Val had such a high regard for her, why shouldn’t she tell her she and Jack were committed to each other and planned to marry after the war? There was no shame in it. But no matter how close she came to uttering the words when they worked in the office together, and each perfect moment to break the news ticked by, Lizzie couldn’t quite bring herself to share their secret.
They weren’t her words alone to speak, anyway. Jack was Val’s agent too. She had recruited him during his early days at Oxford University, and their working relationship started long before the war. If she was Val’s favourite female agent, there was no doubt Jack was her favourite male agent.
Lizzie shook her head as she pressed the creases out of her skirt with one hand and took a clean blouse from the wardrobe. A few minutes later, she was ready and let herself out of the flat, pulling the door shut and hurrying along the road towards Baker Street.
The day would come when they would share their love with their family and friends, but that day wasn’t here yet. They all hoped the Allied invasion of Europe would come quickly now the Americans had entered the war.
‘Morning, miss,’ said the ruddy-faced doorman at HQ.
Lizzie smiled, and they exchanged their usual greetings about the fine weather for spring, and he told her it had been a quiet night in London.
She wasn’t sure how he could possibly know what had occurred throughout London during the night, but she was grateful for his cheerful chatter.
Her father said, people like the doorman were the salt of the earth, and what made Britain great. Lizzie wished him a good day and went straight to the cipher room for her morning shift.
The night-shift cryptographer greeted her with a stretch and a yawn. ‘There’s a message for you from Raven. The first message said it is strictly for your eyes only, so I didn’t decode it.’ The young woman passed her a piece of folded paper, a spark of curiosity in her tired eyes.
‘Thank you, love,’ Lizzie said, as a rush of excitement flooded through her.
