The Nightingale

He was right, of course. They hadn’t had to hide from German patrols or disguise their scents from dogs, and the Spanish sentinels were relaxed.

“But when you come back again, with more pilots, I’ll be here,” he promised.

She nodded her gratitude and turned to the men around her, who looked as exhausted as she felt. “Come on, men, off we go.”

Isabelle and the men staggered down the road toward a young woman who stood beside a rusted old bicycle. After the false introductions were made, Almadora led them down a maze of dirt roads and back alleys; miles passed until they stood outside an elaborate caramel-hued building in Parte Viejo—the old section of San Sebastián. Isabelle could hear the crashing of distant waves against a seawall.

“Merci,” Isabelle said to the girl.

“De nada.”

Isabelle looked up at the glossy black door. “Come on, men,” she said, striding up the stone steps. At the door, she knocked hard, three times, and then rang the bell. When a man in a crisp black suit answered, she said, “I am here to see the British consul.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“No.”

“Mademoiselle, the consul is a busy—”

“I’ve brought four RAF pilots with me from Paris.”

The man’s eyes bulged a bit.

MacLeish stepped forward. “Lieutenant Torrance MacLeish. RAF.”

The other men followed suit, standing shoulder to shoulder as they introduced themselves.

The door opened. Within a matter of moments, Isabelle found herself seated on an uncomfortable leather chair, facing a tired-looking man across a large desk. The airmen stood at attention behind her.

“I brought you four downed airmen from Paris,” Isabelle said proudly. “We took the train south and then walked across the Pyrenees—”

“You walked?”

“Well, perhaps hiked is a more accurate word.”

“You hiked over the Pyrenees from France and into Spain.” He sat back in his chair, all traces of a smile gone.

“I can do it again, too. With the increased RAF bombings, there are going to be more downed airmen. To save them, we will need financial help. Money for clothes and papers and food. And something for the people we enlist to shelter us along the way.”

“You’ll want to ring up MI9,” MacLeish said. “They’ll pay whatever Juliette’s group needs.”

The man shook his head, made a tsking sound. “A girl leading pilots across the Pyrenees. Will wonders never cease?”

MacLeish grinned at Isabelle. “A wonder indeed, sir. I told her the very same thing.”

TWENTY

Getting out of Occupied France was difficult and dangerous. Getting back in—at least for a twenty-year-old girl with a ready smile—was easy.

Only a few days after her arrival in San Sebastián, and after endless meetings and debriefings, Isabelle was on the train bound for Paris again, sitting in one of the wooden banquettes in the third-class carriage—the only seat available on such short notice—watching the Loire Valley pass by. The carriage was freezing cold and packed with loquacious German soldiers and cowed French men and women who kept their heads down and their hands in their laps. She had a piece of hard cheese and an apple in her handbag, but even though she was hungry—starving, really—she didn’t open her bag.

She felt conspicuous in her ragged, snagged brown pants and woolen coat. Her cheeks were windburned and scratched and her lips were chapped and dry. But the real changes were within. The pride of what she’d accomplished in the Pyrenees had changed her, matured her. For the first time in her life, she knew exactly what she wanted to do.

She had met with an agent from MI9 and formally set up the escape route. She was their primary contact—they called her the Nightingale. In her handbag, hidden in the lining, were one hundred forty thousand francs. Enough to set up safe houses and buy food and clothing for the airmen and the people who dared to house them along the way. She’d given her word to her contact Ian (code name Tuesday) that other airmen would follow. Sending word to Paul—“The Nightingale has sung”—was perhaps the proudest moment of her life.

It was nearing curfew when she disembarked in Paris. The autumnal city shivered beneath a cold, dark sky. Wind tumbled through the bare trees, clattering the empty flower baskets, ruffling and flapping the awnings.

She went out of her way to walk past her old apartment on Avenue de La Bourdonnais and as she passed it, she felt a wave of … longing she supposed. It was as close to a home as she could remember, and she hadn’t stepped inside—or seen her father—in months. Not since the inception of the escape route. It wasn’t safe for them to be together. Instead, she went to the small, dingy apartment that was her most recent home. A mismatched table and chairs, a mattress on the floor, and a broken stove. The rug smelled of the last tenant’s tobacco and the walls were water-stained.