Purple Hearts (Front Lines 3)

In the barn they find two workmen, a thick-set, middle-aged man and a second man, this one in his early twenties, stripped to the waist and shoveling cow dung into a wheelbarrow held by the older man.

The older man sees them, glances at his companion, and without a word leaves the barn. The young man’s dark eyes narrow at the sight of Étienne but widen in happy recognition of Marie.

He starts toward her, grinning, then stops, abashed, and snatches up his shirt. He is ready to call her by name but stops himself. “Mademoiselle, it is good to see you.”

“Marie,” she says, making a deprecating face.

“Marie, is it?” His laugh says he knows it’s an alias. “Good choice, you could certainly be a Marie. And I suppose you must call me Philippe.”

Hands are shaken, introductions made.

Rainy is wary of judging a book by its cover, but her instinctive reaction is that she likes Philippe. He’s bright, alert, quick, and not at all bad-looking, though he has eyes only for Marie. Still, she remembers Étienne’s remark about Communists. The Communists, whose primary loyalty is to the party and its Moscow overlords, are not technically an enemy of the United States. Quite the contrary, President Roosevelt bends over backward to excuse Stalin’s brutality in the interests of maintaining a shaky alliance with the Communist dictator. But that, Rainy knows, is not the opinion of the military, who see the Communists as the likely next enemy, once Hitler is destroyed.

“What brings you to Tulle?” Philippe asks, buttoning his shirt while Marie blushes.

“Our truck blew a tire,” Étienne says. “We hoped you might be able to help.”

“Indeed?” Philippe says. “Well, that is not so easily done. Come with me, please.”

He leads them out the back door of the barn to a crude lean-to with a piece of canvas for a door. The roof is low and slanted, there are no windows, and the candle that Philippe lights illuminates a collapsing cot, an empty crate used as a table, and one chair.

Philippe does not offer the chair. Instead he uses the side of his foot to scuff at the dirt floor and uncover a wooden trapdoor. He pries it up, revealing rough-hewn wooden steps. They follow him down into a cool, damp-smelling, dirt-walled cellar. By the light of a single candle, Rainy sees two men.

And to her amazement, they are wearing uniforms. It takes her only a few seconds to realize that these are Royal Air Force uniforms, dirty, sweat-stained, and in one case bloodstained, but unmistakably RAF.

“Gentlemen,” Philippe says, “I have the honor to introduce Mademoiselle Marie, her brother . . .” He hesitates, and Étienne says his name. “Étienne, of course. And this is Lieutenant Alice Jones, of the American army.”

One of the Brits stands up and offers his hand. “Flight Lieutenant David Wickham, and this is my wireless operator, Sergeant Hooper. You’ll have to forgive Hooper; his knee is a bit wobbly.”

Rainy smiles at the inevitable British understatement: the “wobbly” knee is clearly broken, and given the blood it’s a serious fracture. Hooper is not wobbly, he’s crippled.

Hands are shaken. Hooper remains lying on a duplicate of the cots above. Neither Wickham nor Hooper can be over twenty-one, maybe twenty-two years of age. The sergeant is a slight man, with a bent nose and nervous hands.

Flight Lieutenant Wickham looks like a recruiting poster model of an RAF flyer: tall for a pilot, with a wave of blond hair, blue eyes, a clear pale complexion, casual attitude, and an accent that speaks of good schools.

He reminds Rainy uncomfortably of her brother, Aryeh, a Marine fighting in the South Pacific. Uncomfortable because any thought of Aryeh comes with anxiety. And uncomfortable, too, because she finds herself attracted to Wickham, and that is not a tho

ught that should occupy the same mental space as “reminds me of my brother.”

“They were shot down near Strasbourg,” Philippe says. “They have been brought this far, and now we await an opportunity to move them south, into Spain, where they can be repatriated.”

Wickham grins sheepishly and says, “I’m very much afraid that I strayed right into the path of German ack-ack.” Then he frowns. “Everyone jumped, but we became separated after coming down. Our French friends have been sheltering us ever since. Three weeks now. May I ask, Lieutenant, what news of the war?”

The cellar is little more than a hole in the ground, with a plank ceiling low enough to force the six-foot-tall Wickham to crouch slightly. There is a wine rack holding a dozen bottles. A quarter of the room is filled with a pile of charcoal.

Rainy sits on the end of Wickham’s cot. Philippe gallantly brings a chair down from above for Marie. Étienne leans against a battered china cabinet that holds a radio on its top.

“I don’t know anything about the war that you don’t know,” Rainy says. “The Russians are on the move. General Clark took Rome.”

“And the invasion?” Wickham asks.

“We wait constantly on news of the war,” Philippe says. “We expect the signal any day now. Any hour.” He looks questioningly at Rainy.

Rainy shrugs. She has no specific information on the date or time of the invasion. But the fact that she has been sent to spy on the Das Reich, and that her operational plan involves exfiltrating in ten days, suggests strongly that it is coming very soon. “General Eisenhower seldom consults me for my advice,” she says dryly, earning a laugh from Wickham and a nod from Philippe.

“Information must always be compartmentalized,” Étienne says somewhat pompously. Rainy watches Philippe carefully for his reaction. He minimizes but cannot entirely conceal a dislike for Étienne. Is that because he does not trust Étienne? Is it because he simply does not like his tone of voice? Or is it perhaps that Étienne is a protective big brother to Marie, in whom Philippe is clearly interested?

The old farmer who disappeared earlier now comes clumping down the steps to the cellar, carrying a mixed set of glasses. Behind him comes his wife, equally old but clearer of eye, carrying a tray of bread, cheese, and a hunk of salami.