Free Jackdaws by Ken Follett

we have to have a
forged pass with a photo for each woman. That's hard to arrange over there.
Here, we can do it in a day or two."
    "It's not that easy."
Percy held Antoinette's pass up to the light of a naked bulb hanging from the
ceiling. "But you're right, our people do work miracles in that
department." He put it down. "All right. It has to be SOE rejects,
then."
    Flick felt a surge of triumph. He
was going for it. Percy went on, "But assuming you can find enough
French-speaking girls, will it work? What about the German guards? Don't they
know the cleaners?"
    "It's probably not the same
women every night—they must have days off. And men never notice who cleans up
after them."
    "I'm not sure. Soldiers are
generally sex-hungry youngsters who pay great attention to all the women with
whom they come into contact. I imagine the men in this château flirt with the
younger ones, at least."
    "I watched these women entering
the château last night. and I didn't see any signs of flirting."
    "Still, you can't be sure the
men won't notice the appearance of a completely strange crew."
    "I can't be certain, but I'm
confident enough to take the chance."
    "All right, what about the
French people inside? The telephone operators are local women, aren't they?"
    "Some are local, but most are
brought in from Reims by bus."
    "Not every French person likes
the Resistance, we both know that. There are some who approve of the Nazis'
ideas. God knows, there were plenty of fools in Britain who thought Hitler
offered the kind of strong modernizing government we all needed—although you
don't hear much from those people nowadays."
    Flick shook her head. Percy had not
been to occupied France. "The French have had four years of Nazi rule,
remember. Everyone over there is hoping desperately for the invasion. The
switchboard girls will keep mum."
    "Even though the RAF bombed
them?"
    Flick shrugged. "There may be a
few hostile ones, but the majority will keep them under control."
    "You hope."
    "Once again, I think it's a
chance worth taking."
    "You still don't know how
heavily guarded that basement entrance is."
    "That didn't stop us trying
yesterday."
    "Yesterday you had fifteen
Resistance fighters, some of them seasoned. Next time, you'll have a handful of
dropouts and rejects."
    Flick played her trump card.
"Listen, all kinds of things could go wrong, but so what? The operation is
low-cost, and we're risking the lives of people who aren't contributing to the
war effort anyway. What have we got to lose?"
    "I was coming to that. Look, I
like this plan. I'm going to put it up to the boss. But I think he will reject
it, for a reason we haven't yet discussed."
    "What?"
    "No one but you could lead this
team. But the trip you've just returned from should be your last. You know too
much. You've been going in and out for two years. You've had contact with most
of the Resistance circuits in northern France. We can't send you back. If you
were captured, you could give them all away."
    "I know," Flick said
grimly. "That's why I carry a suicide pill."

CHAPTER
    EIGHT
     
    GENERAL SIR BERNARD MONTGOMERY commander of the 21st Army Group, which was about to invade France, had set up
improvised headquarters in west London, at a school whose pupils had been
evacuated to safer accommodation in the countryside. By coincidence, it was the
school Monty himself had attended as a boy. Meetings were held in the model
room, and everyone sat on the schoolboys' hard wooden benches—generals and
politicians and, on one famous occasion, the King himself.
    The Brits thought this was cute.
Paul Chancellor from Boston, Massachusetts, thought it was bullshit. What would
it have cost them to bring in a few chairs? He liked the British, by and large,
but not when they were showing off how eccentric they were.
    Paul was on Monty's personal staff.
A lot of people thought this was because his father was a general, but that was
an unfair assumption. Paul was comfortable with senior