Free Jackdaws by Ken Follett Page A

officers, partly because
of his father, partly because before the war the U.S. Army had been the biggest
customer for his business, which was making educational gramophone records,
language courses mainly. He liked the military virtues of obedience,
punctuality, and precision, but he could think for himself, too, and Monty had
come to rely on him more and more.
    His area of responsibility was
intelligence. He was an organizer. He made sure the reports Monty needed were
on his desk when he wanted them, chased those that came late, set up meetings
with key people, and made supplementary inquiries on the boss's behalf.
    He did have experience of
clandestine work. He had been with the Office of Strategic Services, the
American secret agency, and had served under cover in France and French-speaking
North Africa. (As a child he had lived in Paris, where Pa was military attaché
at the U.S. Embassy.) Paul had been wounded six months ago in a shoot-out with
the Gestapo in Marseilles. One bullet had taken off most of his left ear but
harmed nothing other than his looks. The other smashed his right kneecap, which
would never be the same again, and that was the real reason he had a desk job.
    The work was easy, by comparison
with living on the run in occupied territory, but never dull. They were planning
Operation Overlord, the invasion that would end the war. Paul was one of a few
hundred people in the world who knew the date, although many more could guess.
In fact, there were three possible dates, based on the tides, the currents, the
moon, and the hours of daylight. The invasion needed a late-rising moon, so
that the army's initial movements would be shrouded in darkness, but there
would be moonlight later, when the first paratroopers jumped from their planes
and gliders. A low tide at dawn was necessary to expose the obstacles Rommel
had scattered on the beaches. And another low tide before nightfall was needed
for the landing of follow-up forces. These requirements left only a narrow
window: the fleet could sail next Monday, June 5, or on the following Tuesday
or Wednesday. The final decision would be made at the last minute, depending on
the weather, by the Allied Supreme Commander, General Eisenhower.
    Three years ago, Paul would have
been desperately scheming for a place in the invasion force. He would have been
itching for action and embarrassed at being a stay-at-home. Now he was older
and wiser. For one thing, he had paid his dues: in high school he had captained
the side that won the Massachusetts championship, but he would never again kick
a ball with his right foot. More importantly, he knew that his organizational
talents could do more to win the war than his ability to shoot straight.
    He was thrilled to be part of the
team that was planning the greatest invasion of all time. With the thrill came
anxiety, of course. Battles never went according to plan (although it was a
weakness of Monty's to pretend that his did). Paul knew that any error he
made—a slip of the pen, a detail overlooked, a piece of intelligence not
double-checked-could kill Allied troops. Despite the huge size of the invasion
force, the battle could still go either way, and the smallest of mistakes could
tip the balance.
    Today at ten a.m. Paul had scheduled
fifteen minutes on the French Resistance. It was Monty's idea. He was nothing
if not a detail man. The way to win battles, he believed, was to refrain from
fighting until all preparations were in place.
    At five to ten, Simon Fortescue came
into the model room. He was one of the senior men at MI6, the secret intelligence
department. A tall man in a pin-striped suit, he had a smoothly authoritative
manner, but Paul doubted if he knew much about clandestine work in the real
world. He was followed by John Graves, a nervous-looking civil servant from
the Ministry of Economic Warfare, the government department that oversaw SOE.
Graves wore the Whitehall uniform of black jacket and striped gray pants.