Content warning: war-related violence
The January Moon
31 December 1941 - 2 January 1942
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.
Ecclesiastes 4:10
Una had never mended a satin evening glove before, but this was an emergency. Ceci had brought it to her moments ago, tears gathering as she showed the rip, and Una had reassured her first and figured out a plan of attack later.
Ceci was calmer now, helping Portia shimmy into peach silk on the other side of the Ingleside living room. With five girls to prepare for the New Year's dance at Lowbridge High School, none of the bedrooms was half big enough, and the living room had been converted into a makeshift salon and dressing room. The chairs and sofa were draped with crinolines and sashes, tables strewn with powder puffs and combs. Faith had gone off to find more safety pins; Nan was trying to do something with Jemmy's hair; Jem and Jerry had shut themselves in the library at the first rustle of petticoats and hadn't been heard from since.
Over by the window, Dellie Meredith frowned, shaking her glossy, dark head as she surveyed her handiwork. "No," she said decidedly, "that isn't right at all. I'm going to take the pompodour down and try Victory rolls, Zoe. You've got the face for them."
"You really think so?" Zoe asked, examining her blonde updo in a silver-backed hand mirror.
"How will you get them to stay up?" asked skeptical Jemmy, wincing as Nan shoved another bobby pin in tight against her scalp.
"Magic," Dellie answered comfortably. "And a fistful of pomade."
There had been some talk of staying in. Zoe had not left the house socially since she had come to Ingleside, and the family had kept a quiet Christmas. It had been a much-diminished holiday table, with the Fords staying in Toronto with an ailing Leslie and the Andersons trying to maintain a routine for their nieces and nephews. But the Charlottetown Merediths had come for the holiday and stayed the week, doing all they could to boost everyone's spirits. Dellie and Portia had exclaimed over the Lowbridge High New Year's dance quite as if it had been the hottest ticket in Town, and set about preparing for it like generals planning an amphibious invasion. Zoe had been adamant that she didn't want to spoil the fun for the others, urging them to go on without her while they counter-urged her to come along.
"Why shouldn't you go?" Jemmy had asked. "If anyone's cross about it, that's their look-out, not yours."
In the end, Zoe had admitted that she really did want to go, but appealed to Faith to give the final word.
"Of course you should go if you want to," Faith said stoutly. "You certainly won't be alone."
Indeed not. The Blythe girls and the Merediths formed a butterfly phalanx fearsome enough to shield Zoe from any direct insult. She was one of the family now and anyone who forgot it would see what it meant to be on the outs with the Blythes and their glamorous cousins from Town.
Una had spent much of the morning helping Nan make over an evening gown with a generous skirt.
"We'll just move the waistline up a smidge," Nan explained over blue chiffon. "And if that doesn't work, we can put on a front-peplum like the one Ginger Rogers wore to the Academy Awards. Very chic."
Una nodded and stitched, glad to follow Nan's lead in matters sartorial.
"There!" Dellie said, stepping back to admire the high twin rolls atop Zoe's head. "Shake your head side-to-side, lovie, and see if they stay."
Zoe obeyed, finding that the elaborate hairstyle did indeed stay, and dazzling the room with her smile. "Thanks a heap, Dellie," she said, hugging the girl who would spend the night introducing herself as a cousin of Jemmy, Cecilia, and Zoe.
There was perfume to spritz and lipstick to blot and last checks all round to make sure that everyone had matching shoes and all imaginable accessories. Faith swooped in to rescue Portia from a near-disastrous encounter with a teetering bottle of lotion; Nan inspected Dellie with as much attention to detail as any sergeant preparing for dress parade. Una handed Ceci her mended glove and was rewarded with a soft embrace of pink satin and nervous delight.
"Have a good time, dearest," Una urged her niece. "Promise you'll dance a little?"
"If someone asks me," Ceci said quietly.
Una smiled. "If they don't, they're awfully foolish."
Jemmy leaned over the back of Una's chair and grinned at her sister. "If they don't, you go ahead and ask them yourself!"
A theatrical knock and shout from the hallway interrupted any reply Ceci might make. "Is everybody decent in there?"
When the girls chorused their yeses, Jem and Jerry came in with broad smiles and extravagant compliments all around.
"We'd better be off," Jerry said, checking his watch. "Didn't it start at eight o'clock?"
"You can't make an entrance if you're on time, Daddy," Dellie protested with a long-suffering sigh.
"I'm sure you ladies would make a splash whenever you chose to appear," Jem grinned. "But I do believe sometime before midnight is traditional."
There was a last fluttering round of goodbyes as the girls pulled on coats and only such hats as would not ruin the last hour's efforts and piled into the waiting Cadillac. They waved to Una and Nan and Faith as they rolled down the drive, their smiling faces illuminated by the full moon.
"Do you really think they'll be alright?" Una asked as the merry party disappeared down the hill.
"Jem and Jerry are going to stay," Faith said. "My girls know they'll be right outside in case there's any trouble."
Una nodded, though she worried that the sort of trouble the girls were likely to encounter wouldn't be the sort that could be solved by fathers riding to the rescue.
"Don't worry, Una," Nan said, taking her arm as they turned back toward the debris-littered living room. "The girls will take care of one another."
Una gathered up a pile of hair ribbons from the sofa and began to pack them into a hatbox. "No word from Wally, Faith?"
"No," her sister said wearily. "Or, rather, we've had two letters, but they're both from before ours could have reached him. But it hasn't been a month yet. Letters often take that long to get to him and back again."
That was true, but not particularly comforting. Wally was far away and the baby would certainly arrive at Ingleside long before he did.
No one had any doubt that Wally and Zoe would be married at the first possible opportunity. But Zoe's pregnancy had still been the talk of two towns all month. None of the Maylocks had even dared show their faces at church since it had become common knowledge. The Blythe pride was rather more audacious than fragile, and Jem and Faith had welcomed Zoe into their pew the last three Sundays just as they had last July. The baby would arrive in the spring and Una was already fretting over its christening. Surely Father would have no qualms over baptizing his own great-grandchild, would he? Perhaps quietly? That might be best, especially if the Maylocks refused to attend.
"How are your neighbors?" Nan asked Una, changing the subject as she folded a stack of unchosen undergarments. "Have they received the paperwork they were waiting for?"
"They have an eviction notice," Una said sorrowfully. "They have to be out by February first. But Mr. Pelham still hasn't sent over the deed or any of the other paperwork we requested."
"What will you do?" Faith asked.
What indeed. They were running out of time and options were thin on the ground.
Una sighed. "If it comes to it, I'll take the girls and Amelia and Archie will go to the rectory with Georgie until we can find something more permanent."
"Oh, Una, no!" Faith protested. "You don't have the room to take in two teenagers! Don't even dream of it!"
"What else can I do? They can't freeze to death."
Nan put down the crinoline she was folding and took Una by the hand. "As soon as you get that paperwork, you bring it straight to Jerry," she said. "If there's one thing I've learned about the law from hearing so much of it over the years, it's that you can spin any technicality into a delay. And if time is what you need, trust Jerry to find it."
It was a slim hope, but Una grasped at it gratefully. With a delay, they might be able to find a house the Newgates could afford. Or at least keep them housed snugly until warmer weather arrived. In truth, she would hate to see them split apart at a time like this. Their strength was in one another and as long as no one was left on their own, hope was not utterly lost.
"Thank you, Nan," Una said, squeezing her fingers. "I'll do that."
Everything about the mission felt wrong right from the start.
First, Shirley discovered that he had foolishly left the snapshot of Carl in the front of his wallet. He never forgot to shuffle it to the back; what had gotten into him? Grayson was not much interested in Shirley's ritual cleansing of his pockets and had gone off to find coffee, but he might return at any moment. Shirley doubted Grayson pawed through his wallet while he was out on missions, but it was possible. He tugged at the photo too fast and felt it tear. Cursing under his breath, he pulled more slowly, drawing the crease-softened paper out of the frame and trying to re-insert it behind the photo of the boys and Muggins. It flopped and resisted, but he managed to shove it out of sight just in time. The wallet went into the box of his effects, along with his identity disks and lighter. He'd reclaim them when he returned, as he always did.
Then there were the agents, who were late arriving and took longer than usual to ready themselves for the flight. When they finally shuffled out onto the runway, the taller one gave Shirley an apologetic shrug, which went unreturned. The welcoming committee was out there in the cold and snow, surrounded by Nazis, and Shirley didn't like to make them wait.
"Sorry, Blythe," Grayson apologized as the two agents climbed aboard. "I know how you like to do things by the book."
Odd Duck didn't like the cold either, taking a long time to start, and then being uncommonly recalcitrant even for a Lizzie, as if she were begging to stay home under the blankets rather than going to school. Shirley wrestled her onto the runway anyway, coaxing and manhandling in equal measure. The ground crew had attempted to keep the racecourse clear of ice, but there were still slick patches of hard-packed snow glistening in the frigid moonlight. No elegant takeoff this time, but Shirley got them flying just the same.
One of the passengers attempted to chat as they flew, using the intercom to ask about the flight time and weather conditions and all manner of things that were immaterial to someone whose job was just to sit quietly and wait. What did it matter if the flight time were two hours or two hours and fifteen minutes? They'd get there when they got there. Somewhere over the Channel, Shirley clicked off his headset so that he could concentrate.
The landing zone was a hayfield northeast of Amiens. Shirley hated Amiens. It was a place of near-disaster and he avoided it whenever possible. But it was his guidepost tonight, which meant seeking it out. Fine. It wasn't hard to find.
In the countryside northeast of the city, Shirley dropped down lower, checking his speed and compass as he ticked off landmarks. They were close now, and he thumped the canopy to alert his passengers.
When they reached the coordinates, Shirley checked and double-checked his notes. He was certain of the spot, but there was no signal letter. Mission rules stated that he should abort after a second pass, but he gave it a third just in case. After all, the torches might be on the blink after waiting so long in the freezing January night. His patience was rewarded by the Dash Dot Dash of signal letter K.
The triangle of lights sprung up and Shirley sighted along it, bringing Odd Duck in nice and easy. She touched down and for a single moment it seemed like everything might be alright after all.
Then they hit the first log.
It was the welcoming committee's job to clear the landing site of debris and fill in ditches as best they could, making the runway as smooth as possible. Here, someone had strewn the ground with impassible logs that jolted the Lizzie, nearly sending her toppling over on her propellor. She hit another and spun, only to send her tail wheel crashing into a third. Shirley was thrown violently against his harness, cursing as he fought for control of the machine.
The next jolt sent the plane bouncing and Shirley leaned in, pushing for more speed rather than less. If someone wanted him to stop here, he'd be damned if he'd cooperate. There wasn't enough clear ground to pick up enough speed to take off, and the tree line at the far end of the field was coming up too fast to clear anyway. Shirley aimed directly for it, jolting along the uneven ground at a spine-jangling speed until he was only yards from the tree cover, but a good long way from the original landing site.
When Odd Duck shuddered to a stop, the gunfire began. A row of bullets slapped across the thick glass of the canopy, leaving starry pockmarks. Shirley ducked, reaching for his escape kit and unbuckling his harness in one motion. The passengers were shouting to one another, but it was impossible to make sense of their voices amid the crackling fire of the guns. A lot of guns. Not just aimed at the Lysander, or at least they weren't all hitting it. This might be an ambush, but someone out there - many someones by the sound of it - was fighting back.
Well, there was no way this Lizzie was taking off, not from this ground. Orders were to burn her and Shirley fumbled in the escape kit for matches, too focused even to mutter that a lighter would come in bloody handy at the moment, Grayson, you paranoid twit. His found them, along with the flask of gasoline stored under the seat.
There was another burst and a cry of pain from one of the SOE agents.
Out.
Get out.
Shirley looped the strap of the escape kit across his chest and reached up to release the canopy. The passengers already had their hatch open and were scrambling out, urging one another on.
Something pinged very close.
For a moment, Shirley thought he had let the canopy close on his hand. But no, the hand was swinging free, not caught. It seemed oddly distant, as if it were floating away from his body.
Underwater, everything is slower. Movement, sound, the way light sways in undulating waves, rather than darting about. Even the sun is muted, murky and indistinct as it filters down from the surface. Shirley sat in the cockpit, bullets darting around him like silver minnows, the thick glass canopy above his head rippling with spreading cracks. He thought perhaps that it was the sun glimmering blue off the dark stream cascading down his arm. He held what was left of the hand up to the circle of light, slowly, wondering at the unfamiliar silhouette as blood pumped and pumped down over his wrist, bathing the radium dial in glowing red.
It took another wound to wake him. A ricochet sliced through the shoulder of his flight jacket, singeing along the flesh, not a punch but a burn. Shirley shook himself. He was still alive and that meant he still had a chance to get out of this mess.
The hand was bleeding too badly to ignore.
Wrap it.
Shirley plunged his sound right hand into the escape kit, coming up with the first soft thing he touched — the bloody beret — and shoved the stump into it, tucking the end into his watchband. It wasn't a lot of pressure, but it was the best he could do. There was no time. Another machine gun burst shattered the weakened canopy, raining down razor droplets of glass. Shirley held his breath, eyes closed protectively against the shards. When they subsided, he reached up, slid back the canopy frame, and hauled himself out on the side that seemed to be taking less fire. Braced on the struts, he spilled gasoline over the interior.
Goodbye, Odd Duck.
Shirley used one match to light the whole book and tossed it in, igniting a whoosh of skyward flame.
Shirley let it burn, jumping to the ground and unholstering his service revolver as soon as his boots hit the snow.
One of the agents was sprawled on his back at the bottom of the ladder, his face a caved-in pulp glistening in the bonfire light. The other was limping away toward the forest, hunched and certainly wounded, since he wasn't running full-out. Shirley caught up with him in three strides and pulled the man's arm over his shoulder, half-dragging him to the tree line.
There were shouts all around and fire from every direction and no choice but to just put your head down and go. Go toward what, God only knew, but away from here was good enough.
Shots rang out at close range, rifle fire, not machine guns. Shirley fired back, emptying his revolver into the night, always moving, urging the SOE agent to move his feet a little. The man groaned, churning his legs imprecisely through the frosted leaf-litter.
"Come on," Shirley muttered through clenched teeth. "Gotta keep going."
They did, somehow, crashing through the underbrush until they came to a moonlit stretch of road. It seemed deserted, so they hobbled across, skirting a ditch and following the outside border of a stubbled field to a copse of trees.
"Stop," the agent gasped.
Shirley paused, sides heaving, gauging the sound of the gunfire. They had left it behind, but there was no telling who might be following them in silence. He let the man down, propping him against a trunk.
"Where are you hit?"
"Dunno," said an English voice. "Hip, I think."
"Can you keep going?"
"No. Leave me."
Shirley gritted his teeth, labored breaths hissing in and out. "Sorry, pal. Can't let you be captured."
"Won't be," he said. "It's either the Frogs or the cyanide tablet for me."
Shirley wondered grimly whether the man meant it. If he did, it might be safe to leave him. That seemed an awful risk to take, besides being inhumane. If he survived long enough for the Germans to find him, he'd be turned over to the Gestapo.
Seized by a sudden burst of inspiration, Shirley shrugged out of his flight jacket. The grazed shoulder protested at the movement, but it seemed to be working well enough.
"Here," Shirley said, draping the jacket around the man's shoulders and shoving his arms through despite feeble protests. "The name's Blythe, just like it says on the jacket. It might be enough uniform to send you to a POW camp."
"Not bloody likely," the man said, dark foam trailing from the corner of his mouth.
Shirley looked down in surprise and saw the stain spreading across the man's abdomen. Not the hip, then.
There was an exchange of gunfire close — too close — maybe just on the other side of the road. Shirley tensed.
"Go," the man said.
He might have saved his last breath; Shirley was already gone.
*/*/*
Running full-tilt across a meadow and through a patch of woods, dodging trees, slipping in patchy snow, forgetting about the hand, landing hard on it, clenching against a flash of white-hot pain, getting up again, running, running, running.
Suddenly, Shirley crashed into something that was not a tree. Shorter and softer, it tumbled over with a cry, taking Shirley down with it. He rolled, coming up in a crouched position with his service revolver aimed, though he was quite sure there were no rounds left.
The dark shape of another person scrabbled upright before him.
"Arrête!" Shirley shouted, finger poised on the trigger.
The figure did stop, but did not surrender. There was no need, not with the blunt black barrel of a Sten gun aimed directly at Shirley's chest.
A round, youthful face loomed over the thick woolen coat, with a nimbus of dark curly hair escaping from a braid wrapped around her head. A girl.
Shirley dropped the revolver and put up his hands . . . hand? . . . hand and a half? . . . and swallowed a mouthful of bile.
The girl said something low and fluid that Shirley did not catch. When he did not reply, she advanced barrel-first, never taking her eyes from him. She was not very tall, nor very imposing, being somewhat younger even than Shirley had thought at first, but her voice did not waver.
"Pour qui est-ce que tu travailles?" she demanded.
Shirley grimaced, wondering for one wild moment whether he could ask her to write that down for him to puzzle out.
"Je suis le pilote," he said slowly. "Le pilote de l'avion. Je suis Canadien."
The girl wrinkled her nose at this halting introduction. She fixed him with an intent gaze and said something else very quickly that Shirley caught not a single word of. By the time he realized that she had spoken German, the girl had already relaxed a fraction, seemingly reassured to have seen no comprehension register in his face.
"You. English." The syllables sounded as laborious to Shirley's ear as his French must sound to her, but he understood the command.
"Yes, I speak English," he said quickly, demonstrating his fluency. "I'm a pilot in the Royal Air Force. My name is Squadron Leader Shirley J. Blythe."
The girl may or may not have understood any of that, but she gave a nod of satisfaction, apparently convinced that it was more likely that Shirley's native tongue was English than German. She kicked his revolver aside until it was far from his reach, then picked it up and lowered her weapon.
A pair of motorcycles roared down the road on the other side of the meadow. Hard to say whether they were coming or going.
The girl licked her lips, then jerked her head away from the road. "Allons-y."
Shirley didn't have any better ideas. He nodded and they began to run again, side by side.
Notes:
I speak no French. I've done my best, but please feel free to correct my grammar. I really would appreciate it, especially for the characters who are supposed to be fluent speakers. Shirley's not, so it is ok if his French is as bad as mine!
If you do not speak French either, fear not. I have tried to define important phrases either through context or Shirley's musings. If that isn't enough, try Google Translate. Or just sit back and enjoy an authentic re-creation of Shirley's experience, only understanding a little of what is being said.
I've gone back and revised this chapter a little based on reader suggestions and confusion to make it clearer that the girl is an armed Resistance fighter, not just some random civilian wandering the woods at nighttime, and to clarify that there is a counter-attack going on.
