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Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities, because, as has been said, 'it is the quality which guarantees all others.'

Winston Churchill

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Same day, late afternoon
Airfield in Kent

It had been a hectic day, but Harry had got a lot done. For the first time he felt as though he was getting somewhere and that Operation Royal Flush might have a chance to succeed. As he neared the airfield his thoughts turned to the woman he had so unceremoniously thrown in at the deep end. True, she was not the first woman he had used in this way, but he had never before cared this much whether they coped with the rigours of the operation. It always mattered to him on a professional level, but this time, he admitted to himself, it mattered on a personal level as well. The thought discomfited and scared him.
"Fool," he muttered angrily.
He'd only met her yesterday, and already he was enchanted by her. On more than one occasion he'd caught himself wondering what it would be like to court her. But she was young, with a very promising future in front of her. She was beautiful in an offbeat sort of way, and brilliant. And he was a spy; he moved in the shadows and perpetrated dark acts to safeguard his beloved Britain from its enemies. Would she be interested in someone like that? Someone who was an old soldier, scarred and with injuries that would dog him for the rest of his life? He would have to be careful – he could not let her see quite how desirable he found her.

As he pulled up next to the runway, Ruth and Lt Carter emerged from the office. Ruth was almost unrecognisable under the paraphernalia of a paratrooper. She looked small and vulnerable in the bulky overall and backpack that contained the piece of silk to which she would trust her life in a few minutes. She came over to him and gave him a nervous smile, and his heart skipped a beat.
"You came back," she said, sounding relieved.
"I said I would." He almost added 'I always keep my word', but bit back the words. That was not true. He was quite capable of barefaced lies when necessary.
"Are you ready?" he asked instead.
She nodded as she shifted from foot to foot with nervous energy. "Now that I understand the mechanics behind everything, it's not quite as terrifying a concept anymore," she confided, and Harry smiled.
He caught Adam's eye, who gave him a slight nod of acknowledgement. It was gratifying to have his instinct on the best way to settle Ruth's fears confirmed. Hers was a mind that always sought to understand, that needed to fit the pieces of the puzzle into their rightful place. As long as she could do that, she would cope just fine with whatever he threw at her, he knew with sudden certainty.

He moved forward and helped hand her into the plane. Adam secured her static line and turned to her.
"Remember, Ruth, I'll make sure you jump at the right time to deposit you right on top of Harry's lovely red MG. All you need to do is concentrate on this light. When the red one goes on, you stand up and position your feet behind this line. When the green one turns on, you take two steps forward and fly. There will be a hard jerk when the chute deploys – that's normal. The landing is the most important part. When the ground starts rushing up, you flare the chute by pulling down on the two lines like I taught you, and bend your knees. As soon as your feet touch the ground, run with your momentum, and release your harness as quickly as possible. Do you remember why?"
"So the wind doesn't catch the parachute and drag me over the ground," she responded automatically.
"Good. Right, we're ready to go." He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. "Most of all, have fun. You'll be experiencing something few people have, so make the most of it."
He flashed her a last encouraging smile and moved to the cockpit, leaving Ruth alone with her thoughts. She strapped herself in and tried not to think about the fact that this was her first time in an aeroplane, not to mention that she was about to jump out of it. Well, she had wanted more excitement, so it would be churlish to complain, but in truth she hadn't expected quite so much so quickly.
"In for a penny, in for a pound," she muttered, and squeezed her eyes shut as the plane gathered speed and lifted off the ground.

Harry leaned against his car, arms folded, and watched the Halifax lift into the sky. The sight always evoked a feeling of anticipation in him, and he wondered how Ruth was coping. He lost sight of it for a while as it made a wide turn over the countryside to gain height. Adam would gauge altitude, plane speed, and wind speed and direction, he knew, in order to calculate how far from the airfield Ruth needed to jump to reach the designated landing zone. He glanced at the far off trees but their leaves barely stirred. The conditions were perfect for parachuting and he relaxed a little. A few minutes later he heard the drone of the engine and, shielding his eyes from the sun, he was able to pick out the dark speck on the horizon. He watched it grow steadily bigger.

Inside the plane, Ruth's eyes were riveted on the lights. Her heart rate had soared and she could hear it hammering in her ears. She took deep breaths to try and calm down, but it had little effect. The red light suddenly winked on and she started badly. She unbuckled her seatbelt with shaky hands and pushed herself upright, and moved forward until the toes of her boots were right behind the line. The door opened and the wind rushed in. It hit her in the face and she staggered a bit. Every cell in her body yelled at her to turn around and sit back down, and she almost did, until she remembered that Harry Pearce was down there watching. She could not bear the look of disappointment she knew would be on his face if she backed out. So she gritted her teeth determinedly, and when the green light came on she took two steps forward without hesitation and plunged into nothingness.

- 0 -

Darkness. She was surrounded by darkness. Barely a second passed before she was jerked violently upwards, and knew that the parachute had deployed successfully. Only then did she realise that her eyes were squeezed shut tightly. She opened them, and the earth was laid out below her in glorious multicolour. A look upwards confirmed that the great white mushroom was spread above her, bearing her on the wind and gently downwards.
"Oh my God," she gasped and laughed in relief. She had done it; she had jumped. She wondered if Harry had seen. The plane had moved off swiftly, and she could no longer see or hear it. The silence up there struck her then; the only sound to be heard was the silk of the parachute rustling in the wind. She looked down and saw the airfield stretch out some distance in front of her, and in the middle of it she could make out the red dot that was Harry's car. The wind carried her towards it and she concentrated on what she had to do to land safely. Her hands found the two lines she had to pull on.
"Ground rush, flare, bend knees, run, unbuckle," she mumbled repeatedly. The red dot grew bigger, and soon she could make out the man that leaned against it as he watched her descent with one hand shielding his eyes from the sun. Pride in her achievement flooded her – how she wished those who'd made fun of her clumsiness at school could see her now. She concentrated on the ground beneath her boots, determined to make a good landing in front of her audience of one. The ground suddenly seemed to rush at her and she tugged hard on the two lines, and bent her knees. A second later her feet touched down and she stumbled a few paces before managing to run with it. She ran a few steps before she succeeded in dragging the parachute to the ground, going down on her knees to do so. She found herself somewhat entangled in the lines but managed to unbuckle and escape before Harry reached her.

Ruth looked up at him with a wide smile and sparkling eyes.
"I did it, Harry, I did it!"
Her joy and enthusiasm was infectious and he grinned at her in response.
"You certainly did, and like an old hand too," he praised warmly.
He held out his hand and pulled her to her feet, and they stood beaming at each other. The plane touched down behind them and Harry realised he was still holding her hand. He let go hastily and bent to gather her parachute. By the time he straightened up Adam had jumped from the plane and loped towards them.
"Well done, champ!" he exclaimed exuberantly and engulfed Ruth in a bear hug, whilst Harry watched on somewhat enviously.
"She never hesitated, sir," he told Harry over her shoulder. "Just leaped into the blue yonder without fear."
His words reminded Harry that the next time he would ask her to do this, it would be done in darkness and over enemy territory. He turned serious in a heartbeat.
"Good," he commented and turned away. "Come along, Miss Evershed, we have things to do."
He marched off and Ruth looked at his retreating back with a frown, wondering at the reason behind his sudden change of mood. She thanked Lt Carter warmly and followed Harry to his car.

- 0 –

The drive back to the manor was conducted mostly in silence. Ruth made a few attempts to engage Harry in conversation, but after receiving only monosyllabic responses she soon gave up and stared out of the window. It was as though he had erected a wall around himself in the space of a few minutes and was determined not to let anyone in. She was annoyed with herself for allowing him to bring down her buoyant mood so quickly. How had his opinion of her become so important in the space of one day? She didn't normally invest in other people without getting to know them first, and what did she really know about Harry Pearce? Only the vague titbits Connie had told her and what she had observed for herself thus far. Loyal, intelligent, brave and with a propensity to demand high standards from those around him. And yet, his ability to shut down any emotional warmth, illustrated so clearly towards her just now, unsettled her. He was a spy – what else was he capable of? It was a sobering thought. But then he also seemed to inspire devotion and loyalty from those that served under him – Malcolm and Lt Carter were cases in point. Surely this would not be the case if he weren't also fundamentally a good man? And she was relatively sure she had not imagined the warmth in his eyes last night and that morning. Ruth sighed quietly – the man was an enigma; a puzzle to be solved. Perhaps that explained why he had captured her interest so completely.

By the time they pulled up in front of the house dusk was beginning to fall, and for the next few hours Ruth had no time to ponder the conundrum that was Harry Pearce. After a quick dinner they gathered around the dining room table as Harry spread open a map of France on the table.
"We go in tomorrow night," he informed them. He was all business, completely focussed on the task at hand. As he spoke he pointed out the various places on the map.
"German deployments are strong along the northern coast, especially between Dunkirk and Dieppe. Field Marshal Rundstedt has his headquarters in Paris, whilst Rommel has set up a few miles west at Mantes. General von Salmuth is in charge of the Fifteenth Army, whose responsibility it is to control the Pas de Calais area. His headquarters is here, in Lille."
Ruth looked at the German deployments marked on the map and wondered bleakly how the Allied invasion could ever succeed. The northern coast around Calais and Dunkirk in particular were heavily fortified, and if the Germans found out about the landing sites in Normandy and shifted the bulk of those forces south, the invasion would surely be doomed.
Harry continued, "We know the mail boat which will carry the target puts to land here, halfway between Calais and Dunkirk. Because of the heavy concentration of German forces in that area, we won't be able to be dropped nearby. We will, instead, drop in behind enemy lines, near Arras."
He pointed to a spot halfway between Lille and Amiens, and said, "That will leave us about seventy eight miles inland from the coast."
Malcolm looked grave. "And all of it crawling with Germans."
Harry chose to ignore the comment. "We'll be met by Joanna's group, who will provide us with transport and communications equipment."
"Sorry, Joanna?" Ruth interjected.
"SOE agent in charge of the French Resistance group in that area," he explained shortly. "We'll have a day to make our way to where the boat will drop the target."

Ruth looked at the map with a small frown, the fear growing inside her. It seemed an impossible task for them to work their way through all those enemy deployments without detection. She felt herself to be under intense scrutiny and looked up to see Harry's eyes on her, slightly narrowed.
"Is there something you want to say?" he demanded.
He seemed to be spoiling for a reason to bite her head off, which confused her. But more than that, it angered her. She didn't deserve this attitude from him.
"Yes," she snapped, fighting to keep the anger out of her voice. "I was wondering, when you knew this is what we will be faced with, why on earth you decided to put the fate of the war in the hands of an untrained woman and-" She stopped herself in time.
They stared at each other, tension crackling between them.
"A crippled old soldier?" Harry supplied, his voice deadly quiet.
"No, that wasn't-"
"You will do well to remember, Miss Evershed, that it is not in your interest to question my decisions," he ground out angrily.
Two spots of red formed on her cheeks and he understood that they were a result of fury rather than embarrassment.
"Yes, sir," she said, her eyes flashing mutinously, before she excused herself for a few minutes.
The moment she was through the door, Harry swept the map off the table in a fit of temper. He sat down, breathing heavily, all the time conscious of Malcolm's reproachful silent presence. After a minute he got up, retrieved the map and put it back on the table, then sat quietly, stewing in his guilt and humiliation.

Ruth came back and sat down stiffly. Her posture was rigid and left him in no doubt that she would rather be anywhere else but in the same room with him, but the defiant set of her mouth also made it clear that she would do her duty and see this through, no matter how much she disliked him. It almost made him smile; despite her youth and inexperience, Ruth Evershed would not be bullied.
"Ruth raises a valid concern," he said, and her gaze snapped to him in surprise. His eyes were on her, contrite and a touch sad, and her shoulders relaxed. It was an apology of sorts and she gave him a small smile, somehow aware that it was more than most other people would have got.
"But precisely because we are a most unlikely pair of agents, we have a better chance of success. Ruth, you speak French like a native, don't you?"
She nodded. "I stayed there for two years after my father died, so I picked up the local idioms and colloquialisms."
What she didn't say was that her mother had sent her to a French boarding school because Ruth had not got along with her stepfather. Harry knew this though, having spent part of the day delving deep into Ruth's past. He thought it a somewhat cruel act on her mother's part.
"Good. You will pretend to be a French woman, and we'll make sure you look like one and have all the right papers."
Ruth nodded. "And you?"
"I'm afraid my school French won't cut it – it won't fool anyone. My German, however, is as good as your French is."
"You lived in Germany?" Ruth asked, keen to learn more about him.
"No." He smiled. "German nanny."
"So you're going to pose as a German?" she clarified dubiously.
"A senior army officer," he confirmed. "The German army is built on discipline – junior personnel wouldn't dare question a senior officer. We can use that."

- 0 –

It was very late, and Ruth was supposed to be asleep. Harry had sent her to bed, pointing out that this could be the last decent night's sleep she would get for a few days and to make the most of it. She'd obediently followed his instruction, but lay there and stared at the dark ceiling, her brain too stimulated to sleep. Perhaps a book would help take her mind off the operation, but she'd brought none with her, an oversight she now regretted. Then she remembered the study filled with books. Surely Harry wouldn't mind if she borrowed one? The house was quiet, and she threw back the covers and put on her dressing gown. She lit a candle and made her way downstairs. The door of the study was pulled to and when she pushed it open light and soft music spilled into the hall. Harry was ensconced in his armchair, a cigar in one hand and a tumbler of whisky in the other. His eyes were dark and unreadable in the muted light. Ruth mumbled an apology and turned on her heel, but his voice stopped her.
"It's all right. Come in."
She hesitated, then entered and lowered herself into one of the other chairs.

Harry watched her for a moment. "Can't sleep?"
She nodded. "You?"
"Same," he confirmed. "I have trouble shutting off my mind on the eve of important operations."
There was a brief silence as he considerately put out the cigar.
"Drink?" he asked, and got up to move to the sideboard.
"Erm, yes, whisky and water please."
She didn't often drink hard liquor but decided that circumstances warranted it. Harry was in waistcoat and shirtsleeves, and she watched the movement of his broad shoulders as he mixed her drink. When he handed it to her their fingers brushed, causing her heart rate to shoot up. He sat back down, resolutely not looking at the bit of leg that was uncovered as she crossed her limbs.
"I thought I'd borrow a book," Ruth belatedly explained her presence.
"Of course. Help yourself."
She got up and slowly circulated the shelves. Autobiographies of political and military figures and tomes on warfare rubbed shoulders with classic literary works. She also spotted some books on music, science, natural history and cricket. It was an impressive collection that hinted at a curious mind and wide ranging interests. She could feel his eyes following her every move and put it down to a curiosity about what book she would choose, unaware of the way her dressing gown hugged her figure and exposed her curves. The music swirled around her, and as the soprano and tenor's voices rose in pleasant counterpoint Ruth closed her eyes appreciatively.
"That's Verdi's Aida, isn't it?"
"Yes," Harry said, pleased. "You like opera?"
"Hmm." Then she spotted it – a volume of poems by Ovid. She took it off the shelf and stood with it in her hand, before she spun around and blurted out of the blue, "I don't think of you as a crippled old soldier."
His head lifted in surprise and he studied her face intently. He found nothing but sincerity in her expression, and perhaps a hint of adoration, although she did her best to hide it. A frisson ran through him and he savoured it, unable to remember the last time he had experienced such a feeling. He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again her head had dropped in embarrassment. He took a breath.
"Ruth," he said gently. "This operation is too vital… I cannot afford any distractions."
He paused and his voice dropped to a more intimate register. "No matter how…wonderful…I might find these distractions to be."
Her eyes lifted to his and something passed between them, something that would remain unspoken for now, but that promised much for the future, if they survived long enough to let it come to fruition.

- 0 -

At the same time as Harry and Ruth began to acknowledge their interest in each other, a German spy codenamed Anthony took his seat behind his radio in a small apartment in London. He looked at the piece of paper that contained the coded message he would send, and wondered briefly what it would unleash. He tested the frequency and found it static-free on a rare clear night in the British capital. He began to tap out his message in rapid Morse code:

TIBERIUS EN ROUTE WITH VITAL INFORMATION INVASION STOP WILL ARRIVE ROUTE B THREE DAYS STOP ENEMY AGENTS ARRIVE TOMORROW NIGHT TO INTERCEPT STOP PARACHUTE AT UNKNOWN LOCATION STOP

tbc