Thank you to everyone who has read and/or reviewed this story. Please accept my apologies for the long delay in updating. I'm sorry if it might have appeared that I'd lost interest in continuing but I haven't. It's that busy time of year again with a lot of demands on everyone's time so I'm partly blaming the delay on the approach of the festive season – whoever invented the idea of Christmas presents? However, I have to confess that although I have the whole storyline in my head and I know where this is all heading, sometimes it also takes me a while to work out how it will all come together as a narrative so I also have to blame a bit of the delay on my indecision as well. Hopefully, it will progress a little more rapidly from here. Thanks again for your patience.

So, where were we? Emile has succeeded in rescuing George from the Abwehr and despite misgivings or perhaps simply the fact that he loves her, he has been persuaded to let her take part in the imminent operation….

Chapter Nine

George studied the expression on Emile's face as he delivered his final words to Jacques, Bernard and Sebastian. He looked serious and determined and yet she also knew he was tired. The twitch in his right temple as he raised his eyes from the plan on the table to regard the three other men in the room, the way he shrugged his shoulders to relieve tension and the deep breath he took before he uttered his last words, all betrayed his weariness, if only to her.

"Let's make this a success, gentleman. I have every faith in you and…" he paused and turned his head a fraction, catching George's eye, "I'm proud to have worked with all of you."

He reached out to shake each of them by the hand. Not a word was spoken. There was nothing more to be said. The plans had been discussed in great detail and every scenario they could imagine deliberated. Each man knew his role and had a small team assigned to work with him each of whom had been trained, briefed and was ready in place. The operation would take place tonight and was the culmination of weeks of work.

Jacques was the last to leave. He crossed the room to George and smiled at her, "Good luck, Madeleine." He placed his hands on her shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. In a short time she had developed a great affection and respect for Jacques. He was solid, resourceful, committed and dependable and she knew that Emile respected him a great deal.

"Good luck to you too, Jacques." She returned his smile, sincerely hoping that all would go well for him and that both parts of the operation would be a success. Then with a final nod to Emile, Jacques too was gone.

George, like the others, was dressed in dark clothing ready for the operation which would take place once darkness fell in little more than an hour. She reached out to pick up her rifle from the table but Emile moved towards her and put out a hand to stop her, "Wait a moment, George." She looked up at him. The weariness was still there in his eyes but also something else which looked like concern.

"Are you alright?" she couldn't help asking even though she knew he must be experiencing the same nerves as everyone else now that everything was about to come to fruition. He reached out his arms and pulled her close to him. She rested her head on his chest, the rough material of his shirt rubbing against her cheek but somehow comforting her too and heard the strong, steady beat of his heart. His chest rose and fell a couple of times before he answered her.

"I just hope there isn't something we've forgotten."

George looked up at him. "There isn't. You've been over everything a dozen times."

Emile sighed again hoping she was right, "Yes, but I just have a feeling about this and I can't put my finger on it."

George reached up both hands to his face, holding it firmly between her palms hoping to reassure him, "You've thought of everything you can, Emile, and it has to be today. There's no other choice."

Emile was well aware that today was the only day possible for the operation. Weeks of planning had gone into the two stage attack on the armaments factory in Granville and a large shipment that was due to be transported by rail that night to Germany. From the moment they had cultivated a sympathetic contact within the factory offices until the final briefings this afternoon all efforts had been directed towards this operation. It was the perfect moment to make a double strike.

Emile, Bernard and Sebastian would lead a sabotage party into the factory. The office contact had managed to smuggle out an impression of one of the keys for a seldom-used side door and a new key had been made. The main issue would be getting through the perimeter fence and avoiding the patrolling guards. They had debated this issue at length during the past week since George's rescue and formed a plan.

Holed up at a distant safe house, hidden away with nothing much to occupy her apart from a few books, George had felt separate and disengaged from everything during the past week, lost in limbo but still anxious to know what would be happening. She understood that she had to lie low for everyone's sakes. The Germans had put up posters of her in the area since her escape and she knew there would be people tempted to betray her for reward and for that reason she had not gone out in public since Jacques had brought her to the smallholding in the village of Neuville where she was being hidden by a middle-aged couple in the attic of their cottage. The weather had been very warm for the past few days and George had found it stifling to be up in the roof space but the alternative didn't bear thinking about and she was thankful that she only needed to worry about the heat.

On the day of the rescue Emile had parted company with her before they reached the safe house saying it was better not to be seen anywhere near the place, better for all of them.

"Jacques will fetch you when it's time for the operation but in the meantime, keep out of the way and see if you can do anything to change your appearance."

There hadn't been much George could think of but she had obtained some black hair dye from Madame Moreau who told her in a low voice that her husband didn't know that she touched up her grey roots whenever she could and she didn't want him to find out. With her newly darkened hair, George certainly looked different and with the addition of some glasses and her hair scraped back into a more severe style she certainly managed to look a good deal plainer than had ever been the case. At first glance alone she didn't resemble her former self and she hoped it would be enough to avoid notice in a crowd. When Emile had first seen her this evening as she arrived with Jacques his mouth had fallen open in surprise before being replaced by a grin, "Pity you didn't look like that when you met Weber on the train. He'd never have paid any attention to you then."

George couldn't help returning the smile, "It's not very gallant of you, Phillipe, but given the circumstances I'll take that as a compliment."

The others in the room had turned away for a moment on some point of discussion and Emile's grin had softened into a smile which was intimate and for her alone and she realised how much she had missed him during the long, solitary week in the attic. Once her initial nerves from the ambush and rescue had receded she had leisure to think about her time here in France and to reflect on how little suited she was to a life of inactivity. Joining SOE and coming to France had been the best thing she could have done. She was needed here, she had a job she could do and she felt alive in a way that had never been possible before. Meeting Emile again had also brought into focus how much of her feelings she had been hiding, burying them beneath her work on the ack-ack site in England and her training with SOE. She had ploughed all her efforts into succeeding with her pursuits during the eighteen months they had been apart but it was only now that she was here with him that she felt as if every moment truly counted.

"I'm glad you're here," he said almost as if he had read her thoughts and in spite of the fact that it was contrary to everything he had thought even a little while ago. He knew she had pleaded with him to take part in this operation, playing on her training and usefulness to them all but even so his sense of caution and his love for her had worked hard to persuade him she should not be involved. However, now that the time had finally come he was glad she was here by his side and he knew with complete certainty that he had could trust her.

George had only learned the final details of the operation at the briefing this evening and had been informed that it would be her role to wait and keep watch with Hubert at the Perimeter fence whilst Emile, Bernard, Sebastian and Alain would undertake the sabotage work in the factory. Alain and Bernard had spent three long nights this week hidden outside the perimeter fence watching and documenting the German guard patrols and had established that there was a regular pattern of patrols at intervals of approximately six minutes. This had initially posed a problem as they needed to cut the wire of the perimeter fence in order to access the factory compound and they knew that there would not be enough time to lay the charges before the guards returned to discover the break-in and raise the alarm. However, they had observed that there was a fifteen minute break each evening when the guard shifts changed over and that would allow sufficient time for them to break-in, lay the charges and get away before the guards returned to discover the perimeter had been breached. They would set the fuses to coincide with the point at which the guards returned and thereby hope to prevent the sabotage being discovered and their efforts foiled.

The priority in all their deliberations when discussing the operation had been to minimise the risk to any French workers on site even if Bernard had maintained that anyone working for the Germans could expect no sympathy and he saw no reason to make allowances for them. Emile, however, had successfully argued that the only way of carrying out the sabotage was when the factory was largely unmanned and they already knew from their contact that there would be a break in production that evening, as there had been for many weeks now. Supplies of fuel had run low as the tide of the war had begun to turn for the Germans on the Eastern front and the factory had been forced to slow production, cutting the night shift as a means of saving fuel. They knew that they had a small window of opportunity in which to access the factory floor while no French workers were present, lay the charges on delayed fuses in the right places on the machinery to maximise the damage and hopefully to get away. The plans of the factory floor and details of the equipment within were those that George had collected and carried from the Pharmacy in Granville weeks ago and they had been used by Sebastian to draw up a plan. Now everyone involved in the operation, including George, knew the access points of the building and the layout by heart.

Whilst the party led by Emile and Sebastian would target the factory, Jacques would lay charges on the railway line twenty kilometres east of Granville ready to blow up and derail the freight train carrying the vitally needed armaments being shipped from the factory. The train was scheduled to leave Granville station at ten o'clock and they hoped that the attacks would be almost simultaneous. It would be a significant blow, a triumph of planning and a major achievement for the circuit. It was the perfect time to strike but perhaps it was this very fact that was bothering Emile and despite George's assertions he still seemed uncertain and she wanted to quell his concerns.

"We can only do our best, Emile. No one could say we've done any less."

He saw the determination in her eyes and heard the emotion and sense of purpose in her voice and drew strength from it. "I must have been mad, thinking I could have done this without you."

George frowned, "Didn't your Squadron Leader call you a 'mad bastard' once?"

Emile smiled at the words, touched that George had recalled a conversation from long ago and remembering his old friend, the one who had uttered those words back then, "No, it was Charles and he'd certainly think he was right if he could see me now."

George leaned towards him, conscious that these last moments were precious, "Well, don't waste any more time. Kiss me, you mad bastard, before it's too late."

X-X-X-X

The factory buildings loomed up ahead just beyond the woods on the southern side of the site which sprawled over four hectares. The towers and roofs of the factory buildings emerged out of the darkness as the small group crept undercover of the trees towards the perimeter fence. Bernard was leading the way and he signalled with a raised hand for the group to stop. Emile moved up alongside him and George, crouching close behind, heard Bernard whisper, "This is it."

Emile glanced at his watch and looked back at Sebastian and Alain, "The guards should be here in three minutes. As soon as they've turned and are out of range, we go. On my signal. Understood?"

Sebastian and Alain nodded. Emile turned to George and Hubert, "Madeleine keep watch to the left. Hubert take the right. Good luck."

George cast him one final look. Hope, love, concern were all written in her expression. He caught it and held it. He didn't need to say anything more to her. She understood all there was to know.

They all lay low on the ground, heads down, waiting for the guards to appear on their final circuit before returning to the main guard house near the factory main gates where the watch would change for the long night shift. Three minutes had never seemed so long to George but the time came and went without any sign of a guard appearing. Emile glanced at his watch. Five minutes had passed. Was it possible the routine had changed or something had happened to delay them?

"Bernard?" he whispered with a hint of concern apparent in his voice but Bernard held up a hand as just at that moment the first pinprick of torchlight appeared in the distance to their right and then half a minute later a similar light appeared from the left. Both guards were approaching and would pass in a minute or two as they had expected.

George's heart began to quicken, knowing that very soon the operation would begin in earnest. The guards finally met just beyond the place where they were all lying and to everyone's annoyance they paused and exchanged a few words. One of them laughed at what appeared to be a joke before finally, thankfully, they moved on again. They all waited just long enough for the guards to move out of hearing and to be sure that they wouldn't turn back for any reason before Emile raised his head and said in a whisper, "Let's go, gentleman."

The four men rose from the bushes and crept down to the perimeter fence and immediately began to cut through the wire. Each snip of the wire seemed inordinately loud to George and she feared that the guards might hear despite the fact that they were now more almost a hundred metres away. In a minute or two they had cut through enough wire to peel it back and create a hole big enough for a man to climb through. Emile went first swiftly followed by the others and they headed across the short stretch of open ground to the door in the wall of the buildings on the other side.

George waited for the door to open but there seemed to be an unnecessary delay and some sort of fumbling with the lock. Then she spotted both Emile and Bernard engaged in a struggle to prise the door open before with an audible grating sound of metal on concrete the seldom-used door reluctantly gave way. It was obvious that it hadn't been used for years and George realised that it must have been rusted up and resistant to movement but it was with relief that she finally saw all four men slip inside the dark building and she settled down as best she could, with her senses primed for sound or movement and her hands poised on her rifle, to keep watch and wait for their return.

X-X-X-X

Emile glanced at his watch.

"We need to be out of here in two minutes, Sebastian."

The sabotage and explosives expert didn't even look up from his work as he continued to pack the explosives under the machine and attach the detonator and timer, as he muttered, "We will."

Across the factory floor Emile could see Bernard and Alain completing the same task in the dim beam of the torchlight. They had worked rapidly laying a circuit of explosives as instructed by Sebastian which would, if all went to plan, put the main plant and machinery out of action for months.

After a short struggle at the side door with the newly forged key which had stuck in the lock at their first few attempts and door hinges that hadn't moved in years, both contributing to Emile's concern that they were about to fall at the first hurdle, they had accessed the building. With the floor plans imprinted in their minds they proceeded with swift caution through the darkened factory buildings to find the main plant room. Here they had spread out, each taking several packs of explosives and detonators from the back pack Sebastian had been carrying and gone about their work, wiring them to the equipment before linking the explosives to form a circuit. All the while they had been listening out for the approach of footsteps but all had been quiet apart from the startled scurry of a couple of rats who had not expected any company at this time of night. Emile frequently checked his watch, counting down the time they had been at work and mentally updating himself on how long they had left. As soon as he had finished he had hurried over to Sebastian who was doing the final work.

They were soon joined by Bernard and Alain who had also finished but Sebastian was still trying to set the final fuses.

"Go ahead," Emile urged the two men, "We'll join you." They needed no further encouragement and set off, heading for the side door and perimeter fence. Emile moved his torch to highlight the area Sebastian was working on. He picked out a look of intense concentration on the older man's face and saw a few beads of sweat forming on his brow. This was the culmination of Sebastian's work for the past few weeks and he clearly felt the weight of responsibility.

"You're doing a good job," Emile said quietly trying to reassure himself as much as his expert.

"Let's hope it works." Sebastian sounded terse and Emile silently hoped he was right. To fail after putting in so much effort would be a bitter blow to everyone.

Sebastian scrambled to his feet "Ok, it's done. We've got six minutes let's get out of here."

They hurried across the factory floor, two dark shapes moving as quickly and silently as possible, aware as always of the danger of encountering the enemy but their movements now had an added urgency due to the impending explosion. They needed to get out of the building and as far away as possible before the explosion took place. Somewhere in the back of his mind Emile thought briefly of Jacques and his group waiting in the dark on a deserted stretch of railway track for the freight train from Granville to reach the detonation point. They had planned to set charges at intervals along the line, intending to destroy the main engine before blowing up the rest of the train in stages and had no intention of leaving anything salvageable behind.

The side door was ahead of them and they could see Bernard and Alain crouched there. Alain had his hand poised over the handle about to open the door. There was still time to spare and Emile felt a surge of optimism. Just a minute more and they would all be able to make their getaway then sit back and watch the fireworks.

X-X-X-X

The German guard was early. The moment he had appeared in the distance to her right, George knew they were in deep trouble. With every second that passed and every step he took towards them she realised that the hope of the sabotage party getting away before the break-in was discovered or the explosives detonated was disappearing. At any minute they might emerge from the side door and be seen but even if they didn't the guard would be sure to spot the cut wire and hole in the fence and the alarm would be sounded. She glanced at Hubert and could tell from the tense expression on his face that his thoughts mirrored her own. She saw him raise the muzzle of his rifle a fraction and guessed that he intended to shoot the guard as he drew near. There was no other option but even that would only buy them minimal time. The sound of a shot firing would bring every guard at the factory running.

The guard was now about thirty metres away. His torch swung back and forth as he walked towards them and George held her breath anticipating the moment its beam would pick out the cut wire of the fence through which the others had entered when, to her dismay, she caught sight of movement and realised that the side access door was about to open. Her first instinct was to yell a warning at the top of her voice but she curbed it, hoping that the others would show caution or sense the impending danger and stay put but the door continued to crank open.

Hubert raised his rifle and began to take aim just at the moment that George detected movement to her left and realised that a second guard was approaching from the opposite direction. The first one on the right had spotted his comrade approaching and raised his torch aiming it ahead to pick the man out just as the side door of the factory opened fully and Alain emerged. A harsh voice rang out.

"Halt."

Alain was startled for a second by the lights and the sound of the guard's voice but realisation of what was happening immediately dawned and paying no heed to the instructions he started to make for the fence. The German guard raised his rifle just as Hubert opened fire in his direction. He missed and the guard fired towards Alain who staggered and fell. Shots began to rain down on them from the left as the second guard, seeing what was happening, joined in. George took aim and started to fire in the direction of the guard on the left but he was some distance away and the light was poor and she could offer little more than covering fire aimed in his general direction. From the corner of her eye she could see Bernard, Sebastian and Emile emerging. She recognised the outline of Bernard, crouched low to the ground, zigzagging across the open space between the buildings and the fence. He had reached Alain and was attempting to grab him by the jacket and drag him along with him but progress was slow and Alain seemed unresponsive. Shots were now being fired from the factory building as well and George realised that Emile and Sebastian were also shooting in the direction of the guards trying to cover Bernard's escape. She continued shooting to the left, trying to deter the guard from firing but ever conscious that German reinforcements would be sure to arrive at any moment alerted by the firefight that was ensuing.

Bernard had been forced to abandon Alain and seeing no movement from him as he lay prostrate on the ground, George feared he might be dead. Bernard reached the gap in the fence and threw himself into the narrow space, snaring his coat in the process but pulling away with all his might, rending the coat in two as he freed himself. He reached George and Hubert crying, "Fucking Boche, they've got Alain."

He turned back at once and started to shoot towards the guards with an unbridled fury, the intensity of his actions fuelled by his anger.

Sebastian was now making a run for it and thanks to Bernard's additional firepower they managed to hold the guards at bay long enough for the big man to reach the fence and clamber through.

"We can't stay here much longer," Bernard yelled, raising his head and gesturing wildly in the direction of Emile, who having given up covering the escape of the others, started to cross 'no man's land' towards the fence just as George spotted other fast moving torches heading in their direction indicating the arrival of German reinforcements. Almost immediately the firing began again in earnest and intensity.

Emile was moving rapidly, crouched low and zig-zagging as he did so to frustrate the chance of an easy shot but he paused when he reached Alain, throwing himself flat on the ground, intent on checking on his comrade for a few seconds despite the bullets ripping into the ground near him.

"Come on," Sebastian yelled at the top of his voice and Emile, sensing that he could do nothing more for Alain, dragged himself back to his feet and keeping low started to make for the fence again. He was only ten metres away when he, faltered and then jerked backwards almost as if someone had punched him and then rolled onto his back on the ground, his head turned away from them all.

George's heart seemed to freeze in her chest. She couldn't see Emile moving and was paralysed by fear and disbelief, unable to process what had just happened until Bernard cried, "Phillipe's been hit. We've got to get out of here."

He tried to grab George by the arm and drag her away but she couldn't accept what he was saying. Her head was refusing to acknowledge his words. She struggled with him, "No, we've got to get him."

"He's dead," Bernard yelled back at her, "You will be too if you don't move."

Bernard tried to drag her by the arm again, his fingers digging painfully into her flesh and succeeded in moving her about five metres but her legs couldn't or wouldn't carry her as her mind tried to make sense of what she was hearing. Bernard was talking about Emile, the man she loved. She staggered, still in shock at what had happened as shots continued to rain down on them but she couldn't believe his words. In desperation she jerked her head back in the direction of the fence looking for Emile, seeking confirmation of the truth as she was still unwilling to believe what she had seen but already, in her anguish, she was painfully certain of one thing; her life would never be the same again.