Caitrin sat back in her chair, sipped her tea, noticed the young vicar leaving with a parting radiant blush, and said, “In that case, how could I possibly refuse?”
“Splendid. Then you can take the Duchess.”
“The Duchess?”
* * *
Caitrin, along with nineteen other young women, stood waiting at the corner of Marloes Road and Lexham Gardens in London’s West Kensington. A sharp-eyed woman with eye-watering mint breath and a black coat that smelled of mothballs sidled up to Caitrin and asked, “Are you here for the Duchess?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Me too.” The woman, impatient, glanced at her watch. “Then where the bloody hell is she?”
“That would be her over there, don’t you think?” Caitrin said as she pointed to a Bedford pantechnicon that had pulled up on Marloes Road. It was battered and dirty, with the faded words DUCHESS REMOVALS stenciled across the side. She saw the address was from the East End, didn’t recognize it, and guessed it was probably fictitious. She also noticed there was no telephone number.
The driver—a middle-aged man with a tooth-challenged smile, a flat cap, and a shabby suit—leaped from the cab, scurried to the rear of the pantechnicon, threw the doors open wide, bowed, and grandly announced, “Trevor’s the name, ladies, and your carriage awaits.”
“What! You expect us to go in there?” the mothballed and mint-breathed woman said as they clustered around the doors. “It’s a lorry.”
“Technically speaking, it’s a pantechnicon, Miss. There are boxes inside to sit on, and the drive won’t take long.”
“There are no windows.”
“That’s the point,” Caitrin said. “They don’t want us to see where we’re going.” She did not know Trevor’s face but recognized the voice. He was the man who had given her Bethany Goodman’s card on Ryers Road.
“Hello, we’ve got ourselves a real bright one here. And I’ll take your watches, if you please. Promise I won’t flog them, but I might keep the prettiest one for the trouble and strife.”
“Watches?” Mint-breath asked.
“He wants the watches to stop us from timing the journey,” Caitrin said before anyone could question why he needed them.
“We’ll definitely have to keep the old mince pies on you, I can tell,” Trevor said to her as he collected the watches, ushered the women inside, and drove away.
Caitrin had mentally counted thirty-five minutes before the pantechnicon stopped and reversed. The doors opened to reveal it was parked hard against a doorway. They were briskly herded through the building and into a classroom. Outside the windows was an anonymous landscape of fields; they could have been anywhere in the southeast of England. They had barely settled into the desks when the room door opened, and Bethany Goodman entered. Her appearance came as no surprise, but what she wore did. Bethany was dressed as a nun, a Mother Superior. She stood at the blackboard, spread her arms wide, and grinned as she said, “Bless you, my children, but fret not; this is only a disguise. I am not a professional nun.”
There was relieved laughter as she continued, “This was once a girls’ school, until the headmaster disappeared one day with the gardener, took all the funds, and left the hollyhocks. Now it belongs to us.”
“Why the nun’s costume?” a woman asked.
“Because, as a cover, this place will now be known as Langland Priory, a church-run home for unwed mothers. For the first months of training, those still with us will be confined to the building and grounds. Later, you may go to the village, but only as either a nun or an unwed mother with a cushion tucked under your skirt.”
“What about an unwed nun?” someone said to laughter.
Bethany did not falter. “As a nun is assumed to be a virgo intacta, her, um, condition would obviously attract a great deal of unwanted attention. So no, certainly no pregnant nuns.”
“You said, those still with us,” a woman said. “What does that mean?”
“I’ll explain. There are twenty of you here, but I would be surprised if more than five complete training. You will learn about the Wehrmacht command, the SS, the Gestapo, and the Abwehr. You will be instructed in survival skills and taught how to shoot and kill. That is the hardest part for many.” She paused, her eyes sweeping the room. “The first test. Does anyone know where we are? If you do, write it down on the paper you will find in your desk, and tell me how you discovered it.”
No one moved, except Caitrin. She raised her desk lid, took out a sheet of paper, and scribbled her answer. Bethany read it and waved for everyone to leave. She waited until the door closed and said, “You wrote somewhere near Gerrards Cross. You are right, and I want to know how you worked out our location.”
“We had no watches, so I mentally counted the minutes as we drove west. Trevor should have made a few turns or driven in a circle to disorient us. I heard several aeroplanes to our left and guessed it was the Great West Aerodrome at Heath Row. I flew there a few times with my brother Dafydd. We turned right and headed north. After a few minutes I smelled a brewery. Would it be Waterston’s? It’s only a guess. And if you don’t mind, I don’t want to be a nun. I’d much rather be thought a wicked and fallen woman who at least had some fun on the way down.”
Bethany laughed. “I hope you make it through.”
“I hope so too.”
* * *
The women were assembled outside the priory to meet their trainer. None of them was at all impressed with him; neither was he particularly awed by them. Chopper Jones, so-named because of his habit of punctuating his speech with abrupt chopping gestures, was a little man of intense character and glaring eyes. Chopper never stayed still as he issued instructions. “A moving target is hard to hit, ladies, so always move. Never remain at rest.” He stuck out his hand as a gun. “Move, so I can’t shoot you. Come on, move.”
Feeling more than a little silly, the women moved, a step here, a step back, a little lean to the right and back again as he closed an eye and aimed his hand at them and muttered bang! They bumped into each other, apologized and giggled, and went silent as Chopper cleaved the air, bellowing, “Laugh if you want, but giggles and guffaws will bring the Hun down on your pretty necks. They will hear you. It is a known fact that Germans have bigger ears than the British.”
“Are they bigger anywhere else?” asked a brave lass, anonymous in the group.
Her remark had no effect on Chopper, who was a married man with six daughters and eight sisters and knew some, but not all, of the intricate ways of women. He chopped the air, this time with both hands, and said, “The invading Hun slaughtered innocent vicars, raped nuns, and killed their poor babies in Belgium.”
“That was the Great War,” Hermione Richards, a solicitor’s well-educated daughter, said with a barely concealed trace of condescension. Unlike the rest of the women, she had been to Belgium and had no recollection of ever seeing a pregnant nun there. “I don’t wish to appear contrary, but when I was in Knokke le Zoute—”
A stabbing chop cut her off, and he answered, “That war was nothing but practice for this one. The Jerries are cunning blighters who passed their evil knowledge down from father to son, and so they’re even better at it now. Line up—tallest on the left, shortest on the right.”
They did as instructed, although it took some awkward measuring and there were questions about three women who seemed to be the same height. Chopper solved it by arranging them alphabetically, according to their first names.
Satisfied, or at least accepting their attempt to sort themselves out, Chopper strode up and down the line. “Your body, your person, is sacrosanct, and yes, I do know what that means.”
He stopped, facing Caitrin. “Step forward.”
She did as she was ordered.
