“In combat you must decide where the border of your person is, and if it is trespassed, you must strike instantly. Once the enemy has a grip on you, all surprise is lost, and it becomes a battle, which you, being the weaker sex, will lose, or at least be damaged. And a wounded soldier is of no more use than a dead one. Worse, because he needs looking after. Name?”
“Caitrin Colline.”
“Reach for me, Caitrin.”
She put out her hand, he bellowed at her, and she shrank back. “Not like you want my smashing body for your physical pleasure. As if you want to attack and maim me.”
Her hand shot out to grasp his sleeve, but before she could touch him, his right hand whistled past her ear. She froze.
“My sacrosanct border is three inches away from my body. If this had been actual combat, Miss Colline would have a broken and bloody nose before she touched me. But it wouldn’t hurt for long because I would have killed her before she fell to the ground.” He wagged his finger. “Decide what’s sacrosanct, and act immediately to defend it.”
“What if it was a mistake and he was just being friendly?” Hermione said.
“Then, if you haven’t already killed him, you apologize, buy him a pint, and tell him a broken nose looks appealing on a man. Adds a wicked air of danger. Back into line.”
As Caitrin stepped back into line, Chopper pointed to a low hill in the distance. “Even with me war wounds, I can walk there and back, double-time, in twenty minutes. I expect you to do so in fifteen.”
“Why?” Hermione asked.
“Why? Because I said so.”
“When?”
“Now.”
“Shouldn’t we change into our gym clothes first?” Hermione said. Caitrin stayed silent because Chopper was the man in charge who knew things that they did not, which meant there were times, like this one, when anonymity was a good and wise thing to practice.
“Step forward if you will, please, Miss,” Chopper said, and Hermione took a reluctant step out of line. He inspected her with his glaring eyes—front, back, and both sides. “Do you speak French?”
“Oui.”
“Speak it well, do you?”
“Naturellement.”
“I don’t speak a bloody word of it,” he said. “Why not? Because it’s foreign.”
“It’s beautiful.”
He faced her, rocking on his heels. “So’s my beloved Phyllis, a beautiful woman who is the pomme of me eye and the light of me life. But she’d never survive being dropped into France. And do you know why?”
“She’d bounce?” Hermione said and by his reaction instantly saw she had made a grievous mistake.
“Because she’s never been outside Wapping is why, and wouldn’t go to France, or any other foreign country, even if the king said pretty please Phyllis, just for me. But if she had to go abroad, say to save her beloved hubby’s life, she’d be smart enough not to worry about her gym clothes. Now, Miss, you, with your perfect French. Let’s imagine you’ve been dropped into France at night, and as luck would have it, land a hundred yards away from a whole German battalion. Right next to all those Huns with their big ears and other supposed large things. Not the place to display your French language skills. Instead, you run and run and run—and with the Hun on your heels would do it in your civilian clothes, the ones you are wearing to blend in with all the other Frenchies. No time to change into gym togs.”
Hermione nodded, indicating she understood.
“Off you go, then, up the hill, and do it in ten minutes, or less.”
“And if I don’t do it in time?” Hermione said, determined to go down with at least some guns firing.
“If you don’t do it in time?” The question baffled Chopper, so he repeated it. “If you don’t do it in time? Then you do it again and again until you can run it in ten minutes. Go! The Germans are after you!”
He gave Hermione a head start and sent the rest of the women after her.
Hermione tried and failed three times to run there and back in less than twenty minutes and left the priory the next morning. Two more followed her, after failing a series of grueling exercises. After living through the austere Thirties, many of them were ill-nourished and physically incapable of meeting 512’s demands. But although Caitrin had grown up in a filthy coal-mining town, it was at the bottom of a narrow valley and the steep slopes above were physically challenging playgrounds with cleaner air, and that made her strong and resilient.
After surviving Chopper, those still remaining met their weapons instructor in the shooting range beneath the priory. Billy “The Brick” Donnelly, 512’s weapons instructor, was a Liverpool-Irish lad with a compact body and low center of gravity. Regardless of weapon caliber, recoil, or blast, when Billy pulled the trigger, only his finger moved. He didn’t even blink. Billy was a stone-cold marksman.
An assortment of weapons was laid out on a table, and Billy went through them, explaining their vices and virtues. “This is your Lee Enfield Number Four rifle, the mainstay of the British Army. The Thompson submachine gun, which you have all seen from American gangster films. The Bren, a fine weapon, and the Sten submachine gun, mass-produced and used by overseas partisans and resistance fighters. Next, pistols. The Enfield Number Two Mark One, standard British Army issue; the American Colt; the Browning Hi-Power; and this odd, somewhat obsolete creature, the Webley-Fosbery automatic revolver. This one is a .38, and not, as many think, a .455, and holds eight rounds, not six. An unusual weapon and heavy. The cylinder and barrel assembly slide back after each shot. A man, or especially a woman, would have to be capable of using it properly to gain any level of accuracy. It’s easily recognizable by the diagonal grooves on the cylinder.”
He weighed the pistol in his hand. “You might like a particular weapon and grow quite proficient with it, and that is good, but you have to be adept with more than one. You never know where you’ll be and in what circumstances. There will be no time to learn; you will have to pick up any gun at hand and shoot to kill. That being said, find the one that suits you best, the one that will make you an expert.”
He stood in front of Caitrin. “Redheaded lassies usually have a temper to match.”
“I have been known to have my moments,” Caitrin replied.
“And in one of those moments, did you perchance fire a gun?”
“No. Well, a shotgun, twice.”
“Which one would you like to try?”
“That one,” she said, pointing to the revolver in his hand.
“Do you think you can be an expert with this monster?”
“I can try.”
