Chapter 31 Chapter Thirty

Special Operations doesn't have its own planes and has to borrow them from the RAF which is like pulling their teeth. In 1941, the Air Force reluctantly surrendered two Lysanders, too slow and heavy for support missions on the battlefield but ideal for stealthy landings in enemy territory.Later, under pressure from Churchill, two obsolete bomber squadrons were assigned to Special Operations, although the head of Bomber Command, Arthur Hames, had always wanted them back.By the spring of 1944, when dozens of agents were flown to France to prepare the offensive plan, the Special Operations Service had employed thirty-six aircraft.

The aircraft on which the "Jackdaws" were flying was a twin-engine Hudson light bomber made in the United States, which was replaced by a four-engine Lancaster heavy bomber as soon as it was manufactured in 1939.A Hudson had two machine guns in the front, and the RAF added two more in the rear turret.At the rear of the cabin is a trough-like slide along which paratroopers can glide into the air.There were no seats in the cabin, and the six women and the dispatcher sat on the metal floor.They felt cold and uncomfortable and frightened, but Jelly suddenly gave a giggle, which brought the others along.

There were dozens of metal boxes next to them, each one taller than a person, with parachute straps on them. Flick guessed that they were filled with guns and ammunition for some other resistance organization in order to interfere with the German army behind enemy lines. Cooperate with the attack.After dropping Jackdaw on Chatler, Hudson would fly to another destination before turning around and flying back to Templesford. A malfunctioning altimeter delayed takeoff and another had to be replaced, so it was one o'clock in the morning when they left the British coastline.When flying across the strait, the pilot lowered the plane to a few hundred feet above sea level, hiding below the horizon detected by enemy radar. Eight thousand feet, over the fortified French coastline.It remained at this altitude, crossed the heavily fortified coastal strip, the "Atlantic Wall," and then descended again to three hundred feet, making navigation a little easier.

The navigator kept checking his map, using dead reckoning to determine the aircraft's position, and confirming it with ground markers.The moon was getting fuller and was only three days away from being full, so despite the blackouts, large towns were still clearly visible.However, they generally have anti-aircraft guns, and these places must be avoided. Similarly, barracks and military sites must also be avoided.Rivers and lakes are the most useful terrain features, especially since the moon will reflect off the water.The forest is a black patch, and if one is missing, it clearly means that the plane has deviated from the route.The flashes of railroad lines, the flames of steam engines, and the occasional flickering of headlights in spite of blackouts all help a lot.

All the way Flick was brooding over the news about Brian Standish and newcomer Charenton.Things have the potential to be true.The Gestapo learned about the joint situation in the basement of the cathedral from a prisoner captured in the castle on Sunday. They set a trap, and Brian fell into the trap, but escaped with the help of a newcomer recruited by Miss Remus.It's entirely possible.Flick, however, hated this plausible explanation.She felt safe and secure only when things followed standard procedure and didn't ask for any explanation. When they approach Champagne, located east of Paris, is the northernmost grape-growing region in France, and its capital is Reims. , another navigation icon comes into play.This is a recent invention called the Eureka-Rebecca system.A radio navigator sends out a callsign from some undisclosed location in Reims.The crew on the Hudson didn't know its exact location, but Flick did, and Michele had placed it on the cathedral's tower—the half of Eureka.On board was the Rebecca, a radio receiver plugged into the side of the navigator.They were about fifty miles north of Reims when the navigator picked up Eureka's callsign from the cathedral.

The inventor's intention was for Eureka to be on the landing field with the pick-up team, but that doesn't work.The equipment weighed more than a hundred pounds, and it was impossible to smuggle such a bulky thing through the checkpoints, even the stupid Gestapo would not be fooled.Michelle and the other resistance leaders decided to put Eureka in a permanent place and not to run around with it. Therefore, the navigator must return to the traditional method of finding Chatler.He was lucky though, because Flick was next to him, she had landed here on several occasions, and could identify the place from the air.They ended up passing about a mile east of the village, but Flick spotted the pond and had the pilot redirected.

They circled, flying three hundred feet over the cow pasture.Flick could see the path of the flash, four flickering dots of faint light forming an L, and at the end of the L the light flashed in a pre-agreed code.The plane climbed to six hundred feet, the ideal height for a parachute jump, any higher and the wind could blow the paratrooper away from the landing site; any lower and the parachute might not have enough time to fully deploy. "Just wait until you're ready," the pilot said. "I'm not ready," Flick said. "what happened?" "Something is wrong." Flick's intuition sounded the alarm to her.It wasn't just about Bryan and Charenton that bothered her, but something else.She pointed to the direction of the village to the west with her hand: "Look, there are no lights."

"Does that seem strange to you? It's a blackout. Besides, it's three o'clock in the morning." Flick shook his head and said, "It's rural, and they don't care much about blackouts. Also, there are always people awake, like the mother of a newborn, or someone who can't sleep at night, and students who are about to take exams. I never I've never seen a time like this before." "If you really think there is a problem here, then we should get out of here quickly." The pilot said anxiously. Something else bothered her.She went to scratch her hair, but her hand touched the helmet.The thought slipped away at once.

What should she do?She couldn't just suspend the entire operation just because the Chatler villagers strictly followed the blackout regulations. The plane flew over the field, banked and turned.The pilot said anxiously: "Don't forget, every time we fly by we increase the risk. Everyone in the village will hear our engines and someone will call the police." "By the way!" she said, "we've probably woken up the whole place. But no one turned on the lights!" "I can't say, country folks probably don't care about anything. They're all about themselves, as they say."

"Nonsense. They're just as inquisitive and lively as anyone else. It's a strange situation." The pilot was getting more and more uneasy, but he kept going in circles. Suddenly, she remembered. "The baker should light his oven. Usually his fire can be seen from the air." "Is he closed today?" "What day is it? Saturday. The baker may be closed on Monday or Tuesday, but never on a Saturday. What's going on here? It's like a ghost town!" "Let's get out of here." It was like someone had taken all the villagers, including the baker, and locked them in a barn—that's what they would have done if the Gestapo were lying down there waiting for her.

She cannot stop acting.This task is too important.But instinct told her clearly not to skydive in Chatterley. "To take a risk is to take a risk," she said. The pilot couldn't bear it anymore. "What are you going to do?" Suddenly, she remembered the boxes of supplies in the cabin. "Where is your next destination?" "I shouldn't have told you." "Usually it shouldn't, yes. But now I have to know." "A pasture north of Chartres." That is the "parish commissioner" resistance group. "I know them," Flick said excitedly. This is a solution. "You can drop us and those boxes over there, and there will be a pick-up there, and they can take care of us. We can reach Paris this afternoon, tomorrow To Reims in the morning." He grabbed the joystick and said, "Are you really going to do this?" "is it okay?" "I can drop you there, no problem, tactics are up to you. You're the mission commander—they made that very clear to me." Flick thought anxiously.Her suspicions were probably unfounded, and she would then need to send Michelle a message over Brian's radio, telling him that even though she hadn't landed there, she had come anyway.But if Bryan's radio falls into the hands of the Gestapo, she should send out a minimum of information.Either way, it's doable.She could write a brief radio signal and give it to the pilot to take it back to Percy, and Brian would receive it in a few hours. She also wanted to change the original arrangement of gathering the "Jackdaws" to return after the operation.The current plan was that a Hudson would land at Chatterley at two o'clock on Sunday morning, and if the Jackdaws didn't show up there, the plane would come back at the same time the next night.If Chatler had leaked it to the Gestapo and could no longer use it, she should have directed Hudson to another airfield at La Roque, west of Reims, code-named "Golden Fields."The mission will be extended by one day, because they have to travel from Chartres to Reims, so the receiving plane should arrive at 2 o'clock in the morning on Monday, and if they do not receive it, they will come back at the same time on Tuesday. She weighed several outcomes.Going to Chartres means losing a day.However, a landing at Chatler could mean the failure of the entire operation, and all Jackdaws would die in Gestapo torture chambers.No more comparisons. "To Chartres," she said to the pilot. "Understood, do it." The plane banked and turned a corner.Flick stepped into the rear cabin. The "Jackdaws" all looked at her expectantly. "Plans have changed," she said.