“Ooof,” Molly gasped as they hit the ground. “Ow! Goddamn it, Maggie, that hurt.”
“Under ten minutes today, Hope. Better.” Burns looked at his stopwatch. “Slightly.”
Maggie gave him a pinched smile as she got up, then offered her hand to help Molly. His “slightly” was a small victory, considering her legs felt like rubber and her injured knee throbbed. Then she limped over to the rest of the group, to cheer on the next girl, who was just starting the course.
“No,” Burns called over to Maggie, through the rain. “Get cleaned up and dressed, Hope. And meet me in the dining room.”
Was this it? Was she going to be thrown out of the program?
The dining room had a lingering sense of the house’s former grandeur. The faded and water-stained wallpaper had squares of bright perfection, where large paintings must have once hung, four-sided ghosts of the manor’s past opulence. Still, a cheerful fire crackled and popped in the grate and the brass was polished. Mr. Burns was already seated at the table when Maggie came in, washed and combed and dressed in clean, dry trousers, a white blouse, and a cabled wool cardigan.
The wireless was on. Maggie could hear the fourteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth addressing in bell-like tones the children who’d left London for the relative safety of the British countryside: “Before I finish, I can truthfully say to you all that we children at home are full of cheerfulness and courage. We are trying to do all we can to help our gallant sailors, soldiers, and airmen, and we are trying, too, to bear our own share of the danger and sadness of war.…”
Mrs. Forester, an older woman with a tight gray bun and wide hips, both chaperone and housekeeper, peeked through the door. Maggie knew from several conversations over cups of tea that she was grateful to have the job—a widow, both her sons were in the Royal Navy, floating somewhere in the North Sea. She found that cooking and cleaning for the girls of Camp Spook kept her mind occupied and tired her out enough during the day so she could manage at least a few hours of sleep at night. “Will you be wantin’ any tea, Mr. Burns?” she said, her plump face folding into a smile as she walked into the dining room and turned off the wireless with a loud click.
“No, thank you, Mrs. Forester,” Mr. Burns replied. In front of him was Maggie’s file, a thick folder labeled MARGARET HOPE.
“Very well,” she said and left.
Burns looked at Maggie, then gestured to a straight-backed chair. “Please sit down, Miss Hope,” he said.
Maggie did.
He cracked his knuckles. “Mr. Frain, head of MI-Five, sent you to me, with the highest recommendations,” he began. “He let me know a bit of your role in taking down the Prime Minister’s assassination plot and preventing the bombing of Saint Paul’s.”
Maggie permitted herself the slightest—just the slightest—feeling of pride.
“Frain also tells me you have excellent instincts when it comes to code breaking. Also that your French and German are flawless.”
The slight feeling grew just a bit brighter.
“During your time here, you’ve applied yourself and worked hard.”
I passed! Maggie thought with a glow of pride. So where am I going? Dropped behind enemy lines in France? Undercover in Germany? Her pulse quickened with excitement.
“However,” Burns said.
However?
“However?”
“Your background in academics and then as secretary to the Prime Minister hasn’t been conducive to the, er, physical aspects of spy work. We have certain standards for our candidates, and, Miss Hope, I’m afraid you have not attained them.”
What? Despite the warmth of the fire, Maggie felt cold. She’d worked hard. She’d learned how to shoot Sten and Bren guns and hit targets. She’d learned to transmit Morse code, jump out of a plane, and kill with various implements—a pen, a dinner knife, her bare hands. She’d been (with Mrs. Forester supervising, of course) tied to a chair, blindfolded, and interrogated for hours and hours by “Gestapo” officers with no rest, food, or water.
In the mental aspects of the training, Maggie had excelled; in the endurance aspects, she’d failed. The most egregious was a twenty-five-mile cross-country trek all the candidates had to do in the cold and rain. Only a few miles into the course she’d tripped on a tree root, fallen, and knocked herself unconscious. After coming to, she’d limped almost a quarter of a mile before Burns and his men picked her up. The doctor at Camp Spook diagnosed her with a sprained ankle and hypothermia.
“I cannot, in good conscience, recommend undercover work in Europe. I’m not convinced you’re physically up to it.”