This is the twenty-sixth part of a fiction serial, in 757 words.

Not long after celebrating her forty-second birthday, Hettie was informed that her classes would be increasing in size starting the following month. Agents were being recruited to replace those arrested or killed, and the network was being expanded significantly, especially in France.

Overall, the tide of war was turning in favour of the allies, especially in North Africa and Russia. For once the overall mood was optimism, and it seemed that an invasion of Britain was definitely never going to happen.

With more students arriving, they needed some more instructors. Hettie was asked to share her room with Yvonne, a new French teacher. Though it was not so much a request, as taken for granted. Another single bed was placed at right-angles to hers, and two days later she met her new room-mate, a chubby Londoner who was twenty-eight years old, and very friendly.

Yvonne wasn’t French but her mother was, and she had married a merchant seaman she had met in her home city of Brest long before the war, leaving Yvonne to be brought up in a bi-lingual household in north-east London.

Although they were from different parts of the city, their shared experience of London formed an easy bond, and Hettie thought of her much like a younger sister she had never known. And Yvonne was also very well-educated, working as a journalist in both Paris and London after leaving university. She had some books too. Mostly in French but some others in English that she was happy to lend to her new friend. She told Hettie that her younger brother was in the RAF, part of a bomber squadron crew stationed somewhere in England.

Another new member of staff was an army sergeant-major, George Bowes. He was going to be a field instructor on the simulated combat areas and firing ranges. When she was introduced to him, Hettie could not help noticing the deep scar running along his left jawbone, and the fact that the two smallest fingers were missing from his left hand. He had obviously seen some action.

Hettie liked his accent, which she discovered was from Northumberland. Although he had no regimental badges or shoulder tabs, she also found out he had been a regular soldier in the Durham Light Infantry, and had been evacuated from Dunkirk after being wounded in the fighting in France.

She liked George’s easy manner, and she also like his very dark hair and steel-blue eyes.

Summer was much warmer that year, and near the end of it, all the Craigie House staff were summoned to a top-secret briefing one night after dinner. There was a red-tab general giving the lecture, someone she had never seen there previously. After the usual warnings about not breathing a word to anyone outside the room, he staggered everyone in attendance by talking about plans to invade France in nineteen forty-four.

Now they all realised why so many extra agents and saboteurs were being trained and dropped into France. Also why so many American troops and aircaft were being based in southern England. One thing he wasn’t free to tell them about was any date, though he hinted it would not be until the summer, so they would have a year to prepare. When he finished talking the colonel in charge of the training facility stood up to inform them that all staff leave would be cancelled until further notice.

That night in her room, Hettie wrote to Edward, letting him know that she would not be getting any leave for the foreseeable future. She added that she knew why, but couldn’t tell him. Naturally, she knew that would annoy him, but she also felt very relieved that she wouldn’t have to go home in the autumn and pretend everything was normal.

Over the next few weeks, she found herself sitting with Yvonne and George at mealtimes, and they would sometimes meet in the bar in the evenings for a couple of drinks. Hettie was not much of a drinker, but Yvonne was a demon for a gin and lemon. When she got a bit squiffy, George would wink at Hettie then say, “Time she was in bed. Why don’t you take her up, pet?” He called all the women pet, and said ‘canny’ when he meant good. Hettie was learning his expressions, and enjoyed joining in by using her London slang terms to amuse him.

Then one night Yvonne went to bed early because of pain from her monthlies, and Hettie got to spend the evening alone with George.