Chapter Text
They didn’t do much right, but River had to give it to them, the French knew how to cook an egg. That's really the first lesson he’d learnt about that Godawful country after being sequestered in it all those months ago.
Eggs and wine - all other culture seemed to totally evade them, although they talked a lot of shit about a revolutionary flare. Yeah, River thought, so revolutionary that the Nazis had not only occupied them, they needed the assistance of the rest of the Allied forces to get them out.
That’s where he was - the centre of the revolution. Or at least 147miles to the North of it. When he put it like that, he was more right on the very edge of the revolution. But he was still there, and that’s all that counted. His job was important in its own right, and as people kept reminding him, it was never his place to question it in the first place.
It got him in trouble, that did. That voice in the back of his head telling him that the orders were stupid. To sit still in a safe house in back end of Calais on the off chance an agent would need safe passage back to Blighty off the books - it felt superfluous. He felt superfluous. River had been in that cottage on a cliffside for eight months, and other than one agent who kipped on the sofa before disappearing back into the wilderness the next morning, there’d been no action at all. Nothing. Not even a rogue German soldier asking around for papers.
He supposed that was sort of the point - no one went near the house. Never. Not even the milkman. He grabbed the basket off the circular kitchen table and made the trek down the long, narrow garden towards the coop. Eggs.
“Get four- five, actually! I’ll make a cake.” Cathrine smiled pallidly at him from the kitchen door. He nodded grumpily. He knew he should treat her better. It wasn’t her fault they were all stuck there. The cool November air nipped at his collar.
“If I get six, will you fry me one?” He asked, pushing his luck. He knew he was. Just because the paperwork said she was his mother didn’t mean he had to treat her as such. She tutted at him, wiping her hands on her apron.
“No. But if you aren’t careful I’ll put marmalade in the sponge rather than jam.” She ducked back into the house. Marmalade. River hated marmalade. The whole country was obsessed with it. He hated the whole country.
The birds flapped as he slid the coop open, revealing their eggs, still warm. It weirded him out at first. He’d never kept chickens before being placed in that house. Never really seen a chicken before, unless it was roasted or wrapped in pastry. But that’s what you get being born and bred in the city. He heard of one agent fainting at the sight of a cow, but that might have just been a rumour. He placed the eggs in the basket, sliding the wood back over the frame, and stood tiredly.
The place drained you. Sometimes River would stand at the back gate and look over the cliffs for hours. Nothing better to do. On a clear day, you could see Dover. A thin white line right on the horizon - eons away from the rickety old cottage he was trapped in. It wasn’t what he’d expected when he’d been accepted as a Field Agent. He’d expected high octane operations, or at least active field work - spying. Not sitting in a house with a woman who seemed to obsessively bake sponges, and a man surgically attached to his decoder.
Roddy Ho was apparently very good at his job. It was just a shame that at this current moment, that job was practically non-existent. They almost never intercepted signals or were passed any codes or ciphers. The ones they did get tended to be false. Just noise the Nazis used to flood the channels in the hopes the real signals and codes would get lost in the fray. Nevertheless, Roddy sat there, all day, waiting for anything incoming.
River placed the basket down softly on the countertop, Cathrine already in the process of weighing out ingredients.
“Five eggs, no marmalade?” He asked. She smiled at him.
“I have some raspberry conserve left. No cream, I’m afraid. Still no milkman.” She sighed. He nodded at her. Supply drop wasn’t until Thursday. Today was Sunday. No anything on Sunday.
“Well, there is a war on.” He smiled at her softly. She needed that. Gentleness. River got the sense she’d had enough harshness for a lifetime. Cathrine never spoke of the past, but it oozed from her like blood. Even old wounds could bleed. Sometimes her hands shook violently, and on those occasions she just grasped the wooden spoon tighter and they got two cakes that day. “You ever think about trying something other than cake?”
“Hmm?” She looked at him over her wire-rimmed glasses.
“A pie, maybe? I mean, we have the chickens-”
“You are not eating my chickens. Mavis, Beryl and Jennifer have had a hard life. The least we can do is let them live out their lives peacefully on the clifftop.” She poured the sugar in with the flour.
“Alright, apple, then.” He chuckled at her. “Or cherry.” She sighed.
“I don’t know, pastry can be a tricky thing to master.”
“Well then, a new challenge. Not like we’re drowning in options up here, are we? And anyway, I fear I’ll die of spongecake overdose if we don’t smash the huns soon at the rate you crank them out.” He turned towards the doorway to the sitting room.
“I like cakes. They’re predictable.” She called after him. River smiled to himself. “You know how they’re going to turn out-”
“From the consistency.” He finished for her. He settled into the sofa, grabbing a book from the side table. “Blah blah blah, ‘Miss Bennett’, blah blah blah, ‘there is a stubbornness about me’, et cetera. That’s it. I can’t read it again. When they bring the supplies I’m definitely asking for new books. I can’t read the four novels in this house AGAIN.” He snapped the book shut.
“You’d fair much better if you’d actually take the time to learn to read French, River. Then you could borrow mine.” Cathrine ducked round the doorframe. River sat back.
He could speak French, or there about. He could speak it enough. He just struggled with reading it. Or at least, he could read it - if he really concentrated. But it didn’t make for an enjoyable reading experience, squinting at a book, the inevitable question - time, faith or liver? The words all looked the same to him. Up until that very moment, reading a random page from Pride and Prejudice for what felt like the hundredth time, it hadn’t seemed worth the bother.
“Maybe I will. You make me a pie, I’ll read your dense French literature, and we can flitter away this war between us.” He nodded. Above his head, the floorboards creaked. Roddy had shifted the weight from one arse cheek to the other. Must be lunchtime. “Right. I’m doing the afternoon perimeter.” He pushed up on his knees.
“River, it’s barely eleven in the morning.” Cathrine frowned at him, stirring her cake batter vigorously. He furrowed his brow, just as the stomping began. Hurried footsteps across the ceiling, on the stairs.
“Cartwright! Standish!” Roddy Ho’s urgent tones filtered down to them before he came barrelling through the sitting room door. “We’ve got mail.” He waved a long strip of morse code in his fist.
“What?” River grabbed at it. “What does it say?”
“The Lamb is in the barn for the winter. 1500.” Roddy beamed. “Didn’t even need the book.”
“Right, well that makes zero sense, so maybe give the book a go, yeah?” River passed it back to him.
“Jackson.” Cathrine appeared in the sitting room doorway, having placed the bowl down in the kitchen. She looked shaken. “Jackson’s coming. This is the barn. He’ll be here at three.” She nodded.
“Jackson?”
“Jackson Lamb.” She gave him a thin smile. “He’s my commanding officer. Yours too, technically. He runs this place.”
“How’d I not know that? I thought my Commanding Officer was-”
“Tearney.” Roddy nodded.
“Ian Tearney is technically Lamb’s commanding officer. Although, he’s sort of a loose canon. Doesn’t do so good with the chain of command. Haven't seen him in years. 1940, maybe?” She shrugged, although she looked far from unconcerned.
“So if he’s coming here, our orders have changed?” River looked at her. She nodded.
“Maybe they’re decommissioning us.” Roddy grinned. “That’s it. They need me back in Bletchley. I knew they’d be desperate for me back.” He rolled his eyes.
“Sure, that’ll be it.” River huffed.
“Right, I’m off to pack.” Roddy grinned. “I am out of this dump.”
***
The grimy man had pulled up in a taxi as if they weren’t in the middle of a war, cigarette hanging from his mouth, just as the light was beginning to fade. He’d undone the latch on the front gate with a disconcerting familiarity, waddled his way up the path, and knocked on the front door at 15:12pm.
River opened the front door to him, gut flipping anxiously. The man’s eyebrows raised at the sight of him.
“Fuck me,” He breathed. “Cartwright, I am to presume.” He stepped in confidently, not waiting for River to reply.
“Agent, Cartwright.” River nodded.
“Yeah, agent, whatever. You mind if I use your bog?” He shifted uncomfortably in his trousers. “Haven’t stopped since Felixstowe, I’m busting.” River grimaced and nodded, pointing in the direction of the downstairs WC. “Yeah, I know where it is. It’s my gaff, remember.” He cleared his throat wetly as he plodded past him. River looked after him disbelievingly.
“That’s Lamb?” River said lowly to Cathrine, hovering nervously at the sitting room door. She gave him a closed mouth smile.
“Thats Lamb.” She said flatly.
“So,” Lamb called through the toilet door. “How long you been up here rotting now?”
“Eight months.” River replied, approaching the wooden thing, wincing as he heard the piss on the porcelain.
“Is that it?” Lamb guffawed. “Ask Standish how long she’s been here.” He chuckled.
“She doesn’t like to talk about it.” River said curtly. He felt protective of that woman. Especially against apes like Lamb.
“I bet she doesn’t. Longer than you’ve been in the service, I’d bet. Does you good, this isolation stuff. Breaks you.” The toilet flushed, and the door opened, no evidence that the sink was ever utilised. “Makes an agent eager to impress.” He grinned at River.
“Is that what this is, then? Are you putting one of us in the field?” River followed Lamb through to the sitting room.
“Why don’t you,” Lamb directed at Cathrine who was still buzzing around nervously. “Go and make us some tea?” He collapsed into the sofa. “There’s a good girl.” He gave her a condescending smile.
“Don’t speak to her like that.” River gritted his teeth.
“Oh! Oh! I’m your commanding officer, sweetheart. I’ll talk to my agents however the fuck I like, and guess what? I just decided I don’t like you very much. You don’t like how I talk to that woman, you fuck off back to London. That is if you can get there on your own, last I heard you can’t even read French properly.”
“I can read French.” River spat. Cathrine hurried from the room. “Cath- look what you’ve done!” River went to hurry after her.
“Sit down, Agent. I’m not here for her.” Lamb said tiredly. “And for the record, I’ve known her a heck of a lot longer than you have. So drop the alpha dog shite, you’re embarrassing yourself.” River’s face twitched angrily, taking the seat opposite Lamb reluctantly.
“Fine.” He narrowed his eyes at him.
“I’m putting you in the field.” He sighed at River. River couldn’t help it, he sat up straighter. “Before you get all billy big bollocks about it, just listen. You weren’t first choice for this, not even fucking thirty-seventh, alright?” River let the insinuation slip over him, all noise falling by the wayside at being put back in the field. “We need someone with a totally off-the-radar face. A clean bill, yeah?” Lamb stubbed out his fag on the coffee table, lighting another. “It’s an extraction. This place made the most sense.”
“Right, so I’m meeting an agent, bringing them back here, waiting for the next fishing trip. Like in training.” River nodded confidently. “I know the deal.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” Lamb chuckled. River went right back to being grumpy. “The agent - he’s in deep cover. Requested extraction. Wouldn’t provide details, which is to be expected, seeing as he’s in the heart of Paris right now.”
River raised his eyebrows.
“He’s undercover in Paris?” River reiterated. “So, what? He’s posing as a Nazi?” Lamb nodded.
“Yeah, journalist. Propaganda peddler, you know the type. ‘Kill all jews, kill all disableds, kill all queers’, and so on. Only the classics.” Lamb rolled his eyes. “And he’s a fucking good agent. Got us a lot of bloody good information, so when he asked for an extraction, it’s either because he’s in danger, or he’s found something he can’t communicate the traditional ways. He knows something, Cartwright. It’s imperative you get him out alive.”
“Well, yeah. I’d assumed that was the idea.” River crossed his arms, experiencing an odd mix of frustration with the man sat in front of him, and an itch to get going, anything to get him back in the field. Lamb regarded him.
“To put it plainly, Cartwright, he’s considerably more valuable than you are right now, if you catch my drift. You find the two of you in a spot of bother, it’s you that takes the bullet, is that clear enough for you?” Lamb looked at River through his smudged glasses.
“Crystal.” River nodded. “Not that it’s necessary. I assume I’m getting an identity.” He raised his eyebrows expectantly. Lamb snorted.
“Jesus Christ, it’s all just a game to you, isn’t it?” He smiled out of the corner of his mouth. “They were right.”
“What? Who was right?” River furrowed his brow, sitting forwards.
“You’re getting an identity.” Lamb spoke over him, curling his lip. “And a wife.”
“What? Another agent? That’s not necessary, I think I’d be better of on my own.” River shook his head.
“She’ll meet you at the station. She’s got the tickets, in case you were thinking about trying anything clever.” He blew a large plume of smoke in River’s face. River winced and waved his hand. Lamb stood slowly, sniffing as he hiked his waistband.
“Who is she, then? And who’s the target?” River watched the man waddle from the room.
“Train leaves at nine tomorrow. Make sure you’re on it.”
“Wait, no, what kind of briefing was that? I don’t even know where we’re going.” River followed the man back to the front door. The taxi was still idling.
“Paris, you idiot.” Lamb gave a wry smile, fumbling in his coat pocket. He passed River a paper envelope. “Dander will explain the plan, but it’s all in there anyway.” He nodded, turning back down the garden path. “Oh, and Cartwright,” He turned back round, squinting at him tiredly. “If you cock this up, or the boy dies, I’ll personally see to it you never work in the service again.” He turned back around.
“Right.”
“It’ll be the trenches for you, sunshine.” He called, not even bothering to turn round.
“Charming.”
***
“So what’s the plan?” River looked at the woman sat beside him, their hands familiarly close but not touching. She was a short thing, no bigger than about five foot two inches, and slim. She didn’t look like a secret agent, she looked like a girl, in her crimson blouse and brown jacket, short hair held back with a nice looking pin. She looked like a housewife, which was lucky, considering the paperwork on her lap confirmed that image.
“Speak French, you idiot. People can’t hear what you’re saying but they’ll recognise it as English, which might seem a bit odd seeing as we’ve both got French passports.”
“…My French isn’t great.”
“Jesus Christ.” Shirley knocked her head quietly against the wood of the seat beneath her.
“Look, I speak French…conversationally. You really think they’d let me get this far without being able to get by?” River looked around the train carriage nervously. It was pretty empty. He’d heard that. People weren’t moving around as much as they once had. That’s what fear did to you - quite literally paralysed you.
“Great, so they’ve given me a moron for a husband then, have they? You’re gonna sound like an idiot when people talk to you.”
“I speak French!” River said a little louder. No one really looked up. Thats the other thing fear did. It made you blind.
“Right, whatever. In theory we shouldn’t have to talk that much anyway. Just get in and out, yeah? Find Webb, get him on the train, sit two seats behind until we get back to Calais. Easy.” She shrugged.
“Right, yeah.” There was a long pause between them, forced closeness clashing with the distance of strangers. “So…where are you based?” River asked conversationally. Shirley looked at him.
“Are you dumb?” She creased her brow at him. “You can’t expect me to answer that, surely?”
“I just meant like the town or whatever. Sorry. It’s just that Lamb-”
“Stop talking.” Shirley held her hand up. “You’re a fucking liability, have you ever even been in the field before?” She frowned at him.
“Yeah, well- Sort of. I’m in security so,”
“So no, then.” She looked at him unwaveringly.
“And you have.” He smiled at her thinly.
“Yeah, I have. Less so recently.” She rolled her shoulders.
“How come?” River asked. She tutted.
“None of your fucking business.” She snapped. River inhaled sharply and looked out of the window. “Sorry. Been a while since I’ve had to actually interact with people like a person, y’know.” She fiddled with the edge of the train ticket. River turned back to her and nodded.
“I get it. Wherever you are based, I assume you’re just as cagey as I am.” He smiled at her. She flashed her eyebrows at him.
“We should really be speaking French. Or not speaking at all.” She sighed. River nodded.
“Je peux être silencieux comme une souris.” He grinned at her.
“Hmm, that’ll be the day. Your accent is dogshit, by the way.” She settled back into the seat, closing her eyes.
River reclined in the uncomfortable third class seat beside him, regarding the passport and papers in his lap. His face, accompanied by a new birthday, fake address, and a name that wasn’t his own. He was a bank clerk, apparently, or a ‘employé de banque’ as his papers read, and his wife’s beside him a home maker, or a 'femme au foyer’. Travelling for work, a big interview in the city, fresh start, coming up in the world, couldn’t wait to serve his new German Lords and Masters. Taking his wife for a meal afterward, on the off chance it goes well. That was the story.
She’d barely mentioned their target. Webb. The Spider. Code name and everything, he must be important. He knew he shouldn’t really pry, that the information wasn’t really pertinent to the mission and therefore he didn’t need to know…but River was intrigued. Who was this mystery man they were breaking out of Paris? Some war veteran, no doubt. Probably served in the Great War, too.
River pictured him so clearly - to have such a reputation, he’d have to have years behind him. A man with ghosts in his past, pushing them away, suppressing them by throwing himself into the part of Journalist-turned-propaganda artist. Stealing secrets from men he’d worked with for years. Perhaps he was German himself, but no, with a name like Webb he was English. Bred properly, no doubt, like River’s grandfather. A gentleman, an expert of espionage. It would be River’s honour to do his bit and keep him safe.
He’d know him the moment he saw him, River could feel it. They were to meet outside a cafe, sit at the table adjacent. He’d be drinking an espresso, and there’d be latte opposite that no one was drinking. That was the signal. River knew he wouldn’t need it. He’d see the man and he’d know.
River watched as the landscape turned from hills and trees to infrastructure. The green of nature turning to the greys and browns of modern living. He’d been to Paris once as a teenager, long before old Adolf buggered her silly, and he mourned her, despite his unfamiliarity as the train station hoved into view on either side of the carriage, every flag pole and balcony draped with the red, white and black symbols of fascist bully boys at their most evil. The train stilled, and a man in a long black coat, breast pocket decorated with the forever ugly Wehrmachtsadler began working his way down the aisle.
River elbowed Dander, clutching his papers tightly.
“Mon cher,” He said quietly. Dander’s eyes flicked open alertly. “Nous sommes ici.” He indicated to the large man coming towards them both. She nodded.
“Papiers, s'il vous plaît.” The large man asked, his voice neutral, expression flat. River and Dander handed over their documents as easily as they could.
“Oh, vous parlez français?” Dander smiled at the man. Votre accent m’impressionne.” She looked at River. He smiled at the man.
“Oui,” He agreed. “Très bien.” The man looked at him for a moment, regarding the papers closely. He hummed to himself. Dander looked between them for a second before clearing her throat.
“À quelle heure est le rendez-vous, mon amour?” She smiled at River, eyes almost calm, but not quite.
“Très bientôt.” River nodded, making a show of checking his watch. The man hummed again, before folding the papers and handing them back to River.
“Ne ratez pas votre train du retour, sinon vous devrez racheter un billet. Les retours ne sont pas remboursables.” The man said boredly. River nodded.
“Merci.” He smiled thinly, grabbing his papers and hurrying Dander out of her seat and onto the platform. “What did he say? Something about how the return tickets aren’t refundable?” He asked her as they attempted to disappear into the hubbub of the crowd. “Was…was he being helpful?” He furrowed his brow. Dander snorted.
“A helpful Nazi, now I have seen it all.” She rolled her eyes.