Then there was her radio operator, a man with a Yorkshire accent whose personal hygiene left much to be desired and who she was shocked to find spoke virtually no French, which made his code name of Hervé sound all the more implausible. She had raised this with the Captain, the enigmatic man who ran Tractor circuit, but he’d told her not to worry, and said that in any case, that was why she was there. She was the first to acknowledge that Hervé was a skilful radio operator, quick to encode and decode, fluent in his transmissions and the rest, but he was beginning to get on her nerves. They’d met up near Auxerre, and after a week had been moved south, where they were based in a woodsman’s cottage close to the River Brenne near Montbard. They’d remained there for another week, Thérèse doing her best to carry out London’s orders and bring some sense of order to the resistance in the area, an awkward mix of urban communists and rural Maquis.

Then came the orders to head south again, an abstemious journey through Burgundy to the city of Dijon. Once Hervé had become aware of their destination, he’d expressed the hope that they’d cut the mustard, which Thérèse acknowledged was mildly amusing, but not when he used the reference as an accompaniment to every conversation.

The final annoyance was a far more serious one. Her training as an SOE agent had been rushed through in a month, but they’d said she was an excellent student, and of course her French was fluent. They’d also said she needn’t worry too much because Tractor was a good circuit and most of the resistance cells within it were watertight. That was the word Major Lean had used, ‘most’. She had pointed out that ‘most’ rather undermined the whole business, a chain only being as strong as its weakest link, et cetera, but that condescending man Stephens had told her there was a war on and nowhere was perfect. Once in France, and especially since they’d arrived in Dijon, it was clear that the groups in the circuit were anything but watertight, but when she’d raised this with the Captain, he’d told her there was nothing to worry about, and in any case it was being dealt with, which all seemed to be rather paradoxical.

Fortunately, Hervé – whose real first name turned out to be Kenneth – shared her view, and they decided to split up. Hervé moved south of the city to the village of Fauverney, where the River Ouche forced a path through the trees crowding both of its banks. Thérèse remained in the city, on her own in a stuffy attic overlooking Dijon-Ville station.

After a few days, she was satisfied she’d found a reasonable modus operandi. Every other day she’d go to Parc Darcy, and after circumnavigating it to be sure it was clear would check the benches for the various safety signals the Captain had arranged. Once satisfied, she’d walk through the old centre of the city with its distinctive multi-coloured tiled roofs to Saint-Bénigne cathedral, where she’d meet the courier.