
# TEMPERANCE'S TRIAL, A NOVELLA

Virtues and Valor Series, Part 1

a Novella by

SMASHWORDS EDITION  
Published by  
Olivia Kimbrell Press™

## COPYRIGHT NOTICE

Temperance's Trial, a Novella; Virtues and Valor series, part 1

First edition. Copyright © 2014 by Hallee Bridgeman. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or recording — without express written permission of the author. The only exception is brief quotations in printed or broadcasted critical articles and reviews. Your support and respect for the property of this author is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, organizations, places, locales or to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or publisher. The characters are productions of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.

SMASHWORDS EDITION  
PUBLISHED BY: Olivia Kimbrell Press™*, P.O. Box 4393, Winchester, KY 40392-4393

The Olivia Kimbrell Press™ colophon and open book logo are trademarks of Olivia Kimbrell Press™.

*Olivia Kimbrell Press™ is a publisher offering true to life, meaningful fiction from a Christian worldview intended to uplift the heart and engage the mind.

Some scripture quotations courtesy of the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Some scripture quotations courtesy of the New King James Version of the Holy Bible, Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas-Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Some lyrics taken from the hymn In the Hour of Trial, J. Montgomery, 1834.

Original Cover Art and Graphics by Debi Warford (www.debiwarford.com)

Colorized derivative image on the cover based on public domain photograph of Mrs. Florence Violet McKenzie OBE (nee Wallace) used in accordance with fair use. All other images from the public domain and conform to fair use.

Library Cataloging Data  
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number: 2014949655

Bridgeman, Hallee (Hallee A. Bridgeman) 1972-  
Temperance's Trial; Virtues and Valor part 1 / Hallee Bridgeman  
80 p. 23cm x 15cm (9in x 6 in.)  
Summary: A female wireless operator in Nazi controlled Occupied France during World War II risks her life at every turn.  
ISBN: 978-1-939603-45-6 (ebook) ISBN: 978-1-939603-56-2 (special ebook)  
1. Christian fiction 2. World War II 3. war stories 4. spies 5. historical fiction 6. espionage  
PS3568.B7534 T941 2014  
[Fic.] 813.6 (DDC 23)

## DEDICATION

For Those who Served...

THIS series is dedicated to the amazing women who have worked, planned, strategized, served, led, and fought alongside men throughout human history.

Temperance's Trial is specifically dedicated to Eileen Mary "Didi" Nearne and Florence Violet McKenzie OBE (nee Wallace), aka "Mrs. Mac." To read more about these true heroines, read the "Inspired by Real Events" section at the end of this novella.

# PROLOGUE

### Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France, 1940

THE small but ancient church where the reverend André Trocmé preached his Sunday sermons lay dark and quiet in the middle of the peaceful French night. The light of a third quarter moon painted the still countryside silver and black, and nearly every home had extinguished their candles and gaslights. Even the electric lights in the town square had been darkened shortly after sunset. To all appearances, the night would pass quietly and without incident.

Marie Gilbert woke with a start at the sound. She could hear the pounding on the front door from up in her room. She rushed out of bed urgently. Without turning on the lamp, she threw off her nightgown and quickly slipped her dress over her head. As she buttoned the top button, her bedroom door flew open and her brother — Edward — ran inside, going straight to the window and looking out into the back garden.

"Go!" their father ordered from the doorway. "Don't look back."

"Papa!" Marie cried as Edward put an arm over her shoulders and guided her to the window. "Come with us."

Her father adjusted his coat and buttoned it at the waist. He spoke directly to her brother, his tone ignoring her pleas completely. "Take her to Switzerland. Don't look back."

He straightened her bed and flipped her pillow over in case the authorities felt it. He didn't want to risk them detecting her body heat. He picked her nightgown up off of the floor and shoved it into the top drawer of her bureau before he left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Edward looked out the window again. Marie felt her stomach knot in fear. "Edward, how can we leave him?"

"Because he said we must," he answered almost impatiently before he pushed the window open and looked all around. The cool evening breeze filled the room and made Marie shiver. Whispering now he asked, "Can you make it to the tree limb?"

Marie looked at the branch that nearly brushed her window, remembering all the times as children they had jumped from her window to the limb. The last time their father had caught them, he'd threatened to have the tree cut down if they ever did it again. "I haven't in years. I'm a grown woman now. I don't know —"

Edward held out his hand. "No time to waste. We'll go through the trees until we're in the Philipe's yard. Ready?"

Marie took a deep breath, and slipped a leg over the window sill. She looked down into the yard two stories below. Without hesitation — well, maybe with a little bit of hesitation — she reached her hands out and leapt forward.

The trees on the estates had occupied this land far longer than the houses they presently shaded, so long that their stout branches actually entwined. Marie and Edward moved as carefully and quietly as possible through the branches. In the dark, whiplike twigs scratched at her face and pulled at her hair, but she kept silent. Hearing a ruckus below, she paused just at the fence line and looked below and behind her, seeing the Vichy police officers and the Nazi Security Forces haul her father out of their home.

Biting back a cry, she met Edward's eyes. His face looked grim, but he didn't say a word. He just pressed his lips together and gave a harsh shake of his head, silently urging her onward.

They didn't climb down out of the trees until they arrived on the far side of the Philipe's yard. Marie rubbed her burning palms against the sides of her dress. Silently, they dashed across the grass and over the fence into the garden of Edward's friend, Andre. In the far back corner, next to the stone fence, Edward knelt at the ground and removed a stone from the bottom of the pillar. He reached inside and pulled out a packet, quickly opening it and inspecting the contents.

"Here, take this," he said, handing her identification papers and a small cloth bag. They identified her as Andre's sister, Muriel, despite Muriel's age being closer to 30 than Marie's own 20. Inside the bag she found a blonde wig to cover her brown curls. With the wig on, the picture would match well enough, and at a glance the papers looked good.

"Do I call you Andre now?" she asked as he quickly pasted a mustache onto his clean shaven face.

"Yes, for now." He counted a stack of francs and shoved them into his jacket pocket. "I have a car waiting in Tence. We'll drive to Firminy then take the train to Geneva from there. Hopefully, it will be far enough away that they won't look for us."

They tried to leave no trace. Over fences, under cattle gates, and through the wilderness, they ran and hid until they reached Tence. There in a barn on a farm on the outskirts of town, they recovered the car Edward had secured. The keys lay under the third nest from the right in the chicken coup. They pushed the car out of the barn and down the lane before starting the engine.

As they drove along the dark roads, Marie thought of her father. Tears burned in her eyes as she considered what might happen to him. But, she knew it was all in God's hands.

Their family had worked with many families in their town, sheltering Jewish children from the Germans. It wasn't something that brought her any shame, or that she wished she hadn't done. Rather, it was something she wished she hadn't had to do. The evil treatment of the Jews ate at her soul — and she felt proud that she could play some small part in saving some lives.

Still, they all knew the risk. Edward had spent months planning escape routes, hiding identification papers, storing money, securing a vehicle in case something like this happened. He knew one day the Nazis would come for them.

"He should have come with us," she said, leaning her head against the window.

Edward remained silent until Marie started to feel unsure whether he even intended to speak. Finally he said, "You know we only escaped because he didn't."

"I'm just glad we didn't have any children in the house last night," she said, weary. She blinked against her burning eyes. "Now it's all just accusation without any substantial proof."

"God is good. Maybe they won't detain him since no children were there." He gestured with his chin. "There should be a canteen in the back seat."

"I just worry about who else might have been arrested," Marie said. She rolled her head on her neck then gasped. "Do I have any terrible scratches on my face? I don't want to stand out at the train station."

Edward looked away from the road long enough to look at her face. "Nothing terrible," he said.

"Thanks." Reaching behind her, she grabbed the canteen. "Where will we go?"

"London." Edward reached over and squeezed her shoulder. "With Papa being English, maybe we can stay there."

"I'd rather be where he is."

"Of course you would. But, you must put that aside for now." Putting both hands back on the wheel, he said, "We both must."

# CHAPTER 1

TEMPERANCE — Prohibition, moderation, or self-restraint, (especially in eating and drinking). Constant mindfulness of others and one's surroundings; practicing constant self-control, abstention, and moderation. Sobriety.

### Outside of Milton Keynes, England, 1941

"TELL me what scares you the most," the cocoa skinned woman with the code name Hope insisted. Hope sat sideways on one of the hard pews in the training ground's chapel so that she could face Marie directly. She kept her legs crossed at the ankles and her spine perfectly straight up to her long curved neck.

"Seeing my brother and somehow placing him in danger," Marie immediately replied. This group only knew her as Temperance.

Marie looked into the striking jade eyes of the famous musician and entertainer, Virginia Benoit. Like everyone else, she pretended she didn't recognize the beautiful black singer.

The seven women assembled in this room twice weekly with a chaplain for organized worship. However, they utilized the space more often for times like this, when they gathered together to read scripture, pray for each other, sing a few hymns, and steal a few hours just talking in fellowship.

The room sported small plain glass windows, a pine wood floor, and simple whitewashed walls. To the women sitting on the rough hewn and very functional benches, the tiny building may as well have been Chartres Cathedral.

The American female pilot code named Faith, who looked no older than sixteen but could outfly any pilot Marie had ever seen, laughed. "Seriously? You're about to go to France and transmit radio signals with coded messages, receive radio signals with coded messages, all the while getting tracked down by an army of Nazi soldiers determined to capture you, torture you while they interrogate you, take no care whatsoever for your virtue, and eventually kill you, and your biggest concern is your big brother?"

Marie chuckled. "When you say it like that," she said, rubbing her arms, "I can't help but think of a number of things I am more afraid of now."

"Listen," The physician code-named Mercy interjected, gesturing with her delicate surgeon's hands and speaking with a very slight Scottish accent, "eventually, almost all of us will be there. Even if we can't openly look out for each other, we can hope to be able to."

"We can't know they'll send us to France," the rail thin aristocrat assigned the code name Prudence observed.

"Of course they will. All of us speak French as if we were natives. That's one of the main reasons we were chosen," Faith said. "They aren't teaching us Dutch, that's for sure."

The chapel door opened and all heads turned to watch Major Charlene Radden enter the sanctuary. She looked sharp and authoritative in her forest green skirt and jacket, with medals and rank pinned to her chest and lapels. Her blonde hair had gray streaks running through it and fell in a straight line to her chin, giving her a regal look.

"Thought I might find you ladies and lasses malingering about in here," she announced. She had recruited all of them, working with each woman on specific skill sets, communicating with families on their behalf as needed, and establishing cover stories, teaching and molding them under the rules of military intelligence. "I suppose my constant warning concerning you girls knowing too much information about each other continues to fall on deaf ears. One wonders if that deliberate deafness will logically lead to dead ears in the field."

"We need sisters on the ground, Charlene. I think you know that." Prudence had somehow discovered Charlene's espionage background and knew something about her actions as a teenage girl in the Great War.

"Stuff and nonsense. You pose a risk for yourself and your 'sisters'," Charlene announced, purposefully stressing the word, "by ignoring the suggestion to keep your distance from one another other during training."

"All due respect, but until it becomes an order and not a suggestion, I for one will not refrain from this kind of fellowship." Hope spread her arms out. "It's what keeps me going, personally, knowing these girls have my back and I have theirs, that they pray for me, and I for them."

A murmur of agreement spread through the small room. Charlene nodded. "That I understand, Hope, and I heartily approve of your relationships. I just wanted to make sure you Virtues understand why we say not to get too involved."

"So that under torture we couldn't reveal too many personal details about each other." The brilliant military strategist who had been code-named Grace shrugged. She had olive skin, dark green eyes, and curly black hair. Her English wasn't perfect though her accent wasn't French, either. Something else. So far, no one dared ask. "I don't think you can scare us any more than we're already scared."

Charlene tapped her chin with a manicured finger. "Yet you're all still here just chatting away like it's high tea. Very well. Remember that. Admire that about each other. Take pride in yourselves. And know that we will be doing everything we can for you here on our end. There is a briefing in twenty minutes in the situation room. Do try your very best to arrive promptly."

"That doesn't sound promising," the woman code-named Charity offered with a smile. She was a British housewife who had sent her three small children to the countryside to stay with in-laws until the bombings subsided. Charity could decode encrypted messages in her head nearly as fast as they could be written down.

Temperance felt her stomach tie into knots. She held her arms out. "Come. Let us pray together before the briefing."

They formed a circle, a bond of women, different ethnicities, different backgrounds, different nationalities, but sisters in Christ who came together under a common cause — to do the best they could do to help end this war.

MARIE pressed the earphones tighter against her head and wrote the code currently transmitting at a rapid pace as quickly as her pencil would scratch the paper. Her instructor stood over her shoulder, making her nervous, but she continued working and tried to ignore her. Outside the thin walls of the temporary structure, she could hear a formation of trainees run by, but did not let the sounds distract her from translating the codes beeping in her ears.

"Stop!" The instructor said, hitting a button on her stopwatch. She looked at the numbers. "Absolutely brilliant," she said with an approving smile. "I think you nearly broke a record, Temperance."

Marie held up her pencil. "I think I nearly broke my lead, too."

"I'm certain," the instructor replied. She put a hand on Marie's shoulder. "You're the best I've ever trained."

"Thank you." She pulled the earphones off the top of her head.

"Charlene wanted to see you when you were done," she said. "I'll ring her up and tell her what your time was this round. She'll be impressed."

They trained on the estate of an earl. Temporary barracks housed the intelligence trainees, and the manor home proper held the administration offices. Her radio training always took place in an unpainted Quonset hut that backed up to an improvised loading dock. Their communications gear, even the training rigs, resided in a steel safe on the back of what her instructor called a "lorry" whenever class was not in session. Stern faced soldiers solemnly guarded the safe day and night and the instructor had to sign for every part of a rig whenever it entered or exited the safe. Marie knew with a cold certainty that anyone trying to get at the gear without authorization could be shot dead without too many questions.

After returning her rig, she made her way across the training grounds' campus, around a beautiful fountain in the front of the home, and into the main hall that led to the administrative offices. She wore a dark olive-green wool jacket and skirt with a heavy brown leather belt cinched at the waist of the jacket. Her khaki brown tie was the exact same color as her stiffly starched shirt. Her otherwise utterly unadorned uniform wasn't too much different from what the men wore , aside from the skirt of course.

Up two flights of stairs and down a hall to the third door on the right. With a quick rap-rap of her knuckles, Charlene bade her enter.

"You asked to see me, Major?"

"Yes, Temperance. Please, come in and have a seat."

She'd been in Charlene's office before, but the very masculine decor compared to the ultra-feminine Charlene continued to surprise her. Heavy furniture, dark colors, absolutely no decoration — if Marie had just met her on the street, she would have assumed the older woman surrounded herself with fine china and delicate flowers. It made her wonder if the earl had prohibited certain decor changes to his home.

Marie sat in the heavy wood chair in front of Charlene's desk. Charlene rested her forearms on the wood surface and laced her fingers together. "I'll get right to it. It's time, Temperance."

Her heart immediately started beating a little bit faster. She licked her lips and tried to breathe steady. "Oh? So soon?"

"We've lost contact with the last wireless operator in area three. It's been a few weeks. It's time to send someone new. I know it's early but let's be frank. You're the best we've got and you're ready."

Cold sweat beaded her brow, but she nodded. "Okay. Okay. I can do this."

"Well, of course you can. I have every confidence in you." She slid an envelope toward her. "Here are your cover documents. You are a seamstress named Marie Perrin. Memorize everything. You won't be taking it with you. In fact, it will be burned before you leave this office so take as long as you like." She gestured at the clock on the wall. "Faith will fly you into France tonight. Report to the north hangar at twenty-one hundred hours."

After thirty minutes, they burned the documents and then Charlene stood and held out her hand. "I cannot tell you the level of joy it has been watching you train, Temperance. With all my heart, I wish you godspeed."

"Thank you," Marie said, heart pounding furiously. "I hope to see you again."

# CHAPTER 2

MARIE brushed at her skirt and shifted her suitcase to her other hand. Inside her leather bag, her wireless machine sat hidden under her seamstress materials in a secret compartment. Stern faced and silent solders wearing white leather belts, white ascots, and deadly sidearms stared at her with cold eyes. She had never before even touched a wireless rig outside of the training Quonset hut.

The hangar felt balmy, humid. The seasonal rain had let up only about a quarter hour earlier and the night felt very warm. Shallow puddles covered the tarmac and the sky looked more gray than red with the setting sun. She checked the time for the fourth time in the last few minutes and tried very hard not to tap her foot impatiently. She longed to talk to someone, burn off some of this adrenaline, but the guards clearly had no inclination to make chit chat. Rather they looked as if they hoped she might try to remove the wireless rig from the hangar. Then they could just shoot her and go to bed.

With her wireless, she would hide in plain sight of the Germans who had taken up residence in Occupied France. She would receive information and transmit information, all while having her location triangulated by German soldiers.

Speed was her weapon. The faster she could transmit, the faster she could decode, the less time they had to find her.

She'd made the clothes she wore by hand in order to keep a cover as a seamstress, which would give her the ability and excuse to travel. She'd had to not only learn code, she'd also had to learn how to sew. She'd had a small base for it, but most things she'd learned from scratch. Personally, it had been easier for her to learn the code and how to operate the machine than how to master patterns, stitches, and fine knots.

She and Edward had arrived safely on English soil after a nightmare three-day journey. They hadn't even found a hotel to stay in first, but had gone straight to the British Intelligence offices in London. Edward had explained his background, his training in the police forces before the beginning of the war, their father's lineage, and his skills. He had only offered himself as a recruit, but Charlene had been there attending a high-level meeting and pulled Marie aside to question her.

Edward had protested, rather vehemently, but Marie lifted her chin and insisted that she could fight for her country, too. After two days of them arguing about it, her older brother finally, finally relented. He had pulled her into his arms and, with tears she pretended she didn't see, begged her to be smart, to be careful, and to stay alive.

They'd returned to the offices together, him taken in one direction by a uniformed man, her the other. Surprisingly, they'd encountered each other rather regularly during training, but they did not ever give away that they knew each other. Any personal information, if extracted from the right interrogator, could be a danger to them. It could also be a danger to their father, if he happened to still be alive and well.

Edward hadn't required the same level of training as she. He already knew ships from his time sailing during school, so they gave him a cover as a worker in a dock yard. She didn't know more than that. She didn't know what dock yard on what body of water in what city. Apparently, it was important that she not know. She only knew that when she'd opened the hymnal from the first pew, she'd found a leaf from a bush near his barracks in their agreed upon location. That had been their agreed upon symbol when one or the other of them left the premises.

He'd been gone for over a month now, and she longed to know if he was okay, if he was alive, if he'd discovered anything about their father. Of course, there was no way to glean that information, nor would she dare if she could.

Now she stood in a hangar waiting to board an airplane that would fly her into enemy occupied territory. There, she would practice espionage against the evil giant spider that had cast an inescapable web over Europe and claimed it as its own.

"Well, Temperance. All set to go, then?" Charlene asked, entering through a side door in the hangar.

"I imagine I'm as ready as one can be," Marie confirmed, fingering a button on her blouse.

Faith walked next to Charlene, a jaunty lift to her step as always happened in the moments before she took the pilot's seat.

"You'll do great," Faith offered with her Texas drawl. She patted the side of a well maintained North American Na-16. The nose of the plane bore a painting of a large diamond in the center of a map of Texas colored in the same red white and blue of the lone star state flag. Faith had named her airplane _Texas Diamond_. "Not enough seats to fly you tonight, old girl. Have to fly that fat girl over there. She's an Avro Anson 652 and just a tad younger but don't be jealous, now. I'll be back before you know it." She looked at Temperance and winked. "I'm going to do my preflight checklist."

Charlene watched Faith stroll jauntily across the hangar and said, "Now we're just waiting on Prudence. She's going tonight as well." As if on cue, the door opened, and Prudence entered the hangar carrying her own leather suitcase. "Ah, there she is now. I suppose I shall not have to dispatch the troops to hunt her down after all."

Charlene accepted a box from Prudence and spoke to her in low tones, then gestured to a table near a wall and said louder, "Please place your cases on this table, ladies. We want to ensure that nothing in there would accidentally give you away."

"You mean other than my wireless?" Marie weakly joked as she set her case on the table.

"Indeed," Charlene said with a smile. She made eye contact with the armed guards. "I think that will be all for now, lads. Perhaps you can wait for me in the smoking area out front."

The senior sergeant saluted crisply and his gravelly voice pronounced a respectful, "Marm!" She returned the salute and they marched out of the hangar.

Charlene opened their luggage and looked through the clothes, ensuring that the bags contained no uniquely British items. She checked labels on clothes Prudence had packed and made sure nothing seemed out of sort.

While she did her work, Marie looked at her friend. She wondered, again, why someone of Prudence's obvious aristocratic background would even consider this type of service. Of course, she would never ask such a question. Instead, she took the woman's hand.

"I am glad we're going in together," Marie said.

"As am I." Prudence squeezed her hand. "I am somehow very much less anxious knowing we'll be in the same area."

"Everything looks good. Spit spot," Charlene announced, snapping the latch on Prudence's bag. "When Faith lands you must disembark very quickly. She'll come in with no lights, but the sound of the motor is something we can't disguise. If it wasn't for your wireless, Temperance, you'd parachute in. The equipment is too delicate to risk a bad landing." She pulled the bags off the table and returned them to the women.

Temperance grinned. "Right. So, if I were to die parachuting in, you could get a new girl, but wireless rigs are important."

Charlene raised an eyebrow and with a single nod said, "Bob's your uncle. Now, your contact will meet you at the air strip. Assuming they received the message transmitted in code on the radio programme. If not, then you will be baptised by fire, as they say."

"Do you want me to signal when we arrive?" Marie asked.

"Your contact will take you to Praetorian, the director of that region, provided he hasn't been compromised at the same time as the wireless operator you're replacing. Praetorian doesn't know to expect you. He's flying blind at the moment. We've been hiding communication in radio programmes, but we have no guarantee he's receiving them. Once you're there, accept any communiqué he needs to send, then go secure yourself and transmit all at one time." Charlene handed them each their identification cards. "These should withstand the most rigorous inspection."

Faith ducked under the nose of the plane and shot them a thumb's up. "She's a fat girl so I'll eat up some runway getting airborne, especially with the wet out there. She has a lot of wing so I'm guessing she'll fly about like driving a boat. And I'm not terribly happy with the shape of that back tire but it's in spec. Barely. So, I guess we're all set, Major. Prudence? Temperance? Grab your saddle bags and climb aboard." She grinned. "Let's get this show off the ground."

"Ladies, be smart and be safe. Always. Godspeed."

Marie held out her hand and Charlene took it. "Thank you for believing in us."

"You've no idea," Charlene said, warmly squeezing Marie's hand. "I look forward to your return."

THE twin engine Avro Anson 652 aircraft looked new inside though it had apparently rolled off the line the year before. This aircraft had not been modified for combat. It had been intended for reconnaissance and courier work mainly on this side of the channel and had only recently been painted OD Green. However, the interior remained bright factory yellow and smelled clean. They didn't feel cramped inside and they each spread out a bit after Faith got them airborne.

Marie looked at her friend Prudence, who sat on the uncomfortable flight seat, strapped in tight. She had her head turned away, obviously deep in thought. Occasionally, she rubbed the empty space on her left ring finger, as if remembering a ring that once adorned it.

Clearly, Prudence had no intention of chatting the flight away even if she felt inclined to shout over the sound of the engines. Knowing how scared Marie personally felt, she didn't blame her. She wished she could escape inward and get lost in some thoughts. Whenever she did, though, all she could think about was the night they had left her father behind.

"Hey ya'll!" Faith shouted over her shoulder. "We're getting our feet wet!" Marie knew they had just crossed the shoreline and now flew over the English Channel toward Occupied France. "When we get our feet dry again, we might meet some Archie." When they crossed into France, they might become the target of some antiaircraft artillery fire. "Might want to go ahead and make sure you have your parachutes handy now. Though at this altitude, they wouldn't do much good anyway. Still, never know."

The parachutes were useless below 500 feet. Even given the best of chances, the canopies would likely never get full should they have to bail out. Somehow, none of this worried Marie. Somehow, she knew God had put her exactly where she needed to be for now.

One of the worst parts about this mission would be the inability to check on her father. She could only do her part to see to a swift end to this awful war. Then she and Edward could go home. Thoughts of her family kept her occupied until Faith's cry of "Feet dry!" startled her.

By some miracle, they never came under antiaircraft artillery fire and no fighter aircraft chased them down. The light above switched from red to yellow. Faith started bringing them in for a landing. They'd have to disembark very quickly. The longer Faith kept the plane on the ground, the more likely they would be found out and the mission would be over before it began.

She clenched her hands together and bowed her head. "Please God," she whispered, but nothing else came out. _Please keep me safe, please keep me from being detected, please make me smarter and wiser and faster than them._ All of those thoughts collided in her mind until all she could manage was a mumbled, "Please," praying that God would hear what her heart cried out rather than what her mouth did not.

As the plane began descending, she looked up and caught Prudence staring at her. As soon as their eyes met, her blonde friend said, "I'm beginning to wonder if this was a wise decision after all. Do you suppose it's too late to change my mind?"

With the bark of a laugh, Marie said, "I think I know what you mean. The worst part is the unknown. If I only knew what waited for us..." The plane shuddered and Marie gripped the side of her seat. "Of course, we may not have to worry about it."

The plane shuddered again and suddenly hit the ground hard. Then, it rose off the ground, and hit again, staying down this time. They heard Faith shouting, "Graceful as a bull in a china shop!"

Marie felt her body strain against the restraints as Faith hit the brakes and brought the metal beast to a stop. The second there was no more forward momentum, Marie and Prudence both unbuckled from the canvas straps. They grabbed their bags just as the copilot rushed from the cockpit area to the door. He pushed it open to the nighttime of countryside in Occupied France.

As Marie walked past the cockpit, Faith turned her head and yelled, "God be with you two."

Marie shot Faith a thumbs up then climbed out of the plane, followed closely by Prudence. Before Prudence even had both feet fully on the ground, the copilot had secured the door and Faith started taxiing away.

Marie looked around her, peering into the darkness, but didn't see anyone among the trees bordering the open field. "Come on," she whispered, "let's get away from the noise of the plane."

Holding their bags, they ran toward the tree line. Faith's plane flew safely out of range and the silence of the night settled around them. Marie leaned against a tree and listened, waiting.

"I wonder where we should go," Prudence said, looking around.

"I think we ought to give it just a minute," Marie said. Just as she said that, she heard the snap of a twig. Heart beating furiously, she turned toward the sound, the wireless in her hand suddenly feeling like it weighed five hundred pounds.

From behind the trees, three men appeared. They dressed simply, overalls and cotton shirts, looking like farmers. "Où avez-vous de deux venez?" The tallest in the group spoke in French, asking where the two of them had come from.

Marie licked her lips. "Avalanche," she replied in French, using the code word given to them by Charlene.

The man raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? Two women?"

Prudence stepped forward. "What is the return word?"

One of the others answered. "Pigeon."

Prudence nodded. "Very well, then. Kindly take us to Praetorian."

"Things must be going pretty badly out there if they're sending us two girls," the tall one spoke again.

Marie stepped toward him, until the toe of her leather shoe hit his boot. "It can and will go badly right now if you don't get us away from this field. Now, like Prudence here said, we need to talk to the Red Wolf."

He clearly didn't like it, but he didn't argue anymore. His companion reached for Marie's suitcase, but she pulled it back. "I can pull my own weight," she said. "How far to where we're going?"

"Thirteen kilometers. We'll stick to the woods until we just can't anymore. The further we are away from the noise of the British airplane, the better." The third man spoke for the first time. "Best step quickly. I want to get there within three hours and we have to get the pig."

He turned and started walking. Marie fell into step immediately behind him, with Prudence right behind her, and the two other men bringing up the rear. Marie had never been briefed on anyone with a code name of Pig and so she felt complete astonishment when the three men came to a halt and produced an actual pig on a leash. The pig grunted and snorted and the shortest man took the leash in hand and resumed his march.

They walked through the woods for at least four kilometers, maybe more. The lead man walked with confidence, as if he maneuvered through the French woods in the dead of night all the time. Every once in a while, the pig would root in the soft soil near the roots of a tree and the men would stop and look all around.

At the third such stop, Marie asked, "Why are we waiting for your pig?"

The tallest man peered at her with a look of stark astonishment. "He is finding truffles!"

Of course. If the Nazis caught them in the woods in the dead of night, they could explain that they were hunting for truffles. Likely they even had a few truffles hidden away in their clothes to bribe their way out of any sticky situation.

Marie expected to feel tired after the first hour, but she didn't. Her nerves spurred her energy, and she had to hold herself back to keep from running past the man and encouraging him to go faster. If she were completely honest, the short breaks while the pig rooted around also helped. She saw Prudence appeared to be in as good of a shape as she.

When they finally stepped out of the woods, they walked along a dirt lane. The night was silent around them. Marie trotted ahead to catch up with the man who led them. "What happened to the last wireless?" She couldn't help but ask.

"At first, we didn't know. Information still came and went through normal channels. Someone on the inside got a message to us that they had him in the prison. We still don't know how long they were impersonating him before that." He looked her up and down. "I imagine it's smart to bring in a girl. Be a while before they reckon you're the new operator."

With a wry smile she said, "I suppose that's the plan."

He pushed his hat a little further back on his head. "Wouldn't want to be you when they catch you, though." He held his hand up as a signal to stop. The group immediately complied, and Marie and Prudence followed the lead of the men and stepped off the lane and into the dark wood line.

As they crouched behind the bushes lining the trees, two German soldiers in a Zundapp KS750 motorcycle complete with sidecar rambled by. As soon as it was gone from sight and they could no longer hear it, the man who led them spit on the ground and shook his fist in the direction the Nazis had gone. Then he waved them forward and they kept walking.

Hours later, as the sun began to lighten the night sky, they turned down a lane that led to an obscure farm house. A younger man, maybe mid to late thirties, emerged through the screen door and onto the porch. He leaned against the porch railing and watched the group approaching.

He did not call out to them, nor did he speak until they all stood in the yard. He looked at Marie and Prudence with serious, tired gray eyes. "Names?"

Marie knew he only wanted code names. "I'm Temperance and that's Prudence over there."

He nodded. "Wireless?"

"That's me."

With his chin, he gestured at Prudence. "You?"

"Courier." She set her suitcase on the porch and shook her hand as if to work out a cramp. "And you are ...?"

"Praetorian." With a sharp gesture he pointed to the door. "I have coffee and some eggs. I can make some tea if you prefer." He opened the door and let them precede him inside. The cottage made Marie think of her mother's parents' home — a very simple farm cottage with simple wooden furniture and threadbare carpets on the floor. He led the way into the kitchen, where a coffee pot sat on top of a wood stove. Pointing at the table, he said to them, "Sit. Rest a moment."

To the men he said, "Find any truffles?"

The tallest man nodded. "Three. You need anything?"

Praetorian shook his head. "I got a shipment lined up. Thank you. Your help is more than generous."

"Happy to help, Praetorian. Get us a message if you need anything else." The tall man tipped his hat at the women. "Good luck, girls."

He almost said it mockingly, but Marie refused to bristle. "And to you as well," she replied with a sweet smile.

He likely intended his grimace to pass as a smile. He and his friends took their pig and left, leaving the two of them alone with Praetorian. He set two metal mugs on the table and poured each of them some coffee. In English, he said, "I am relieved to see replacements come in. We're in the process of planning a massive operation, and without communication with London, I didn't know if we'd still be able to pull it off."

"Will I stay here?" Prudence asked.

"You will. I'll sleep in the barn. You will take messages from me. Find the church in town. Leave messages in the hymnal closest to the aisle on the second row. Temperance will retrieve the messages and leave any she has for me from London." He opened a cupboard and removed a heel of bread. "Rationing is tight. I apologize for the scarcity of food but as I said I have some eggs."

"No need to apologize." Prudence tore a small piece off the heel of the bread and offered some to Marie. She followed her friend's lead and only took a small amount.

"Where will I stay?" Marie asked.

"You are single?" he asked. He stared at her like he could see all the way through her, and she fought the impulse to fidget under his look. She wondered how someone so young could look so old.

"I am."

He nodded slightly. "There's a boarding house for single women in town. What is your cover?"

"Seamstress."

He nodded again and sat quietly for several breaths. "I believe that will be perfect. There is a good population in town that would require your services." He bent down and pulled a tray out from under the stove. Using a small stick he pulled out of the wood box, he drew a rough map in the ashes on the tray. "There's a bicycle in the barn. Take that and go this way." He drew and talked, telling her landmarks and directions. "It is eighteen kilometers. Let me see your identification."

She handed him the ID and he opened it and looked at it, looked at her, and looked back at it. "Shouldn't give you any trouble." He handed it back to her. "I'm going to give you a message to transmit. Once you're in your location, it will be up to you to secure places where you can use your wireless. There's a farmer on the way to town who is friendly to our side. He will likely let you use his property sometimes. Stop there on your way and let them know you arrived. Tell them Operation Marquee is still on." He sketched landmarks in the ashes to guide her to the farm.

Marie stood, understanding that Praetorian had just dismissed her. "Marquee. Got it."

"Also let them know that as far as we know, it's been 27 days since capture and to disregard any information received in that time frame."

Marie sucked in a breath, knowing that London thought it had only been 21 days. "Understood."

"Do not ever come back here for any reason."

Marie nodded. "I understand."

"I mean it. I don't care who is chasing you or what is going on. Do not ever come back here." He held out his hand and she put her hand in his. "Godspeed, Temperance."

"You, too, Praetorian." She turned to Prudence and put her arms around her. "Be safe. I hope to see you again."

He did not walk her to the barn. She left him and Prudence in the kitchen and went out on her own. She found the bike where he told her to find it and secured her suitcase to the back of it. As she pedaled off, leaving the farm house behind her, it occurred to her that she'd never felt so alone in her life.

Then she remembered — she was never alone. Whispering to God as she pedaled, she thanked Him for safe arrival and prayed for continued protection.

# CHAPTER 3

MARIE thanked her new landlady and warmly wished her a good night. She carefully set her bag on the little bed and then looked all around the room — performing a little inventory. Everything had been carefully prearranged. She had a chair, a bed, a small bedside table, a sewing machine table, two lamps and an electric light. Black out curtains covered the windows. A privacy screen leaned against the wall next to the window, folded up behind the sewing machine table. She had a small cast iron wood or coal burning stove she could use in the wintertime. The stovepipe unpretentiously ran directly up from the stove and out through the roof.

The building was old, perhaps two or three hundred years old. The room was clean and had been painted within the last three or four years. She set the single chair in the center of the room beneath the electric light and stood on it to inspect the hiding place in the ceiling. It was simple but quite well hidden. The electric light shone in the eyes of anyone looking up. She could store her wireless rig in the space with little effort.

Marie went back to the bed and opened the antenna for the wireless machine and set everything up to transmit. Transmitting from her room came with enormous risk, but she had never done it from that location and would make it very quick. She simply had to transmit a quick missive to London from Praetorian about the upcoming mission. She didn't need more than a few seconds. Simple enough to do it without having to pull out the complicated code book.

She dashed out the missive, then waited, getting a response almost immediately. As soon as the last tone sounded in her ear, she disassembled the equipment, boxed it all up neatly, and climbed on a wooden chair to reach the ceiling. Carefully moving the wooden beams out of her way, she slipped the box into the ceiling, then secured the beams again.

She hopped down and set the chair back in its spot. Looking closely at the floor, she inspected it to make sure that the chair hadn't left any scrapes that might give an indication that she'd had the chair in the middle of the room like that, giving a clue to anyone searching her room to look up.

Everything looked in order so she spread new material out on her bed and started pinning the thin paper pattern to the material. She listened to the street sounds coming through her open window to her third floor room and considered how perfectly normal everything sounded. The noises outside could have come from any French village on any regular day. Then she heard the sound of a medium duty military Opel _Blitz_ truck roll by and the harsh German language of the soldiers riding in the back. It made her neck muscles tighten.

How would this all end, this war? Sometimes, she didn't see how it could possibly end. But no war could go on forever. There would be a victor. Only, which side this time?

Marie's father had served in the Great War. That's how he'd met her mother. He'd fallen in love and never returned home to England. If he still lived, he was doing his part to battle the Germans once more. Even though they dragged him out of his home in the middle of the night, if they had released him he would have gone back to his normal anti-Nazi activities. He would have secured Jewish children, hiding them in his home until he could get them out of the country or into other homes with passable identification. The threat of punishment or imprisonment, even death, would never stop her father from doing what he knew was the right thing.

Thinking of her father led her mind to her brother. She whispered a prayer as she worked, praying he was alive and well, wondering where they'd sent him to operate, and in what types of missions he participated. She caught herself praying for his safety, but she knew none of them would be safe until the Nazis were gone for good.

THE pounding on the door surprised Marie and she let out a startled cry. The pounding came again, even louder and more insistent, and the scissors she held in her hand clattered to the table as she covered her heart with her hand. Her mind could not avoid taking her back to the very night she and Edward had fled from their home in the dead of night.

She looked around the little room. She had neatly made her single bed when she first woke. The trifold screen in the corner had no undergarments draped over the top of it. Her sewing machine in the center of the room stood ready. Most importantly, the ceiling beams above the screen were in place and did not look like they had been moved at all.

The visual inspection took place instantly and concluded within seconds. She quickly reminded herself not to answer to Marie Gilbert, but rather Marie Perrin. Since accepting that code name and her mission, nothing in her life was exactly as it appeared.

Running suddenly damp palms over her skirt, she went to the door and opened it. The sight of a German officer, a Second Lieutenant, made her heart freeze in her chest. Had they finally discovered her?

"You are the seamstress, are you not?" he demanded by way of introduction. He stood tall, a couple inches over six feet, and looked young for an officer. He had hair the color of straw and piercing dark blue eyes — the very caricature of an Arian leader in Hitler's army. His French accent sounded different than the accent she had heard from other Germans, though she couldn't place the discrepancy.

Trying not to sound as nervous as she felt, Marie answered, "Yes, Leutnant. I am a seamstress." She looked him up and down. "Perhaps you need a dress?"

He opened his mouth, closed it, then barked a laugh. "A dress? I like that, Fräulein. Very amusing." The smile completely transformed his face and made him look less formidable. Putting a hand over his heart, he gave her a stiff and short bow. "I am Leutnant Leopold Schäfer and I have an emergency."

"What kind of emergency?"

"An unexpected uniform malfunction. It seems I have lost a button." As his face flooded with color, he gestured toward the fly of his trousers.

Looking over his shoulder and seeing he was alone, she said, "Well, I can't sew it on while you're still wearing your pants. Bring them back anytime today. It won't take a minute to mend."

"No time for that. I have my promotion ceremony to Oberleutnant in twenty minutes. I cannot go to that ceremony with a button missing from my fly." He put his hands together like a child begging for a cookie. "Please, Fräulein. I am at your mercy. I beg you to help me. I am a desperate man."

Torn, not wanting to offend a Nazi officer but very much not wanting to help Germany either, she looked around again. "I'm very sorry, Leutnant, but men aren't allowed into my room."

"I am aware. I sought and obtained permission from your landlady before knocking on your door."

Marie raised an eyebrow. "How did you manage that?"

He smirked. "Must you ask?"

Of course. This man was a Nazi officer, a conqueror. He represented the military might of the entire Third Reich, of Adolf Hitler himself. Her landlady was merely a lowly French woman, a commoner. If she didn't want any trouble, she couldn't refuse. Likewise, how could Marie refuse to sew on his button right this very instant?

Fresh anger surged through her heart, but she did not let it show on her face. Instead, she stepped back. "Please come in, Leutnant Schäfer. Leave the door open, if you please."

He raised an eyebrow but pushed the door fully open instead of shutting it behind him as he had automatically begun to do. Marie continued. "There is a dressing screen just there. Remove your trousers and pass them over to me but do not come out from behind the screen in a state of undress."

With the door wide open and the privacy screen in place, she could hope for some decency or humility in this situation. Not that any kind of modesty would protect her from a German officer who might have other intentions. Nonetheless, nearly two decades of social etiquette drilled into her by her father could not go ignored, even in a war zone.

While the German went behind the screen and began to disrobe, Marie looked through her jar of buttons and found a few that should work on his uniform. In a matter of seconds, he flipped his pants over the top of the dressing screen. As she reached for them, she couldn't help but glance up at the ceiling. Almost directly above the German's head, the case containing her wireless lay hidden in the ceiling.

"I am very happy you were in this afternoon," he announced from behind the screen.

"I'm sure you would have been resourceful if I hadn't been," Marie answered, threading a needle with dark gray thread.

"Are you curious to know how I lost a button on my trousers?"

"Dare I ask?" Uninvited images raced through her imagination.

He laughed. "I wish I knew myself. I left my room this morning in a perfect state of dress. Now, right before this important ceremony, I find myself out of uniform."

"One hopes this is the only time you lose your fly button before a military ceremony. I'm not going to be around all the time after all," Marie said, deftly sewing on the button that most closely matched the others on his uniform. He laughed again while she sewed. It took her less than a minute. With small scissors, she snipped the thread and lay the trousers over the screen again. "All done. Here you go, Leutnant."

"Danke," he said enthusiastically.

"Please, don't mention it." She crossed her arms over her chest and waited, listening to the rustle of clothing as he put the trousers back on. When he came from around the screen, he carried his highly polished boots. She gestured toward the chair facing her sewing machine.

"I will be out of your hair in just a moment," he said, sitting down. "I can't be late, after all."

"Of course. After he made the trains run on time, I imagine the Führer looks down on any officers who are less than punctual." Her voice remained very monotone.

He looked up at her sharply, staring at her with very serious eyes for a moment, his jaw set to speak something in anger before he apparently reconsidered and quietly said, "Yes, I imagine he does." He finished fastening his boot strap and stood. "How much do I owe you, Fräulein?"

Marie waved her hand dismissively. "Nothing. I'm happy to help, Leutnant."

"As a matter of principle I insist on paying you for your work."

"I'm afraid I must insist on accepting nothing from you, Leutnant." She walked to the open door and gripped the handle. "Congratulations on your promotion, First Lieutenant. I hope I have not delayed you too long and that you make it to your ceremony on time."

He stopped at the door and looked down at her. "Very well. At least accept my gratitude. Thank you, Fräulein, from the bottom of my heart."

She felt her cheeks flush with color as he rushed from the room. When she was certain he was gone, she shut the door and locked it, pressing a shaking hand to her suddenly nauseated stomach. She stared at the ceiling, where the wireless machine sat hidden.

"Dear God," she prayed in a whisper, thankful for whatever protection He'd just granted her. "Thank You, God. Thank You."

MARIE pushed the headphones tighter against her ears. "Come on," she whispered urgently. After several seconds of silence, she retransmitted the message and waited. A bead of perspiration trickled down her forehead and she closed her eyes and prayed. It was taking so long.

The longer she transmitted, the more time the Germans had to do the arithmetic. They would intercept her signal, intersect her frequency, triangulate the origin from more than one angle, and resect her exact location. The computations could be made within minutes. Say what you wanted about the German Army but no one could criticize their math skills.

The barn was dusty. The debris of four or five generations of farming this land occupied two stalls and livestock occupied three others. The stall she used appeared to be Marcel's hay loft. The hay always made Marie's nose itch. She had been here too long. When she had arrived on her bicycle the roosters were still crowing. It had to be late morning already.

Suddenly, a reply sounded in her ear. "That a girl," she uttered, guessing the identity of the operator on the other end.

Marie wrote as fast as she could then quickly dashed off a confirmation. With nimble fingers, she packed everything up into the bag, hid the equipment in the false bottom, then stacked seamstress supplies on top of everything.

When she stood, her stomach rumbled and she looked at the barn next to her, wondering if Marcel, the owner of the farm, would mind much if she just took an egg or two. Before she could even devise a way to ask him, his wife, Armelle, came around the corner.

"I don't want you here," she said without preamble. "You are placing my husband and me in danger."

"Marcel said ...."

With a wave of her hand, the older, stockier woman cut her off. "I do not care what that man said, Mademoiselle. It was fine when it was another man. We could easily pass him off as a farm hand or a neighbor come by to help. But you have no business here. Do I look like someone wanting a new dress or some socks darned?"

Marie pressed her lips together, and kept from replying that a new dress might make her feel better. She understood the woman's point. "Very well, Madame. After today, I won't come back."

"See that you don't."

Armelle glared at her while she strapped her bag to her bike and got on it. She could feel the stare right in the middle of her shoulder blades as she pedaled down the lane.

NERVES danced in her stomach. She hated confrontation. She hated anger. Suppose the farmer's wife decided to turn her in to the Gestapo. Would they simply show up out of the blue in the dead of night in the company of the Vichy police? Would they pull her out of her bed as they had so many others in her hometown of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon? She had read in the paper that Pastor André Trocmé and Reverend Edouard Theis had both been brought in for questioning but she had no news at all about her father.

How had it all come to this? How had she ended up back in France exactly where her father didn't want her to be? She missed Edward and she very much missed her father. She missed worshipping with the other Virtues. She just wanted to go home. She wanted this war over and the Nazis gone so she could just go back home.

She pedaled along the country road and scooted closer to the road's edge when she heard the sound of a motor behind her. Instead of passing her, though, the vehicle carefully pulled up alongside her.

"Excuse me, Fräulein!"

Startled, she looked over and saw an armored Kübelwagen driven by First Lieutenant Schäfer. Her heart started pounding frantically in her chest and the front tire of her bike wobbled. She hit the brakes and put both feet on the ground, unconsciously laying a hand over her heart. She darted a glance all around, fearfully searching every dark corner and copse for Vichy, German soldiers, or Gestapo lying in wait, but it appeared they were alone on the road. "You startled me, Oberleutnant."

He stopped the Kübelwagen, killing the engine and setting the parking brakes in the same motion. He hopped out and jogged around the front of it to where she stood straddling the bike. He moved in a very precise manner, efficiently and with a total economy of motion. It was as if all of his movements were staged and well scripted in advance or he had rehearsed them for hours before executing them.

"I am so sorry to startle you, Fräulein Perrin." His voice rang out in the cool air, confident and baritone, and a little bit self-satisfied.

A man so precise was bound to notice any mistake. All she could think of was the wireless nestled in the bag strapped to the back of the bike. Her hands went cold and she felt perspiration bead on her upper lip. "How do you know my name, Oberleutnant?"

His smile was handsome, despite his German Army uniform. Marie couldn't believe she even entertained the thought. "I made an inquiry of your landlady. She was generous to give me your name."

What was she supposed to do? Shake his hand? She needed him not to ask her any questions about her recent whereabouts or ask for an explanation of why she might be on this country road just now. Had they triangulated the position of her last broadcast? Was he just a decoy until a larger arrest unit arrived? How did she handle this?

"Well, it's nice to see you again, Oberleutnant," she said, trying to appear calm. "Did you make it to your ceremony on time last week?"

He held his hand out, and she felt inclined to take it. His palm felt warm, his fingers strong. "Yes, thanks to you." He smiled with even white teeth, his eyes crinkling up with laugh lines. "You are very beautiful, Fräulein Perrin."

Despite her circumstance, she felt her cheeks fuse with color. She felt her fingers tighten against his grip. "Oberleutnant Schäfer, I hardly think that is appropriate."

He finally released her hand and bowed stiffly. "You are correct, Fräulein. I apologize."

She gave him a slight nod but suddenly felt afraid that she'd offended him. Him, a German officer. "Thank you. I hope you don't —"

He cut off her panicked apology. "Of course not. I should have kept that thought to myself even though it is a fact."

He stood close enough that she could smell the earthy wool smell of his uniform. Marie felt her eyes lower as her cheeks grew hot. She noticed the mirror-bright shine on his boots before she heard her heartbeat thundering in her ears. Was this fear or something else?

He cleared his throat. "I have been searching for you, Fräulein."

Marie tasted bitter bile in the back of her throat and kept her gaze downcast. Had she gone too far taunting him about Hitler in their first meeting? Had a careless glance revealed the hiding place of her wireless? Had he sent a team of Gestapo to search her quarters while she had been away? Had she transmitted too long and been discovered? She relied upon her training and forced her voice to remain even as she prompted, "You've been searching for me?"

"Yes. I want to ask you. Would you like to go see a show with me?"

Was this some new euphemism for imprisonment and torture? Confused, she raised an eyebrow. "A show?"

"Yes. In a few weeks, Virginia Benoit will be here to perform for our Oberst, our Colonel. Herr Oberst is her biggest fan and we are all invited to see the show ... to lift the morale of the troops, you see. Tell me, Fräulein, do you know Virginia Benoit?"

Marie swallowed. Hard. How was she supposed to handle this situation? Never, in all of her training, was this brought up. "Of course I have heard of her," and laughed with her and prayed with her, though she kept that part to herself.

"She is from America, like me," he proclaimed, almost proudly.

She knew his accent had sounded wrong somehow. "American? Why are you here in France, then?"

He gestured in the air. "The call of the Fatherland I'm afraid. My father insisted I return a few years ago."

With wide eyes, she let that digest. "Do you know Virginia Benoit?"

"No." He chuckled, perhaps at her naïveté. "America is enormous. She's from a state called Louisiana in the deep south near the Gulf Coast. I'm from Oregon a few thousand kilometers away on the north of the Pacific coast. Also, I understand the lady is a Negro. Perhaps you've heard that Negros and Arians hardly ever socialize in America. Still, it will be nice to hear an American accent again, I think."

His casual remark establishing his racial beliefs disgusted Marie and she tried very hard to conceal her loathing. She knew with an unshakable faith that God had made all men and all nations of just one blood. Every living person on earth was a son or daughter of Adam and Eve. The bloody Nazi campaign of terror relied on faith in a lie – a form of Darwinism establishing entirely separate races coupled with the notion Friedrich Nietzsche proposed, that some races were inferior while other races were superior. Hitler aimed to create a "master race," a race of supermen, by practicing enforced eugenics that either sterilized or eliminated the races Hitler deemed inferior.

In practically the same breath, Schäfer had mentioned his father. Thoughts of her own father rushed through her mind, and she once more remembered that First Lieutenant Schäfer was her sworn enemy. How had she forgotten that for even half a second? She could not let her thoughts travel too far down that road or else her expression would betray her. She had to lighten the conversation somehow. "I imagine you must feel very homesick at times, Oberleutnant."

"I am homesick." He put a hand to his heart. "It would do me a great deal of good to attend the performance with the most beautiful woman in the village on my arm."

"Oberleutnant Schäfer, I don't think —"

He held up a hand to halt her speech. "Please, don't say no, Fräulein. At least let me have a little hope by telling me you'll consider the offer. Besides, I still owe you for sewing on my button."

She would have to clear any action with headquarters. It was possible that she could collect valuable intelligence by accompanying the junior German officer. It was even possible that Marie, code-named Temperance, could pass intelligence to Virginia Benoit, code-named Hope, in person. Pressing her lips together, desperate to find a way to end this conversation, she nodded. "Very well, Oberleutnant. As you say, I will think about it."

His eyebrow cocked, "You give me your word?"

After perhaps a half second of hesitation, she nodded. "You have my word."

He clicked his heels again. "Wunderbar! I will seek you out in two days' time to learn your final decision." He leaned closer and whispered as if conspiring with her. She could smell his musky aftershave. "I hope you say yes."

Then he took her hand again and kissed the backs of her fingers. She struggled not to snatch her hand back from his grasp before his lips touched her skin. He smiled and said, "I look forward to speaking with you again, Fräulein Perrin."

"Good day, Oberleutnant Schäfer." She stayed put while he got back into his Kübelwagen and drove away. As soon as he was out of sight, Marie let the shaking overwhelm her. Carefully lying her bike on its side, she sat down on the side of the road and wrapped her arms around her knees while tremors shook her entire body. Out of nowhere, she felt very sick and crawled into the grass.

While heaves clutched her body, tears raced down her face. Spent and terrified, she lay back and covered her eyes with her hands. She felt so afraid all the time. What did she think she was doing here?

She silently prayed, desperate for God to reach out to her and physically reassure her that He hadn't abandoned her. Of course, He did not, and she eventually remembered not to test her Creator. In His infinite wisdom, He had given her all the skills and tools she needed to make it through. She simply needed to rely more on Him.

Rolling to her feet, she stumbled to her bike and climbed back on. Her legs felt so weak that she wobbled a bit as she pedaled back to town, but eventually her strength returned.

ABOUT forty minutes later, Marie secured her wireless in the ceiling of her room, rearranged her bag so that an examination wouldn't reveal an empty false bottom, and laid out the fabric she intended to use to make Mrs. Chevalier a dress for her mother-in-law's birthday.

For three months she'd maintained her cover as a seamstress, and each time she took a needle and thread to hand it only further emphasized that she absolutely did not want to be a seamstress for the rest of her life. Chuckling to herself, knowing she complained more about the sewing than she did the code transmitting, she pulled out her scissors and carefully cut the fabric

Marie also did not enjoy the solitude that came with her job. At least Prudence had someone else in whom she could confide on that farm. Here, Marie lived completely alone in the middle of town. She had to maintain her cover at all times and the strain of that had not previously occurred to her during training. She had no one with whom she could talk or laugh.

If it weren't for occasional work measuring an uppity French housewife or German camp follower for a new dress she probably didn't need, she would have almost no human contact at all. It made her think of her father, who made a good living as a solicitor in her home town, but who always, always, pressed that helping others and giving to those in need should come before new dresses or shoes.

Seeing how other people actually spent money, especially with so much want, need, and despair all around them, made her heart ache. But, the work provided her cover, and she felt thankful for it.

The person she did not know how to handle was one Oberleutnant Schäfer and this apparent and exceedingly unwelcome attraction he had for her. Marie knew that this exact type of unwanted attraction on the part of the enemy amounted to one of the main reasons Charlene had met with such resistance from her superiors when forming this team of women.

Marie wondered what Headquarters would say about whether she would accompany him and see Virginia Benoit, code named Hope, perform for the German soldiers. With or without orders, she wondered how one denied a German officer in the Occupied Zone. Doing so would surely just bring her additional unwanted scrutiny.

She just prayed that Schäfer would understand she had absolutely no interest in him whatsoever, whether she was ordered to attend the show with him or not. Also, she prayed that he was actually as kind in his personal life as he came across, because she didn't relish having an angry, rejected Nazi officer peering through her windows.

# CHAPTER 4

MARIE rolled her neck on her shoulders and pushed away from her sewing table. She'd spent the earlier part of the day attempting to find a secure location from which to transmit and had pedaled her bike for miles and miles. She'd finally transmitted, received a reply, then had to come all the way back to her room and immediately work on the dress she'd started the week before. Her customer expected it tomorrow. What excuse could she possible give for not having it finished?

"I'm sorry, Madame, but I had to update London on the status of the labor camp being built twenty-three kilometers outside of town. Please give me a few extra days on the dress. I'm very tired from my work as a spy, you see."

She chuckled at the thought of actually saying that out loud as she filled her kettle with water and lit the single burner stove. While she waited for the water to boil, she went to the basin and splashed clean, cold water into the bowl then used that to wash her face. Her eyes burned from lack of sleep. For the last week, her work for the resistance grew more and more demanding and the need to maintain a good cover more important than ever.

The loud whistle of the kettle broke her out of her thoughts with a start. Had she just dozed for a few moments while standing up? She poured tea leaves into the pot and covered them with hot water. While it brewed, she extinguished her lights and removed the blackout curtain so that she could open her window. Within minutes, she poured herself a cup, wishing she had even just a little bit of sugar or honey to put in it.

She took her tea to the window and leaned against the frame, enjoying the sounds of the night coming through the open window. A baby cried down the street and the sound of the mother softly singing a lullaby somehow made it her way as well. She could hear the sound of an engine, but without lights she couldn't see it. From somewhere not far away, a woman's laughter floated in with the breeze.

Marie smiled and took a sip of her tea. The world might be at war, she thought to herself, but life still, somehow, went on.

Relaxing for the first time in days, she contemplated turning in for the night and waking very early to finish the dress. The idea appealed to her, but she knew it would be better to finish it now and sleep in than the other way around. Resigned, she turned away from the window to set her cup on the little table by the bed.

She saw the light of the explosion and felt it shake her whole building a half second before she heard the sound. A giant pillar of fire very briefly lit up the sky, casting eerie orange framed shadows all around. When it dimmed, it took a minute for Marie to see clearly again.

She could hear sirens, shouts, engines. Below her window, she heard booted feet, dozens of them, running toward the river where the explosion originated. Marie wondered what was happening. Was it possible that this was merely the precursor to a larger invasion? That France was being liberated? Could the end finally be here?

On the street below, she witnessed chaos as an amphibious Trippel SG-6 Schwimkraftwagen and an Opel Blitz truck, both working without headlights and both loaded down with German troops, ran head-on into each other. Men yelled in harsh German. Engines hissed. The smell of bitter smoke began to creep into the air though Marie could not be certain if it came from the crash below her window or the explosion. Marie felt certain she could still feel the rumble of the explosion somewhere down inside her chest and the fire it had caused began to light the night sky in the horizon.

She stared down at the scene below as an ambulance arrived and medics removed soldiers from the scene on stretchers. Sirens still rang through the night sky. In the distance, toward the river, the faint glow of a fire grew brighter every minute.

However, no British tanks rolled through their town. No airplanes delivering paratroopers arrived in the night sky. Only the sound of men's voices and truck engines broke up the steady wailing of the alarms.

Eventually, she shut her window, replaced the blackout curtain, and turned the lights back on in her room. She looked from the dress at the sewing machine to her bed and decided that despite the lost time as an onlooker to the scene below, she still needed to finish that dress before morning. With a sigh, she finished off her tea, cracked her knuckles, and sat before the machine.

"IT was quite awful, let me tell you," Madame Bardes said, standing on the footstool while Marie knelt on the floor next to her, straight pins held between her lips as she measured the hem. "We were at the party at the dock manager's place and the explosion happened right next to me." She shifted as she put her hands to her face and gasped. "I declare my ears are still ringing!"

Her companion, Marie did not know her name but had nicknamed her Madame Peacock due to her outrageous hat, put a hand to her heart. "I imagine it must have been terrifying, Madame Bardes."

The rather plush home of Madame Bardes sat not too far from the bridge which members of the resistance had destroyed the night before. Some of the debris from the explosion had even landed on her roof and in her courtyard. Marie had found navigating here somewhat challenging this morning since so many Nazi soldiers crowded the area near the bridge.

The three women used Madame Bardes' den for this appointment. Marie had spread her tools out and asked her client to stand atop a low stool while she worked. Once she crouched down to finalize the fittings for the dress, the two women began to speak to one another as if Marie simply were not present.

Madame Bardes was speaking. "... such a loud noise! I was dancing with that Oberst who runs the prison. What is his name? Müller? Oberst Müller. Oui, c'est si. When the explosion happened he stopped right in his tracks and his face turned white as a sheet. I think he thought perhaps we were next to blow up. The more he looked like that, the more frightened I became!"

Madame Peacock clucked her tongue before taking another sip of her tea. "I heard the entire bridge is completely gone and that a train was on it when it happened."

"Terrible! We were waiting for some ranking dignitaries to arrive on that train. The whole town is in an uproar. What exactly were the people who did this thinking?" Marie moved to the other side of the stool and kept working while Madame Bardes kept speaking. "Of course, the party was ruined after that. Half of the people left right away!"

"I wish I had been at that party last night, too. But, my Sébastian will not allow it." Madame Peacock sniffed as if offended.

Madame Burdes tightened her lips. "Your husband should listen to my Arnaud. He knows that the only way to thrive right now is to make friends."

"You and I both know that. That's why you're standing there and I'm sitting here." Marie watched Madame Peacock eye the silk of the dress longingly. "But he would rather be loyal to what he thinks France was than what it is surely to become. He also remembers the women who were dubbed collaborators being pulled into the street in the dead of night after the Armistice. "

Madame Burdes scolded, "Sébastian could not possibly be old enough to remember."

Peacock nodded. "It's true that he was quite young but he clearly remembers the mob shaving the heads of all those women then marching them through the streets naked for the entire village to see. My late father-in-law made certain that my husband witnessed every minute."

Marie felt her eyes widen. She had heard such stories but never a first-hand account.

Madame Burdes waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "No matter. There will be no eleventh hour treaties signed this time around. The Third Reich is the future of France, I'm afraid. I fear those who don't already understand this will be the ones left naked and hungry."

Marie sat back and looked up at Madame Bardes. "Ready, Madame."

She stood and held her hand out so that Madame Bardes could safely step down off of the stool.

"You'll have this for tomorrow I hope?"

"Mai non, Madame. All that's left is the hem. I can have it to you today."

Madame Bardes clapped. "Chic alors!" She rushed to the dressing screen in the corner of her large dressing room. "I will pay you an extra five Reichsmark if you can get it to me in the next two hours."

The thought of having to accept Nazi currency sickened Marie though she did not let any sign of her disgust show in her smile. As surreptitiously as she could, Marie watched Peacock adjust her shawl over her shoulders and wondered if the woman would eventually convince her husband to conform to the Nazi lovers all around him. Instead of making eye contact, Marie just kept her eyes averted and used the time waiting for her leave to go by straightening her supplies and packing up her bag.

Long minutes later, Madame Bardes came out from behind the screen, back in her red house dress, the silk dress laying over her arm. "I look forward to seeing you again this afternoon," she said as she handed Marie the dress.

"I'll return just as soon as it's done." As she left, she nodded her good-byes to the two women, already so engrossed in yet another story about the explosion the night before that neither paid any attention to the lowly seamstress.

MARIE sat in the second pew from the alter of the only cathedral in the village. As a child, she had attended the small church led by Pastor Trocmé and often also enjoyed sermons by Reverend Edouard Theis. As a student, she had joined the French Protestant student organization Cimade, which had supported the efforts of her father and Pastor Trocmé along with numerous other believers such as the Salvation Army, the Quakers, even the American Congregational Church. Therefore, Marie was not Catholic but had also never really respected such denominational lines.

She had heard disturbing rumors about all manner of collusion between the current Catholic Pope and the Fascist regimes. It only made sense. The Vatican sat in the center of Italy, after all, and Prime Minister Mussolini had already shown that he was not above all kinds of coercion. Marie chose to believe that her brothers and sisters in Christ, such as the local priests and nuns in this village, were above such political motivations.

Besides, the small cathedral was the closest house of worship to her apartment. That made it her church according to her cover. She stared at the crucifix hanging on the front wall beneath the small Rosetta window. If she actually lived here in this village by choice, she would very likely worship here. The building was well over five hundred years old. The woodwork and the stained glass inside was stunningly beautiful, the congregation even more so.

Sitting in the quiet house of worship, she briefly wondered what God thought of the humans waging this war on the face of His creation. She wondered, as always, how it would end, and knew God already knew. But what did He _think_ of it?

Shaking her head at her fanciful thoughts, she reached for the hymnal and opened it to the appropriate page, but found nothing there. With a frown, she looked at the pages before and after, but still could find nothing.

Curious. Prudence had never missed a scheduled drop before. Not ever. A worried frown marred her brow as she set the hymnal back in place. Then she felt someone sit in the pew beside her.

Her heart skipped in fright and she turned her head to look, relieved to see Prudence.

"Hi," her friend whispered. "Thought I'd come in person this time."

"You gave me a fright," Marie whispered back. "I thought we'd been compromised somehow."

Prudence looked around and noticed the single old woman three rows back, her head bowed in prayer. She gestured with her head and the two escaped the dim church into the bright light of day.

Not wanting to draw undue attention to themselves, Marie didn't grab Prudence by the neck and hug her even though she wanted to do just that. What a blessing to see her for the first time in months.

Prudence looked a little wan. She'd lost some weight – and had a rough edge about her. Strangely, it appeared as if she had dyed her blonde hair a dark chestnut. "How are things at the farm?" Marie asked.

"If you can't tell by the missives, it's been very ... engaging."

Marie smiled at the sarcasm and looked around to ensure their privacy. "Indeed. I even witnessed some of the after effects," she said, referencing the explosion. "Well, will it slow down after the big operation next month?"

"I'm sure that will just pave the way for another, and another. It would be nice to see an end to this war very soon."

She gestured at Prudence's hair. "The dark hair is a bit of a change."

"It's been a month and I am still not fully used to it. Every time I look in the mirror, I have a bit of a shock."

They walked into the town and stopped at the park in the town square. Marie gestured at her favorite bench. "I can't bear to be indoors. Let's sit here."

"Have you been keeping busy making dresses?" Prudence asked, keeping the conversation simple in case someone overheard them.

"More than I care to, that's for sure," Marie said with a smile. "But, the business is good. You hear a lot bent over someone while pinning their skirt. It's funny how they think you don't have ears because you're in service of some sort."

Prudence nodded in understanding. "I know. It's how they're raised." Marie watched her friend's thumb rub over her ring finger in the habit she'd gotten used to. "So, do you think you may know who most of the unhappy wives are?"

"Exactly. And how they're seeking out happiness." Marie looked up and groaned. "Oh no. Here he comes."

"He who?" Prudence asked and started to look behind her.

"No! Don't look!" She leaned forward and whispered, "A German officer has taken a shine to me."

Prudence's eyes widened and she grabbed Marie's hand. "Oh no, Temperance. That's awful."

"Tell me about it," Marie said through gritted teeth, but smiled at the young officer's approach. "Hello, Oberleutnant Schäfer. How are you on this beautiful autumn day?"

"Fräulein Perrin," the blond young man greeted. He looked at Prudence. "Who is your friend?"

Prudence giggled and held out a hand. "I'm Murielle St. Pierre, Oberleutnant." She emphasized his rank as if promoting him to General. Then she looked at Marie and stage whispered, "He really is handsome, Marie. You weren't exaggerating."

Marie gasped. "Murielle!"

The young officer's ears turned a bit red. "I am pleased to hear you think that of me, Fräulein." One of the men in the group of soldiers near a truck across the street barked in their direction. "I must go. We have to go arrest a farmer who has been helping the resistance. I hope to see you again soon. I am still waiting on your answer! I only hope you don't make me wait much longer, Fräulein."

He held his hat against his head as he trotted back to the group. Marie looked at her friend. "What was that about?"

"Survival, my friend. He had to believe we were talking about something girlish." She gave Marie a very serious look. "What answer is he seeking?"

"He wants to take me to see Hope perform. I guess she's going to be here in a few weeks." She pursed her lips. "It would be so amazing to see her. I've only heard rumors of her performances."

"But at what risk?" Prudence asked.

"Tremendous risk. There are times I have to remind myself that we have a mission and are at war. I get so caught up in dress patterns and such." Suddenly, she put a hand to her forehead. "Oh my goodness. He's going to go arrest Marcel Bernard!"

"Why do you think that?"

"Because the last time I was on his farm, it took so long to hear back from London. But, the message was so timely and important that I had to have a reply. I bet they were able to triangulate the signal enough to narrow it down to the vicinity of his farm."

"Will he give you up?" Prudence whispered, looking around them.

"No." Marie swallowed in a suddenly dry mouth. "But his wife certainly will."

Prudence abruptly stood and brushed at her skirt. "We may need to pull you out, if you've been compromised. Let me go check with Praetorian. I'll leave you a message at the church." Her eyes darted all around. "Talking in public was dangerous for both of us. I'm sorry I risked it."

"I'm sorry, too."

"Go. Hurry. I will be praying for you!"

Marie rushed to her room in the boarding house and grabbed the wireless. Removing the false bottom from her bag, she put it and the code book inside. Then she wrapped several yards of cloth around her waist, covered it with her shirt, refilled the bag with sewing implements, and rushed out of the room.

She rode her bike to the cemetery on the edge of town. Thankfully, it sat behind a hedgerow and it didn't look like anyone was there at this time of day. She rushed through the gate and found the tomb with the broken door. She slipped inside and worked in the dark, removing the wireless, the code book, her earphones, and the antenna and stashed them in the farthest corner of the tomb. Then she unwound the fabric from her waist, folded it as well as she could in the dark, and placed it in the bag where the machine had been.

She looked all around before leaving the tomb and running back to her bike. As she mounted and started pedaling off, she looked all around again. If the Nazis caught her here she had no ready excuse for her presence in a cemetery. She secured the bag to the back of her bike and pedaled as fast as she could back to town.

Anxious, worried, every sense heightened, she pedaled through town, forcing herself to pedal at a normal pace. When she finally reached her boarding house, she secured her bike and forced herself to walk as normally as possible up the stairs to her room. Once inside, she bolted the door with shaking fingers then leaned against it, sliding down the door and drawing her knees up to her chest.

Silent tears falling from her eyes soaked the material stretched over her knees. She started praying then, for help, for wisdom, for protection.

# CHAPTER 5

MARIE spent three days looking over her shoulder. When she felt certain that her impending arrest might not actually happen, she ventured out in the predawn hour and went to the church.

No one occupied the pews within the dim church interior. She made her way to the appropriate pew and found the hymnal. Inside, on the correct page, she found a slip of a note. Marie decoded the hymn lyrics and read:

Cover blown.

Transmit immediate evac request.

Coordinate with HQ

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She folded the note into a little tiny ball, then put it in her mouth and swallowed it.

After she left the church, she went to the cemetery. When she arrived at the tomb where she had hidden her wireless, she rushed inside and felt around in the dark. Once her seeking fingers found and secured her equipment, she felt an enormous amount of relief. As far as she could tell, it hadn't been tampered with and was exactly as she'd left it. Not wanting to risk the code book falling into the German's hands, she left it behind. She should be able to code the missive from memory.

She packed her bag carefully and exited the tomb to find no one in the church graveyard. Securing her bag to the back of her bike, she pedaled back to town, back to her boarding house.

The bag felt incredibly heavy to her, and she felt like everyone looking at her knew what it contained. Every glance in her direction transformed into an accusing glare. Anxious, nervous, paranoid, she rushed up the stairs to her room, securing the door behind her.

It took no time at all for her to set up the antenna and hook everything up. Checking over her shoulder in her empty bedroom, she slipped the earphones on her head and started transmitting, using code.

TEMPERANCE COMPROMISED.

NEED IMMED —

The pounding on her door interrupted her transmission.

Unable to do anything but shove the equipment under her bed, she straightened her dress and rushed to the door. On the other side stood a German Sergeant and four men. She felt her eyebrows knot.

"May I help you?" she asked.

He was a large man, with round features and a big nose. He glared at her but did not speak to her. "Durchsuchen den raum," he barked out.

She knew he'd given the order to his men to search the space, just as she knew they would quickly find the wireless equipment.

"Sergeant," she put her hand up in a halting gesture, "men are forbidden from entering this room. It is improper."

The sergeant grinned. It was not a look of happiness. "Papers, Fräulein?" he asked in coarse French and extended his gloved right hand. With his gloved left hand, he gestured impatiently at his men. "Mache schnell! Suche das Zimmer. Suche überall."

Hurry up, he urged. Search the room. Search everywhere.

While the soldiers tore through her closet and bureau, she pulled her identification papers from her pocket and handed it to the sergeant.

He opened the leather cover, nodded once as if confirming something, then looked at her. "Fräulein Marie Perrin?"

"Yes," she said, crossing her arms as one of the men got on his knees to look under the bed. Before the sergeant could say anything else, the soldier made an exclamation and pulled the machine out from under the bed.

"You are under arrest, Fräulein Perrin." Then, with a balled fist, he punched her in the cheek with his leather gloved hand. The impact felt as if he had something metal inside his gloves. Her world turned a nauseatingly dark gray before it went completely black.

MARIE lay on a cot in the corner of a cage. She remembered to pretend she was still unconscious this time. The longer they left her unmolested, the longer she could rest, recuperate, save her energy for what lay ahead.

Every part of her seemed to hurt in one way or another. Her face felt like a giant burning blister from the vicious punch and the dozens of backhanded slaps that followed. Her teeth felt loose in the back of her mouth and she tasted blood every time she swallowed. Her back had deep burning welts from a beating with some kind of whip or riding crop a few hours earlier. But the worst part was the cold. Her damp skin felt freezing cold and she could get no relief from the chill because they had only left her with her light undergarments and a thin cotton slip with which to cover herself.

The first thing they had done when they had taken her into the interrogation room was to manacle her hands far above her head so that she had to stand on the very tips of her toes just to keep her wrists from bleeding. Then they had used a razor sharp bayonet and taken turns cutting her clothes from her body and laughing with each rag of fabric they removed.

One of the soldiers had painfully sawed off a hank of her hair and lewdly inhaled it, making his companions guffaw. Her skin crawled at the memory of the feeling of the cold steel gently caressing the bare skin of her arms, legs, and stomach.

She kept her eyes closed and tried not to groan in pain or shiver too visibly. Her cage had no walls, only bars. It sat in the center of a large room with guards all around her. She had no privacy, no escape from the constant stares of the guards. Not that she spent much time in the cell. They had her out and interrogated her almost constantly. As far as she could tell, she'd been there for fifteen waking hours. She had no idea how long she'd been unconscious or how often. It could have been seconds or hours. Time meant nothing at this point — nothing but a continual state of misery.

She wanted to dab at her cheek, but didn't want any of her watching guards to see. She was certain the sergeant had broken her cheekbone. Her eye had long since swollen shut. She knew she had at least two broken ribs, along with her pinkie finger on her left hand.

Once they'd finished cutting her dress completely off of her body, they had mercifully left her in her cotton slip, barefoot. The bed had neither sheets nor a blanket. Every time she started to fall asleep, someone took a water hose and doused her, which meant that the mattress was soaking wet. The only time they let her be was when they were certain she was unconscious.

A shudder of cold went through her body and she knew if she had no relief from the constant wet, she would soon get sick. Whether they would nurse her back to health remained a giant question mark.

They wanted the code book that she'd left in the tomb. If they got the code book, they'd be able to decipher the transmissions they had intercepted for the past several months. At the very least, they would find out about the mission Praetorian and his team had been planning. That would not only endanger their lives, but it would also hurt the war effort. She could never give them that information, even if it cost her life.

Instead, she refused to talk. They almost broke her. Fracturing her pinkie nearly did her in, but the interrogator did not continue the conversation. He had her removed to her cell, where she could think about whether or not she wanted to continue holding back. She knew it was to reset her brain, which was starting to go into shock, making his interrogation tactics useless.

At that point, she started to drift inside herself. If it were possible to will herself to die, she would have died three hours ago. Maybe she could sleep through the next blast of hose.

Just as she drifted off she heard the guards talking and heard the order given to soak her again just seconds before the burst of water hit her in the face. She reflexively raised her left hand to shield herself from the water and cried out loud when the force of the water pushed against her broken pinkie, causing her to inhale a mouth full of icy water. Choking, gasping, drowning, she pushed herself up and stood, but they kept the stream of water hitting her directly in the face, causing her to stumble back into the corner of the cage and turn her back to them.

Cradling her hand to her chest in case the pressure of the water pushed her up against the bars, she stood and faced out into the room. Through the haze of pain and misery, she looked up and shockingly saw Hope standing next to a German Colonel.

It took every single ounce of control she had not to react. Reaching out with her right hand, she gripped the bars and bowed her head. "Thank you, God," she whispered.

When she looked up again, the Colonel and Hope were gone. She knew she hadn't imagined her. The Virtues knew she was arrested and where they held her. Now they'd either rescue her or kill her. Either way, the end of the agony would come soon.

OBERLEUTNANT Leopold Schäfer stormed into the office of the head interrogator. "What is the meaning of this?" he spat out.

"Meaning of what, sir?" Sergeant Marco Hans asked, warily.

"Is it not obvious you incompetent fool? What is the meaning of your treatment of the female prisoner?" Schäfer spat. "The prisoner who was arrested without my orders and without my permission or foreknowledge."

"Oberleutnant, I am only doing my job," the older man said with disinterest. "What is it to you?" He had resented young Schäfer's placement as head of the prison since his promotion, but Schäfer had pretty much left him alone. Until now.

"Where did you get your training, Sergeant? Let me guess. The gulags of our friends to the east?"

Though, the political landscape had recently changed, the Soviets had partnered with Germany for many years. Until very recently, Stalin had provided Hitler's Nazi party with safe ports for his U-boats, training, weapons, fuel, raw materials, and even rations. He waited for the Sergeant to offer a slight nod of confirmation before slamming his fist on the man's desk. "Idiot! That is not how you interrogate a French woman. You will get nothing from her using these tactics."

"What are you talking about?"

"You are treating her just like a male prisoner and your actions have cost us at least a week, if not two, of work for me. Have her removed to a private cell and get her some dry clothes. See that her wounds are treated. Do it immediately."

"Oberleutnant Schäfer, I must protest. I personally trained with the Schutzstaffel in the Ukraine in 1939 and these tactics were very effective with the local women we interrogated there."

Reaching for patience, Schäfer explained, "Sergeant, when your SS friends beat and tortured a female villager to death without getting the information they needed, what did they do next?" He paused while the noncommissioned officer reflected. "What did they do, Sergeant? Did they simply take another woman into custody? How many women did they kill before they obtained the information they desired."

The sergeant shrugged.

"Fifty? A hundred? Let me speak plainly. Was it more than one? Because, Sergeant, we only have this single prisoner. Just the one. We do not have the luxury of every village in all of the Ukraine we can raid in the middle of the night. You understand?"

The Sergeant looked suddenly resentful. "Exactly what is your training, sir? How many interrogations did you perform in America, Oberleutnant? Who are you to tell me —"

Schäfer put his nose to the other man's. "I assure you there are less desirable duty stations than France, Sergeant. Perhaps you would like to go back and visit some of your Soviet friends in Stalingrad? Who am I? I am your commanding officer, and if you don't follow my orders immediately, I can only assure you that you will regret it for the rest of your time in uniform."

The man came to sharp attention. "Yes, sir." He saluted and said, "Heil Hitler."

Schäfer casually returned the salute without even raising his hand above shoulder height. "Seig heil."

He left the man behind, knowing his orders would be followed exactly, and stormed through the halls of the prison offices. When he reached his own office, he was surprised to find Kapitän Neumann waiting behind his desk. He immediately came to attention.

"Oberleutnant Schäfer," the captain greeted, standing, "congratulations on the arrest."

"It was premature. We had her under surveillance and I did not know she was arrested until an hour ago."

The Captain raised an eyebrow. "Do you need to be replaced as head of this facility?"

"Not at all, sir. I just need competent sergeants who don't act on their own accord without orders."

The Captain froze and murmured, "Without orders?" The man began to pace around the office. Schäfer had not been told to stand at ease and thus had not moved from his position of attention. Therefore, he did not turn his head and visually track his commander as the captain paced around the room. Instead, he stared straight ahead.

"Why did your sergeant arrest her prematurely and without orders?" He asked, looking at a portrait print of his beloved Führer on the wall.

"I had to go to Paris for a meeting. While I was gone, he acted. I think he wanted some glory. Instead, I think he's getting some prison time."

"Just have him beaten and be done with it." The captain waved a hand toward him then realized that the junior officer still stood at stiff attention. Schäfer noted that his commander very carefully asked no questions about his Paris meeting. "At ease. What have you been able to glean from her so far? Anything?"

"Nothing. She's been beaten until she can't sit up by men twice her size. I suspect her jaw is broken. I don't know why they expected to get anything from her."

The Captain met his eyes. "Did they violate the girl?"

Schäfer shrugged. "I do not yet know, sir, but I think not."

His captain said, "Does the girl have family?"

The question had plenty of depth. Did the girl have political connections? Would her rape while in custody prove an embarrassment? Is it possible they were mistaken about their quarry?

"None, here, sir. She is from the south of France originally."

The Captain nodded then waved a hand. "If any of the men violated her, have them publically hanged. Best to set an example early on before the camp is built. Can't have any of the men sullying themselves with any of the filthy Jews we bring to the camp. We must keep the bloodlines pure for the glory of the Fatherland. If they think it's acceptable here with any female prisoner, they're going to continue to think it's acceptable there with those hairless apes."

Schäfer nodded. "It will be done, sir. I'm not sure her interrogation can be salvaged."

The Captain raised an eyebrow. "You have ideas of a different method?"

"Of course. She's a woman. Like all women she'll respond better to silk than to steel."

Neumann narrowed his eyes. "Rather American thinking. I suppose I should have expected no less."

Schäfer felt his cheeks burn, silently cursing his complexion that allowed the captain to see his visceral reaction even though he attempted to hide it from his expression. "I cannot change where my father raised me, Kapitän. Besides, many great minds have come from America and been embraced by the likes of the Führer himself. Effinger, Pelley, Ezra Pound to name a few. Even now, Robert Henry Best is winning countless Americans to the great Nazi cause over the radio."

"Indeed." Neumann cocked his head and looked at Schäfer as if studying a laboratory rat. "I read your file, Oberleutnant, as I do with every officer under my command. I know that William Dudley Pelley and the Friends of New Germany endorsed your commission and I know that none other than Rudolph Hess himself personally pinned on your rank. Very politically expedient, I'm sure. I am only observing that your thinking is very different than most European Arians."

Schäfer wisely kept his mouth shut.

"I will give you three weeks to break her with your silky American kindness. Then, Oberleutnant, and I say this with all sincerity, I will make her talk using the steel."

"Impossible. I need at least four weeks, sir. The girl has been beaten to within an inch of her life."

The captain retrieved his cap from the top of the desk. On his way out of the room, he stopped at Schäfer's shoulder. "Three. I have a schedule to keep."

"Understood sir." He clicked his heels together and saluted. "Seig heil."

"Yes, yes. Heil Hitler," the captain answered tiredly as he walked out of the room.

# CHAPTER 6

OBERLEUTNANT Schäfer sat at his desk across from his clerk. He signed papers, made notations in logs and records, and issued orders. Under a stack of supply requests, he found four unsealed envelopes with hand written letters inside.

"Was ist das?" he barked. What is this?

"The weekly letters allowed out from the ranking officers held here. Three are British officers and an Australian. Herr Kapitän felt your ability to read English so fluently might help the censors in this case."

Schäfer nodded. Everything in order, then. He quickly thumbed through the envelopes and read the addresses on them. Then he opened each letter and skimmed the contents striking through anything that might be of strategic value to their enemy. Mostly, the letters related to past shared events and encouragement that the prisoners were being treated well by their captors. Nothing dangerous. Senior officers knew better. When he finished, he stuffed the letters back inside their respective envelopes and handed them to the clerk. "Go ahead and post them to the censors immediately with my endorsement. See that they are posted as soon as possible. I assume I will also have the pleasure of reading mail that arrives for our special guests?"

"Yes, sir," the clerk said, taking the envelopes from him. "But the censors from both sides will have already gone through them."

Schäfer felt his eyes tighten. "Very well. That will be all for now I think."

The clerk stood and saluted, then left the room. Schäfer leaned his chair back and closed his eyes. He felt so much anger that Marie Perrin had been arrested. He hadn't wanted her arrested until it couldn't possibly be helped. Now, with all the evidence against her, he had no choice but to keep her behind bars. He could not even secure her release and, even if he were somehow able to, they had no guarantee she would resume her activities.

He felt fortunate that he had maintained command of the prison. Admitting that the sergeant had acted without his orders or consent could easily have cost him his new rank and responsibility. At least they hadn't replaced him. Fortunately, Herr Kapitän had political aspirations and didn't want to risk offending any high ranking officials that might be looking out for his newest Oberleutnant. Maintaining his position as the commander of the prison garrison gave him more control over what Marie would have to endure.

Of course, his motives were not purely to the betterment of the Fatherland. Not purely. He had other motives.

He sat up and turned back to his desk. He had too much to do in a short day to sit kicked back and thinking about the fate of a beautiful spy who was, after all, an enemy of the Third Reich. The important thing in the next few weeks would be for her to come to trust him. If she didn't trust him, then he didn't know what might happen to her.

MARIE warily sat up and scooted painfully to the corner of her cot, carefully placing her tattered back into the corner of the cell. She could only open one eye, and her cheek throbbed in a painful rhythm with her heart.

The small cell contained a single cot and a bucket. The stone walls looked damp, and she could smell a musty smell, could hear water dripping somewhere beyond her room. A heavy wood door with a barred window provided the only aperture. Through it, she could hear sounds from beyond her cell. A single bulb hung above her cot, the light dim and barely penetrating the shadows in the corners.

Some hours ago, she'd woken with vague memories of being removed from the central cage and placed in this cell. She'd woken up dry, with her ribs tightly wrapped and her finger set, splinted, and wrapped. She wore a thick cotton slip, under which she could feel the wrap that bound her aching ribs. On the corner of the cot, neatly folded, lay a clean gray cotton dress and thick wool socks.

As she dressed, she'd had a hard time even securing the buttons on her dress because her hands shook so badly and her finger hurt with every movement of her hands.

After dressing, she tried to shut out the throbbing in her cheek, torso, and back, and dozed off, but the sounds in and around the prison made it nearly impossible to actually sleep. Thirst unlike anything she'd ever felt in her life consumed her, and the gnawing hunger in her stomach hurt almost as much as her cheek. The thirst, hunger, discomfort, the banging of metal on metal as doors opened and closed, the sound of heels clicking along stone floors, the whispered conversations of some prisoners and the anguished cries of others — those sounds kept her from truly relaxing into a deep sleep.

Now her cell door slowly opened and she feared what she would face next. More beatings? More ripping off of her clothes? More razor sharp ice cold blades against her skin or riding crops across her back? Did they put her in here, dry and nursed, merely to strip her bare and terrify her even more deeply?

In the midst of her reverie, First Lieutenant Leopold Schäfer, perhaps the last person on earth she expected to see here, walked into her cell. He carried a tray with some broth, a heel of dark bread, and a chunk of cheese.

She turned her body so that her feet touched the floor, but she did not stand. Nor did she speak first.

He set the tray on the corner of the cot and stared down at her, appearing to inspect her bandages and her clothes. She tried to read his expression, but the hunger overwhelmed her and she could do nothing but watch her hand snake out, grab the bread, and bring it to her watering mouth for a quick bite. She dipped the remainder into the soup and shoved another bite into her mouth. It tasted better than any meal she could remember.

It hurt her cheek to chew, but she ignored the pain. On the side of her swollen cheek, she felt a loose tooth, so she shifted the food to the other side of her mouth. As she slowly chewed around the mouth full of bread, the tall blond man just watched her. He did not speak until she swallowed.

"Fräulein Perrin, I must apologize for the treatment you've received here. I promise you that there will be no repeat of such treatment. You understand?"

Marie lifted the eyebrow of her good eye and picked up the cheese. "I beg your pardon?"

He nodded stiffly. "This is my prison. But, I was away. I did not even know they'd arrested you. Had I known —" He knelt next to her and put a hand over the bandaged hand she kept cradled in her lap. She tried not to stiffen away from his touch, but could not help the instinctive reaction. He ignored it and looked her in the eye with very serious blue eyes. "If I had known I never would have allowed any of this to happen."

Searching his face, wondering at his game, not trusting what came across as sincere, she said, "I don't believe you."

The smile briefly crossed his face but didn't touch his eyes. "You don't?"

"No. I don't." She didn't tell him that she thought he was being nice, hoping that she would confide in him.

"Ah. Well, I shall simply avoid asking you any questions. Then maybe you'll start to trust my sincerity. I don't want to see you hurt, Marie." The use of her Christian name sounded strange coming from him. "You will be safe here. My men are under orders not to come near you. I will provide for your care."

"You?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "What do you get out of that?"

"Only the knowledge that a woman under my care isn't being tortured or ... otherwise mistreated." He gracefully stood. "There is no right way to do the wrong thing. There are some things that are simply wrong even in a time of war."

He clicked his heels and stiffly nodded. "I pray that your injuries don't hurt you too much and that you heal quickly." While she contemplated his use of the word 'pray' as if it naturally and normally came out of his mouth, he slipped his hand into the inside of his jacket and pulled out a small French translation of the King James Bible. "Please keep this hidden. I know it will bring you comfort, but if any guard sees it, they will take it and it may compromise me."

She did not take it from him. After a heartbeat or two, he set it on the cot next to the tray. "Good day, Fräulein Perrin."

She stared at the door long after he left. Her stomach gave a painful turn and broke her out of her trance. Taking a small bite of cheese, she slowly chewed and reached out to run her fingers over the Bible, knowing that giving it to her amounted to nothing more than a ploy. He must have seen the Bible she kept in her room that day she had mended the button on his trousers. From behind the screen, he would have been able to examine the area by her bedside table completely unobserved. Her worn Bible sat on the nightstand. He would have guessed at her Christian faith.

Regardless of his ploy, she brought the Bible up to her cheek and closed her eyes as a tear slipped down her cheek. "What He brings me to, He will see me through," she whispered to herself. She thought of a verse in the hymn "In the Hour of Trial".

> When my last hour cometh,  
>  fraught with strife and pain,  
>  When my dust returneth to the dust again;  
>  On thy truth relying,  
>  Through that mortal strife,  
>  Jesus take me dying,  
>  To eternal life.  
>

She remembered then that she'd seen Hope. Her sisters knew her whereabouts. They knew she was alive. They would be planning and praying. Peace settled around her like a mantle. She slipped the Bible under her thin pillow and took a sip of soup, ate some more cheese, and contemplated the visit from Lieutenant Leopold Schäfer.

She polished off the small meal. No longer ravenously hungry, no longer wet, no longer cold, she felt incredibly sleepy. She stood on weak and shaky legs and carried the tray over to the cell door and set it on the ground. Half stumbling, she went back to her cot and lay down, feeling the haze of sleep taking over her brain.

As she drifted off, she thought of the missive she'd started to send to London. No matter what happened to her, London knew any new missive did not come from her. Her last thought was voiced in a short whispered prayer of thanksgiving that, if nothing else, she'd started to send that transmission to headquarters. At least they would know the Nazis had captured her.

They would not continue to send transmissions thinking she waited on this side of the channel. The German soldiers who had possession of her wireless, and even now pretended to be her, could have thrown a serious wrench into their plans. With the big mission coming up, and with Praetorian needing the already staged support from London, the knowledge of her capture could play a key role.

Willing her mind to stop thinking about her circumstances or worrying about her future, she closed her eyes and let sleep finally overtake her.

# INSPIRED BY REAL EVENTS

THE REAL EVENTS THAT INSPIRED TEMPERANCE'S TRIAL...

EVERY story in the Virtues and Valor series is inspired by real people and real events. This story is no exception. While the story of the special team of operators I named The Virtues is entirely fictional, set in a fictional town, and comprised of fictional characters who form a fictional military division, every single one of my fictional heavenly heroines was inspired by a real World War II heroine and the story was inspired by real events.

The great and honored reverend Pastor André Trocmé as well as Pastor Edouard Theis were actual people. These men of God inspired the entire town to smuggle as many as five thousand Jewish children and their parents, possibly more, out of the country and to safety. Those children who could not be safely evacuated were taken in and "adopted" by families who informed the Nazis that these children were either simply visiting relatives or war orphans.

When the Gestapo or the corrupt and collaborating Vichy police would raid the town, the citizens would routinely risk their lives by hiding children and parents anywhere they could — using elaborate schemes to signal when the coast was clear. Many residents were eventually arrested by the Gestapo. Sadly, the Reverand Trocmé's own cousin, Daniel Trocmé, was sent to Maidanek concentration camp and tortured to death.

It may be significant to note that the townspeople received contributions from the Quakers, the Salvation Army, the American Congregational Church, and other Jewish and Christian ecumenical groups, the French Protestant student organization Cimade, and the Swiss Help to Children. All of these organizations helped to ensure that the Jewish refugees were housed and fed and could travel in relative safety to Switzerland or other safe havens.

In 1990, the entire town became the only French town and one of only two towns on earth to be recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations" for their humanitarianism and bravery under extreme danger during the Second World War.

 Marie Gilbert, code-named Temperance, was inspired by the incredible Eileen Mary "Didi" Nearne who served as a wireless operator in the Spiritualist Network in Occupied France under the code-named "Rose."

Like Temperance, Didi Nearne, her brother Francis, and her sister Jacqueline fled the Nazis as the German war machine rolled into France. They eventually made their way to Great Britain via Spain.

All three of the Nearnes entered service with the British Special Operations Executive, or SOE, which was called "Churchill's secret army." A group within the SOE was called the F Section Networks. These networks were established in France to transmit and receive coded messages just like Temperance does in Temperance's Trial. Due to the ease of detection and the German's determination to track down these operators, it was one of the most dangerous duties assigned to agents within the SOE.

While Didi's sister, Jacqueline, was sent to France to act as a courier (much like Temperance's friend, Prudence), Didi stayed in England as a signals operator and received the encoded messages coming from France. After some time, she volunteered to go to France and act as a wireless operator for the F Section.

On March 2, 1944, Didi became one of only 39 women to parachute into Occupied France. She used the aliases Mademoiselle du Tort, Jacqueline Duterte, and Alice Wood — and went by the code name "Rose". She worked as part of Operation Mitchel, which organized finances for the resistance. During her first five months in France, she transmitted an astonishing 105 messages.

After many, many narrow escapes, including a time on a train when a Nazi soldier offered to carry the suitcase containing her wireless radio, Didi was finally arrested. While in Paris, she had sent a coded transmission from her room, much like my character Temperance. Within minutes, the Gestapo arrived and found her in possession of her wireless rig.

According to wartime records, Nearne "survived, in silence, the full revolting treatment of the baignoire," in the torture chamber of the Paris headquarters of the Gestapo on the banks of the Rue des Saussaies.

She nearly died from the torture. They beat her, stripped her, and repeatedly submerged her in a bath of ice cold water until she started to black out, yet, she did not break. She stuck to her story of being an innocent French girl who had been duped into helping someone by sending messages she didn't understand in return for money to buy eggs and bread.

She never once revealed her true identity. She never told of the other agents with whom she worked. Despite days of endless torture, she never gave up any information of planned operations. At the time, Eileen Mary "Didi" Nearne was only 23 years old.

On August 15, 1944, she was sent to the infamous Ravensbrück concentration camp near Berlin, and from there was sent through several forced labor camps. She refused to work in any of the camps, even under threat of being shot. Instead, she dared her captors to shoot her, and ended up being transferred each time instead.

Eventually, she ended up in a camp in Silesia. There Didi finally realized that the only way she would survive this experience would be to give in and work, otherwise she would starve. During the bitter cold winter in December of 1944, the Nazis moved Didi to the Markleberg camp, near Leipzig, where she worked on a road-repair gang for 12 hours a day.

On April 13, 1945, while being transferred to yet another camp, along with two French girls from a work gang, Didi escaped. The trio evaded their pursuers by hiding in the forest. They were apprehended by the SS in Markkleeberg, but she used her French language skills to fool her captors into letting them go. In Leipzig, a Catholic priest hid her until the arrival of the United States troops.

Sadly, American intelligence officers initially identified her as a Nazi collaborator and held her at a detention center alongside captured SS personnel. Once London verified her identity as a secret agent, the Americans finally released her.

After the war, Eileen Mary "Didi" Nearne was awarded the _Croix de Guerre_ by the French government, that nation's highest award given to foreigners, and was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) by King George VI for services rendered in France during the enemy occupation.

Given what she underwent at the hands of her captors for years and years, her very survival is remarkable. When asked how she kept going, she replied, "The will to live. Willpower. That's the most important. You should not let yourself go. It seemed that the end would never come, but I always believed in destiny, and I had a hope."

Didi lived with her sister Jacqueline until her sister's death in 1982. Afterward, she lived alone, a total recluse, haunted by her experiences as a captive of the _Gestapo_.

When Eileen Mary "Didi" Nearne died alone on September 2, 2010, it was several days before her death was discovered. It wasn't until officials went looking through her belongings hoping to find a relative whom they could contact that they discovered her true identity. Once they realized her incredible bravery and service, the entire community of Torbay, France, came together and gave her a funeral worthy of such an amazing war heroine with full military honors.

Unsurprisingly, there are very few actual photographs of Didi from the war and none of her operating a wireless rig. For the cover of this book, another suitable individual was selected. Pictured on the cover in place of "Temperance" operating a wireless radio is none other than Mrs. Mac.

Mrs. Florence Violet McKenzie OBE (nee Wallace), aka "Mrs Mac" (1890-1982) was Australia's first female electrical engineer, first female amateur radio operator, and the founder of the now international organization, the Electrical Association for Women. Mrs Mac is best known, however, for her work during the Second World War.

Having founded the Women's Emergency Signalling Corps in 1939, she then successfully campaigned to have some of her female trainees accepted into the Royal Australian Navy, thereby originating the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service. As the head instructor for the military, it is estimated that during the war some 12,000 servicemen from nearly every Allied nation passed through her Morse Code training school in Australia.

# TRANSLATION KEY

### British words and phrases

"Marm" — (slang) Cockneyed version of "Ma'am" short for the more formal Madam from the French Madame

### French words and phrases

Chic alors! — Literally "how chic" meaning excellent or wonderful. An expression of joyous approval.

Madame — a married woman

Mademoiselle — an unmarried woman

Monsieur — an honorific reserved for men, equivalent to mister or sir

naïveté — lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment; innocence or lack of sophistication

Où avez-vous de deux venez? — where did you two come from?

Oui — Yes

### German words and phrases

Danke — Thanks

Durchsuchen den raum — search this space (room)

Fräu — a married woman

Fräulein — an unmarried woman

Führer — also Fuehrer (when the umlaut ü is not available) from Führer und Reichskanzler (meaning Chancellor) is the German title meaning leader or guide now most associated with Chancellor Adolf Hitler

Hauptmann — see Kapitän

Heil Hitler — The Nazi salute or Hitler salute was a gesture of greeting in Nazi Germany. Usually, the person offering the salute would say "Heil Hitler!", "Heil, mein Führer!"

Herr — mister

Kapitän — company grade, a German Army Captain is equivalent to an O-3 and commands at the company level or serves on junior staff. Sometimes informally referred to as the Hauptmann or "top man" depending upon the military branch.

Leutnant — the lowest ranking commissioned officer in the German Army, equivalent to an O-1 the Second Leutnant supervises enlisted ranks, technicians, and outranks cadets and ensigns. Often in charge of a platoon.

Mache schnell! Suche das Zimmer. Suche überall. — Make haste. Search the room. Search everything.

Oberleutnant — a senior or First Lieutenant, equivalent to an O-2, often in charge of the junior officers who were platoon leaders and sometimes company commanders.

Oberst — the field-grade German Army Colonel is equivalent to an O-6 and commands at the battalion or brigade level and serves on senior staff. This is one rank below General officer.

Schutzstaffel — translated to Protection Squadron or defense corps, abbreviated SS and occasionally referred to as the Waffen SS, the Schutzstaffel was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party throughout his rise to power and the rise and fall of the Third Reich. In the hierarchy of the Nazi party, they were known as the "super" Nazis, each having sworn an oath of eternal loyalty to the Third Reich and its ideals. They wore distinctive uniforms and insignia to visually separate them as the "elite" Nazi fighting force. Their uniform emblems included the SS Totenkopf which was a skull and bones "Death's head" emblem worn on both the soft headgear as well as elsewhere on the dress uniform, the stylized "SS" that was made to resemble twin lightning bolts, and the red armband sporting a black Nazi Swastika on a circle of white.

Seig heil — a victory salute used originally by Nazis at political rallies

Was ist das? — What is this?

Wunderbar — Wonderful

### Period Vehicles

Avro Anson 652 – The Avro Anson was a British twin-engine, multi-role aircraft that served with the Royal Air Force, Fleet Air Arm, Royal Canadian Air Force and numerous other air forces before, during, and after the Second World War. It was configured to support multiple roles from reconnaissance to transportation to close air support for combat operations.

Developed from the Avro 652 airliner, British pilots often incorrectly referred to the Avro Anson as the Avro Anson 652 just as US servicemen incorrectly referred to a GPW Light Duty Truck as a "Jeep".

>    
> 
> 
> British Avro Mk I aka "Avro Anson 652"

Kübelwagen — (literally translated as "bucket car", for its resemblance to a metal bathtub on wheels) The Volkswagen Kübelwagen was a light military vehicle designed by Ferdinand Porsche himself and built by Volkswagen during World War II for the exclusive use of the Nazi military (both Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS). Based heavily on the Volkswagen Beetle it was considerably boxier in appearance.

>    
> 
> 
> Nazi Kübelwagen made for use by the Nazi land forces

North American Na-16 — Originally developed in the early 1930s, the North American Aviation NA-16 was the first trainer aircraft built by North American Aviation, Inc. and was the beginning of a long line of closely related North American trainer aircraft that would eventually number more than 17,000 examples including the BT-9, NJ-1, Harvard I, NA-57, and SK-14 to name a few.

>    
> 
> 
> US Air Force post war configuration of the North American Na-16

This was a single engine three wheel aircraft with tandem seating in the most common configuration, although certain variants had up to four seats. It was widely used as a training aircraft by many countries, including the United States and Nazi Germany.

>    
> 
> 
> Nazi Luftwaffe pre-war configuration of the North American Na-57

Opel Blitz truck — Opel Blitz (German for "lightning") was the name given to various German light and middle-weight truck series built by the German Adam Opel AG automobile manufacturer between 1930 and 1975.

Trippel SG-6 Schwimkraftwagen — Development of this amphibious vehicle began prior to 1939 at the Trippelwerke Hamburg Saar. Used by the Nazis in towns with ports and bodies of water, the vehicle mostly served as a land born light truck or troop transport.

Zundapp KS750 motorcycle (with or without sidecar) — Purpose built for the Nazi German military, the motorcycle had 10 speeds and topped out at 60 mph. It was agile and able to handle very steep climbs and rough terrain with relative ease. It was often coupled with a Steib sidecar, the BW38 (Beiwagen 1938)

# CAST OF CHARACTERS

Part 1 TEMPERANCE'S TRIAL:

MARIE GILBERT, codenamed TEMPERANCE, is recruited into an experimental all female cohort dubbed the Virtues, a collection of seven extraordinary women with highly specialized skills. Back in her home country of France, Marie clandestinely communicates vital intelligence directly back to Headquarters with a wireless radio, playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with the Nazis.

Part 2 HOMELAND'S HOPE:

Codenamed HOPE, famed performer VIRGINIA BENOIT performs for standing room only crowds in her adopted home of France. When the Nazis roll into Paris, she flees to Casablanca, taking the heart of a enemy General with her. She joins the Virtues team and uses her position, talent, and influence with the high ranking Axis officer to aid the Allied cause.

Part 3 CHARITY'S CODE:

DORTHY EWING, codenamed CHARITY, works on the home-front, receiving and sending messages to her team in France and coordinating a secret mission with her husband via coded letters. She intercepts the transmission alerting to her to a cover blown. The clock is ticking in a race to save a friend's life.

Part 4 A PARCEL FOR PRUDENCE:

Codenamed PRUDENCE, royal blooded MURIEL TOLSON speaks French like any native, allowing her to infiltrate Occupied France where she works as a courier; carrying messages, money, and sometimes people through the secret resistance network aiding the allies to accomplish very dangerous missions behind enemy lines.

Part 5 GRACE'S GROUND WAR:

RUTH AUBERTIN, codenamed GRACE, is a highly trained soldier who speaks multiple languages, is an expert with weapons, explosives, and hand-to-hand combat. Can her team pull off the mission of rescuing a compromised agent, or will too many variables crash together at the wrong time?

Part 6 MISSION OF MERCY:

Codenamed MERCY, Doctor BETTY GRIMES spends her days under cover as a Red Cross nurse in Occupied France and her nights providing medical care to injured members of the French Resistance. When Betty is sent to the local prison to see to a prisoner who has taken ill, her shock at treating a dear friend nearly blows her own cover. Now her patient is deathly ill and Betty needs to get her well enough for the coming rescue operation to succeed.

Part 7 FLIGHT OF FAITH:

Pilot HELEN MULBERRY, codenamed FAITH, flies between Britain and France transporting passengers, supplies, or performing reconnaissance. The Nazis guard their skies with vigor, and Helen learns to fly in combat, land in darkened fields with no lights, and how to evade the anti-aircraft fire. Shot down over France during the mission to rescue her fellow agent from the clutches of the Nazis, Helen must make her way through enemy territory with no language skills and somehow come through with a means to get her team back to Britain.

# READER'S GUIDE: SUGGESTED DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

SUGGESTED questions for a discussion group surrounding Temperance's Trial, part 1 of the Virtues and Valor series.

While the characters and situations in the Virtues and Valor series are fictional, I pray that these extended parables can help readers come to a better understanding of truth. Please prayerfully consider the questions that follow, consult scripture, and pray upon your conclusions. May the Lord of the universe richly bless you.

The fictional character, Marie Gilbert, her brother, and their father, live in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, France. In real life, in this town, the people came together as followers of Christ and helped to save THOUSANDS of Jewish children from the hands of the Nazis. They did this as a community under the threat of arrest and death.

> 1. Would it be easy for you to be convinced to help children in such dire need of rescue?  
>    
>  2. If helping children actually put your life at risk, but not helping children would actually put their lives at risk, then do you think you'd still do it?

In a very black and white world, the Bible is very clear in the words, You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. Leviticus 19:11. However, this is a series that deals entirely with people who are basically lying as a means of survival. God Himself directed Moses to send spies into Canaan in Numbers 13.

> 3. As Christians, is there ever a time in our lives when lying might be acceptable?  
>    
>  4. Do you think Marie Gilbert and her companions are 'sinning' in the purest sense of the word by covertly battling the enemy?

Marie is a deeply spiritual person who relies on prayer in all avenues of her life. She continually prays for protection while in Occupied France; however, she's arrested, beaten, interrogated, and humiliated.

> 5. Do you think God did not hear her prayers?  
>    
>  6. Why do you think God doesn't always come to the 'rescue' of Christians even when their very well being is at stake?

# VIRTUES AND VALOR SERIES

Don't miss a single exciting story

in the Virtues and Valor series...

SEVEN women from different backgrounds and social classes come together on the common ground of a shared faith during the second World War. Each will earn a code name of a heavenly virtue. Each will risk discovery and persevere in the face of terrible odds. One will be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice.

> Part 1: Temperance's Trial
> 
> Part 2: Homeland's Hope
> 
> Part 3: Charity's Code
> 
> Part 4: A Parcel for Prudence
> 
> Part 5: Grace's Ground War
> 
> Part 6: Mission of Mercy
> 
> Part 7: Flight of Faith

Inspired by real events, these are stories of Virtues & Valor.

## EXCERPT: HOMELAND'S HOPE

PLEASE enjoy this special prerelease preview of book 2 in the Virtues and Valor series, Homeland's Hope arriving in bookstores October of 2014.

### London, England, 1940

VIRGINIA Benoit sat stiffly in the wooden chair as she waited outside one of the many wooden doors with frosted window panes that graced the concrete walls in the long hallway. The hall reeked of freshly applied industrial paint. She glanced down the long hallway, seeing many more lonely ladder-backed chairs and empty wooden benches. The mint green walls bore posters from the Ministry of Health Evacuation urging parents to remove their children from London and other urban centers, posters calling for Victory, posters reminding people not to talk about their work for the Ministry of War. Regularly, people passed her in the hall; some in uniform, some in civilian clothes, always rushing.

Everyone studied her as they rushed by, often with their eyebrows knotting in confusion. Perhaps they thought her extremely overdressed to perform typical maid or janitorial duties. She could always tell when someone recognized her. The curiosity at seeing a woman of color sitting outside the door of the Special Operations Executive office changed to joy when the person realized this particular woman was THE Virginia Benoit, stage and motion picture sensation, and the darling of Paris.

Her journey to this wooden chair in this mint green hallway had taken months. She'd fled Paris by rail to Spain and from there had taken an ocean liner to northern Africa, eventually ending up in Casablanca. There, she'd performed for several weeks before getting very sick and finding herself hospitalized. While recuperating, she spent time praying and strategizing. By the time she left the hospital, she had already made plans to travel to London.

Her name and fame opened doors, and within days she had a scheduled meeting with Charlene Radden, head of a unique Special Operations division. As Virginia sat outside her office, she thought about what she would say and how she would explain her plan. Before she could decide on a good conversation starter, the heavy wooden door across the hall from her opened and a young male clerk in a crisp British military uniform waved in her direction, gesturing her inside.

She stood and ran a casual hand down the skirt of her blue silk suit, then shifted her hand to the hat perched at a daring angle on the side of her head. By touch, her appearance felt right. With a dazzling smile, she stepped forward and followed the clerk into the office.

Empty bookshelves sat behind a scarred desk. Nothing personal adorned any surface. Two posters with the 'V' for victory hung haphazardly on two of the walls. An older woman in a crisp white cotton shirt and black skirt sat at a table by the only window. Her blonde hair, cut in a bob curling under her chin, had gray streaks running through it. When she spotted Virginia, she stood and approached her.

"Miss Benoit," the older woman greeted warmly while very precisely and correctly pronouncing her name, "it is a very real pleasure to meet you. I am Charlene Radden."

She extended both of her hands, and Virginia placed her fingertips in them, returning the squeeze. "I am so thankful you agreed to see me," Virginia said in English, her voice betraying a Louisiana accent developed during her childhood on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain.

"How could one refuse to consider such an intriguing offer?" She gestured toward the table. "Come and sit down and let's talk."

Virginia perched on the edge of a wooden chair across from Charlene but did not settle back and relax. Years of stage training showed through as she sat bolt upright on the edge of the seat with her body turned at a very slight angle to the room's best light. She bent her knees, crossed her ankles, and folded her hands neatly on the scratched wooden tabletop before she spoke. "There is a Nazi General named Schmid who has confessed that he is madly in love with me."

Charlene lowered herself into her chair and looked at Virginia with wide eyes. Then she blinked and her face cleared. "Well," she said in her cultured British voice, "I must say I don't hear claims like that every day."

Virginia smiled. "I imagine not. Especially when you consider that I am not of the Arian race. Far from it, in fact." She gestured at her trim and athletic dancer's body. "In 1932, Schmid saw me perform in Morocco. He has been enamored with my stage presence ever since and arranged private meetings with me on more than one occasion."

Charlene raised an eyebrow. "I can think of a dozen ways that can help us. What I can't think of is how. After all, you're French with an American heritage. Strictly speaking, neither country is a friend of Berlin at the moment. The news is full of all the American Nazi sympathizers: Rockefeller, Hearst, Mellon, Lindburgh ...."

"Well," Virginia said on a drawn out breath, "I think I have an idea."

"Oh?"

"America has been begging me to come back. I think I can use the racial tension there to generate some really bad press that will make everyone think I'd rather be in Europe."

Charlene sat back a bit. "I'm not sure what you mean. There are no worse racists on this planet than the Nazis. I'm sure you've seen the newsreels of the Olympics a few years back."

The memory of Jesse Owens taking the gold right before the very eyes of the infuriated Führer in the very heart of his capital city brought an involuntary smile to Virginia's lips. "It was a very proud moment for me, actually."

Charlene allowed herself a mean little grin. "For me as well. Now do tell me, in your mind, how does your plan play out?"

Virginia unfolded her hands and placed them into her lap. She didn't want even a slight tremor to affect this woman's judgment about her competence or ability to pull off a dangerous mission. "There is a very well-known broadcaster in America who is vocally against the Nazi movement there in the United States and abroad. He insults Hitler throughout his show and it is the most listened to and widely heard radio show in the history of the world."

Charlene nodded. "I'm familiar ... and a bit of a fan. Do you know him personally?"

Virginia nodded. "I do. I think I can convince him to play along. He and I can stage a very public disagreement which would make me look sympathetic to Hitler's Berlin."

Charlene pursed her lips and sat back in her chair. "That may destroy any hope you have of a career in America. Or in England after the war, for that matter. Certainly wouldn't make you popular in France, either."

Virginia leaned forward and placed her palm on the table. "Mrs. Radden ...."

"It's Major, actually," Charlene corrected with a long-suffering smile. "I just don't wear the uniform when I'm in London. Loose lips and what not."

"My apologies. Major Radden, everything I hold dear has been destroyed by the Fascist war machine. I've lost my home. I've lost my work. I've lost many, many friends. I'm afraid the world will never be the same."

Without actually moving in the chair, she appeared to settle back into her seat, then casually brushed at the upswept hair at her crown. As if weighing her words carefully, she added, "I am entirely unfamiliar with your religious beliefs, Major Raddan, but speaking for myself, I feel very strongly that God has called me to do this. In light of that, I feel my reputation is a small price to pay. I am determined. If I can arrive in occupied France at the invitation of and as a trusted — friend — of General Schmid, and if I can perform for him, then I can observe all kinds of things and report to you what I see. I feel I will be ideally placed for exactly the kind of 'on the ground' reconnaissance you require. Additionally, I may have access to sensitive information the General may inadvertently disclose because he ignorantly believes the illiterate Negro girl on his arm doesn't know any better."

"It may very well cost you more than your reputation," Charlene said. She leaned back in her chair and braced her elbows on the arms, steepling her fingers. "Racial tension speaks nothing to what's brewing in the Nazi controlled territories. Our intelligence has uncovered reliable reports of the utter destruction of lives, of arrests for nothing more than the color of one's skin, and of the slow deaths of thousands by means of starvation and deprivation in the forced labor camps Hitler is building as quickly as he can fill them."

Despite the flutter of nerves, Virginia pulled strength from her core and spoke without hesitation. "General Schmid is a man of very high power and influence within the party."

Charlene nodded. "Miss Benoit, I know exactly who Schmid is and the scope of his responsibilities. Rest assured, I understand the value of the proposed target." She brought her steepled fingers to her lips and pursed them, clearly considering every angle. After several long moments, she finally spoke again. "Schmid will only be permitted to consort with you for so long before it becomes a political problem for him. No matter how much power he may wield, it will be no match against the combined hatred of the High Command. The very second the tide begins to turn, your life will be in grave danger."

Virginia lifted her chin. "Major, I'm aware of that. I'm willing to risk my life, or even sacrifice my life. I would not be here otherwise. I am willing to put my life on the line exactly as so many others are doing right now while you and I sit here safe and sound, carrying on this hypothetical conversation."

"I see." After a few more breaths and a decisive nod, without leaving her chair Charlene reached back slightly behind her and pulled open a file cabinet drawer. From within it, she withdrew a thick file and set it on the tabletop.

"I'm recruiting members for a special team. I still need a few more members with particular specialties, but I'm looking for exceptional women who can all work with or for each other. Traditionally, this hasn't worked well because of what the higher ups refer to as petty jealousies, infighting, and generally catty behavior. Therefore, this team is under a great deal of scrutiny. It will require a special type of woman. I believe you to be such a woman.

"You mentioned your faith. I think women working together in a team who have a shared sense of purpose and shared faith will be incredibly useful." She opened the file and Virginia caught a glimpse of a photograph of a very serene and proper looking blonde woman. "You can imagine there are countless missions needing to come off very quickly and immeasurable intelligence needing to be gathered if we're to actually win this war."

"Of course."

"Be honest. Do you feel Schmid might warn you if he were ordered to arrest you?"

Virginia considered the man, examined his actions and words in her mind. "I do believe he would warn me, but I don't believe he would risk completely ruining his career for me. He certainly wouldn't aid or abet my fleeing the country, for example."

"If we had sufficient warning, we would have no need of any German aid or assistance." Charlene stood. "Very well. Let's make contact with our counterparts in America and see what we must do to set this rather gigantic ball rolling. In the meantime, we'll send you to our exclusive training ground outside of Milton Keynes where you may begin your training in how we do things, and meet your counterparts of course."

Virginia stood. "Thank you, Major. I hope you won't regret this."

As Charlene walked with her toward the door, she smiled very warmly. "Somehow, I am beyond certain that I will not regret this, Miss Benoit. I've learned in my career to listen to those God sends, and I believe you are such a person. Speaking of hope, you have certainly inspired a sense of hope in me, today — hope for the war and hope for my homeland. For that, I thank you most sincerely."

# ABOUT AUTHOR HALLEE BRIDGEMAN

 HALLEE BRIDGEMAN is a best-selling Christian author who writes action-packed romantic suspense focusing on true to life characters facing real world problems. Her work has been described as everything from refreshing to heart-stopping exciting.

An Army brat turned Floridian, Hallee finally settled in central Kentucky with her family so she could enjoy the beautiful changing seasons. She enjoys the roller- coaster ride thrills that life with a National Guard husband, a teenage daughter, and two elementary age sons delivers.

When not penning novels, she blogs about all things cooking and homemaking at Hallee the Homemaker™ dot com (www.halleethehomemaker.com). Her passion for cooking spurred her to launch a whole food, real food "Parody" cookbook series. In addition to nutritious, Biblically grounded recipes, readers will find that each cookbook also confronts some controversial aspect of secular pop culture.

Hallee loves coffee, campy action movies, and regular date nights with her husband. Above all else, she loves God with all her heart, soul, mind, and strength; has been redeemed by the blood of Christ; and relies on the presence of the Holy Spirit. She prays her work here on earth is a blessing to you and would love to hear from you.

Sign up for Hallee's monthly newsletter! Every newsletter recipient is automatically entered into a monthly giveaway! The real prize is you will never miss updates about upcoming releases, book signings, appearances, or other events.

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## PERSONAL NOTE

A Note from the Author...

I'M so glad you chose to read Temperance's Trial. I pray it blessed you.

I'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment online at Hallee Bridgeman, Novelist. Your feedback inspires me and keeps me writing.

May God richly bless you,

# More Great Books by Hallee Bridgeman

by Hallee Bridgeman

Find the latest information and connect with Hallee  
at her website: <http://hallee.bridgemanfamily.com/>

FICTION BOOKS BY HALLEE:

Virtues and Valor series:

Book 1, Temperance's Trial

Book 2, Homeland's Hope

Book 3, Charity's Code

Book 4, A Parcel for Prudence

Book 5, Grace's Ground War

Book 6, Mission of Mercy

Book 7, Flight of Faith

The Jewel series:

Book 1, Sapphire Ice

Book 1.5, Greater Than Rubies (a novella inspired by the Jewel Series)

Book 2, Emerald Fire

Book 3, Topaz Heat

Christmas Diamond (Jewel Series novella inspired by the Virtues and Valor Series)

The Song of Suspense series:

Book 1, A Melody for James

Book 2, An Aria for Nick

Book 3, A Carol for Kent

Book 4, A Harmony for Steve (coming Fall 2015)

COOKBOOKS BY HALLEE:

Parody Cookbook series:

Fifty Shades of Gravy, a Christian gets Saucy

The Walking Bread, the Bread Will Rise

Iron Skillet Man, the Stark Truth about Pepper and Pots

Hallee Crockpotter and the Chamber of Secret Ingredients (coming Fall 2015)

## THE JEWEL SERIES

More Great Christian Fiction...

The Jewel Anthology  
by Hallee Bridgeman

Hallee Bridgeman's critically acclaimed best selling award winning Christian anthology, together in one book for the first time. The complete novel Sapphire Ice. Inspired by The Jewel Series, the all new novella Greater Than Rubies. The second full length novel Emerald Fire, and the final novel Topaz Heat. All works complete, uncut, and unabridged.

Sapphire Ice

**The Book Club Network's** July 2013 Book of the Month: Robin's heart is as cold as her deep blue eyes. After a terrifying childhood, she trusts neither God nor men. With kindness and faith, Tony prays for the opportunity to shatter the wall of ice around her heart.

Greater Than Rubies

2014 EPIC eBook Awards™ Finalist, **Spiritual** category: In this novella, Robin plans a dream-come-true wedding. Anxiety arises when she starts to realize the magnitude of change marriage will involve. Forgotten nightmares resurface reminding Robin of the horrors of her past. She gives in to her insecurities and cancels Boston's "Royal Wedding." With God's guidance, will her bridegroom convince her of her true worth?

Emerald Fire

**Inspirational Novel of the Year** RONE Award Finalist: Green eyed Maxine fights daily to extinguish the embers of her fiery youth. Barry's faith in God is deeply shaken when he is suddenly widowed. Just as they begin to live the "happily ever after" love story that neither of them ever dreamed could come true, a sudden and nightmarish catastrophe strikes that could wreck everything. Will her husband find peace and strength enough to carry them through the flames?

Topaz Heat

**Inspirational Novel of the Year** RONE Award Nominee: Honey eyed Sarah remembers absolutely nothing from her bloodcurdling younger years. Derrick fled a young life of crime to become a billionaire's successful protégé. After years of ignoring the heat between them they surrender to love, but must truly live their faith to see them through.

Available in eBook or Paperback wherever fine books are sold.

## SONG OF SUSPENSE SERIES

The Song of Suspense Series...

A MELODY FOR JAMES

MELODY Mason and James Montgomery lead separate lives of discord until an unexpected meeting brings them to a sinister realization. Unbeknownst to them, dark forces have directed their lives from the shadows, orchestrating movements that keep them in disharmony. Fire, loss, and bloodshed can't shake their faith in God to see them through as they face a percussive climax that will leave lives forever changed.

AN ARIA FOR NICK

ARIA Suarez remembers her first real kiss and Nick Williams, the blue eyed boy who passionately delivered it before heading off to combat. The news of his death is just a footnote in a long war and her lifelong dream to become a world class pianist is shattered along with her wrist on the day of his funeral.

Years later, Aria inadvertently uncovers a sinister plot that threatens the very foundations of a nation. Now, stalked by assassins and on the run, her only hope of survival is in trusting her very life to a man who has been dead for years.

A CAROL FOR KENT

BOBBY Kent's name is synonymous with modern Country Music and he is no stranger to running from over zealous fans and paparazzo. But he has no real idea how to protect his daughter and Carol, the mother of his only child, from a viscous and ruthless serial killer bent on their destruction.

A HARMONY FOR STEVEN

CHRISTIAN contemporary singing sensation, Harmony Harper, seeks solitude after winning her umpteenth award. She finds herself in the midst of the kind of spiritual crisis that only prayer and fasting can cure. Steve Slayer, the world renowned satanic acid rock icon, who has a reputation for trashing women as well as hotel rooms, stumbles into her private retreat on the very edge of death. In ministering to Steve, Harmony finds that the Holy Spirit is ministering to her aching soul. The two leave the wilderness sharing a special bond and their hearts are changed forever. They expect rejection back in their professional worlds. What neither of them could foresee is the chain of ominous events that threaten their very lives.

# HALLEE ONLINE

BEFORE Hallee published great Christian fiction, she was a pretty famous blogger. Catch her online for great "whole food real food" recipes, helpful tips, and inspiration.

> Hallee the Homemaker blog
> 
> www.halleethehomemaker.com/

>

> Hallee Bridgeman, Novelist blog
> 
> hallee.bridgemanfamily.com/

## NEWSLETTER

SIGN up for Hallee's monthly newsletter! Every newsletter recipient is automatically entered into a monthly giveaway! The real prize is you will never miss updates about upcoming releases, book signings, appearances, or other events.

Hallee's News Letter

<http://tinyurl.com/HalleeNews/>

# TABLE OF CONTENTS

> Temperance's Trial, a Novella
> 
> Copyright Notice
> 
> Dedication
> 
> Prologue
> 
> Chapter 1
> 
> Chapter 2
> 
> Chapter 3
> 
> Chapter 4
> 
> Chapter 5
> 
> Chapter 6
> 
> Inspired by Real Events
> 
> Translation Key
> 
> British words and phrases
> 
> French words and phrases
> 
> German words and phrases
> 
> Period Vehicles
> 
> Cast of Characters
> 
> Reader's Guide: Suggested Discussion Questions
> 
> Virtues and Valor Series
> 
> Excerpt: Homeland's Hope
> 
> About Author Hallee Bridgeman
> 
> Personal Note
> 
> More Great Books by Hallee Bridgeman
> 
> THE JEWEL SERIES
> 
> SONG OF SUSPENSE SERIES
> 
> Hallee Online
> 
> Newsletter
