Madeleine's War: A Novel, by Peter Watson
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Madeleine's War: A Novel, by Peter Watson
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A compulsively readable blend of romance and drama based on actual events in Britain and France leading up to D-Day in 1944 Matthew Hammond is a British military officer posted to the European theater during World War II. He sustained a serious injury on the front lines, so bad, in fact, that it cost him a lung. Now he is back in England, unable to fight, but he continues to serve his country by training new resistance fighters. One of the recruits under his command is Madeleine, a spellbinding, impassioned French-Canadian with eyes the “burnished brown of whiskey.” Despite military convention discouraging romance, they fall deeply in love, and Matthew is torn about putting Madeleine’s life in danger. He already has one tragic affair with a Resistance fighter burdening his heart—his former lover, Celestine, was killed because her assassination of a German doctor went awry. But the Allies are mustering all their resources for crucial beach landings in Normandy, and Matthew knows his unit will need to play a role. It will be a very dangerous mission: parachuting Madeleine in behind the Nazi lines. As she progresses through the training with her fellow recruits, Matthew can only hope that the skills he has taught her will keep her safe when the drop finally arrives. Drawing on true historical events, Watson delivers a tense, vivid tale of love during wartime, when the fates of men and women are caught in the sweep of history.
Madeleine's War: A Novel, by Peter Watson- Amazon Sales Rank: #1176072 in Books
- Brand: Watson, Peter
- Published on: 2015-06-02
- Released on: 2015-06-02
- Format: Deckle Edge
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.53" h x 1.39" w x 6.63" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 384 pages
Review "Watson's use of detail, down to the crinkle-free silk writing pads sewn into agents' clothes, heightens the atmosphere of intrigue ... [a] mix of romance and risk makes for a heady cocktail sure to be savored by historical-fiction readers."—Booklist"A love story born in the grimness of wartime, Madeleine’s War vibrates with the authenticity that only a master historian can provide. A well-told tale that will grip readers from start to finish."—Kate Alcott, New York Times bestselling author of The Dressmaker and A Touch of Stardust"Drawing on his rich understanding of twentieth century European history, Peter Watson brilliantly captures the tense months in England leading up to D-Day. He weaves a thrilling story around the training of a spy, the uses of code, the meaning of deception and betrayal, and the conflict of loyalties, be they patriotic, official, personal, or emotional. Part spy novel, part history, and part love story, Madeleine’s War is engaging on every level. I loved it."—Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta
About the Author Peter Watson is a well-known and respected historian whose books are published in seventeen languages. He was educated at the Universities of Durham, London, and Rome, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and numerous publications in the United Kingdom. Since 1998 he has been a research associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge. He has written two previous novels, Gifts of War and The Clouds Beneath the Sun, under the pen name Mackenzie Ford.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1I remember that day so well--late May 1944, early evening. As Winston Churchill himself said in another context, it was both the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the end.Southwater. A small Sussex village, made up of barely more than one street, with white-painted houses set back from the road, a pebble-faced church, a stone-built school, a pub--the Black Prince, which looked appetizing though we never had time to visit it--and a roped-off cricket field which bordered the road, where play sometimes stopped the traffic on match days, when the ball was hit beyond the boundary.The airfield, which was our only reason for visiting Southwater, was well hidden, beyond the village, off the Chichester road. The lane by which it was approached wound round and dipped through a copse of beech trees--until you were again facing the village, but viewed from behind. The loamy field, flat on its northern reaches, and edged by a line of hawthorn, rolled away to give at its southern limit a fine view of the Sussex Downs, Pevensey in the distance, and beyond that, on a clear day, a very clear day . . . France itself.There was a hangar of sorts at one end of the field. Just brick walls with a corrugated iron roof, and an abandoned concrete bunker, which had, in an earlier era of the war, stood ready to resist invasion.Madeleine and I were lying on the grass, waiting. Waiting for the pilot and waiting for the moon. These were our last hours together, at least for now. She was wearing a blue dress with small white flowers printed across it, a dress made in the French style in our London factory, in keeping with her cover. There was a single row of pearls at her neck, and a leather shoulder bag lay on the grass beside her. She wore flat shoes. Her hair fluttered and flowed out behind her in the wind. Her gypsy hair, as I sometimes called it--her Botticelli hair, long, auburn, and unruly-curly, floating about the goddess in The Birth of Venus--was her most distinctive feature. She was forever pulling it away from her face, or gathering it up to let the back of her neck breathe.She loved her hair, though she knew it was always going to be in the way. She was tall, but not too tall, and when she raised her arms to pull back her hair, whatever blouse or shirt or frock she was wearing tightened over her breasts. Her skin was paper white, and her lips more creamy brown than red. In the early evening light, she stood out--she shone--like a stained-glass figure on a dim church wall.Across the field, to our left, the roofs of Southwater mingled with the trees, soon to be lost in the gloom.Madeleine leant across and kissed my cheek. She had a slender, wispy figure, like those Debenham’s models pictured in the newspapers. She often held her lips slightly open, as if she were out of breath, or having second thoughts about saying something. Her eyes were the burnished brown of whisky (whisky is my main vice). When she was astonished, or amused, or aroused, her eyelashes settled on her cheeks like bird’s feet on sand.“Will you miss me?”“Silly question. Let’s go through your poem again.”She rolled back on the grass and shook her head. “No need. I haven’t forgotten it.” She squinted at the sky. “What time does the moon rise?”I looked at my watch. “Half an hour, forty minutes.”“Why did we get here so early?”“Regulations. Nothing last-minute. So your mind is settled before you go. So you don’t forget anything. You’ve got your instructions, sewn in as you were told?”She picked up my hand and kissed it. Her lips were warm and wet. “I think you are more nervous than I am. And I’m the one going.”“Don’t unstitch the instructions until you hear from us. Just in case you are caught and tortured . . . It’s safer for you not to know things before you have to.”“You are nervous, aren’t you?”“I’ve been there--you know that. I know what it’s like on the ground in France, how dangerous it is, what the risks are. I’m right to be nervous. It helps to be a little bit nervous--it stops you getting slack.”At that moment we heard a car.We scrambled to our feet. The car emerged from the copse of trees in the lane, its headlights already blazing, and then the lights started bobbing and weaving as the car slowed and drove across the grass of the field. Although the colour had gone out of the day, I recognized the vehicle as a Morris, standard issue for the Royal Air Force.We watched as the car was parked next to my Lagonda, the engine was switched off, and the driver got out. He came towards us. I recognized him.“Jack!” I cried. “Matthew Hammond. Matt Hammond. Remember me?--Drucourt, forty-two.”He looked at me in the gathering gloom. He was a compact man, muscular and sinewy.He held out his hand. “Of course, of course. How’s the wound?”“I’ll live, but I’ve been grounded.”“Chest wound, wasn’t it? Shrapnel.”“You’ve got a good memory.”“And?”“I lost a lung, had to give up sabotage--and tobacco, of course, or that’s what I told the quack. All the rest is working, though. For now at least. And you’re still flying.”He smiled. “Shot down once, over Valençay. Managed to parachute to safety, then got away along a ratline.” He nodded. “So here we are, still at war.”“Where’s the rest of your squadron?”“Five miles away. On a field four times as big as this one, with a concrete strip.” He looked about him. “This is much better for what we are about to do tonight.” Looking at Madeleine, he went on. “And this is tonight’s mission?”He and Madeleine shook hands.“Hello,” she said. “I’m--”“Don’t tell me,” he said quickly. “It’s safer for us all if I don’t know.” He looked at me. “It will take me half an hour to get ready. These Lysanders need TLC. By then the moon should be on the rise. Does that give you long enough?”“Oh yes,” I said. “We’re ready now.”“I’ll be as quick as I can.” And he walked off towards the hangar.“How long will the flight be, do you think?” said Madeleine.I stroked her hair. “Le Gavre is north of Nantes and inland from St. Nazaire--about five hundred and fifty miles direct but probably nearer to seven hundred with the route you will take. Close to four hours in the air, I’d say.”She looked up at me. The cleft in her chin formed a tiny shadow. “Do you really think the invasion will come from the Atlantic?”“I don’t know where the invasion will take place, or when. It will be soon, we know that, but exactly when . . .” I shook my head again. “You could be going to help the Resistance play their part when the invasion starts--or you could be a decoy. None of us knows.”“I hope I’m not a decoy,” she sighed. “Not after all this training.”Her voice matched her height and figure--rich, deep, with that French-Canadian lilt she had picked up at school in Quebec.“Being a decoy would be safer.”She shook her head vehemently. “Stop trying to reassure me! That’s not what I want. Imagine life after the war and not having . . . not having been in any danger.”“Talking like that is a danger.”“You’ve been in danger, you’ve got your wound.”I let a pause go by. “You were right earlier--I am more nervous than you. If you are not on your toes the whole time . . . I messed up. I don’t want that to happen to you.” I gestured to Jack, now making noises in the hangar. “We’ve got half an hour. Let’s go for a stroll over the field.”The dark had descended completely now and as we walked away from the hangar, the night closed in around us. I put my arm around Madeleine’s shoulders and buried my face in her hair. The soft sweetness of her scent rose to meet me, the muskiness I had first breathed in Scotland weeks before when she was training in Ardlossan and I was part of the instructor course.“I won’t go on,” I said as softly as I could, “but if the worst happens and you do get caught . . . If they can prove you are what you are, then they can execute you. They will probably torture you before--”She stopped, disengaged herself from under my arm, turned and put her fingers to my lips. “We’ve been through all this, hundreds of times.” She tapped her pocket. “I’ve got the pill we are all given.” She kissed me. “I’ll use it. I’ve told you before, I’m not sleepwalking here. I know what I’m doing and why. And you know why too. Stop treating me as if I’m--I don’t need to say that again, either.”She looked up at me. “Just think. If I hadn’t injured my knee, all those years ago, I might have been a proper dancer by now, entertaining the troops somewhere, in Italy or the Middle East.”She had fallen, as a young member of the corps de ballet, and broken her patella.“And we might never have met.”She kissed the tip of my nose. “You might have come to see me dance--hung around the stage door.”“I don’t like queues.” I grinned.We walked on a bit, further into the field, arm in arm.“I wonder what Leni’s doing tonight?” Madeleine breathed. “Dinner à deux with Herr Hitler, or filming a night scene somewhere?”Since Madeleine had discovered that the German film-maker had also begun adult life as a dancer, and then damaged her knee, she had followed Leni Riefenstahl’s progress as she grew more famous and got closer and closer to Hitler. She was a walking archive of the details of Riefenstahl’s life.“Maybe she’s too close to Hitler,” I replied. “If Germany loses this war, she could end up in prison.”“Do you think so? I suppose she is the most well-known woman in the Third Reich. That’s an achievement of sorts.”Off to our left, a full moon was rising, silvery, slightly mottled, like an old coin, rendering the sky about it a deep indigo.“Is that the last full moon before the invasion?” she asked.I nodded. “There’s a good chance, I would say. Better than fifty-fifty.”I didn’t tell her that I had sent more agents abroad in the past ten days than at any time previously. Tonight was unusual in that only Madeleine was going, but then I had had some say in that. If she had to go--and I knew she had to go, though it devastated me--I wanted her to myself at the last moments. The evening before I had seen off four, and five the night before that. Tomorrow three would be going. Anyone in the know could read the signs.“And do you think . . .” Her voice caught. “Do you think it will be the last full moon I shall ever see?”“Don’t,” I breathed.It was the only time I ever knew her to show any doubt about what she was doing.“Time to go back, I think,” she said in the same Quebecois tones. “Time for the Oak to fly.”“Just a second.” I put my hand on her arm and with the other took a small package from my pocket. “This is for you.”She looked up at me, her lips slightly parted, in that way that she had.“Matt,” she said softly, her voice lingering on the last letters of my name. Her fingers pulled at the tissue paper.The paper fell open.“Oh. Oh, yes! Of course, how like you. An acorn, a gold acorn.” She held it in the palm of her hand. “It’s beautiful, beautifully made--how lovely. I shall wear it always. No one will ever guess.”She stood on tiptoe and kissed my cheek.“I found it in a shop near Hatton Garden and couldn’t resist it. I thought . . . I thought . . . You know what I thought.”She pinned the brooch to her coat.“I’m overwhelmed,” she whispered. “Until this war ends, only you and I will know what this means. Our own wartime secret.”“If you get captured, throw it away. That’s an order.” I smiled.“I don’t think I have ever disobeyed you before, Colonel,” she said. “But the Oak is not going anywhere without this acorn, not even if she gets captured.”She patted her hand over the brooch. “I already feel warm inside, just here.”She kissed my cheek again. “Let’s go back now. Now I’m ready for anything. Ready for take-off.”As we approached the hangar, the bark of the Lysander’s engine suddenly broke across the field as it erupted into life.Madeleine picked up her shoulder bag and her other case, containing her change of clothing and her radio transmitter. The tone of the plane’s engine rose and then fell, as Jack eased the Lysander out from under the hangar. He taxied a few yards forward, then stopped and killed the engine.Silence closed in around us. How far from the war we seemed just then.Jack got down from the plane and stepped across. He held something out to Madeleine.“This is a map--once we get aloft, there’ll be enough moonlight to read by. You can follow our route--west, more or less, to the Cherbourg peninsula, then south. Three hours and forty minutes if the wind holds steady.”Madeleine took the map.“Now, let me see you into your parachute.”I stood and watched as he helped Madeleine fasten the straps in the correct configuration.When it was fitted, she turned to me. She pulled her hair off her face again and kissed me on the cheek. “Don’t wish me luck,” she urged. “Don’t say anything. Let these be my last words.” Her voice fell to a murmur. “Le chene, je t’aime toujours.”She brushed her lips across my cheek. A surge of desire rushed through my veins. How long before that would happen again?“I love you. I love you always.” She pressed a small packet into my hand. “Don’t open it until I’ve taken off.”Turning quickly, she moved towards the plane.Jack helped her up and in, stowed her bags, and lifted her made-in-France bicycle behind her. Then he hauled himself into the pilot’s seat and all too quickly restarted the engine. In what seemed like no time the Lysander was taxiing towards the end of the field.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. The first half is slow and overly explanatory By Maine Colonial Author Peter Watson bases his story on the real-life young men and women recruited by Churchill's Special Operations Executive to be parachute-dropped behind enemy lines. Their orders were to "set Europe ablaze" by helping the Resistance and sending intelligence back to England. The likelihood of an SOE agent living through the war was only 50/50, so it's all the more impressive how many young people volunteered eagerly, knowing the chances of being captured, tortured and killed.Watson fictionalizes the SOE as SC2, and uses other fictional stand-ins for real-life SOE personalities. But his descriptions of training methods and the details of SOE espionage techniques are based on reality.Matt Hammond is an SC2 operative who was injured in France and smuggled home. Now missing a lung, he can't go back into the field, so he's now a trainer for new agents. Madeleine is the recruit he falls in love with, and they have an idyllic few weeks together before she is sent to France, very shortly before D-Day.When Madeleine's contacts with SC2 stop, Matthew is filled with fear that she has been captured by the Nazis. As France is in the process of liberation, he has the chance to go there on a mission and to combine that with his search for her.The story plods for its first half, until Matt heads off to France. After that, it's far more engaging, and sometimes even exciting. Watson is a historian, and it's understandable that he wants to incorporate his knowledge in the plot. Sometimes he does it seamlessly, as when Matt explains coding techniques to the recruits. Other times, though, it's way too didactic and drags the story's pace down to a crawl.It was particularly odd when Watson had Matt tell Madeleine in 1943 that after the war, "TV" would likely replace newspapers, and that people would get rid of private medicine because they wouldn't stand for the social divisions that existed before the war. Well, it's true that Britain went Labor in a big way after the war and socialized medicine, but what does that little history lesson have to do with this story? And did the British ever refer to television as TV? Bits like this were distracting and they made me feel like Matt was a bit of a "mansplainer" as they're called these days.I wasn't ever able to warm up to Matt as a character, which is too bad, considering the story is told entirely from his point of view. It also annoyed me no end that Matt remarks on Madeleine's whisky-brown eyes at least a dozen times, and probably more.To be fair, I'm pretty hard on novels based on the SOE. It's one of my favorite reading subjects and I've read so many fiction and non-fiction books about SOE agents and operations that I am probably overly critical. At this point, maybe I should stick to reading non-fiction, but it's hard for me to resist anything about the subject.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Very believable fiction, based on true events By Nancy I have been on a World War II history kick ever since the book and movies, “Flags of our Fathers.” My Dad served in that war, but he never wanted to talk about it. I suspect he wanted to forget.Peter Watson masterfully tells the story of Matthew Hammond, the British military officer who trains new resistance fighters. Matthew falls in love with Madeleine, a French-Canadian, who is training to be a resistance fighter. She will be dropped behind the Nazi lines in France.Why I love this book:* I learned so much about the war. I had vaguely heard about the resistance fighters, but I never really knew who they were and what they did. They put their lives at risk just as much as the brave soldiers fighting on the front lines.* The intrigues were brought to life. How fascinating to read about the spies and subterfuge.* The humanity of the war. Well, maybe humanity isn’t quite the right word to describe war, but Peter gives a very human face to the brave souls who fought this war. I couldn’t put the book down.* A timeless love story. Who couldn’t fall for a love story? Matthew is brought to life. He loves Madeleine; he has serious doubts about Madeleine and is afraid she might be a German spy.* The element of mystery. Who is Madeleine? What’s her real story? I couldn’t stop reading so I could learn the truth about her.If you are looking for a book that will engross you and help you learn something about World War II, you will enjoy this book!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. authentic, fact-based WWII historical novel with some romance thrown in By The Good Life I am a WWII novel buff and enjoy reading novels set in Europe during the war. Each one I've read has had a slightly different perspective and this was one of the more fascinating novels, since it was written from the perspective of a British colonel who was training spies to work with the Résistance in France prior to the Allied invasion.Colonel Matthew Hammond served in France earlier in the war, was injured and lost a lung, and was reassigned to a training facility in a remote coastal area in Scotland. There, they identify suitable recruits who could be trained to aid the Résistance in sabotage, communications, intelligence, and infiltration into the Gestapo. In the process, he meets Madeleine Dirac, a recruit who isn't just the best in her group, she's also a beauty who catches his eye and eventually, his heart. As training winds down, he gives in to his building desire and begins a clandestine affair with her, which they can be public about once they return to London. In London, she awaits her assignment while he is in charge of local transmissions to and from the field. Their relationship develops steadily and he begins to question whether he's comfortable sending her into harm's way. His worst fears are realized when she is selected for an extremely dangerous mission after SC2, their secret spy organization (it's the real British SOE from the war), discovers that at least two of their circuits have been compromised and/or turned by the Gestapo.For the first few months of her deployment, Madeleine is the perfect spy, following protocol to the letter and delivering valuable intelligence information. But shortly after the Allied invasion, they learn they have a mole, a double agent, who is compromising their efforts. As they discover that more circuits have been penetrated and are trying to warn Madeleine not to connect with hers, SC2 receives an incomplete transmission from her -- and they never hear from her again. Matt is eventually sent into France to locate her and 115 other missing spies, and he discovers that most were captured, tortured and executed. It appears that Madeleine is one of them, but he can't be sure and is determined to find out what happened to her. Some evidence appears to indicate SHE might be the mole, and he wrestles with this possibility as much as he does with the likelihood she is dead. At the same time, he's on a top secret mission, ordered by Churchill himself, but if I told you about it, it would be a spoiler!While the story lags in a few areas, overall, it's a solid novel that kept me turning the pages. I HAD to know whether Madeleine was a double agent and if she was still alive. I felt for Matt, who'd fallen hard for her but was also a total pro at his job, very good at strategy and outwitting the Germans. His character was well developed, but Madeleine's deliberately was not, so that the reader suspects along with Matt that she might be a double agent. She appears legit, but is she? I wondered this the moment we learned there was a mole and kept wondering until they very end. It was a well-executed sub plot and definitely heightened the drama, especially for Matt, who did not confide his suspicions in anyone.Some reviewers found the training section of the book a bit boring, but I found it fascinating. The techniques and strategies Hammond taught the recruits were real military techniques, and since the author, Peter Watson, is an acclaimed historian, he certainly knows his history and brought it into not just the training portion of the story, but all aspects of the story. This was one of the most authentic war novels I've read, and I was glad that he included an addendum to explain to the reader what the factual elements were in the story (I always wonder that about historical fiction, but most authors don't fess up). He deftly wove fact with a fictionalized account of British spy efforts during the war. There was a lot of substance amidst the romance.All in all, it's a great historical novel with real military strategy and tactics, and I'd definitely recommend it to my fellow WWII buffs. I agree with others that calling it "Madeleine's War" isn't fitting since the story was entirely from Matt's perspective, but "Matt's War" doesn't sound very enticing!
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