The Undaunted

The Delicate Female Apparatus

As May wore on, Jenny and Martha, still shackled to London by the Public Relations Office, made it their business to sit at the bar at the Savoy almost every minute of every day so they could eavesdrop on any conversation that might give them a clue as to what was going on and how to get themselves attached to the invasion fleet. Martha was also doing her best to avoid Hemingway, who was at the Dorchester, thankfully, but he had developed a nasty habit of accosting her in hallways and remonstrating with her in a loud and drunken fury. All the more reason to get back over to the Continent, Jenny reasoned.

It was in the bar that they first heard about parachute school.

"I wonder why we haven't been invited to parachute school," Jenny said, smiling sweetly at the two male correspondents who were having the conversation that had peaked Martha and Jenny's interest.

Martha stood up and slid into the booth beside the men. "I have a story for you," she said to them, suggestively.

The men looked from Martha to Jenny, and Jenny knew they were trying to decide which one they have the most chance of fucking later if this went the way they thought it would. It won't, Jenny wanted to say, but she and Martha needed information and if that meant trading on the fact that they were women, then that's what they do.

"Did you know," Martha said flirtatiously, smiling her beautiful smile, her pale blonde hair curling sweetly around her face, "that the powers that be have just ordered eight gross of rubbers for the correspondents?"

"Only for the photographers," Jenny quickly clarified gesturing towards herself, turning on her magazine smile and trying not to laugh. It was true; more than 1,000 condoms had been ordered for the press, but they were to protect the films they would take in France, rather than protect the photographers against VD and pregnancy. But these men didn't know that. "Perhaps you should learn to take pictures, Martha, so you'll be as well-equipped as I am."

"Perhaps I should," Martha agreed. "I don't suppose either of you gentlemen are photographers?"

The men stared at the two women in stunned silence for a few seconds before replying in the negative, clearly regretful and also titillated by the conversation.

Martha sighed dramatically. "Too bad. But perhaps you have some other interesting stories to share. How about I buy everyone a whiskey and you tell us a little more about parachute school?"

Martha and Jenny had seated themselves strategically. The correspondents they had chosen were as green as children on their first day at school, having arrived in London the previous week. They still thought free whiskey and two women were prizes worth having and had no idea the prize came with a price.

And they had probably heard Warren's stories about Jenny and hoped that a bedroom digestif might be the outcome of this cozy chat.

One of the men leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, "The public relations guys are in a jam. There are more correspondents wanting to go with the invasion fleet than there are places. So, they thought they could drop some of the men in by parachute. You need to do five training jumps, so they're sending any man who's interested to parachute school in a village called Chilton Foliat."

"So that's where Joe Dearing vanished too," Martha mused, the Collier's photographer having been missing for a couple of days on sanctioned business.

"You haven't heard the best part," the other man jumped in, eyeing Jenny, and she let him sit closer than was comfortable because she was as keen as Martha to hear the rest. "Andre Robard had a party on the weekend and he, Joe Miller and Billy Monsour got themselves as full as ticks on champagne," he said. "They had signed a contract with one of the PROs at the party, saying they'd go with him at 11:00 the next morning to do their training jumps. Only the press guy turns up to collect them and there's no sign of either guy. They can't find them anywhere."