On Ken Follet's “Jackdaws”

Diana was too grand to do the menial war work that most women were offered. “Well, I’m here to propose something more interesting.” ……“Flick, darling, don’t tell me you’re involved in cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

In Jackdaws (JD), Ken Follet (KF) created an outstanding World War II thriller, resplendent with drama, action, emotion, and a patriotic passion among its ubiquitous and stirring fem fatales. JD, a historical novel, is the story of how an “all-female” special operations team planned and executed the destruction of a Gestapo communications centre in France, right on the eve of D-Day.

The title of the novel is actually the code name of the small all women squad, created and run under the supervision of Felicity Clairet, alias Flick, a British army Major. Though a fiction, JD mimics the true story of fifty women spies who were sent to France on a very similar mission. Flick, on lines akin, has imaged very closely the real life of Pearl Witherington. With Flick KF has sketched a hero; let me cite one of the triumphs of Flick over her strongest enemies, when she had succeeded in deceiving him aptly: “The infuriating possibility had already begun to dawn on Dieter. He knew from bitter experience that Flick Clairet was a master of deception. Had she fooled him again?”

There is more to Follet’s mesmerizing string of characters in this novel than just Flick and her viscous and strongest German rival Major Dieter Franck. Her bevy of jackdaws were 1) Honourable Diana Colefield, the baron’s sister and a ‘crackshot’, 2) Gerhard alias Greta, the lesbian telephone engineer in the team, charged to tell them exactly where to place the chargers so as to cripple the exchange, 3) Geraldine “Jelly” Knight, the explosives expert, and 4) Ruby Romain, known as a ‘violent prisoner’ and a ruthless killer, was also an able soldier and an adorable wit. Flick’s squad was trained for the purpose in a jiffy of two days and they mastered shots and parachutes all at once.

Women had contributed immensely and with all their might in the war effort and KF has succeeded in establishing this fact par excellence in this creation, which I would not hesitate to designate as a literary masterpiece. “She was alert, her heart pounding, her muscles tensed for action, but in her brain the blood flowed like ice water.” The precise and picturesque narrative style and the fictional backdrop created by the author have borne consistently the added passion and suspense, which demarcates this piece from any other war document.