Ken Byrns

A Spy Sat Down Beside Her Ken Byrns

Late 1940. Hitler''s armies are ravaging Europe. Ian Steele and Margaret Whitcombe of the British Secret Intelligence Service, meet in London, fall in love. They are soon separated. Margaret is assigned to SIS, Zurich, and Ian parachutes into Occupied France to gather intelligence for the British. The lovers meet again in Tours, where jointly they have taken on a special mission upon the personal orders of Winston Churchill. They are in an unending battle with the Gestapo but manage to elude the Nazi patrols with the help of members of the French Resistance, many who die for their beliefs. Their mission takes them through the death Swamps of Poitou to the Bay of Biscay, where a British submarine picks up Margaret, but Ian is left behind. The Gestapo capture him, gun him down, leave him for dead, but he is rescued by French peasants. When Margaret, at SIS London, doesn''t hear from Ian, she, disguised as a nun, returns to Tours to look for him. She learns that French collaborators have put Ian in a Toulouse prison. She vows to free him.