“Traditionally,” Purnell notes, “British secret services had drawn from a shallow gene of posh boys raised on imperial adventure stories” (much like the British acting profession today), and many new recruits backed away in horror on learning that they were essentially expected to become assassins. But outdated sensitivities came to her aid. The Special Operations Executive, or S.O.E., had a remit to “set Europe ablaze,” and while Hall seemed an ideal candidate - as a neutral American, she could travel around France quite openly - many barriers remained, not least her sex. And yet the prosthetic replacement she dubbed “Cuthbert” didn’t prevent her from becoming an ambulance driver in France when the war broke out nor slow her down when a chance encounter put her in touch with the man setting up a new British secret service.
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