Code Name Verity (18 page)

The Lancasters roared past. Maddie watched with her nose pressed to the windscreen and for a second didn't notice the passenger door being opened. Ground crew, caps pulled low and faces hidden in the wing's shadow, helped the passenger in and fastened her harness. There was no baggage apart from the indispensable gas mask in its haversack, and as usual Maddie wasn't told her special passenger's name. She saw the silhouette of a peaked WAAF cap and could sense that the passenger was hugely keyed up, taut with excitement, but it never occurred to Maddie that she might know this person. Like the SOE drivers, she had been instructed not to ask questions. Over the purr of the engine she shouted emergency exit instructions and the location of the first-aid kit.

Once airborne, Maddie didn't initiate conversation – she never did with special passengers. Nor did she point out how splendid the black and occasionally silver landscape was below them in the moonlight because she knew that part of the reason this person was being flown to her destination at night was so she couldn't guess where she was going. There was a gasp from the passenger when Maddie, all business, unclipped the Verey pistol from the side of her seat. ‘Don't worry,' Maddie shouted, ‘it's only a flare gun! I haven't got a radio. The flare lets them know we're here, if they don't hear us buzzing them and put the lights on for us.'

But Maddie didn't need to let off her firework display because after circling for a minute or two, the runway lights blazed up and Maddie put her own landing light on.

It was a straightforward landing. But not until the aircraft had come to a full stop and the engine shut down did the passenger startle Maddie by leaning over and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

‘Thank you. You are wonderful!'

The ground crew had already opened the passenger's door.

‘You should have told me it was you!' Maddie cried, as her friend gathered herself to disappear into the night.

‘I didn't like to surprise you in the air!' Queenie automatically checked that her hair was still in place and with one of her gazelle-like leaps vaulted from the plane on to the concrete. ‘I'm not used to flying and I've never had to go anywhere at night. Sorry!'

She leaned back into the cockpit for a moment – Maddie could see several figures beckoning and conferring behind her. It was nearly 2 a.m.

‘Wish me luck,' Queenie begged. ‘It's my first assignment.'

‘Good luck!'

‘I'll see you when I'm done. You're to take me home.'

Queenie vanished across the concrete, surrounded by attendants.

Maddie was given her own little guestroom in the increasingly familiar Cottage. It was odd not knowing what was going on. After a while she dozed off, and was almost instantly woken by that night's operational Lysanders returning from France with their booty of shot-down American airmen, hunted French ministers, a crate of champagne and 16 bottles of Chanel No. 5.

Maddie would not have known about the perfume except that everybody was extraordinarily punchy the next morning, perhaps due to the champagne breakfast. (Maddie, being scheduled to take off again after daybreak, prudently didn't take any champagne.) Queenie was smug as a cat and glowing with success. She looked as though she'd just won herself a gold medal at the Olympic Games. The squadron leader gave a bottle of French scent to every woman who happened to be on the airfield, including the Land Girl who turned up on her bicycle with a basket of three dozen unallocated eggs and 6 pints of milk for the Welcome-to-Freedom breakfast.

Freedom, oh, freedom. Even with the shortages, and the blackout, and the bombs, and the rules, and daily life so drab and dull most of the time – once you cross the English Channel you are free. How simple, and amazing really, that no one in France lives without fear, without suspicion. I don't mean the straightforward fear of fiery death. I mean the insidious, demoralising fear of betrayal, of treachery, of cruelty, of being silenced. Of not being able to trust your neighbour or the girl who brings you eggs. Only 21 miles from Dover. Which would you rather have – an unlimited supply of Chanel No. 5, or freedom?

Stupid question really.

I have reached the point in this account where, unavoidably, I am going to have to talk about myself
before
Ormaie. And I don't want to.

I just want to go on flying and flying in the moonlight. I dreamed I was flying with Maddie, in the five minutes or however short a time it was when there was a lull next door and I actually fell asleep. In my dream the moon was full, but it was green, bright green – I kept thinking,
We're in the limelight!
But of course limelight is white, not green – chemical lime, not citrus. This was like the light in Chartreuse liqueur, like the Green Flash, and I kept wondering, How did I escape? I couldn't remember how I got out of Ormaie. But it didn't matter, I was on my way home in Maddie's Puss Moth, I was safe and Maddie was alongside me flying confidently, and the sky was quiet and full of the beautiful green moon.

God, I'm tired. I truly shot myself in the foot again and am now being forced to regret it. I have been put back to work till whenever they run out of people to keep an eye on me. Can't decide if this is good news or bad, as I don't mind the infinite supply of paper, but I also forfeited my cabbage soup tonight and I didn't sleep much the past couple of nights either. (I do wish they'd GIVE UP on that wretched French girl. She is
never
going to tell them
anything
.)

What happened was that when they brought me in this morning, poor Fräulein Engel was sitting at the table with her back to the door, busily numbering my countless recipe cards, and I frightened the living daylights out of her by braying in a deep, stentorian voice of command and discipline,
‘Achtung, Anna Engel! Heil Hitler!'
She catapulted to her feet and threw herself into a salute that must have nearly dislocated her shoulder. I've never seen her look so white around the gills. She recovered almost immediately and smacked me so hard she knocked me over. When Thibaut picked me up, she smacked me again just for the sheer hell of it. Wow wow wow is my jaw sore. I suppose they are not planning another phoney interview.

I can never decide if it is worth it. It was a truly hilarious moment, but all I seem to have achieved this time is a totally unexpected collusion between Engel and Thibaut.

Did I call them Laurel and Hardy? I meant sodding Romeo and Juliet. This is flirting, à la Gestapo underlings:

She: Oh, you are so strong and manly, M'sieur Thibaut. Those knots you tie are so secure.

He: That is nothing. Look, I pull them so tight you cannot undo them. Try.

She: It is true, I cannot! Oh, pull them tighter!

He: Chérie, your wish is my command.

It is my ankles, not hers, which he is binding so tightly and with such masculine charm.

She: I shall have to call you in tomorrow morning as well, to do this task for me.

He: You must cross the cords, so, and knot them behind –

Me:
Squeak! Squeak!

She: Shut up and write, ya wee skrikin' Scots piece o' shite.

Well, no, she did not use those exact words. But you get the idea.

Something is Up. They have stepped up the pace a bit – not just with me. They are
relentless
with the Resistance prisoners. An inspection due, perhaps? A visit from von Linden's mysterious boss, the dreaded SS-Sturmbannführer Ferber (I picture Horns and a Forked Tail)? Perhaps he's making an inquiry into von Linden's work here; that would explain why v.L.'s got to get those notes of his in order. Trying to make himself look good.

Desperately trying to marshal my own thoughts in narrative order. I am very tired and (shall I be melodramatic about it?) rather ‘faint with hunger' – in fact I don't know if it's hunger I am faint with, but I
am
very hungry and feeling quite light-headed (I have not been allowed any more aspirin since the episode with the cognac). Perhaps Engel has given me concussion. I am going to make some lists to try to get through the next bit.

The weather at Glasgow was so dreadful that day that no one would take off and everyone was stuck there. I took the train back, but Maddie had to wait for a gap in the clouds. And sodding Glasgow
still
wasn't finished with me so I had to go back in

Feb. '43     Oakway    Glasgow    Who cares?

Mar. – 5 flights, various, all in southern England, 2 at night

April –

Oh –

RAF Special Duties, Operational Cross-Country

I did take the train to assignments too, more often than I flew. And Maddie taxied other people besides me, who in all likelihood were not doing the same work as me. But those flights I've just listed are the flights that
count
. 15 flights in 6 months. Maddie took the secrecy more seriously than I did – I was never sure how much she guessed. (Turns out, not much. She just genuinely took it seriously. After all, she started as a Clerk/Special Duties.)

On that night last April we had to go back to That Airfield, the secret one, the one the Moon Squadron uses for France. Jamie was stationed there now. Maddie was In the Know with them, and had been for some time – trusted, accepted, invited to supper that night, in fact. No supper for poor Queenie though, who was instantly whisked away by the usual mob. (Really my reception committee only consisted of about three people, including my admirer the RAF police sergeant who doubles as Security Guard and Chief Sausage Frier for The Cottage, but it feels like a mob when everyone is bigger than you and you don't know where you are being taken.) Queenie had a small travelling case which she left with Maddie, and from experience Maddie knew she wouldn't see her friend again until at least tomorrow morning. Maddie went to supper with the pilots.

It wasn't something she did often, you know – once in a season, perhaps – and it was special because Jamie was there. In fact he was about to go on a drop-off and pick-up mission that night, a ‘double Lysander operation' as they called it, two pilots flying two planes to the same field. There was a third plane taking off with them, taking advantage of the moon, but not technically operational – a new squadron member doing his first cross-country training flight to France. He'd part company with the others over the Channel. He'd fly into France on his own for a bit, then turn back without landing.

This young fellow – let's call him Michael (after the youngest of the Darling children in
Peter Pan
!) – was quite nervous about his navigation skills. Like Jamie, he'd previously been a bomber pilot and had always had a navigator sitting next to him telling him where to go, and also he'd only flown his first Lysander a month ago. His mates were full of sympathy, having all been through it themselves. Maddie was not.

‘You've been practising on Lizzies for a
month
!' she said scornfully. ‘Crumbs, how long does it
take
? The instruments are the same whether you're flying a Barracuda dive-bomber or a clapped-out old Tiger Moth, and the flaps are automatic! Easy peasy!'

They all gave her Looks.

‘You go on and fly to France then,' said Michael.

‘I would if you'd let me,' she said enviously (not remembering about anti-aircraft guns and night fighters).

‘Ah ken what t' dooo,' drawled Jamie, The Pobble Who Has No Toes, dragging out his vowels to make them exaggeratedly Scots. ‘Tak' the wee lassie alang.'

Maddie felt as though she'd been struck by lightning. She looked up at him and saw the familiar, faint lunacy shining in Jamie's eyes. She knew better than to say anything herself – either the Pobble would win on her behalf, or she couldn't go.

The others laughed and argued briefly. The English SOE agent who was being dropped off that night was disapproving. The Moon Squadron pilots, of necessity a bunch of giddy lunatics, put it to their leader as a proposition. He was clearly torn, but chiefly because Michael was supposed to be solo that night.

‘She won't be helping him fly the plane in the back of a Lysander, will she!'

‘She could tell him what to do. Keep him straight if he goes off course.'

Jamie pushed his empty plate away and leaned back in his chair, his hands behind his head, and gave a low whistle.

‘Ooo-ee! Arrre you suggestin' she's a superior pilot to oorrr Michael?'

They all gazed at Maddie, sitting quietly in her civilian uniform, looking very trim and official with her gold wings and gold stripes (she was a First Officer by now). The only person whose eyes she dared to meet were those of the agent who was going to be dropped off that night. He was shaking his head in defeated disapproval as much as to say, If You Must, My Lips Are Sealed.

‘I've no doubt she's a superior pilot,' the squadron leader said.

‘Well, what in creation is she doing ferrying clapped-out Tiger Moths about in that case? Give the Bloody Machiavellian English Intelligence Officer a ring and get permission,' Jamie suggested.