Code Name Verity(104)

Burning burning burning burning –

Behead me or hang me

That will never fear me

I’ll burn Auchindoon

Ere my life leave me

Ormaie is still on fire in my head. But I am in England.

I am back in England.

You know – perhaps I will be court-martialled. Perhaps I will be tried for murder and hanged. But all I feel is relief – relief – as though I’ve been underwater and breathing through a straw for the last two months, and now I have my head in the air again. Gulping in long, sweet lungfuls of it, cold, damp, December air, smelling of petrol and coal smoke and freedom.

The irony is, I’m not free. I am under house arrest here in The Cottage at the Moon Squadron aerodrome. I am locked in my usual bedroom, the one I used to share with Julie, and I have a guard beneath my window too. Don’t care – feels like freedom. If they hang me they will do it cleanly, break my neck instantly, and I will deserve it. They won’t make me betray anyone. They won’t make me watch it happening to anyone else. They won’t incinerate my body and turn it into soap. They’ll make sure Granddad knows what happened.

Julie’s Bloody Machiavellian Intelligence Officer has been sent for so he can interview me. I trust he will do it without resorting to a soldering iron and ice water and pins. Cups of tea, perhaps. I dread my interrogation for a number of reasons, but I’m not afraid of it.

Can’t believe how safe I feel here. Don’t care if I am a prisoner. Just feel so safe.

Incident Report No 2

Successful sabotage and destruction of Gestapo Headquarters, Chateau de Bordeaux Building, Ormaie, France – 11 Dec. 1943

My reports are so rubbish.

I know the Allied Forces are planning a proper invasion of Occupied Europe with tanks and planes and gliders full of commandos, but when I think of France being liberated I picture an avenging army arriving on bicycles. That is how we all came into Ormaie on Saturday night, all of us from different directions, all with our baskets and panniers crammed with home-made bombs. The sirens didn’t go till after curfew and we all did a lot of nervous skulking – I bet there was an explosive bicycle behind every single newspaper kiosk in Ormaie – I myself lay underneath a lorry for at least two hours with one of Mitraillette’s mates. Thank goodness for Jamie’s boots.

We had to blow the back gate open – bit of a risk, but there was no one about once the air raid was under way, and of course we had the key to let ourselves in after that. It was the blasted dogs I was dreading coming face to face with more than anything else. Poor old dogs, not really their fault. I needn’t have worried, as Mitraillette was merciless.

I feel like I should write in objective detail. But there’s not much to report. We were fast and efficient, we knew exactly where to go – we operated in teams of 2 or 3 and each team had its own specific section and assignment – shoot the dogs, unlock the doors, corral the prisoners, unload the bombs. Get the hell out. I’d say we were in and out in half an hour. Certainly no more than three-quarters of an hour – not too many prisoners to release, as it’s not technically a prison – 17 in all. No women. But –

I did this on purpose, I assigned myself and my partner to free whoever was in Julie’s cell. I hadn’t really thought about what it would mean to have to walk through that interrogation room it is attached to –

Thankfully there was no one there, but oh – I can hardly bear to think about it. How it stank. It makes me retch just remembering. We walked in and it hit us in the face and for a moment I couldn’t do anything except gasp and try not to be sick, and the French lad with me staggered a bit and grabbed me to support himself. Of course we were operating by the light of electric torches, so we couldn’t really see anything – dim outlines of institutional furniture, steel chairs and tables and a couple of cabinets, nothing obviously sinister, but oh, it was the most sick-making, hellish stench I’ve ever breathed – like a full privy, but also ammonia and rotten meat and burnt hair and vomit and – no, it was indescribable and it’s making me want to throw up again writing about it. It wasn’t till afterwards that I even thought about Julie having to live with that smell for eight weeks – no wonder they scrubbed her up before letting her meet Penn – anyway we didn’t think about anything but getting out of there as fast as we could without suffocating. Pulled our coats up over our noses and got to work on the door of Julie’s cell, and we dragged its bewildered inhabitant out with us through that horrible room and into the corridor.