Code Name Verity(37)

The weather cooperated for her, but the Lysander fought her for nearly two hours. When she tried to land at Elmtree, she misjudged the amount of runway she was going to need. Hands and wrists aching with the effort of keeping the control column far enough forward to land, Maddie took off again without touching down, and had to come in over the runway twice more before she got it right. But she landed safely at last.

I sound so authoritative! It must be the immediate effect of the aspirin. Imagine if you gave me Benzedrine. (And I still crave coffee.)

Maddie, also craving coffee, went to scrounge a sandwich from the workshop canteen, and found another ferry pilot there ahead of her – tall, square-faced, with dark brown hair shorter than Maddie’s, in uniform navy slacks and tunic with the double gold shoulder stripes of a First Officer. For a moment Maddie was confused, thinking that, like Queenie, she was seeing ghosts.

‘Lyons!’ Maddie exclaimed.

The pilot looked up, frowned and answered tentatively, ‘Brodatt?’

Then Maddie saw it wasn’t the vicar’s son who used to fly at Maidsend before being shot down and incinerated in flaming petrol over the South Downs last September, but someone who clearly must be his twin sister. Or an ordinary sister anyway. They stared at each other in bewilderment for a moment. They had never met.

The other girl beat her to the question. ‘But how do you know my name?’

‘You look exactly like your brother! I was a WAAF at Maidsend with him. We used to talk about maps – he wouldn’t ever dance!’

‘That was Kim,’ said the girl, smiling.

‘I liked him. I’m sorry.’

‘My name’s Theo.’ She offered Maddie her hand. ‘I’m in the women’s ferry pool at Stratfield.’

‘How do you know my name?’ Maddie asked.

‘It’s chalked up on the assignment board in the radio room,’ First Officer Lyons said. ‘We’re the only ATA pilots here today. They usually send girls in the Lysanders – the lads all want something faster. Have a sandwich. You look like you could use one.’

‘I’ve never flown a Lysander before,’ said Maddie, ‘and I wish I never would again. This one just about killed me.’

‘Oh, you brought in the faulty tailplane! It’s terribly unfair of them to give you a broken Lizzie on your first go. You must have another go immediately, flying one that works.’

Maddie took the offered half-sandwich – bully beef straight from the tin as usual. ‘Well, I have to, I suppose,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to take one from here down to its normal base this afternoon. It’s not top priority, but it’s got one of those S chits, secrecy and a report required. It’s my first day on the job too.’

‘You lucky thing, that’s RAF Special Duties!’

‘RAF Special Duties?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine. They’re sort of embedded in the normal RAF base that you fly in to, but after you’ve landed there two or three times you start to work it out – a little fleet of Lysanders camouflaged in black and dark green, all equipped with long-range fuel tanks, and the runway laid out with electric lamps. Night landings in short fields –’

She let that hang between them. France, Belgium, Resistance agents, refugees, wireless equipment and explosives smuggled into Nazi-occupied Europe – you didn’t dare talk about it. You just didn’t.

‘It’s brilliant fun landing a Lizzie in their training field. They have a mock flare path laid out, little yellow flags; you can play you’re a Special Duties pilot. Lysanders are wizard at short landings. You could land one in your granny’s garden.’

Maddie could scarcely believe that, having just managed to get her first Lizzie down only by using every available inch of runway.

Theo pulled her crust to pieces and arranged three crumbs in an inverted L-shape to imitate torches blazing in a dark French meadow. ‘Here’s what you do –’ She glanced quickly over each shoulder to make sure she wasn’t overheard. ‘They’re always a bit boggled when a girl leaps out of the cockpit afterwards.’

‘They were a bit boggled when I got in this morning!’

‘How’s your navigation? You’re not allowed to mark this airfield on your map. Takes a bit of studying before you leave, so you can find it yourself.’

‘I can manage that,’ Maddie said confidently, and truthfully, having earlier that day done almost exactly the same thing.