Code Name Verity(56)

At which point he launched himself at me – we don’t usually bind these men – and took my head beneath his arm in a grip of iron.

‘Call for help,’ he commanded.

I could have escaped. I’ve been trained to defend myself against an attack like that, as I think I proved during the street brawl when I was arrested.

‘Why?’ – Still sneering at him.

‘Call for help. Let your English masters come to your aid or I will break your neck.’

‘Calling the English for help would be collaboration,’ I gasped coldly. ‘I don’t depend on the English for anything. Go ahead and break my neck.’

They were watching, you know – there is a slotted window to the kitchen which they can watch through – and if I had called for help or seemed anything but wholly in control they would have come to my aid. But they saw what I was doing, what a tight wire I was walking, and they sat biting their nails and let me win that battle on my own.

And I did win. It ended some time later with him breaking down in tears on the floor, clutching at my leg and begging me to forgive him.

‘Tell me your assignment,’ I commanded. ‘Tell me your contacts, and I will filter what I pass on to the English. Tell me, and you have confessed to your countrywoman and given nothing to the enemy.’ (I am shameless.) ‘Tell me, and perhaps I will forgive you for threatening to murder me.’

His behaviour then was truly embarrassing and I actually kissed him on the top of his head in benediction when he had finished. Miserable, nasty man.

Then I did call for help. But with disdain and dismissal, not with fear.

Good show, my dear. My, you’ve nerves of steel, haven’t you! Jolly good show, first rate.

I didn’t let on how much he’d hurt me and they didn’t think to check. It was that night’s nerves of steel that landed me in France six weeks ago.

I forgot to change my hair back to normal when I changed my clothes – I don’t wear my WAAF uniform for interrogations – the hair was a small mistake. They took the nerves of steel into account, but not the small mistake. They didn’t notice that he’d hurt me and they didn’t notice that I do make small, fatal mistakes from time to time.

But Maddie noticed both.

‘Come and get warm,’ she said.

Queenie stubbed out her cigarette and turned off the light. She didn’t get into her own bed though; she climbed in next to Maddie. Maddie put careful arms round the bruised shoulders because her friend was shaking all over now. She hadn’t been before.

‘It’s not a nice job,’ Queenie whispered. ‘It’s not like your job – blameless.’

‘I’m not blameless,’ said Maddie. ‘Every bomber I deliver goes operational and kills people. Civilians. People like my gran and granddad. Children. Just because I don’t do it myself doesn’t mean I’m not responsible. I deliver you.’

‘Blonde bombshell,’ Queenie said, and spluttered with laughter at her own joke. Then she began to cry.

Maddie held her lightly, thinking she would let go when her friend stopped crying. But she cried for so long that Maddie fell asleep first. So she didn’t ever let go.

—

my heart is sair, I darena tell

my heart is sair for somebody

O, I could wake a winter’s night

a’ for the sake o’ somebody

ye pow’rs that smile on virtuous love

O sweetly smile on somebody

frae ilka danger keep her free,

and send me safe my somebody



we two ha’e paddl’d in the burn

frae morning sun till dine;

but seas between us broad ha’e roar’d

sin’ auld lang syne

for auld lang syne, my friend

for auld lang syne

we’ll tak’ a cup o’ kindness yet

for auld lang syne

Oh God, I am so tired. They have kept me at it all night. It is the third night I have had no sleep. Too little, at any rate. I don’t recognise any of the people guarding me; Thibaut and Engel are all tucked up in their pensions and von Linden is busy tormenting that screaming French girl.

I like writing about Maddie. I like remembering. I like constructing it, focusing, crafting the story, pulling together the memories. But I am so tired. I can’t craft anything more tonight. Whenever I seem to stop, to stretch, to reach for another sheet of paper, to rub my eyes, this utter shit of a bastard who is guarding me touches the back of my neck with his cigarette. I am only writing this because it stops him burning me. He cannot read English (or Scots) and as long as I keep covering page after page with lines from ‘Tam o’Shanter’ he does not hurt me. I can’t keep it up forever, but I know an awful lot of Robert Burns by heart.