Code Name Verity(63)

‘We are told to smile all the time,’ Queenie said. ‘It’s in the SOE instructor’s handbook. People who are smiling and singing don’t appear to be plotting a counter-attack. If you go around looking worried someone will start to wonder what you’re worrying about.’

Maddie did not answer, and after half an hour of flying over the serene, smooth, silver and black eternity of the English Channel, Queenie asked suddenly, ‘What are you worrying about?’

‘It’s cloudy over Caen,’ Maddie said, ‘and there’s light in the clouds.’

‘What d’you mean, light?’

‘Flickering light. Pinkish. Could be lightning. Could be gunfire. Could be a bomber squadron going up in flames. I’m going to change course a bit and go round it.’

This was a lark. Light in the clouds, who cares? Let’s change direction. We were tourists. Maddie’s alternative route over the Normandy coast went straight over Mont St Michel, the island citadel glorious in the moonlight, casting long moonshadows over the swelling tide in a bay that shone like spilt mercury. Searchlights swept the sky, but missed the grey-bellied Lysander. Maddie set a new course for Angers.

‘Less than an hour to go at this rate,’ Maddie told her passenger. ‘Are you still smiling?’

‘Like an idiot.’

After that – this is hard to believe, but it was a dull flight for some time after that. The French countryside was not as stunning by moonlight as the English Channel, and after a long time of staring into indistinguishable blackness, Queenie fell trustingly asleep, curled among the cardboard cases and baled wires on the floor of the rear cockpit with her head on her parachute. It was a bit like sleeping in the engine room of Ladderal Mill – noisy beyond belief, but stupefyingly rhythmic. She had been keyed to fever pitch these past few weeks and it was well past midnight now.

She woke when her relaxed body was suddenly slammed against the back end of the fuselage along with all eleven crates. She was not hurt or even frightened, but she was hugely disorientated. Her subconscious mind held the reverberating echo of a hell of a bang, which had in fact been the thing that woke her rather than being tossed about. Bright orange light rimmed the windows of the rear cockpit. Just as she figured out that the Lysander was plunging earthwards in a screaming dive, the increased gravity knocked her cold again. And when she woke up a second time, some moments later, it was dark and the engine was still throbbing reliably, and she was heaped uncomfortably among the tumbled cargo.

‘Can you hear me? Are you all right?’ came Maddie’s frantic voice over the intercom. ‘Oh bother, there’s another one –’ And a lovely white ball of fire arched gracefully over the top of the Perspex canopy. It made no noise and lit the cockpit beautifully. Limelight, limelight. Maddie’s night vision was instantly ruined again.

‘Fly the plane, Maddie,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Fly the plane.’

Think of her three years ago, a weeping jelly of fear under fire. Think of her now, guiding a wounded aircraft through the unfamiliar fire and darkness of a war zone. Her best friend, untangling herself in the back of the plane, shivered with dread and love. She knew that Maddie would land her safely or die trying.

Maddie was battling the control column as though it were alive. In the brief phosphoric flashes her taut wrists were white with exertion. She gasped with relief when she felt her passenger’s small hand gripping her shoulder through the gap in the armour-plated bulkhead.

‘What’s going on?’ Queenie asked.

‘Dratted anti-aircraft guns in Angers. The tail’s been hit. I think it was flak, not a night fighter, or we’d be dead. We don’t stand a chance against a Messerschmitt 110.’

‘I thought we were falling.’

‘That was me screaming downhill to put out the fire,’ Maddie said grimly. ‘You just dive as fast as you can till the wind blows it out. Like blowing out a candle! But the tailplane control’s come disconnected or something. It’s –’

She gritted her teeth. ‘We’re on course. We’re still in one piece. We lost a bit too much height in that dive, but all the dratted plane wants to do now is climb, so, well, that’s not a problem. Only if we go much higher the Jerries might be able to see us on their Radar. The plane’s still flyable, just, and we’ve made such good time we’re not even behind schedule. Only, I think you should know that it’s going to be – um – a bit of a challenge for me to land. So you might have to do another parachute jump.’