Code Name Verity(79)

They start with drinks. The men all stand about the kitchen sipping cognac, La Cadette serving, Mitraillette sitting awkwardly in a corner with the sullen German lass who gets dragged everywhere as the captain’s secretary/valet/slave-girl – she’s also their driver. Doesn’t take cognac with the men, as her hands are full holding the captain’s file folder and gloves and hat during all the small talk.

Today the brother, Etienne, had a great big ugly lump on his forehead over his left eye – quite fresh, a purple bruise with a bloody dent in the centre, still swollen. La Cadette was all over him with sympathy, Maman and Mitraillette a bit more restrained. They didn’t dare ask how he got it – well, his little sister did dare, but he wouldn’t tell her – he was also thoroughly embarrassed by the attention, the fuss being made in front of his boss and two colleagues and the other girl too.

So La Cadette turns to the captain and asks, ‘Does Etienne spend the whole working day scrapping with people? He might as well be back in school!’

‘Your brother’s very well-behaved,’ the captain answers. ‘But sometimes a vicious prisoner reminds us how dangerous a policeman’s work can be.’

‘Is your work dangerous too?’

‘No,’ he tells her blandly. ‘I have a desk job. All I do is talk to people.’

‘Vicious prisoners,’ she points out.

‘That’s why I have your brother to guard me.’

At this point the slave-girl secretary sniggers very, very quietly behind her hand – pretending to clear her throat and making a sketchy wave at Etienne’s bruised head – and she murmurs to Mitraillette beside her, ‘A woman did that.’

‘Did he deserve it?’ Mitraillette whispers back.

The secretary shrugs.

—

It is HELL not knowing what has happened, or what is happening to Julie. More than three weeks now, already into November. Complete silence – she might as well be on the dark side of the moon. Incredible, what slender threads you begin to hang your hopes on.

They don’t interrogate many women in Ormaie – usually send them straight to prison in Paris, I think. I am sure my heart actually stopped, for a second, when I heard it, and again writing it down.

‘A woman did that.’





Don’t know whether I’m disappointed or relieved – spent most of yesterday (Sun. 7 Nov.) trying to get out of France and now I’m back here in the same old barn – exhausted but whizzing. I’m able to write because it’s getting light already and Paul gave me a Benzedrine tablet last night to keep me going.

Glad to have these notes back. I left them here so as not to have them on me if I was caught during the 50-mile trek to the landing field. Of course as I’ve told myself a million times I shouldn’t be making the blasted notes in the first place, but I think I’ll take them with me next time. Felt a bit like I was pulling myself apart to leave them here, and it’s a treasonable offence to lose my Pilot’s Notes.

Rode in the boot of a small auto belonging to a chum of Papa Thibaut’s, a Citro?n Rosalie – 4-cylinder engine, at least ten years old, running – just – on a disgusting mix of coal tar and sugar-beet ethanol. Poor engine hates it – coughing and spluttering the whole way – suppose I’m lucky I didn’t asphyxiate in the exhaust. Papa Thibaut has got a delivery van of his own for the farm, but it and his driver are so carefully regulated that they don’t dare use them for Resistance activity. On yesterday’s trip, a Sunday afternoon, there were no less than six checkpoints to get through, more than one every ten miles. They don’t always know where the checkpoints will be and it was a good way to find out so we could avoid them on the way home after curfew. I was in the back with a wicker picnic hamper and also a couple of chickens – laying hens – which were legitimately being taken to another farm. The fuss made over the chickens at the checkpoints is not to be believed. Unlike me, they had their own papers.

Dead clever distraction though. As soon as anyone opened the boot, which they did at half the checkpoints, the chickens began to carry on like – well, like chickens! The difficulty for me, curled at the back of the boot under empty feed sacks, was not in trying to avoid heart failure every time somebody looked in on us, but in managing not to give myself away with hysterical laughter.

It took ages to get to the landing field – getting dark when we arrived, minus hens which had been dropped off at their final destination. I had to wait in my hiding place for nearly an hour while the hen transaction was completed, but they saved a sandwich and a drop of cognac for me. Then on to the field, bit of an uphill slope, but not too bad, unfortunately some high power cables in the approach which I didn’t like the look of at all and ultimately neither did the pilot who didn’t land there – I’ll get to that –