Code Name Verity(81)

‘God, doesn’t she announce that sickening “No Place Like Home” for Third Reich Radio or whatever they call it? I thought she was a Nazi!’

‘She’s –’ I couldn’t think of the right word – except ‘double agent’, which isn’t what I meant, though I suppose that’s what she really is. ‘She’s not a courier, she doesn’t carry messages – Who’s the person a king sends ahead of his army and expects won’t get killed?’

‘A herald?’

‘That’s it exactly!’ I should remember. It’s the name of the American paper she used to work for.

‘What’s she going to do for us while she’s pulling off this positive Nazi propaganda campaign in Ormaie?’

‘Try to find Verity,’ I said softly.

That’s what this woman does, this mad American broadcaster, though her wages get paid by the Nazi Minister of Propaganda in Berlin – she walks bold as brass into prisons and prison camps and finds people. Sometimes. Sometimes she’s refused entry. Sometimes she’s too late. Too often the people she’s looking for just can’t be found. But she tries. She gets let in as entertainment for the imprisoned soldiers, and comes out with information. And she hasn’t been caught yet.

Dratted wind. Still howling all over France – a beautiful day otherwise, for once.

Well – the plane got there, finally, one of the Moon Squadron Lizzies – lovely, familiar, ducky fuselage and diddy, hawklike wings – would have been a tight fit with the three of us in the back, but we’d have made it, none of us very big – anyway it didn’t land. Gusts must have been 40 knots, blowing crosswind over the landing strip, pylons to tangle with in the approach, batteries dying on the electric torches we were using to light the flare path – finally me and Paul and Jamie had to stand there switching the lights off whenever the pilot climbed away and back on as he started another circuit of the field. The chap circled overhead for three-quarters of an hour and tried to come down half a dozen times before finally bottling out. Suppose it’s a bit mean to say he ‘bottled out’, anyone with half a brain would have done the same and I don’t think I’d have stuck around as long as he did. Moon sets about 4 a.m. at the moment and it must have been down by the time he got back to England.

Jamie and I knew he wouldn’t make it in. Still – I was desolated when he climbed away and headed back west. We stood watching, faces to the sky in the dark and fingers gripping the torch switches, only a few seconds and then we couldn’t see a thing of course – but could hear the familiar engine throbbing for a minute or two as it faded into the distance.

Like the end of The Wizard of Oz when the balloon goes off without her. I didn’t mean to, couldn’t help it, let out an enormous babyish sob as we trudged back across the field. Just seem to howl at anything. When we reached the car, Jamie took hold of the back of my head and pressed my face against his shoulder to shut me up.

‘Shhh.’

I did stop, out of shame mostly, because the hunted wireless girl was being so stoic about it.

Had to pack everything up and head back the way we’d all come – we refugees to our different hiding places, and now of course it was well past curfew and we didn’t have the chickens to bluff with this time. Started bawling again when I had to say goodbye to Jamie.

‘Now stop. You go back to Ormaie and look after Verity.’

I know he is dead sick with worry about her too and was being brave to make me brave, so I nodded. He wiped my cheeks with his thumbs.

‘Good girl. Buck up, Kittyhawk! Not like you to blub.’

‘Just feel so useless,’ I sobbed. ‘Hiding all day, everyone rushing around me risking their lives, waiting on me all the time, sharing food when they have to account for every missing crumb, can’t even wash my own pants – and what’ll happen when I do get home? They’ll probably send me to prison anyway for hoodwinking my C.O., nicking an RAF plane and dumping it in France –’

‘They will grill us all and we will all defend you. They’ve not stopped any of us flying – they’re desperate for Moon pilots. You only did what you were told.’

‘I know what they’ll say. Silly girl, no brains, too soft, can’t trust a woman to do a man’s work. They only let us fly operational aircraft when they get desperate. And they’re always harder on us when we botch something.’ All true, and what I said next was true too, but a bit petty – ‘You even get to keep your BOOTS and mine are BURNT.’