Code Name Verity(82)

Jamie burst out laughing. ‘It’s not because I’m a lad that they let me keep my boots,’ he said, with just as much outrage in his voice as I must have had in mine. ‘Only because I haven’t any toes!’

That got a little choking laugh out of me at last.

Jamie kissed me lightly on the forehead. ‘You’ve got to look for Julie,’ he whispered. ‘You know she’s counting on you.’

Then he called out softly, ‘Oi, Paul! I want a word with you!’ Jamie kept one arm lovingly round my waist – so like his sister. Paul came close to us in the dark.

‘Used this field before?’ Jamie demanded.

‘For parachute drops.’

‘The pylons are always going to be a problem for landing, even without the crosswind. Listen, old chap, if you can risk taking Kittyhawk about in daylight a bit more, she’s your best bet for field selection around Ormaie. She’s a cracking good pilot-navigator and a reasonable mechanic too.’

Paul was silent for a moment.

‘Aircraft mechanic?’ he asked finally.

‘And motorbikes,’ I said.

Another moment of silence.

Then, casually, Paul asked, ‘Explosives?’

I hadn’t even thought about it. But – well, why not? That’s a brilliant thing to put my idle mind to work on: making a bomb.

‘Not yet,’ I answered cautiously.

‘Tough work for a slip of a lass – are you willing to risk it, Kittyhawk?’

I nodded like an eager puppy.

‘Let’s get those papers made for you and let you off the lead a bit while you wait for the next flight out.’ He turned back to Jamie, and spoke in that nudge-nudge matey tone again as if I couldn’t hear, as if I were deaf. ‘Bit of a dark horse, isn’t she, our Kittyhawk? Thought she didn’t like men. Ready to go like a stoat with you though.’

Jamie let go of me. ‘Shut your mucky gob, man.’ He stepped close to our fearless leader in the dark, took hold of his jacket by the collar, and in a dead quiet voice that had gone dangerously Scots, threatened heatedly, ‘Talk like that again wi’ these brave lassies listenin’ an’ Ah’ll tear the filthy English tongue frae yer heid, so Ah will.’

‘All right, lad,’ Paul said calmly, gently shaking Jamie loose. ‘Back down. We’re all a bit excited –’

What was left of Jamie’s slim hand looked perilously small in Paul’s firm grip, and Jamie in general is nowhere near as big as Paul – a bit like a ferret going after a Labrador. At this moment the air began to hum. Another plane was crabbing in as low as it could safely fly, two broad searchlight beams stretching and leaping towards the ground before and behind it.

Paul reacted first and pulled the wireless operator under the shrubs where the bicycles were hidden. The rest of us threw ourselves into the low ditch that was the field boundary. No part of last night seemed to last as long as those five minutes lying trapped and defenceless in frozen mud and dead grass, waiting for the Luftwaffe machine guns to drill us into the packed earth or pass us by.

Obviously, the plane passed by. It didn’t linger over our field in particular either – must have been on some kind of routine patrol – don’t like to think what would have happened if it had done its fly-past while we were loading up a Lysander.

It sobered everybody up.

We drove the refugees and anyone else who fitted back to within a mile or two of their safe house, 3 bicycles tied on the running boards and roof of the Rosalie, the motor car absolutely jammed full with 3 of us in the front seat, 4 in the back, 2 in the boot and me and the w/op riding on the rear bumper and hanging on to the roof like baby monkeys clinging to their mum – the idea being that if we were stopped, she and I would at least be able to jump down and make a run for it. No one else would stand a chance. It’s marvellous, in a desperate kind of way, to opt for speed over subtlety – like screaming downhill to put out the fire when your aircraft’s in flames.

Every time we came to a gate, the two of us jumped down to open and shut it and took flying leaps back on to the rear bumper as the Rosalie set off again.

‘You’re so fortunate to be in Damask,’ the wireless girl shouted at me as we clattered through the dark – no lights, not even those useless, slitty blackout headlamps. Didn’t need them with the moon nearly full though. ‘Paul will take great care of you. And he’ll do everything he can to find your missing agent – that will be a matter of pride for him. He’s never lost any of his circuit before.’ Posh Southern English with a faint French accent. ‘My own circuit has collapsed – 14 arrests made last week. Organiser, couriers, the lot – someone’s leaking names. It’s been sheer hell. I’ve been given to Paul for safekeeping – shame he’s such a lech, but as long as you know –’