Code Name Verity(85)

There were only three of us along for this trip – dangerous in both directions, didn’t want to drag Papa Thibaut into it. His friend who owns the motor car set off at top speed, full out and going like the clappers, no lights as usual except the waning gibbous moon on the rise. The Rosalie really did not want to go like the clappers and performed its usual consumptive drama every time we came to an uphill slope, coughing and gasping like a dying Dickens heroine, and finally just stopped – engine still gasping a bit, but the car just stopped. Simply could not move forward up the hill. Choke full out, but cylinders firing pathetically as though we were trying to make the poor thing run on nothing but air.

‘Your choke’s not working,’ I said from the back seat.

Of course the driver didn’t understand me and I didn’t know the French for choke and neither did Paul – ‘Le starter’ it turns out, which is not the same as ‘the starter’ that might turn on your English engine. Unbelievable confusion followed. Paul tried desperately to translate and the driver resisted taking advice from a Slip of a Lass or whatever the French is for ‘Slip of a Lass’. I’m sure the direct translation in any language is more or less ‘Featherbrain’ as it’s what I get called whenever I’m expected not to be able to do whatever it is – fly a plane, load a gun, make a bomb – fix a car – so we lost fifteen minutes arguing.

Finally, as it was dead obvious that the choke wasn’t working, the driver jiggled it about violently enough that something finally slid back into place and after a few healthier-sounding coughs, the Rosalie reluctantly set off again.

This whole routine was repeated detail for detail THREE MORE TIMES. FOUR TIMES IN TOTAL. The car stopped, I said the choke wasn’t working, Paul tried to translate without success, we all argued for 15 minutes, Papa Thibaut’s friend jiggled the choke lever for a while, and finally the Rosalie wheezed into life and trundled off again.

We had now lost AN HOUR, A SOLID HOUR, and I was fuming. So was the French driver, who was tired of being shouted at in English by a Slip of a Lass younger than his own daughter. Every time we moved off again Paul would reach back and give my knee a reassuring squeeze, till finally I thumped him and told him to keep his mucky hands to himself, so that even when the car was moving, we were all growling at each other like tomcats.

I was no longer afraid of being caught by the Nazis or worried that we’d be too late for the Lysander pick-up – both of which were more and more likely the longer we were on the road. I was just mad as a hornet because I knew what was wrong with the car and they wouldn’t let me do anything about it.

When the car stopped for THE FIFTH TIME, I climbed over Paul and got out.

‘Don’t be an idiot, Kittyhawk,’ he said through his teeth.

‘I will WALK to this airfield,’ I said. ‘I know the coordinates and I have a compass. I will WALK there and if I am too late to meet the plane I will WALK back to Ormaie, but if you EVER want me to get in this French car, EVER AGAIN, you are going to have to make that French MORON who is driving it open up the engine cowling so I can fix the choke RIGHT NOW.’

‘My God, we haven’t time for that – we’re an hour and a half late already – ’

‘OPEN THE COWLING OR I WILL SHOOT IT OPEN.’

I didn’t mean that. But it was an inspired threat, mostly because it gave me the idea of levelling my Colt .32 at the driver’s head and making him get out of the car.

He didn’t even turn the ignition off – the engine was still gasping as we pried up the side panel of the bonnet with the tin-opener on Etienne’s Swiss knife. All was inky pitch-black beneath it. The driver cursed and complained, but Paul murmured reassuring words to him in French, as I was clearly set on getting my own way. Got one of them to hold an electric torch for me while the other made a tent with his jacket to hide the light. Oh – the screw that held the cable to the choke valve had come loose – PROBABLY WITH ALL THAT BLASTED JIGGLING – the flap that is supposed to close over the air feed to the carburettor wasn’t closing properly, and all I had to do was tighten the screw with my wizard pocket screwdriver nicked from the Nazis.

I slammed the bonnet shut, leaned in the driver’s door and yanked the choke on, and the engine roared into life like a zooful of happy lions.

Then I climbed back into my maidenly spot in the back seat and didn’t say anything else till we got to the field, half an hour after the plane had left. Most of the reception committee had left too, only a couple of them still waiting for us to turn up in case something awful had happened to us.