Code Name Verity(92)

Julie’s scarf doesn’t smell like Julie any more. I did stick my nose in it. It smells like carbolic soap. Like a school. Or a prison, I suppose. There’s ink smeared all over one corner and the silk’s all perished down the middle, as though she and Engel have been playing tug of war with it.

That chemical smell, sweet and tarry. Not like Julie at all. It reminded me that Penn told us Engel is a chemist.

I ran downstairs. ‘Tu cherches Gabrielle-Thérèse – you want my sister?’ asked La Cadette, glancing up from her schoolbooks at the kitchen table.

‘Oui – tout de suite – right now. I need an iron – a hot iron – oh bother –’ Frustration, I had no idea how to say it. Mimed ironing. That kid is so sharp – got it right away, tossed Maman’s irons into the kitchen fire to hot up, pointed me to the ironing board and ran for her sister.

Mitraillette and Amélie and I stood like the witches in Macbeth over the ironing board, holding our breath – I was so worried I’d ruin it, burn the scarf, but I didn’t – and after a minute or so Engel’s message began to appear in scratchy brown print among the grey paisley, in the corner opposite the ink stain.

You don’t need to be trained by the Special Operations Executive to know how to use invisible ink. You don’t even need to be a chemist. Me and Beryl learned how to do it in Girl Guides. We used to write secret messages in milk. It’s easy.

I don’t know what Engel used, but she wrote in French, so I don’t remember her exact words. She’s either tipped us off or betrayed us, won’t know which till later tonight. Mitraillette has sent for Paul – they use his courier as the go-between – we don’t actually know where he stays.

This evening there are 19 prisoners from Poitiers being transported to a concentration camp somewhere in the north-east of France. The bus will swing by Ormaie and pick up 5 more prisoners here. Julie will be with them.





If I make it like an Accident Report –

Don’t think I can possibly make it sound like an Accident Report, but I’ve got to write something – I’ll have to remember – there may be a trial. I don’t bloody care if there is. I want to get it right while I remember.

Mitraillette tried to dose me with knock-out drops again a few minutes ago – 30 minutes to oblivion. But this time I’m wise to her and I want to write. Perhaps I’ll take it after.

I think I will. When I’m finished I won’t want to think any more

Incident Report

Attempted Sabotage of Poitou River Bridge on Tours-Poitiers Road, with intention of stopping German military bus carrying 24 French and Allied prisoners – Wed. 1 Dec. 1943

Well, we did stop them.

Made a great big hole in the bridge too, that’ll keep them deporting anybody via the railway station at Tours for a while





I HATE THEM


I HATE THEM


—

Must remember Paul – Paul, who I also hated.

He was marvellous. I have to say it. He planned it all on the fly, made it up as we went along. The carnage wasn’t his fault. Mustered an army of a dozen men and 2 women in about an hour. We left all the bikes and the car hidden – it is the same Citro?n Rosalie. I don’t know how the man who owns it avoids being found out or at least having his car impounded, and I think he is too old for this kind of job anyway. We hid the car in a garage, believe it or not, belonging to a lovely and heroic old woman who lives by herself in a riverside villa on the Tours side of the Poitou. She is the rose-grower the circuit is named for. We left our car parked behind her car, which is conveniently a newer and bigger model Rosalie, so it looked like ours had been her previous car, and we hid it under a dust sheet as well. The bikes were hidden in her abandoned stables beneath 20-year-old hay.

Then we borrowed her boats. One beautiful, teak, nineteenth-century rowing boat and two chestnut Can-a-dian canoes. Much too good for us. The bridge is upstream from the house – they’ve disrupted traffic here before, some time ago, and for a while the lady was under strict surveillance. Hope she won’t be in too much trouble again now – though she seems to have got away with it this time. We were careful.

Godless as I am, I pray she’s got away with it. It’s like ripples in a pond, isn’t it? It doesn’t stop in one place.

Anyway we loaded up our fireworks in the boats – don’t think I can give details on the explosives as I wasn’t responsible and didn’t pay attention, and we rowed up to the bridge in the dark. Took about an hour with muffled oars. You read about muffled oars in pirate stories – I’m sure there’s a bit in Peter Pan where they use muffled oars. Perhaps it was Swallows and Amazons. English summer and the school holidays seem dead far away now. It was hard to see – the river was full of fog. But we made it. We wired up the bridge and waited.