Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Author:Elizabeth Wein
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Egmont
Published: 2011-03-19T22:00:00+00:00

Ormaie 23.XI.43 JB-S

Von Linden himself put an end to the proceedings last night – came storming in like the Charge of the Light Brigade and swept the pages together while I fell flat on my face on the table in a pool of ink with my eyes closed.

‘Lord God Almighty, Weiser, are you an idiot? She will not produce anything worth reading when she’s in this state. Look – this is verse. English doggerel. Pages and pages of it!’ The Jerry philistine proceeded to wad everything I can remember of ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ into balls of waste paper. I think he may read more English than he lets on if he recognises Burns as English. ‘Burn this rubbish. I have more than enough irrelevant nonsense out of her without you encouraging it! Give her water and take her back to her room. And get rid of that filthy cigarette. We will talk about that tomorrow.’

Which was as emotional an outburst as I have ever heard from him, but I think he is overtired too.

Oh yes, and ENGEL has been CRYING. Her eyes are very red and she keeps scrubbing at her nose, which is red too. I wonder what would make On-Duty-Female-Guard Fräulein Engel blub on the job.

Special Operations Training

After that disastrous interview last April (it wasn’t disastrous for Intelligence, I suppose, but it left Eva Seiler a bit damaged) Berlin’s interpretive liaison was given a week’s leave To Think About Her Work and whether she wanted to continue it. In other words, Queenie was given the opportunity to Gracefully Bow Out. She spent the week in Castle Craig with her lady mother, the long-suffering Mrs Darling (as it were) – poor Mrs Darling never had a clue what any of her six children were actually doing, or when they were coming or going, and she was not best pleased at the black marks on her fine-boned daughter’s Celtic white skin.

‘Pirates,’ Queenie said. ‘I was bound to the mast by Captain Hook.’

‘When this dreadful war is over,’ said her mother, ‘I want to know Absolutely Every Last Detail.’

‘Absolutely Every Last Detail of my work falls under the Official Secrets Act and I will be thrown into prison for the rest of my life if I ever tell you anything about it,’ Queenie told her mother. ‘So stop asking.’

Ross, the youngest of the Glaswegian evacuees, overheard this conversation – it was just as well Queenie hadn’t given her lady mother any details (careless talk costs lives, etc.) – but the official-looking, pretty wireless operator became rather a worshipped goddess among the Craig Castle Irregulars after that – she had been held prisoner by pirates.

(I love those wee laddies, I really do. Nits and all.)

During that week also, Queenie’s darling, elegant French nanny, her lady mother’s constant companion, in a fit of maternal compassion began to knit Queenie a pullover. Being limited in materials, due to shortages and rationing, she used a gorgeous, sunset-coloured wool which she had unravelled from a suit tailored for her by Ormaie’s most expensive modiste in 1912.

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