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She was anxious last night because she didn’t think I’d coughed up enough facts to count as a proper little Judas yesterday Again I think that she orrying about von Linden’s reaction, as she is the one who has to translate what I write for hi overview of the situation in Britain over the long ter my German a bit while we talked about it) Also I think he hopes I will do so on Monsieur Laurel and Mademoiselle Hardy He does not trust Thibaut because Thibaut is French and he does not trust Engel because Engel is a wohout the day while I write (to drink, as well as to prevent hysterics) and a blanket For a blanket in my cold little room, SS-Hauptsturmführer Amadeus von Linden, I would without remorse or hesitation rat on my heroic ancestor William Wallace, Guardian of Scotland

I know your other prisoners despise me Thibaut took me to … I don’t knohat you call it when you make me watch, is it instruction? To remind me how fortunate I am, perhaps? Afterand before I was allowed to eat, on the way back to my cell Scharf&uu questioned again (I don’t knohat his real name is; Jacques is what the French citizens all call each other in A Tale of Two Cities, and it seems appropriate) That boy hates me It makes no difference that I too am strapped securely to asp with sobs on his account and look away the whole time except when Thibaut holds my head in place Jacques knows, they all know, that I a thele scrap of code – let alone ELEVEN SETS – not tohim out

‘Little Scottish piece of shit’

It sounds so pretty in French, p’tit le-handedly I have brought down the 700-year-strong Auld Alliance between France and Scotland

There is another Jacques, a girl, histles ‘Scotland the Brave’ if we are taken past each other (ations), or soe, and she spits too They all detest me It is not the sa turncoat, who is their country for the enemy I am your enemy too, I should be one of them But I am beyond contempt A wee Scots piece o’ shite

Don’t you think it ive the in the corner and think, ‘Mon Dieu Don’t ever let ures)

That heading looks terrifically official I feel better already Like a proper little Judas

Suppose you were a girl in Stockport in 1938, raised by loving and indulgent grandparents and rather obsessed with engines Suppose you decided you wanted to learn to fly: really fly You wanted to fly aeroplanes

A three-year course with Air Service Training would have cost you over a thousand pounds I don’t knohat Maddie’s granddad would have earned in a year back then He did fairly ith histhe Depression, but still, by our standards then, anyone would have considered his a good living At any rate it would have cost hi lessons She got her first flight free, an hour’s excursion in Dy of crisp wind and long light, and saw the Pennines fro for the ride, since she had been as much involved in Dympna’s rescue as Maddie had, but Beryl had to sit in the very back and couldn’t see so well and was sick into her handbag She thanked Dyht

And of course that was a joyride, not a lesson Maddie couldn’t afford lessons But shein parallel with Maddie’s crush on aeroplanes – I want bigger toys, she’d wished, and hey presto, a week later, there was Oakway It was only a fifteen- new that the mechanics there were happy to have an extra pair of capable hands around Maddie was out every Saturday that su friends Then in October her persistence suddenly, unexpectedly paid off That is e started the Civil Air Guard

I say we – I dom joined in, and so ! – that they could only take about a tenth of theot lucky again because all the engineers and mechanics and instructors at Oakway knew and liked her now, and she got glowing reco all about oil levels She wasn’t straight away any better than any other pilot who trained at Oakith the Civil Air Guard But she wasn’t any worse either She ht in the first week of the new year, between snow flurries

Look at the ti in late October 1938 … Hitler (you will notice that I have thought better of my colourful descriptive terms for the Führer and carefully scratched them all out) invaded Poland on 1 September 1939 and Britain declared war on Germany two days later Maddie flew the practical test for her ‘A’ licence, the basic pilot’s licence, six ust After that, overnment service Both Dympna’s planes were requisitioned by the Air Ministry for communications and she was mad as a cat about it