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So, arettes (for gifts and bribes), clothing coupons (forged and/or stolen), ration cards, 2 million francs in small notes (now confiscated – it truly makes me ill to think about it), pistol, co for thesummoned to action without any notice, I was used to that (also at learning poetry by heart) – but this business of waiting, waiting, waiting for theat the sky, is very testing You sit by the telephone all s; then when it turns out there’s too uard over the farmer ns the field you’re supposed to land in, you’re let off again for the rest of the day Then there’s nothing to do exceptif you can bear to sit in a s The Life and Death of Colonel Bliet in trouble if you do, because the Prime Minister disapproves of it and secretly you fancy Anton Walbrook as the noble German officer and you’re pretty sure your CO knows it Just as you have decided ‘Bother the Pri another dreaain and You Are Operational

Have I got the right shoes on, you wonder frantically, and bloody hell, where did I leave ht

Maddie, lucky beast, did not have to endure any of this Maddie just picked up her ferry chit as usual frorinned at the ‘S’ and the destination ‘RAF Buscot’ because it et to share a cup of tea with her best friend at some point in the next twenty-four hours, and walked out to the Puss Moth with her gasIt was routine Incredible to think what an ordinary day it was for her, to begin with

It was still light e landed at RAF Special Duties Moonrise was early, half past six or so, and because of Double Suet dark Jaht, and Michael The call signs are all froht’s venture was called Operation Dogstar, which seeht on tillit like this, isn’t it? As though we didn’t know the ending As though it could have another ending It’s like watching Roet fooled into thinking his girlfriend le time you see it you want to shout, You stupid ass, just wait a minute and she’ll open her eyes! Oi, you, you twat, open your eyes, wake up! Don’t die this tistar

I wonder howaround Europe, the only testa cabinets and steamer trunks and cardboard boxes as we disappear – as we vanish into the night and the fog?

Assu you don’t incinerate all record of me when you’re done with it, what I’d love to capture, to trap here for eternity in a across the concrete as I got out of the Puss Moth, through crisp October air s, France, France! Or Castle had wept for Oro – we have all been here before, visiting la farave;re – now the elms are all cut down for firewood and barricades, the fountains are all dry except the one they use to water horses and put out fires, and the rose garden in reat-uncle in the Place des Hirondelles has been dug up and the square is full of ar deadfrom a balcony of the Hôtel de Ville, the town hall The evil of daily life here is indescribable and if this is civilisation then it is beyond the capacity of ine the evil of a place like Natzweiler-Struthof

You know, I speak Gerree in Ger it because I loved it Deutschland, das Land der Dichter und Denker, land of poets and thinkers And noill never even see Germany, unless they send me to Ravensbr&uune, or Dresden – or the Black Forest, the Rhine Valley, the blue Danube I HATE YOU, Adolf Hitler, you selfish wee beastie of aGermany all to yourself YOU RUIN EVERYTHING

Bother I did not mean to deviate like that I want to remember –

How after supper, eant-cook produced real coffee for us How Ja in front of the fire in the sitting roolass eyes of the stuffed foxes and partridges on the mantelpiece, Jamie’s sleek blond head and Maddie’s untidy black curls bent low together in conspiracy over Ja the route to Ormaie Hoe all crowded round the radio to hear our own code announced on the BBC – ‘To us les enfants, sauf un, grandissent’ – the randoe that told our reception coht It is the first line of Peter Pan All children, except one, grow up Expect the usual lads with one exception – tonight there’s one wee lassie co on deck chairs in The Cottage garden, watching the sun set

Hoe all ju

It was the squadron leader’s wife Peter – that is not his real nael, you silly ass Peter had met his wife for lunch, driven her to the railway station afterwards, and al her off had been involved in a messy road accident in which he had broken half his ribs and been knocked completely unconscious for most of the afternoon His wife had not heard about it earlier because she had been sitting on a train that had been 3 hours delayed after it was shunted on to a siding to give priority to a troops train In any case Peter would not be flying to France tonight

I confess that it was eant hung up there was a lot of flap as everybody gasped in dis fro over Peter’s late arrival, but it never occurred to anyone that he wouldn’t turn up well ahead of take-off And noas dark and the BBC announcement had beenand the Lysanders were out there with their long-range tanks full of fuel and their rear cockpits full of guns and radios And bouncing on her flat heels, full of coffee and nerve and code, was Eva Seiler, Berlin’s interpretive liaison with London, soon to insinuate herself into the Ger underworld of Ormaie

‘Maddie can fly the plane’

She has presence, Eva Seiler or whoever she thought she was that night, and people pay attention to her They don’t always agree with her, but she does cohed Ja, toeless Pobble of a brother laughed and said with force, ‘No’

‘Why not?’

‘Just – no! Never ulations, she’s not even been checked out –’

‘On a Lysander?’ the liaison said scornfully

‘Night flying –’

‘She does it without a radio or a map!’

‘I don’t fly without aher cards close to her chest ‘It’s against the rules’