Page 37 (1/2)

‘Made a deal with thee to pull it off’ Miss Penn gently guidedof socks Then she confessed, ‘Hard to tell what your friend thinks she’s doing though She was – she was focused She didn’t expect to hear her own code name come up in the conversation and it shook her, but she didn’t – you know, she didn’t hint at rescue – I think she’s still dead set on conment, and has reason to believe she can do it frolance ‘Do you knohat her assignment was?’

‘No,’ I lied

‘Well,’ Miss Penn said, ‘here’s what she toldof it’

But I can’t I don’t knohat to do with any of it It’s like – it ether based on a few random bones and you don’t even know if they’re all from the saiven us though – perhaps Paul willthe Gestapo use in Or about power cuts, and how annoying it is not to be able to count on electricity when you work in radio, and Julie said, ‘Well, here we make it ourselves’ How like her to talk as if she’d become one of them Like the ti all through the scene where the i to Mendelssohn

2) The fuse box is under the grand staircase Miss Penn didn’t say how our Julie ed to communicate that Did also mention:

3) It is a known fact that the Nazis have a wireless office across the square fro to Julie thisset-up in the Château de Bordeaux building – Penn thinks because the walls are too thick for good reception, but I reckon the generator interferes with the reception more than the walls This information was passed dead casually SOE call radio work ‘arthritis’, easy peasy Can just i her nails ‘Fortunately I don’t suffer from stiff joints No one does here How these Nazis would take advantage!’

4) Penn also found out a lot about the slave-girl secretary Julie thinks she is about to have a crisis of conscience which we ests atch her and make it easy for her to find a Resistance contact when she’s ready

It boggles ed to co Apparently they were speaking English and the slave-girl had to translate for the captain, so either she just didn’t get it or she put up with it, which partly proves Julie’s point Julie calls her ‘the angel’ – ‘l’ange’ – dead eirl keeps mum It’s masculine too, in French, not just a plain noun like it is in English It is a direct translation of her surnael, from the German

Sometimes Julie used to make me jealous – her cleverness, her ease withand the Swiss school and speaking three languages and being presented to the King in a blue silk ball gown – even her MBE, after she caught those spies, like being knighted, and especially her terht any of it orth envying

Now all I can think of is where she is and how ain

I drea up to Scotland in Dy the North Sea, the sun hanging low in the west – sky and sea and sand all gold, gold light all around us No barrage balloons or anything, just empty sky like in peacetime But it wasn’t peacetime, it was now, late November 1943, with the first snow on the Cheviot Hills in the west

We were flying low over the long sands at Holy Island, and it was beautiful, but the plane kept trying to cli to keep it down Just like the Lysander Scared and worried and tired all at once, angry at the sky for being so beautiful ere in danger of crashing Then Julie, sitting alongside me, said, ‘Let me help’

In the dream, the Puss Moth had dual controls side by side like a Tipsy, and Julie took hold of her own control coluently pushed the nose forward, and suddenly ere flying the plane together

All the pressure was gone Nothing to be afraid of, nothing to battle against, just the two of us flying together, flying the plane together, side by side in the gold sky