Читать книгу Code Name Verity онлайн | страница 1

It haunts me

Author Maggie Stiefvater

double edgedsecond meaning

Author Helen Dunmore

fiendishly plotted

Majorie Ingalls, New York Times

utterly compellingimpossible to put down

Author Rowan Coleman

Also by Elizabeth Wein

ROSE UNDER FIRE

A special edition of Elizabeth Wein’s award-winning novel, including exclusive videos of the author on location at The Shuttleworth Collection, a peep into her personal collection of memorabilia and the short story that began it all, never previously published in the UK.

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SOE Agent Odette Hallowes

Anti-aircraft Gun

Tiger Moth

‘Careless Talk Costs Lives’

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‘Passive resisters must understand that they are as important as saboteurs.’

SOE Secret Operations Manual,

‘Methods of Passive Resistance’

Part 1

Ormaie 8.XI.43 JB-S

I AM A COWARD

I wanted to be heroic and I pretended I was. I have always been good at pretending. I spent the first twelve years of my life playing at the Battle of Stirling Bridge with my five big brothers, and even though I am a girl they let me be William Wallace, who is supposed to be one of our ancestors, because I did the most rousing battle speeches. God, I tried hard last week. My God, I tried. But now I know I am a coward. After the ridiculous deal I made with SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden, I know I am a coward. And I’m going to give you anything you ask, everything I can remember. Absolutely Every Last Detail.

Here is the deal we made. I’m putting it down to keep it straight in my own mind. ‘Let’s try this,’ the Hauptsturmführer said to me. ‘How could you be bribed?’ And I said I wanted my clothes back.

It seems petty, now. I am sure he was expecting my answer to be something defiant – ‘Give me Freedom’ or ‘Victory’ – or something generous, like ‘Stop toying with that wretched French Resistance laddie and give him a dignified and merciful death.’ Or at least something more directly connected to my present circumstance, like ‘Please let me go to sleep’ or ‘Feed me’ or ‘Get rid of this sodding iron rail you have kept tied against my spine for the past three days.’ But I was prepared to go sleepless and starving and upright for a good while yet if only I didn’t have to do it in my underwear – rather foul and damp at times, and SO EMBARRASSING. The warmth and dignity of my flannel skirt and woolly jumper are worth far more to me now than patriotism or integrity.