Читать книгу Code Name Verity онлайн | страница 27

Only I don’t really want to go down in history as the one who gave out the details.

RDF is Range and Direction Finding. Same acronym as Radio Direction Finding, to confuse the enemy, but not exactly the same thing. As you know. Well. They call it Radar now, an American word, an acronym of RAdio Detection And Ranging, which I do not think is easier to remember. In the summer of 1940 it was still so new nobody knew what it was, and so secret that

Buckets of blood – I can’t do this.

—

I have spent a vexing half-hour scrapping with Fräulein Engel over the pen nib, which I swear I did not bend on purpose the first time. It is true that it spared me having to continue for a good long while but it did not move things along for that harpy to straighten it out against my teeth when I could have easily done it myself against the table. It is also true that it was stupid of me to bend it out of shape again, on purpose, the second she handed it back to me. Then she had to show me SEVERAL TIMES how, when she was at school, the nurse would use a pen nib to make a pinprick for a blood test.

I don’t know why I bent the stupid thing again. It is so easy to wind Miss Engel up. She always wins; but only because my ankles are tied to my chair.

Well, and also because at the end of every argument she reminds me of the deal I made with a certain officer of the Gestapo, and I collapse.

‘Hauptsturmführer von Linden is busy, as you know, and will not wish to be interrupted. But I have been told to summon him if necessary. You have been given pen and paper by his judgement of your willingness to cooperate with him, and if you will not write out the confession you have agreed he will have no choice but to resume your interrogation.’

JUST SHUT UP, ANNA ENGEL. I KNOW.

I will do anything: she has only to mention his name and I remember now, I will do anything, anything, to avoid him interrogating me again.

So. Range and Direction Finding. Coastal Defence. Do I get my thirty pieces of silver? No, just some more of this hotel stationery. It is very nice to write on.