Читать книгу Code Name Verity онлайн | страница 37

No one slept the night of that air raid, or the next day. We had pretty much to resurface the runway ourselves that morning. We weren’t equipped for it, we didn’t have the tools or the materials, and we weren’t a building crew, but without a runway RAF Maidsend was defenceless. And Britain too, in the bigger picture. We repaired the runway.

Everyone mucked in, including the captured German – I think he was rather apprehensive about his fate as a prisoner of war and was just as happy to spend the day stripped to the waist shovelling piles of earth with twenty other pilots than to be moved on to some unknown official internment awaiting him inland. I remember we all had to bow our heads in a moment of silence for his dead companions before we set to work. I don’t know what happened to him after that.

In the canteen, Queenie was asleep with her head on the table. She must have done up her hair first, before she came in from two hours’ stone-picking on the runway, but she’d fallen asleep before she’d even taken the spoon out of her tea. Maddie sat down across from her with two fresh cups of tea and one iced bun. I don’t know where the icing came from. Someone must have been hoarding sugar just in case there was a direct hit on the airfield and everybody needed cheering up. Maddie was quite relieved to see the unflappable wireless operator with her guard down. She pushed the Cup That Cheers close to Queenie’s face so that the warmth woke her.

They propped their heads on their elbows, facing each other.

‘Are you scared of anything?’ Maddie asked.

‘Lots of things!’

‘Name one.’

‘I can name ten.’

‘Go on then.’

Queenie looked at her hands. ‘Breaking my nails,’ she said critically. After two hours clearing the runway of rubble and twisted metal, her manicure was in need of repair.

‘I’m serious,’ said Maddie quietly.

‘All right then. Dark.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s true,’ said Queenie. ‘Now your turn.’

‘Cold,’ Maddie answered.

Queenie sipped her tea. ‘Falling asleep while I’m working.’