Читать книгу Code Name Verity онлайн | страница 46

‘I don’t think our gun did that,’ Maddie told her friend, whey-faced, as the black, oily smoke rose from the turnip field where the plane had come down. ‘It must have been one of our lot, firing from the air. And if it was this gun, it wasn’t you.’

It was bad enough she suspected the reason Queenie was at her side now was because she’d had to give up on the lad whose gun they’d taken over. Bad enough. But there had also been a pilot in that ball of flame, a living young man with not much more training than Maddie herself.

‘Stay here,’ Queenie choked. ‘Can you load another shell? I’ll find someone who knows what they’re doing to take over – you’ll be needed in the Tower now –’

Queenie paused a moment.

‘Which way to the north-east air-raid shelter from here?’ she asked anxiously. ‘I get so muddled in the smoke.’

Maddie pointed. ‘Straight line across the grass. Easy peasy if you’re brave enough – like finding Neverland, “Second to the right, and then straight on till morning.”’

‘What about you? Brave enough?’

‘I’ll be all right. Now I’ve got something to do –’

They both ducked instinctively as something exploded at the other end of the runway. Queenie squeezed Maddie round the waist and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. ‘“Kiss me, Hardy!” Weren’t those Nelson’s last words at the Battle of Trafalgar? Don’t cry. We’re still alive and we make a sensational team.’

Then she hitched up her hair to its two-inch above the collar regulation point, swabbed her own tears and the grease and the concrete dust and the gunner’s blood from her cheeks with the back of her hand, and she was off running again, like the Red Queen.

It’s like being in love, discovering your best friend.

‘Get your mac on,’ Maddie said, ‘I’m going to teach you to navigate.’

Queenie burst out laughing. ‘Impossible!’

‘Not impossible! There’s a couple of pilots here who scrapped their way out of Poland after it was invaded. They got here with no maps, no food, no language other than Polish. They’ll tell you all about it if you let them – bit tricky making sense of their English. Anyway if a couple of escaped prisoners can find their way across Europe and become RAF pilots, you can –’