Code Name Verity

Julie writes this chapter on November 21, 1943. She reports that she has been given more paper to write on; this time sheet music from a Jewish flautist. She takes up Maddie’s story at the point where she is recruited and trained for Special Operations Executive work. Maddie and Julie’s paths cross when they both receive parachute training; Maddie as a pilot while people jump out of her plane, and Julie as a parachutist. Julie reports that she envies Maddie the moral certainty of her war work, as opposed to her own work, which leaves her shaken and uncertain about the moral value of the deceptions she practices. Both Julie and Maddie are recruited by the same man—the nameless civilian whom they met at the Green Man pub; they call him the “Bloody Machiavellian English Intelligence Officer playing God” (81).

Julie writes this chapter on November 22, 1943. Julie describes Maddie’s secret flights: On one flight in September 1942, Maddie ferries Julie to her first secret assignment. Julie writes that she dreams that she is flying with Maddie; she is safe and going home. Disoriented by hunger and being beaten by Engel that day, Julie makes a list of all the secret missions she performed after that day in September 1942.