Eye of the Needle

“If she’d waited another minute he would have had the radio transmitter back in its case and the code books in the drawer and there would have been no need for her to die. But before he could conceal the evidence he had heard her key in the lock, and when she opened the door the stiletto had been in his hand.”

Follet introduces Faber as a spy by action rather than exposition. The reader has only a few hints as to Faber’s true nature before this moment, but when he kills Mrs. Garden for seeing the radio transmitter, his role is clear. This moment also introduces Faber’s favorite weapon, the stiletto, which becomes symbolic of his character and later becomes the constant by which Percy and Bloggs identify Faber.

“The song spread through the crowd until everyone was singing. Godliman joined in, knowing that this was a nation losing a war and singing to hide its fear, as a man will whistle past the graveyard at night; knowing that the sudden affection he felt for London and Londoners was an ephemeral sentiment, akin to mob hysteria; mistrusting the voice inside him that said, ‘This, this is what the war is about; this is what makes it worth fighting’; knowing but not caring, because for the first time in so many years he was feeling the sheer physical thrill of comradeship and he liked it.”

Percy is introduced as a distracted historian who is interested only in his current project. Yet, this moment during an air raid shows another side of Percy. He is clearly a lonely man, widowed and anxious for human connection. This touches on the theme of Isolation and Community in Wartime, showing that even though Percy has friends and coworkers, he still feels isolated by the death of his wife, and this moment reminds him he is still a part of a community, inspiring him to join MI5 to hunt for German spies.

“Driving through England in the blackout was a weird experience. One missed lights that one hadn’t realized were there before the war: lights in cottage porches and farmhouse windows, lights on cathedral spires and inn signs, and—most of all—the luminous glow, low in the distant sky, of the thousand lights of a nearby town. Even if one had been able to see, there were no signposts to look at; they had been removed to confuse the German parachutists who were expected any day. (Just a few days ago in the Midlands, famers had found parachutes, radios and maps, but since there were no footprints leading away from the objects, it had been concluded that no men had landed, and the whole thing was a feeble Nazi attempt to panic the population.)”

Follet sets the scene by describing how the war has impacted the country roads, making driving at night dangerous. This foreshadows the accident that is about to take place. Not only does this show how the war impacts the lives of those living in Britain, but it also introduces one of the many ways Germany is getting their spies into the country without the risk of being stopped at the border.