Code Name Verity

The youngest Thibaut daughter, Amélie, witnesses the French girl’s execution. She arrives home in tears and reports that Julie was standing next to the French girl during her execution. Amélie didn’t see whether Julie was executed. Maddie refuses to believe that Julie is dead until she sees it with her own eyes. Maddie and Paul practice bomb-making and target shooting on Sunday afternoon, November 28, while the Thibauts entertain Etienne’s Nazi colleagues.

Maddie is to approach Anna Engel with a message, because Georgia Penn believes that she is probably sympathetic to Julie’s cause, primarily because Julie referred to her as an “angel” in their interview. Captain von Linden appears to be under additional stress because a set of keys went missing for an hour, and no one knows where they were during that time. Moreover, von Linden is in trouble because he allowed Georgia Penn to interview Julie, even though his boss had already denied permission.

Handing Engel a “dropped” lipstick as she steps out to drive von Linden to a meeting, Maddie enters Julie’s world of intrigue and espionage. Anna Engel recognizes something about her and asks if she is Maddie Brodatt. Maddie fumbles for a response, but Engel takes the lipstick tube containing the Resistance contact instructions anyway. Engel replies with Julie’s silk scarf and a message written in invisible ink. Julie is to be transported from Gestapo HQ that night by bus to a concentration camp in northeast France, along with 23 other prisoners.

The Damask circuit attempts to sabotage the prisoner transfer. They blow a hole in the bridge and manage to stop the bus. They kill three guards. The Nazis are more ruthless than the Resistance, however, immediately shooting two prisoners for every Nazi guard who is killed. Some of the prisoners manage to run away, but the guards realize that Julie is a valuable prisoner and stand on her neck, threatening to kill her. She talks back to them and bites a guard, trying to anger them so they will shoot her. The Nazis begin to take revenge on the remaining prisoners, shooting them in the legs, elbows, and groin. The Resistance fighters realize that they will not win and must retreat before German reinforcements arrive.

Maddie is distressed and begins to cry. Unable to stifle her sobs, Julie hears her and immediately recognizes her voice. She calls out, “KISS ME, HARDY! Kiss me, QUICK!” (285). Maddie shoots Julie in the head and kills her. The Resistance fighters flee, and the German reinforcements pursue them. Paul is killed in action that night. Maddie and Mitraillette hide on the riverbank near the home of the woman for whom their Resistance circuit is named; she is an older, wealthy woman with a garden full of damask roses. She takes Maddie in, offers her a bath, a meal, and sympathy.

Maddie arrives back at the Thibauts’ farm to find that Engel has delivered a pile of papers for her. When she begins reading, she immediately recognizes the document as Julie’s confession. Maddie knows now that Julie didn’t tell the Nazis anything. She made up 11 sets of code, as well as nearly every airfield name, personnel name, and aircraft type in the entire story. Her information would be useless to the Nazis. Maddie, however, discovers Julie’s true purpose by uncovering the code left in her narrative: the location of the plans to the Gestapo headquarters, and the underlined portions—underlined by Engel—which reveal information about how to get in and out of the building undetected. Operation Verity remains intact.