Ep 1

I AM A COWARD

I wanted to be heroic and I pretended I was. I have always been good at

pretending. I spent the first twelve years of my life playing at the Battle of

Stirling Bridge with my five big brothers, and even though I am a girl they

let me be William Wallace, who is supposed to be one of our ancestors,

because I did the most rousing battle speeches. God, I tried hard last week.

My God, I tried. But now I know I am a coward. After the ridiculous deal I

made with SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden, I know I am a coward. And

I’m going to give you anything you ask, everything I can remember.

Absolutely Every Last Detail.

Here is the deal we made. I’m putting it down to keep it straight in my

own mind. ‘Let’s try this,’ the Hauptsturmführer said to me. ‘How could

you be bribed?’ And I said I wanted my clothes back.

It seems petty, now. I am sure he was expecting my answer to be

something defiant – ‘Give me Freedom’ or ‘Victory’ – or something

generous, like ‘Stop toying with that wretched French Resistance laddie and

give him a dignified and merciful death.’ Or at least something more

directly connected to my present circumstance, like ‘Please let me go to

sleep’ or ‘Feed me’ or ‘Get rid of this sodding iron rail you have kept tied

against my spine for the past three days.’ But I was prepared to go sleepless

and starving and upright for a good while yet if only I didn’t have to do it in

my underwear – rather foul and damp at times, and SO EMBARRASSING.

The warmth and dignity of my flannel skirt and woolly jumper are worth far

more to me now than patriotism or integrity.

So von Linden sold my clothes back to me piece by piece. Except my

scarf and stockings of course, which were taken away early on to prevent

me strangling myself with them (I did try). The pullover cost me four sets of

wireless code – the full lot of encoding poems, passwords and frequencies.

Von Linden let me have the pullover back on credit straight away. It was

waiting for me in my cell when they finally untied me at the end of thatdreadful three days, though I was incapable of getting the damned thing on

at first; but even just dragged over the top of me like a shawl it was

comforting. Now that I’ve managed to get into it at last I don’t think I shall

ever take it off again. The skirt and blouse cost rather less than the pullover,

and it was only one code set apiece for my shoes.

There are eleven sets in all. The last one was supposed to buy my slip.

Notice how he’s worked it that I get the clothes from the outside in, so I

have to go through the torment of undressing in front of everybody every

time another item is given back to me. He’s the only one who doesn’t watch

– he threatened to take it all away from me again when I suggested he was

missing a fabulous show. It was the first time the accumulated damage has

really been on display and I wish he would have looked at his masterpiece –

at my arms particularly – also the first time I have been able to stand in a

while, which I wanted to show off to him. Anyway I have decided to do

without my slip, which also saves me the trouble of stripping again to put it

on, and in exchange for the last code set I have bought myself a supply of

ink and paper – and some time.

Von Linden has said I have got two weeks and that I can have as much

paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember

about the British War Effort. And I’m going to. Von Linden resembles

Captain Hook in that he is rather an upright sort of gentleman in spite of his

being a brute, and I am quite Pan-like in my naïve confidence that he will

play by the rules and keep his word. So far he has. To start off my

confession, he has given me this lovely creamy embossed stationery from

the Château de Bordeaux, the Bordeaux Castle Hotel, which is what this

building used to be. (I would not have believed a French hotel could

become so forbiddingly bleak if I had not seen the barred shutters and

padlocked doors with my own eyes. But you have also managed to make

the whole beautiful city of Ormaie look bleak.)

It is rather a lot to be resting on a single code set, but in addition to my

treasonous account I have also promised von Linden my soul, although I do

not think he takes this seriously. Anyway it will be a relief to write anything

that isn’t connected with code. I’m so dreadfully sick of spewing wireless

code. Only when we’d put all those lists to paper did I realise what a huge

supply of code I do actually have in me.

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