Code Name Verity

“The warmth and dignity of my flannel skirt and woolly sweater are worth far more to me now than patriotism or integrity.”

Julie here explains a simple truth about what physical torture and deprivation do to a person. The human need for personal dignity in harsh circumstances remains universal. Julie takes pains to explain that the Geneva conventions governing prisoner treatment do not apply to spies; therefore, anything goes. In these first pages of the novel, Wein depicts graphic torture in order to paint a realistic picture of Nazi treatment of prisoners for modern readers. As the novel progresses, the reader understands that Julie’s narrative is both true and an elaborate lie.

“It is incredible what you do, knowing you have to.”

Julie reveals that bravery is partly just following through on what you must do, or what you’ve already determined you must do, rather than a conscious choice in each moment. Both Julie and Maddie display great courage, but they both downplay their bravery and attribute it to things other than their own character or choice. Both insist that they simply do what they must; they don’t take credit for their courage. Courage under fire is a characteristic both women share.

“If you’re scared, do something.”

Julie gives Maddie excellent advice: fight your fear by taking action. If you take action, you can focus on the job at hand rather than worrying about being afraid. Maddie takes courage from Julie’s advice. Being of a higher rank, Julie orders Maddie to take action. In this case, by working together the two women shoot down an enemy aircraft.

“We’re still alive and we make a sensational team.”

From the beginning of their relationship, when they work together to bring down a lost German pilot safely, Maddie and Julie make an excellent team. They have different talents, but their values and characters are similar. For example, both women are courageous and want to work at something of value larger than themselves.

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

This quotation speaks to the major theme of the novel—the power of friendship and compares it favorably to romantic love. Wein’s depiction of a powerful female friendship is an implicit challenge to the cultural tendency to view women in terms of their romantic relationships with men. This challenge is reinforced by her refusal to dwell on the potential romance between Maddie and Jamie.

“It was wonderful flirting with him, all that razor-edge literary banter, like Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. A battle of wit, and a test, too. But he was playing God. I noticed, I knew it, and I didn’t care. It was such a thrill to be one of the archangels, the avengers, the chosen few.”

Julie slips briefly into the first person to explain how she came to be recruited as a spy. She is recruited by the nameless civilian—the Bloody Machiavellian English Intelligence Officer—at the Green Man pub.

“Gods’ truth—the rim of the lowering sun, all they could see of it, had turned green. It was sandwiched in between a bank of low dark haze and a higher bank of dark cloud, and just along the upper edge of the haze was this bright lozenge of flaming green, like Chartreuse liqueur with light behind it.”

Maddie, Dympna, and Julie see the green flash; an optical illusion only witnessed by a few people. This experience marks Maddie’s decision to follow her dream of flying and to never give up. It also stands as an example of the beauties of the natural world; beauty that the war and all its death and ugliness can never take away. Both Maddie and Julie share a love of nature and both women share memories of wondrous natural beauty, like this one, that inspire them.

“Von Linden really should know me well enough by now to realize that I am not going to face my execution without a fight. Or with anything remotely resembling dignity.”

Though Julie continues to assert that she is not brave, her actions belie her words. Tied up during an air raid and certain that she is about to be executed at any moment, Julie nevertheless arranges herself into an ambush of her Nazi captors. Earlier, she attempted to steal a metal pen nib to use as a weapon, and in the following pages she reveals that she has tried to escape twice. These are not the actions of a coward, and they offer further evidence that Julie’s narrative is not as it seems.

“Fly the plane, Maddie.”

Maddie says this to herself whenever she is afraid, and it becomes a refrain throughout her part of the novel. In order to overcome her fear, Maddie learned from Julie to focus on the job at hand. Maddie discovers that if she concentrates on the current job, her fear goes away. This phrase symbolizes Julie’s impact on Maddie’s life. Julie helped Maddie gain courage under fire.

“I am no longer afraid of getting old. In fact I can’t believe I ever said anything so stupid. So childish. So offensive and arrogant.

But mainly, so very, very stupid. I desperately want to grow old.”

Julie chastises her more naïve self, as she recounts the list of her fears, which is now so very different from the list she once shared with Maddie. Clearly changed by her experiences as a prisoner of war, Julie longs for the life she knows she will never have. The chances of her getting much older, barring a miraculous rescue, are nonexistent.

“Maddie took the top off her egg with her spoon. The hot, bright yolk was like a summer sun breaking through cloud, the first daffodil in the snow, a gold sovereign wrapped in a while silk handkerchief. She dipped her spoon in it and licked it.”

Maddie experiences the luxury of a three-minute egg at Castle Craig, dining with Jamie Beaufort-Stuart and the little boys from Glasgow. The reader remembers that Julie is narrating Maddie’s experience, so the scene takes on added poignancy as Julie recounts Maddie’s first experience of Julie’s beloved childhood home and the simple experience of eating an egg for tea: safe, warm, and happy. As she writes this scene, Julie is none of these things.

“‘How did you ever get here, Maggie Brodatt?’

‘Second to the right, and then straight on till morning,’ she answered promptly—it did feel like Neverland.

‘Crickey, am I so obviously Peter Pan?’

Maddie laughed. ‘The Lost Boys give it away.’

Jamie studied his hands. ‘Mother keeps the windows open in all of our bedrooms while we are gone, like Mrs. Darling, in case we come flying home when she’s not expecting us.’”

Here Maddie and Jamie acknowledge an underlying motif of the novel—constant literary references, such as this one to the novel Peter Pan. The characters’ knowledge and references to literature enrich the meaning of—and the reader’s understanding of—their experiences. At times, these allusions are funny, but more frequently, they are painful or bittersweet. Mrs. Darling left the windows open in the hope that her children would eventually return home; Lady Beaufort-Stuart does the same, but not all of her children will return home. Julie, for example, knows as she writes these lines that she will never go home again, giving this passage additional emotional resonance and meaning.

“He has been chewing over this idea that I can ‘buy’ time in exchange for bits of my soul, and he wondered if I likened myself to Faust. Nothing like an arcane literary debate with your tyrannical master while you pass the time leading to your execution.”

Julie uses sarcasm to express her disgust with von Linden. Ever mindful of the hazards of the double bluff she is playing, Julie here reveals that while von Linden believes he is playing Julie, she is playing him. At the same time, this passage serves as a genuine exclamation of protest against her position. While such von Linden’s literary discussions make him a more sympathetic figure, his brutality is without question. Wein paints a more complicated picture of the evil Nazi figures through von Linden’s character: he’s well-read, even reading resistance propaganda and pamphlets, making it more difficult to write him off as a purely evil character.

“I envied her the simplicity of her work, the spiritual cleanness of it—Fly the plane, Maddie. That was all she had to do. There was no guilt, no moral dilemma, no argument or anguish—danger, yes, but she always knew what she was facing. And I envied that she had chosen her work herself and was doing what she wanted to do. I don’t suppose that I had any idea what I ‘wanted’ and so I was chosen, not choosing. There’s glory and honor in being chosen. But not much room for free will.”

Julie here reveals that she envies Maddie’s war work and her life choices. Julie realizes that her own ego and personality got her where she is—in a Nazi prison. She doesn’t complain, but she does see the advantage that Maddie has over her. Julie’s narrative is an attempt to come to terms with her choices.

“It’s awful, telling it like this, isn’t it? As though we didn’t know the ending. As though it could have another ending. It’s like watching Romeo drink poison. Every time you see it you get fooled into thinking his girlfriend might wake up and stop him. Every single time you see it you want to shout, ‘You stupid ass, just wait a minute,’ and she’ll open her eyes! ‘Oi, you, you twat, open your eyes, wake up! Don’t die this time!’ But they always do.”

Here, Julie foreshadows her own death as she describes the eve of her departure for France. This passage remains one of several instances where she reveals that she knows that the only possible outcome for her is death. She doesn’t want to die, but the realistic part of her knows that this record is the only way she will live on; the only way part of her will survive.

“Mary Queen of Scots had a little dog, a Skye terrier, that was devoted to her. Moments after Mary was beheaded, the people who were watching saw her skirts moving about and they thought her headless body was trying to get itself to its feet. But the movement turned out to be her dog, which she had carried to the block with her, hidden in her skirts. Mary Stuart is supposed to have faced her execution with grace and courage (she wore a scarlet chemise to suggest she was being martyred), but I don’t think she could have been so brave if she had not secretly been holding tight to her Skye terrier, feeling his warm, silky fur against her trembling skin.”

Julie imagines her own death, and tries to brace herself for it. She wants to be brave, and through the historical reference of Mary Queen of Scots, indicates that she wants to emulate her. As a Stuart, Julie is distantly related to Mary Queen of Scots.

“But I have told the truth. Isn't that ironic? They sent me because I am so good at telling lies. But I have told the truth.”

Julie reveals the dual nature of her narrative, which is not clear until Maddie reads it and realizes that it is false. Near the end of her story, Julie knows that the end of her life also approaches. At this point, the reader suspects that Julie’s narrative is not what it seems, through such clues as the underlined portions of the text, but it is not clear what her purpose in writing it is. Julie is right; she has told the truth but she has told lies at the same time.

“The quick sudden terror of exploding bombs is not the same as the never-ending, bone-sapping fear of discovery and capture. It never goes away. There isn’t ever any relief, never the possibility of an All Clear siren. You always feel a little bit sick inside, knowing the worst might happen at any moment.”

Maddie expresses the fear that every spy or secret agent feels. She can now understand the fear that others have lived with and overcome, including Jamie and Julie. At this point, Maddie knows that Julie has vanished, but not that she has been captured by the Gestapo. However, her admiration for Julie in enduring such tension during her secret work grows.

“I don't recognize my emotions any more. There's no such thing as plain joy or grief. It's horror and relief and panic and gratitude all jumbled together.”

Maddie, currently hiding with the Thibaut family near Ormaie, gets word through Georgia Penn that Julie is still alive and being held at SS HQ. However, the joyful news that Julie is still alive is tempered by the horror that she is being held captive by the Nazis.

“I was fighting and fighting to keep it down […] Scared and worried and tired all at once, angry at the sky for being so beautiful when we were in danger of crashing. Then Julie, sitting alongside me, said, ‘Let me help.’

In the dream the Puss Moth had side-by-side dual controls like a Tipsy, and Julie took hold of her own control column and gently pushed the nose forward, and suddenly we were flying the plane together.

All the pressure was gone. Nothing to be afraid of, nothing to battle against, just the two of us flying together, flying the plane together, side by side in the gold sky.

‘Easy peasy,’ she said, and laughed, and it was.”

Maddie dreams this dream the same night that Julie dreams of flying with Maddie: November 22nd. Maddie’s flying dream, like Julie’s, is about safety, peace and the trust they have in each other. Again, the theme that together they are able to accomplish more than either of them can on her own is emphasized. This scene also serves as their good-bye.

“What’s strange about the whole things is that although it’s riddled with nonsense, altogether it’s true—Julie’s told our story, mine and hers, our friendship, so truthfully. It is us.”

Maddie wonders at her friend’s cleverness. Making her confession useless to the enemy, while pretending to give away every last detail, Julie still manages to make the story of their friendship emotionally true. Maddie knew that Julie was a brilliant actress, but she never knew exactly how good she was until now.

“And this, even more wonderful and mysterious, is also true: when I read it, when I read what Julie’s written, she is instantly alive again, whole and undamaged. With her words in my mind while I’m reading, she is as real as I am. Gloriously daft, drop-dead charming, full of bookish nonsense and foul language, brave and generous. She’s right here. Afraid and exhausted, alone, but fighting. Flying in silver moonlight in a plane that can’t be landed, stuck in the climb—alive, alive, ALIVE.”

Maddie pays tribute to the power of her friend’s writing, which brings her alive again in the pages she left behind.

“But I’ve never despised myself as much as I did that day—she was so small and […] So fierce, so beautiful, it was like breaking a hawk’s wings, stopping up a clear spring with bricks—digging up roses to make a space to park your tank. Pointless and ugly. She was just—blazing with life and defiance one minute, then the next moment nothing but a senseless shell lying on her face in the gutter.”

In her last meeting with Maddie, Anna Engel recalls her first meeting with Julie, when she was called to subdue her with chloroform during her arrest. From that moment, Engel was on Julie’s side; she just needed to know what Julie wanted her to do. In the end, without Engel’s help Operation Verity would have failed. Engel gives Maddie Julie’s narrative and a key to the Gestapo HQ. In the end, Anna is the “Avenging Angel” (307) Julie describes her as.