88 pages • 2 hours read
Code Name Verity
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Part 1, Chapters 9-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Verity”
Chapter 9 Summary: "Ormaie 21.XI.43 JB-S"
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).
Chapter 10 Summary: "Ormaie 22.XI.43 JB-S"
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.
In April 1943, Maddie ferries Julie to another secret mission. That night, Maddie goes on her first flight to France, tagging along on another pilot’s first solo flight. When Julie finally returns in the early hours of the morning to the room they are sharing, Maddie sees that Julie has been strangled and bears the marks of hands around her throat and many other bruises besides. Julie tells Maddie her deepest secret: she is not just a translator; she is an interrogator for the secret service. She questions and exposes double agents, using the false identity of a German interpretation liaison officer named Eva Seiler.
Julie believes that Maddie burned up after crashing in her plane the night she brought Julie to France.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Ormaie 23.XI.43 JB-S”
Julie writes this chapter on November 23, 1943. She repeats that she is posing as a wireless operator—the same story she told Georgia Penn in the interview. Keeping the pretense going about her mission, she explains the training she underwent. On the night of her drop into France, Julie’s pilot cannot fly because he’s been in a car accident, and Julie suggests Maddie as a replacement pilot. Maddie, capable of authorizing her own flights as an ATA pilot, gets her CO to grant permission. Julie and Maddie are off on their grand adventure.
Part 1, Chapters 9-11 Analysis
Julie’s brilliance and her ability to double-cross people become clearer in these chapters. Once she reveals that she is Eva Seiler, interrogator, the reader knows that she has been misleading the Nazis. Though readers do not know what her real mission in France was, they do know that Julie performed the same duties as von Linden, only on German agents captured by the British and presumably without torture. Julie is a professional interrogator; she has been watching von Linden and her other captors carefully.
In Chapter 11, Julie repeats that she is posing as a wireless operator—a position that offers her moral and physical safety. Earlier in the novel, she even refers to herself as a wireless set, not as a human being, which demonstrates how the Nazis’ torture has dehumanized Julie. Referring to herself as an inanimate object is also a coping mechanism that allows her to detach from the emotions of her situation. However, her secret work leaves her feeling conflicted: Its moral ambiguity and the deceitful tactics she uses so successfully still take their toll on her psyche—and her work as Eva Seiler will unfortunately lead to her death.
These chapters also support the theme of women’s roles in World War II, especially the reference to the recruitment and subsequent training for Special Operations Executive work. The role of women in secret work appears in the historical record of the Special Operations Executive, and about 25% of the people who worked in the SOE were women. Women, including radio operators, formed a secret army supporting the war effort, including the treacherous work behind enemy lines in Nazi-occupied Europe. Just as the war broke down the barriers separating the social classes, the war broke down barriers preventing women from pursuing a larger role in society. Through the necessities of war, women took on the same risk as their male colleagues, with many giving their lives.
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