Wein - Rose under fire: Code Name Verity Series, Book 2

ALSO BY ELIZABETH WEIN

Code Name Verity

Black Dove, White Raven

Copyright 2013 by Elizabeth Gatland

Cover design by Whitney Manger

Excerpt from Black Dove, White Raven copyright 2015 by Elizabeth Gatland.

All rights reserved. Published by Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.

Edna St. Vincent Millay, To a Young Poet, Counting-out Rhyme, and excerpts from Scrub and Dirge Without Music from Collected Poems. Copyright 1923, 1928, 1939, 1951, 1955, 1967 by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis. Reprinted with the permission of the Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Holly Peppe, Literary Executor, the Millay Society. www.millay.org

Spring and All, Section I by William Carlos Williams, from The Collected Poems: Volume I, 1909-1939, copyright 1938 by New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Canoe Song (a.k.a. My Paddles Keen and Bright), by Margaret Embers McGee.

Make New Friends (a.k.a. New Friends and Old), attributed to Joseph Parry.

Praise for Bread (Morning is Here), attributed to A. R. Ledoux.

Rose, Rose, anonymous.

ISBN 978-1-4231-9869-7

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- For Kate -

TO A YOUNG POET

Time cannot break the birds wing from the bird.

Bird and wing together

Go down, one feather.

No thing that ever flew,

Not the lark, not you,

Can die as others do.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Rose Moyer Justice

August 2, 1944

Hamble, Hampshire

NOTES FOR AN ACCIDENT REPORT

I just got back from Celia Foresters funeral. Im supposed to be writing up an official report for the Tempest she flew into the ground, since shes obviously not going to write it herself, and I saw it happen. And also because I feel responsible. I know it wasnt my faultI really do know that now. But I briefed her. We both had Tempests to deliver, and Id flown one a couple of times before. Celia hadnt. She took off ten minutes after me. If shed taken off first, we might both still be alive.

Ive never had to do a report like this, and I dont really know where to begin. Maddie gave me this beautiful leather-bound notebook to draft it in; she thinks it helps to have nice paper, and knew I wouldnt buy any for myself, since, like everything else, its so scarce. She says you need to bribe yourself because its always blah writing up accident reports. She had to write a big report herself last January and also be grilled in person by the Accident Committee. Shes right about nice paper, of course, and I have filled up a couple of those pretty cloth-bound diaries that lock; but all I ever put in them are attempts at poetry. Too bad I cant put the accident report into verse.

There were a few other Air Transport Auxiliary pilots at Celias funeral, but Maddie was the only ATA girl besides me. Felicyta couldnt come; she had a delivery chit this morning. Along with Celia and Felicyta, Maddie and I were the ones who gave out Mrs. Hatchs strawberries to the soldiers lining up to board the landing craft for the D-Day invasion. It made us into friends. Felicyta was very tearful this morning, banging things around angrily. Probably she shouldnt be flying. I know exactly what Daddy would saythree thousand miles away on Justice Field in Pennsylvaniaif it was me: Rosie, go home. You shouldnt fly while your friends are being buried. But the planes have got to be delivered. Theresa war on.

Boy, am I sick of hearing that.

It never stops. There are planes to deliver every day straight from the factory or just overhauled, painted in fresh camouflage or invasion stripes, ready to go to France. I got thrown in at the deep end when I stepped off the ship from New York three months ago, and before the end of May I was delivering Spitfires, real fighter planes, from Southamptons factories near the Hamble Aerodrome to just about every airbase in southern England. I was supposed to get some training, but they just put me through a few flight tests instead. Being the daughter of someone who runs a flight school has paid off in spadesIve been flying since I was twelve, which means Ive been flying longer than some of the older pilots, even though Im only eighteen. The baby on the team.

There was a lull for a week after D-Day, when the invasion started. Actually, I dont think it should be called an invasion when really we are trying to get most of Europe back from the Germans, who invaded it in the first place. Our Allied soldiers left for France in the beginning of June, and for one week only military flights got authorized, so there was no flying for usthe Air Transport Auxiliary in Britain are civilian pilots, like the WASPs at home. That was a quiet week, the second week of June. Then the flying bombs started coming in.

Holy smoke, I cant say how much I hate the flying bombs.

V-1 is what the Germans call them. V stands for Vergeltungswaffe, retaliation weapon. I worked hard at memorizing the real word for it, because I always think it means vengeance: Vengeance Weapon No. 1. The only thing these bombs are meant to do is terrify people. Everyone puts on a brave face, thoughthe English are very good at putting on a brave face, Ill give them that! People try to make the bombs less scary by giving them stupid names: doodlebugssounds like baby talk. Buzz bombsa phrase for older kids to use. The other ferry pilots call them pilotless planes, which should seem simple and technical, but it gives me the creeps. An aircraft flying blind, no cockpit, no windows, no way of landing except to self-destruct? How can you win an air war against a plane that doesnt need a pilot? A plane that turns into a bomb? Our planes, the British and American aircraft I fly every day in the ATA, dont even have radios, much less guns. We dont stand a chance. Celia Forester didnt stand a chance.

At the funeral, the local ministervicar, they say herehad never even met Celia. He called her a dedicated pilot.

It doesnt mean anything. Were all dedicated. But to tell the truth, I dont think any of us would have had anything better to say. Celia was so quiet. She was only just posted to Hamble in May, about the same time I was, and for the same reasonto ferry planes for the invasion. She hardly ever talked to anybody. I cant blame hershe had a fianc who was in Bomb Disposal and was killed at Christmas. Its bad enough being a newcomer without being stuck grieving for your boyfriend. Celia wasnt very happy here.

Am I happy here?

I guess I am. I like what Im doing. I wanted to come so badlyI cant believe they gave me that diploma in December, like Laura Ingalls Wilder leaving school at fifteen so she could be a teacher! And now here I am, in England for the first time, not far from where Daddy was born, and Im actually helping. Im