Gaby Halberstam - Noor Inayat Khan

This electronic edition published in November 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing

Copyright 2013 A & C Black
Text copyright 2013 Gaby Halberstam

First published 2013 by A & C Black
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square,
London, WC1B 3DP
www.bloomsbury.com

The right of Gaby Halberstam to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

eISBN: 978-1-4729-0014-2

A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.

Visit www.bloomsbury.com to find out more about our authors and their books
You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can sign up for newsletters to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers

For Simon

The icy fingers of dawn touched the bars of the prison cell, before feeling their way to the body of the young woman slumped across the cement floor. In the grey light, the blood in which she lay shone dully. From outside there came the sounds of shouting, the smart rhythm of hard heels on hard surfaces, and moaning. But inside the cell, the woman said nothing. The Nazi officer standing over her dealt her another kick, half-hearted this time. As though she were no longer worth the effort. Wiping his brow on his sleeve, he took his pistol from its holster.

Kneel! he ordered in his coarse French accent, shoving her feet with his boot.

The pilot shut the plane, climbed into the cockpit, and they were off. Noor Inayat Khan waved to Miss Atkins through the window. Shed been overseeing Noor almost like a head mistress, and it was she whod brought Noor to Sussex to catch the plane to France, and the beginning of her adventure.

The English Channel glittered in the moonlight like a sequinned scarf. In the time it took to fly from England to the airfield near Paris, Noor had to take on her new identity. She reached for the documents inside her bag. The photograph on her new ID card was definitely of her: brown eyes, heart-shaped face and darkish skin, brown-black hair cut in the latest Parisian style. But the name on the card was Jeanne-Marie Renier, a childrens nurse. Shed been given a new birthday, too. Noor smiled: when the plane had taken off, shed been twenty-nine, but when it landed shed be twenty-five. Jeanne Marie was her new official name, but her code name was Madeleine.

The other things in her bag were more frightening. Miss Atkins had given her a Webley pistol. It was cold to the touch. Shed have to use it if the plane were met by the enemy. The thought of that was enough to make Noor shudder.

Next to the pistol, in a little envelope, were the four special pills to be swallowed if she were in trouble. The first would keep Noor awake if she needed to keep going. If she were captured, she could swallow the second pill and it would make her seem ill. The third could be put into the enemys drink to make him sleep for six hours. That would give Noor a chance to escape. The fourth pill was the one she could use if she was absolutely desperate: the L pill. It contained cyanide, which was deadly. If she bit through the rubber coating and swallowed the poison inside, she would die within minutes.

Quickly, Noor closed her bag, and looked out of the window again. This was the start of her mission a secret mission. She was a member of SOE, the Special Operations Executive. Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister, had set it up. Set Europe ablaze, hed said, and that was what she and the other SOE agents were going to do.

They were going to work with the Resistance, the men and women working in secret to disrupt and destroy the Germans.

Did Churchill know about her? she wondered. The thought made her sit up straight. Not even Amma, her mother, nor her sister and two brothers knew where she was and what she was doing.

Were nearly there, the pilot said, his crackly voice breaking into her thoughts. Another ten minutes or so.

She fluttered her fingers across her lap. She used to play the harp when she was younger; now she was known as a pianist. But that didnt mean that she played the piano. No, she was a wireless telegraph operator, someone who typed out messages in code on a radio set the first female operator to be flown into France.

She would receive messages from London about agents coming to France, or when and where guns and ammunition would be dropped. When London planned acts of sabotage, it would be her job to pass the details on to the Resistance, and to report back on whether the agents had been successful, or whether anyone had been captured by the Germans.

Through the window Noor could see the lights marking the landing strip for the plane. There was a rattling and banging as they landed. Moving quickly, the pilot opened the door, and Noor scrambled down the ladder he lowered.

Madeleine? someone on the ground asked.

Just as Miss Atkins had said, there were two men waiting. One of them pushed a bicycle towards her.

Take the train to Paris, he said. Station is that way. He pointed. Keep following the road.

The two men disappeared into the night.

She was on her own. In the middle of nowhere. In enemy territory.

Panic grabbed hold of her, squeezing her ribcage until she could hardly breathe. What on earth had she been thinking when shed agreed to do this?

The low mist weaving round her legs, and the chill wind, snapped Noor out of her fear. Pulling her green oilcloth raincoat round her, she pushed the bike towards some bushes. There was something she had to do. She knelt, glanced around, then, scrabbling at the soil, she dug a hole and threw the pistol in. If the enemy found it on her in Paris, shed be arrested immediately. Maybe even shot.

She wiped her hands on her coat. She had to move off quickly. Someone might have seen the plane land. Someone could tell the Germans.

Noor leapt on to the bike, and began to cycle like crazy. There were very few houses and no lights. Was the clank-clank-rattle she could hear the mudguard, or her heart? Faster and faster she went. There were more buildings now, a church, the town hall, a boarded-up butchery. And finally, the station.

The clerk in the office was about to close up when Noor abandoned the bike and ran, panting, to buy a ticket. He stared at her before handing it over and pulling the blind down.

She went over to a map and timetable stuck to a wall. They were torn and stained. The timetable was dated 1941 two years out of date. When would the next train to Paris arrive? Was there even a train? Noor wished shed asked the ticket clerk, but hed already left and the office was locked.

The platform was empty apart from a man in a coat with his hat pulled low, and one of the agents whod met her plane. Noor moved towards him to talk to him. But he frowned and turned his back. She was on her own. Digging her hands into her pockets, her breath pluming in the cold air, she paced up and down.

Just as she thought there would be no train at all that night, the railway line rattled. Minutes later, the train arrived in a billow of steam. Noor climbed on board, and pulled the door shut. Sinking on to a seat, she hugged her arms around herself with excitement.