88 pages • 2 hours read
Elizabeth WeinCode Name Verity
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 1, Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Verity”
Chapter 1 Summary: “Ormaie 8.XI.43 JB-S”
This novel is divided into two parts: the first part is narrated by Verity, as she writes her so-called “confession” to the German SS officer who is holding her prisoner as a spy; the second part is narrated by Kittyhawk, the pilot who dropped Verity into enemy territory. Each chapter heading in this section begins with the place, Ormaie—a fictional city in Nazi-occupied France; followed by the date, with XI standing for November; and ends with Verity’s real initials “J B-S.” The reader eventually learns that Verity’s real name is Julie Beaufort-Stuart.
This chapter is written on November 8, 1943 in Ormaie, France. Verity—a British spy—announces that she is a coward, and that she has made a deal with the SS officer who is holding her prisoner: she will tell him all she knows about the British war effort in exchange for better treatment and an additional two weeks of life in which to write her confession, before she is executed. Better treatment includes being able to wear her own clothes, being given some food to eat and water to drink, and not having to endure torture, such as being burnt with a cigarette, being tied to a chair with an iron bar up her back for three days, starvation, or going without sleep for days. She has endured all of these torments before she begins writing her story.
She must still endure one particular torture: because she is imprisoned in a room next to the interrogation room, she hears the persecution meted out to the other prisoners, which goes on day and night. The time she spends out of her cell, writing, equals time that she escapes the constant screams of others. Verity describes her prison, which used to be a hotel, and several of her Nazi jailors, including SS officer von Linden, Anna Engel—a civilian German translator working for the SS, and Etienne Thibaut—a French collaborator. Verity is hated by the other prisoners because she agrees to collaborate with the Nazis. When they see her, they spit on her and call her names. Verity hates herself for her “weakness” too.
After giving the Nazis the code for 11 wireless sets in exchange for her clothing and shoes, Verity exchanges the last set for ink, pen, and paper to write the rest of her confession. She has two weeks to write her story; two weeks left to live. To confess all that she knows of British air force, Verity begins by telling the story of her pilot, Maddie, or Margaret Brodatt. Verity was captured with Maddie’s ID instead of her own, so she is not giving anything away by giving them Maddie’s name.
Maddie was given a motorbike by her grandfather for her 16th birthday in 1938; she has always loved machines. She is out in the countryside having a picnic with her friend, Beryl, when both girls see an airplane, a Puss Moth, crash-land in a nearby field. They rush to save the pilot and pull her from the wreckage. Maddie realizes that if this woman can fly an airplane that she can too.
From a newspaper report on the crash, Maddie discovers the name of the pilot—Dympna Wythenshawe—and the location of the airfield she flies from. On her day off from work in her grandfather’s bike shop, Maddie visits the airfield. She strikes up a conversation with Dympna, who promises to give Maddie a ride in the airplane, once it’s fixed. Maddie stays and helps put the engine back together. She is hooked on the idea of learning to fly.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Ormaie 9.XI.43 JB-S”
This chapter is written in Ormaie, France at the Gestapo headquarters on November 9, 1943. Julie reveals that the other prisoners hate her because she has collaborated with the Nazis. Julie takes up Maddie’s story again.
In October 1938, Britain started a Civil Air Guard, and Maddie was accepted due to her work with the mechanics on the planes. She received free air flight training and achieved her “A” pilot’s license in February 1939. When all civilian aircraft were grounded in August 1939, just before the start of World War II, Dympna tells Maddie that the civilian Air Transport Auxiliary will eventually need women as pilots, and that she’ll put Maddie’s name in for consideration. Meanwhile, Dympna helps Maddie get into the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, or WAAF, where she trains as a radio operator.
Maddie works as a radio operator, helping to guide pilots who are being trained for combat. It is now 1940, and by the spring, Maddie is allowed to ride along on the bomber training missions—strictly on the QT. Her section chief notes her talents in talking the boys safely down out of the sky and sends her for secret training.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Ormaie 10.XI.43 JB-S”
During the summer of 1940, Maddie secretly trains as a wireless radio operator using the top-secret Radar technology. With this technology, Britain was able to see the swarms of Luftwaffe aircraft approaching and sound air raid warnings, as well as send up British fighter pilots to head them off. Maddie meets Queenie, aka Julie, when she hears a German pilot trying to land over England. The inexperienced pilot thinks that he’s over France. Julie talks him down, in German, using the information Maddie feeds her. They “make a sensational team” (108); this becomes a stock phrase to describe their relationship. After the pilot is taken into custody, Julie is asked to help interrogate him. Maddie feels sorry for her.
Later that night, they develop their friendship in the air raid shelter. As bombs fall around them, they discover that they are about the same age, eighteen, that they admire each other’s talents, and that they work well together under pressure. Maddie admires Julie’s ability to pretend, to translate on command, and keep her cool under pressure; while Julie admires Maddie’s knowledge of planes and her ability to navigate and keep her sense of direction.
Julie is always impeccably groomed, with her blonde hair smoothed into a chignon pinned exactly two inches above her collar; in contrast, Maddie’s hair is a riot of dark curls that always manages to be both too long and too short to pin up. This contrast is emblematic of their characters. Meeting again the next day after repairing the runway, the girls share their fears, confiding in one another, and their friendship grows. Each woman is to tell the other their top ten fears.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Ormaie 11.XI.43 JB-S”
Julie writes this chapter on November 11, 1943, detailing a brief argument and interrogation with Captain von Linden and Anna Engel. Von Linden astutely recognizes that “Queenie” from the narrative is Julie herself. Julie is punished for correcting them when they refer to her as English: she insists that she is Scottish.
When she runs out of stationery, Julie continues writing on the blank prescription pads of a Jewish doctor. Julie notes that she suffers ongoing pain from burns on her wrists and may have contracted blood poisoning from pins inserted into her body during interrogations. She indicates that she can now walk again, after previous interrogations left her unable to, though the only evidence of that damage is severe bruising. She fears that she will be executed by being forced to drink kerosene and then be set on fire; both Captain von Linden and Anna Engel prey on this fear to keep Julie in line.
During the next night’s air raid, Julie and Maddie are forced to run across the airfield to get to their duty stations. As they are running, a wounded antiaircraft gunner calls for their help. Once again forced into courageous action, the women fire the gun at the incoming Nazi airplanes. They bring down one aircraft before Julie runs for help, while Maddie holds the position.
To help her friend learn to navigate and improve her sense of direction, Maddie takes Julie on an expedition across the countryside to the Green Man pub, telling her to pretend that she is a Nazi spy. Thus, Maddie finds herself responsible for planting the idea that Julie would be an excellent spy.
On the journey, Julie punctures her own bicycle tire so that they can practice on the farmer’s wife who comes to their aid, giving them dinner and fixing their tire. The two women confide their remaining fears to each other: Maddie’s is to let someone down; Julie’s is to kill someone. Julie confides that her great-aunt killed her great-uncle because he was suffering terribly from terminal cancer; he asked his wife to kill him, to put him out of his misery, and she did.
At the Green Man, the two women run into Maddie’s section chief and a civilian, who turns out to be a member of the intelligence service. They recount their adventure across the country, including the faked tire puncture. Julie and the “Bloody Machiavellian English Intelligence Officer playing God” (81) share stories and quote Kipling at each other.
Part 1, Chapters 1-4 Analysis
These chapters introduce the main characters: Verity/Queenie, or Julie, the narrator who is imprisoned by the Nazis, and Maddie, the pilot who dropped Julie into France. These chapters begin with the story of Maddie’s life and her interest in flying, and end with Julie’s recruitment as a British spy.
From the beginning, Verity insists that she is a coward and that she has or will divulge all manner of secrets to the Nazis, including the code for the 11 wireless sets found in the downed plane that brought her to France. She has undergone several weeks of torture before the novel begins and has admittedly broken down under the harsh interrogations. Even so, rather than judging Verity, the reader immediately sympathizes with her.
She is funny, irreverent, self-deprecating, and intelligent. Telling the story from her friend Maddie’s point of view allows her to distance herself from her current circumstances and focus on telling her story. She might otherwise be too overcome with emotion, as she notes from the beginning that she has a firing squad or guillotine in front of her, at best. At worst, she will be shipped off to a work camp or medical experimentation camp. From the first sentence of the novel, she knows that there is no way that she will survive.
The detailed and realistic tone creates an authentic atmosphere. As a narrator, the reader assumes that Verity is credible because she immediately paints herself in a negative light, repeatedly calling herself a “proper little Judas” (25) or referring to her “thirty pieces of silver” (39). If she is willing to depict herself so negatively, then she must be telling the truth. Additionally, because the reader knows that Verity won’t survive and that this narrative forms what amounts to a “death-bed” confession, her account must be truthful. However, there are several clues in these opening chapters that her confession might not be as accurate as it seems: Early on, we learn that Julie is a talented actress, and she admits that she’s “always been good at pretending” (3). She also acknowledges that she is “making up all of the proper nouns” (39) in her confession because she cannot remember the name or rank of every person included in her story. If Julie invented some parts of her confession, it begs the question of whether she fabricated any other details.
Underlined portions appear, beginning on Page 60, which similarly suggest that this narrative is not exactly what it appears to be. Though the reader must take Verity/Queenie’s story at face value, there are glimmers of something lurking beneath the surface—later, it will be revealed that Julie’s true purpose was to leave clues in her confession, and the underlined sentences are coded messages. Verity moves through the story of meeting Maddie and reveals the growth of the women’s friendship. In fact, the major theme and the heart of this novel is the relationship between Maddie and Julie. The power of friendship grants people more strength, courage, ability, and endurance than they would have on their own—and in this novel, Julie and Maddie’s friendship will serve as a pillar of optimism and teamwork against the grim reality of war.
