Code Name Verity

An orphan raised by her Russian-Jewish grandparents, Margaret Brodatt, also called Maddie, loves machines. Her grandfather runs a bicycle and motorcycle shop and gives her a motorcycle for her 16th birthday. She soon becomes enamored of airplanes and learns how to fly. At first, World War II seems to represent the end of her dream of being a pilot. However, as the war goes on and British men are needed for the front lines, women are recruited to fly non-combat missions in support of the war effort. Maddie gladly takes on this challenge, becoming one of the Air Transport Auxiliary’s best pilots.

In the course of her war work, which she begins as a radio operator, she meets Queenie, aka Julie. Despite the differences in their socioeconomic backgrounds, Julie and Maddie share characteristics that draw them together, including bravery, intelligence, and the need to be of use in the war effort.

Maddie’s only desire is to fly, and she consistently says that she’s glad that all she has to do is fly. Maddie refuses to think about the moral complexities and difficulties Julie faces in her interrogation work, though she tells Julie that she does think about how the planes she delivers are used to kill people. However, she is able to maintain a safe psychological distance from death, until her decision to fly Julie into France results in her getting caught up in Julie’s world of intrigue, suspicion, suspense, and spying.

Out of her love for Julie, she enters this world determined to find a way to help her friend. Maddie faces the most difficult decision in the novel, when Julie asks Maddie to kill her, rather than let the Nazis do so. As a result of what she has learned through her friendship with Julie, she has the strength to do what must be done. Maddie does the right thing.

Julie’s brother, Jamie, is a fighter pilot when the story begins. Jamie’s plane is shot down early in the war over the North Sea. Floating in the frozen water, he attempts to save his fingers by warming them inside his mouth. He is rescued, but he loses two fingers on each hand and all of his toes. No longer able to fly combat missions, Jamie joins the Air Transport Auxiliary or ATA, and Maddie helps him to be recruited to fly secret missions for the Special Operations Executive, or SOE.

Jamie and Julie are very close, and Maddie and Jamie become close friends through their work. Jamie reminds Maddie of Julie, and in fact their personalities are similar. They are silly, literature-quoting, intelligent, funny, and courageous people.

Jamie acts as a supportive and protective friend to Maddie throughout the novel, and he always treats Maddie as his equal. For example, when Paul insults Maddie, Jamie leaps to her defense. Though he is physically small like his sister, he doesn’t hesitate to attempt to intimidate Paul, who is much larger. Like his sister Julie, he despises bullies.

There are several hints that the relationship between Jamie and Maddie may not be purely platonic, such as when they kiss upon meeting unexpectedly in France. However, Wein focuses on their friendship, rather than any possible romance, including Jamie’s understanding and support of Maddie when she kills Julie. He understands why Julie asked Maddie to kill her, so in the end he tells Maddie that she did the right thing.

In her narrative, Julie depicts Anna Engel as a dupe of the Nazi system; however, this depiction merely serves as a cover for Anna’s role as Julie’s secret collaborator during her imprisonment. Anna gives Julie cigarettes and offers to help her by getting her story to the right people, foreshadowing her later work assisting the French Resistance.

From her first meeting with Julie, Engel is struck by Julie’s beauty and presence. Engel, treated like a slave by her Nazi masters, has no loyalty to them. For her they represent the pointless destruction of beauty and possibility. Engel liberates Julie’s story from von Linden, enables Julie to put the location of the plans into her narrative, and steals a key to the building. Thus, Engel enables the French Resistance to successfully blow up the building and complete Julie’s mission.