Code Name Verity Part 2, Chapter 17 Summary

  • Maddie decides to write about what happened as if it were an accident report.
  • Mitraillette has tried to give her something to knock her out already, but she can't take it until she gets the story down.

Maddie titles the next section "Incident Report."

  • She notes that Damask circuit's mission that night is to sabotage the Poitou River Bridge to stop the German bus carrying Allied prisoners.
  • Paul does an amazing job of organizing the mission and keeping it running, and Maddie absolves him of responsibility for how it goes down.
  • Maddie, Paul, Mitraillette, and the other resistance workers hide their bikes and the car in and around Damask's house—the elderly woman the circuit is named for.
  • They take rowboats from Damask's house down the river to the bridge, which they wire to explode.
  • The bridge is mostly blown up in the explosion, as is the front of the bus—and when the German driver and guard get out, Paul and some others shoot them.
  • Two other guards get out and fire into the darkness.
  • Maddie is freaking out because she's so scared of gunfire, but Paul tells her to get it together and work on shooting up the equipment.
  • Then the guards take all the prisoners out of the bus and make them lie face down on the road.
  • The guards shoot six of the prisoners immediately in a "two for one" deal: for each German killed, they will kill two prisoners.
  • For a while there's a stalemate because no one wants to get more prisoners killed—Maddie spots Julie among those still alive.
  • The German guards make sure they don't present easy targets, while generally being jerks to the prisoners by stomping on them and/or shooting them in non-lethal places.
  • Julie starts talking to the guards, which makes one of them laugh; when he leans down to talk to her, she bites him.
  • Mitraillette tells Maddie she did it to provoke him into killing her quickly, but another guard is wise to Julie's plan and tells the first one not to shoot her.
  • When Nazi reinforcements arrive, things really start to go down—fast. And by down, we definitely mean downhill.
  • A few captives take the risk and run for it, escaping to the Resistance workers.
  • There's general pandemonium as Paul and his people start mowing down German soldiers, but then the tide turns.
  • The German soldier in charge of the situation grabs two men and Julie from the line of prisoners left on the ground and starts torturing the two men by shooting them between the legs and in the elbows.
  • After the two men are dragged back onto the bus, there's only Julie left, and Maddie bursts into very loud, distinctive sobs.
  • Julie realizes that Maddie is there and sees hope.
  • She cries, "KISS ME HARDY! Kiss me, QUICK!" (2.17.60).
  • Maddie knows what she means since they had this conversation about Admiral Nelson a long time ago.
  • Maddie shoots Julie in the head, killing her instantly.