Noor Inayat Khan
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About this ebook
The astonishing story of a true British hero.
Gaby Halberstam
Born and raised in the sleepy town of Port Elizabeth in South Africa, Gaby Halberstam's passion for writing began at the age of five when she started penning stories for her family and friends. After studying English as an adult, she went on to become a qualified lawyer, a career choice she immediately regretted knowing that she'd be much happier as a professional writer. Now based in London with her husband and three children, Gaby has achieved her childhood dream and is a full time author.
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Book preview
Noor Inayat Khan - Gaby Halberstam
For Simon
Contents
Prologue: 13 September 1944
1 16 June 1943
2 17 June 1943
3 June 1943
4 June 1943
5 26 June 1943
6 27 June 1943
7 July 1943
8 July 1943
9 July 1943
10 July 1943
11 July 1943
12 August 1943
13 September 1943
14 October 1943
15 October 1943
16 October 1943
17 13 October 1943
18 November 1943
19 November 1943 to September 1944
20 12 September 1944
21 13 September 1944
Epilogue
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Prologue
13 September 1944
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.
1
16 June 1943
The pilot shut the plane, climbed into the cockpit, and they were off. Noor Inayat Khan waved to Miss Atkins through the window. She’d been overseeing Noor almost like a head mistress, and it was she who’d 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 children’s nurse. She’d been given a new birthday, too. Noor smiled: when the plane had taken off, she’d been twenty-nine, but when it landed she’d 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. She’d 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 enemy’s 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’, he’d 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.
‘We’re 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 didn’t 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