Free Spy Princess by Shrabani Basu Page A

the family back and forth. It was 19 June, his birthday, but there was nothing to celebrate. France, the country they loved so much, was occupied. Vilayat felt they had managed to leave just on time. Noor was determined to return.
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    After an uncomfortable journey in the cargo boat, which was infested with beetles, the family landed at Falmouth. Noor and Vilayat breathed a sigh of relief, as their mother was clearly exhausted and desperately needed to rest. They headed for the home of Basil Mitchell, an old family friend who lived in Southampton.
    They travelled all night and arrived early in the morning, exhausted, and were quickly taken in by the surprised Mitchells. But Southampton was not safe from bombs either and so Mrs Mitchell decided to take Amina Begum and her daughters with her to a friend’s house in Oxford. Basil Mitchell took Vilayat to London. Vilayat applied immediately for the RAF, but he came down with paratyphoid fever and had to return to Oxford where he was admitted to the Headington Isolation Hospital. The girls and their mother remained in Oxford, and Noor and Claire went to the hospital every day to enquire about Vilayat. Slowly they began to come to grips with their new life.
    Noor was cheered to learn that General De Gaulle had managed to escape from France and had reached Britain. De Gaulle was immediately allowed to broadcast from London and he called for a continuation of the struggle and rallied the Free French Forces to his side. They set up offices in Duke Street in London.
    On a trip to London the Mitchells introduced Noor to Jean Overton Fuller, who later became a close friend and wrote her biography after the war. Fuller describes Noor at that time as small in build, with brown hair and hazel-brown eyes. She had a gentle voice which was also high pitched and faint. She remembered that Noor had a most peculiar accent: a mix of Indian, English, French and American. 3 Though the young woman didn’t say much, Fuller was immediately drawn to her.
    Noor was wearing the new emblem of the Free French, a double-barred cross in silver. It was clear she was impatient to do something to help. She even mentioned to Fuller that she felt it was wrong to flee France and she wished she could be used as a liaison agent. She was clearly pleased that the Free French had begun to organise under General De Gaulle.
    Already in August 1940, London was burning. The Battle of Britain had begun and in the skies people could see the German Luftwaffe take on the British Spitfires. In London, Noor experienced the true horror of the bombing. Every night the planes could be heard and the bombing continued till dawn. Offices and residential buildings were hit and people spent all night putting out fires. Many were homeless. It was a time of blackout paper, air-raid sirens and ration cards. Posters everywhere urged women to ‘Serve in the WAAF with the men who fly’, ‘Join the ATS’, or to ‘Come and Help with the Victory Harvest’ by joining the Land Army. Noor was desperate to do her bit to help.
    By autumn that year, after finally having managed to secure her Red Cross certificate, Noor joined the Fulmer Chase Maternity Home for Officers’ Wives near Slough. The family at this time was living on a very meagre allowance as the little money they had brought from Paris was running out. Noor’s job at the maternity home involved no serious nursing and mainly consisted of domestic chores. She longed to be of real use and volunteered to join the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), much against her mother’s wishes. Her decision to do so was clearly influenced by Vilayat, who had joined the RAF. But to her dismay her initial application was rejected on the grounds that she had been born in Moscow. This infuriated her and she shot off a letter to the ministry saying that as a person holding a ‘British Protected Person’ passport she should be allowed to serve her country. Almost immediately she was sent a