Overview
The enemy has ruined her life. Everyone she cares about is gone. She can’t bring back the dead, but she can join the struggle to liberate her homeland.
Based on the exploits of actual female-undercover agents in occupied Europe during the Second World War, Madelaine is a composite of the brave women that fought Fascism. The resistance groups, weapons, aircraft, and tactics are historically accurate. Madelaine’s story would be familiar to many women of her generation. Family members lost forever to the conflict, homeland occupied by the enemy, forced into exile, emotionally traumatised. Madelaine chooses to deal with her pain and loss by shunning all emotional intimacy. With a broken heart and nothing to lose, she joins the Resistance in England. Madelaine is honed into the top agent of the British Special Operations Executive.
The S.O.E. drop Madelaine into Nazi occupied Belgium tasked with reviving the most important Resistance Group in the country. Gestapo Major Kempf terrorized the local population uncovering the “Possum Escape Line”. Downed Allied airmen are piling up and Madelaine must get them back to safety. She learns who to trust, evades Kempf and relies on her training, bravery, and language skills to rebuild the group. Madelaine connects with local resistance cells, nuns, and children to score some early sabotage victories.
Kempf closes in on Madelaine’s group and incapacitates several members at the worst possible moment. Her orders are modified by London when a highly trained Navigator of the Pathfinder Squadron, parachutes into her sector. The navigator, SAVARD has Ultra-High security clearance with knowledge that must not be revealed therefore cannot be captured alive by the Germans. The race is on, both sides want to get to him first. Madelaine’s new mission, get Savard back to England or make sure he is dead! Madelaine and a large force of Germans converge on Savard’s location simultaneously. British High Command doesn’t like the odds, overrules the S.O.E., and plans to carpet bomb the area. Madelaine becomes one of those deemed expendable.
Madelaine and Savard survive the horrific bombardment, evade Germans on a gruelling cross-country trek and rendezvous with their escape aircraft at the last possible moment. Their aircraft is damaged by a Night Fighter on the flight home and ends up in the English Channel. Only Madelaine survives.
Madelaine completes her emotional journey when she connects with Savard’s family. post war.
Writer – Thomas Anthony Brannagan
