Code Madeleine

A winter’s day in Moscow, January 1st, 1914

Beyond the meandering Moskva so pristine

Before an era of the pervasive Bolshevik cufflink

When a trooping Red’s footfall in ice would sink.

Wrapped in swaddling cloth, there she lay

Crinkled eyes, sniveling in a fretful way.

Inayat Khan, her father, an Indian saint

Christened her “Noor” (a Divine Light so quaint).

Inayat, a noble, a Sufi musician, and a preacher

Swayed Ora Baker, with his pacifist feature

They fled Moscow, from the Great War’s stifle

Franz Ferdinand had been assassinated with a rifle.

London evenfall riveted her to the window frame

The love for her kinfolk, an unquenchable flame

Life in Bloomsbury wouldn’t forever be seen

Awaiting her, Parisian skies, flecked with sheen.

Young in Paris, quiet, sensitive, dreamy, and shy

Never did Noor foresee the future of a spy

Music, Jataka Fables, and Poetry were her world

But the Third Reich’s invasion had just been hurled.

A dreary exodus across the English Channel

Petrified, and freezing, albeit in a flannel.

To pacifically drive the Nazis to concede

She joined the WAAF Radio Operators’ breed.

Transmitting Morse codes, a regular chore

Currently a ho-hum stint, an egregious bore

Her life had a better and an auspicious calling

An SOE office reporting order came in crawling.

The Special Operations Executive wing for spies

Upheld the espionage and sabotage on the rise

A deficit of men in Paris led to a standstill

They inducted women at the behest of Churchill.

A grasp of Transmission, French and Parisian lanes

Deemed Noor fit, for a daring pursuit in intel gains

Three fortnights in Paris; her estimated life span

To pursue undercover, unearthing the Nazi plan.

Knowing she had to put her life on the line

Rooted with pacifist tenets, she had the spine

Her task: to transmit via the wireless console

Trained three whole months for this dreaded role.

The training, howeve

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r, didn’t at all farewell

Labeled ‘clumsy’ and ‘temperamental’ a belle

But short on staff with her strong resolve

Deployed, “Jeanne Marie Renierre” did evolve.

“Madeleine” (Jeanne Marie’s French SOE code)

Tracked the French resistance’s supplies on the road

Alerting London on each Nazi’s diabolical move

Allied soldiers thus slid daily via a new-found groove.

The circuit, however, harbored a devious mole

Compromising them, to their arrests as a whole

Stealthy and charismatic, Noor was now on her own

Stepping in their shoes, risking her cover being blown.

Valiant and resilient, resuming her quest

Itinerant with her risky ruses, evading arrest

The mission, however, did draw to an end

With the betrayal by that mole, her so-called friend.

Caught red-handed, she put up a brutal fight

The Gestapo handcuffed her and held her tight

An escape attempt in vain through the skylight

Apprehended again, thus beginning her plight.

Exasperating her captors, she played it rough

Divulging nothing beyond a colossal bluff

Fleeing and fighting attempts; she was tough

By November 1943, the officers had seen enough.

Pforzheim prison; condemned to die without a trace

Shackled; welcomed the pounding blows with grace

Scratched her address on the vessels like a slate

The inmates would later convey to London her fate.

Dachau Camp; with three others she spent a night

For one last time, they basked in the moonlight

Sept 13th, 1944: Bruised and knelt on the ground

Zealously screamed,” Liberté”; they fired around.

Till her last breath, she battled a harrowing ordeal

Neither an audible syllable nor a distinct squeal

The world hailed the martyr spy princess’s might

Tantamount to a stalwart and a resolute knight.

Her pacifism, love, and integrity, do all admire

Vanquishing fears and limits, we revere her fire

Asked no acclaim, yet aglow with an unswerving shine

The spy princess betokened valor, in her bloodline.