This novel is divided into two parts: the first part is narrated by Verity, as she writes her so-called “confession” to the German SS officer who is holding her prisoner as a spy; the second part is narrated by Kittyhawk, the pilot who dropped Verity into enemy territory. Each chapter heading in this section begins with the place, Ormaie—a fictional city in Nazi-occupied France; followed by the date, with XI standing for November; and ends with Verity’s real initials “J B-S.” The reader eventually learns that Verity’s real name is Julie Beaufort-Stuart.

This chapter is written on November 8, 1943 in Ormaie, France. Verity—a British spy—announces that she is a coward, and that she has made a deal with the SS officer who is holding her prisoner: she will tell him all she knows about the British war effort in exchange for better treatment and an additional two weeks of life in which to write her confession, before she is executed. Better treatment includes being able to wear her own clothes, being given some food to eat and water to drink, and not having to endure torture, such as being burnt with a cigarette, being tied to a chair with an iron bar up her back for three days, starvation, or going without sleep for days.