Rescue

Meg, who is now 12 years old, prepares to go into town to sell produce on the black market. She, her French mother Sylvie, and her grandmother live on a farm where they grow food for the people in the nearby town. Unbeknownst to her mother, Meg keeps coded notes in a notebook to help the resistance. While the young girl is in town, her mother also goes on a mysterious errand.

Meg, who has been warned not to sell anything to strangers, waits for customers in an abandoned shop. After selling potatoes to two women, she notices an unknown young boy come into the shop. He introduces himself as Jakob, and although Meg does not want to sell him anything, she gives him some potatoes after he warns her that German soldiers have just arrived in town.

Meg notices the Germans unloading supplies from their cars and understands that they intend on staying for a while. She starts following her target of the day, Lieutenant Becker, and overhears him talking with another soldier about two people they are looking for. When the lieutenant catches her following him, Meg, who speaks German, pretends to be an admirer and offers him some potatoes.

Meg leaves a coded message in the forest for the partisans, or resistance fighters, warning them about the German soldiers searching for them. When she goes home, she notices that the barn door is open and there is blood on the ground. She grabs a shovel and goes inside, hoping to scare the intruder away.

The intruder turns out to be an English officer of the Royal Air Force, Captain Henry Stewart, who has taken refuge in the barn after being injured during a parachute jump. Meg tells him her name is Sophie and asks him pointed questions about England. Once she is reassured that he is not a German spy, she offers him some of her grandmother’s stew but does not tell the latter about the injured soldier. Captain Stewart then asks her if she knows someone named Sylvie Kenyon, and Meg grows anxious that he and the Germans may be looking for her mother.

Meg gets worried as her mother still has not come home. To distract her, her grandmother gives her the last of her father’s codes. Before he left, Meg’s father wrote a number of coded messages for her to decipher until his return, and only one of them remains. Meg has been postponing working on it, but she finally reads it now. It is an anagram that gives her the phrase “My idea is a jet,” which does not mean anything to the young girl.

When Meg brings food and a blanket to Captain Stewart, the latter tells her that he found her coded journal hidden in the barn. He becomes suspicious that she may be working with the Germans or spying on them.

Captain Stewart is worried that a young girl could be putting herself and her family in danger by trying to spy on Nazi soldiers. When Meg realizes that she has not been as careful as she thought, she decides to burn her journal. She reveals her real name to the Captain, and the latter praises her coding skills. He gives her a message to decipher, but Meg is not familiar with that type of code. However, she realizes that Captain Stewart is probably not a pilot but a spy.

Meg eventually figures out that the Captain’s code says: “Please bring me some water.” As she brings him a mug of water, she asks him pointed questions about his experience as a pilot. When he fails to give her accurate answers, she tells him that she knows he is a spy.

The Captain confirms Meg’s suspicions. He explains that he has been sent to contact a radio operator working with the resistance, Sylvie Kenyon. Before he can tell her more, Meg’s grandmother calls for the young girl from the house. Inside, Meg finds her mother, who has a sprained ankle, and Jakob, who helped bring her home. Meg’s mother tells her family that the Nazis are conducting searches from house to house, looking for a British spy. Then, there is an unexpected knock at the door.

Captain Stewart is at the door. Meg apologizes for hiding him from her grandmother while her mother and the Captain introduce themselves to each other. Sylvie’s equipment is damaged, so she is unable to contact London and tell them about the Captain’s situation. She and Meg’s grandmother decide to tend to his wounds and hide him, and Jakob is tasked with getting rid of any evidence of his presence in the barn. Meg’s mother sends her upstairs to hide or destroy any compromising belongings. When she goes back downstairs, Captain Stewart tells Meg that he works for the Special Operations Executive, or the League of Ungentlemanly Behavior, a British organization that conducts espionage and sabotage missions against the Nazis.

Jakob warns them that the German soldiers are at the next farm. He and Meg burn the last of the evidence, and then Meg’s grandmother offers him food before he leaves. He and his parents are on their way to Spain, which is neutral in the war. Captain Stewart tells him to wait for him at their selected meeting point and then gives Sylvie a coded note from her husband.

Meg, her mother, and her grandmother help the Captain hide in a hole under the grandmother’s bed. The three of them then discuss a plan. They prepare themselves for bed, but Meg suddenly remembers that she has not burned her journal yet. When she goes back downstairs, her mother is trying to decipher her father’s code. Meg does not recognize the code he used, but they are interrupted by the Nazis’ arrival in their driveway.

Meg goes back to her room and hides her father’s note in her braid. She hears her mother open the door when the soldiers knock on it and demand to search the house. She pretends to be asleep as they look through every room, then listens as Lieutenant Becker asks her mother questions. They have found the partially burned journal and are suspicious of its contents. Sylvie answers calmly, but the Nazis decide to stay the night at the farm so they can question Meg and her grandmother in the morning.

Before they go to bed, Lieutenant Becker asks Sylvie about her trips to town. He questions her about selling food on the black market, evidently aware of her illegal activity. Sylvie admits to it to avoid incriminating herself further or being caught in a lie, telling him that she only does so to feed her family. The lieutenant believes her, but he still wants to talk to Meg in the morning. While listening in on their conversation, the young girl suddenly remembers a book of her father’s poems that he seems to allude to in his note.

The next day, the soldiers are called away and leave early, but they intend to return later. Meg’s mother sends the young girl to the barn, where they keep a trunk of her father’s belongings, to get fresh clothes for Captain Stewart. Meg also grabs her father’s book of poems from the trunk but finds nothing that could help her decode his note.

Sylvie and Captain Stewart have a plan to keep everyone safe. Lieutenant Becker is looking for Jakob’s parents, so he wants to talk to Meg. Sylvie wants to send her daughter away under the pretense of going to help her sick aunt in Paris. Instead, Meg will go to Spain with Jakob’s family, the Durands. Sylvie, her husband Harper, and Captain Stewart all work for the SOE, and Harper has been captured by the Germans and sent to a prison camp. Because he is an engineer, the Nazis have made him work in one of their factories, but Harper has been sabotaging them instead. Captain Stewart suspects that Meg’s father has been discovered and that his life is in danger, which is why he and Albert, Jakob’s father, helped him get to a safe house where he is now waiting to be rescued. However, Albert will not reveal his location to the SOE until his own family is safe. Harper passed a secret message to his wife through the Captain, telling him that Meg could decipher it. Since Captain Stewart is wounded and Sylvie is unable to operate her radio anymore, Meg must now go to Spain with the Durands to carry out their mission instead. Meg understands that she is her father’s only hope of rescue and agrees to the plan.