The Leg Named Cuthbert (Virginia Hall)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
You lost the leg in a hunting accident —
below the knee, gone,
replaced with wood and aluminium
that you named Cuthbert
the way a sailor names a ship:
with respect for the thing
that carries you
and the understanding
that it will try to kill you
in bad weather

[Verse 2]
The SOE said no at first —
a woman with a prosthetic
was not what occupied France required —
and you went anyway
under a cover so thin
it was practically a dare:
American journalist in Vichy,
filing stories about agriculture
while running the largest
resistance network in Lyon
You recruited agents
in milking parlours and cafés
and when the Gestapo circulated your description —
the limping lady,
the most dangerous of all Allied spies —
you changed your gait,
you changed your hair,
you changed your name four times
and Cuthbert kept walking

[Chorus]
London radioed:
we are concerned about Cuthbert
And you radioed back:
Cuthbert does not give trouble
And London replied:
if Cuthbert gives you trouble
have him eliminated
because they did not know
that Cuthbert
was your leg
and the miscommunication
is the funniest sentence
in the entire history
of British intelligence
and also the most accurate:
the leg was giving you trouble,
constantly,
and you could not have it eliminated
so you crossed the Pyrenees
in winter
on foot
on Cuthbert
through snow
in the dark

[Verse 3]
After the war the CIA
gave you a desk
because a woman
who had run networks,
organized airdrops,
trained three resistance cells,
and evaded the Gestapo
for four years on a wooden leg
was considered
too visible for fieldwork
and too female for promotion
You sat at the desk
and the desk
was the only enemy
that ever successfully contained you

[Outro]
You died at eighty-two
in Rockville, Maryland
with a Distinguished Service Cross
that Donovan pinned on you in private
because you refused a ceremony —
not from modesty
but from the habit
of a woman
who had spent her best years
making sure
nobody saw her face
Cuthbert outlived you
and sits in a museum now
which is the wrong place for a leg
that crossed the Pyrenees
but the right place
for something
that deserves
to be looked at properly
for once