In 1943 Marks met and fell in love with a woman who lived in a neighbouring flat in the Edgware Road, but within three months she had been killed in an air-crash. When, early the next year, Szabo needed a code-poem for a mission in France, Marks gave her the lines that he had written for the dead woman. Curious, Szabo asked who had written them. 'I'll check up,' Marks told her, 'and let you know when you get back.' In fact, as Marks had feared, Szabo never returned, but was captured, tortured and eventually executed at Ravensbrück. She was twenty three years old.
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.
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