‘Walk!’ The command was shouted and she started to move. It didn’t take long before a guard pushed a door open and she stumbled out into the bright morning sunlight, the glare causing her to squint her eyes until it was like looking out from behind pinpricks.
But as her eyes adjusted and she was roughly shunted in the back, she realised what was happening. For whatever reason, they weren’t going to interrogate her any more here. The cattle car was waiting for them on the tracks, already full of others. Rose stepped forward and clambered up when she was told to, looking at another woman who looked hungrier and far sadder than she about their situation.
Her heart bled for them all, seeing the looks on their faces, the haunted gazes staring back at her. These women would have children. Husbands. Grandchildren even. Their pain was so much worse than hers would ever be. The men would have wives they were desperate to protect.
The door was shut with a bang, and Rose stood up, clinging on to the sides. As they were juddered and shuddered every which way, she bravely held her hand to her heart and looked at the others crowded in with her.
‘Have you heard the news?’ a young man murmured, just as Rose opened her mouth.
She shut it and shook her head. ‘What news?’
‘It’s happening. The Allies are coming, and soon.’
The smile on Rose’s face grew so big she couldn’t stop it. So it was true, it was happening. She didn’t care how he knew and she certainly didn’t ask questions, but it gave her a quiet hum in her chest, told her that perhaps all was not lost. ‘Join me,’ she said proudly, hand still on her heart. ‘We’ll sing “La Marseillaise” until our throats are hoarse and we cannot sing a breath longer.’
She started to sing their anthem, softly at first and then louder as her voice stopped quavering after so long being quiet. It didn’t take long before others joined her, and soon every prisoner was defiantly singing their song – their French song that would be like torture to the Germans’ ears.
‘France for ever!’ she yelled, before launching straight back into the anthem with all the gusto she could muster.
When her throat was hoarse from singing and the train began to slow, Rose felt some of her confidence start to fade. She looked around, wondered where they’d been taken and why. If the Germans were worried about an impending attack, why would they have brought them even closer to Normandy? Or perhaps they truly didn’t know where to expect it. Maybe all their codes and incorrect messages had worked after all!
‘Get out!’ The words were shouted as the side of the car slid open. It was another prison. She’d hoped for that and not a longer trip to a camp near Germany, even though she knew they were both merely different forms of evil.
A guard grabbed her hair, dragging her down and shoving her forward. Tears burnt in her eyes but she refused to shed them. She just had to stay alive long enough for the invasion to happen. If she survived that long, she might just make it back home alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HAZEL
‘I should be happy about leaving.’
Hazel didn’t care who could see them. She stood on tiptoe and threw her arms around Harry’s neck, kissing him boldly on the lips. It would be the last time she’d ever see him, and engaged to be married or not, she was going to kiss him.
‘You should definitely be happy about leaving,’ she whispered in his ear, holding him tight. His body was warm against hers and she wished she’d been brave enough to kiss him days earlier. Perhaps then she’d have been able to spend more time with his arms encircling her.
‘If anything changes, if you ever want to find me . . .’
Hazel pressed a finger to Harry’s mouth. She couldn’t think about him once he’d gone. She didn’t need to be wondering what if and being miserable thinking of him if she ever made it home. All she wanted was the sweet memory of his kiss and the warmth of his body against hers when he held her.
Harry shuffled back a step and she hoped she hadn’t leaned on him too hard. He was still limping badly, and she was certain he was gritting his teeth and braving the pain so she wouldn’t worry about him.
‘Here’s my address,’ he said, passing her a scrap of paper from his pocket. ‘Memorise it then throw it away. Please.’
Hazel took it from him and stared at it, committed the address to memory immediately.
She stood still when he leaned back in, his lips soft as he stole one last kiss. He held his mouth to hers and they stayed like that, her tears trickling down to meet their lips. When he stepped back this time, he fanned his fingers down her cheeks and gave her a glimpse of his dimpled smile.
‘Goodbye,’ he whispered, fingertips brushing her arm before falling away.
She nodded, biting down on her bottom lip. ‘Goodbye.’
He limped away from her then and she stuffed her fist against her mouth, biting down on her own knuckles and staring at his back as he left. Harry never turned back, never looked at her one last time, and she held that memory of his smiling face in her mind as she fled back up to the attic. The men that had taken him were trustworthy, they were good at what they did, and so long as he managed to keep up, he’d be gone by nightfall.
There was nothing left for her to do, but the attic felt like her safe place. She lay down on the small bed up there and tucked her body into a ball. She’d been strong for months, and now she felt so hurt, it was like a knife had been embedded in her stomach.
Harry was gone, and instead of being overjoyed at him being safe, she was miserable. It was selfish and stupid, but it was the truth.
It was dangerous for them to have another shipment so soon after the last in the same location, and they were all starting to get nervous over the lack of contact from Rose, but they needed the weapons. It was too soon to know whether something had gone awfully wrong or whether the delay had simply been inevitable, but it wasn’t stopping any of them from worrying. And Hazel hadn’t received any information back that suggested something had happened. Which meant she needed to stop worrying and stay positive. Rose was alive, she had to be, and all her fretting wasn’t doing anyone any good.
She listened in to her radio, smiling when she picked up the soothing voice of the BBC presenter. She stretched out, eyes shut, hearing every word even though to someone else she might look as if she was asleep.
And then she heard something that changed everything.
‘Sophia!’ she screamed, forgetting her usual muted tones, the fact that she always spoke quietly and quickly, and only to her intended audience, not the entire house. ‘Sophia!’ Hazel scribbled down the words, the poetry that she was certain meant . . . She sucked back a breath and went through it one more time. It had only taken her minutes and she was certain of the meaning.
‘What is it?’ Sophia asked, breathless as she suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, leaning in the doorway.
‘It’s happening,’ Hazel whispered, hardly able to believe it. ‘They’re going to be landing in Normandy soon. We have targets to attack, and we’re to disrupt as much as we can before and during the invasion.’
Sophia’s eyes widened. ‘You’re certain?’
‘Yes, I’m certain!’ Hazel said excitedly. ‘Tell the others. They must do as they’ve been instructed.’
Sophia turned and took a step down before spinning around. ‘I wish we knew where Rose was. I don’t feel right.’
Hazel knew exactly what she meant. ‘We need to stay safe, Sophia, in case there are urgent messages to be sent out.’
She nodded. ‘I’ll brief the others, you stay tuned in. And then rest a little. We need you well rested before all this starts to happen.’
Hazel doubted she’d ever be able to fall asleep now, but Sophia was right. Her heart skipped a beat as she carefully put her headset on, groaning when the transmission faded and she had to try to fiddle with her radio again. She needed Rose to ensure she could keep getting messages out, and most of all, she needed to know her friend was still alive.
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Hazel stirred. She stretched out an arm, surprised to see darkness surrounding her. How long had she been sleeping? She’d doubted she’d be able to get even a wink of sleep, but she’d obviously been more tired than she’d realised. She went to sit up, swinging her legs down, and froze.
There was thumping. Then a bang. She stayed still, listening to her own breath pushing in and out. What was going on down there? Was that what had woken her up?
Hazel carefully put her feet down, not making a sound. She padded softly across the floor and listened at the door, wishing she hadn’t shut it properly. She didn’t dare turn the knob. Something was wrong. Something was happening down there that shouldn’t be.
She kept her ear tight to the timber. And then her blood ran cold, her skin instantly turning to ice, every tiny hair on her body standing to attention.
The muffled bang was unmistakable. She stifled a scream, the silent call for help caught in her throat.
They’d been found. There was no other explanation. When she heard another bang, this one louder, followed by screams and shouts, she knew they were under attack. Suddenly gunfire exploded downstairs, and Hazel leapt into action. She grabbed for the radio, pulling it apart. They couldn’t take the radio; it was the only piece of equipment that was truly crucial. It might need fixing, it might not be reliable, but it was still a valuable radio and she wasn’t going to let anyone get their hands on it.
She hastily took it apart, knowing she couldn’t take everything with her. It wasn’t pitch-black yet, so she was able to see enough, but the truth was she knew the machine so well that she could have figured it out with her eyes closed.
Hazel turned, scanned the room and decided to hide some of the pieces. She ran to the window first, cringing as more gunfire echoed out from downstairs. She pushed the flimsy curtain aside, looked down and gasped when she saw the commotion. There were Germans everywhere. She definitely wouldn’t be able to get the radio out, because her chances of getting away from the chateau herself were . . . She dashed back to the radio pieces. She knew it was unlikely she’d get away. The only positive was that the Germans were wasting their time here instead of preparing for the landings, which meant the intelligence must have been correct. They couldn’t know where and when it was happening!
Hazel stashed one part under the pillow on the bed, then another piece high in the wardrobe, standing on tiptoe to reach it. After scurrying over to the bed and pulling it out, yanking hard with all her might, she packed the rest of the radio in her satchel. She pulled up two loose floorboards and stuffed the satchel inside, then replaced the boards and hefted the metal legs of the bed back across the floor. The noise would have alerted anyone to the fact someone was up there, but they’d have eventually come looking anyway.
Hazel glanced around the room, knew there was nothing else she could do. She could have taken the pieces of the radio and strewn them outside, getting rid of them individually, but she had to believe that someone would survive, that one of her own would come frantically looking for the parts she’d hidden. If Rose returned and they were all gone, she would be able to transmit at least.
She pushed the curtain aside again, praying that no one would see the movement. The only light now was from the moon, sitting high in the sky and illuminating the roof for her. She pushed the window open and climbed up, the narrow opening almost too small to squeeze through. The roof was steep and she had no idea how she was going to safely clamber down, but her only other option was to open the door and walk down the stairs into certain death.
She looked down and wished she hadn’t. It was like the night she’d jumped from the plane into France, only then she’d had a parachute to stop her from falling and smashing all her bones.
She heard shouting and loud footsteps, knew they were coming upstairs. Hazel fought the urge to freeze and await her fate, half sliding, half scrambling down the first part of the roof. Her feet crashed into something hard, the jarring feeling shooting up her legs and through her body, but she didn’t pause. A gunshot echoed out, a bullet whirring too close to her for comfort, and she glanced up, knowing they were on to her whereabouts.
Hazel scurried as fast as she could, staying low, sliding down the next part of the roof and then wriggling. She dropped, hands scrambling for the downpipe as she slid the rest of the way. It gave way, breaking and sending her spiralling to the ground, and she landed with a loud thump on the grass below. The wind came out of her with a big gasp and she struggled to inhale again, but she didn’t have time to stop and feel sorry for herself. She rolled over, used her hands to push herself up and staggered away, running towards the wooded area, arms pumping as she sprinted for the trees. She saw others, knew she wasn’t alone, but they were shooting back, retreating but probably trying to find somewhere safer to position themselves. She had nothing. No gun, no knife, nothing. Her training had taught her to kill a man with her bare hands if she had to, and she’d already proven to herself that she had the guts to do it, but nothing was going to help her against men with guns, men who were hunting her and every other Resistance member.
There was no way she was getting out of this. She was as good as dead. If they caught her, she’d never say a word, which meant days of pain before they’d finally kill her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
SOPHIA
Sophia clung tightly to the tree. Her arms were scratched, her skin bruised and torn from climbing the trunk and pushing her way up the branches. She’d been near the back door when they’d been raided. She’d been about to go up and look for Hazel, wanting to see how she felt about Harry’s departure and make sure she wasn’t too worried. It was obvious there was something between Hazel and Harry, it would have been obvious to anyone, and she’d hoped for her friend’s sake that Harry made it home safely.
She shuddered as she listened to screams below, squeezing her eyes shut and wishing she could block it out. Her natural instinct was to drop down and fight, to do anything she could, but her bare hands were nothing against the men below toting guns.
Hazel.
Sophia dug her fingernails into the trunk, the pain inside her impossible to comprehend. The only other time she’d even come close to this kind of pain was seeing her mother . . . She pushed away the memory, refusing to let it in. There was nothing she could do. Nothing.
She could try to drop slowly, quietly, or she could try to sneak up on one of them and take a gun, but the probability of either of those things working was almost nil. Her training was clear; she had to do whatever she could do to protect herself. She had to hide and wait and get up to the attic. She had to secure anything she could that was left in the house, and then get to the next closest cell and re-establish.
‘Let me go! I have nothing to say!’
Sophia’s blood ran cold as she heard the scream. Icy, painfully cold. In the moonlight Sophia could see Hazel, held on each side by Gestapo, her legs kicking frantically as the men each clutched an arm. She was like a wildcat, scratching and clawing and squealing.
Whack.
Sophia gasped. One of the men had clearly had enough. His fist connected with Hazel’s face and she went limp, falling to the ground. The other man gave her a kick before hauling her back up. She stumbled, blood dripping from her nose and down her top – the lights from one of their vehicles had suddenly perfectly illuminated her face. There was silence for a moment, or perhaps it was the ringing in Sophia’s ears that made everything else silent for her. And then Hazel started to fight again.
Sophia listened to her friend yelling and wished she’d just go quietly, knew they’d probably go easier on her if she was meek and mild. But Hazel was a fighter, and she knew in her heart that she would never give anything away.
She waited for a gun to fire, for the blast that would take Hazel’s life, but instead she heard her friend swear as they dragged her away, feet trailing in the dirt as they hauled her to one of their trucks.
Before, the lawn and trees had been full of gu
nfire. The maquis had battled hard, but she knew most of them were dead, strewn across the grass. There would be Germans dead, too, but she guessed they’d lost fewer. They were the ones who’d taken them by surprise, which meant they were always going to come out victorious. Hazel had been so worried about staying, about their location being discovered, and Sophia had been the one insisting they wait until Rose was back. She blinked away tears. Rose was gone. It had been days since they’d waved her goodbye, and she would have returned by now if she could have. They should have left; they could have left a coded message and disappeared, moved on so they had less chance of being found.
A pain in Sophia’s side intensified and she slipped one hand from the tree and pressed it to the soreness. She was surprised to feel moisture, a stickiness that she hadn’t been expecting.
What happened? What was . . . ?
Sophia lifted her hand and rubbed her fingers together. It was blood. Had she been shot?
When she’d been running, she’d felt pain, a stinging, burning sensation against her side, but she hadn’t had time to react. All she’d cared about was getting away, running past anyone in her way and finding somewhere to hide. She’d been terrified they’d have tracking dogs, that they’d find her and she’d be sitting up the tree with nowhere to go. And then she’d seen them with Hazel and . . .
Sophia held on, feeling woozy now that she’d touched the blood. She’d been through worse. That night she’d first met Rose, landing on her doorstep in the middle of the night, slumped and bloodied against her door. This wasn’t as bad as that.
Sophia shut her eyes tight again, waiting, knowing it was too soon to go down yet. If she was going to cling to a tree and watch her friend be taken, then she was going to make damn sure that she made it count. Her only problem was that she had no idea how she was going to travel the sixty-odd miles to the next cell on her own if she did manage to escape. With no help, no transport and a gunshot wound that would make her journey almost unbearable.
Hearts of Resistance Page 24
