‘Argghh!’
She heard a noise, realised her mouth was open, that she was the one making it.
‘You’re doing great. The bullet’s out, we’re just stitching you up.’
She went to resist, to move, but her hands were being held down, keeping her still. Sophia fought the waves of pain, knew she’d been shot, that they were trying to help her, but it hurt so badly.
‘Sebastian?’ she asked, wondering if it was Rose’s brother.
‘Sebastian’s not coming back. He’s gone,’ came a rough, hoarse reply. ‘We were fired at when we were trying to explode the German tanks. We lost men.’
Sophia started to cry. She couldn’t help it. Tears streamed down her cheeks. How would she ever tell Rose that her brother was dead?
‘We’re not going to let you die. We’ll get you out of here,’ the same voice said.
Alex was her home. She wanted to tell someone that, but when she opened her mouth all that came out was another moan. She wanted Alex. All she wanted was Alex.
She sobbed then, unable to stay strong any longer.
She wanted Alex. She wanted her mother. She wanted the life she’d had before the war had taken everything from her.
‘Last stitch.’
Sophia heard the words but she couldn’t form a reply.
She wanted it over. The war. Her recovery. The death. The fear.
All she wanted was to find Alex again, to feel his arms around her, his whispers against her skin. Everyone she loved had died, and Alex might have, too, but she had to believe he’d made it. Without Alex, she had no one and nothing to return to.
‘You’re our little hero,’ a man said. She didn’t know if it was the same man as before or someone else; there were a few of them peering down at her.
‘I’m no hero,’ she managed to mutter.
‘You are,’ he said again. ‘The delivery was a success and we’re going to blast the hell out of every last German on that train line tonight, mark my words.’
Sophia managed a smile. It didn’t feel like a success, but at least it hadn’t been for nothing.
‘Tonight you’re going to rest, and tomorrow we’re taking you somewhere safe until we can get you back to London.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ROSE
Rose listened. The noise of battle was so close, she could feel the buzz of the planes in her bones. They were Allies. They had to be the Allies. Which meant the Germans were slowly being defeated. The landings must have been a success.
She’d become accustomed to the deep, gnawing ache in her stomach that had been there for weeks now. Or had it been days? The beatings and questions felt like they’d been going on for a lifetime. The pain of being so hungry was something she could never fully ignore, but she’d started to become more used to it. She wondered if it was her body’s defence mechanism, something that happened when a person was forced to exist on so little.
The door lurched and she cringed, instinctively moving closer to Hazel. Her friend was asleep, as were all the others, or at least they were lying down and pretending to be. They were all so hungry, so cold and miserable, and she expected every day to be her last. Maybe the last for all of them.
A new prisoner was roughly shoved in, and Rose kept her eyes downcast until the guard disappeared, the door locked behind him. She leapt forward then and touched the woman’s face, seeing how badly they’d beaten her.
‘I’m a friend,’ she said quickly. ‘We all are in here.’
The woman smiled up at her, surprising Rose. The light was dim but not dark enough that she couldn’t see properly.
‘They’ll come back for you soon. They never leave you for long,’ Rose explained quickly.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ the woman whispered, moving and taking something from her waistband.
Rose was on her haunches and she moved back a little, worried until she saw that it was a crumpled piece of paper. There was a stirring behind her and Rose turned to see Hazel, rubbing her eyes and putting her feet on the concrete.
‘What is it?’ Rose asked.
The woman passed it to her and Rose read the words quickly before scanning them again, excitement building within her.
Take courage! We’re on our way!
She read the words again, and again, over and over, before passing the note back and turning to Hazel. Rose grabbed her and held her tight, hugging her as tears streamed down her cheeks.
‘We just need to stay alive a little longer,’ she whispered. ‘They’re coming. It’s truly happening.’
The next day, Rose and Hazel sat huddled together. Another woman was coughing, she’d been doing so for hours, and they were a sorry-looking bunch, all half-starved and looking close to death. But something was happening. The planes had continued to fly over, the air assault in full swing, and the bombs and gunfire had been going on all day. No guards had been to see them, there had been no heavy footfalls, but there had been yelling outside and it was obvious the mood had changed. The fighting was so close to them, the noise of war sending thrills through Rose as well as pangs of terror.
‘The Americans are at the gates!’ a guard yelled.
Rose screamed along with everyone else, terror blending with excitement blending with hope as they heard the frantic scream from outside.
‘They’re here! The Americans are here!’
She held Hazel’s hand, sitting still, hoping they wouldn’t be killed before they were saved.
‘We’re going to make it!’ Hazel said softly to her, her tear-stained cheeks a contrast to the brightness of her eyes.
‘We are,’ she whispered back, grasping her hand and rocking back and forth. Could they truly make it out of this alive?
They weren’t going to die. They weren’t going to die!
‘They’ve really come for us.’ Hazel’s words were barely loud enough to hear. Rose watched her as she stared straight ahead, before leaping to catch her as she sobbed and fell forward.
‘They’re going to save us, Hazel,’ she said. ‘The Americans are here!’
Rose breathed deep and gripped Hazel’s hand.
‘I want to go home,’ Hazel said quietly back. ‘I want to go home to London. I want to see my family and lie in my own bed.’
Rose understood. She craved home, too, even if everything would be different than before. She wanted to eat, to forget the deep gnaw of hunger in her belly that pained her every minute of every hour of every day.
A series of bangs echoed out as shots were fired outside. The door to their crammed cell opened and a soldier rushed forward.
‘Harry?’ Hazel muttered.
‘Hazel, get up!’ Rose ordered, wondering if her friend was becoming delirious. Why would she think Harry was here?
Hazel blinked up at her, eyes wide.
‘Get up!’ Rose said again. ‘Quickly!’
She scurried to her feet and Rose got a tight hold of her arm. It was over. Their nightmare in the prison was over.
Tears streamed down her cheeks and made her choke as she held tight to Hazel and watched the commotion around them, the world spinning as she tried to focus, tried to digest the reality that they’d been so close to death. The soldier scooped Hazel up, and Rose somehow managed to walk beside him as they moved through the prison. Outside, her eyes teared up from the bright light. She was squinting hard as if she’d never seen the sun before.
She looked across at Hazel, saw her matted hair and her bruised face, her cheeks so gaunt. How had they managed to survive?
‘It’s over,’ she told Hazel, collapsing into her friend as the soldier left them, calling out orders. There were soldiers everywhere and her head started to spin as she tried to watch them, tried to figure out what was going on.
‘It’s over,’ Hazel muttered back. ‘We’re going to make it home. We’re going to be fine.’
Rose started to laugh, her ribs screaming in protest at the movement. They were going home!
‘Vive la France!�
�� she whispered.
Hazel laughed back, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘Vive la France indeed.’
EPILOGUE
PARIS, FRANCE
1945
ROSE
When Rose had first learned that Peter had died, she’d felt as if her world had ended. Darkness had engulfed her, snatched away her happiness and with it any excitement or anticipation about the future. But walking now to the little memorial she’d made, her tears were replaced by a smile, the sadness she’d carried all those years barely a whisper against her skin. Just as her time in prison, the pain and suffering she’d endured before being rescued and finally sent home, was like a silent murmur in her mind that she was mostly able to ignore.
She smiled when she looked down at the little girl whose hand she was holding. Her little girl. Coming home to find that her brother and sister-in-law had both been killed hadn’t surprised her, not given their work with the Resistance. But finding out they’d had a daughter and that Charlotte had given birth and smuggled her back to Paris, that she’d found Maria and begged Rose’s old maid to keep her safe? That she and Charlotte must have been pregnant at the same time without her knowing? That had been the biggest surprise of her life. And Francesca was like the daughter she’d never had, a reminder of Sebastian with her thick dark hair and even darker eyes, and Rose felt like she now had something, someone, to live for.
She’d been holding Francesca’s hand, the little girl happy to toddle along beside her, stopping a hundred times or more to touch a blade of grass or admire a bird in a tree, or sometimes even to pick a flower. Nothing had ever felt more special than having her palm clasped to Francesca’s, her wonder at everything giving Rose a new perspective on the world through the eyes of a toddler.
When she shut her eyes, now she saw a future: Francesca as a beautiful young woman, love and laughter, grandchildren even. She would have done anything to have Peter by her side, and her brother, but nothing could bring them back from the dead.
‘Will you blow Uncle Peter a kiss for me?’ she asked, bending low and pressing a kiss to Francesca’s soft little cheek.
She received a big kiss in return instead, and Francesca clamped her hands to Rose’s face, forcing her to look at her when she stared into her eyes. It was the kind of spontaneity that took Rose by surprise every day, made her smile when she least expected it.
‘Thank you, sweetheart,’ she whispered.
Francesca was frowning, but when Rose dropped a wet kiss to her nose and laughed, the frown disappeared.
‘I’m not sad, just missing Uncle Peter.’
Today would have been his birthday. If he’d been alive they would have started the day in bed, eating breakfast and planning their day. Peter had always taken the day off work on his birthday and hers, the only days that he cleared his schedule and refused to go to his office or talk business even for a moment. They would indulge, eat, make love and laugh. It was always one of Rose’s favourite days of the year, and it was the one date that was always hard for her to pull through now. Without Francesca she’d have buried her head under her pillow and refused to rise until the day had passed.
‘Come on, darling,’ she said, standing and taking Francesca’s hand once more. ‘Let’s say our prayers and then go back home. We have our visitors coming soon.’
Rose had buried a tiny box of Peter’s things beneath a beautiful oak tree before she’d left Paris for the coast, in one of her favourite places to walk, since she had no remains of his to lay to rest. She’d planned to put down a plaque, something special so anyone passing could read it, to keep him living on and to give her something to reflect upon. But she realised now that the old pocket watch he’d inherited from his grandfather and his favourite silk handkerchief resting beneath the earth was enough. She was carrying a flower, and when they reached the tree she bent low to place it at the juncture where the trunk met the ground.
‘I’ll never forget you, my darling. Not for as long as I live.’
Francesca tugged at her hand, loosening their grip, and Rose let her go. She could toddle off for a little bit; this was a moment in time that Rose needed, just a minute or two until next year.
‘Thank you for loving me. Thank you for believing in me and always letting me be myself, challenging you when most wives would have agreed with anything their husband said. No man will ever live up to the memory I have of you.’ She brushed tears from her cheeks as she smiled and touched her palm to the tree. She held it there, feeling the energy from the oak that stretched so high up into the air.
‘I hope you are free and watching over me, seeing me with little Francesca. She is a breath of fresh air, and everything I imagined our own child would be like. If Sebastian has found his way to you, and Charlotte, make sure they know how loved she is. She will never want for anything in her life, and I love her as fiercely as I loved you.’
Rose felt a tug at her leg and saw Francesca was back, holding on tight to her, wanting to be picked up.
‘Happy birthday, Peter,’ Rose whispered, pushing off from the tree with her hand and stepping back.
She scooped up her little girl and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, dark curls all messy from an afternoon of play.
‘Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go.’
She loved the weight of Francesca in her arms, the smiles and the affectionate looks and touches. It had warmed her heart, and every day with her made her realise how important every sacrifice had been, why every life they’d lost in the field had been for something greater. They’d fought for freedom, for all the children out there who deserved a safe and free world to grow up in. It had been a huge price to pay, but one day she hoped Francesca and all the other children in France would listen to their mothers, aunts and grandmothers tell stories about the war and understand just how much they’d given up for them.
‘Are you looking forward to meeting Auntie Sophia and Auntie Hazel?’ she asked Francesca. ‘I bet they’ll love meeting you!’
By the afternoon they’d be together again, the first time seeing one another since they’d been separated, and she couldn’t wait. They would always have a special bond, a shared understanding of what they’d endured. Without them she might be reflecting on the past and wondering if she’d dreamed up the whole thing – that’s how unlikely it was that three women from three very different backgrounds had ended up wielding guns and knives and getting some of the most important messages out of and into France during what she was certain would be remembered as the bloodiest and most sacrificial war ever known to man.
And what she’d shared with each of her friends – with Sophia that night she’d lost the baby she’d been so desperate for, and the nights huddled with Hazel in the German prison, so close to death – would never leave her. They were a part of her soul, the memories engraved into her very being, and she would love those two women like sisters for the rest of her life.
HAZEL
‘I still can’t believe we’re here,’ Hazel said, arm linked through Sophia’s as they made their way up the steps to Rose’s beautiful Paris home.
Sophia let go of her, and Hazel watched her knock on the door, her smile wide when she turned. ‘I know. It’s . . .’
‘Surreal,’ Hazel said for her when Sophia struggled to find the right word.
They had been as close as sisters during their time together, all amazed that they’d somehow managed to stay alive when so many hadn’t. But she was still nervous, restless about how they’d get along now and what they’d say to one another. Hazel had missed them both terribly, thought about them often, but until Rose had made contact asking if they’d like to see one another again, they hadn’t been in touch.
Within seconds the door was thrown open and a very excited woman held the door.
‘Are you Sophia or Hazel?’ the woman asked, holding the door still.
Hazel laughed. ‘I’m Hazel. And here I was thinking it was the wrong house when you answered the door.’
‘I’m Maria. Rose is this way. Please, follow me.’
The moment she saw them Rose screamed and ran across the room. Hazel opened her arms and hugged her, not letting go as tears streamed down her cheeks and Rose cried against her shoulder. Then Sophia took over, holding them both at the same time, her arms tight around them.
‘It’s so good to see you!’ Rose whispered.
‘And you,’ Hazel said. ‘I can’t believe it.’
They finally parted and she watched as Rose dabbed at her eyes, looking at them in disbelief, as if she simply couldn’t believe they were standing in her home.
‘Rose?’
They all turned when Rose’s housekeeper called her, and Hazel stared in disbelief at the little girl she held in her arms.
‘Mama,’ the child babbled, wriggling to get away. ‘Mama.’
She watched as Rose dropped to one knee, arms outstretched, and the girl leapt towards her, pudgy little arms around her neck as she sat on Rose’s hip.
‘Mama?’ Hazel asked in a low voice.
Rose’s smile was bigger than Hazel had ever seen before. ‘This is Sebastian’s daughter,’ she said. ‘My brother had a little girl.’
Hazel froze. ‘Had?’ She glanced at Sophia and saw her nodding, as if she knew something Hazel didn’t.
‘He was killed, he and Charlotte both. Maria here,’ Rose said, gesturing towards her housekeeper, ‘cared for her until I came home. It seems Charlotte came back here to give birth sometime after I last saw her and before she was caught.’
Tears welled in Hazel’s eyes as she watched them together. It was clear Francesca adored Rose; the love shining from her little face was unmistakable.
‘I’m so happy for you,’ Hazel said as she moved closer to Rose. ‘I’m sorry for your brother, I know how much you loved him, but what a wonderful thing to be able to raise his daughter as your own for him.’
Rose leaned in and kissed her cheek, and they looked into each other’s eyes for a moment. When she stepped back Sophia opened her arms, holding Rose close and whispering something that Hazel couldn’t hear. They embraced for a long time, and when they stood back, Sophia and Rose both had tears in their eyes.
Hearts of Resistance Page 27
