Page 29 of Hearts of Resistance
‘You asked me a question earlier,’ Josephine said, her voice hushed as if she was worried about them being overheard. ‘Do you truly want to know the answer to it?’
Rose nodded immediately, knowing what she was referring to. ‘Yes.’
‘I know who you are, Rose. You see, I knew of your husband, Peter. I’m so sorry to hear that he’s no longer with us.’
She felt her eyes widen. Is this why Josephine was here, because she knew Peter?
‘How did you know him?’
‘Are you aware of his generous donations?’ Josephine asked. ‘Or the fact that he risked so much to arrange funds and arms deliveries for us?’
‘Yes.’ Rose felt a surge of adrenaline rush through her body, the only time in weeks that she’d smiled without having to force herself to. When the boat he’d been travelling on had gone down, the good he’d done for France was the only thing she’d been able to hold on to. ‘You’re part of the Resistance, aren’t you?’ she whispered, hardly able to believe it.
Josephine’s mouth turned up at the corners. ‘So you’re familiar with us?’ She laughed. ‘Are you also familiar with the fact that we weren’t expecting Peter’s lovely wife to turn up here? He’d promised us this place to use some time ago as a safe house, and when I saw you running in with three men in tow?’ Josephine shook her head, still smiling. ‘Let’s just say that you took me by surprise.’
‘He gave you our house to use?’ Rose exclaimed. ‘How could he do that without telling me?’
‘Same reason we don’t talk to our families or anyone else about what we do. The fewer people involved, the better.’
Rose nodded. ‘So is this a recruitment?’ she asked. ‘You’re telling me this because you want me to help you?’
Josephine folded her arms across her chest. ‘Are you ready to help us?’
‘Yes.’ Rose exhaled the word as if she’d been holding it and waiting to let it go for ever. ‘Yes, I’m ready.’ She wasn’t about to sit around and do nothing when so many good men were out there dying. Fighting for their lives against an evil that she wanted to help snuff out.
‘The reason I didn’t help you earlier when I saw you running is because I’m already hiding men, and I couldn’t risk having my house raided,’ Josephine confessed. ‘We have a submarine arriving tomorrow night and we’ll transport your men with them.’
‘I’m sorry, you what?’ Rose couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Asubmarine?’
‘We’ve been rescuing downed airmen,’ Josephine said. ‘It’s dangerous work, but if we didn’t do it, they’d be captured by the Germans, tortured and then kept as prisoners – if they weren’t shot after having their toenails pulled out and their fingers cut off, or whatever it is they do to them to extract information, that is.’ She sighed. ‘The submarines will be coming once a month. We need to transport the men to the shore, where they’ll have rowboats waiting. This is our first mission, so we have to cross everything that it goes to plan.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Rose said. ‘Whatever you want from me, I’ll do it.’
‘You’re certain? I’d say this isn’t work for the faint-hearted, but from what I’ve seen of you, that would be an insult.’
‘I’ve already told you, I have nothing to lose.’
She resisted the urge to touch her stomach. She was lying. She did have something to lose, but right now no one needed to know that she was pregnant, and she had no intention of telling anybody, not even Josephine.
‘Welcome to the Resistance.’ Josephine held out her hand and Rose shook it. ‘I have a feeling that we’ll all know your name by the end of this blasted war.’
Rose wasn’t so sure about that. But she did know that she’d do anything she could to help.Anything.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOPHIA
BERLIN, GERMANY
LATE1942
‘Alex!’ Sophia frantically whispered. ‘Alex!’
She was exhausted. She’d been shaking the entire way back on the train from her family estate, too scared to close her eyes and see the image of her mother’s lifeless form hanging in front of her. The hatred sluicing through every inch of her, the desperation to seek justice, was the only thing keeping her going. Without it, she’d have collapsed to the ground and wished for death herself. Or perhaps fear of her father would have kept her open-eyed and shaking.
‘Sophia?’
Alex was bleary-eyed, like he’d just woken up. She looked at her bed, saw how rumpled it was. She could hardly expect him to spend every moment hidden, but the fact he’d been lying there while she was gone, the fact that her apartment could have been raided and he could have been found before she’d even made it back...she fought a wave of emotion as it tried to choke her.
