Page 40 of Hearts of Resistance
The red light came on, her signal to move, and she carefully sat, legs dangling over the edge of the hole. She didn’t look down, kept her gaze up. Her stomach was churning now, diving and flipping, the anticipation almost too much to bear, but she never took her eyes off the light. It was still red. It was red. It was...
Green.
Everything changed then. The noise that had rumbled in her ears like never-ending thunder abruptly ended as the engines cut to slow the plane. She gasped, her lungs suddenly empty as she clenched her fingers and dropped out of the plane and into nothingness.
She’d had to move fast to avoid the slipstream, and as much as she wanted to scream as the cool air engulfed her, she stayed deathly quiet, eyes shut tight. And then she opened them, forcing herself to look around, to enjoy the once in a lifetime experience of falling from the sky. Hazel lost her breath, couldn’t inhale as the impact of what she was doing caught up to her, and then suddenly, just like that, she felt free. She laughed, smiling so hard her cheeks hurt. This was it, this was what she’d been trained to do, and finally,finallyshe was here.
Hazel had never imagined anything like the rush of falling, then the static line pulled taut, jolting her back to reality as she thanked God that her chute had opened, keeping her from crashing into the ground.
She kept floating, like a bubble being passed gently through the air, and she thought about being a bird. About flying every day, seeing the world pass you by from above, and for the first time in her life she felt envious of the little winged creatures that she so often watched in the sky.
The descent was slow and magical, like nothing she’d ever felt, until she looked down and suddenly the ground seemed to be coming towards her at a rapid pace. The euphoria lifted then, disappearing like it had never existed.
She wasn’t going to stop. She was going to crash. Oh God, she was going to break every bone in her body!
Hazel shut her eyes tight before quickly popping them open again. She was in charge, she was the one attached to this damn thing and she knew what she was supposed to do. As the ground seemed to open up, ready to engulf her, she realised she was doing fine. She was going the correct speed, was going to be all right so long as she didn’t tangle in the nearby trees.
Oomph.
She hit the ground. Hazel scrambled to find her feet, everything she’d learned during her training coming back to her in a rush as though she’d done this all before. Of course she had, in training, only then she’d had backup and she hadn’t been landing in a territory occupied by Germans. There was a chance they’d seen her already, which was why the quicker she found her contacts, the faster she’d get to safety.
Hazel struggled to release herself, the panic rising inside her, bile filling her throat as she thought about who could be watching her, what a bullet would feel like entering her body, a knife to her throat, a...She blocked her fears out, remembering her parachute protocol and moving quickly. Her contacts would be here soon, if they weren’t already running towards her.
‘Over here!’
She spun around, the urgent whisper surprising her. Hazel braced herself, then placed a hand on her weapon, ready to fight if she needed to, ready to use the knife that she’d had combat training to learn how to use. She knew not to trust anybody, couldn’t believe this stranger just because she was another woman.
‘Quickly!’
Hazel knew she had no choice but to confront the person calling her. She went to move, tried to look unflappable, and the woman darted out, surprising her with how fast she was. There was supposed to be two people, a man and a woman.
‘Your contacts were captured barely an hour ago. We have to move now!’ the woman said in rapid French.
Hazel quickly took off her parachute overalls, knowing now why they were often laughingly called ‘striptease overalls’ for how fast they had to be removed, and pulled out the little shovel she’d been given to hide her parachute with. The other woman stood guard but didn’t offer to help as Hazel buried all evidence of her landing.
‘Hurry.’
‘Who are you?’ she asked, still unsure if she was doing the right thing in trusting her. But they couldn’t stand arguing all day when they could so easily be discovered, and she’d rather this woman than a German.
‘Sophia,’ she said quickly. She made a whistling noise, and within seconds another woman emerged.
Oh my God.It took only a second for Hazel to realise who was running towards her.
‘What...?’ she whispered, dumbfounded.
Rose threw her arms around her in a quick hug before seizing her hand. Hazel grabbed the things she’d landed with, her suitcase containing the radio and her small bag.
‘What are you doing here?’ Hazel gasped.
‘It’s so good to see you!’ Rose said, her voice low but her smile wide.
Hazel clutched her hand tight and ran fast alongside the two women. Now she knew who’d recommended her, and she couldn’t believe she was in France, undercover, with the one person who’d taught her almost everything there was to know about the country in the first place. She was with Rose!
‘We’re posing as French students, same as you. Use the cover story you’ve been given and keep anything you don’t know as close to the truth as possible,’ Rose whispered. ‘We’ve known each other for years, yet you two have only just met, that type of thing. Only lie when you absolutely have to.’
Hazel nodded, she knew all that already but she’d still listened carefully, and the enormity of what she was doing hit her like she’d walked smack bang into a solid wall. A lump formed in her throat and she thought of home; a warm fire, the sound of her mother humming as she sat down to knit, her father’s laughter. Hazel pushed the thoughts away. There was no point wishing for home. She was here, and there would be no home to go back to if they didn’t stop the Germans in their tracks.
She pushed herself to run faster, easily keeping up with the other two. This was what she’d trained for, this was what she’d wanted, and going home was no longer an option.
