Page 43 of Hearts of Resistance
‘Help me lift him,’ she said. ‘I need to get him to the sofa.’
Samuel had his own injuries, but they were the least of Rose’s worries right now. She needed to get this airman fixed up so they could hide him and figure out what to do. They’d only radioed in for one pickup from their circuit, and she’d need to figure out if she could take this one with them to the submarine drop-off or not. She wasn’t meeting Josephine until the next day, and it was too risky to go over and see her before then.
‘Let me help,’ Sophia insisted, her voice hoarse as she stood. Rose looked up and saw how unsteady she was on her feet. Something was wrong; Sophia was never like this, always kept going no matter what as if nobody and nothing could exhaust her.
‘No, sit there and rest. You need fluid and something to eat,’ Rose said, taking command. They had a deep level of trust between them, and she knew Sophia would listen to her if she demanded it. She was more concerned about Sophia’s welfare than her own most of the time, and given how many months Sophia had worked in France before turning up on her doorstep, Rose knew she was too strong to collapse merely from exhaustion. ‘Hazel, how’s that hot water coming?’
‘Here,’ Hazel replied, hurrying to her. ‘What can I do?’
Samuel helped Rose to heft the airman higher up on the sofa, cushions propping his head and back. He moaned, his cracked, dry lips parting, every time they moved him. Once he was slumped there she stood back and swapped glances with Hazel. She was no nurse and yet there was Hazel waiting for her to issue instructions.
‘I think we should clean his wounds as best we can, from what we can see. Then we can check him over properly once he comes around more.’
Hazel nodded. ‘I’ll bathe his face first,’ she said. ‘He’ll need water and something to eat once he’s awake again.’
Rose watched Sophia stand and slowly make her way into the kitchen. She knew how hard the other woman would find it to sit still and not do anything, but at least she wasn’t doing too much. Rose’s biggest worry was whether they were about to be raided, their door smashed in by soldiers who’d followed Sophia.
‘What happened?’ Rose called out as she carefully checked Harry’s arm and took a clean towel, dipping it into the warm water and bathing the deep cuts and scratches etched into his skin.
‘Everything’s turned to hell out there,’ Sophia called back. ‘We didn’t see any planes come down. Josephine left because she wanted to double-check we hadn’t been followed. She’s been frantic since Sebastian went missing, and she told me more from another network have disappeared from contact.’
Rose took a deep breath. She could cope with a lot, but being captured by the Germans? The things they could do to a person to try to extract knowledge weren’t something she liked to think about. She had to remind herself that right now, they didn’t know anything for sure.
‘I got the package though,’ Sophia said.
‘What was the package?’ Hazel asked, her voice low.
Rose shook her head, knowing Sophia would be furious that Hazel had asked so openly. She saw the hostile glare Sophia gave her old friend and cringed. The fact that the men with them were allies didn’t mean they could disclose their secrets, not any of them, and Sophia was unforgiving when it came to protecting the work they did.
‘How’s his arm looking?’ asked Sophia.
Rose kept going, checking his scratches, cleaning him up, pleased that everything looked fairly fresh. The blood hadn’t long dried, and in some places he was still bleeding. But it was his leg she was most worried about, and she hadn’t even examined that yet. The way he’d been resting it, she worried that there might be something too sinister there for them to treat with their crude supplies.
‘Rose, we had the delivery confirmed for tomorrow night,’ Sophia called out. ‘We need to rest tonight, then get the package to the drop-off point and figure out whether it’s safe to come back or not.’
It was the worst kind of news, to have to think about whether to leave the house or not, and there was obviously a lot Sophia was waiting to tell her. She wasn’t looking forward to making the drop, that was for sure.
Samuel caught her eye and she smiled at him, not giving anything away. He’d trusted them this long, and the last thing she wanted was for him to think they weren’t going to follow through on the promises they’d made him.
‘You’ll be on your way soon,’ Rose reassured him. ‘I promise.’
She kept going, methodically checking their new house guest over, wondering if he’d be the one to get them caught. Even if Sophia had been careful, she’d been trying to support the weight of a man twice her size. There was simply no way she’d have known if there were Germans hidden, watching her. ‘Go back upstairs for now. It’s safer there. Just bring down some new clothes for this one first, then we can burn his uniform.’
Rose sighed and stood. If the enemy had been watching Sophia, surely they’d have stormed the house by now, and a simple change of clothes for their guest wouldn’t help at all.
‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she said to Hazel as Sophia reappeared. ‘Keep going as best you can, and once he’s patched up we need to strip him down and burn those clothes well enough so there’s not even a thread of his uniform left.’
She motioned to Sophia with her head, looking towards the kitchen and walking to the corner with her. They stood close, heads bent, and she could tell from Sophia’s eyes that something was troubling her. She’d seen that look on her face only once before, and that had been when they were both losing too much blood, side by side, and things were going horribly wrong.
‘What happened?’ she asked, keeping her voice deliberately low.
‘No one has heard from Sebastian or Charlotte, but the other, the man Josephine has been working with, was confirmed as captured.’ Sophia let out a breath. ‘And the members of their cell we’d heard had been taken? It’s confirmed.’
Rose felt her heart skip a beat, then thud rapidly. She was relieved Sebastian was still unaccounted for – no news was better than bad news, and she preferred to think of him as hidden somewhere safely – but she knew that Josephine would be devastated. Not to mention worried she could be given up.
‘My guess is they’re being interrogated right now, which means it’s only so long before one of them breaks.’ Sophia’s tone was low, depressed. ‘But I think we’d know if they had your brother.’
Or if he was dead.That was the missing part from what she’d said. They were either being interrogated or they were already dead. And if they weren’t dead then they would be soon, or else they’d be sent to one of those horrendous camps, where it was a matter ofwhen, notif, they perished. She knew her mind was racing, jumping to conclusions, but the chance Sebastian was safely hiding somewhere was seeming less likely by the minute.
