Page 45 of Hearts of Resistance
Hazel smiled and looked up, watching as Sophia nodded at her. Rose was kneeling beside the sofa, hand on his hip area, near his thigh, and Sophia had his foot in one hand now, holding his ankle in the other, with a grimace on her face that told Hazel just how terrible the ordeal was going to be.
Her job was to focus on Harry, and she was taking her role very seriously, wanting to keep him talking and not tensing up as they prepared to manoeuvre his leg back into position.
‘Harry, I want you to look at me,’ she said, forcing a smile and looking into his eyes. ‘Keep staring at me, just me.’
His lips moved, she guessed he’d been trying to smile, but then a thin bead of sweat broke out on his forehead and she felt his pain.
‘It’ll be over in a moment. Keep looking at me, keep—’
His scream tore through the room, and he didn’t stop, moaning and crying out as Rose kept him still and Sophia did whatever she had to do.
‘Harry, look at me. Tell me how you got here. What—’
‘Done!’ Sophia’s voice and grin were triumphant when she made her announcement at the end of the sofa.
‘Phew. Good work,’ Rose said, standing and moving away.
Hazel stayed in position, still clutching Harry’s hand. Or maybe Harry was the one clutching hers – she couldn’t tell any more. All she knew was that he needed her to keep holding him and she wasn’t about to let go.
‘How are you feeling now?’ she murmured, keeping hold of him as she reached back for a cloth and squeezed the water from it, then held it to his forehead and carefully wiped it. ‘You were very brave.’
‘I cried like a girl,’ he muttered. ‘No offence.’
She shook her head. ‘None taken.’ The truth was that most of the time it was the women she’d gone through training with who had been stronger than the men, so that expression was always going to make her laugh now.
‘Can you sit with me awhile?’ he asked. ‘Unless you have something else to do?’ He paused, his face showing his pain as he tried to adjust himself on the sofa. She’d bandaged his other arm, so he only had the one she was holding to move himself with. Hazel reluctantly let it go, her fingers slipping away from his.
‘Of course. I’ll get you something to eat, then sit here as long as you need me to.’
When he looked comfortable and stopped moving he met her gaze, a quizzical look on his face. There was some dirt clinging to his hair, and she had to resist the urge not to bend and smooth her fingers against his skin. ‘What are three women doing out here alone anyway? And how do you speak English so well?’
Hazel took a big breath and stood. Had she already blown her cover? She was supposed to be a Frenchwoman, and one English lad had brought her guard down. ‘Let me get you that food and then we’ll talk.’
She rose and went to get soup from the kitchen, cursing herself for speaking such perfect English to their guest. She found Rose standing there, staring out the window into the almost-darkness.
‘It’s just me,’ Hazel said, her voice low as she stood at the doorway, not wanting to startle Rose.
Rose nodded before drawing the curtains and turning to face her. ‘It’s fine. I was only thinking.’
‘About whether or not we’re about to be discovered?’ she asked, knowing that any answer other than ‘yes’ would be a lie.
‘I am,’ Rose said simply, ladling soup into a mug as Hazel watched. She held it out to her and then retrieved a spoon. ‘I’m afraid you’ve landed straight in the thick of it. You were supposed to be joining a larger circuit and working as their operator, but it looks like you’ll be staying with us. And we need you to start radioing as soon as possible to notify Paris what’s happened.’
‘I’ll do whatever I need to do here,’ Hazel said. ‘When they warn you that half of the recruits sent here won’t make it out alive, you don’t expect to be pampered and you certainly don’t expect to be eased into the role.’ It was the truth. She’d known what she was up for when she arrived, had volunteered for the role, and even though Rose was clearly fraught with worry, she needed to keep calm and deal with the situation she was in. ‘Do you fear that we’re sitting ducks and they’re out there watching us right now?’
‘Perhaps,’ Rose said, touching the short curtain again before sighing and pulling her hand back, as if changing her mind about looking. ‘But they’d be here already if they were. Sophia’s right about that.’
‘I’m going to see if I can get any food into Harry. Anything I need to do after that?’
Rose shook her head. ‘We need you to get your radio operational, then we’ll sleep. We all need rest while we have decent beds to lay our heads on. Tomorrow night, Sophia and I are going together to take Samuel to his rendezvous point – it’s too dangerous for either of us to go alone. Only then will we know what our next move is, whether it’s safe to stay or whether we need to make other plans.’
‘Or maybe it’s too dangerous to go together at all,’ Hazel said, knowing she had to be honest with her old friend. ‘We can’t afford to lose both of you if the Germans are patrolling.’
‘I know.’ Rose gnawed on a fingernail, a nervous trait that Hazel had never noticed her do in the past. ‘But they’re always patrolling. We’ve both survived here this long, and we’re careful. If there are two of us, well, we’re both so aware of our surroundings, there would be a much higher chance of us going undetected.’
‘But if they’re lying there in wait, you’ll never be able to hide,’ Hazel pointed out. ‘If operatives have already been captured near here, and heaven forbid you both were found, too, this area would be without—’
‘Stop.’ Rose put her hand up and Hazel shut her mouth. Maybe she hadn’t needed to be quite so brutally honest.
