Page 12 of The Secrets We Left Behind
Cate shivered, positioning herself better so she could watch the chateau. But then she had an idea as her teeth started to chatter from the cold. She’d been worried about Jack freezing in what he was wearing, but her white dress wasn’t exactly any better. They needed something to protect them from the elements, and fast.
“I’m going to check what supplies are in here,” she said. “There might be keys inside.”
“You’re not moving,” he ground out.
Cate reached for his hand and bravely gave it a quick squeeze. “I am,” she insisted. “If we manage to evade capture, we need to stay warm. God only knows how long we might need to survive for, and I need medical supplies in case I have to treat you.”
When I have to treat you.It was definitely not a case ofif.He was silent for a moment, his eyes searching hers until he finally spoke again.
“Fine. But if I tap twice on the side, you stay hidden. It means someone’s coming.”
She nodded and wriggled backward so that she came out at the rear of the ambulance. Her heart was pounding and she could barely breathe, but she forced her feet to move, shuffling as quietly as she could, moving to the driver’s door. Cate paused, listening for danger, but she couldn’t hear anything close by, and she quickly opened the door and looked in.Dammit!There were no keys in the ignition. She moved back around the vehicle and stepped up into the back, immediately seeing a grey wool blanket. There was only one, and it was in a heap on the floor as if it had been accidentally discarded. She scooped it up, sticking it under her arm. There wasn’t really anything else of use except some bandages, so she grabbed them and then carefully, silently, lowered herself to the ground.
Cate was still expecting to hear the click of a rifle trained on her, to be grabbed roughly and marched back to the chateau, but nothing happened. She lowered herself and wriggled forward, side by side with Jack again, conscious that her right side was pressed almost along the length of his left now. She’d touched him before—skin to skin, nursing him—but it felt different to have her body against his. Too intimate, almost, for someone she didn’t know that well, but intimate or not, she wasn’t about to move away from him. She felt safer against him, his body warmth comforting.
“What do you think’s happening in there?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he murmured, his eyes facing forward, chin in the dirt as he stared out. “We haven’t heard any more gunshots, so that’s good. But who knows what they’ll do to them next?”
“Aren’t there rules about this sort of thing? I mean, they have to take them as prisoners of war, don’t they? They can’t just ...” She couldn’t bring herself to say it.
“Kill them?” Jack turned, his face inches from hers, his eyes glinting with unshed tears.
Cate looked into his eyes and wondered what he’d seen, what he’d been through out in the field before he’d come into the hospital. She had so many questions for him, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask them, or know the answers.
“Would they?” she asked. “Kill them, I mean?”
He slowly shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve heard stories about their cruelty, about what they’re doing to the Jews, and if they can do that to them, then I don’t know whether they’ll abide by the rules here or not.”
Just then, there was a flurry of movement and noise, and Jack lifted his finger to his lips. He hadn’t needed to silence her, though; she had no intention of making a sound. Cate instinctively moved back as far as she could without allowing her feet to stick out the other side, eyes glued to the scene in front of her.
Her heart was pounding hard, and her breathing was coming in shallow pants. There was Doctor Connor, and the rest of the men she’d worked with for months, slowly lining up outside the chateau. Cate couldn’t have looked away if she’d tried, and she was certain they were going to be seen, given that she could see them so clearly.
If our hiding place is discovered, that’ll be me lined up there. That’ll be my fate too.
Her breath sounded too loud to her, even though she knew it wasn’t possible for anyone to actually hear her from such a distance.
“What are they saying?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” Jack whispered. “My German is fairly basic.”
As one of the Nazis yelled, Cate’s hand covered her face, half-shielding her eyes as she waited for the inevitable. The Germans’ guns were raised, and as she watched the doctors and orderlies stand, hands held high, some of them crying and almost all of them visibly trembling in fear, she waited for the first shot.
Only it never came.
Two of the German soldiers stepped forward, prodding at the doctors and saying something. She couldn’t hear what they were asking, but she could hear one of the doctors repeating over and over that he was a doctor.
And then suddenly they were being yelled at to move as the ground vibrated through her fingers, the dirt moving as a rumbling sound came closer. Cate pressed her ear to the ground, her head at an angle to get a better view of what was coming. She half-expected to see tanks, but instead there were two large trucks rolling in.
Patients were walked out then too, some barely able to hobble along. Jack glanced at her and they exchanged a look of disbelief. She’d been so certain they were going to kill them all, and instead they watched as patients and doctors alike were loaded into the back of one truck. It was covered with a big canvas awning, so she couldn’t see inside.
“The doctors and orderlies are too valuable to them,” Jack said quietly, shuffling further back against her. “They must need them.”
Her lips were so dry she had to moisten them before speaking. “So they’re going to force them to treat German soldiers?”
Jack didn’t bother to hide his grimace. “It’s better than the alternative.”
Cate knew he was right, but she couldn’t help but wonder why they’d taken the patients. Why not leave them behind? She hadn’tbeen able to count them, so she didn’t know if any might have been left, and she certainly wasn’t going inside to see for herself.
