Page 13 of The Secrets We Left Behind
As the trucks finally rumbled away, the ground vibrating once more, Cate let out a breath she hadn’t even known she was holding. They’d left behind two Nazi soldiers by the looks of it, the rest either going in the convoy or leaving on foot in the opposite direction, and the two who’d been left were patrolling around the perimeter of the house.
“What are we going to do now?” she asked Jack, her voice so low it was barely audible. She wondered what had happened to the ATS girl, whether she’d made it safely to the beach or not, or whether she’d simply found somewhere to hide. If only they’d stayed together, if she hadn’t left in such a hurry like that. Whatever the case, Cate knew she owed the girl her life. Without the warning, she would have been rounded up and taken on that truck, too. She gulped. Or just as easily gang-raped by all those soldiers and discarded before the truck had even left.
And Lilly ... She fought the image of Lilly screaming at her from the ambulance she’d obviously commandeered. How on earth had Lilly ended up back at the chateau, and transporting injured soldiers on her own at that? She only hoped she’d made it all the way.
“You all right?” Jack asked, his hand catching hers.
She nodded, quickly blinking away her tears. “I’m fine. I just keep thinking what could have happened to me, that’s all.”What could still happen to me.
The knowing smile he gave her in reply made her wonder if he could read her mind, or perhaps he was just worrying about the same thing.
“We’re not safe yet,” he said. “And heaven help us if someone decides they want to drive this ambulance.”
Cate hadn’t thought about that possibility. “What if I somehow found the keys? What if we found another vehicle we could drive?”
Jack’s fingers interlaced with hers, both of them ignoring the drying blood streaked across their skin, and she watched, hopeful, as he stroked his thumb across her hand before finally meeting her gaze.
“No, Cate, we can’t,” he said. “We’d be dead within minutes, maybe an hour at best. There’s a reason no Allied soldiers are left standing here. It’s too late to make a run for it.”
Jack was right. Defeat was obvious now; it was stale in the air, clinging to them and everything around them like a corpse amongst the living. But what did that mean for Lilly? She hoped her friend had made it to the beach in time and hadn’t been caught by a German patrol.
“So if our army has left us behind, and we can’t steal a vehicle, what do we do?” She tried to disguise the panic in her voice, but she couldn’t quell the feeling inside her.
Jack let out a low, shuddering sigh. “We wait until nightfall, and then we start to walk.”
“In the dark?” she asked.
“In the dark,” he confirmed. “It’s our only hope if we want a chance at survival.”
“Where will we go? How is that a safe option?” Terror rose like bile in Cate’s throat. “Do you not think we’ll make it?”
“Cate, we’re lying in the dirt beneath an abandoned ambulance, surrounded by the enemy,” he said. “There is no safe option, but it’s our best bet. Trust me, I want to live just as much as you do.”
“And where are we going to go? Do we try to make it to the beach?”
“No,” he said quickly. “We don’t even know if the evacuation was successful. The Germans could be attacking our soldiers right now, while they wait on the beach. We could be heading straight into a trap if we do that.”
“You think they might not make it home?” Surely hundreds of thousands of soldiers couldn’t be killed as they waited to evacuate?
“At this point, I honestly don’t know,” Jack said. “But when you think about that many men and how fast everything’s moved since then ...”
Cate nodded. She understood. She wished she didn’t, but she did. As she stared at the hospital and wished she could sneak back to the house to collect her warm clothes and personal items, a sense of calm settled over her. They had a chance. If nothing else, they had a chance to make it to safety. What would happen after that, with France under German occupation, she had no idea, but she did have hope, and that was better than nothing.
Rain started to pelt more steadily now, making gentle dinging sounds on the vehicle above them, big plops soaking into the dirt around them and slowly turning it to thick mud. At least they were dry while they were hiding.
“We’re alive, Cate, and for now, that’s something,” Jack whispered, grunting as he shuffled back and reached for the blanket.
She should have asked about his pain, offered him the blanket, but she didn’t. Because there was nothing she could do to ease his suffering, and for the first time in almost a year, it was nice to have someone pull a blanket over her, take care of her, for a change.
“We’re going to hunker down here until it’s safe to leave,” he murmured. “We stay warm, we rest, and then we walk for Le Paradis or St.Venant. The Nazis will have already passed through there, so if we can make it ...” His voice trailed off.
Cate was grateful for the blanket, and she pressed her face against her hands as she lay, not wanting Jack to see her tears. She had no idea where Le Paradis was, but if Jack wanted to go there, then she didn’t exactly have any better ideas.
She only hoped Lilly could make it to safety too.
Cate hadn’t intentionally fallen asleep, and when Jack woke her, she wondered how she’d ever managed to relax enough to slumber. Her hips jutted into the unforgiving dirt, and when she lifted her head to stretch she banged it on the undercarriage of the ambulance.
“Ouch,” she muttered.
