Chapter 32
CHAPTER 32
L izzie approached the exit, and a soldier raised the barricade for her to leave. He bid her goodbye as she rode off on her bicycle into the late summer’s evening.
What a relief to be out of the office. But what had she accomplished, really? Nothing much. Jack wanted her to get the lay of the land and she’d done that, but it didn’t seem enough.
As she pedalled through the outskirts of Reims, she thought about her conversation with Jack the previous day. He was just about to reply to her question about him and Hannah when Pierre entered the barn.
Perhaps it was for the best—knowing the details of their love affair would only crush her already wounded spirit. If she’d known love hurt like this, she would have been more careful to avoid it.
She took the long way around and made several false turns to check she wasn’t being followed. Eventually, she saw the farm in the distance. The heavens opened, and she was soaking wet by the time she entered the yard .
Jack stood at the front door and rushed towards her. ‘Thank God. I was worried something had gone wrong.’
Her heart fluttered at the sight of the handsome face she had grown to love so much. ‘It was fine. I’m fine.’ She smiled, touched by his obvious concern.
‘Go inside out of the rain and I’ll put the bicycle away. I’ll be in shortly to hear all about it.’
Camille greeted Lizzie and rushed to bring her a towel. ‘We’re so relieved to see you. Don’t tell Jack I said so—’ She lowered her voice to a whisper, ‘but he’s been like a bear with a sore head since the moment you left.’
Camille’s words were like a balm to Lizzie’s soul.
Jack entered, also drenched from the downpour but paying no attention to his wet shirt. ‘Tell us all about it. How was it?’
Camille passed Jack a towel and served them bowls of hot watery soup with the occasional piece of vegetable. Pierre joined them at the table. Lizzie told them about her day and how she had met the general and typed up documents with the Blitz flight plans.
‘They’re actually having you type where they mean to bomb?’ Jack said, screwing up his tanned forehead in disbelief.
Lizzie nodded. ‘I didn’t dare mess with the details of the targets for tomorrow’s raids. I figured the bombing of the airfield is our major aim, and it might alert them.’
‘That’s good. Don’t tamper with it. Even if you change the target details, they’re still going to drop bombs and who knows what they’ll hit by mistake. It would be like playing God.’
Lizzie finished the hot soup and met his eyes. ‘I transposed some figures for the following day. Was that a mistake?’
Jack stared at her .
‘It didn’t seem right to let it go ahead without trying to sabotage it,’ Lizzie added.
‘Let’s hope they don’t put two and two together then. Tell us again exactly what the procedure was when you arrived and when you left.’
Lizzie went through what the guards did in detail, and Jack asked her more questions.
‘The airfield is right outside the office, and I could see some aircraft from the windows.’
Pierre said to Jack, ‘The rest of the team are coming later.’
‘Did I get the information you wanted?’ Lizzie asked Jack.
‘Yes. You did a marvellous job. Now we must make the plan of when and how we’re going in.’
Some other Resistance members arrived, and they stayed in the kitchen until late that night, making their plan.
They would strike in the evening on the third and final day of Lizzie’s temporary position at the airfield.
Lizzie noticed Jack was conscientious about calling them all by their cover names when they were together. The two men and one woman who Lizzie hadn’t met before listened to Jack earnestly, hanging on his every word. They clearly idolised him and called him by his codename, Raven.
One by one, the visitors left. Lizzie said goodnight and went to sleep in the secret room. Jack hadn’t shared the room with her this time. She wasn’t surprised, but she missed him, and lay awake thinking about the mission.
The next day at work passed much like the previous and Lizzie kept her head down and typed piles of tedious documents with orders for the local municipality. There were no flight plans to type today. A German secretary was back in the office, and Lizzie presumed that was part of her job .
It was the night before the operation. The other Resistance members dropped in again for a final briefing and went home before curfew. Camille didn’t sit still for a minute, and Pierre was in and out checking things on the farm.
Jack crossed and uncrossed his legs and then went outside, where she watched him through the window, chain-smoking and pacing up and down the yard. Lizzie sat at the table trying to read a book Camille had lent her, but she kept reading the same lines over and over.
‘I’m frightened,’ Lizzie confided in Camille as she buzzed about the kitchen tidying counters and washing dishes.
The older woman stopped moving for a second and looked at her. ‘You should be. I would be worried if you weren’t. Fear heightens the senses in situations like this.’
‘Are you frightened?’ Lizzie asked.
Camille studied her for a moment and then whispered. ‘I’m terrified! Terrified for you all. It will be a long evening for me waiting here.’ She bent to put something away in the cupboard and turned back to Lizzie.
‘Both of you had better sleep in the secret room tonight. Jack’s been taking a risk sleeping down here. If the Germans were to do one of their surprise spot checks, we’d endanger the operation if they found something wrong with his cover story.’
That night, Jack joined Lizzie in the hidden room behind the shelves when she was already asleep. She stirred and in the dim light of the oil lamp she saw him arrange a blanket at the foot of the bed and fold up his trousers and place them on the wooden chair.
Lizzie was wide awake now. ‘You don’t have to sleep on the floor. There’s plenty of space in the bed.’
Jack swivelled to face her. ‘Are you sure?’
She nodded, breathless. ‘This might be the last night we’re alive. The least I can do is not let you spend it sleeping on the floor.’
His eyes never left hers as he sat down on the bed next to her. ‘Scared?’ he asked, already knowing the answer.
‘Never been more scared,’ she confessed.
‘It will be alright. I have a good feeling about it.’
‘That’s encouraging,’ she said.
‘There’s something I want to say,’ Jack said. ‘The other day when you asked about me and Hannah?’
‘Yes,’ she said, unable to breathe.
‘There is no me and Hannah,’ he said. ‘Not in that sense, anyway.’
‘No?’ Lizzie’s insides quivered and relief cascaded through her.
‘No. Call me slow but I only realised what you meant earlier today.’
‘So, you are not in love with Hannah?’ Lizzie’s stomach danced with nerves, but she pressed on, swallowing her pride. She had to be sure.
‘No, I am not. I have never been in love with Hannah. In fact, and this is the crazy bit, Hannah is my brother Henry’s girlfriend. She’s also the daughter of my mother’s best friend. If her mother is still alive, that is.’
All the pieces slotted together in Lizzie’s mind like a kaleidoscope as he painted the picture for her.
‘That’s why you care so much about Hannah!’
‘Yes, my brother and Hannah planned to marry, but then war broke out. He joined the RAF, and she joined the Resistance. And then she went missing. He was devastated, of course. I can’t wait to tell him she’s alive and well.’
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ Lizzie said. ‘Your poor brother. What he must have been through.’
Jack nodded. ‘Yes, although it’s far from over. The message she left for me showed she has no intention of leaving the Resistance. I’ve asked her many times to come to England. She’s already done so much to help the Allies, there would be no problem organising it. My mother would be overjoyed to have her stay in our family home. But Hannah is strong-willed and determined to do all she can to bring down the Nazis.’
‘I can see why she feels that way, given what they are doing to the Jews. And what they did to her family.’
Lizzie had thought about it a lot. She found it difficult to grasp the reality of seeing your family arrested and sent to a camp because they didn’t conform to the Third Reich’s Aryan criteria. It was hard to get her head around how cruel Hitler’s Germany had become in a few short years.
Jack sighed. ‘We need her in the field, but for the sake of Henry—and for my conscience—I would like to see her settled in London. It’s selfish, but it crushed me when she went missing. If anything happens to her, it will be on my head. I recruited her personally, so I feel responsible.’
Lizzie reached for his hand, and he clasped her fingers.
The air between them crackled as his skin brushed hers.
‘At least I have good news for Henry. And for my mother. It’s hard enough thinking of him flying every day. At least he will know now that Hannah’s alive.’
They looked into each other’s eyes and their faces drew closer and their lips touched. Jack kissed her, at first lightly, then more hungrily, like a starving man.
Lizzie kissed him back, but after a few seconds, she drew away abruptly and whispered, ‘You said it was a bad idea to get involved.’
If he was going to kiss her and then pull away again, she’d rather not kiss him at all. It was too painful to want him and lose him again.
He traced her lips with his finger and devoured her with his eyes. ‘It is a bad idea. But I’ve thought of nothing else since you left. Do you want me to stop?’
Darts of joy shot through her whole body, lighting her up, as his words registered. ‘No. I’ve thought of nothing else either. We could be dead tomorrow. Let’s make tonight a night to remember.’
He bowed his head and swept her into his arms. They were like two magnets circling each other until they were irresistibly drawn together again.
At that moment, nothing else mattered.
Lizzie forgot the danger that awaited her the following day, and she melted into him as they kissed. His hard body covered hers and this time she surrendered to his touch completely, and he to hers.
It was as though their souls and bodies merged into one, and she cried out in ecstasy as they made love deep into the night, until they fell into a blissful sleep in each other’s arms.