Chapter Eleven Aletta #2
It had been one thing working alongside her mother in their little safe room, but it felt like another thing entirely to leave home after dinner and step out on to the street with the typed papers hidden in her jacket.
The weather was still warm, and Aletta hadn’t wanted to draw attention by wearing a large coat, so she’d chosen a lightweight jacket that belonged to her mother.
She was also carrying a small bowl of food covered in wax paper, which was her cover story.
If anyone asked her, she was to say that she was delivering food to a relative who lived alone.
There was no tolerance for anyone disobeying the eight o’clock curfew, but up until that point, at least she had a reason for leaving home in the evening.
Aletta knew that she didn’t have long. She had to walk as quickly as she could to the drop-off point, and then she would barely have enough time to get home.
Her father had almost rubbed through the skin of his jaw at dinner, constantly glancing at the clock and then at her, but there was no point in them working so hard all day if she didn’t deliver the material as planned.
Scared or not, she had to follow through with what she’d agreed to do.
Just keep walking, she told herself. Hold your head up high, straight shoulders, and keep walking.
Which worked, until someone called out to her.
A shiver ran the length of her spine as she slowed, turning her head to see two German soldiers.
They were leaning against the side of a building, but one straightened and waved her over.
She hesitated, but deep down, she knew there was only one choice she could make.
If she didn’t obey them . . . she didn’t even want to think what they could do to her.
‘Hello,’ she called back, forcing herself to smile.
The soldiers were young, barely older than she was.
‘Where are you going?’ one of them asked.
She had learnt languages at school and then at college, so she attempted to speak to them in German, hoping to impress them enough that they might let her be on her way. It was stilted, but from their raised eyebrows, her attempt had surprised them.
‘I’m taking dinner to an elderly relative,’ she said, trying a small smile again even though it made her stomach turn.
The first soldier grinned at her, his teeth straight and white. The other didn’t look quite so taken with her, and glanced at his watch.
‘You have thirty minutes until curfew,’ he said.
‘I promise I’ll be home before then,’ she said, starting to back away. ‘If I could just—’
‘Show me your identification papers,’ he said.
The first soldier groaned and shook his head, saying something to him in rapid-fire German that was too fast for her to fully understand. But from what she imagined, it was him disagreeing and telling him to stop with his questions.
‘We apologise,’ the first soldier said. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong, we don’t want to hold you up any longer. Please be on your way.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, making sure to look at each of them and smile as she slowly backed away.
‘You’ll need those papers if we catch you after curfew!’ the other man called out.
She shuddered again, hurrying off and not even wanting to think what might have happened if they’d searched her to see if she was carrying anything. Aletta only wished the plate in her hand would stop trembling.
It was barely fifteen minutes later when Aletta arrived at her destination.
She glanced around, pausing to look at her watch and take a moment to quell the unease in her stomach.
But no one had followed her, and no one was watching – or at least not that she could see.
So she approached the house, lifting her hand and knocking firmly on the door.
The printed pages would go from here to a factory where there was a printing press of sufficient size to copy the number of pages needed, but they’d each been asked to focus on their own part of the process only.
No one had explicitly said it, but she knew that it was for the greater good.
Even if one of them was tortured, there was very little they could ever divulge, which kept their network protected.
There was no answer, and Aletta went back over her orders, even stepping away to check she was indeed at the correct address. But then the door opened, just enough for her to see a man peering out at her, his eyes narrowed with what she could only imagine was distrust.
She nodded, but something made her nervous. Maybe it was the way he was looking at her, or the fact that she didn’t recognise him. He most definitely wasn’t who she’d expected, and she didn’t recall seeing him at any of their meetings.
‘I’m—’ she started.
‘Follow me,’ he mumbled. ‘She’s, well, just follow me and close the door behind you.’
Aletta hesitated, but when she glanced down she saw a drop of blood on the carpet. And then another. There was a trail of blood leading across the living-room floor.
Her stomach clenched and she had the immediate sense that she should flee, that something dreadful had happened in this house and she needed to put as much space between her and the place as she could.
She couldn’t stop thinking about the soldiers she’d passed, and what they could do to her if they caught her here, if it was a trap of some kind.
She lifted her gaze and saw the way the man was looking at her, as if he had something to hide, and she balled her fists, refusing to give in to her fear.
He was tall and young enough that she knew she’d be no match for him, and she certainly didn’t know if she could outrun him, but she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
‘Where’s Heleen?’ she asked, standing her ground. ‘I was told to meet her here.’
He only gave her a look that she couldn’t decipher, and Aletta knew she had a split second to decide what to do.
But just as she was about to throw her bowl of supper at his face and run for her life, deciding that the soldiers on the street were less terrifying than whatever was going on in this house, a woman’s voice sounded out.
‘Did she give you the papers?’ she called.
Aletta’s heart beat out a rapid staccato as the woman she’d been expecting appeared in the hallway, but her eyes dropped to the bloodied cloth in her hands.
‘I—’ Aletta began.
Aletta never got her words out as a young man of barely twenty stumbled behind her, groaning as he held his hand to his side.
But it wasn’t just the sight of a man covered in blood that made Aletta gasp.
It was the unmistakable cloth of his British uniform.