Chapter Twelve Aletta
Chapter Twelve
Aletta
The man in the uniform groaned and slumped against the wall as Aletta gasped, hearing the blood pounding in her ears. She watched in stunned silence as the man and woman before her hurried to his side, helping him back to his feet and holding him upright.
It wasn’t often her instincts were wrong, but Aletta was prepared to admit that she’d thought the worst of the man in front of her, and she’d in fact been very, very wrong. His narrowed gaze had been because he was hiding a man whom he could be killed for helping.
‘What happened?’ Aletta asked.
‘We had an unexpected arrival of downed British airmen,’ the woman said. ‘Some of the other Resistance members managed to get them here after they disposed of the parachutes, but we can’t keep them.’
‘He’s the last of them,’ the man said. ‘The others weren’t as badly injured so they were easier to move, but this one is proving a little more difficult.’
‘We thought he was going to bleed out, and the worst thing is that we haven’t been able to understand most of what he’s said.’
Aletta studied the man in front of her, seeing the discomfort he was in and wishing there was something, anything, she could do. Her eyes ran over his face, seeing the brace of pain in his features, and then down his side to where he held his hand.
‘How bad is it?’ she asked.
‘Bad enough that he should have seen a doctor,’ the man said with a grunt.
‘And will he?’ Aletta asked. ‘See a doctor?’
The woman sighed. ‘We have the local veterinarian coming by shortly. He’s going to stitch him up as best he can, and then we have to find somewhere safe to hide him. He’s going to need a long time to recuperate before we can attempt to smuggle him out.’
Something about the young man tugged at Aletta’s heart strings, and she didn’t know if it was because he was young, or looked broken, but all she could think about was what would happen to him if he were found.
Her father’s words about the awful camps the Nazis were sending people to filled her mind, as she imagined a soldier holding a gun to his head, and she knew she couldn’t just walk away.
But the truth was that the fate of anyone who helped him would be the same, and that should have scared her more than it did.
‘He can come home with me,’ she said, before she’d even considered her words. ‘We have somewhere safe in our apartment where we can hide him. He’ll be safe there, and I can speak English.’ Thankfully, her English was much better than her German.
The man and woman before her exchanged glances, and Aletta followed them down the hallway to a bedroom where they carefully laid the British airman on the bed.
She could sense that they weren’t certain whether they could trust her, and she understood the feeling – she’d felt the same about them only minutes earlier.
‘How old are you?’ the man asked.
‘Twenty,’ she said, not understanding why it was relevant.
‘You live at home with your parents?’ he asked, his eyebrows shooting up in question. ‘Because you can’t just arrive home with a British airman without their permission.’
Aletta began to answer but the woman spoke for her.
‘Her mother’s with us,’ she said to the man whom Aletta presumed was her husband. ‘She’s in this as much as her daughter is, so if she says she can take him, she can take him. We need him gone from here, and if she’s willing . . .’
‘You’re worried he’ll be discovered here?’ Aletta asked.
She looked at Aletta, as if deciding whether or not to tell her any more.
Her eventual sigh indicated that she was going to.
‘We’re distributing the newspaper from here once it’s printed, and we can’t risk drawing any more attention to the house.
We’ve already had enough comings and goings that it might seem suspicious to the neighbours. ’
Aletta nodded. She knew full well that the knowledge of where the newspaper was being distributed from wasn’t supposed to pass to her – it was essential that they all knew as little as possible, for the safety of everyone involved.
She also knew that the time she would be spending at the house meant she might not get home before curfew.
She glanced at her wristwatch, thinking about the soldiers she’d passed.
This time, she was proposing to not only walk the same route home after curfew, but with an Allied airman in tow.
But she kept seeing the pained look on his face, and there was no way she could turn her back on him and run home.
If he could walk and make it back with her, she would take him.
Every single one of us needs to do our bit.
We need to be brave. We cannot collapse before the enemy, we must find a way to stand our ground and fight behind the scenes, to find a different path to victory.
The words spoken at the last meeting of the Resistance echoed through her mind, and she knew that she’d made the right decision, however reckless it might feel now.
‘Let me clean up and you can give me the papers,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Heleen by the way. I saw you at the meetings.’
‘Aletta,’ she replied, her hand over the pocket of her jacket where the papers were carefully folded. But the woman knew her name, just as she’d already known hers.
‘Have you lost any friends yet?’ the woman asked. ‘Is that what’s making you want to get involved in all of this?’
Aletta shook her head. ‘No. But my father . . .’ She hesitated, realising she needed to be careful about saying too much that might give his identity away. ‘He has many Jewish friends. Some have taken their own lives. And I have pupils who’ve disappeared, whom I fear I’ll never see again.’
The woman nodded, as if it didn’t come as a surprise. ‘We lost a son. Our only child. He was killed trying to defend Rotterdam.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Aletta felt as if the air had been punched from her lungs when she heard that. This is what they’d meant at the last meeting about everyone having their own reason for helping.
‘Doing this, helping in any way we can to kill those bastards? It’s the only thing we have left, the only way we can honour our son’s memory.’
Aletta understood, and it only made her want to help by taking their unexpected house guest all the more.
‘What do we do now?’ she asked.
‘Now?’ Heleen repeated. ‘Well, we start by you giving me the papers, and then we wait. You can leave as soon as the boy is all stitched up.’
It felt like the longest hour of Aletta’s life as she waited for the veterinarian to arrive and work on the British airman.
She heard deep moans of pain come from the bedroom, but she’d been told to stay out of the way and only move to answer the door if anyone knocked, so that was what she was doing – and trying her best to block out the noise.
As well as fretting about her parents, because she could only imagine how worried her father would be by now, and she hated that she’d broken her promise about when she’d come home.
She only hoped that he’d understand, and that he didn’t risk his own safety by breaching curfew and coming out into the night to search for her.
‘He’s all patched up,’ the veterinarian said, as he walked down the hall.
‘How long until he can walk with me?’ Aletta asked as she rose. ‘He is going to make it, isn’t he?’
The older man peered at her over his round spectacles.
‘My dear, I work on family pets, cats and dogs and the occasional guinea pig. I have no idea whether the poor boy will make it, or what his internal injuries might be, but I’ve patched him up, he has painkillers enough to work on a Great Dane, and I’ve managed to rustle up some antibiotics.
’ The man frowned at her. ‘All I can wish you now is luck.’
Aletta took the bag of supplies thrust at her, and when she peered inside she saw a bottle of tablets, and a supply of bandages. Her stomach churned as she realised that by taking him with her, she was now in charge of caring for him.
‘Clean the wound regularly, check him for a temperature, and make sure he’s keeping his fluids down. You need to apply pressure to the wound if it starts bleeding and find a way to stem the flow.’
‘And if I can’t?’ she asked, looking up at him. ‘What am I supposed to do then?’
The veterinarian shrugged. ‘Then start praying, because unless you can find a doctor who’ll treat him in secret, there’s little anyone will be able to do for him. You just need to stop that blood and hope for the best.’
Aletta didn’t exactly like the instructions she’d been given, but she braced herself and took a deep breath.
She wished she’d chosen to study nursing instead of teaching; the trouble was she’d never had the strongest stomach, and just the thought of seeing his blood and having to keep his wounds clean was making her feel ill.
Heaven help her if she was expected to stitch any wounds that didn’t stay closed.
‘It’s almost dark now,’ Heleen said. ‘You’re going to have to go quietly and carefully, and come up with one hell of a good cover story if you’re caught.’
Aletta tucked the bag she’d been given under her arm as the man of the house appeared with the British airman propped up beside him and still looking very much worse for wear, although he’d at least been changed into civilian clothing, even if it was slightly too large for him.
There was nothing about him that didn’t look suspicious, but Aletta didn’t waver.
It was like finding a stray dog out in the rain – there was no way she could leave him behind, not when there was a chance she could save him.
‘What are my chances of him walking all the way there without assistance?’ she asked, not really expecting an answer.
‘The pain medication I’ve given him will help, but I don’t know how long it will last before it starts to wear off. So I’d make haste if I were you.’
Her charge hissed out a breath of pain as he let go of the man holding him, pushing off from the wall.