AllFreeNovel
Share Us
46
ANGELIQUE
May 1943
France
I keepto the shadows of the trees and follow Schmidt and Fischer as they walk towards the pond. My footfalls are soft on the grass.
An inquisitive silence blankets the area. I can’t hear if they’re talking, but if they are, they’re keeping their voices too low to be heard. And if the latter is true, why the precautions? They don’t know I speak German. They don’t know I understand all the secrets I overhear. So even if they suspect I’m following them, that shouldn’t make a difference.
Or perhaps…perhaps they are merely out for an evening stroll. Perhaps the war and my SOE training have made me suspicious of every action, every word.
They stop at the water’s edge and pick up something from the ground by their feet.
Fischer hurls whatever is in his hand. A distantplopfrom the water breaks through the silence. Schmidt does the same and is rewarded with anotherplop.They’re throwing stones?
They continue hurling the stones, each movement fuelled with what appears to be anger—or they’re competing to see who can throw their stone the farthest.
And still, they don’t say anything.
I hide behind a tree, the trunk wide enough to obscure their view of me.
“We have to leave.” Fischer’s tone is hard and cold and bruising. And I almost take a step back to avoid the force of his words.
“We can’t.” Schmidt’s tone is not as harsh as his comrade’s, but the anger or frustration remains. Anger at what exactly?
“We don’t belong here. And if we don’t leave soon, we could find ourselves on the Eastern Front.” Panic bleeds into Fischer’s words, tainting his anger with a kaleidoscope of other emotions. “God knows we won’t survive that. Not against the Russkies.”
“You know more than anyone why I can’t leave. I can’t just run away.”
Fischer makes a scoffing sound. “Running away is for cowards. We are not cowards.”
“They’ll kill my family if I desert.”
Fischer picks up another stone and throws it. “Don’t be an idiot, Johann. Your family’s already dead.”
Schmidt grabs the front of Fischer’s uniform with such force, such fury, I can barely breathe. “They’re not dead!” His voice is the crack of lightning in the otherwise still air. He lets go of the lieutenant and steps back.
I shift to hide completely behind the tree and press my spine into the bark, making myself smaller. Ensuring they cannot see me.
“There’s no way they escaped the Gestapo,” Fischer says, his voice hovering at a near shout. “And if your mother is dead, your sister most certainly is too.”
I frown. Why would Schmidt’s family be trying to escape the Gestapo? The Wehrmacht and the Gestapo are working on the same side—Hitler’s side.
Silence follows once more, stretching across the darkening sky. I remain motionless, my heart pounding in my chest at the mention of the Gestapo. God, please tell me whatever they’re talking about won’t bring that evil banging on Jacques’s door.
Anotherplopbreaks the silence.
“I pray you’re right about your mother and sister.” Fischer’s voice is quieter this time, his tone steel-plated with determination, soft-boiled with despair. “You know I want them to be alive as much as you do. But us being sent to the Eastern Front won’t protect them. What will they think once this war is over and they find out you’re dead? Do you really believe they will survive that?”
I don’t get to hear Schmidt’s reply. The two men start walking, but this time I don’t follow them, even if I am left with so many unanswered questions. The absence of sufficient cover where they are headed will make it harder for me to escape notice.
* * *
Three daysafter Schmidt’s dinner party with the Wehrmacht officers, I walk along Rue de la Glacièrein Paris.
I’d sent word to Allaire on Saturday that I needed to talk to him about what I’d overheard Friday night. There is too much intelligence for me to simply pass it through the normal network of coded messages.
