The officers were to stay the night, a warm bath and a bed. With a word to the innkeeper, she arranged for him to offer to send cognac to the Major. He would send the girl.
She knew what she was doing, it was no more dangerous than dozens of things she'd done before. But she knew from the Major's touch on her hand that he was looking forward to more than the cognac.
The cognac was plentiful, she saw to it. The fire in the captain's room built high, his intentions equally high. He was surprisingly gentle, but that may have been the cognac. Afterward, she could not say that it was what she expected, only that he had not used her badly.
She would never know exactly what gave her away, possibly that she was not the virginal girl that he had hoped for. But by the time he discovered the truth, the cognac had worked its way through his bloodstream. Or so she hoped. He wakened to find her lifting the small leather journal from his jacket.
The cast that had been her disguise possibly saved her life. It all happened so quickly, in seconds, yet seemed to last forever. When he came at her, she swung her arm to protect herself,catching him along the side of the head. The blow stunned him but also sobered him when he came at her the next time.
The knife lay on the table beside what was left of the wheel of cheese the innkeeper had sent up with the cognac. It was not the training with the Resistance or even being raised on a farm where the slaughter of chickens or a pig was commonplace. It was survival instinct, that absolute certainty that if she didn't pick up that knife and use it that she was going to die. And that same instinct as she thrust the knife high up under the major's ribs.
She saw the surprise in the expression at his face followed by disbelief, then that brief flicker of rage before he collapsed against her.
They both went to the floor, the major sprawled across her. She fully expected his fellow officers to come charging through the door, and she would never be able to get the information in that journal to the Allies. Instead, it was her small, wiry friend, who popped through the narrow second-story window.
He was surprisingly strong, and dragged the dead German officer to the bed. He covered him with blankets as if he were only sleeping, then returned to where she sat on the floor. He stripped the bloodied slip from her and handed her the dress she'd worn as part of her disguise. Her hands shook but she managed to pull it on. Then the boy took off his coat and wrapped it around her.
He pulled her toward the window. She had recovered enough, and crossed the room to the chair with the major's coat thrown over the back. She retrieved that small black journal and together they slipped out of the inn, across the roof, then down a drainpipe and slipped into the forest, where Françoise and Phillipe were waiting for them.
Now she leaned back against the wall of the cellar and closed her eyes for just a few minutes. She smiled faintly at a memory…months earlier, a night stolen in the middle of war, so very different from the hours past.
He had been gentle, her Scot, with his photographs, and for just a few hours nothing else matter, nothing else existed.
Where was he now? she wondered. Still taking his photographs? Was he still alive?
He would never know what those few hours had meant to her. It was like coming alive again, to be able to feel something when she thought she would never feel anything again.
The pencil in the coat pocket had been sharpened with a knife so many times that only a stub remained, but it was enough. She began to put thoughts to paper, addressing the note to her mother—“Maman,” small drawings in the margins as the words filled the page.
When she was finished, she carefully folded the paper and then tucked it into a niche in the wall.
Paul Bennett buttoned the collar of the field coat against the cold. They'd finally made camp after moving north with the Allied command for weeks. The weather had set in at Neufchateau, halting their advance amid rumors that the Germans were mounting an offensive near the Ardennes.
Dunnett had been at the morning briefing and then made for his typewriter, while the Allied high command had set up their command post in an old church at the edge of town. He had been allowed to take staged photographs—the Allied officers deep in meetings, planning their strategies, while Dunnett provided the script that would be read in the newspapers in London and New York. But after the briefing and after the photo session,he had slipped out and made his way through the enlisted encampments that surrounded Neufchateau.
A word here, a word there, and he learned that the Resistance had made contact with the high command just the day before. They had brought important information, and as soon as the weather cleared enough, they were on their way again.
“Micheleine Robillard?” he asked one man, who shook his head, then another, aware that this tight-knit group might not tell him anything, even if they knew. Discretion, silence, often meant the difference between life or death.
“Why do you ask?” a young man replied.
He was lean and handsome with the sort of looks he supposed a woman would be drawn to, and the smile would pull them in.
“She's a friend.” He finally settled on the word, because she had been that, even briefly, and more.
“I was wondering if you knew her, possibly could tell me if you've seen her.”
The young man smiled, pushing his cap back. It was the sort of smile that might mean anything.
“Jehanne; I know her.”
“Is she well?” he asked with sudden hope.
He nodded. “The last time I saw her.” The young man's eyes widened. “The woman is fearless,” and made a slicing gesture across this throat. “I would not want her for an enemy.”
“Where? Can you tell me where you saw her?” Paul demanded.
There was a gesture that could only mean one thing. Paul pulled the pack of cigarettes from the front of his jacket and offered him one.
