Dash jolted awake, startled by the sound of men talking. Their voices were faint, but they traveled with the breeze. She lay as still as she could on the wet floor of the forest, listening.
Despite her injury, she had eventually slept a short while beneath the pine tree, her body squeezed tight into a ball, her arm protected. Even with her fur-lined coat and flight suit, she shook from the cold. The rain, the crash, the fall…
Her arm was so swollen her sleeve felt noose-tight. It was sensitive to her touch and what she could see of it was black with dried blood. She wiggled her hand, but her fingers didn’t move; they were hot and fat like sausages. Bile pushed up the back of her throat just looking at it.
Above her, the sun sparkled through wet pine needles like stars. Whether the men she heard were friend or foe, they would find her here unless she found a better place. All around her, pine trees dragged their branches over brown carpets of needles, but none offered refuge. Dash’s eyes lit on what was left of an old deciduous tree, long dead and split, about twenty feet away. A rotted cavity yawned in its side. From her vantage point, Dash thought she might be able to fit inside that hole.
The voices were getting closer; she made out two or three menspeaking in… It wasn’t English. She listened for the smooth curves of French, even though many of the Frenchmen around here had been turned for the Germans. No, it was not French. Her stomach tightened as guttural German syllables cut through the air.
“Sie sagten, das Flugzeug sei hier abgestürzt.”
“Ich sehe keinen Fallschirm.”
Dash had no idea what they were saying. If only she’d listened to Dot and Gus when they’d tried to teach her. Cautiously, she edged out from under the canopy to see how close they were. At first she saw nothing, then fifty feet away she spied movement. A black uniform, then two more, headed in her direction. She took another look at the open-mouthed tree, uneasy. Could she fit in there? She scanned the area looking for something better,anythingbetter, but it was all the same.
With her arm tucked against her torso, Dash wound between the trees as quietly as she could, grateful that her muddy brown flight suit camouflaged her. When she reached the tree, she realized the hole was deep, but not that wide. Smaller than she’d thought. And the bark looked fragile. What if she managed to climb inside but the whole thing splintered?
One of the men laughed, and she judged that they were maybe thirty feet away. She had no choice. Dash lowered one foot then the other into the tree’s cavernous trunk and crouched, curving the rest of her body beneath the top edge as she squeezed her torso in. The movement jarred her injured arm, and through a sheen of tears, she watched fresh blood flow to the surface.
Then the men were there. Three of them. They had their backs to her, and they were pointing toward where she had landed.
“Ich glaube, ich sehe es. Siehe? Der Schein von der Sonne.”
“Das muss weh getan haben. Wo ist der Pilot?”
Dash couldn’t miss that last word. They were searching for her.
Hide and seek, Dot! Am I getting warmer?
She burrowed deep into the collar of her coat, trying to be invisible.
“Er ist irgendwo hier. Schau dir den Weg an.” The tallest of the three stepped away, moving toward her crash site.
There was a snap of sulphur and a curl of smoke as one of the remaining men lit a cigarette. The other turned to light his own, facing the first while they spoke. He coughed to the side, and he saw her.
“Schau dir dieses lustige Eichhörnchen an.”
The other man turned around, and Dash’s heart stopped. They took a step toward her, both smiling.
“Es ist ein Eichhörnchenmädchen.” The corner of his mouth lifted, and he crooked a finger at her. “Komm her, kleines Eichhörnchen.”
Dash put up her hands and started to cry.Goodbye, Pete. Goodbye, Dot.“Please, no. I’m not important. I’m not in the air force. I’m just a girl flying planes. Please—”
In a blur, two dark figures leapt out from behind the Germans, hooked their arms around the men’s necks, then slit them open while Dash stared in shock. They dropped the bodies, and when the tall German rushed back for his friends, they shot him in the centre of his forehead.
Everything happened so fast. Dash thrust her empty hands outside of the tree, even as her left arm screamed in pain. “Please don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!”
“This is your lucky day.” It was a woman. The other was a man. She could see the outline of a beard above his black turtleneck. “What’s your name?”
“M-Margaret Wilson. I’m… I’m a transport pilot. I’m a civilian.” She sucked in her tears. “I just want to go home.”
The woman gave one of the German bodies a nudge with her boot. “They called you a squirrel.”
The man approached Dash to help her out of the tree, and when he accidentally bumped her arm, she shrieked. She hissed in a breath as he inspected her wound, but she was no longer afraid. She could feel his tenderness.
“That doesn’t look good,” he said to his partner. “We can’t wait.”
“We’ll meet up with the others then we’ll all go,” she replied. “Where are you from? You’re not British.”
