Page 35 of Shadows In Paris
‘Are you all set?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Yes, I think so. Collette Simon at your service.’ Hannah performed a curtsy with a flourish.
‘Very nice. We have more names than hot dinners,’ Lizzie said with a nervous laugh.
‘That’s not hard!’ Hannah joined in the nervous laughter.
The levity diffused the tension that had hung over them at breakfast. They were both aware their lives were on the line if Hannah’s undercover role went awry. If one of them was interrogated by the dreaded Gestapo, how long would they be able to hold out without spilling the identities of the others in the network?
No one knew how soon they would crumble unless theywere caught. It was a terrifying reality of the job that was never far from an agent’s mind in occupied territory.
‘Good luck today. I will be thinking of you,’ Lizzie said, grazing both Hannah’s cheeks with a kiss. ‘I’ll be waiting to hear all about it this evening.’
‘And good luck to you. I will be thinking of you as well. Please make my apologies to Francois and tell him I will see him soon.’
Lizzie followed Hannah to the back door and waited as she climbed onto her bicycle of choice.
‘You look perfect for the job. Just like I would imagine Collette Simon when she’s reporting for duty.’
Hannah looked elegantly professional and had somehow toned down her natural breathtaking beauty. Her blonde hair was styled and pinned up neatly beneath her hat, and she wore thick framed black glasses that drew attention away from her startling blue eyes.
‘I didn’t think you needed glasses. Do the lenses blur your eyesight?’
‘No, I don’t wear glasses normally, but they’re such an ingenious way to change your look. An optician replaced the lenses with plain glass for me. Let’s hope no one wants to borrow them!’
Lizzie waved Hannah off and returned to the kitchen. It was easy to make light of things when they were together, but when silence fell over the remote farmhouse, sadness tore into Lizzie, squeezing at her emotions.
This had been a real family’s home. Until the Germans occupied France, they would have been living an ordinary life. Lizzie wondered how many children had lived there and what ages they were.
Had the family fled from France to safety and that was why the house lay empty, or were they in hiding wonderingif they would ever see the light of day and taste freedom again?
The world had been turned upside down for millions. It felt like they were pawns on a chessboard, and anyone could be captured on a whim at any moment. This forlorn, forsaken house reminded her of her childhood home in Jersey. Memories of joyful evenings sitting in her favourite window seat at Seagrove watching the sun set over Portelet Bay filled her mind. Her idyllic childhood, running down to the beach and swimming in the sea every morning and enjoying leisurely picnics with her family, made her want to weep for all that was lost.
And she was one of the lucky ones. Her parents were relatively safe in London with her two sisters. Archie was away, goodness knows where with the Royal Engineers, but at least he was fighting for their freedom. Although her grandparents were a constant source of worry. They had stayed in Jersey instead of leaving on the boat with them in time. Surely, if they had known the island would be occupied and they would be forced to live under the Nazi jackboot, they would have listened to their pleas to leave.
Were her dear Nan and Pops pottering about their wing of the house and were they in good health? When her thoughts turned dark, she had to steer them away from any other possibility.
Hannah had shown her how to keep the furnace burning, but the old building was slow to heat with a limited supply of coal. The previous day when they returned from the city, Hannah chopped wood she had gathered in the forest into smaller logs for the fire, but there was no point lighting it now. Lizzie must go out to meet Francois soon, so it would be a waste of precious resources.
The plan was Hannah would come home after work, butthey didn’t know what time she could leave German High Command.
Lizzie’s chest tightened and panic took hold.
Val had shown Lizzie how to breathe to calm herself, and soon she felt more in control and her heartbeat slowed. Jack had taught her how to talk to herself when she felt she was spiralling into overwhelm. His wise words entered her mind now. ‘When we panic, we can’t think clearly, and that leads to mistakes.’
She was grateful to them both because coping with the mental strain of living in ever present danger was just as vital as the physical aspects of staying alive when undercover. The leader of the Liberty Network would teach her different things. Hannah had set up the Reims Resistance that Pierre now led, and then stepped up to form the fledgeling Paris Resistance. There was so much more to her than running a network.
Jack had warned Lizzie to be careful. ‘Hannah works with us, and, to some degree, she follows our plans, but remember, she is not officially affiliated to British Military Intelligence or the SOE. That girl is quite brilliant, but she is a wild card.’
‘In what way?’ Lizzie probed, always fascinated to hear more about Hannah’s methods.
‘Well, you’ll see when you work with her. She reports to me because we fund the network and our goals are mostly aligned, but she answers to no one. I am not her commanding officer, and she makes her own decisions. Occasionally, I have asked her not to carry out certain operations, but she has gone ahead and done so anyway. All I’m saying is, please be wary of her bold schemes. They could get you both killed.’
‘What is on her agenda that differs from ours?’ Lizzie asked.
‘Think what she has been through. Her family was arrested in Berlin. She doesn’t know if her parents are still alive. According to the latest intelligence, every Jew who didn’t get out of Germany in time is rotting in a labour camp or institution somewhere or has even been put to death.’
They had talked at great length about Hannah’s psychological state. ‘Imagine what it must be like to be in her head, knowing everyone and everything you loved has been destroyed by the Nazis. Taking them down so they can’t persecute or murder any more Jews is what motivates her. And frankly, it’s useful to us, which is where our goals align.’
