The Darkest Hour(36)

“I can keep up,” she says stiffly, and focuses her attention on Dorner. “He’s the one we should worry about.”

“There’s no need for that. It’s my neck on the line,” Dorner says.

“And ours,” Sabine points out before she shoulders the canvas pouch that carries our belongings, which also includes Dorner’s folder and our remaining weapons. We have the knife that the farmer gave us, along with a pistol pen that Sabine has managed to save from headquarters. That’s all that stands between the Nazis and the three of us.

We forge ahead a few more miles, then Sabine lifts up her fist, her signal for us to get down. I yank Dorner to the ground and squint over the hills to see a light bobbing along the beach. It’s probably a patrol who’s na?ve enough to be using a flashlight, and even though he’s moving in the opposite direction from us I know better than to start breathing easy. There could be a group of his friends waiting for us ahead.

Dorner turns to me. “Shouldn’t we keep moving? It looks like there’s a storm coming in.” Heavy clouds lurk over the sea, blocking out the stars as the storm moves toward dry land.

An idea strikes me. “No, let’s stay here until the rain comes,” I say, and both he and Sabine frown. “The rain will give us cover, and we’ll need as much as we can get since it’s too dark to see the patrols.”

“Our first priority should be getting to the drop-off point,” Sabine points out. “It’s nearly zero one hundred hours, and our rendezvous is in less than three hours. There’s not much time.”

“I know, but we won’t have to wait long before those clouds come in. We’ll stay put for twenty minutes tops.”

“Fifteen,” she counters.

“Fine, fifteen. Catch your breath and rest a little. I’ll keep watch.”

While Dorner sips some water and Sabine finds a dry patch of grass to sit on, I perch myself near the top of the hill. Ten minutes tick by. I scan the fields to search for another flashlight, but the countryside is quiet and dark—and once I’ve relaxed a little—beautiful, too. These soft hills, this hum of the ocean … I’m starting to understand why Papa only spoke of France when he was drunk and why Maman spoke so little of it at all. Did it hurt them too much to talk about it?

I wonder how they’re doing. Mostly I worry about my mother. She must be lighting candles at St. Raphael’s every day for Theo and me. I can see her so clearly, the frayed shawl over her shoulders, the desperate prayer she murmurs over and over again. Guilt settles into my stomach at leaving her without saying good-bye. I’d left her a note saying that I was going to California because I didn’t have the nerve to tell her that I’d be going off to war like Theo had done. I knew that would crack her heart right in half.

Say a Hail Mary for me, I wish I could tell her, even though all of our prayers did nothing for my brother in the end. And yet, out here in these Nazi-infested hills, I figure one of my mother’s prayers is better than nothing.

“Where are you?”

I jolt up.

“Where are you, Jean-Luc?”

It’s Sabine. Both she and Dorner have drifted off, but she’s the one talking in her sleep and asking the whereabouts of someone named Jean-Luc again. Whoever he is and whatever he means to Sabine, he could be the reason why we’re discovered. I crawl on all fours toward her and give her a good shake.

“Shh, you were talking in your sleep again,” I whisper. From the sound of her whimpering, her dream wasn’t a pleasant one.

She props herself onto her elbow. “Was I?”

“You were saying someone’s name. Jean-Luc.”

She goes very still. “I see.”

“It can’t happen again. If the Germans heard you talking about your boyfriend—”

Her eyes flash dark. “Jean-Luc isn’t my boyfriend.”

“Whoever he is—”

“He’s my brother.”

“Oh.” I didn’t even know that she had a brother a couple days ago, but this is the second time that she’s mentioned him now. Does she have nightmares about Jean-Luc like the ones I have about Theo? “You sounded worried about him in your dream.”

Her shoulders tense like a cornered cat, ready to hiss at me, but when Sabine speaks, her voice is as small as a newborn kitten’s. “I haven’t heard from him in weeks,” she admits. Then she turns her face away. “He joined the maquis last Christmas.”

I’m impressed. I don’t know Jean-Luc, but I already respect him. A few months back, the Nazis began drafting able-bodied French—mostly men but a few women—to send to Germany for manual labor. Thousands have ignored their orders, though, and have turned to guerilla fighting instead. They call themselves the maquis. “I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon. There must be another backup at the postal service.”

“Yes, perhaps.”

I can tell that my words have done little to comfort Sabine, and I remember exactly how she feels. After Theo went off to war, I’d run to our letter box every afternoon to see if I’d gotten something from him. When I didn’t hear from him in a few weeks, I imagined the worst. Maybe a grenade had taken him. Maybe machine gunfire. Then the nausea would hit me, and I wouldn’t be able to eat the rest of the day.