The Darkest Hour(73)

It takes every last scrap of my strength to propel me back outside. Maurice strikes a fast pace up the peak, but I struggle to keep up. I’ve lost all feeling in my hands, and I’m not sure how my legs are still moving. It’s nearly impossible to breathe, let alone move, and it’s all too much. I collapse onto my knees, gasping, and not even the thought of strangling Dorner is enough to make me get up.

“You must keep going, mademoiselle!” Maurice says, backtracking to my side. He pulls me up, but I’m deadweight in his hands. He curses, but I don’t care. Let him leave me here. At least I can close my eyes and get some rest.

“Let me try,” I hear Tilly say. She hooks her hands beneath my arms and hoists me onto my feet, and then she holds me against her so that I won’t topple over. “Here we go. One foot in front of the other, Lucie.”

“I can’t—”

“Yes, you can. One step. Do it for your brother.”

I blink at her slowly. She sounds so much like the old Tilly that I’ve come to know at headquarters, but the moment doesn’t last for long.

Tilly adds, “And do it for Dr. Nacht. He’ll be so pleased to see us, won’t he?”

My heart crumbles, but there’s so much hope on her face that I shape my lips into a smile. She continues to urge me forth and I comply, one foot in front of the other, but I don’t do it for Dr. Nacht. I do it for Theo. I can almost hear him next to my ear, nagging at me for giving up so easily and telling me to move faster. I need to keep going for Maman and for Ruthie, he’d say. So I do. I’ve let him down before, but I won’t let him down now.

We scale one peak after another, and I lose all sense of time. Eventually Maurice locates a stream and we follow along its banks. Gradually, the waters turn from trickling to gushing, and the stream widens into a fast-flowing river that bends around a small town. I’m about to ask Maurice how much farther we need to go when he stops and points at the village. “You did it, girls,” he says with a grin. “We’ve made it.”

I nearly collapse again. “We’re in Spain?” I whisper.

“That we are.” He claps me on the back. “I hope your Spanish is adequate.”

Tilly cries, and relief floods through me. We’ve crossed the border and left France behind us, but I only give myself a few seconds of celebrating before I round my limp shoulders and think about what will come next. We can’t breathe easy yet. We’re in an unknown country and we have no weapons. Until we set foot on English soil, I can’t let my guard down.

Maurice escorts us to the edges of the village, which doesn’t look much different from the French ones we passed yesterday, aside from a few signs written in Spanish. We sneak into a safe house owned by a friend of Maurice, where we change our clothes and feast on a fresh loaf of bread that the owner left for us before heading off to his job. I glance longingly at the soft mattress in the bedroom, but Maurice polishes off the bread and tells us to gather our things.

To me he says, “We can’t stay. It’s best for you to go to the train station in San Juan de las Abadesas as soon as possible.” He hands me a soft leather pouch filled with bronze peseta coins. “That should be plenty to get you a ride there.”

I stare at him. “Won’t you be coming with us?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t miss another shift at work. This is where I must leave you, but you’ll be in safe hands. A Resistance contact will meet you at the station. I’ve worked with him twice personally. His name is Emilio, though he’s better known as Little Emilio around these parts.” He gives me a code phrase to use and what to listen for in return, but I cut him off.

“You’re leaving us in the hands of ‘Little Emilio’?” I glance helplessly at him, then at Tilly. I’m not sure I have it in me to get both of us out alive.

“I’ve already escorted four airmen who went on to London, and you two girls are tougher than them all.” He gives us each another hearty pat on the back and that’s that. “Safe travels.”

There’s nothing I can say to change his mind, so I murmur a thanks. He put his neck on the line to get us into Spain—and the OSS will pay him handsomely for that—and I can’t ask any more from him. This is what I agreed to, after all. To reach England, Tilly and I will be passed from Resistance member to Resistance member, like a dangerous game of hot potato. It’s a tried-and-true system, and I’m grateful for it, but I can’t help but feel weary and wary anyway. With each new Resistance contact we meet, I have to place my trust and my life in their hands. And that’s not easy, because the last time I trusted someone, Tilly and I ended up in a Nazi lab.

My heart is clattering fast once Tilly and I arrive at the train station. I did my best to spruce us up by combing our hair with my fingers, but there’s only so much I can do to hide our haggardness, even with a new change of clothes. A man with a dark mustache sniffs at us when we walk past him, and I guide Tilly toward the schedule board to escape his searching eyes. He’s wearing plain trousers and a button-down shirt, a far cry from a soldier’s uniform, but Maurice warned us that there might be undercover German agents searching for refugees. I sweep my eyes over the station. Where is our contact?

I pretend to look at the schedules, hoping that Emilio is merely running late and didn’t lose his nerve in retrieving us. The mustached man keeps watching us, though, and that makes me anxious. From the corner of my eye, I see him folding his newspaper under one arm and walking toward us, his broad shoulders as wide as an icebox. I reach for Tilly’s hand, ready to tell her to run.