Page 109 of Winter’s End

“There is no time to explain. Do you trust me?”

The shortest of pauses. “With my life.”

MILA

The latest edition of theTelegraaf, which Pieter had managed to find after they crossed the border into Belgium, was cause for muted celebration.

The Americans had successfully taken the Rhine at Remagen in Germany. Another blow to Herr Hitler. Not surprisingly, the German army had responded by executing thirty-six Dutch men and women pulled at random at a deserted fair ground in Amsterdam.

But Queen Wilhelmina had announced her plans to return to the Netherlands.

It could only mean,Mila thought,that liberation could notbe far behind.

They had very nearly missed the train to Brussels. The station master had been wary of their soiled, damp clothing, and it was only after Pieter had convinced the man he was on holiday with his mistress – that they had had too much to drink and had slipped in a darkened garden in their haste to catch the train that he had eyed Mila with unconcealed longing and sold Pieter the tickets.

She looked with satisfaction at the newspaper. Below the fold on page one, a story under bold headlines reported the assassination of Amsterdam Police Captain Reimar de Boer in ‘a bold second attack on his life.’

The assassin was still at large, the story read, but authorities were employing the latest advances in forensic science in an attempt to trace the bullet lodged in de Boer’s spinal cord to the revolver used by the assassin.

Mila put down her tea cup in the small café in Brussels and passed the paper back to Pieter, pointing to the last sentence.

“Can they do that, do you think?”

“Trace the bullet?” Peter shrugged. “Perhaps. “The science is not exact. Butja, I suppose it is possible.”

The Luger lay deep in the depths of the canal, but the chance that the bullet could be traced to her was altogether alarming. Mila wondered when, if ever, she would walk again on Dutch soil…

Oddly, it was little Hondje she thought she would miss the most…

“That means,” she said finally, “I could not go home again if I wanted to.”

Pieter took his hands in hers. “Not for a while. Would you want to?”

Mila looked around her in the March sunlight. Belgium, which had for so long been a vital link in the escape route forged by Resistance forces, had already been liberated. People here seemed to be going about their business if not altogether without care, than at least with their eyes looking straight ahead and not at the ground beneath their feet.

“Are we safe here, do you think?” she asked.

“Safer than we would be in the Netherlands.”

“It is daunting to think we cannot return….”

Pieter removed his hands from hers and tenderly cupped her face. “Maybe one day, my love – if you want to.”

The icy misgiving in the pit of her stomach seemed to melt away in the sunlight. She looked deeply into Pieter’s green eyes, and she knew she was already home.

EVI

It was not quite dawn when Evi turned in her bed on the sofa, burrowed down deep into the covers, and then suddenly sat up straight, eyes wide open.

It was quiet in the house but for the remnants of the night’s fire popping and crackling in the grate. But she was sure she heard voices…

Men’s voices, low and insistent, and now beginning to fade.

Throwing off the covers, she slipped her feet into boots, threw on a sweater and the woolen pantsMevreowhad sewn for her as a birthday gift. She grabbed a jacket, the one with Mam’s blue knit cap tucked into the pocket.

First light was beginning to break when she opened the kitchen door.

She heard no voices now, but instinct propelled her through the wet grass and early spring growth all the way to the hidden tunnel at the end of the field that ended where the land met the river. Her heart beginning to hammer in her chest.