Rage burned deep inside me. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I brought this on your village. I shouldn’t have stayed for so long. But how did you manage to move the cart without attracting attention to it?’
‘I chose my moment when the soldiers were satisfying their lust for blood.’
I stared at her, wondering how this beautiful girl would ever get over what had happened today.
‘You mustn’t go back,’ I said. ‘I mean it. It’s too dangerous for you there now. Come with me.’
She shook her head. ‘I must go back,’ she said. ‘It is my duty. Just as it is your duty to return to England and get better so you can fly again. Germany has to be stopped.’
‘I won’t ever forget your help,’ I said. Just then two figures emerged from the bushes behind us. Sophie spoke in French to them and they beckoned for me to join them.
‘You must go now,’ she said.
‘Maybe one day we will meet again,’ I said, ‘in happier times.’
‘Maybe. Bon chance mon cherie,’ she said, with a ghost of a smile, and lapsing into French, something she seldom did with me.
I hugged her again and watched the cart disappear into the darkness. I felt like a chunk of my heart was disappearing too.
Two weeks later, when I was safely across the border in Spain, word reached me via the Resistance network that the soldiers had returned to the village and had taken Sophie away to the chateau. She was tortured, the one thing she was afraid of. Though it was counter to everything I believed I was capable of doing, I wished I had been able to spare her that by shooting her as she’d asked. But could I really have done it?
She died, so the Resistance said, bravely and without giving anything away.
She died because of me.
As did so many other villagers. How would I ever live with that on my conscience? If I had been paying better attention that day and spotted the Fw 190s on my tail sooner, I might not have been shot down. A better man would have blasted his own brains out rather than put an entire village at risk.
I let Sophie down in another way. I never got to fight again. When I finally made it back to England, my leg was in worse shape, having become reinfected, and I was shipped home to the US to have it amputated.
I lost my leg, but far worse, I lost the person I had once been. I was hollowed out. Haunted by the sacrifice that Sophie had made, I then spent the greater part of my life blaming myself for her death.
In comparison to what she had done with her life, mine wasn’t worth a dime.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Island House, Melstead St Mary
December 1962
Romily
When Red finally fell silent, he slowly turned away from the fire to look at Romily. Not once had he looked at her while talking; his focus had been entirely on the flickering flames, as though seeing the past in them.
It didn’t seem possible, but he suddenly looked ten years older. His face was ravaged by what she knew was guilt, and guilt of the very worst kind. She suspected it was a wound that ran so deep he probably believed the pain of it could never be healed. She knew from experience that by burying the pain deeper still with layers of self-recrimination, the wound only became more infected.
Everything he had told her explained so much about his behaviour. How his mood could turn on a sixpence if he sensed somebody was getting too close and might catch a glimpse of the darkness within him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘Truly I am.’
His eyes misted with emotion, he rose stiffly from the sofa. He stood for a moment in front of the fireplace, then pushed a hand roughly through his hair. ‘I need some fresh air,’ he blurted out. He looked about him as if searching for an escape route.
Romily stood up and went over to the French windows. She yanked back the curtains, unlocked the doors and swung them wide open. Immediately a blast of glacial night air swept in. To her surprise, she saw that it was snowing. Red joined her in the open doorway and together, they watched the snowflakes, like hundreds of small white handkerchiefs, fall from the dark sky. In the light spilling out onto the garden, Romily could see that it was already covered with a thick blanket of snow. How long had it been snowing?
‘I’ve told very few people what I’ve just shared with you,’ he murmured, after breathing in the cold air, ‘but you’re the first person whose immediate response hasn’t been to tell me it wasn’t my fault, that Sophie and everyone else who was murdered in that village were just casualties of war.’
‘Whoever said that to you, I’m sure they said it out of compassion,’ Romily responded, ‘but it’s bound to hit a false note for you. How could it not? You were there to experience the horror; they weren’t.’
It was some moments before he spoke. ‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly.
‘What for?’
‘For not patronising me. Or claiming that you know somebody who had gone through something similar. I’ve had that a couple of times. People rattling on as if they had any idea what I was feeling.’
‘They doubtless did it to minimize and normalise what you’ve gone through, without ever considering what an insult it would be to you.’
‘It was years before I told anyone what had happened. As you can see, it’s something I still find it hard to talk about.’
‘I expect you always will. But I’m glad you felt able to tell me.’
‘I’m glad too,’ he said quietly. He then lapsed into silence, his gaze steadfastly on the falling snow.
‘You know,’ he said at length, ‘I think those are the biggest snowflakes I’ve ever seen. No wonder it’s settling so fast.’
Noting the change of gear he’d made, Romily took her cue and wrapped her hand around his.
He slowly turned to face her. ‘You’re freezing,’ he said, lifting her hand to his lips and kissing it. ‘Had we better go inside?’
She shook her head, reluctant to break the spell of the moment. ‘No, not yet.’
‘You realise, don’t you, that if we stay out here for too long the cold will make me say things that will embarrass us both?’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as you’re one of the most extraordinary and beautiful women I know, and that you’re worthy of so much more than I could ever offer you.’
‘Doesn’t the last part of that sentence depend on what you have in mind to offer me?’
‘I think you know. I think you always know what I’m about to say or do when we’re together.’