Her Secret Soldier: An absolutely gripping and emotional World War 2 historical novel inspired by true events by Julie Hartley

Author:Julie Hartley [Hartley, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2024-09-12T00:00:00+00:00

Despite everything, Rose and Walter had a lovely morning. They wandered together through Silverwood, Walter pointing out with ever-increasing delight the rare flowers that grew in tenuous clumps among the trees. When they grew hungry, they feasted on beech nuts and wild plums. When they felt thirsty, they located a crystal-clear brook, chattering over mossy stones, an enchanted place if ever there was one. They cupped their hands and drank, Walter declaring it the most delicious water he had ever tasted.

They returned to the cabin in the early afternoon. Walter dragged a fallen log into a shaft of afternoon sunshine as it spilled through the clearing and they sat side by side, next to the old well. Despite the sunny weather, there was a distinct chill in the air and it was only now when they were sitting, a silence falling between them, that Rose’s worries came crowding back.

She thought about her mother, alone and unwell, and she felt guilty for leaving her. She pined for her sister and she wondered whether Norman truly was as dangerous as her mother feared. And then, looking around the sun-splashed glade, she wondered whether Mildred had spoken the truth when she said that Silverwood Vale was at risk of destruction.

I have so many troubles, Rose thought, looking at Walter, and I can’t share any of them with you.

Walter had enough to worry about, since he faced an impossible situation. He couldn’t return to Germany, not if he wished to escape becoming a pawn of the Nazis again, but by remaining in England he would always be a fugitive. A non-person, forever at risk of arrest and execution.

‘What is it you English say?’ he murmured. ‘A penny for your thoughts?’ He laid a hand over hers.

‘I’m sorry,’ Rose said. ‘I just have a lot on my mind.’ Why do you even care about me? she wondered, gazing down at his hand on hers. Why would anyone? She wasn’t vivacious and daring like Evelyn, nor beautiful and stylish like Mildred. She was nothing, really.

Walter said, softly, ‘Perhaps you are concerned that by protecting me you have also committed treason and now there is no going back.’

Rose added that worry to all the others. She thought of the radio, behind them in the cabin. Its malevolent presence.

Before the war, her life and her future had seemed predictable. Now, she had no idea what even the next day would bring.

‘What are we going to do?’ she asked Walter.

His certainty was a surprise to her.

‘We will continue to do what we have done already,’ he said, ‘live day by day and let the future take care of itself. I will decode messages and we will learn what it is my kommandant has planned. When we have the information we need, you will write another anonymous letter to the authorities, so that no harm may come to anyone.’

No harm may come to anyone. Rose liked that. Walter might be German and she English, but they shared more than their love of nature.

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