Kristin Hannah The Nightingale by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: book, war, history, france

other side, drop to your knees and crawl beneath the window of the guardhouse.”

“You’ve done this before, right?” Teddy said, his voice breaking on “before.”

“Plenty of times, Teddy,” Isabelle lied. “And if a girl can do it, a strapping pilot like you will have no problem at all. Right?”

He nodded. “You bet your arse.”

Isabelle watched Eduardo cross. When he was on the other side, she gathered the airmen close. One by one, counting off in sixty-second intervals, she guided them onto the rope bridge and watched them cross, holding her breath and fisting her hands until each man landed on the opposite shore.

Finally it was her turn. She pushed the sodden hood off her head, waiting for the light to scrape past her and keep going. The bridge looked flimsy and unsound. But it had held the men’s weight; it would hold hers.

She clutched the rope sides and stepped onto the first plank. The bridge swung around her, dipped right and left. She glanced down and saw strips of raging white waters one hundred feet below. Gritting her teeth, she moved steadily forward, stepping from plank to plank to plank until she was on the other side, where she immediately dropped to her knees. The searchlight passed above her. She scrambled forward and up the embankment and into the bushes on the other side, where the airmen were crouched beside Eduardo.

Eduardo led them to a hidden hillock of land and finally let them sleep.

When the sun rose again, Isabelle blinked dully awake.

“It’s not s’ bad here,” Torry whispered beside her.

Isabelle looked around, bleary-eyed. They were in a gully above a dirt road, hidden by a stand of trees.

Eduardo handed them wine. His smile was as bright as the sun that shone in her eyes. “There,” he said, pointing to a young woman on a bicycle not far away. Behind her, a town glinted ivory in the sunlight; it looked like something out of a children’s picture book, full of turrets and clock towers and church spires. “Almadora will take you to the consulate in San Sebastian. Welcome to Spain.”

Isabelle instantly forgot the struggle it had taken to get here, and the fear that accompanied her every step. “Thank you, Eduardo.”

I “It won’t be so easy next time,” he said.

“It wasn’t easy this time,” she said.

“They didn’t expect us. Soon, they will.”

He was right, of course. They hadn’t had to hide from German patrols or disguise their scents from dogs, and the Spanish sentinels were relaxed.

“But when you come back again, with more pilots, I’ll be here,” he promised.

She nodded her gratitude and turned to the men around her, who looked as exhausted as she felt. “Come on, men, off we go.”

Isabelle and the men staggered down the road toward a young woman who stood beside a rusted old bicycle. After the false introductions were made, Almadora led them down a maze of dirt roads and

back alleys; miles passed until they stood outside an elaborate caramel-hued building in Parte Viejo— the old section of San Sebastian.

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