A man does what he must – in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures – and that is the basis of all human morality.

Winston Churchill

- 0 -

Late night
Near Arras, France

Ruth knew she was in trouble the moment she spotted the bonfire. She would never be able to lose sufficient elevation to land in that clearing. It was too dark to see anything beyond it, but she got a sense of an unbroken stretch of forest. She saw Harry drop the duffel bags, and shortly after he got himself down right at the edge of the clearing. People swarmed out of the trees and her heart leaped into her throat – what if they were Germans? But no, they seemed to be helping him. She wrestled helplessly with the parachute, trying to slow down, but the wind was too strong. When she reached the clearing she was still well above the treetops. The wind gusted powerfully and bore her swiftly over it. She got a glimpse of Harry's face as she flashed over him, a pale oval staring up at her. Then she was over the trees. Fear clutched at her insides as she scanned below her desperately, looking for another clearing to aim at. There was none. She was going to go down in the trees. The treetops were now approaching fast and seconds later her feet swept through leaves. Ruth pulled her knees up to her chest, yanked down hard on the strings to flare the parachute, closed her eyes and prayed.

- 0 –

Harry stared after her, vaguely aware of Joanna barking orders in French next to him. Horses were brought up and he heaved himself onto one, the pain in his knee forgotten in his fear for Ruth. He spurred the horse on in the general direction Ruth was travelling. He lost sight of her once he entered the trees and tried his best to keep on course as he weaved through the forest. It was dark under the canopy and he had to trust on the sight of the horse to avoid any obstacles. A branch slapped him in the face but he barely noticed; his concern for Ruth overriding any other thought. And then he heard it – the sound of branches snapping and a sharp cry. Ruth's voice, a little to his left. He pointed the horse in that direction. He dared not call for her as that could alert any Germans lurking around as to their location. He scanned the dark trees uselessly, looking for a splash of white. Then, mercifully, a flash of lightning lit up the night and he saw her. The parachute was tangled in a tall tree and she swung below it, a couple of feet off the ground. He steered the horse under her and grabbed hold of her legs. She stifled a scream and jerked violently, trying to free a leg so she could kick out.
"Ruth!" Harry hissed. "Keep still, it's me."
Ruth stopped struggling. "Harry?" She sounded dazed.
"Yes. Are you hurt?"
"I don't know," she said shakily, and added with a hint of panic, "I can't get the buckles to release."
"We'll get you down, try to keep still," Harry said, and when she moaned in pain he lifted her slightly to take her weight off the lines.

They heard more horses approach and soon Joanna plunged out of the darkness. She quickly summed up the situation and sent a skinny young lad racing up the tree with a knife in his belt. He crawled out onto the thin branch just above Ruth's head gingerly. It sagged dangerously under his weight. The group below held their collective breath, and only let it out when he reached her without incident. He eased the knife from his belt and began to saw at the lines. It took ten long minutes to sever all of them. Harry's arms ached from holding her up, and he lowered her onto the horse in front of him as soon as the last line gave way. He held her against him for a few seconds, thankful that she'd survived the ordeal, before he lowered her to the ground.

Ruth was struggling to get her bearings and sank down into a seated position. She stared mutely at the woman that bent over her.
"Hello. I'm Jo. Do you have pain anywhere?"
"Jo?" Ruth asked dumbly.
"Joanna," Harry said from above. He stood by her side and looked down at her with concern.
"Jo," the young woman said with emphasis, flashing Harry a fond but exasperated smile, which he ignored.
"Ruth? Are you hurt?" Harry repeated worriedly.
"Uhm…" Ruth cautiously tested all her limbs. Miraculously everything seemed to be in working order. Her right hip, which had slammed into the trunk of the tree first, throbbed dully, but it didn't seem to be anything worse than severe bruising. Her overall was torn in many places, but it had protected her from the worst and she had only suffered a few scrapes on her hands.
"No, I think I'm all right," she finally managed.
Jo looked at Harry. "I don't mean to be insensitive, but you have to move. There has been increased activity by the German troops throughout the region all day."

Harry knew she was right. He could not allow Ruth any more time to recover.
"Yes. The communications equipment?"
She fetched a saddlebag from one of the horses and handed it over. "Everything you asked for is in there."
Fat raindrops began to slap against the foliage above them. Harry slung the bags over the neck of his horse together with their duffel bags. He walked over to where Ruth still sat.
"Ruth. We have to go," he said with gentle insistence and held out his hand. He pulled her to her feet and was relieved when she was able to stay upright. Someone brought another horse over and he helped heave her onto it before mounting his own. Jo led them away through the trees. Behind them, the members of the Resistance cleaned up any evidence of their presence and disappeared as quietly as they had come.
"Horses are the best means of transport if you have to follow the less known routes, which I recommend you do, sir," she explained to Harry. "I've marked the best route on a map for you, it's with the radio."
They came to a faint trail and Jo pulled up. "Follow it west for about a mile and a half, and you'll find an old barn where you can wait out the storm. Then go to Juliette's place via the route I've mapped for you. She'll hide you until it's time to make your move. My group will in the meantime do our best to draw attention away from you – tomorrow we plan to blow a railway line to the south."
Harry nodded. "Thank you."
She turned her horse around and was soon swallowed up by the darkness. Harry looked at Ruth. "We'll have to press – the storm is moving in fast. Can you cope with that?"
"Yes," Ruth stated with more confidence than she felt. Her hip throbbed painfully and she found it hard to grip the horse with her knees like she was supposed to. But she would be damned before she mentioned it, ever mindful that Harry never complained about his knee.
He said, "Okay. I'll lead. Just give your horse its head and it'll follow."
She barely had time to nod before he pointed his horse west and spurred it on, and it set off at a gallop. Ruth dug her heel into the flank of her own beast and it leaped forward, and for once she was thankful for her French education, in which riding lessons had been compulsory. Later, when she would think back on that mad dash through the stormy night, she would be amazed at her lack of fear. She simply trusted the horse to find its way and concentrated on staying in the saddle. Perhaps, by that time, she had become numb to danger, having experienced so much in a few days.

After a mile they burst clear of the trees and into the teeth of the storm. The wind drove the rain almost horizontally at them and thunder boomed overhead. Harry soon veered off the trail, having spotted the barn to their left. He slid off his horse and pushed open the door, giving the interior a quick sweep with the torch before they led the horses inside. He closed the door behind them and they surveyed their surroundings, the harsh breathing of the horses barely audible above the din of the storm. The roof leaked in many places, but one corner was relatively dry. Bales of hay were stacked against the wall and provided insulation against the wind whistling through every crack. There was a wooden table and Harry spotted a lantern on it. He went over and shook it, and was greeted with the sound of liquid sloshing around. After stripping off his wet overall he retrieved a lighter from his pocket and lit it. He turned around and smiled at Ruth, to find her still frozen in the same spot, clutching the reins of the horses and shivering.
"Better get out of that wet overall," he said gently, concerned that delayed shock had caught up with her.
She came out of her trance. "Oh, yes."
Harry took the horses from her and led them over to another corner. Whilst Ruth struggled out of the overall with difficulty, he spread some hay for the horses and retrieved the bag Jo had given them. He shook its contents out on the table and first of all checked that the radio had not been damaged. Amongst the items was a hipflask, and he opened it and sniffed at it to be greeted by the very welcome aroma of cognac. He held it out to Ruth.
"Here, take a healthy swig."
She obeyed wordlessly, and the alcohol burnt a fiery trail down into her stomach and began radiating outwards, spreading through her whole body. Ruth closed her eyes appreciatively. Harry followed suit and they smiled at each other as they slowly relaxed. Outside the storm raged and seethed, but inside they had found a few moments of peace in a fraught day.

- 0 –

Kent, England

By the time Adam reached the airfield the storm had caught up with him. He fought desperately with the controls as he attempted to line up to the runway. Twice he had to abort when sudden gusts of wind skewed the plane seconds before it touched down. The third time he managed to get the wheels down more or less in the middle of the tarmac. The plane slewed around as it hit puddles of water that had gathered on the surface, before it veered off the runway and came to a stop in the muddy grass at the verge. Adam let his head fall back in exhaustion, his arms shaking from the exertion.
"Bloody hell," he mumbled, and eventually forced himself to move.

When he entered the hut, he found Malcolm crouched over the radio. The techie glanced over his shoulder and noted the fatigue written into the lines around the pilot's eyes and mouth.
"Anything?" Adam asked.
Malcolm shook his head. "They won't be able to transmit in this weather anyway," he explained.
They said nothing further, but both furtively wondered whether the storm was the only reason for the silence from France.

- 0 –

Near Arras, France

Corporal Weisskopf was miserable. The rain had soaked him to the skin within seconds, and the wind buffeted the motorcycle and caused it to swerve dangerously. He expected to be deposited into a ditch or a tree any moment. Surely no enemy agent would be foolish enough to jump out of a plane in this weather. He cursed his superiors who had insisted he went out on patrol, and wondered whether they derived pleasure from making their troops suffer as many hardships as possible. The corporal was sick and tired of the war. He hoped that it would end soon. His only goal after living through the hell of the Russian campaign was to survive the war and to go home. But first he desperately needed to find shelter until the worst had passed. Moments later he spotted a weak light that emanated from a dilapidated barn. It would be dry in there, he thought, even if he had to share it with a resentful French farmer looking after his animals in the storm. He turned the Triumph towards it.

Ruth was the first to hear the sound of the engine.
"Harry!" she said urgently. By then he'd heard it too and moved swiftly to the window.
"I'll turn out the lamp," Ruth offered and reached for it.
"No. That will look suspicious," he explained as he spotted the lights of the vehicle. No, light. Only one light. That meant a motorcycle, and probably only one man. Two at the most.
"What do we do?" Ruth asked.
He turned back to her. "Bluff," he stated laconically.

- 0 –

Weisskopf slid the Triumph to a halt in front of the barn and shoved the door open without hesitation. His submachine gun was in his hand and he swept it across the interior, hoping to intimidate whoever was in there with his brazen entrance. He registered a few things simultaneously: two horses in a corner, a table strewn with various objects, and two people. A man and a woman. In a compromising position. The woman lay on the table and the man stood between her legs, bent over her as he held her hands above her head. Their faces were turned towards him with matching expressions of surprise, but the man's quickly changed to chagrin. He straightened up, pulling the woman with him, and only then did the corporal notice his uniform – the black tunic with the silver oak leaves insignia on both collars that identified him as a senior SS officer. The colour drained from Weisskpof's face and he froze, staring at the surreal tableau.

"Piss off, Corporal," Harry barked angrily in German. "Can't you see I'm about to fuck this French bitch?"
Corporal Weisskopf had to try three times before he could force any sound through his throat. "S-sorry, Obergruppenführer. It's raining, and I'm on a motorcycle..."
As the man babbled on Harry watched him through narrowed eyes. The gun was shaking in his hands and Harry momentarily worried that he would shoot them accidentally. His own right hand, obscured by Ruth's body, tightened around the butt of the Mauser and he slid his forefinger into the trigger guard. He returned his attention to the man's face and carefully mapped the movement of his eyes. When they darted to the stuff on the table, Harry snapped, "Don't you salute your superior officers, Corporal?"
Weisskopf instinctively removed his right hand from his gun and began to lift it before his brain caught up with his vision and he recognised the parachute overalls on the table for what they were. His eyes widened and his hand dropped back to the gun, but the split-second was all Harry needed. He smothered Ruth against his chest with his left arm as the right came up around her back, and he shot the German between the eyes.

Ruth made a strangled noise as the gun went off close to her ear. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the young soldier topple backwards into the rain. She shuddered and turned her head away, burying her face in Harry's shoulder. His arm tightened around her briefly before he pushed her back and stepped away. She watched in silence as he bent over the man and checked that he was dead. He grabbed the corpse by the tunic and hauled it inside, and laid it down against the wall. He stood looking down at the dead man, his face unreadable, until he became aware of Ruth's presence next to him. She handed him a loose piece of canvas and he covered the dead man with it. Without a word he turned away and fetched the Triumph inside. Ruth turned her back to the covered form and swallowed down the bile in her throat. It was her first personal experience with the ugly side of war and she somehow knew that she would never again look at the world the same way; that a little bit of innocence had just died along with the German. Harry gestured at the Triumph.
"Look," he said, "it has a side-cart. We'll use this instead of the horses to go the rest of the way."
Ruth nodded and then asked, "What do we do with them?" She didn't really look at him and his heart sank.
"We'll set them free, they know their way home."

An uneasy silence enveloped them. Ruth absentmindedly rubbed her right hip as she tried not to think about the dead man that now shared the barn with them. Harry spoke, much closer to her than he'd been a few moments ago. "Let me take a look at your hip."
When she just stared at him, he added, "I have first aid training."
"You do?" she asked, surprised.
"Standard procedure for reconnaissance soldiers. As they often go into enemy territory alone or in pairs, they have to be able to take care of themselves," he explained.
She wavered, but the pain won out over any awkwardness that might ensue and she acquiesced wordlessly. Harry positioned the lamp near them and carefully exposed only as much skin as was necessary. Already a nasty bruise had formed over her hipbone. As he gently probed the area she drew in a sharp breath.
"Sorry," he murmured and straightened up. "Nothing's broken as far as I can tell. How's your mobility?"
He took her through a series of movements. She could do everything reasonably well, but squatting and straightening up induced a stab of pain so severe that it brought tears to her eyes.
"You must have damaged your hip flexor," Harry guessed as he retrieved a medical kit and gave her two aspirin.
"It'll help for the pain. Unfortunately there isn't anything else we can do. It needs time to heal by itself."
He ran a critical eye over her. "You didn't hurt anything else? How about your ribs?"
Ruth shook her head. "I'm fine, Harry. Really."
He nodded reluctantly and moved away, sitting down on a bale and stretching his left leg before him. As he rubbed his knee he remarked wryly, "Between us we make at least one healthy spy."
She smiled slightly at the rather lame joke, before something else came to mind.
"Wouldn't people have heard the shot?" she asked worriedly.
"In this storm?" Harry shook his head. "We could blow up the barn and people wouldn't notice. Now, let's go over that map Joanna provided."

"Why do you insist on calling her 'Joanna'?" Ruth asked, amused.
"Because that's her name," he responded archly as he spread the map on the table. It contained the latest position of German deployments, and indicated a route that stayed away from the main roads and ended about five miles inland from Dunkirk. Harry made her memorise the route and sat back thoughtfully. The storm showed no sign of letting up, so they would lose valuable travel time under cover of darkness. He thought back to the German's reaction to the SS uniform and made a decision.
"Actually, forget that route. We'll take the main roads and try to get to the coast as quickly as possible."
Ruth did not want to appear cowardly, so she carefully asked, "You think we'll get away with that?"
Harry smiled grimly. "We'll use the motorcycle. It's a German army vehicle, so that combined with this uniform gives us a better than even chance of success. You'll need to dress provocatively."
It took her a moment to catch up with the conversation shift. "Provocatively?"
He shifted uncomfortably. "Yes, like an, erm, experienced woman."
She frowned. "You mean like a whore."
"Exactly," he said, relieved that she understood his meaning.
She sighed. "Right," she muttered, uncertain that she would be convincing in the role of a whore, never mind a French one.

While she dressed, Harry consolidated their baggage into one duffel bag and hid everything they did not need among the bales. They sat down to eat the sandwiches Jo had included and then settled down to wait out the storm. It lasted for four more hours and by the time they could finally leave, it was four in the morning.

Harry settled Ruth in the sidecar, the duffel bag and the Sten gun hidden beneath her feet, and went over to search the dead soldier's pockets. As he suspected, there was a Fifteenth Army Group pass among his papers and Harry pocketed it before covering the body once more. He straddled the Triumph and glanced at Ruth.
"Shall we?" he said cordially, and was warmed by the smile she bestowed on him.
He revved the engine and they headed out into the dark, and into the heart of the enemy.

tbc