Flick spoke to Michelin French. “Try to get up,” she said. He rolled over, groaning in pain, and got to one knee, but he could not move his injured leg. “Come on,” she said harshly. “If you stay here, you’ll be killed.” She grabbed him by the front of his shirt and heaved him upright with a mighty effort. He stood on his good leg, but he could not bear his own weight, and leaned heavily against her. She realized that he was not going to be able to walk, and she groaned in despair.
She glanced over to the side of the town hall. The major was getting up. He had blood on his face, but he did not seem badly injured. She guessed that he had been cut superficially by flying glass but might still be capable of shooting.
There was only one thing for it: she would have to pick Michel up and carry him to safety.
She bent in front of him, grasped him around the thighs, and eased him on to her shoulder in the classic fireman’s lift. He was tall but thin-most French people were thin, these days. All the same, she thought she would collapse under his weight. She staggered, and felt dizzy for a second, but she stayed upright.
After a moment, she took a step forward.
She lumbered across the cobblestones. She thought the major was shooting at her, but she could not be sure as there was so much gunfire from the chƒteau, from Genevieve, and from the Resistance fighters still alive in the parking lot. The fear that a bullet might hit her at any second gave her strength, and she broke into a lurching run. She made for the road leading out of the square to the south, the nearest exit. She passed the German lying on top of the redhead, and for a startled moment she met his eye and saw an expression of surprise and wry admiration. Then she crashed into a caf‚ table, sending it flying, and she almost fell, but managed to right herself and run on. A bullet hit the window of the bar, and she saw a cobweb of fracture lines craze the glass. A moment later, she was around the corner and out of the major’s line of sight. Alive, she thought gratefully; both of us-for a few more minutes, at least.
Until now she had not thought where to go once she was clear of the battlefield. Two getaway vehicles were waiting a couple of streets away, but she could not carry Michel that far. However, Antoinette Dupert lived on this street, just a few steps farther. Antoinette was not in the Resistance, but she was sympathetic enough to have provided Michel with a plan of the chƒteau. And Michel was her nephew, so she surely would not turn him away.
Anyway, Flick had no alternative.
Antoinette had a ground-floor apartment in a building with a courtyard. Flick came to the open gateway, a few yards along the street from the square, and staggered under the archway. She pushed open a door and lowered Michel to the tiles.
She hammered on Antoinette’s door, panting with effort. She heard a frightened voice say, “What is it?” Antoinette had been scared by the gunfire and did not want to open the door.
Breathlessly, Flick said, “Quickly, quickly!” She tried to keep her voice low. Some of the neighbors might be Nazi sympathizers.
The door did not open, but Antoinette’s voice came nearer. “Who’s there?”
Flick instinctively avoided speaking a name aloud. She replied, “Your nephew is wounded.”
The door opened. Antoinette was a straight-backed woman of fifty wearing a cotton dress that had once been chic and was now faded but crisply pressed. She was pale with fear. “Michel!” she said. She knelt beside him. “Is it serious?”
“It hurts, but I’m not dying,” Michel said through clenched teeth.
“You poor thing.” She brushed his hair off his sweaty forehead with a gesture like a caress.
Flick said impatiently, “Let’s get him inside.”
She took Michel’s arms and Antoinette lifted him by the knees. He grunted with pain. Together they carried him into the living room and put him down on a faded velvet sofa.