‘Oh, Albie, and I wasn’t with you. How could I have fallen asleep?’ But then the thought came to Rosie that she was with him, for his passing. She’d run along the beach with him in her dream. But it wasn’t a dream. It was reality. And now she knew that any other dreams she’d harboured about Albie were never going to come true. Bending and kissing his lips, she said her goodbyes. ‘I promise that one day I’ll deliver your letter, Albie.’

Before she left, she took the letter from his personal effects and put it in her pocket. The address was on the envelope, but she wouldn’t post it. All letters were heavily censored. Whatever Albie had said to his ma was personal to them both, and would stay intact.

Back in the nurses’ dormitory, Rosie fell onto her bed. She couldn’t cry any more tears. The loss of Albie was a strange feeling, as their love had never developed. It had just been there in his look, and in her own heart. Now it never would develop, but she’d treasure his memory forever.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Narbonne, France

Sibbie and Marjie

Sibbie giggled every time she saw Marjie put her small, round glasses on. Fitted with plain glass, they really did disguise her, especially with the way she combed her hair, pulling it straight back into a bun at the nape of her neck.

Then there were the freckles, for which she had a template. Sibbie always did these for Marjie, and had to be sure to get the template in the same place across the bridge of Marjie’s nose and over her cheeks; it was important, too, that she used the correct mixture of the facial make-up they’d been given. As so little was needed each day, the amount they possessed was stored inside the case of a pen.

Their drop into Languedoc-Roussillon, close to Hérault, had both thrilled them – as it was exactly where they wanted to be – and frightened them, as the parachute jump had to be from a much higher altitude than they had ever jumped before.

Lit torches had guided them to the right place on the ground, and both girls had made a perfect landing. Not that they had time to think about it, as they were immediately surrounded by Resistance fighters, who hurried them away. To Sibbie’s disappointment, Paulo didn’t appear and now, three weeks later, they still hadn’t been contacted or given any instructions from HQ in Britain.

They were billeted with the mother of one of the Resistance men, Madame Bachelet, in Narbonne, a beautiful city, and worked in her grocery shop on the corner of rue Michelet, where it met rue Garibaldi – a central position, behind and dominated by Narbonne’s magnificent cathedral, which was dedicated to Saints Justus and Pastor.