Elise didn’t know what to say. “Then at least there will be one of you to tell the story,” she said. “It doesn’t make you somehow less of a man, less of a soldier, just because you fought to save yourself, or because you’re the only one left standing.”

He stared back at her with such truth in his gaze, such an openness, that she knew she had to keep talking, keep telling him what she was thinking.

“I’m one of the only other people alive, other than the Germans, who knows what truly happened that day. Me, you, Addy and Peter. You were part of it, and we witnessed it. So when I tell you that I understand, that I know you deserve to live, you can believe that I mean it. From the bottom of my heart.”

She watched as he swallowed, pressing the heel of his hand to his forehead, between his eyebrows, as he shuddered for a long moment, before looking back up at her and placing his hand where it had been before. Her fingers found their way straight back to him, like they’d never left.

“I want you to know that I’ll turn myself in, if it ever comes to that,” he finally said. “I will never let any harm come to you and your sister. If we’re found, I’ll say that I forced you, that you had no choice. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.”

She smiled, about to tell him he didn’t have to do that, but she saw in his eyes that he needed to. He was a man desperate to right a wrong, and in the end, she knew that she’d do whatever she had to in order to save herself and her sister, too.

“Thank you.”

Elise knew it was long past the point where she should have withdrawn her hand from his, but it was nice touching him. After a long moment, she forced herself to sit back and take her hand away.

“Tell me, if you were at home, who would you be with and what would you be doing?”

Elise was pleased she’d asked, because his face changed then, his smile making his eyes crinkle at the corners.

“I’d be sitting with my mother, probably. She’d have fed me up on a hearty rabbit stew because she’d tell me I looked too skinny, and we would have had pudding.”

“Pudding?” Elise asked.

Harry laughed. “Dessert. Most likely a warm bread and butter pudding.”

She could see it in her mind; him curled up in a comfy chair while his mother fussed over him and brought him as much food as she could. “What about the rest of your family?”