‘You do help Germans get home?’

The man spread his hands. ‘I help French or British, Germans or Austrians. We pass them from church to church till they get home. We travel at night.’

‘How do you get across the trenches?’ Marius asked in German. He hadn’t followed everything Aimee and Father Gaulle had said.

‘A priest leads a small funeral party across from one side to the other. The person we are helping is inside the coffin. Both sides agree to stop fighting to let us pass. A priest from the other side meets the funeral party and takes over. It is very simple. Today is Thursday... I can arrange for you to cross on Sunday.’

‘We can’t wait three days. There is a man coming to kill us. A man with a silver hand.’

The priest was silent for a long while, then said, ‘I will see what I can do. You should be safe here in the church.’

Marius told Aimee what the priest had said. She pinched her lips. ‘No. Silver Hand wouldn’t worry about finding us in a church. He’d shoot us anyway. He’s an ungodly man.’

Father Gaulle sighed. ‘What a terrible person. Listen, I have to go out now to visit a sick member of my flock. If you go into the church tower I will lock the door and take away the key. The door is a thousand years old and made of the heaviest oak. It’s a safe place. This Sergeant Grimm won’t be able to get through before I get back. Come along, quickly.’

They followed the priest’s black robes and hurried through the ancient door into the tower. Bell ropes hung over a dusty floor and a wooden stairway led to a platform under the steeple. ‘I won’t be long,’ he said.

Aimee held up her pack. ‘We ran out of food last night. Do you have any?’

‘I’ll bring back as much as you need,’ Father Gaulle promised.

The door closed with a boom like doom and the key grated in the lock.

Aimee sat on the bottom step of the stairway and rubbed her tired eyes. ‘We’ll be safe here...’ Marius began.

The girl waved her hand. ‘Hang on, wait. What did he say just before we came in the tower? He said something in German.’

‘He said we’d be safe. That Silver Hand wouldn’t be able to get us in here.’

Aimee shook her head. ‘No. He used the word Grimm.’

Marius blew out his cheeks. ‘All right, he said Sergeant Grimm wouldn’t be able to get us in here.’

Aimee spoke slowly. ‘When I spoke to Father Gaulle I didn’t use Grimm’s name – I called him Silver Hand. Did you tell the priest?’

‘No,’ Marius said in a hoarse whisper. His eyes met Aimee’s. They spoke together. ‘So how did he know Silver Hand’s real name?’