Gertrud had a small bundle of her pamphlets left to deliver. It was nearing 7pm and a shroud of darkness was descending upon the city. She knew she should have started earlier, but it couldn’t be helped. An icy wind was flapping at her coat and whipping her hair about. A rumble of thunder raked the air overhead. The sky was an opaque pewter. A downpour was imminent.
She had to finish pasting her rebellion on the walls along Ehren Strasse. Then she could seek refuge out of harm’s way. She had to be off the streets by 7.15pm. That’s when the Brown Shirts were out, whole brigades of thugs intimidating pedestrians, looking for trouble and an opportunity to maim as many innocents as possible. And if a girl was alone on the streets…that didn’t bear thinking about.
She had been working with the underground for a few years now. The youngest in her team, seventeen years old. She was active in many projects around the city, disrupting Nazi propaganda with her pamphlets, escorting Jewish refugees to safe houses and anything else her leader thought she was capable of. The teenagers generally worked in tandem with a comrade, but tonight Lotte wasn’t available.
Applying the paste up high, she slapped her last message across the glued surface. Returning her tools to her rucksack, she dashed across the road and sprinted down a side street, then came to an abrupt halt. Men were approaching from around the corner. She heard the footfall of heavy military boots hammering out an unrelenting tattoo on the foot path. She recognized the conversations littered with violent and lewd comments.
Gertrud, get off the street now. She spied a partially open door to her left, slithered through the gap and closed it behind her. Panic rose like bile choking her. A tidal wave of fear roared through her veins and an icy chill snaked down her spine.
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