Free Saving the Rifleman by Julie Rowe

tears down her face. In order to fool the German soldiers she had to look like she was grieving. “My husband is lame and we barely made it out.”
    He glanced at John who was standing now, but favouring his injured leg even more than before. “Wait here. We will find somewhere for you and your husband to sleep.”
    She nodded and returned to John’s side. “Are you all right? Any burns?” She asked him in German, well aware they had an audience.
    He shook his head and continued to cough.
    Clever man.
    “Madam, take him across the street to sit down,” the German officer ordered. “A fire brigade will be here soon.”
    She nodded, wrapped her arm around John’s waist and helped him walk. When the officer’s attention went back to the fire, John began to back away, pulling her with him. Everyone was crowding toward the fire, some with buckets, most with expressions of worry or fear.
    They slipped behind the house across the street and headed down the lane.
    “You’re very brave and very, very smart.”
    She almost laughed at the absurdity of his claim. “I’m one giant mass of terror.”
    He brought her closer and pressed a warm kiss to her temple. “That’s what a brave person is,” he said, his lips brushing her ear. “Someone who’s afraid and does what they need to anyway.”
    In some ways, he was more dangerous than the Germans.
    The panic she’d stomped on rose again and she found herself talking to keep from crying. “My mother called people like that idiots.”
    His whole body started to shake and Maria was alarmed for a moment. Then she realized he was laughing. They’d just escaped a burning home in the middle of the night, after hiding from a German patrol, and he was laughing so hard he was shaking her too.
    “Now I know who you got your habit of plain speaking from.”
    “My mother thinks wars should be fought by no one but generals. She believes that if they were the only ones who would be hurt, a war wouldn’t last longer than a few minutes.”
    “Your mother should be teaching at Oxford.”
    “My mother had no education whatsoever.”
    “None?”
    “My parents are poor and their parents were poor. No money for school or tutors.”
    He was silent for several moments. “Then how did you end up as a nurse?”
    “My father is a farm labourer for a large landowner. I was helping him foal one of his lordship’s horses. The lord’s son was at the age where this was interesting—both of us were about eight years old. The boy had been learning French and wanted to practice his lessons. By the time the mare had foaled I had the beginnings of a simple French vocabulary and we were talking in a mixture of French and English.”
    She waited for his reaction, but all he said was, “And?”
    “And…I’d never had lessons in French.”
    “No? Then how did you…”
    “I don’t know, I guess I have a talent for languages.”
    He was silent for a moment. “How many languages do you speak?”
    “French and German, but I also pick up local accents and dialects quickly too. So I often sound like I’ve been in an area all my life when in fact I’ve only been there a few weeks.”
    “How did you get into nursing?”
    “Oh. Well, his lordship seemed impressed with my language ability and brought me to the house to work alongside his son—who had a much more difficult time of it. As I understand it, one particular gentleman made some sort of bet that I couldn’t learn German as fast as French. The lord took him up it, promising that if he won, not only would he receive money, but the gentleman would pay for my education as a nurse.”
    “He lost the bet,” John said. “You learned German as fast.”
    “Faster. I was motivated. Getting an education, becoming a nurse, was my escape from the poverty and misery my parents had to endure. For a while, I made enough money to send some home to them.”
    “For a while?”
    “I haven’t been paid since the war started.”
    “Ah, of