Free Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes Page B

back to him. Somehow he managed to support the wounded man as far as the bicycle and lift him onto the seat.
    “It’s OK. Hang on to me,” he said.
    Then, with Joe clinging to his waist with his good arm, Paolo shoved off. He cycled hard, standing high on the pedals, and within minutes they were away, up the darkened street.
    The way home was the worst journey Paolo had ever made. He took the back streets out of the city, dreading at every turn that they would run into another German patrol. Joe was tall and broad, and he seemed a deadweight to Paolo, who was finding it almost impossible to support him, even along the flat parts of the road. As they began their ascent up the road toward home, Paolo had to dismount and push his bicycle, with Joe slumped upon it.
    It was hard going. They went on in silence, with Paolo heaving for breath. They were both thinking of David and how they had had to abandon him to his fate at the hands of his German captors. They had run out on him — they both knew that all too clearly, though they also knew that any attempt to save him would have been futile and would probably have resulted in all three of them being captured or shot. Paolo tried to concentrate on reaching home. It was the only thing that mattered now.

R osemary and Constanza were sitting huddled together at the kitchen table when, at last, they heard the crunch of bicycle wheels in the yard. The waiting had been a mounting agony for Rosemary. She had steeled herself to keeping watch for Paolo for a couple of hours, but when midnight had passed and he had not returned, her anxiety turned to cold panic.
    She had been outside several times and walked as far as the road, peering into the darkness in the hope of seeing that shaded bicycle light wavering up the hill. But all was silent and empty. When Constanza had crept downstairs to join her, Rosemary was far too grateful for the company to insist that she should go back to bed. It helped to have a hand to hold.
    “Why did I ever let him get into this? It’s my fault entirely. I should never have allowed it,” Rosemary kept repeating.
    “Don’t worry, Mamma. He’ll be back.”
    But as time wore on, even these exchanges had petered out, and they were reduced to silence.
    The moment they heard Paolo in the yard, they both rushed outside. He had flung down his bicycle and was half dragging, half supporting Joe toward the back door. Rosemary’s enormous relief at seeing Paolo home safe overrode her shock at the sight of Joe with his arm soaked in blood. It was Constanza who had to stand still, pressing her hands to her mouth to stop herself from crying out.
    Almost within seconds, Rosemary had moved to take control of the situation with calm efficiency, hoping that nobody would notice how much she was trembling. Somehow, between the three of them, they managed to get Joe into the kitchen, where he fell into a chair, barely conscious, his head slumped onto his chest. Paolo, white-faced with exhaustion, stood leaning against the doorway, talking rapidly but making very little sense. The words poured out incoherently as, between gulps, he tried to describe what had happened.
    “David — they got David,” he kept saying.
    Rosemary put an arm around him, holding him very tightly and trying to calm him.
    “All right, caro — all right. Sit down a moment, and we’ll hear about it later. Constanza, will you put the kettle on and fetch the first-aid box from my bathroom as quickly as you can? And for heaven’s sake, don’t wake Maria! She’ll only get in a terrible state and make matters worse.”
    When Constanza returned with the box, Joe was lying on the sofa in the living room. Rosemary carefully began to cut away the sleeve of his jacket and blood-soaked shirt. Then she gently sponged away some of the blood from around his wound.
    “It’s a bad gash,” she said. “But it doesn’t look as though there’s a bullet hole. It must have grazed your arm but just missed going