So Shall We Stand (Women of Valor Book #2) , livre ebook

Women of Valor, Book Two
So Shall We Stand
Elyse Larson
© 2001 by Elyse Larson
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55438
www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan
Ebook edition created 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopying, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-3360-8
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
Cover by Dan Thornberg
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“W E SHALL NOT FLAG OR FAIL.
W E SHALL GO ON TO THE END,
WE SHALL FIGHT IN F RANCE,
WE SHALL FIGHT ON THE SEAS AND OCEANS,
WE SHALL FIGHT WITH GROWING CONFIDENCE
AND GROWING STRENGTH IN THE AIR,
WE SHALL DEFEND OUR I SLAND,
WHATEVER THE COST MAY BE,
WE SHALL FIGHT ON THE BEACHES,
WE SHALL FIGHT ON THE LANDING GROUNDS,
WE SHALL FIGHT IN THE FIELDS AND IN THE STREETS,
WE SHALL FIGHT IN THE HILLS;
WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER….”
W INSTON C HURCHILL, FROM HIS SPEECH ON
D UNKIRK AT THE H OUSE OF C OMMONS, J UNE 4, 1940
Dedication
To our children,
each of whom is a hero to me:
sons,
Robin Richard Larson,
Paul Jonathan Larson,
and our daughter,
Diane Patricia Linden.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Epilogue
About the Author
Books By Elyse Larson
Chapter One
September 1944
Abergavenny, Wales
Nella Killian, desperate for a quiet moment to put an end to the headache that had plagued her all morning, quietly closed the front door of the Presbyterian manse and tiptoed to the kitchen. The silence in the gray stone manse indicated her baby, two-year-old Livie, was still napping.
When Nella entered the large old-fashioned kitchen, she found her mother, Elizabeth MacDougall, pegging Livie’s freshly washed nappies to the clothesline.
Seeing Nella, she smiled, said, “Hello, love,” and hoisted the line by its pulley up over the stove. With autumn bringing unpredictable rain showers, the washing would now hang above them in the kitchen. “Livie’s still asleep. You look all done in. I rather hoped you wouldn’t try to see Camilla so soon after she learned about the death of her husband.” Camilla was the youngest daughter of one of the church families, the Flints, who had a farm just north of town. Camilla had been a widow for a day. Her husband of six months had been killed in action in northern Italy.
“I had to go.” Nella went to the stove and tapped her finger against the black cast-iron teakettle. “Still hot enough for tea,” she decided aloud and reached for a cup and the tea strainer. Scooping a measure of black tea into the strainer, she poured the steaming water over it into her cup. After she sat down at the table, she said, “I knew it would set me crying too, but I had to be there. I remember how I felt when Rob was shot down. To have someone come who has been through a similar tragedy is the only thing that brings any comfort at first. She needed me to cry with her. Mum, after sitting with her, I wanted to shoot some Nazis myself. To think what Hitler has done the bloodshed and torture and now all these weeks since the invasion our men are still dying while trying to stop him. Will it never end? I can’t understand why God permits this horror to go on and on.”
Nella thumped the table with her fist and burst out, “One and a half million people, Mum, died in that Polish concentration camp! For what reason? They were just people like us. It’s so much worse than I realized back in 1940. And still the ‘Fuehrer’ goes on. Where in the name of God is God?” She knew she was close to using God’s name in vain, but she didn’t care.
Her mother moved quickly to her side and encircled her tight fist with her own hand, strong and warm. “It’s not God’s fault, Nella. We’re none of us totally innocent. Nations as well as individuals suffer consequences from their sins. But I can’t answer for the Lord when you beg to understand. For myself, I still believe there’s a reason for everything…and many times the reasons are painful.”
Nella drew a shaky breath, then took a sip of tea. She didn’t want to go into the matter of faith with her mother. Ever since she’d been widowed while expecting Livie, her faith in God’s care had wavered. After the first months of grief and following Livie’s birth, she had not expected any supernatural help for the baby or herself. Her childhood notion that God took special notice of each person’s needs had turned out to be just that a childhood notion. God was too busy with the bigger things to bother with some individual’s problems. Any other concept didn’t make sense.
Not wanting to argue with her mother and her minister father, Nella kept this opinion to herself most of the time. Now she steered the conversation back to their grieving friends. “Mrs. Flint was glad I came. She said Camilla has always looked up to me. I don’t know why. I never really spent time with her when working with the dogs out there. She usually stayed in the house with her mother. Well, at least Camilla can keep busy in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry. She reports back for duty next week. In FANY she feels she’s doing something important for the war effort, and it’s something she can do in memory of her husband. If it weren’t for Livie, I’d have joined the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force again. I hate not doing more to help win the war.”
“I know you do, but being with your baby is more important in the long scheme of things.”
Mum’s predictable answer irritated Nella more than usual. “You mean what little I could do for the war effort wouldn’t make much difference.”
Her mother stepped back from her side and glared down at her. With her hands on her hips, she said, “Nella Elizabeth! You know I don’t mean that!”
Nella raised her chin, attempting an apologetic smile. “I do know, Mum. I’m just in a frump. I’d like to just sit here and sulk. My head aches as well as my heart.”
“Why don’t you go for a walk? Livie’s still sleeping. The fresh air will do you good. And while you’re out, you can pick up your father’s cough medicine at the chemist’s shop for him.”
Nella would rather have gone straight to bed but couldn’t refuse because of the prescription. “All right.” She gulped the last of her tea, pulled on a raincoat, and quietly let herself out through the front door again.
The manse lay on the north edge of town, fifteen minutes by foot from the chemist’s. The longer walk from the farm had not eased her headache, so it was unlikely that this shorter jaunt downtown would do much either. However, if she took a bit more time, she could keep walking through town and on to the river.
If the castle grounds above the river and meadow weren’t filled with Nissen huts, military personnel, and vehicles, then she’d make that her destination. The huts, shaped like halves of steel drums lying on their sides, jarred her senses as much now as the first day she’d seen them. Nella and her best friend, Peggy Jones, used to play among the stone ruins and share their hopes and dreams with each other. All seemed possible back in those days.
Although it wasn’t true, Nella called Peggy her adopted sister. The daughter of a coal miner, Peggy had come to live at the manse when she was eleven, to attend school in Abergavenny. Nella, who was nine at the time, had longed for a big sister. After a feisty adjustment to the life in the manse, Peggy had more than fulfilled Nella’s wish.
As Nella strode down High Street, black clouds blew overhead yet dropped no rain. So she passed the chemist’s shop and walked briskly on to Cross Street, thinking to head down to the river. With rising spirits, she stopped at Saddler & Son Tobacconist Shop to buy a newspaper for her father. The front-page headline declared the British 11th Armored Division had fought its way into Antwerp. Arrows on a map pointed out the current battle line in Belgium and also where the Americans were positioned in northern France.
Nella was counting out her coins on the counter when Mr. Saddler said, “Did you read about the German spies that were arrested out by Crickhowell? Seems they were planning to sabotage the Brecon Canal. Had enough explosives to blow up half the town. Story’s right there on the bottom of page one.”
She hadn’t noticed. “Nazi saboteurs here in the Usk River valley? Were they living in Crickhowell?”
“Nay, a couple of kilometers away, in the mountains. Our military happened to intercept their radio signals the other night and so traced them down. Bit of luck for us. Two women, they were. They’d been there since beginning of summer, working on the Miller farm. Good workers, old Mr. Miller said, so he asked no questions. Their hut didn’t look like much on the outside, nothing to make a person suspicious, but insid