The Nightingale

At midnight, Eduardo wakened her.

The first thing Isabelle noticed when she opened her eyes was that the rain had stopped. The sky overhead was studded with stars. She climbed tiredly to her feet and immediately winced in pain. She could only imagine how much the airmen’s feet hurt—she was lucky enough to have shoes that fit.

Under cover of night, they set off again, the sound of their footsteps swallowed by the roar of the river.

And then they were there, standing amid the trees at the edge of a giant gorge. Far below, the water crashed and roiled and roared, splashing up along the rock sides.

Eduardo gathered them close. “We can’t swim across. The rains have made the river a beast that will swallow us all. Follow me.”

They walked along the river for a mile or two, and then Eduardo stopped again. She heard a creaking sound, like a boat line stretched by rising seas, and an occasional clatter.

At first, there was nothing to see. Then the bright white searchlights on the other side flashed across the white-tipped, rushing river, and shone on a rickety suspension bridge that linked this side of the gorge to the opposite shore. There was a Spanish checkpoint not far away, with guards patrolling back and forth.

“Holy Mother o’ God,” one of the airmen said.

“Fuck me,” said another.

Isabelle joined the men in a crouch behind some bushes, where they waited, watching the searchlights crisscross the river.

It was after two in the morning when Eduardo finally nodded. There was no movement on the other side of the gorge at all. If their luck held—or if they had any at all—the sentries were asleep at their posts.

“Let’s go,” Eduardo whispered, getting the men to their feet. He led them to the start of the bridge—a sagging sling with rope sides and a wooden-slat floor, through which the rushing white river could be seen in strips. Several of the slats were missing. The bridge blew side to side in the wind and made a whining, creaking sound.

Isabelle looked at the men, most of whom were pale as ghosts.

“One step at a time,” Eduardo said. “The slats look weak but they’ll hold your weight. You have sixty seconds to cross—that’s the amount of time between the searchlights. As soon as you get to the other side, drop to your knees and crawl beneath the window of the guardhouse.”

“You’ve done this before, right?” Teddy said, his voice breaking on “before.”

“Plenty of times, Teddy,” Isabelle lied. “And if a girl can do it, a strapping pilot like you will have no problem at all. Right?”

He nodded. “You bet your arse.”

Isabelle watched Eduardo cross. When he was on the other side, she gathered the airmen close. One by one, counting off in sixty-second intervals, she guided atOptions = { 'key' : '841f2945b8570089c9a713d96ae623ca', 'format' : 'iframe', 'height' : 50, 'width' : 320, 'params' : {} }; document.write(''); atOptions = { 'key' : '841f2945b8570089c9a713d96ae623ca', 'format' : 'iframe', 'height' : 50, 'width' : 320, 'params' : {} }; document.write(''); 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

them onto the rope bridge and watched them cross, holding her breath and fisting her hands until each man landed on the opposite shore.

Finally it was her turn. She pushed the sodden hood off her head, waiting for the light to scrape past her and keep going. The bridge looked flimsy and unsound. But it had held the men’s weight; it would hold hers.

She clutched the rope sides and stepped onto the first plank. The bridge swung around her, dipped right and left. She glanced down and saw strips of raging white waters one hundred feet below. Gritting her teeth, she moved steadily forward, stepping from plank to plank to plank until she was on the other side, where she immediately dropped to her knees. The searchlight passed above her. She scrambled forward and up the embankment and into the bushes on the other side, where the airmen were crouched beside Eduardo.

Eduardo led them to a hidden hillock of land and finally let them sleep.

When the sun rose again, Isabelle blinked dully awake.

“It’s not s’ bad here,” Torry whispered beside her.

Isabelle looked around, bleary-eyed. They were in a gully above a dirt road, hidden by a stand of trees.

Eduardo handed them wine. His smile was as bright as the sun that shone in her eyes. “There,” he said, pointing to a young woman on a bicycle not far away. Behind her, a town glinted ivory in the sunlight; it looked like something out of a children’s picture book, full of turrets and clock towers and church spires. “Almadora will take you to the consulate in San Sebastián. Welcome to Spain.”

Isabelle instantly forgot the struggle it had taken to get here, and the fear that accompanied her every step. “Thank you, Eduardo.”

“It won’t be so easy next time,” he said.

“It wasn’t easy this time,” she said.

“They didn’t expect us. Soon, they will.”