Page 217 - Reliance Foundation School Koparkhairane - School Magazine - Zenith

THE FIGHTER IN THE SHADOWS

She couldn’t tell which was louder; the gunfire or the thunderous beating of
her own heart.

Round after round of gunfire and the battle was still raging on with the force
of a cyclone.

She tried to draw deep breaths, counting each one like it could be her last.
Despite, all that she had been through, the paralytic fear that took over her
never did go away. Every tremor through the ground almost felt like fate
taunting her, telling her that her game of hide and seek would soon see its end.

She pushed her fear aside. She had a mission. She had to focus. Her father’s
last words, before the Gestapo took him away, reverberated in her mind, the
thing driving her heartbeat.

You will survive For a cause greater than you. You will right the wrongs of

our people, you will end this fruitless war.

She had received his parcel with tears in her eyes. She had been warned
about day, and had been trained to push all emotion down, but she was just
a fourteen-year-old and the pain had pulled her down. For days her mind

had spiralled, anguish tightening, like a noose around her neck until her pain
parked a fire, and the was the thing keeping her on feet.

Outside, the chaos ceased. She steeled her nerves and pushed herself to her
feet. This was her opportunity. She climbed the ladder, leading to the foyer

of the house of the elderly lady who had been accommodating her. She
found Mrs. Weber was lying motionless on the floor. Dead. Another life
drowned by the never ending flood that was the Führer. Within her was a
storm of rage and grief. It was like she was reliving that moment when her

father was shot dead, all over again. I will die fighting for the oppressed, he
had told her.

The Gestapo had discovered that one of their high ranking officers, her
father was smuggling information to the Allies. What they hadn’t known

was that a girl was hiding in a burrow in the woods, with information which
would make or break the war. She had travelled by boat, through tunnels ,
survived in inhumane conditions, to reach this day in Rotterdam, where she
was to deliver the information to the Allies stronghold.

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