Aiding the Enemy (War Girls) by Julie Rowe

keep her student nurses safe and the hospital running. When would she see her father again? Would she see him at all?
    “Rose.”
    She met Herman’s gaze at the sound of her name. “Yes?”
    “Eat.”
    “Oh. Yes, of course.” She picked up the bread and took a bite.
    He seemed content to sit and watch her eat in silence. She was finishing up the apple when a loud knock at the front door echoed back to the kitchen.
    She rose to answer it, but he waved her back down. “I’ll go see who’s there. Finish your food.”
    She listened hard and soon heard males voices coming closer and closer. As she put the apple core on the table, several men in German military uniforms marched into the room.
    “Rose Culver?” one of them asked.
    She looked at their hard faces and her stomach fell like a stone. Perhaps she shouldn’t have eaten after all. “Yes.”
    “You’re under arrest.”

Chapter Five
    Rose didn’t get a chance to catch her breath before they grabbed her by the arms, one on either side, pulled her through the building and outside to a horse drawn carriage.
    “But—”
    “It would be better for you if you keep quiet.”
    She did as she was told.
    Herman stood near the front door with Carl. His face was closed down, as if he’d judged her and found her guilty of some horrible crime.
    Perhaps, to him, what she’d done—her duty as she saw it—was a crime. Perhaps he was more warrior than doctor.
    Perhaps she’d never see him again.
    For the first time since she’d made the decision to help escaping soldiers, regret wrapped its cold hand around her heart. Odd that out of all the men she’d met, treated and helped, a German military surgeon would be her one weakness.
    Taken to a convent, she was placed in a nun’s cell, the door closed and locked. The room was plain with a simple cot, woollen blankets, a bedpan in one corner and a sputtering candle on a small table.
    The only decoration was a cross on the wall.
    At least she could pray.
    But she was too frightened and tired for even that. She blew out the candle, removed her shoes and lay down on the bed. The Germans probably didn’t realize it, but tonight would most likely be her longest uninterrupted sleep in weeks.
    * * *
    Herman wanted to hurt someone. Preferably the poisonous man standing next to him. Carl, the orderly, who, it turned out, was really an officer in the German Military Police. Carl had taken him aside as soon as the door opened to armed soldiers and began relaying a list of Rose Culver’s illegal and treasonous activities.
    Herman was forced to watch as she was marched out the door and into the night. His hands shook with fury. How dare this moronic sycophant call her a traitor and harlot.
    “Doctor,” Carl asked, “are you all right?”
    “I’m enraged.” Her arrest was a travesty, a crime that would be punished.
    “I understand.” Carl patted him on the shoulder.
    Herman jerked away. “I doubt that.” Calming himself enough to say the words necessary to satisfy this mean creature’s expectations was more difficult than any surgery he’d performed. As it was, his voice shook as he fought the sudden urge to vomit. “I worked with that woman for months. I gave her my confidence and trust. She assisted me daily, trained our nurses and tended our wounded, all while...” He finally looked Carl in the face. “You do not understand.”
    He didn’t. Herman was enormously angry, but not at Rose. Never at Rose.
    “My apologies, Doctor.” Carl inclined his head and took a step back. His body language changed as he stood tall, lifted his chin and tucked his hands behind his back with military correctness. “We had wondered if you were involved in her activities, if you helped her—even passively. But I can see now that you are just as shocked and disgusted as we were when we discovered what she was doing.”
    “Disgusted, yes. That’s exactly how I feel.” Herman shook his head, unable and unwilling to stand next to the