Ralph looked up at her thoughtfully and then said, “Well, I don’t pity them. Not after what I’ve seen.”
“Why, Ralph!” Jean cried. “Whatever do you mean?”
Ralph smiled. “They don’t want our pity, Jeannie,” he said softly. “They need our help and understanding, but not pity. I wish I could honestly say I had the nerve that that boy had. I admire him, and I admire them all.”
“I’ll bet he had some stories to tell,” Tommy said.
“He wasn’t much older than you, Tom, when the Nazis invaded,” Ralph said. “And he went right into the Underground. Blew bridges and railroad tracks and things like that.”
Mrs. Craig slipped her arm around Tommy’s shoulder protectively. “Heavens!” she cried. “A child like Tommy?”
“They had quite an arsenal,” Ralph chuckled. “And you’ll never believe where their headquarters were. In the basement of Gestapo Headquarters. Two of their boys were accepted into the Gestapo. Not one message went out of Gestapo Headquarters that the Underground didn’t know about.”
“Mercy!” Mrs. Craig cried. “It makes me tremble just to think about it.”
Ralph smiled. “You don’t need to be sorry for people who went through a war that way. Now they’re working like beavers to build up their disrupted country. Their schools are all open, their railroads are working just fine. The country looks good, and the people ... they’re wonderful.”
Jean shook her head. “But all of occupied Europe isn’t like that, Ralph?”