––––––––
Our first days alone in the wilderness were to prove surprisingly easy, for the spring climate remained favourable, a warm wind rising from the south-west. We were blessed with clear skies of a day, the spring sun quickly warming the atmosphere, and clouded evenings that kept the night’s temperature from dropping too low.
After the extreme discomfort we had so recently endured we found little problem sleeping, snuggling together beneath bushes for additional warmth, and countless sub-alpine streams provided cool, fresh water whenever we required it. Even when back in Medgidia we had grown used to eating unripe fruit and strange plants and, if we missed the luxury of a warm meal, this was no great hardship.
We followed a route approximating north-west, using the sun as our guide, always keeping the mountains behind us. Eventually I hoped to come across a road or railway that we could follow at a discreet distance in the hope of obtaining a keener direction.
By the second day I could stand it no longer and, making the affair into a game for the benefit of Nicolae and Elone, had us all strip and play in a shallow stream in order to cleanse our bodies and clothes. The water running down from the distant mountains where winter still held sway was ice cold, such as to be barely tolerable but we all, I am certain, felt better for the ablution.
Our clothes were badly soiled and ideally some form of detergent would have been welcome, but the worst excesses gave way to the combined efforts of running water and brute force and by the time I had completed my task, the three of us were once again respectable, though I longed for the luxury of a brush to tend our hair.
Fortunately, Elone had been well dressed by her parents in a heavy winter coat as well as a warm frock and camisole, and even underclothes, a luxury I had not experienced for a long time. Her family, I surmised, must have been one of relative wealth in the not so distant past, but I dared not question her upon the matter for fear of enkindling her interest in her missing parents.
For Nicolae and myself, our attire left much to be desired. Nicolae still wore my coat wrapped awkwardly around his body, for it was much too large for him. His own clothes, such as they were, had came reasonably clean in the stream and quickly dried. My sack-cloth frock was much the worse for wear, one shoulder having been ripped away by our rescuers when they tended my wound, and my dress now hung limply from the other shoulder, revealing the necklace and amulet Raisa had entrusted me with.
I was fortunate to have been donated the ragged blanket that I had been wrapped in during our brief time with the Resistance fighters, and which I now had slung about me as a makeshift jacket, whilst it served to cover us all as we lay huddled together of a night.
I was thankful, then, that the spring season was well advanced, the weather clement, with summer in prospect. Although I recognized progress would be slow, especially with two young children to conduct, I nonetheless estimated only a matter of days, perhaps a week at most, before we would arrive in Krakow, there to locate the camp whence Mama had been bound.
It was not the only misjudgement I would make.
~
By the third day the weather became unsettled and on the fourth it was clear our previous good fortune was at an end. The sky thus burdened by menacing storm clouds, their contents soon to be unleashed upon us, it became impossible even to hazard a guess at the sun’s position and our direction quickly became a matter for conjecture. So low were the clouds hung and so mist-ridden the valleys that even the mountains were obscured, denying us all bearing.
The rain arrived not in drops but in torrents, with a driving wind that pierced our clothes and penetrated clean to our skin. Nor was shelter easily obtained, for the best we could do was to find a bush or small tree to huddle beneath, and the rain proved adept at attacking us from all directions, determined that no part of us should remain dry.
At first I made light of it, applauding the thunder, feigning awe at the lightning and rejoicing in the cool rain for the benefit of Nicolae and Elone, who joined in the game with relish. But as the downpour continue unabated hour after hour our bodies became chilled such that it became ever more difficult to distract my young charges from their condition.
Eventually the rain eased and we used the respite to move on, in the hope of locating a more substantial shelter, but wet clothes weighed down our spirits as well as our bodies.
What had a few days before been a refreshing and invigorating exercise, donning freshly washed clothes and allowing them to dry around us in the spring sun, now became a serious discomfort which, inevitably, Nicolae and Elone found intolerable, and they soon degenerated into querulous mood that drove me to despair.
Our sixth night was spent skulking beneath a lone tree that provided almost no shelter, in wet clothes that seemed to draw the cold winds mercilessly to them.
It was in such a state, with both children already reduced to tears, that the words I feared most were uttered, first by Nicolae, then quickly echoed by Elone. They were, of course, asking for their mothers and, cold, wet and exhausted myself, I was simply unable to provide them with the comfort and reassurance they needed at this time.
If they cried for their parents, my own tears were for them, and for much of the evening we wept together, until at last fatigue took its toll and sleep gained the upper hand. Helpless at this stage, I could only resolve in future to take shelter at the first sign of ill weather and not to venture on until the period of inclemency had passed, heedless of how long that policy might extend our journey.
Such planning did not resolve the immediate problem, however, and the next morning the children were no less distressed, for though the rain had stopped and the clouds lifted, the cold winds continued to blow down from the north, chilling our bodies, with no intimation of fairer weather to come.
As if this were not enough the ground had become a mire of mud and marsh, and as the mountains around us drew clouds to them and emptied their contents down upon us, so tiny streams turned to menacing torrents, not easily approached to drink from and quite impassable, obliging further detours that served only to confound further any sense of direction.
Thus burdened we were increasingly weak and hungry, our bodies beset by malnutrition, unable to counter the debilitating effect of climate and terrain. Fruits were sparse, for it was still early in the year, and of vegetation there was little beyond grass and rushes, and we were obliged to content ourselves with this jejune diet of cautiously selected berries and leaves for several days.
Only the thought of finding Mama in Krakow made possible my resolve to continue, for to turn back and head for Medgidia would have been far the easier option.
But on the ninth day the sun reappeared, a long lost friend against a cerulean sky, and with it our spirits lifted. We began the journey to Krakow once more, taking shelter at any sign of poor weather ahead. Occasionally, we would hear wolves howl in the distance, but we were fortunate not to be bothered with wild animals, although they were a constant, if unstated, fear at the back of my mind.
Rather it was we that posed nuisance to the local fauna, for Nicolae would take great delight in chasing any rabbit, hare or other small creature that ventured into sight, with the promise of returning with it for me to convert to a meal. I afforded myself some amusement in wondering how Nicolae would bring himself to kill such a creature in the unlikely event that he caught one, and this in turn begged the question how I would manage to cook the meat were he to succeed, for the making of fire without a sulphur-tipped match was quite beyond my abilities.
Our Polish benefactor Karol had anyway warned us most strongly against lighting fires, for fear of divulging our position to the enemy. I had at first been dismissive of his concerns, reasoning that for us the Nazis were not the enemy, for we were but lost children. But recalling how they had massacred the innocents on the train, women and children alike, I was forced to reconsider my position. It was chance, not the fact of our age, that had saved our lives that time.
With these thoughts in mind I lent consideration to our safety. If it had initially been my intention to foist ourselves upon the first people we came across, to seek food and directions, I now realised that, quite apart from the problem of language, we had no way of knowing how we would be received. What if they were sympathetic to the Nazi cause or otherwise ill-disposed to our well-being?
It was a problem I tried not to dwell upon, for there was no easy solution, hoping to postpone deliberation of the matter until circumstances dictated we confront it.
By chance that problem arose the very next day.