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EVENING APPROACHED and with it the comfort of nightfall. Franziska and I had taken to the trees again to bypass a checkpoint along the road and circumnavigate a German encampment. Both of which had me traveling much farther north than I wished.
After tethering Franziska and leaving what was left of the hay, I stealthily made my way to the outskirts of the town of Bühl in hopes of finding another place to spend the night. Steel-colored clouds had rolled in through the day. They hung heavy in the sky and the scent of snow drifted in the air. Disappointment flooded my system, chilling my blood like a cold bath. Instead of another sleepy town, there was a heavy military presence encamped in the surrounding fields and bustled through the narrow streets. Reality settled in—taking the slower, roundabout way through the forest had spared me much of their presence, but it was only a matter of time before I ran into the war machine, especially approaching this close to the front lines.
My heart sank further as I watched two more infantry battalions roll into the small town and set up shop. Officers shouted orders, men scurried around, more tents went up, and industrial-sized kitchen pots filed into a church; it wasn’t too long before a chow line formed. Patrols would be sent out in the night. It was likely there were already two- and three-man patrols scouting the woods right now. I’d have to be very careful.
During all the activity, I continued to survey a little farmhouse in the southwest corner of the village. The company never approached, and during the time I surveilled the location, neither did it show any civilian activity. Even amidst the Nazi army, it seemed a prime location for me to hole up for the night. Although, I wasn’t so sure Franziska would be sharing it with me. It would be difficult for me to sneak him into town unremarked.
I returned to Franziska with a heavy heart and apprehension in my soul. It was time for me to take the next steps to get into France. My journey would only become more perilous, and traveling through the populated area along the Rhine on his back was simply too dangerous for both him and me.
“You have been an excellent companion, my good fellow.” I removed the bridle. “But I’m afraid our journey together ends here.” I laid my cheek against his neck.
He shook his head as if relieved to be shed of the restraint. However, I could have sworn his eyes looked at me in askance, saying, “What’s next?”
He watched with interest as I began my own transformation. To my disappointment, the men’s pants had to go. I would miss their comforting warmth, but they made me look out of place. The dress, wrinkled beyond repair, was well covered by my now grimy coat. I hoped through time, and with the help of gravity, the wrinkles would even out. I retied the belt, which I’d been using to hold up the pants, around the coat to keep it closed over the dress. Luckily, the coat’s dark coloring hid most of the dirt, and its length covered the dress. Unfortunately, there was little I could do about the smell of horse and every other scent that clung to me.
I re-covered my head with the scarf and debated what to do with the rucksack. It was out of place for a woman to carry such an item; however, it housed too much that I wasn’t yet willing to part with. For the moment, I decided to retain it. Eventually, I’d probably have to ditch it and return to carrying the purse that currently lay squashed at the bottom. I eyed the faux brown alligator skin, then reached down and pulled it out, repacking it with my handkerchief, mirror, comb, and other sundry things I might need, including what was left of the deer jerky. I rested it at the top of the food and drink for easy removal. The American airman’s sidearm, removed from its case, remained in my coat pocket, but I determined the rifle with its measly single bullet had to be left behind. The weapon was too visible, not to mention illegal, for me to carry without a permit. I buried the pants, bridle, and rifle under a downed tree, covering it further with sticks and dead leaves.
Franziska nosed my hand and I laid a cheek against his. “I’m sorry, Franzi, but this is where we must part. It is simply too dangerous for you.” I kissed his muzzle. His long lashes blinked and the big brown eye viewed me with interest.
Twilight fell, and with a slap to his rump, I sent the reluctant horse on his way. I had to wait for him to move off on his own, because every time I walked away, his plodding footsteps soon followed. I didn’t blame him. Depending upon who found him, he’d either be conscripted back into the military ranks or turned into a meal. I shuddered at the thought, but it couldn’t be helped; our fates were no longer entwined.
I returned to my earlier hiding place in time to watch a three-man patrol enter the woods about two hundred meters east of my location, the flicker of their flashlights becoming brighter as the light waned. My mind quickly reviewed the hiding spot where I’d left the weapon and clothing. I reckoned it would be difficult to find in the daylight and nearly impossible at night. Of course, my biggest concern was for Franziska’s safety. I closed my eyes and mentally shouted, “Run, Franziska, run!” After all, we had formed a close bond in the past few days. Who knew?—maybe he was tuned into my mental warnings.
I shook my head. Maybe I was losing my mind.
Darkness fell, and I made my move in fits and starts across the field before the moon rose, waiting apprehensively for a shot to ring out and strike me down as I stole behind a rock wall, a bush, a broken cart. The scent of cigarette smoke brought my dash to safety to an unforeseen halt, and I remained leaning against the listing farm wagon. My gaze combed the area for the owner. The soldier must have shifted into my line of sight, because as he took a drag, the red glow lit up, giving away his position. I could barely make out the two dark shadows leaning against one of the covered transport trucks—one of a dozen lined up. I remembered seeing it in the daylight, painted in camouflage greens and browns
The strike of a boot heel crunching against a rock in spitting distance had me hunkering down to the ground and mashing myself as close to the cart as humanly possible. If the wheel hadn’t been broken and the cart listing, I would have crawled beneath it. As it was, I held my breath.
The officer approached the two men and they saluted. “Zigaretten?” A flame lit up his face, and the cigarette glowed red as he sucked in the smoke. The officer pulled papers out of his pocket. “New orders. Take the truck to Rheinau, tonight.”
He turned and I couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation, but the gist seemed to be a particular division was low on ammunition and supplies were being requested.
A flashlight switched on, and the three men hovered over a map as the officer pointed and gave directions to the small town on the Rhine River. Everyone saluted and the officer walked away.
One of the enlisted men finished his cigarette and dropped it to the ground. “Let’s get this suicide mission done,” he said before swinging himself up into the front seat. His partner soon followed.
My feet pounded against the ground, gaining speed, as the truck rumbled past. I gripped the tailgate with one hand, my toe got hold on the bumper, and I launched myself into the back of the truck, rolling hard up against the corner of a wooden box.
Ouch! I rubbed my shoulder. There would be a bruise there tomorrow.
The truck came to a halt, and I flattened myself beneath the bench where soldiers usually sat. A brief conversation between the checkpoint guard and the driver ensued before the gears shifted and grinded and we continued our bouncing journey.
An hour later, I slipped out of the back of the truck as it stopped in line at another checkpoint. The third since we left Bühl. Each a test of my nerves. Each had me breaking out in a cold sweat. The paperwork must have been in order; no one bothered to search the back of the truck at any of the stops. However, the checkpoints were nothing compared to the Allied strafing run the driver wildly dodged by driving off into a ditch that almost upended us. The heavy boxes were thrown around, and had I not been beneath the bench, one of them would have undoubtedly crushed me. I think the incident took ten years off my life.
We had turned south a few kilometers back. No illumination could be seen; even the transport truck driving away remained lightless, although the shadow of darkened buildings silhouetted against the backdrop of the sky. Ducking beneath my coat, I risked using my lighter to check the compass and orient myself.
Fat flakes of snow drifted down to land on my shoulders as I set off in a westerly direction. The Rhine was close—I swear I could smell the river waters from here—and I debated finding a place to hide until daybreak, but something drove me to get into France tonight. Being this close to the front lines meant that I’d have to be careful, not only of the Heer and SS but also the Volkssturm, civilians given the authority to act as Germany’s National Guard.
Five days ago, my intelligence led me to believe that the Allies would be pushing through the Maginot Line and across the Rhine within the week. I figured by now my friends would be just on the other side of the river.
Rounding the corner of a building, I ran into my first obstacle. We bounced off each other with an “oof.” I stumbled over the rubble and almost lost my footing.
The dark figure fell to the ground. “Halt. Wer geht da?” Who goes there?
I could have laughed at the clichéd question if the flashlight hadn’t suddenly blinded me. “Schalten Sie das Licht aus!” Turn out the light, I commanded. “Do you wish for the entire British Army to see us?”
The light flicked off and the teenage boy rose.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I am Anna. Who are you?”
“Oskar.” He gripped my arm and pulled me through the open door of the dilapidated building.
I didn’t resist.
“It is my job to patrol this neighborhood district.” Once in the bowels of the building, he flicked on his flashlight again, raking me with it before pointing its beam at the floor. “I don’t recognize you.”
“I ... I don’t live here. I am on my way to France.” My mind worked furiously to concoct a plausible story. “M-my sister was working as a teacher ... in Alsace, and we haven’t heard from her in months. Mother begged me to find her and bring her home ... before the enemy captures her.” I said the last in a frightened whisper.
“Do you have travel papers?” He wore civilian street clothes instead of the brown Hitler-Jugend uniform I would have expected from someone so young. Was he Volkssturm or something worse, a Gestapo spy? Or simply a boy trying to keep his home from being invaded by the enemy?
I shook my head. “Nein, they burned in a bombing raid.”
“Where are you from?”
I froze. Not a single German town came to mind.
“I said, where are you from?” he demanded, waving his Luger at me.
“Freudenstadt.” The name blurted out of my mouth. “I have been on the road for many days.” The moment that name came out of my mouth, I instantly regretted it. I should have chosen someplace farther away from Oberndorf.
“You should return there. You are walking right into the frontline battle. It is lucky you have not been shot.”
You have no idea. “My mother is distraught and it is important that I find my sister. See, I have her picture here.” I pulled the photograph of O’Leary’s girlfriend out of my pocket. My other hand remained shoved deep inside its pocket, tightly gripping the pilot’s weapon, with my index finger wrapped around the trigger.
He looked at the photo, covering his flashlight so that the glow filtered through cracks he made with his fingers. “She is very pretty.”
“When I think of the horrible things that could happen to her...” I shuddered.
“You realize she is probably dead,” he said, not in a harsh way but rather a matter-of-fact tone.
“She is my sister ... I can’t give up. I have to take a chance.”
“How will you get past the Siegfriedstellung and cross the river?” He returned the photo.
“I ... I don’t know.” In my flight, I’d forgotten about the Siegfried Line, a wall that had been built during World War I and rebuilt before Hitler invaded France. It consisted of a combination of bunkers, water-filled trenches, and concrete triangles sticking up from the ground like teeth, built to be tank barriers. In the months since the Allies landed in Normandy, the wall had been reinforced as a last line of defense against the invading army. “I thought I could hire someone to take me. I ... I have some money.” I looked at him through my eyelashes, and even through the dirt and filth of the past few days, my feminine wiles must have been working because I distinctly saw his face flush in the low light.
“How much?”
I named a sum that was respectable but not outrageous.
He hesitated and seemed to be wavering between the call of the money and his job, which should be to turn me in to the local police. I prayed he would take the money. I had no interest in shooting an innocent boy, but if it came to it, I wouldn’t hesitate to use the weapon to save my own life.
“Follow me, and stay close. Don’t talk.”
He turned, but I caught his sleeve. “Where are we going?”
“To the river.” He shrugged off my hand.
We picked our way through debris-strewn streets of a residential part of town, some of the homes blackened and burnt to a skeleton of what they once were, others with shattered windows missing large chunks as if a giant had taken a bite out of them.
He came to an abrupt standstill, barring my way with his arm. “Wait here,” he said and disappeared around the end of the building.
I heard a quiet murmuring of voices and laid my head against the rough wooden siding, allowing my eyes to close for a moment. I wasn’t sure if Oskar was aiding me or taking me to the police station to turn me in, but I couldn’t pass up the possibility that he had been swayed by my sob story and took pity on my plight. Besides, I still had the .38 wrapped in my hand ready to pull it out at a moment’s notice.
“Come on. No time for sleep. You wish to see your sister?”
My eyes snapped open to find Oskar unexpectedly close.
We wound through dubious side streets until we reached a patch of trees, and then mounds of concrete were in front of us. Oskar must have known where the bunkers were, because he wove us in and out, ducking behind this one and that, through some barbed wire that had already been cut, and we tiptoed between flooded trenches. Clearly this path wasn’t a first for my new friend as he remained surefooted, moving us quickly without a backward glance. A hundred meters past the wall, the river opened up in front of me.
The frigid waters of the Rhine darkly snaked northward as it made its run downhill from the Alps through the valley of the Rhineland and would ultimately culminate at the mouth of the Nordsee. My guide paused, searching the darkness before starting down a set of steps onto the embankment. He motioned me to my knees, and we followed the bulkhead, crawling like babies until coming upon a short dock. The end of the dock revealed a dark shape that took the form of a low-slung wooden rowboat.
“You pay now.”
“Whose boat is this?”
“It was my uncle’s. He was killed in battle.”
Speaking of battle, shelling could be heard to our north, and in the distance rose the glow of angry fire.
I looked at the tiny boat, then back at Oskar. “I’ll pay you half now, half when we reach the other side.”
He shook his head. “You’ll take the boat yourself. Straight across is a beach. Pull the boat up to the trees and hide it. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“You will need to watch out. There are patrols and soldiers. It is very dangerous once you cross over.”
“What about the boat? Don’t you need it?”
“Hide it, and bring your sister back with you. At midnight, three days from now, I’ll signal with the flashlight if it is safe to cross. Three short flashes. You understand?”
“What if I haven’t found her by then?” As soon as the question popped out of my mouth, I realized how silly it was, but a master stroke to allay any fears Oskar might have had of my intentions.
He shrugged. “Three days. That is all I can promise. The radio transmissions say the enemy is moving forward every day. We are not sure if the military can hold this position.”
“Why are you helping me? You could get into big trouble for this ... if the Gestapo finds out...” I didn’t have to finish my sentence; we both knew what the Gestapo was capable of.
For a moment he didn’t answer. “I have a little sister. If she were in trouble ... I would do anything to save her.”
Guilt over dragging this innocent boy into my lies clawed at me. “If anyone asks, you don’t know what happened to the boat. Say it was stolen, and don’t come back. The signal is too dangerous. Stay away.”
I pressed the money into his hand.
“I will be here. Three days.” Then he helped me down to the rickety boat.
My feet landed in a puddle of water. “I think it’s leaking.”
“Row fast.”
I gazed up at the boy to find white teeth bright against the darkness.
“It’s not leaking. It’s a boat. There is going to be water.” He showed me how to lock the oars into place. “The current is strong. Row upstream to counteract it. You want to land straight across; it is the safest location. Do you see that bridge? Do not allow the boat to drift that far downstream. There are big lights and machine guns on that bridge and they will shoot you. Understand?”
I gulped and nodded.
“Viel Glück. Remember, beware of the current. Upstream.” He wished me luck, pointed with his finger, and gave a shove with his boot.
He wasn’t kidding. By the time I reached the far side of the river, my arms were limp as cooked spaghetti noodles and my hands like raw meat. Even with the mittens on, I could feel the burn of painful blisters rubbing against the rough material. I barely had the strength to navigate the last few meters, and the berthing was anything but quiet. One of the oars whacked against a jutting rock, jerking it out of my hand and slamming into my breast. I couldn’t hold back a yelp of pain as I clutched a hand against the injury. There was little time to process what happened. A moment later, the boat grated against the sandy bottom and came to a standstill. The other end still bobbed in the wake of the tide, and, fearful that I’d be pulled back out into the current, I clambered out the front and pulled with all my might on the bowline to tug the vessel out of the water far enough ashore. After it was almost completely out of the river, I collapsed onto the pebbly sand on my hands and knees.
My breaths came out in shallow pants between clenched teeth, and I fought against the misery. My body was so overwhelmed by pain and exhaustion. Feet wet and cold as ice cubes were in direct contrast to my hands hot with blisters, my arms and shoulders burning with fatigue. As I drew in each breath, my chest throbbed, and the ache in my head that started during the chaotic truck ride ratcheted up another notch. My gut twisted and I heaved. There was so little left in my stomach it was mostly bile. When the retching finished, I rested my head against the boat’s frame, stretched my feet out, and pulled off the mittens to blow gently across the blisters. That tiniest bit of pain relief calmed my nerves. In a few minutes, my muscles relaxed and my breathing leveled out. The dampness of sweat now cooled against my feverish skin.
Eventually, I dozed listening to the flow of water, the creak of another boat moored nearby, and the grate of my own vessel against the sandy shoreline. No explosions, gunshots, or mortar fire could be heard. For once the war was quiet, almost peaceful.
The initial comfort of cooling perspiration turned into chilly goose bumps, and a shiver ran through my body, bringing me fully awake. Sunrise couldn’t be far off, and I wanted to be farther inland, past the Maginot Line, when it did. Knowing I’d never return to it, like poor Oskar believed, I left the boat and crawled up the short beach once again into the relative comfort of the trees.
Except for the fact that I was in France, I had absolutely no idea where I was. The current had been much stronger than Oskar led me to believe, and I was a kilometer, or more, downriver from where I’d started. Either the machine gunners Oskar mentioned had been asleep or they simply weren’t expecting someone to cross from Germany into France. The enemy would be expected to come from the opposite direction. What fool would be heading into the fray?
I walked, or stumbled would be a better way to describe the next period of time. Too exhausted to try to find a footbridge, I’d gotten soaked up to my thighs walking through a canal that ran parallel to the Rhine. The freezing waters bit at my skin, and the fluffy, innocuous snow flurries that had drifted down from the skies through the night turned smaller and began falling at a steady rate. My body shook and shuddered and my teeth chattered uncontrollably. My mind began to drift in and out of reality as I dragged my frigid, shattered frame onward, finally collapsing in a doorway of some sort.
I heard an exclamation and responded in the same tongue. “Aide-moi!”
There was heated whispering, and then my arms were pulled above my head and my body dragged over the threshold before the door closed with a snap. The next bit was a blur, recalled only in snatches of memory. A stooped figure helped me down a flight of stairs into a windowless room lit by a small, glowing brazier. Callused, work-worn fingers grasped at my coat, and I was stripped of my wretched wet clothes. A scratchy warm blanket wrapped around my body and weak tea forced down my throat, much of it splashing on the blanket.
“Merci,” I remember mumbling right before the bliss of oblivion enveloped me.