CHAPTER 1   

If you land at night and are not badly injured, count your blessings.”

Second Lieutenant Peter Trent could not fathom why he was muttering the opening lines of the guide for avoiding capture provided to British flight crews. He was American after all and had certainly received similar training. But he had spent the better part of the previous evening in a pub with Tommy Johnstone, a gunner with the Royal Air Force. He and Tommy had a lot in common. They were the same rank. They were the same age—twenty-seven—older than most of the rest of the guys on their crews. They were both facing their first mission over enemy territory. Tommy’s flight was scheduled to go out at night, but generally Americans did not bomb by night. When Tommy heard this, he began quoting the guidebook.

Pay attention to what I say, Petey, because you are going to have to be one lucky bloke not to get shot down flying in broad daylight, he had warned. Peter had laughed off Tommy’s dire prediction and wished him well as they both headed off to get some sleep. On the other hand, maybe he should have paid closer attention, for at the moment he was free-falling through the air on a collision course with a fallow field below and wishing he could remember more details of Tommy’s refresher course in survival tactics. He was all too aware that the force of his landing even after he activated his chute would be a little like jumping out a second-story window. Add to that the fact that he was pretty sure one of the Nazi bullets had hit his leg, and there was little doubt that this was going to be painful.

When the pilot, Captain Jack Walker, had ordered the crew to abandon the plane after it filled with smoke, Peter had waited his turn and then leaped out just as he had practiced the move dozens of times. But, the force of the leap flipped him onto his back. Now he was straining to look over his shoulder in order to judge how fast he was falling and when to pull the parachute’s rip cord. He and the rest of the crew had successfully dropped their load over Frankfurt and were on their way back to base when they’d been hit from below by antiaircraft artillery. Unfortunately, a photoflash bomb used so that planes engaged in night photography reconnaissance need not be limited to low altitude was still on board. Why they had had the thing on a daylight mission was a mystery to Peter. But the photoflash bomb had been the source of the fire that they’d used every available extinguisher on board to try and control.

They had failed. Under the best of circumstances, these flash bombs required extreme caution when handled. They were so sensitive that the change in temperature could set them off. In the case of antiaircraft fire pelting the plane, the bomb going off and starting the fire that swept through the bay was a sure thing. Matters were only made worse when the gunner Haversole—a wet-behind-the-ears kid determined to be a hero—decided to open the bomb doors in hopes of pushing the thing out. The rush of air served as fuel for the fire, and before they knew what was happening, acrid smoke had filled the cabin. More ground fire targeted the plane, and this time the bullets had found their mark—killing Haversole and at least grazing Peter’s leg. The crew had tried everything to contain the damage, but finally the pilot had given the order to bail out.

Because it was still light—the sun just setting beyond a line of trees—Peter knew that although his fingers were itching to pull the cord, he had to wait until the very last moment to do so or risk being spotted by German ground forces. Given what he knew of their flight plan, he judged he was somewhere over Belgium, but that country—like most of Western Europe—was occupied by the Nazis. Of course there were other dangers as well—power lines, trees where his chute might get entangled and leave him dangling like a sitting duck for a Kraut with a rifle. He forced himself to focus on the positive and mentally schooled himself in the actions he would need to take once he made it down safely. Get rid of the chute and start moving—fast.

His head felt as if it were on a swivel as he looked wildly around and below him. Off to his left and several yards below was Simpson, the plane’s navigator. He, too, was no more than a kid—a scared kid—and Peter could see that he’d panicked and opened his parachute too soon. He was headed for a cluster of trees.

An explosion to his right drew Peter’s attention to the west where he saw the plane already in flames hit the frozen ground hard and then erupt in a fireball. He knew there was no way Walker would have abandoned the plane even once the rest of the crew bailed out. He would have done everything possible to put distance between his crew and the wreckage, knowing the Germans would go first to the wreckage to search for survivors.

Peter squeezed his eyes shut and sent up a prayer for mercy for Walker and the others then forced his attention back to the issue at hand—his own safe landing. Turning his head to the right, he strained to look over his shoulder and saw a road and some power lines. If he hit the power lines, he could be killed instantly. The hard earth was racing up to meet him. He twisted his face to one side, closed his eyes, and pulled the rip cord, feeling the power of the released parachute as the force of it rushed past his face and it ballooned above him, slowing his descent with a jolt of the harness and flipping him so that he was now facing the ground. Not thirty seconds later he landed—hard—with his wounded leg twisted at an unnatural angle beneath him. Grimacing against the pain that threatened to overwhelm him, he fumbled to unfasten the harness and shrug free of it, all the while pulling the still-billowing silk of the parachute to him and wadding it into a tight ball as quickly as possible. He also shrugged out of his flight suit and stowed it with his headgear in the wad of the parachute.

He performed these actions automatically as he studied his surroundings. The sun was low in the sky, partially obliterated by a line of gray clouds that threatened snow. He was grateful for the realization that in a matter of minutes what sun there was would slip below the horizon and dusk would cover his movements. He needed to wait for full darkness.

The field had been plowed, but the ground was frozen solid and rock hard. A haystack stood maybe ten yards from him. Clutching the balled-up chute in one arm and using the other as a kind of crutch, he dragged himself inch by painful inch toward the haystack. Along the way he paused often, taking time to check to be sure that the frozen ground showed no signs of his journey. By the time he reached his destination, he was sweating profusely in spite of the temperature that had to be below freezing. And he was pretty sure he had lost a good amount of blood.

The sun was gone, leaving him very little time to get his bearings before he was enveloped in total darkness. He opened his escape kit, or “evasion purse,” as it was called. It contained maps for the areas the crew would fly over as well as a little money, although given that he wasn’t sure where he was, it was difficult to know if the money would do him any good.

Of more importance were the photographs of him taken in civilian garb that could be used to create false identity papers. There were also cards printed in various languages that read, “I am an American, and misfortune forces me to seek your assistance.” These could be used to communicate with locals and offered a reward to anyone who provided such assistance. Finally, every kit was stocked with Benzedrine tablets to give the downed airman the energy he would need to focus on his escape. Peter popped a couple of these tablets into his mouth and then set to work. He figured he had as little as ten minutes or—if luck was with him—perhaps as much as twenty before the Germans would start heading his way. With both hands, he gouged out a section of the hay and stuffed the parachute inside. He also abandoned his helmet and goggles and considered continuing to hollow out the hay so that he, too, could hide inside but soon realized the effort was pointless. The haystack was frozen stiff, and his hands already felt raw and frozen in spite of his gloves. It was all he could manage to carve out a space deep enough to stuff the parachute and other items.

Gasping the way he had in basic training after running drills with a thirty-pound pack on his back, he leaned against the haystack and considered his next move. His head spun with the instructions he’d received in training—stick to low-lying areas; stay near the edge of a forest or wall or hedge because it’s harder to see movement when background is dark. Remove wristwatch—a dead giveaway that he was not European.

He unfastened the leather strap of the watch his dad had given him the day he shipped out—his grandfather’s watch. Unzipping his flight suit, he stuffed it in one of his shirt pockets and buttoned the flap. Behind him was the road he’d spotted during his fall. A car passed, then a row of trucks, military by the shape and size of them and definitely not friendly. The trees where Simpson had landed were to his right, the telltale white of the parachute flapping in the wind, which was beginning to pick up. No sign of Simpson, but at the moment Peter couldn’t worry about that. All he could do was hope the kid had the good sense to unhook his harness and separate himself from the chute even though that would mean free-falling several feet.

For Simpson and the rest—as well as for him—the race was on. Who would reach them first? Friendly locals or the Germans? Locals were less likely. The punishment for aiding the enemy—in this case, Peter—was death. He couldn’t take a chance that some farmer or villager was willing to risk that. He needed to find someplace to hide. Even with the moon fighting with clouds to shine its light, Peter knew that a parachute in the trees would be as good as a flare and bring the Nazis to investigate. If Simpson wasn’t already free of the contraption—or dead—the Germans would surely finish the job and then start looking for other survivors.

In the distance another convoy of trucks passed. They were moving fast and headed in the direction of the downed plane. Once they realized the crew had jumped, it wouldn’t be long until they fanned out in a search. Instinctively, Peter tried pulling his knees close to his body to make himself as small and unnoticeable as possible. But the action sent a shot of pain down his leg so powerful that he had to bite his dog tags to keep from crying out.

Dog tags—keep them safe. If he was captured wearing them, the Germans would supposedly deal with him according to international rules regarding the treatment of captured enemy personnel. Without them he could be labeled a spy or traitor and tortured or worse.

He wondered if on top of the gunshot wound he had broken his leg in the fall. If so, then what? Across the field he saw a ring of light and knew that the trucks had circled the downed wreckage and turned their headlights on to make it easier to assess the situation. Sooner or later …

Ice cracked close by. Too close. He recalled puddles that had formed in the ruts and furrows of the field—puddles covered with a thin coating of ice. Puddles he had deliberately avoided so that they didn’t break and form a trail right to him.

Peter cast about for something he might use as a weapon. His fingers closed around a rock the size of a baseball. Back home he’d played first base, and he had a good arm.

“Mister?” The whisper came from his left. He hefted the rock and turned to face a boy of no more than eight or ten. “Can you walk?” The kid was down on all fours inching his way around the haystack. The fact that he spoke at least some English albeit with a heavy accent of some sort put Peter on guard. Could be a trick to gain his trust.

He wasn’t about to admit that he not only couldn’t walk but wasn’t sure if he could move at all. The leg was stiffening up, and he was in a lot of pain and starting to fear that he might actually black out. He clenched the rock a little tighter as the kid closed in on him, glancing over his shoulder toward the ring of trucks around the wreckage of the plane. The boy pointed toward a thicket of shrubs. “We’ll get you over there, and I’ll go for help,” he said more to himself than to Peter. “Mama will know what to do.” He pronounced Mama with the accent on the second syllable. “Come on,” he instructed as he started to crawl toward the shrubs. When he realized that Peter was not following him, he paused then stood up. “Okay, I’ll drag you.”

The idea would have made Peter smile under any other circumstances. The kid was skinny, almost frail-looking. There was no way he was going to drag Peter’s six-foot-two, 185-pound frame to safety.

“Go for help,” Peter said, his voice husky from both the smoke in the plane and now the cold. He fumbled with the first-aid kit that was standard issue as part of his gear. Inside was a syringe with morphine. This seemed as good a time as any to use it.

The kid stood up and came back to him, watching him as he gave himself the pain medication. “You can’t stay here, mister.” Without warning, he stepped behind Peter and thrust both his arms under Peter’s armpits. “Use your good leg to push,” he grunted as he tugged on Peter’s upper body.

“Let go,” Peter whispered. “I can do this.” He jammed the syringe into the haystack so it wouldn’t be discovered; then he used the roll of bandages to fashion a tourniquet. Next he braced his palms flat behind him. Pushing off with his good foot, he scooted along the frozen field as the boy hovered nearby to show the way and apparently play cheerleader.

“Almost there, mister.”

“Just a few more meters, mister.”

The kid scrambled ahead, and Peter heard the snap of some branches and the rustle of dried leaves. “In here,” the boy said.

Peter gave his body one great heave and once again felt himself falling—this time into a ditch. He was lying in half an inch of cold water—the ice that had covered it floating around him. He caught a piece and pressed it to his lips to stem the incredible thirst he felt. The smell of wet decaying leaves surrounded him, and he surrendered to the pain and exhaustion and closed his eyes. The last thing he remembered was the kid covering him with branches that smelled like his mother’s cedar chest and the sounds of truck engines revving in the distance and a man’s voice barking out orders in German. It was the eleventh of November. In two weeks, Peter would be twenty-eight years old. His fellow crew members had jokingly referred to him as the Old Man. He had to wonder just where he would spend that birthday—if he made it out of this mess alive.

Anja Jensen Steinberg—a last name she had surrendered to the need for anonymity and the protection of her son—sat on the train, staring out into the gathering darkness. The journey from Brussels to the village where her grandparents Olaf and Ailsa Jensen had their farm could take as little as an hour or as long as four to six hours, depending on whether their train was forced to sit on a side track so that some German general or a trainload of German troops could have preference. The idea that their business was of more importance than her chance to spend twenty-four blessed hours with her eight-year-old son, Daniel, annoyed her. During the week Daniel lived in the orphanage where he had been taken when they had fled Munich and he and Anja had been separated. There he attended classes while she worked at the hospital in Brussels. He spent weekends and holidays on the farm. So much had changed for all of them in just a year.

This time last year she had been Anja Steinberg, running for her life across Poland—her husband and daughter murdered by the Nazis, her son’s whereabouts unknown. Along with her friends Beth and Josef Buch, she had escaped from the notorious Sobibor death camp and eventually made it to her home on the island of Bornholm off the coast of Denmark where she had abandoned her married name and gotten new identity papers—forged—for herself, using her family name of Jensen. Once she learned that Daniel was alive and discovered his whereabouts, she procured forged papers for him as well. She had no doubt that her late husband would not only approve but would have encouraged her to do whatever was necessary to keep herself and their son safe. She, along with Beth and Josef, had been advised to stick as close as possible to their given names. Both Anja and Jensen were common names in Denmark. For Josef and Beth it had been a bit more complicated. Beth became Lisbeth, and Josef kept his given name but changed the spelling of his surname to Buchermann. So far they had all survived without anyone questioning them or their forged identity papers.

When they first arrived on Bornholm, it seemed as if they might have found a place where they could wait out the end of the war. The news was better than it had been when they were all living in Munich and certainly gave them more hope than they had dared to entertain for even an instant while imprisoned at the Nazi extermination camp in eastern Poland. In those precious weeks on the island that held so many happy memories for her, they had enjoyed an almost normal life. Beth and Josef had married, and Anja had received the best gift of all—the news that her son was safe in an orphanage run by an order of nuns just outside Brussels. Immediately she had begun making plans to bring him to Bornholm.

But shortly after that, they learned that it was no longer safe for them to remain on the island. The Nazi presence was growing because Hitler’s regime had decided to work there in secret on the development of an atomic bomb. Everyone on the island had been subjected to interrogation—their backgrounds and identity documents thoroughly checked. As an escapee from Sobibor, she was still being hunted, and as Anja knew all too well, the Nazis prided themselves on leaving no loose ends. Even in their small village, it was impossible to know who might betray them.

Armed with their new identity papers, Anja and her grandparents had fled their homeland for Belgium. Beth and Josef had followed a few months later after they learned they were expecting their first child. Not that Belgium was any safer. They lived hour to hour in the knowledge that at any moment they might be arrested. But it was easier to remain undiscovered in a larger city or in the isolated countryside where no one knew them than it was on an island where no matter what name they used the locals would know them by sight. And truly the only thing that mattered for Anja was that Daniel had a safe place to be with the nuns at the orphanage. The opportunity to spend even an hour with him was worth everything to her.

Still, once they settled in Belgium where her grandparents managed a small farm while she secured work as a nurse in Brussels, Anja was not content to simply lie low and wait for the war to end. Raised in the faith of the Society of Friends—Quakers like her friend Lisbeth—she was determined to do whatever she could to help others. In a time of war, such charity could get her arrested or shot. Working with Lisbeth and her husband, Josef—who had also adopted the Quaker faith—she had joined one of several underground organizations that ran escape lines for Allied airmen whose planes had been shot down over occupied Europe.

Although Josef was a doctor, he and Beth had decided that opening a small café in Brussels gave them more anonymity. The Gestapo would be looking for a doctor—they wanted Josef for more than his escape from Sobibor. They also wanted him for the connection he’d had to the White Rose resistance movement back in Munich—a group of German medical students who had dared to speak out against the Reich and in several cases paid for their actions with their lives. That did not deter Josef. He was determined to continue to do whatever he could to defeat what he viewed as a bunch of thugs who had taken control of his beloved homeland. It was through Josef and his connection to others in the Resistance that Anja had become involved. As perilous as it was for her, Anja had also felt called to take a stand against the evil forces that had taken the lives of her husband and daughter and made life a hell of uncertainty and fear for her son and her grandparents.

Her volunteer work with the Friends War Victims Relief Committee gave her a good cover for carrying food and messages to the safe houses the network had established in Brussels and the surrounding countryside. These were apartments, farmhouses, and in one case the country home of a wealthy beer baron where fugitives could stay until they could be safely moved to the next place. It was Anja’s job to secure safe houses, clothing, false documents, and food for the “evaders,” as those who had not been captured were called. The escape line ran for thousands of kilometers all the way from Belgium through occupied France, across the Pyrenees Mountains, and on to Spain, where the government walked a tightrope between appeasing the Nazis and trying to stay on the good side of the Allies. If the airmen managed to reach the British embassy in Madrid, they had a good chance of making it back to England.

In spite of Anja’s protests, her grandparents as well as Lisbeth had insisted on doing their part. Ailsa collected clothing from neighbors, telling them it was for those refugees who had fled their homes with nothing. Olaf had used his horse-drawn cart to move Allied airmen from the farm to town and the next safe house under the guise of bringing goods to market. Meanwhile, Josef had used his medical skills to treat wounds the evaders might have sustained as well as the colds and viruses they developed from having to hide outside in the cold.

As an American, Lisbeth should have gone home years earlier when the Nazis were allowing foreigners to leave, but instead she had given her passport to a woman she knew only slightly—a Jewish woman who would surely have been arrested and sent to one of the camps if she had stayed. Even after Josef had gotten her papers replaced, Lisbeth had continued to defy the government. Once she had literally saved Anja and her family. In fact, it was indirectly because of Lisbeth—and Josef—that Daniel had ended up safe in the orphanage. Anja shuddered to think what might have happened without their help.

The train from Brussels chugged on, unencumbered by the need to stop and wait. Outside it was completely dark. Anja was bone weary from working a double shift at the hospital and being up most of the last few nights moving the latest group of Canadians from one safe house to another, making sure they had the right clothes and identity papers, quieting their nerves about the necessity of being separated for the next leg of their journey into France, and reminding them again and again about the tricks Gestapo agents often used to catch an evader.

“They will ask for your documents, examine them, and all the while make conversation to each other in German. And then all of a sudden as they hand back your papers, they will say in English, ‘Have a good journey.’ Your instinct will be to say, ‘Thank you,’ but you must feign confusion as if you have no idea what they spoke in English. Otherwise you are caught.”

Every time she turned a group of these young airmen over to the next contact on the line, Anja worried. They were so young, so very trusting, so very afraid. And every time she knew that their fate was now in the hands of others—people whose names even she did not know because the danger was so great and it was better to have less information in case she was brought in for questioning—and she prayed again. She remembered all the young airmen she had encountered—their names, their faces, their stories. They shared a great deal with her on those occasions when she visited to bring them food or clothing or news. They were very eager to talk once they realized she spoke English. Most of the locals providing hiding places did not. So many stories. This one was supposed to marry his childhood sweetheart, and he was having second thoughts. Another was determined to make it back alive so that he could start a business. A third just wanted to get home so he could see his son—born in his absence.

Some of them were out there now. They might be walking through the fields she was passing or riding one of the bicycles the underground kept for them to use as they went from one village to the next. Some of them might be on this very train—crammed with her and other locals into the rear cars because the Nazis had taken over several cars for their exclusive use.

She rested her forehead against the window as she felt the train round a curve and the sleeping woman sitting next to her press against her. The train was crowded with people like her—men and women who worked in the city and made the journey home to the farms to visit family and help out whenever they could. All around her passengers clutched paper sacks or boxes wrapped with brown paper and string that no doubt held some special treat they had been able to get for their family—extra rations, a candy bar for the children, cigarettes or pipe tobacco, perhaps a piece of linen or lace. In her bag she carried a single orange for Daniel.

As the train wheezed and belched to a stop in the station, Anja waited for other passengers to press forward and fill the exits. Then she gathered her things and walked slowly to the door at the rear of her car. A railway worker was busy unloading luggage as she stepped onto the station platform. He wheeled his loaded cart past her, and as he did he slipped her a folded scrap of paper. They said nothing. Neither did they so much as make eye contact. But they knew one another. He was Mikel Sabarte, a refugee from the Basque region of Spain, a guide on the escape line, and a man who Anja suspected was in love with her.

They shared much in common. While Hitler had a particular hatred of Jews—including Anja’s late husband—the dictator of Spain, Francisco Franco, had that same hatred of the Basque people. Once he took power, the Basques living in Spain along the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains were stripped of all political autonomy and rights. Those who dared to stand up and speak out—and many who did not—were imprisoned or killed. In 1937 Franco requested that Guernica—Mikel’s hometown—be bombed by the Germans. Several hundred civilians, including most of Mikel’s family, died, and he fled to the mountains.

Like Anja, Mikel had lost those dearest to him. Like her, he had been forced from his home. Like her, he was on the run and always aware that at any moment capture could occur. But unlike Anja, Mikel had little hope for the future—his or anyone else’s. He was a dark, brooding man who had once told her that he found her search for some Inner Light to be sad and stupid. “There is no God,” he had argued. “Do you think God would allow this?”

But Anja held firmly to her belief in God’s breath within every human being—even dictators. The Light was there. It was up to each person to bring it to the fore.

Now as she glanced quickly at other passengers and railway employees along the platform, she slid the scrap of paper inside her glove. She hoisted her bag higher on her shoulder as she crossed the platform past the rack of bikes lined up and waiting for their owners to claim them. Dumping her bag in the willow basket of one, she steered the bike away from the station where German soldiers prowled the platform, smoking and laughing as they waited to board the train. Among them were three men wearing the uniform of the dreaded Nazi secret police—the Gestapo.

She walked her bicycle past them. One of them glanced her way and dismissed her as their kind usually did. Her protection came in two forms: she wore the uniform of a nurse, and she was so petite that she often passed for a mere girl rather than a woman of twenty-six who had seen her husband and daughter murdered and who even now carried incriminating information that could get her arrested.

Her job was to pass the scrap of paper on to the local baker, who was just closing up his shop for the night. As she parked her bicycle, she waved to the baker, who waved back and went behind the counter. When she entered the shop, he handed her a loaf of bread. It was hard as a rock, and because rationing limited the baker’s resources, she knew the inside would be gray, gluey, and tasteless, but the baker had clearly made the bread that day especially for her and her family. She handed him a coin and the scrap of paper.

They made small talk while he glanced at the paper and handed her some change. All of this in spite of the fact that they were alone in the shop. One never knew when someone might be watching from the street. Using the house number as code, he gave her news about a compromised safe house. “But all’s well that ends well,” he said. “No one was home.”

“I know a place near the farm and—”

He laughed heartily as if she had made a joke then walked her to the door and turned the sign to show that the shop was closed. But under his breath he told her his news.

“A plane went down near your grandfather’s farm … Americans. Search is on. Take care, little one.”

Now Anja pedaled frantically. If the plane had crashed in her grandfather’s field, then the first place the Germans would come would be to their house. They would ransack the house despite Olaf and Ailsa’s protests that no evaders were hiding there. They might even burn the outbuildings—simply because they could. They would certainly take any food supplies they found in the search as spoils of war and their due as conquerors. They would surely terrify Daniel, who also lived with the memory of seeing his father arrested and knowing that his sister had been murdered even as the stranger at his side—a contact of Josef’s—had steered him into the shadows, protecting him and eventually getting him to safety.

And what if one or more of the survivors from the plane had found their way to the farm—unbeknownst to Olaf? What if even now a man was hiding in the loft of the barn or in the shed behind the house that doubled as a stable for her grandfather’s horse? What if …

Anja blinked, unwilling to believe what she was seeing ahead of her on the side of the road. The sky was dark, but the moon played hides-and-seek through the drifting clouds. Suddenly it broke free and shone onto a cluster of trees. Not just any trees. These trees were covered in a white shroud that blew and flapped in the winter wind. And beneath the bare, outstretched tree branches something more—something heavy and dark—swayed slowly.

A body. A man.

He had been shot several times as he hung there helpless. Had he died in the fall or faced his killers and known his fate?

Anja’s legs felt like lead as she slowly pedaled past. To stop and try to cut the man down and give him some proper respect even in death was of little use. If someone saw and reported her, she could be arrested. The Nazis had left him hanging there purposely—as a warning. Oh, how she hated this war—all war. All violence. There had to be something—some way that she and those she worked with could prove the pointlessness of such carnage.

She pedaled on, her legs heavy with weariness as she prayed for the enlightenment of her faith, that faith that taught her to believe that there was good in every person—or at least the potential for good in every person. Those raised in the tradition of the Society of Friends believed that every person came into the world in possession of an Inner Light—a light that came directly from God, that was the very soul and spirit of their being. The challenge each person faced in life was to connect with that light and spirit, to live life guided from within. To hold others in that light.

She smelled the lingering stench of oil, charred wreckage, and gasoline and knew that the downed plane was nearby and still smoldering. Just ahead she saw the lane leading to the farm and in the farmyard a truck—its lights focused on her grandparents and her son as if they were on a stage. She saw a soldier guarding them with pointed rifle. And as she came closer, she heard the clatter of broken glass and splintered furniture as the guard’s cohorts rummaged through the house.

Sheer fury threatened to overwhelm her as she realized that Ailsa was shivering, having been forced from the house in her bedroom slippers and a thin sweater. She had wrapped her arms in the skirt of her apron for warmth. Olaf was wearing his work shoes—probably he had been feeding the livestock when the soldiers came. His shirtsleeves were still rolled to his elbows, as was his way when he worked with the animals. His head was bare, and the cold wind flattened the thin wisps of his white hair.

But it was Daniel who held her attention. He stood straight and tall facing the soldier. He was wearing the clothes he wore to school every day—wool pants, a shirt with threadbare collar and cuffs, and over that a heavy sweater that Ailsa had knitted for him. On his head he was wearing the beret that Mikel had given him.

“Halt!” a voice growled. The man guarding her family swiveled to point his weapon at her. Another soldier stepped out of the shadows behind her. He was also pointing a gun at her. She stepped off her bike and raised her hands.

“Mama!” Daniel ran to her, wrapping his arms around her waist. Both soldiers lowered their weapons. They exchanged a look, and then one of them herded her and Daniel back into the spotlight while the other one picked up her bike and rummaged through her bag. When he found the orange, he grinned and held it up as a trophy for the other soldier to see.

“That belongs to my son,” Anja said in perfect German.

The soldier hesitated, no doubt startled by her command of his language.

“Give it to the boy,” a man said, stepping into the light. He was clearly in charge. He wore the uniform of a Gestapo agent, complete with shiny black boots and a holstered handgun strapped to his side. He waited for his order to be obeyed then turned his attention to Anja.

“Fräulein,” he said politely. Then he began to speak to her in German. She knew that he was testing her, trying to determine just how well she spoke his language—and why. She answered his questions as truthfully as possible.

“I lived for a time in Munich.”

“I am Danish by birth.”

“These are my grandparents. My parents are dead.”

“I work for the Friends War Victims Relief Committee in Brussels.”

The officer studied her for a long moment. “This is your son?”

“Ja.”

“Where is your husband?”

She met his gaze directly but said nothing.

He frowned. “You have a husband and yet you carry the name of your grandparents?”

“In Denmark it is a common name.”

“Your husband then is a soldier?”

“We are of the Freunde Societe—we do not believe in your war.”

Did he need to know that her husband had been a Jew? Did he need to know that he had died in the street outside a synagogue? Did he need to know one more detail of her life?

The officer smiled. “It is hardly my war, Frau Jensen.”

“And yet you fight,” she replied quietly, her eyes never wavering from his.

His smile dissolved into a scowl, and he turned on his heel and approached the house, barking out orders to the soldier at the entrance. Within seconds the soldiers ransacking the house came running out. At the same time, those who had been searching the outbuildings emerged and ran double time to the canvas-covered truck. They climbed in the back—the last being the soldiers guarding Anja and her family.

The officer climbed into the passenger seat next to the driver and said something to him. Seconds later the taillights of the truck could be seen fading into the distance.

For the first time, Anja turned to look directly at her grandfather. He shook his head once, signaling that indeed there were no Americans hiding on the property. Then he followed his wife to the house and began picking up the overturned furniture while she swept up the shards of glass. Anja wrapped her arm around Daniel’s shoulders. “Put the bicycle away and then come help,” she said.

“Mama,” Daniel said in a whisper, casting a glance toward the house. “I know where one of them is hiding, and he is hurt. You must come.” He tugged at her arm.

“No Daniel, you—”

“I saw the plane come down, and I saw the man fall into our field. He hid his parachute in one of the haystacks, and I hid him in the ditch by the stream. We should bring a blanket and some way to carry him. He cannot walk.”

A rumble of more trucks on the road made Anja tremble with fear. What if someone had seen Daniel hiding the airman? What if the officer had known that a local boy had been seen dragging something across a field? What if—

“Mama? Come now. He must be cold and hungry, and I think he was in such pain.”

“Go help Momse and send Moffee out to me.” She was deliberate in her use of the terms of endearment for her grandparents. She hoped it would calm Daniel. “Tell Moffee to wear his jacket and gloves.”

“But—”

“Do as I say,” she snapped, her fear for what her son had done without a thought for his own safety making her irritable. Then she grabbed him and hugged him hard. “You did the right thing,” she told him, kissing his forehead. “Just never ever do something like that again. Promise me.”

“They did not see me, Mama. I was so very careful.”

He would not promise—he was that much like his father. And Anja understood that even as young as he was, the loss of his father and his sister made him want to—need to—do something.

“Go,” she said giving him a little push. And while she waited for her grandfather to join her, she tried to think about how they might move a full-grown man who was injured—possibly badly burned. And where were they going to hide him until she could arrange for him to be moved down the escape line and hopefully back to England?

Then she remembered the body hanging from the tree. What if the Nazis got to this man her son had found before she could?