War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 239

Chapter 17

A

fter a seemingly endless journey, the ferry ride took less than half an hour. Richard and Katrina were spewed ashore, holding hands tightly for fear of getting separated and never finding each other again.

Richard pushed the bicycle along in the stream of bedraggled people, all of them focused on their common goal: crossing the border into the safety of Germany. Everyone had a horrific story to tell, and although few people voiced their atrocious experiences, Richard could tell by the haunted look in their eyes.

He squeezed Katrina’s hand tighter and said, “We need to get away from this crowd.”

The next morning they woke before dawn and set off, passing the other travelling groups one by one, until they reached the head of the trekkers and mounted the bicycle again. They made good progress along the comparatively good road, and while the pedaling strained his legs, his ribs seemed to hurt less and he could even breathe without difficulties. Every few hours they would trade positions and he relaxed his burning muscles while Katrina did the backbreaking work.

When it was his turn again, he kept his gaze peeled to the ground, steering the bicycle between potholes and the trash lying around.

“Look, there’s a sign!” Katrina shouted with excitement, all but causing him to lose balance as he looked up to decipher the rickety sign. It said, “Görlitz 10 Kilometers”.

“We’re almost there!” Katrina cried out in jubilation, pushing one arm high into the air.

Hope spread through his body, sending a warm feeling into every limb. Soon, they’d leave all this behind and find a place to settle down. He wondered whether he’d find his parents and sisters well and alive in their old apartment in Berlin.

He couldn’t wait to wrap each of his loved ones into his arms and share the events of the past years. It had been almost eighteen months since he’d last received a letter from his mother, back when he’d been deployed to the rear-echelon in Lodz. Before he’d asked his superior to be transferred to the front again… and before his life had taken a turn he still couldn’t get his head around.

“Hey! Watch out!” Katrina shouted just in time.

He swerved and steered the bicycle around a huge rock in the middle of the road. His heart thumping hard, he reminded himself to stay focused and not let his mind wander off to happier times.

Minutes later they encountered a bedraggled group walking east. Richard didn’t think much of it, but when more travellers moved toward them, he stopped and climbed from the saddle.

Katrina cast him a questioning glance but followed suit.

“I’m trying to find out what’s happening.” He shoved the bicycle into her hands and sidled up to a group of middle-aged women with a bunch of children. There he picked out the single old man who apparently was the head of the group.

“Excuse me, mein Herr, why are you going East?”

The man looked at him with tired eyes and said, “The border in Görlitz is closed. Bloody Ivan isn’t letting anyone cross the Neisse River, east or west. They say there are too many refugees already in the Soviet Zone. I saw it with my own eyes. There are hundreds of thousands stranded at the riverbank, unable to continue their journey.”

“And where are you going now?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Find a place to rest and then decide,” the man said.

“Isn’t there another place to cross the river further north?”

“Not that I know of. Rumor has it there’s no way but to swim across from here to Guben.” That wasn’t good news, but it could have been worse. From the town of Guben it wasn’t far to Berlin.

“Do you know anything about Berlin?” Richard asked, hoping to get valuable information.

“No good, young man. The entire city is locked down. No one is getting in or out. The Allies are still fighting over who gets the best parts of the capital.”

Richard couldn’t hide his disappointment and the man asked, “What’s your business there?”

“My family is in Berlin – if they’re still alive.”

“And you? Running away from the

Russenschreck

?”

Richard didn’t fully trust the stranger, since Wehrmacht deserters evading Soviet captivity and those who helped them awaited severe punishment, so he said, “No. I escaped from one of the Polish concentration camps,” leaving it unclear whether he meant a Nazi camp in Poland or the new camps where the Poles tortured Germans.

“If I were you, young man, I’d make over to the American sector. They treat our soldiers a lot better than the Ivan does.” The man obviously didn’t believe Richard’s ruse.

“I’m not a soldier…” Richard protested.

“You’re how old? Twenty? Prima facie evidence is against you. Unless you’re a homosexual, a Jew or a criminal. In that case I’d still prefer the Ami over the Ivan.”

“Thank you for the advice,” Richard said and slowed his pace. He turned on his heel and returned to where Katrina waited with the bicycle. He found her talking to a pair of young women, who quickly bid their goodbyes when he showed up.

“Who was that?” he asked.

Katrina grinned. “Just two women trying to buy the bicycle.”

“The old man said the border is closed.”

“I know.” She gestured for him to follow her and led him to a place several hundred yards away from the road. “We need to decide what to do next.”

Richard nodded, watching the never-ending stream of refugees pouring down to the riverbank, where it came to a stop. From their vantage point he could see a few soldiers guarding the bridge, while masses of people flocked to both sides of the river. So the old man had been right. No crossing allowed – neither east, nor west. Tens of thousands caught in limbo.

“Those women said the Russians are meticulously checking the papers of every male between fifteen and sixty, sending them into captivity if they can’t prove that they’ve never been drafted.”

“I heard the same. The old man suggested that we make a beeline for the American sector, since they treat our soldiers a lot better than the Russians do.”

“But they would still take you prisoner,” Katrina said, passing him the bottle of water.

“I know, but it would only be for a short while, maybe a few months…” Richard knew that after the last war, the belligerent nations had started sending captured soldiers home as soon as the peace treaty had been signed.

“You don’t know that. There’s talk about using prisoners of war to rebuild the infrastructure.”

“I don’t mind serving time or even working for the Allies a year or two, if it helps mending the damage we caused. Just look at the destroyed lands we’ve passed through. Cities in ruins, fields devastated, even the forest was scorched in places.” He’d never wanted to be a soldier, but like every one of his classmates, except for sickly, asthmatic Klaus, he’d been drafted the day he turned sixteen.

Shipped off to the Eastern front, he’d miraculously survived two years of gruesome battles, when so many others hadn’t. Being captured and almost hanged by the Polish partisans had been a blessing in disguise, because it had allowed him to lie low and wait out the war pretending to be a Polish farmer by Katrina’s side.

He’d never condoned the atrocities committed mostly by SS troops, but he’d never actively worked against Hitler either. He definitely shared responsibility for the destruction all round and felt a need to make up for it.

“If they take you prisoner, what about me?” Katrina’s feeble voice interrupted his thoughts.

“You? Nothing will happen to you. You’re a woman.” She had nothing to worry about. The Allies didn’t take civilians prisoner.

“But where will I go?”

Now it dawned on him. Since his family didn’t know her, didn’t have the slightest idea she even existed, they most likely wouldn’t take her in if she arrived on her own.

He scratched his beard. “I could write you a letter for my family. After you give it to them to read, they’ll take you in until I’m released.”

She cast him an indulgent smile that clearly said she doubted the plan would work. A Polish woman on her own, roaming Germany to find her boyfriend’s family. A family who didn’t even know she existed, her only proof a letter from him.

“Then I’d better not get captured,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“I’ll be sure to let the authorities know that you’d rather not be imprisoned.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

“Don’t worry so much. We’ll come up with something.” He passed the water bottle back to her. “Do we still have food?”

“We do. You can have a piece of dried meat.” She distributed the rations and then said, “But if we’re on the road much longer, we’re going to run out of food.”

He took out the worn map from his chest pocket and unfolded it. He drew a line with his finger from North to South, starting with Karlsbad in the Sudetenland to Pilsen and down to Budweis in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and said, “Apparently the Americans are here. They call it the demarcation line. It separates the American sector from the Russian sector.”

“That’s a long way,” Katrina said, bending over the sheet of paper to get a better view.

“Yes, we’d have to follow the Neisse River south until its source and cross into the Sudetenland.”

“I believe it’s now called Czechoslovakia.”

“Whatever the name, it used to belong to Germany and we should be safer there than in Poland.” Richard chewed on the dried meat; the small slice Katrina had assigned him barely stopped the vicious grumble in his stomach.

“But what will we do once we are in the American sector?” she asked, biting a piece from her own slice of meat.

“Berlin is off limits. We can’t go there.” Sorrow for his family flooded his heart. They might be stuck in what currently seemed to be the worst hellhole on earth.

“That’s what the two women told me as well. Nobody knows for how long, though.” She gazed at the last bite of her meat and then shoved it into his mouth.

“Thank you, sweetheart.” He knew he should have protested her sacrifice, but he was too hungry to even pretend. They sat a few minutes in silence, each one of them hanging onto their own thoughts.

“From Karlsbad it isn’t too far into Munich and we could go to my Aunt Lydia’s farm in Lower Bavaria. There we’ll be safe.”

“But won’t she mind the two of us imposing on her?” she asked.

He laughed. “You don’t know her. She and her husband have a big farm and she’ll probably be delighted at having more helping hands for harvesting season.”

Katrina made a pensive face and then said, “My grandparents used to hire lots of seasonal hands for harvest. But that was before my parents sold off most of the land and kept only the fields around the house.”

“Well, Lydia’s farm has several acres of fields and cows and pigs…” He was transported back to happy childhood days when he and his younger sister Lotte had spent the summers with Aunt Lydia and her ever-growing flock of children. He and Lotte had chased each other up the trees, played hide-and-seek in the forest, frolicked for hours in the nearby lake, and done everything children liked to do that adults weren’t supposed to know about.

“You’re smiling,” Katrina said.

“Yes, I had fun times with Aunt Lydia, Uncle Peter and their many children.”

“Peter?” Katrina’s eyes filled with sadness. He knew that she still hoped her own brother Piotr was alive. He’d been an officer in the Polish Army and disappeared weeks after Hitler’s invasion in 1939.

Richard reached for her hand and said, “I hope you’ll see him again.”

She dabbed at her eyes, taking a few moments to compose herself. “So we’ll try our luck reaching Karlsbad?”

“Yep.”

“How far is it?” She glanced at him.

On the map it looked small, about half the span of his hand. He calculated the distance in his head and said, “About one hundred fifty miles, give or take. Let’s ride a few more hours south and find a place to sleep away from all the people,” he suggested.

“That’s a good plan. We need to go to the river anyways and fill our bottle with water.”

He grinned. “Always better to do this upstream of a mass of defecating people.”

“Richard!” She playfully slapped him on his arm and he kissed her, taking the opportunity to whisper a sweet threat into her ear, “I can’t wait until we’re alone tonight and I’ll show you what happens to a bad girl who slaps her man.”

“We’re not married yet, mister! And I can slap you all I want for behaving badly.” She tried to keep a serious face but he could see the laughter in her eyes.

“Well, you haven’t seen me behave badly yet. But you will as soon as we’re under the cover of darkness.” He nibbled on her earlobe and pressed her chest against his to emphasize his words. The goosebumps breaking out on the skin of her neck made him yearn for the sun go down.