War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 244

Chapter 22

A

sharp pain sliced at Richard and then the man holding him disappeared. Instinctively he raised his hand to his throat, feeling warm liquid running down his fingers. Barely able to see through his rage, he heard the Czechs leaving with their booty – and Katrina.

He shot up to go after them, but dizziness swayed him and he found himself back on the earth, one person holding him and a female voice saying, “Quick, give me something to dress the wound.”

A tearing sound and moments later the woman wrapped a piece of cloth around his neck. He stirred again, but she held him down and said, “You have to lie still. It’s only a surface cut, but it has to stop bleeding before you can get up.”

So he wouldn’t die just yet. Which meant he had to live with the torment of what he’d just allowed to happen.

“Katrina…” he whispered.

“Best to forget about her,” the woman said with averted eyes.

Forget?

How could he forget about the love of his life?

“We’ll leave after dawn and line up to cross the demarcation line. You’re welcome to come with us.” She cast him a sheepish smile. “You don’t have proper papers, am I right?”

Richard nodded resigned.

“Don’t worry, we’ll say you’re one of us. You’ll reach safety in no time at all.”

He didn’t say anything so as not to annoy the kind woman, but he wouldn’t sit idly by and escape to Germany while Katrina was murdered in town.

Someone put a cup of water into his hands and he greedily drank it, glad when the swallowing movement didn’t seem to tear open his fresh wound. At least the pulsating throb had stopped, and he assumed the cut had closed and wasn’t bleeding anymore. He could call himself lucky that the bandit hadn’t cut deeper into his throat.

At the command of the leader of the refugee trek, everyone packed their belongings for the imminent departure, wiped snotty noses, ordered children to stay in line and tethered babies to the haphazard vehicles.

Richard went to search for their rucksack and found it lying empty in the dirt. All their other possessions had been trampled to pieces and dispersed across the campgrounds. He couldn’t even find the water bottle, but he found a tiny pocketknife. It wasn’t much longer than his thumb and not an adequate replacement for the dagger he’d possessed, but it would surely come in handy one day. Then he slunk away from the group of Germans and followed the road the partisans had taken into Rokycany.

Dawn broke over the land and he could see the American flags wafting in the distance. Fear attacked him, holding him in its leaden grip, and for a moment his resolve to find Katrina softened. It would be so easy to return to the trekkers and cross the border with them. He’d be safe in their midst, free to search for his family. But at what cost? He’d never be able to look into the mirror again if he didn’t try and find Katrina. Hadn’t she been prepared to offer herself as payment for his freedom just weeks ago?

The moment of weakness passed and he hastened his steps, afraid he wouldn’t find the place where they publicly punished the collaborators.

He shouldn’t have worried, as even this early in the morning, a huge mass of cheering, shouting and brawling locals gathered at what seemed to be the main town square, next to the line where Americans and Russians each marked their conquered territories in Europe. He had the feeling that neither army would leave their newly acquired lands anytime soon.

Then he saw her and the cut in his throat began throbbing with the pulse of his rage. Katrina sat tethered to a chair, alongside two other women, forced to watch the Czech tormenters shear the first woman’s hair, rather viciously, with a butcher’s knife. The cheering crowd swallowed her screams.

When the knife-wielding pig turned toward Katrina, Richard balled his hands into fists. As her beautiful brunette hair fell down her sides, blood started streaming from the cuts on her bald head. Even from this distance he could see how she held back her tears and cries of pain, too proud to give the bastards the satisfaction of knowing they’d broken a defenseless woman.

Helplessly, he stood rooted to the ground and watched. When all the women had been shorn, they were unshackled from their chairs and led through the crowd, with their hands tied behind their backs. The crowd spat at the miserable souls and started chanting, “Hang they must! Hang they must!”

All the blood drained from Richard’s head and he must have looked paler than skim milk as he put his feet into motion, shoving through the crowd to reach Katrina.

“Hey! I was here first,” someone yelled, but Richard didn’t care and continued to elbow his way through to the woman he loved. Just when he’d reached her, a group of Russian soldiers stepped onto the podium and he breathed a sigh of relief.

But the soldiers didn’t think about restoring order and instead settled onto the chairs, enjoying a vantage point for the gallows on the other side of the square. Someone shoved at Richard, who lost his footing and stumbled against the man leading Katrina to the gallows.

“Get out of my way, brute!” the man hissed and stepped aside.

Seizing the moment, Richard lunged at Katrina and took her down with his fall, pressing the tiny pocketknife into her hands. He never managed to see her face, but he had to hide a proud smile when the knife disappeared in her palm within the blink of an eye.

“Sorry,” Richard said to her guard and faded back into the crowd as she was manhandled up and toward the gallows. Now… he watched… waited.

And prayed.

Katrina grasped the knife,

relishing the feel of the cold metal. She hadn’t been able to see the person who’d shoved it in her hand, but by the weight of his thin yet muscled body smashing hers she could have sworn it was Richard. It must be fear causing the sweet hallucination. Because that was impossible, since she’d seen with her own eyes how the Czech bastard had slit his throat.

Her soul had died back there in the camp and she’d barely noticed what the mob had done to her, her mind clouded with grief for the man she loved more than life itself.

But now, as a brute dragged her toward the gallows where a noose swung softly in the breeze as if inviting her to go on the swings, her fighting spirit woke anew, and she used to knife in her palm to cut through the rope tied around her wrists.

She had no idea what to do next or how to escape through a crowd of hostile people, but she would fight until her last breath. It wasn’t anymore her life alone that stood on the line. She placed a foot on the rickety stairs leading up to the deck, praying for an opportunity to flee.

“Come on, you whore. Get up here and pay for your crimes.”

Katrina felt like screaming at the God and the world. This couldn’t be possible. Bitter tears slid down her cheeks. What an irony of fate that she’d take her last breath with the safe haven of the American sector in sight.

As she reached the top deck, a shot rang through the air and the guards turned around to see who’d fired it. Katrina, though, didn’t waste a single second and dropped her bonds, jumping down from the deck even as one of the Russian soldiers complained, “Turn the bitches around, we want to see their faces when they take their last breath.”

In the ensuing tumult, nobody seemed to care about her as she ducked away. Her gaze fell on the shawl of an elderly woman and she ripped it off her shoulders, tying it into a headscarf over her bald patch.

She heard yelling and shouting as the men at the gallows noticed one of the women had gone missing, but she had already half-crawled to the end of the crowd and ran away from the town square as fast as she could.

The wounds on her head throbbing with every step she took, her heart pumping violently against her ribs, she finally reached the woods encircling the small town. Breathing hard, she flopped down against the trunk of a tree, listening to telltale footfalls of people searching for her.

She assumed they’d search for her on the other side of town, trying to escape across the border, so she decided to return to the campsite. Maybe she could at least bury Richard’s body and say good-bye to him before she decided what to do next.