War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 245

Chapter 23

R

ichard witnessed the commotion, and he very nearly strangled the despicable Russian soldiers with his own hands. Instead of restoring order as they were supposed to they had the nerve to complain that they didn’t get a prime view of the gruesome spectacle on stage.

He thought of Friedrich Schiller’s play

Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots

, who’d been beheaded, and about Henry VIII’s unfortunate wives Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, who’d been beheaded as well. It seemed to be a recurring pattern in history that public executions of those considered traitors attracted the masses and made for good entertainment.

A shudder crawled up his neck, but when he returned his eyes to the deck with the gallows, Katrina had vanished. The guards yelled in panic after their prisoner, but she’d slipped into the crowd and disappeared.

He couldn’t be sure she’d recognized him when he’d shoved the knife into her hands, because he hadn’t dared to even whisper a word for fear the guard would become suspicious.

Trying to find her current hideout was like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. What if he never found her again? His heart tightened painfully, and the thought chased away his breath.

It didn’t make for a good plan to linger in town and wait. If she had any sense, and she had a lot, she’d run as fast and as far as she could. The question was whether she’d stop to look for him and where.

Hoping she followed the same train of thought, he decided to return to the campsite where they’d spent the night. The nearer he came to it, the slower his steps became, as his heart filled with dread. Only trampled grass and broken things bearing witness to the happenings last night remained. Not a soul in sight.

In the distance he saw the American flag, indicating the demarcation line, but even that sight didn’t heighten his spirits. What use was freedom if Katrina wasn’t by his side? What if he crossed and could never return to reunite with her?

No, the safe haven had to wait. He’d stay in these hostile lands until he either found her or got captured by the Russians… or killed by the Czechs.

At the place where only hours ago he and Katrina had lain together, confident that the treacherous trip across eastern Europe was about to come to an end, he slumped to the ground and waited.

The sun climbed the sky and burnt down mercilessly on him, but he didn’t have the strength to get up and seek out the shadow of the trees further down the road. Instead he stretched out on the earth, his overtaxed brain smelling the lingering scent of Katrina and producing her sweet voice until he dozed off from sheer exhaustion.

Katrina reached the deserted campsite,

acutely aware of its emptiness. A haunted silence hung across the place and she couldn’t make herself walk any further. Instead she took a turn down to the shore of the lake to wash the blood and dirt from her head and face.

She carefully scrubbed the cuts on her bald head, grateful that the butchering barber hadn’t hurt her on purpose. Wandering around, she soon found some chamomile that she rubbed on her head for the disinfecting and healing properties it possessed. Then she tied the stolen shawl into a tidy headscarf and glanced at her reflection in the shallow water. Despite the budding bruise on her cheekbone, she looked like any farmwoman, and not like a shorn, shamed and narrowly escaped collaborator.

With a shudder she thought of the two other women and their fate. She hadn’t been able to save them and now guilt settled in her soul. Quickly she scrubbed her hands in the water as if she could wash the unsettling feeling away. After quenching her thirst, she glanced back at the campsite, which lay in silence. Soon more refugees would arrive, hoping and praying to reach the safety of Germany before someone decided to have fun torturing and killing them.

Despite everything the Nazis – and all of the Germans – had done to her country, her people, she still shunned the brutality of revenge; paying for blood with blood would only throw everyone deeper into desperation and chaos.

She would have to leave this place, before another group arrived. Danger loomed and threatened around every corner. What if the Czech bandits returned at night and recognized her? She sighed. Without Richard she had no intention of entering Germany. She’d be better off returning to her farm in Lodz and finding out if any of her brothers had survived the war. As much as she dreaded the several-hundred-mile walk back, she couldn’t stay here.

With new determination she got up, rubbed her stomach, smiled, and turned east. At least she’d have something of Richard with her, even though he was dead.

About two hundred yards down the road she heard a groan and she jumped, turning around. She squinted her eyes against the sun, but couldn’t see anything.

Probably just the branch of a bush in the wind.

I’m getting paranoid. There’s nobody following me. They assume I’m German so they won’t expect me to head east

.

Another growl cut through the air and she waged an internal war over running or investigating the sound. What if someone needed her help? Finally, she succumbed and walked to the place strewn with the broken things the refugees had left after the vicious attack last night.

Then she saw a body lying flat on the ground and her heart hammered staccato against her ribs. Reluctantly she approached the person until she recognized the tousled blond hair. Tears shot to her eyes, as she pondered the possibility that Richard wasn’t dead – yet.

Her feet running as fast as they could, she dropped by his side, holding her breath when she noticed the bandage around his neck. He didn’t move, not even when she felt for his pulse. Slow but strong.

“Richard, my darling, my love, you are alive!” She crushed his body with hers, unable to contain the joy and relief.

“Katrina? Sweetheart? Is this really you?” he whispered coarsely at the same time as he opened his eyes. The sound of her name on his lips was the sweetest thing she’d ever heard.

“Yes. Yes. Yes.”

He pressed the air from her lungs with his embrace. “Oh, my goodness, I thought I wouldn’t ever see you again.”

She moaned when he touched the bruises on her back.

“I’m sorry. I needed to hold you to make sure you’re not a ghost,” he apologized.

“I came close to becoming one today. But someone put a knife...” She cocked her head to scrutinize the familiar face with the beautiful blue eyes. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” He nodded, holding her gingerly. “You didn’t expect me to let you die without trying to save you, did you?”

A single tear slid down her cheek and she whispered, “I… I thought you were dead. That partisan, I saw him cut your throat.”

“The cut was only superficial, and one of the women dressed the wound.”

“I can see that.” She smiled at him. “Did she clean the wound?”

Richard’s chuckle turned into a grimace, caused by the pain he must feel when his throat stretched the skin on his neck. ”Yes, she did.”

Katrina’s sanity hung by a thin thread and she needed a distraction to cope with the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. Reverting to her role as healer, she used her best no-nonsense voice and pretended he was just another wounded soldier. “Did she use chamomile or another medicinal herb to speed up the healing?”

“I have no idea.”

“Let me have a look.”

“I’m all yours.” Richard smiled and moved his head to give her better access.

She knew he was indulging her, because usually he teased her before he even considered letting her look at a scratch he considered nothing serious. Actually, he considered any wound short of a missing limb

not serious

.

A small smile stole its way onto her lips and she felt the tension in her body easing away. With nimble fingers she removed the dressing and scrutinized the wound.

“It looks like the woman has done good work, but I’ll cover the cut with chamomile leaves to prevent an infection.”

He didn’t say a word and only gritted his teeth harder when she dressed the wound again.

“Try not to swallow much for at least a day,” she said.

“That won’t be difficult, since we ran out of food days ago.”

The remark reminded her of her own growling stomach, but they had more important problems to address right now.

His hand found hers and he whispered, “Thank you. What about you?”

“What about me?” With her sorrow over him she had completely forgotten about her own battered condition.

“You must be hurt, too. I saw the barber…” He raised his hand to touch her face where the headscarf ended.

“It’s nothing, really,” she tried to reassure him, but the expression on his face made it clear he didn’t believe a single word. “Alright, it was a real mess, but I cleaned the cuts and put chamomile on them. With the scarf nobody is the wiser as to what happened.”

His hand lightly caressed her cheek and a finger tapped on her lips. “I know you’re putting on a brave face so I won’t worry. But I do worry about you. A lot.”

The tenderness in his voice threatened to break the dam of her unshed tears and she quickly shook her head and said, “You can worry later. Now we have to get going. I’m not waiting here like a sitting duck for the Czech bandits to return.”

“What do you suggest we do?” he asked.

“Stick to our original plan, of course. Crossing over into the American zone. We leave this very instant.” Her entire body hurt with every breath she took, but pain wouldn’t deter her from leaving this accursed region and its hateful citizens.