War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 263

Chapter 10

L

otte’s first sight of Denmark was the little fishing village of Hirtshals. But she would have disembarked from the ship anywhere, if only she could leave behind the rolling, jumping, and tilting monster. In her hurry to get off the vessel, she squeezed through the onslaught of military vehicles disembarking and didn’t look back until she reached the terra firma of the jetty.

As soon as she sensed land beneath her feet, the nausea dissolved in an instant as if it had never existed. Only her hungry stomach reminded her of the emptiness inside.

“Thank goodness we survived this trip through hell,” she said.

“Now you’re exaggerating. It wasn’t even a real storm,” one of the few women who hadn’t become seasick said.

“Well, if that was just a minor wind, I don’t want to experience a full-grown storm.” Lotte searched for a place to shelter, because the rain was coming down in buckets and her soaked uniform didn’t put up much resistance to the scathingly chilly wind.

Half an hour later, every vehicle had been unloaded and the ferry sailed away to collect another load. The soldiers had left with their companies, leaving the Wehrmachtshelferinnen alone, seemingly abandoned like castaways marooned on a desert island.

“How bleak this place is,” Gerlinde said, standing in the chilly waiting area at the harbor. The women around her agreed.

“It’s the weather that’s ugly,” Lotte added. “I’ll bet it’s lovely when the sun shines.” Her comment didn’t inspire cheer; instead glum faces expressed annoyance at Denmark’s hostile welcome.

“What are we supposed to do here anyway?” a black-haired young woman complained softly.

Oberführerin Littmann had been rushing up and down talking to every officer she could engage, to no avail. She finally returned to her girls and said, “Apparently nobody was advised of our arrival.”

None of them dared say a word, but the women looked at each other and Lotte saw her own thoughts mirrored in their eyes. What the Oberführerin had told them wasn’t the truth. More than one of the women had overheard snippets of talk and it was clear that the supreme commander in Denmark, General Georg Lindemann, had adamantly opposed any evacuation of troops, even female auxiliaries. About a week ago he’d announced that he would defend Denmark against every attack, from whichever side, to the last bullet and the last breath.

He considered the presence of the evacuated female auxiliaries a nuisance, even a hindrance to his continued war efforts. Their showing up here reminded the soldiers under his command that others had stopped the fighting already. Lotte suspected that the awful welcome they’d be given in General Lindemann’s region might be a statement to show that he, indeed, wanted to fight until the last man.

“It looks like we’ll have to wait here until the garrison command can send us transport,” the Oberführerin said. Lotte almost pitied her for her unfortunate role in this badly planned evacuation that had become a political statement. The older woman might be strict, even pedantic at times, but she always had the well-being of her charges in mind.

Morning turned into afternoon and Lotte’s stomach grumbled with fury. The prior day’s sandwich she’d turned over to the fish, and now her body demanded food. But there was nothing edible to be had, not even water, except for the rain still pouring down by the bucket load.

After another hour, drenched and shivering, she sat down on her shabby, wet suitcase. She crouched and hugged her knees tightly, burying her face in her sodden scarf. Most of the other women followed suit. It was a weary band of females, resembling drowned rats.

“Can’t we walk to the garrison?” the black-haired girl asked.

Oberführerin Littmann only shook her head. Perhaps it was too far, or perhaps she had no idea where it was. Smaller ships landed and sailed, military vehicles dashed past them, locals gave them suspicious, disdainful or pitying glances. And just when Lotte was resigned to spending the night in this hostile place, a truck drove up and stopped right in front of them.

A young soldier hopped out, his blond shock of hair peeking out from under his tin helmet. “You the stranded Blitzmädels? Hop on!”

On any other occasion, Oberführerin Littmann would chastise him for the disrespectful manners. Today though, she was apparently too delighted to finally receive the transport they’d been waiting for all day and let it slide.

“Get up and board the truck,” she ordered her girls.

The journey took the better part of an hour, but finally they arrived at a garrison that seemed to be stuck in time.

Every last soldier was fully armed, awaiting the final proper battle of the war – despite the knowledge that the war was already lost and it was only a matter of time until the Allies arrived in Denmark.

“Oh well,” Gerlinde sighed, too tired to say anything else.

If the girls had wished for proper barracks with a washroom just for them, they were disappointed. They were crammed into a concrete building that probably had served as a meeting room before someone had hastily equipped it with blankets and bed sheets.

The wind whistled through the broken windowpanes into the drafty room. There was no heating and Lotte hoped the rain would stop sooner rather than later, or they’d all catch a cold in their wet clothes.

“You are allowed to dress in civvies, until we dry your uniforms,” the Oberführerin said.

“What’s happened to the dragon? That’s against the rules,” Gerlinde said with mock indignation.

“She’s as pissed as we are about the horrible treatment. I guess that’s her way of rebelling,” Lotte answered, peeling out of the wet clothes and rummaging through her suitcase for something warm to wear. No sooner had the women changed into dry clothes than someone knocked on the door announcing they could go to the mess and get food.

Since General Lindemann was prepared to fight the ultimate battle of the war, there was no further talk of getting the women to Germany. For the time being, it seemed, they were stuck in their makeshift barracks, bored to death, waiting to be the witnesses of his military glory.

“You never told me what exactly you were doing before the war, Gerlinde,” Lotte asked her friend.

“Me? Not much.” Gerlinde smiled as she dove deep into her memory. “I was the typical spoiled brat. My father owned vast lands in East Prussia and my mother often jokingly said that it was a day’s travel to visit our closest neighbors.”

Lotte couldn’t fathom how it must have been like to grow up in the country far away from any kind of civilization. She herself had grown up in a small two-bedroom apartment together with her parents, her brother Richard and her two older sisters Anna and Ursula. She sighed.

“Hey, what’s that? Thinking about Johann again?”

“No, about my family. My father has been in Russian captivity for years now.”

“I thought you were orphaned?” Gerlinde squinted her eyes at her.

Lotte’s mouth snapped shut. For a moment she’d forgotten about her cover story. Alexandra Wagner was a single child. A single and

orphaned

child. “I am, why?”

“Because you said your father is a Russian POW.”

“Surely not. I said my uncle is a Russian POW. And I really need to go to the toilet now.” Lotte shot up and rushed out of the building. She had to be careful and stick to her cover story at all times. Charlotte Klausen was dead – she perished at the hands of the Nazis in the Ravensbrück concentration camp.

Outside, she walked around the courtyard, inhaling the night air that smelled of spring. In a few days it would be May. One year ago she’d last seen her oldest sister Ursula. Ursula had stopped working as a prison guard after giving birth to her daughter Eveline and now helped out Aunt Lydia on her farm in the south of Germany.

Mutter, though, had not been allowed to leave Berlin. Her

womanpower

was needed for the war industry, where women had all but replaced the men. She had looked old when Lotte had visited her on furlough last November. Old, tired and hopeless.

Lotte had felt rather guilty, because she’d visited her mother only once during her furlough. Anna, her second sister, had decided it was best when nobody saw them together, especially not their overly nosy neighbor, Frau Weber. That vicious gossip would have nothing better to do than run to the police telling them she’d seen someone looking just like her neighbor’s late daughter.

I should have appeared as a ghost, scaring the living daylights out of her. Would have served her right

. She laughed at the thought.

Anna and her stepson, Jan, had moved back in with Mutter after being bombed out. Anna was the bright one of the four siblings. A straight-A student, her dream had always been to become a biologist, much to the dismay of their very traditional parents. They had not permitted her to enroll at university – not until the day Anna had moved out and taken her fate into her own hands. At least to Anna, the war had been good. Without it her mentor, Professor Scherer, would never have considered a woman for the job in his research department.

Worry crept into Lotte’s heart again. It had been more than a year since her brother Richard’s last letter. Several weeks later, the military command in Poland had sent a telegram to Mutter saying that Richard was

missing in action

.

What a dreadful term.

Gone missing

. As if he was some inanimate object that wasn’t placed in its usual location. Did they expect to find him one day? Perhaps when they took a day off to clean the barracks, they’d be surprised to find him among hidden toys under the bed or behind the closet? She giggled hysterically at the notion.

Richard was her favorite sibling. Only one year older than her, they had fought like cats and dogs through most of their childhood. But they had also loved each other with a fierceness she hadn’t felt for her sisters, who were four and five years older than she. Deep in her heart she knew he was alive.

Somewhere.

She would have felt it if he had died.

Yes, she would.