War Girls Complete Collection Chapter 50

Chapter 24

L

otte was shivering in the cold when the wake-up alarm echoed across the camp at four a.m. She started up, but then fell back on her bunk when she remembered that she didn’t have to attend roll call or work. She hoped there would at least be food.

About half an hour later, the doors opened, signaling the arrival of someone with their morning rations. Lotte climbed from the bunk and got in line with the other women, weak from sickness, hunger, and cold.

When it was her turn in line, she glanced at the kitchen aid distributing the meager rations and saw a few steps behind her a guard and a nurse standing.

Anna

. A sudden rush of excitement coursed through Lotte’s veins, but she didn’t dare look at her sister, who dutifully jotted down on a clipboard which prisoners had made it through the night.

She didn’t have much to write.

Lotte took her bowl of soup and retreated to gulp it down. It tasted even more rancid than usual. She cupped her hands around the tin, trying to draw some warmth into her stiff, frozen fingers, but there was little to draw from.

“You. Come here,” the

Aufseherin

barked, pointing at Lotte and sending the other women scurrying backward. Lotte stood up and approached the guard, not sure what was expected of her.

Anna examined her briefly and then ordered the

Aufseherin

, “Bring this one to the doctor’s office.” Anna turned on her heel and walked away, leaving the guard to manhandle Lotte across the compound and into the medical barracks.

The guard knocked her baton into Lotte’s back, and she fell across the threshold into the examination room.

“Thank you, that will be all for now,” Anna told the guard and closed the door.

Lotte scrambled to her feet and stood in the middle of the room waiting. When Anna turned to face her, she whispered with a sad smile on her face, “Lotte, baby. I promise to get you out of here.”

“How? How are you here?”

“To come and save you. Isn’t that what sisters are for?”

Lotte couldn’t believe her ears. Was she already delirious and imagined this conversation? “But how did you come to work here? Anna…the horrible things that happen here.”

Anna pressed her lips together and nodded. “I befriended a nurse at my old hospital. Elisabeth previously worked here but had asked for a transfer because she couldn’t stand the cruelties any longer. Since they were still looking for her replacement and with her recommendation, I got her old job. Ursula and I came up with a plan to get you out of here. The typhus epidemic was the opportunity I’ve been waiting for. This disease terrifies the Nazis because it spreads so quickly and there’s no known remedy. The sick are quarantined rather than exterminated out of fear of contagion.”

"I don’t understand,” Lotte mumbled. Her brain was so malnourished it couldn’t follow the meaning of her sister’s words.

“Since you’re already in quarantine, the only thing I need is the doctor’s signature on your death certificate. Then you’ll be dumped outside the wall with the other corpses.”

“In the mass grave?” Lotte blanched at the idea.

Anna put a hand on Lotte’s arm, and Lotte felt her sister’s strength jumping over into her body.

“You are crazy, you know?” Lotte tried to smile, but her face muscles refused the unusual expression.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but the only way to leave this camp is with your feet first,” Anna said.

The thought sent chills into her bones, and Lotte wondered whether she could pull it off without screaming in terror. But what alternative did she have? She took a deep breath and then nodded. “I’ll do it. I don’t want to die here.”

“I don’t want you to die here either. It will work. I promise.” Anna smiled tenderly and hugged her.

With all the energy left inside her, Lotte hugged her sister back.

“I knew it,” said a male voice.