White Rose Black Forest(4)
The cuckoo clock on the wall struck 5:00 a.m. The two-inch-high figurine of a man emerged and struck the bell five times with a hammer. Fredi, her brother, had loved that clock. The joy that stupid clock gave him had been the only thing that had stopped her from smashing it. Everything he’d loved, anything he’d touched, was pure gold now.
“Fredi,” she said as the man disappeared back inside the clock. “You see what I’m doing, don’t you? I need you with me. I need to feel you with me. I can’t do this without you.”
She hadn’t said his name aloud in months, hadn’t allowed herself to. It had been too much. It was best to forget—to ignore the past in order to control the agony. But she needed him now, needed to feel love again. She tried to remember the love she’d felt, tried to draw it from deep within her like precious water is drawn from a desert well. She balled her hand into a fist, took a heavy breath, and opened the front door.
The wind was gone. The air was as still as death itself. She grasped the cord attached to the front of the sled and set out across the snow. Her footprints were still visible and would remain that way until the next snow came. Anyone would be able to follow her. The blanket of night would hide them for another couple of hours, but after that they’d be visible to anyone out for a morning stroll. How would she explain hauling a prostrate Luftwaffe airman through the snow on a sled? She’d think of those lies if she needed to. For now, the only thing that mattered was putting one foot in front of the other.
The fear that he would be dead haunted her for the entire journey back. What if the Gestapo had been tracking him? What if they’d seen his parachute and hadn’t had the chance to capture him during the storm? Surely they’d be on their way up to the field now. Savage memories came to her of interrogations, of jail cells, of the cold gray eyes of the Gestapo man who had questioned her. Relief only came as she sighted the field. The pressing matter of evading detection drowned out her thoughts.
The field was empty, as she’d left it. She listened. No sound. The silence of the night had a story to tell. The trees were still, the snow dense and heavy. She waited two minutes but then realized she was wasting time. No one had seen him, but someone would unless she acted soon. She peered around the tree she was hiding behind and made her way across the field toward the snow cave. Seeing that the entrance was only a few inches wide now, she knelt and cleared it out. The man was still lying on the sleeping bag she’d taken from his backpack, his chest still moving with his breathing. He was still unconscious.
“Hello?” she said. “Are you awake, sir? Can you hear me?”
Her voice seemed to echo through the vacuum of night. The man didn’t stir. She reached down and poked his shoulder—still nothing. The sun would be up soon. It had to happen now. She took the nylon strands of the parachute and pulled until they were taut against his weight, then dug her feet into the snow and heaved. The man’s body inched up the ramp and out of the snow cave. She collapsed, gasping beside him, her heart pounding. He was out. Now all she had to do was get him onto the sled and drag him two miles back to the cabin. That was all.
She lay on the snow, staring up at the flickering stars. Exhaustion was taking hold—the desire for sleep was overwhelming. Nothing could have been more wonderful than to close her eyes and succumb to it. Her body ached; her shoulders and arms still burned from dragging the man out of the snow cave. But she had to keep on. Stopping now would mean failure. She wouldn’t accept that. The sled was four feet long. He was about six. If it weren’t for his broken legs, she would have pulled him behind her, letting his limbs drag on the snow as they went. She could hardly let his head flounder over the end of the sled, could she? She brought the sled alongside his body. It was his only chance. If his legs had to drag, so be it. Perhaps there was a way she could make him more comfortable.
The man’s backpack was still in the snow cave, and she went back inside to retrieve it. The rope she’d seen earlier was coiled at the bottom. She drew it out. It was too long, but she had the knife she’d taken from the house. She cut six lengths, each about eighteen inches long. This was going to take a few minutes, so she took the brandy from her pocket and, reaching down, opened the man’s lips to pour it into his mouth. He spluttered it back up at first, but she lifted his head and noted with some satisfaction how he swallowed back at least some of it. She took some herself, feeling the heat of it all the way down to her stomach.
It took her about two or three minutes to collect several sturdy branches, each about three or four inches in diameter. She dropped them down next to the airman’s body in preparation for what was going to be the hard part. She took off her gloves. The cold seemed to attack her hands, but she ignored the pain, focusing on what she had to do.
She placed one hand on the man’s left ankle and pushed her other hand up inside his pants, feeling for the bone. It was broken a couple of inches below the knee. Ideally, she would have set it as soon as she’d found him, but she’d had more pressing matters to deal with at that time. The man grimaced under her touch, but she pressed on, lining the bone up under his skin as she applied a slow, strong pull to the bottom of his leg. The bone moved back into place, and she took two branches and tied one to each side of his leg with the rope she’d cut. The leg was set and immobilized—as long as the rope held. She checked the lengths again. They were tight. It was as good as she could have expected. Now she had to do the same for his right leg. She reached under his pants leg again, feeling for the bone. This break didn’t seem as severe. She set the bone in place and tied the branches to each side of his leg.